Dugu Bo

Huo Yuhao was nowhere near as tall as Dugu Bo. Even if she raised her hand, she couldn't reach his forehead. Fortunately, after Evil Lord had tied Dugu Bo up, he had simply tossed him onto the ground, so Huo Yuhao crouched down to speak with him as he lay there.

Huo Yuhao reached out and touched Dugu Bo's forehead with her index finger. Dugu Bo had no idea what the little girl in front of him intended to do, but as he watched that finger draw closer and closer, he couldn't help worrying that she might be about to kill him or do something strange. Instinctively, he closed his eyes.

There was no pain, and he hadn't lost control of his body. Only a cool sensation slowly spread from his forehead throughout his body. He felt no discomfort at all. Gradually, the suppressed pain from the poison began to fade. He could feel the toxins inside him retreating. The coolness was hard to describe, as if rain had fallen upon land parched by a long drought, and new shoots had sprouted from withered trees.

Huo Yuhao channeled the cold of her Ultimate Ice in a weakened state through Dugu Bo's forehead, sending it through all the meridians in his body to suppress the toxins within him. Ultimate Ice itself had a powerful suppressive effect on poison. When the cold of Huo Yuhao's Ultimate Ice entered Dugu Bo's body, the toxins inside instinctively retreated. After half an hour, under Huo Yuhao's control, the cold had driven all the toxins in Dugu Bo's meridians into the Poison Core inside him. Then the surface of the Poison Core was covered by the cold, preventing the toxins from seeping out again.

But Dugu Bo's underlying problem hadn't been solved; it had only been suppressed. As time passed, the cold covering the surface of the Poison Core inside him would disappear, and the toxins in his body would still spread to every part of him. What Huo Yuhao had done was only treat the symptoms, not the root cause, and delay the outbreak. Other treatments would be needed later to resolve the problem completely.

This was how Huo Yuhao showed her sincerity to Dugu Bo and established her bargaining power. She knew that, tormented by his illness, Dugu Bo must need this treatment very much. Besides, every Titled Douluo was a figure of great importance in this era. Countless eyes watched them, whether they appeared or disappeared. So Huo Yuhao still didn't dare kill Dugu Bo outright or let him go. She hoped to build a good relationship with him. A human Titled Douluo wielded more influence in human society than Evil Lord and the others, and could also spare them many dangers. Besides, she pitied Dugu Bo for saying that all he had left was his granddaughter. Whether or not that was true, those words had affected Huo Yuhao deeply, since she had grown up with only her mother by her side, the two of them relying on each other.

Of course, if everything took a turn for the worst, Huo Yuhao would also kill Dugu Bo to protect the secrecy of Evil Lord and the others.

Huo Yuhao stopped controlling the cold inside Dugu Bo and opened her eyes again. She looked at him. "Senior..." Huo Yuhao had only just begun to speak when she stopped. She saw Dugu Bo silently shedding tears. His vacant eyes were full of them, and they ran from the corners of his eyes and fell to the ground. His lips trembled slightly, as if he were struggling to hold something back.

Seeing this, Huo Yuhao thought Dugu Bo had become overly emotional after sensing the state of his body, so she softly asked again, "Senior, how are you feeling?"

Dugu Bo's eyes focused again as he looked at Huo Yuhao. His face held an expression that was difficult to describe, one of sorrow and joy intertwined.

Huo Yuhao's earlier guess wasn't wrong, but it wasn't entirely right either. Dugu Bo wasn't only excited; he was feeling other things as well. Huo Yuhao could learn of Dugu Bo's deeds and achievements from records written ten thousand years later, and she could observe his illness firsthand and understand its symptoms. But she couldn't fully comprehend what he was feeling at that moment.

As a Titled Douluo, Dugu Bo held a position that inspired admiration in this era. Indeed, every Titled Douluo of this age was revered by the world. But only Dugu Bo knew what he had gone through. His parents had died suddenly when he was young, his wife had died suddenly in middle age, and in his later years, his son and daughter-in-law had both died suddenly as well. All that remained was one granddaughter to accompany him through the rest of his life.

He had also tried to find out why all of this had happened, but in the end, he had found only despair. Those who possessed the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul were born with poison in their blood. As their Soul Power rose and they grew older, the toxins in their bodies would continue to erode them until they died of poisoning. Even if the mother didn't possess the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul, as long as her unborn child carried its bloodline, the child would produce toxins of its own, contaminating both itself and its mother. That was why most people with the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Martial Soul lost their relatives early and ended up alone.

When Dugu Bo learned the truth, he found it both absurd and heartbreaking. He didn't know how long he had laughed or how long he had cried. Jade Phosphorous Serpent Soul Masters were famous for poison, yet in the end, they would die by their own poison. Worse still, their relatives would also die after being contaminated by Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison.

He had only managed to cling to life until now because, by chance, his Martial Soul had evolved into the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Martial Soul when he absorbed a Soul Ring. Dugu Bo had also searched for a reliable way to make a Martial Soul evolve, but had found nothing. The circumstances of his own evolution were basically impossible to replicate. It wasn't as if absorbing a Soul Ring from a Soul Beast of the same kind and age as the one he had absorbed would necessarily lead to evolution. The whole thing was practically impossible to reproduce.

Dugu Bo hadn't given up. He often looked at his granddaughter and comforted himself, thinking, "At least I still have my granddaughter. There's still hope." But as time went by, he began to feel the agony of the toxins erupting inside him too. He realized that even if he could replicate the evolution of his Martial Soul in his granddaughter, she would still die from the poison-it would only happen later.

But he continued to display the authority of a Titled Douluo in public, and he continued to make his granddaughter cultivate. He knew cultivation would deepen the toxins' erosion of her body, but in this world, weakness was more terrifying than death. Dugu Bo told others that he didn't care about anything, that as long as he was alive, his granddaughter would be protected under his wing. But what if he died?

Dugu Bo had truly begun to despair. He grew reclusive and unwilling to speak with people, doing whatever he pleased. But if someone helped him and asked him for something, he still kept his word and did it. He knew that one day he would be killed by his own poison. He didn't want to make too many enemies and leave Yanzi too much trouble to deal with.

His distant thoughts slowly returned. At Huo Yuhao's question, Dugu Bo looked again at the little girl before him. He felt joy at the appearance of hope, fear that it might all be a beautiful dream, and grief at being powerless against everything he had suffered in his life.

Dugu Bo stared blankly at Huo Yuhao, his lips forming a restrained, trembling question. "What's your name? What is it you really want?"