The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well

After hearing him out, Dugu Bo fell silent for a long while.

He quickly weighed things up in his mind. This treasure trove mattered to him solely because it helped suppress the backlash from the snake venom in his body.

If the poison in his body could truly be eliminated completely, this place would indeed lose much of its significance to him.

Handing it over would sting, but compared with ridding himself of the poison, it did not seem unacceptable.

Besides, the masked child before him spoke and acted with composure. No ordinary family could have raised someone like him.

And Snake Lance Douluo, She Long, never left his side, making it clear that he was someone extremely important.

"Very well. I agree," Dugu Bo said, finally nodding.

The corners of Zhang Fei's mouth lifted behind his mask.

"However," Dugu Bo said, changing tack, "if your method doesn't work, I'll come back. Even if I can't take this place back, I'll do everything in my power to destroy it."

"That's fine," Zhang Fei replied. "Then I'll tell you how to remove the poison now."

He paused, quickly organizing what he remembered, then said, "You need a limb soul bone. The older it is, the better, and preferably a poison-type one. Then force all the deadly poison in your body along your meridians and into the soul bone, using it as a vessel to seal the poison away."

"That way, you'll no longer suffer from the poison's backlash. As for the poison remaining in your flesh and bones, a few ordinary antidote prescriptions will help you recover. In six months at the earliest, or a year at the latest, it will be completely eliminated. For these six months, I'll allow you to keep coming here to suppress the poison."

At those words, understanding immediately dawned on Dugu Bo's face.

He had lived for so many years, always thinking about how to suppress the poison, yet the idea of "transferring" it had never occurred to him.

A soul bone could fuse perfectly with a Soul Master's body. Using one as a container for the poison would neither affect its enhancements nor leave him vulnerable to future backlash. It truly was an ingenious way out.

If it were a poison-type soul bone, it would even increase the power of its soul bone skill, killing two birds with one stone.

Dugu Bo gave Zhang Fei a long, searching look, then said gravely, "Very well. I'll trust you for now. You can have this place while I go back and try your method. If it works, I'll honor this bargain and never renege on it."

With that, Dugu Bo lingered no longer.

His gray-green robes billowed as he sprang into the air, becoming a streak of dark green light that shot toward Heaven Dou City. Before long, he vanished beyond the distant horizon.

Zhang Fei stood where he was, watching Dugu Bo depart and guessing to himself, That old poison master must be rushing back to find a soul bone.

Given Dugu Bo's relationship with the Heaven Dou Imperial Family, he should be able to obtain one or two ordinary ten thousand year soul bones by asking them.

As for how to force the poison into them, that was Dugu Bo's own problem.

Standing beside Zhang Fei, She Long watched him send Dugu Bo away with just a few words. His mouth twitched. "You... he... I... I honestly don't know what to say."

Zhang Fei removed his mask and let out a breath, then grinned at She Long. "Grandpa, let's go. Let's take a look inside."

She Long rolled his eyes at him and asked no more questions. Raising his right hand, he released a soul power shield that enveloped them both.

"Let's go." She Long took Zhang Fei into the poison miasma.

The poisonous mist churned, only to rebound off the surface of the soul power shield, unable to get anywhere near them.

A Titled Douluo's control over soul power had reached the point of pure mastery, far beyond anything an ordinary Soul Master could match.

As they walked, She Long asked in a probing tone, "Little Fei, since when did you know medicine?"

Walking beside him, Zhang Fei casually replied, "I only know a little... just a little..."

She Long snorted, clearly unconvinced. "You exposed Dugu Bo's poisoning with a single remark, and you call that knowing a little?"

Zhang Fei chuckled and scratched the back of his head, offering no answer.

There really was no way to explain it, so he could only play dumb and muddle through with a foolish grin.

Seeing that nothing would get through to the boy, She Long sighed, a hint of emotion in his voice. "If the Martial Soul you awakened weren't also a snake lance, inherited from my line, I'd honestly wonder whether you were really my grandson."

Zhang Fei's heart suddenly tightened. He knew that his recent behavior had indeed been a little too "abnormal."

He hurriedly put on a cheeky grin and teased in a lighthearted tone, "It's obviously because I've read more books than you! Just because you don't like reading, does that mean I'm not allowed to learn?"

Without another word, She Long raised his hand and smacked the back of Zhang Fei's head.

With a sharp smack, Zhang Fei's head dipped.

"You little brat!" She Long scolded, glaring at him. "If my family hadn't been too poor to send me to school when I was young, would you have any chance to show off in front of me? Aren't I the reason you have such good conditions for studying now?"

Zhang Fei rubbed the back of his head and bared his teeth, but inwardly muttered, Why does that sound so familiar? Elders everywhere really are all cut from the same cloth.

Still, Zhang Fei immediately offered an appeasing smile. "You're right, Grandpa. You're right. This is what they call blue dye surpassing the indigo it came from. You laid a strong foundation, so I could stand taller."

"That's more like it!" She Long snorted, then turned and continued forward.

As they chatted and joked, they passed through the poison miasma without noticing, and the view before them suddenly opened up.

Both involuntarily stopped in their tracks.

The exit from the poison miasma lay at the foot of a small hill. It was not particularly tall, perhaps a little over a hundred meters at most.

From the foot of the hill, they could clearly see hot vapor rising from its summit.

With a light push of his toes against the ground, She Long carried Zhang Fei up to the hilltop.

Once they had settled, both looked down and held their breath in unison.

Before them lay a vast, inverted-cone-shaped hollow, as though some colossal object had fallen from the sky and smashed this enormous crater into the earth.

The hollow was at least several hundred meters across, with extremely steep walls.

Looking down, they found its floor shrouded in billowing white mist, too hazy to see clearly. They could only make out faint flashes of light below, one red and one blue.

She Long scooped Zhang Fei up and sank downward, carrying him slowly along the steep rock wall.

The instant they landed, a strange aura washed over them.

It was difficult to describe: both searing heat and bitter cold, two utterly opposing sensations surging into their bodies at once.

Zhang Fei felt as though something were eating away at his organs. A tearing pain shot through him, forcing out a muffled groan.

She Long reacted swiftly, shielding him with soul power and forcefully keeping both corrosive energies outside.

"The air here contains an extremely overbearing energy. Be careful, and don't stray too far from me."

Zhang Fei nodded. The corrosive sensation had already vanished.

Of course, he knew what was happening. This was the extreme ice and fire energy unique to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

The spring water of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well contained extreme ice- and fire-attribute auras. If low-level Soul Masters stayed here too long, the two extreme energies would tear their meridians apart, inevitably making their bodies burst and killing them.

If She Long had not protected him with soul power in time, even that brief moment would have cost him dearly.