Qin Ming, Ruined by Shrek Academy

"You're asking to die?!"

Some stranger had inexplicably walked up to you, cursed you, and said you were about to die. Who wouldn't be angry?

Especially when the one being cursed was Dugu Yan, who had been doted on by a Title Douluo-level powerhouse since childhood and had never had the best temper to begin with?

Dugu Yan glared fiercely at Jiang Li. Her green eyes transformed into snake-like vertical pupils, and a cold, sinister aura surged toward Jiang Li.

"Yanzi, don't!"

Ye Lingling threw her arms around Dugu Yan, stopping her from attacking Jiang Li, the person she had developed feelings for.

Dugu Yan tried to pull Ye Lingling's hands away, but Ye Lingling was a pure healing-type Soul Master, so her physical condition was far weaker than that of other Soul Masters.

Afraid of hurting her best friend, Dugu Yan could only restrain the aura emanating from her body and dared not use too much strength with her hands.

As a result, she failed to break free from Ye Lingling's hold and could only say irritably, "Lingling, let go of me. Let me teach this guy a proper lesson!"

"No!" Ye Lingling did not release her because of Dugu Yan's words. Instead, she anxiously said to Jiang Li, "Jiang Li, hurry up and explain it to Yanzi!"

Who knew what kind of spell this hateful guy had cast on Ye Lingling for her to protect him so fiercely?

"Alright, Lingling."

To avoid hurting Ye Lingling, Dugu Yan could only give up on breaking free.

She glared at Jiang Li and said, "For Lingling's sake, I won't hold it against you. But if you can't give me a proper explanation, don't blame me for getting rough."

Jiang Li said calmly, "You've been poisoned. A nearly incurable poison."

"Heh, what a joke!"

Dugu Yan gave a cold laugh, so furious that she laughed instead. She had thought Jiang Li might actually say something useful.

But he was claiming that she had been poisoned?

Her grandfather, Dugu Bo, was the Poison Douluo renowned throughout Douluo Continent. No one on the entire continent was better at using poison than her grandfather, and she herself had cultivated poison arts alongside him since childhood.

Yet this hateful guy dared say such nonsense about her being poisoned?!

Not only Dugu Yan, but even Xiao Wu beside them could not help feeling doubtful upon hearing that.

"If you don't believe me, I can ask you a few questions."

Jiang Li stared into Dugu Yan's green eyes and slowly said, "As you've grown older, haven't you come to hate rainy days more and more? Whenever it rains, don't you feel a vague sense of unease and dread?"

"And whenever night falls, doesn't your body always go numb on its own? Then, when you wake up the next day, don't you find yourself drenched in cold sweat for no reason?"

"Is that right or not?"

Jiang Li's words struck Dugu Yan's heart like a hammer.

The more she listened, the more shocked she became. There was no other reason—everything Jiang Li had described was true.

If Jiang Li had not pointed it out, she might never have noticed those abnormalities in her body.

"How did you know?" Dugu Yan blurted out. Then she immediately changed her words. "N-No... impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

Although Jiang Li's words matched her condition exactly, she still refused to believe something as absurd as the granddaughter of the Poison Douluo being poisoned.

"Perhaps because your grandfather is the Poison Douluo, you're unwilling to accept the fact that you've been poisoned. But that's fine."

Jiang Li continued, "You can ask your grandfather, Senior Poison Douluo, about it. He may know even more about this than I do!"

"What do you mean? Are you saying my grandfather poisoned me?" Dugu Yan forced herself to calm down and demanded indignantly.

Going by Jiang Li's words, other than her grandfather, who loved her most dearly, who else could have poisoned her?

"If you insist on understanding it that way, that wouldn't be wrong." Jiang Li stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Though it wasn't the Poison Douluo's intention, the poison in your body really did come from him."

As Jiang Li's words entered Dugu Yan's ears one by one, the cold aura that Ye Lingling had previously calmed rose from her body again.

Her eyes once more turned into green, snake-like vertical pupils.

Dugu Yan stared fixedly at Jiang Li.

One was the grandfather who had cherished her since childhood. The other was a strange man of unknown origin.

Was there even any need to hesitate over whom to believe?

"I know you're in a hurry, but don't rush just yet. I haven't finished speaking. It won't be too late to get anxious after I'm done."

Jiang Li circulated the Soul Power within his body and pressed his right hand onto Dugu Yan's shoulder, completely dissolving the cold aura rising from her body.

What incredible speed!

What bizarre ability!

Dugu Yan's pupils contracted sharply. She had not even noticed when Jiang Li's hand had landed on her shoulder.

And the moment his hand rested on her shoulder, the Soul Power within her body seemed to have encountered some natural predator.

The violent Soul Power she had been ready to unleash under her control had become as still as stagnant water.

Seeing that he had subdued Dugu Yan, Jiang Li nodded in satisfaction and continued, "If you say that the poison of your grandfather, Senior Poison Douluo's Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor Martial Soul, is unparalleled in the world, then yes, that is true."

"But when it comes to the art of poison, as far as I know, there are at least two people on Douluo Continent whose mastery of poison surpasses that of your grandfather, a self-taught amateur."

"At the very least, they wouldn't use poison in a way that harmed both others and themselves."

The two people Jiang Li spoke of were Tang San of the Tang Sect and Yang Wudi, patriarch of the Clan of Destruction.

There was no need to mention Tang San. Besides its most famous Hidden Weapon, the Pear Blossom Storm Needles, the Tang Sect's standing in the martial arts world came from its various underhanded poisons.

In terms of strength, the Tang Sect could indeed only be considered third-rate in the martial arts world. But in terms of poison, it was at least among the top two.

As for Yang Wudi of the Clan of Destruction, he was a renowned master alchemist of Douluo Continent.

Poisons and medicines had always been closely linked, so his skill with poison was likely not much inferior to Tang San's.

And Dugu Bo, the Title Douluo known as the Poison Douluo?

He was merely a lucky man who had accidentally advanced to the level of Title Douluo through using poison.

He had neither an inheritance nor the guidance of a poison master.

Dugu Bo had struggled onward by himself, stumbling into a poison art suited to his Jade Phosphor Serpent Martial Soul. In the end, he became a Title Douluo and evolved his Jade Phosphor Serpent Martial Soul into the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor. That alone was already an enormous stroke of luck.

However, precisely because he was self-taught, Dugu Bo might have exhausted all his luck merely by reaching the realm of Title Douluo.

In the end, the backlash from his poison arts left him worse than dead. Worse still, he passed the toxins that had become uncontrollable from cultivating poison arts down to his descendants through his bloodline.

If he had not encountered Tang San, who possessed the Tang Sect's inheritance, in the original story, then unless Dugu Bo later received help from the Clan of Destruction, the grandfather and granddaughter might not even live to see the day the Spirit Empire was founded.

"What do you mean by that? Explain yourself clearly!"

After hearing Jiang Li's words, Dugu Yan rationally believed about thirty percent of it already, but emotionally, she still refused to accept it.

Jiang Li did not care. He casually swept his gaze around the area and said flatly, "Are you sure you want to discuss this here? What I'm about to say concerns your grandfather, the Poison Douluo, and it won't sound pleasant to you either."

"I understand. Let's talk somewhere else."

Hearing that, Dugu Yan finally calmed down somewhat and nodded at Jiang Li.

Just as the group was about to find another place to continue their conversation, a plainly dressed, ordinary-looking middle-aged man around thirty appeared before them.

"Student Dugu Yan, where are you going? It'll soon be your turn to compete," the middle-aged man said gently to Dugu Yan.

"I'm sorry, Teacher Qin Ming. Something urgent came up, and I need to leave. Let's consider me withdrawn from this selection tournament."

With her strength, even if she did not participate in the selection tournament, she could simply challenge one of Heaven Dou Royal Academy's competitors afterward and take their place.

So compared with a dispensable team selection tournament for the Soul Master competition, Dugu Yan cared far more about the possibility that she had been poisoned.

Hearing Dugu Yan's words, Jiang Li was slightly surprised. This unremarkable-looking man was Qin Ming, who had graduated from Shrek Academy and made something of himself?

What a pity. He was someone Shrek Academy had ruined.

A Soul Emperor in his thirties would be an unquestionable genius anywhere.

Yet his fifth Soul Ring was not a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring, but merely a thousand-year-level purple Soul Ring.

Even Dugu Bo, the Poison Douluo, who was jokingly called the weakest among the Title Douluo, had a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring as his fifth Soul Ring.

One weak step led to weakness at every step.

Since he had failed to absorb a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring as his fifth Soul Ring to improve his constitution and Martial Soul quality, then even if his sixth Soul Ring as a Soul Emperor was a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring, how far beyond ten thousand years could it possibly be?

No matter how much effort he put in, he would be innately weaker than other Soul Masters of the same realm.

Wasn't that exactly what it meant to be ruined by Shrek Academy?