Qin Ming, Ruined by Shrek Academy

"You're courting death?!"

Some stranger walked up to you for no reason, 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 possessed a particularly good temper to begin with?

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

"Yanzi, don't!"

Ye Lingling grabbed Dugu Yan and stopped her from attacking Jiang Li, whom she had taken a liking to.

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 rather frail compared to 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 restraint and could only say irritably, "Ling Ling, 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 fellow had cast on Ye Lingling to make her defend him so fiercely?

"Enough, Ling Ling."

In order not to hurt Ye Lingling, Dugu Yan could only give up on breaking free.

She glared at Jiang Li and said, "For Ling Ling'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 evenly, "You've been poisoned. It's an almost incurable poison!"

"Heh, what a ridiculous joke!"

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

But he actually claimed that she had been poisoned?

Her grandfather, Dugu Bo, was the famed Poison Douluo of 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.

How could this hateful fellow spout such nonsense about her being poisoned?!

When such words were spoken, not only Dugu Yan, but even Xiao Wu beside them could not help feeling doubtful.

"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 begun to hate rainy days more and more? Whenever it rains, don't you feel a faint sense of unease and dread?"

"And whenever night falls, doesn't your body always go numb without your control, only for you to wake up the next day and inexplicably discover yourself drenched in cold sweat?"

"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 described was true.

If Jiang Li had not pointed it out, she might not even have noticed those abnormalities in her body.

"How did you know?" Dugu Yan blurted out, then immediately changed her words. "No... impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

Although Jiang Li's words perfectly matched her condition, she still could not accept something as absurd as the granddaughter of the Poison Douluo being poisoned.

"Perhaps because your grandfather is the Poison Douluo, you refuse to believe that you've been poisoned. But that's fine."

Jiang Li continued, "You can ask your grandfather, Senior Poison Douluo. He may understand this matter even better than I do!"

"What do you mean? Are you saying my grandfather poisoned me?" Dugu Yan forcibly calmed herself and said indignantly.

According to Jiang Li, aside from the grandfather who loved her most, who else could have poisoned her?

"If you insist on understanding it that way, that works too." Jiang Li rubbed his chin and said thoughtfully, "Though it wasn't the Poison Douluo's intention, the poison in your body really did originate from him."

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

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

Dugu Yan glared fixedly at Jiang Li.

One was the grandfather who had doted on her since childhood, while the other was a strange fellow of unknown origin.

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

"I know you're anxious, but don't be anxious yet. I'm not finished. It won't be too late to panic after I'm done."

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

So fast!

What a bizarre ability!

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

And when his hand touched her shoulder, the Soul Power within her body seemed to have encountered some natural predator.

The violent Soul Power that had been ready to erupt under her control became as still as stagnant water.

Seeing that Dugu Yan had been subdued, Jiang Li nodded in satisfaction before continuing, "If you say that the poison of Senior Poison Douluo's Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Martial Soul is unmatched under heaven, that is indeed true."

"But when it comes to using poison, as far as I know, there are at least two people on Douluo Continent whose accomplishments far surpass those of your grandfather, who learned it all on his own."

"At the very least, they wouldn't use poison to harm both others and themselves."

The two people Jiang Li spoke of were Tang San of the Tang Sect and Yang Wudi, the clan head of the Breaking Clan.

There was no need to mention Tang San. Aside from the Tang Sect's most famous Hidden Weapon, the Pear Blossom Storm Needles, it was also known in the martial arts world for all sorts of unsavory poisons.

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

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

Poisons and medicines had never been entirely separate, so his skill with poison was not necessarily much inferior to Tang San's.

As for Dugu Bo, the Title Douluo known as the Poison Douluo?

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

He had neither inheritance nor guidance from any poison master.

Dugu Bo had struggled through everything alone, stumbling upon poison arts suited to his Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul. In the end, he advanced to Title Douluo and evolved his Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul into the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor. That alone was already an immense stroke of luck.

Yet it was precisely because he had learned it all on his own that reaching the Title Douluo realm may have exhausted all his luck.

In the end, the poison arts backfired on him, leaving him in torment, while the toxins that had spiraled out of control due to his poison cultivation were passed down through his bloodline to his descendants.

Had he not encountered Tang San, who possessed the Tang Sect's inheritance, in the original story, then unless Dugu Bo later received help from the Breaking Clan, grandfather and granddaughter likely would not even have lived to see the day the Spirit Hall Empire was founded.

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

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

Jiang Li did not care. He casually glanced around 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 very 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 head elsewhere to continue their conversation, a plainly dressed, ordinary-looking middle-aged man in his thirties suddenly 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.

"Sorry, Teacher Qin Ming. Something urgent came up, and I need to leave. 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 contestants afterward and take their place.

So compared to the unimportant selection tournament for the Soul Master Tournament team, Dugu Yan cared more about the possibility that she had been poisoned.

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

Unfortunately, he was someone Shrek Academy had ruined.

A Soul Emperor in his thirties was undoubtedly a genius anywhere.

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

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

One step behind, every step behind.

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

No matter how much effort he put in, he was inherently a notch weaker than other Soul Masters at the same level.

Wasn't that exactly how Shrek Academy had ruined him?