"Is it really that funny?" Dugu Bo covered his face with both hands, utterly embarrassed.
"I was a food-type Soul Master. My Martial Soul was a sausage. Then one day, I choked to death while eating one."
Jiangmo Douluo teased him.
"Okay, Uncle Jiangmo, stop picking on Senior Dugu. Hold out your hand and let me take your pulse."
Dugu Bo shot Jiangmo Douluo a "humph," turned his head away, then walked over to Qian Xunqian and obediently held out his right hand.
Qian Xunqian took his pulse. At first, her expression relaxed, but before long, her brows began to knit together. In the end, her whole face turned as bitter as a gourd.
"Yikes... This poison's a bit tricky." Qian Xunqian sounded troubled.
"Huh? You can't cure it either, miss?" Dugu Bo's heart sank to the bottom of the abyss.
"I can cure it. My Martial Soul is the Aromatic Silk Beauty, which can neutralize all kinds of poison and clear the toxins from your body. But your poison comes from your Martial Soul's nature. Once it's removed, it'll come roaring back in a few years."
Dugu Bo froze. Huh? If you can cure it, why are you frowning?
"Please, miss, clear the poison from my body. Dugu Bo will be forever grateful!"
"It's easy to treat the symptoms, but hard to get to the root of the problem. I was racking my brains just now, trying to figure out a permanent solution. It's not like I can have you and your descendants come bother me every few years..."
"And what will you do after I die?" Qian Xunqian said honestly.
Dugu Bo's heart trembled. So the young woman before him had been thinking all along about how to eradicate his family's poisonous affliction.
"I have three solutions. The first is to eat that flower, then release your Martial Soul. I'll use the Aromatic Silk Beauty to neutralize both the toxins in your body and the poison in your Martial Soul. But there'll be serious side effects. Afterward, your Martial Soul won't be called the Jade Phosphor Snake anymore. It'll just be an ordinary green snake, and your level will drop too."
Qian Xunqian pointed to the Aromatic Silk Beauty growing near the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well.
Dugu Bo: What kind of solution is that...
"The second solution is to tailor a set of poison cultivation techniques for your family. You'll condense the toxins in your body into a Poison Core. That way, they'll be stored in one place and won't damage your body. You can release them when you need them and draw them back in when you don't."
Dugu Bo nodded, indicating that this sounded like a good solution. The trouble was, poison cultivation techniques weren't easy to devise. The Dugu Family had gone more than ten generations without solving this problem. Could a young woman really do it?
"The third solution is this: since the poison in your body is all caused by your Martial Soul, we just need to separate your Martial Soul from your body. A Separated Spirit... Hmm, that could be my next research project..."
Dugu Bo: I seriously suspect you're dangling a carrot in front of me. One solution might as well cure me by killing me, and the other two are still just theories...
"All right, which one do you choose? I personally recommend the second. But Senior Dugu can wait a little, too. A Separated Spirit is uncharted territory, and its potential is enormous!"
Qian Xunqian said persuasively.
"May I ask, miss, do you have any poison cultivation techniques?" Dugu Bo asked, feeling uncertain.
Of course she did. She knew the original story. How could she not have a backup plan for Dugu Bo?
"I'll tell you what to do. First, jump into that pool!"
Dugu Bo pointed at himself. Huh? I'm supposed to jump in?
"Before cultivating poison techniques, you need to open your Eight Extraordinary Meridians and speed up the circulation through them. That's the foundation. Otherwise, your puny body won't be able to take it. And the best way to temper your body is with external forces!"
"Th-this... Could it be dangerous?" Dugu Bo swallowed, staring at the calm Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well with a shiver of dread.
"You're already a Soul Douluo. Are you still afraid of this? Don't worry, I won't hurt you! Here, take this. I just made these pills by hand. They'll help cleanse and strengthen your meridians and bones, and ease the pain."
Dugu Bo: Might as well try it. Nothing to lose.
Dugu Bo glanced at the black pill in his hand. Since Qian Xunqian had just made it by hand, it still carried a faint fragrance.
He closed his eyes, looking ready to face death, and swallowed it in one gulp.
With a splash, he jumped into the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well.
"Hey! You didn't take your clothes off! I forgot to tell you—the water will burn them away! What are you rushing for?"
Dugu Bo couldn't speak just then, but he cursed inwardly: ***! Why didn't you say so sooner?!
"Ah... Forget it. Uncle Qian Jun, Uncle Jiangmo, do you have any spare clothes?"
Qian Jun and Jiangmo replied, "No. We're slobs by habit. We wear one set of clothes for half a year and can't be bothered to change. We don't bring spare clothes when we go out, either."
"I do!" Bibi Dong opened her eyes. She had finally finished absorbing the herb. No wonder it had grown beside the Yin-Yang Spring—the energy was truly incredible.
Bibi Dong rose to her feet. At that moment, the aura of the netherworld and hell radiated from her, making her look like a Death Messenger.
But the moment she spoke, it was clear she was the same old Bibi Dong.
"I feel like I'm not quite myself anymore..."
"What's wrong?" Qian Xunqian asked.
"My Martial Souls have mutated. My Death Spider Emperor evolved into a Death Sickle, and my Soul-Eater Spider Emperor evolved into a Soul-Eater Bead. Does this mean the ultimate destination of Beast Martial Souls is Tool Martial Souls?"
Qian Xunqian thought to herself: What are you, Nan Gong Wentian? Turning divine beasts into divine weapons? Still, it's not so bad that those two terrifying spiders are gone.
If she had to explain it, she could make it work. Soul Beasts were inferior to humans, so the Martial Souls corresponding to Soul Beasts were inferior to weapons created through human ingenuity.
Soul Beasts < tools made by humans < humans. That made sense!
Back in Africa, hadn't a few savages killed a whole pack of beasts with spears they'd ground out of stone?
"Besides, my Martial Souls' attributes have changed too. The two Martial Souls were originally similar in kind, and their similar attributes made the rejection between them especially strong. The extreme yin brought by the Nether Soul-Eater Flower fought poison with poison and strengthened my darkness attribute! It transformed my Martial Souls into extreme darkness!"
"Both Martial Souls advanced to extreme darkness at the same time and clashed wildly inside my body. During that process, they became tightly entangled. Historical records say that a Twin Martial Soul user can summon only one Martial Soul at a time, but now I can hold a sickle in my right hand and a bead in my left. I can fight with both hands!"
"Impressive." Qian Xunqian couldn't help giving her a thumbs-up.
"All right, let's take care of the important business first. Bibi, take pity on the old man down there. He's at such an advanced age and still has no clothes to wear."
"Oh, right!" Bibi Dong took a purple dress out of her Storage Soul Tool. "Does he need shoes?"
Qian Xunqian waved a hand. "No need! Senior Dugu can't walk in high heels. He'll just trip and get banged up, and then we'll have to worry about tetanus. Better to go barefoot!"
The four of them sat cross-legged on the spot and waited for the "Monkey King to be born."
Dugu Bo was having a miserable time underwater. The Yin-Yang Spring was incredibly domineering, violently expanding his meridians as two energies that could never coexist rampaged through his body.
Dugu Bo: I should've chosen the treatment that only cured the symptoms.