Where's the Herb Garden?!

Luo Qiusheng spent the entire journey asking around, and finally stopped in front of a courtyard.

"Is this where Dugu Bo stays when he's in Heaven Dou City?"

On his way here, he had also learned that the next Continental Advanced Spirit Master Elite Tournament was two years away, and that Spirit Hall had won the previous one.

From this information, he could tell that Tang San had yet to make a move. As he recalled, Tang San and Dugu Bo had crossed paths because Tang San cured Dugu Yan's snake venom when he was thirteen.

Then, by the time Shrek won the Continental Advanced Spirit Master Elite Tournament, Tang San seemed to have just turned fifteen.

By that reckoning, Tang San would have competed at around fourteen. At this point, he should still be at Nuoding Academy, or perhaps he and Xiao Wu were already on their way to Shrek Academy.

Luo Qiusheng knocked on the gate of Dugu Bo's residence, then stepped back and waited quietly. Several minutes passed, but the gate still hadn't opened. Just as he was about to step forward and knock again, the gate cracked open from the inside, revealing an eye peering at him curiously.

"Excuse me... is this Dugu Bo's residence?" Luo Qiusheng asked with a smile.

The gap in the gate closed again. After several breaths, it finally opened, and Luo Qiusheng got a clear look at the person inside. She had neat, short, deep-purple hair, an oval face, and emerald-green eyes with slightly upturned corners. Her gaze held a hint of chill as she looked at him.

"My grandfather doesn't want to see anyone today, but you can tell me what this is about. I can pass the message along."

Luo Qiusheng glanced at Dugu Yan, then let his gaze drift toward the back courtyard. He spoke slowly. "This junior is Luo Qiusheng. I've come to seek guidance from senior on the path of poison."

After a long while, no one replied. Dugu Yan also seemed to be growing impatient, so Luo Qiusheng spoke again. "I remember seeing a book once that described a poison. Every night, around the third watch, the victim would feel pinprick pain in their head and the soles of their feet, along with full-body convulsions that lasted at least half an hour."

"Oh, right. It also said that whenever the weather turned cloudy or rainy, the victim would feel numbness in both flanks, which would gradually worsen. The poison would flare up once at noon and once at midnight."

"And then..."

Before Luo Qiusheng could continue, a green figure appeared in front of him in an instant. Before Dugu Yan could say a word, Dugu Bo had already brought Luo Qiusheng inside.

"Yan'er, go outside for a moment. Grandpa has something to discuss with this fellow alone."

Before leaving, Dugu Yan took one last look inside the room, suspicion churning in her mind. Was that bloodline suppression? But... forget it. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

How could a fellow who's merely a little better-looking than average have a Martial Soul stronger than Tianheng's Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon?

Inside the room, Dugu Bo looked Luo Qiusheng up and down. He was a young man of seventeen or eighteen, with short hair that made him look neat and sharp.

His clothes didn't look like those of someone from Heaven Dou City. Was he from somewhere else? But there didn't seem to be anyone like him over in Star Luo, either.

Feeling Dugu Bo's scorching gaze, Luo Qiusheng cut straight to the point. "Actually, I was talking about you."

Having brought the matter out into the open, Luo Qiusheng had even prepared to fight Poison Douluo. Instead, Poison Douluo was surrounded by billowing poison gas, and a layer of poisonous miasma covered the entire courtyard, forming a massive ring of poison.

Yet the poison stopped less than three inches from Luo Qiusheng, as if an invisible barrier around him were holding it back.

Luo Qiusheng looked at the poison kept at bay and sighed inwardly with relief. His gamble had paid off.

The fire element inherent in King of Bronze and Fire Constantine's dragon bones was enough to burn everything to ash. Dugu Bo's poison might not be any exception; it could be vaporized.

Perhaps there was a bit of metaphysical magic involved, too...

"Old Poison, I'll call you senior out of respect. If you don't deserve that respect, I can leave right now and report your condition to Spirit Hall."

Dugu Bo had still been wondering how to deal with the young man in front of him. But the other fellow could remain completely unfazed in the face of Jade Phosphor Serpent poison and even seemed to have the strength to escape. His interest was piqued.

"Are you saying you can cure my poison? You're just a kid in your teens."

"Yes."

Dugu Bo frowned at that. He naturally didn't believe Luo Qiusheng, but the young man's certainty and his ability to control poison left him caught in a quandary.

The air inside the room grew stifling. Emerald-green poisonous mist hung suspended in midair, its wisps of bone-chilling cold poison radiating an icy chill, yet it remained unable to approach Luo Qiusheng by even a hair's breadth.

Dugu Bo stared fixedly at the calm, composed youth, his cloudy eyes filled with scrutiny and calculation.

He had spent decades immersed in the study of poison. His Jade Phosphor Purple Mist Poison was peerless beneath the heavens, and no one below the rank of Titled Douluo dared approach him. Even those at the same level feared his poison arts. Yet this unfamiliar young man of seventeen or eighteen had easily kept his deadly poison at bay with nothing more than an invisible barrier. Such bizarre mastery over poison was far beyond the understanding of ordinary Soul Masters.

What shook him even more was that Luo Qiusheng had precisely described the bloodline poison ailment he had kept hidden for decades.

It was a curse that came with the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor Martial Soul, passed down through generations and impossible to cure. It flared up with every change in the weather and at certain hours, eating away at the body and draining one's cultivation. Worse, it was the greatest obstacle to perfecting his bloodline and breaking through the Titled Douluo bottleneck. No one under heaven knew of it. Even his own granddaughter, Dugu Yan, only vaguely knew that he suffered from a hidden illness; she had never learned the specific symptoms.

This young man was definitely no ordinary person!

After a long while, Dugu Bo suppressed his unease, and the Jade Phosphor poisonous mist around him slowly receded. His voice was cold, though it carried a hint of compromise. "Luo Qiusheng, is it? Tell me, what do you want? If you can cure the poison ailment that has plagued our line for generations, this old man will owe you a favor."

Luo Qiusheng gave a slight nod and spoke slowly. "My request is to borrow your herb garden outside Heaven Dou City. I won't need it for long, but I may pick some of the herbs. You must not interfere or stop me."

At this, Dugu Bo gave a slight start, and a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes.

How did this fellow know he had an herb garden? He hadn't even told Yan'er about it.

But then all sorts of thoughts raced through his mind. He had expected the other party to ask for a high-level Soul Bone, or the poison arts he had spent his life studying, or some other cultivation resource. He'd never expected him to ask merely for the right to use an herb garden.

"You want my herb garden?" Dugu Bo furrowed his brow, a probing look entering his eyes. "My herb garden is full of deadly poisons. Most of the herbs there are highly toxic. An ordinary Soul Master would be injured just by touching them and ruined by getting contaminated. What use could a young fellow like you have for a garden of poisonous herbs?"

Everyone knew that Poison Douluo's herb garden was the most perilous place in the entire Heaven Dou Empire, as well as the greatest treasure trove of poison arts. Not a single plant growing there was ordinary. It contained rare, deadly plants like Millennium Poison Immortal Grass and Bone-Eroding Nether Flower, as well as precious spirit herbs he had carefully cultivated for decades around the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well. Their medicinal properties were so overbearing that ordinary people couldn't even get close.

"My flame ability may complement the art of making medicine," Luo Qiusheng said with a faint smile, his tone certain.

"And I can promise you, senior, that as I pick and study the spirit herbs, I won't damage the foundations of your garden. On the contrary, I can help regulate the herbs' properties, weed out unwanted plants, and optimize the conditions in which you cultivate them."