Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and Infernal Delicate Apricot

Huo Yuhao dusted off his hands and stared at Dugu Bo, speechless.

"Old Poison, you've lived beside this place for decades. Did you really think they were all poisonous weeds?"

Dugu Bo's eyelid twitched.

"What else would they be? Touch one and you freeze solid; brush against the other and you burn to charcoal! If they aren't poisonous weeds, what are they?"

"I swear, the way your mind works. You're sitting on a mountain of gold and begging for food."

Huo Yuhao rolled his eyes. He couldn't be bothered arguing and laid it out for him.

"Eat either one alone, and you'll be dead before the blood reaches your throat. But these two Immortal Herbs grow together, one at each extreme of heat and cold. Pick them, chew them up and swallow them within ten seconds, then jump into the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well to let their powers collide..."

Huo Yuhao looked Dugu Bo up and down and sneered.

"Every bone and meridian in your body will be reforged. After that, all the ice and fire in the world will feel like a tickle to you, and the poison in your body will be suppressed by eighty percent. That's what it means to be impervious to water and fire, and to ward off a hundred poisons."

The valley fell so silent that a dropped needle could have been heard.

Dugu Bo stood frozen on the rock. His eyes lit up, his breathing quickened, and he pointed at the two Immortal Herbs as he blurted out,

"Then... then why don't I eat them myself? Why go through all that trouble forcing the poison into my bones?"

"You eat them?"

"Old Poison, has snake venom really soaked your brain to mush?"

"You became a Titled Douluo through poison! Your Soul Power, your Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Martial Soul—which one of them isn't bound to the deadly poison in your body? If you eat those two herbs and purge every last trace of it, your Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor will degenerate into a harmless mud loach on the spot! Most of the Soul Power you spent decades cultivating will scatter, and you'll fall from Titled Douluo to a cripple! Is that what you want?"

Dugu Bo went rigid. Cold sweat sprang across his forehead.

Huo Yuhao kept his hands in his pockets and went on with a sneer.

"And take a piss and look at your reflection, would you? How old are you? Poison has been eating away at those old bones for decades. Your meridians are as brittle as dry twigs. Once these two herbs start fighting inside you, one freezing and one burning, they could grind even pig iron to pieces! Before their power even begins to purge the poison, your meridians will be torn to shreds. You'll burst apart and die on the spot. Believe me now?"

Those words snuffed out the greed that had just risen in Dugu Bo's heart.

Dugu Bo swallowed hard. Cold sweat had soaked the back of his clothes.

Of course!

He had wielded poison his entire life. Poison was his lifeblood!

Without it, how was he any different from a cripple?

Only the method Huo Yuhao had described—forcing the poison into his bones—could preserve his poison arts and Martial Soul while ending the backlash in his meridians. That was his way to survive!

And he could not die. Over the years, he had made eight hundred enemies, if not a thousand.

If he suddenly died, his granddaughter...

"Then... kid, what you said about clearing the residual poison..."

Dugu Bo's eyes shifted. A dangerous glint flashed through their eerie green depths.

This kid was uncanny.

He knew too much, his methods were monstrous, and he had even uncovered Dugu Bo's deepest secrets.

In the Soul Master World, where the weak were prey to the strong, killing someone to silence them was only natural.

Since the kid could not be made to serve him, and they were hardly close, once he had the method for forcing poison into his bones...

A cold intent to kill quietly gathered in Dugu Bo's heart.

Standing beside the spring, Huo Yuhao sensed the faint change in Dugu Bo's aura. He did not even blink. Instead, his lips curled into a cold smile.

Kill me to keep me quiet?

Old Poison, borrow ten men's courage and try laying a finger on me.

The moment Huo Yuhao had entered the valley, his spiritual power had picked out the heavy breathing in a cliff crevice hundreds of yards above.

That smell of cheap ale and rust—who else could it belong to but the scruffy old man who had followed them all the way here?

Huo Yuhao understood the situation better than anyone.

In the original story, Tang San was a grown man. Tang Hao could be careless at times and had no interest in trailing him every day.

But this life was different.

In this life, Tang San had become Tang Sanmei!

She was a delicate, pretty twelve-year-old girl!

How could Tang Hao, a daughter-protecting fanatic gone mad, rest easy while his precious girl followed a scheming boy and a poison-soaked old Titled Douluo deep into the mountains?

From the second they had passed through the gates of Heaven Dou City, Tang Hao had followed them like a ghost.

If Dugu Bo so much as entertained a crooked thought in this valley, Tang Hao's Clear Sky Hammer could smash the old venomous snake into a meat patty the very next second!

With a top-tier bodyguard perched overhead, Huo Yuhao could strut through the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, and no one would dare make a peep.

"Sanmei, get to work."

Huo Yuhao could not even be bothered with Dugu Bo anymore. He simply snapped his fingers.

"On it, Senior Brother!"

Tang Sanmei gripped the little pure-white jade knife and moved with Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, her figure as swift as a wisp of smoke.

Keeping Huo Yuhao's instructions firmly in mind, she reached the edge of the bone-chilling icy pool. She used Mysterious Jade Hand to protect her wrist, then swept the jade knife along the ground in a swift cut!

The Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass, radiating piercing cold, was severed with a snap. Tang Sanmei flicked her wrist and caught it in a jade box.

At the same time, Huo Yuhao stepped beside the churning crimson hot spring and flicked a slender Golden Thread from his sleeve. It wrapped around the Infernal Delicate Apricot's stem from a distance, and he pulled sharply.

The Golden Thread snapped the stem, sending the Infernal Delicate Apricot tumbling through the air. Huo Yuhao caught it in another jade box, never letting it touch the soil.

The instant the two peerless Immortal Herbs left the ground, air currents throughout the valley went wild!

Their powers of extreme cold and heat spilled through the gaps in the jade boxes. The ground froze on the left, while sparks crackled on the right.

"Yuhao, swallow them, quick! Their power is purest in the first ten seconds! Chew them up and jump straight in!!"

In his Sea of Consciousness, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm howled with excitement, wishing he could grow a mouth and eat them in Huo Yuhao's place.

Huo Yuhao did not hesitate. He activated Mysterious Jade Hand on the spot.

He flipped open both jade boxes, grabbed the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass in his left hand until his fingertips turned black with cold, and gripped the Infernal Delicate Apricot in his right until smoke rose from his palm. Without another glance, he stuffed both into his mouth!

In a few quick bites, Huo Yuhao chewed and swallowed two Immortal Herbs potent enough to rot a Titled Douluo's organs!

"Holy shit! He ate them raw!"

Behind him, Dugu Bo's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He cried out,

"Kid, have you lost your mind? Even I'd be reduced to ash if I ate those things!!"

The moment their power reached his stomach, Huo Yuhao's entire body jolted!

One half of his body instantly frosted over in deep blue, even his eyelashes turning white;

the other half erupted in blinding crimson fire, the blood vessels beneath his skin roiling like magma!

Caught between two extremes of ice and fire, he felt heart-rending pain rise through every part of his body!

Any ordinary Soul Master, even a Soul Saint, would have had their meridians torn apart by that power already.

But in his previous life, Huo Yuhao had become a god and then blown himself up. His will was hard as iron.

He did not so much as grunt. He forced his vital meridians to hold steady and leaped!