Soon, Dugu Xin, whose face had regained much of its color, finally awoke from his coma. He looked around.
"Qing'er? Where are we? And who are they?"
"Brother Xin, you owe your recovery to the young divine physician and this younger sister."
As Su Qing'er supported the still-weakened Dugu Xin, she told him everything that had happened before and after he lost consciousness.
Upon hearing this, Dugu Xin solemnly bowed to Long Qianming and Bibi Dong despite his frail condition.
"Thank you, Divine Physician Long, for saving Qing'er's life and mine. I, Dugu Xin, have no way to repay you. Once I return to my family, I will have my father take out a hundred thousand gold coins as thanks."
"A hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins!"
At that moment, Long Qianming grew wildly excited whenever he thought of the hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins. With that much money, why would he even need to run a clinic?
As expected of Dugu Bo's son. Father and son were both magnanimous, generous men.
Then he coughed twice, calming the joy stirred by the promise of a hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins, and asked in a somewhat grave tone,
"There's no need for such a grand gesture. Brother Dugu, the poison in your body is Martial Soul poison. Logically, with your current strength as a three-ring Soul Elder, it shouldn't have flared up yet. Did something unexpected happen along the way?"
Earlier, after alleviating the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison in Dugu Xin's body, Long Qianming had asked Su Qing'er about the circumstances in detail. However, her answers had been vague, and she did not know the reason.
All she knew was that, not long after she awoke from absorbing her Third Soul Ring, the poison in Dugu Xin's body had suddenly erupted.
Now that he was being questioned, Dugu Xin's eyes grew particularly bright. Long Qianming's ability to treat him showed that he had real skill;
his discovery that the poison was not ordinary poison, but Martial Soul poison, indirectly showed that he had a thorough knowledge of Martial Souls.
With both extraordinary medical skills and a deep knowledge of Martial Souls, such a physician was already no less capable than a Nine Heart Flowering Apple Soul Master.
With him here, perhaps they really could resolve the flaw in the Dugu Family's Martial Soul.
"To be honest with you, Divine Physician, starting with my father, the poison of our Dugu Family's Jade Phosphorus Snake Martial Soul seemed to have been fully activated. Not only does it harm the Soul Master himself, it also affects his wife and children."
As he spoke, Dugu Xin looked at Su Qing'er, who was supporting him beside him, and guilt welled up in his eyes.
"I actually had an elder sister, too. Unfortunately, she didn't awaken the Jade Phosphorus Snake Martial Soul and died from the poison within a year of her Martial Soul Awakening."
"As for why I ended up like this, it's all because I was too greedy. For my Third Soul Ring, I absorbed the Soul Ring of a thousand-year Nine-Section Jade. Perhaps that Nine-Section Jade's Soul Ring was what triggered my condition!"
Hearing this, Long Qianming knitted his brows tightly. Even as he felt puzzled, he nodded repeatedly, piquing the curiosity of the other three.
"Qianming, if you've thought of something, say it. I can help you analyze it."
"Divine Physician, please speak freely. Even if you get something wrong, it doesn't matter. My Martial Soul is an acquired, malignantly mutated Martial Soul to begin with."
Long Qianming was not deliberately keeping the three in suspense. At that moment, he only had a few conjectures about the Jade Phosphorus Snake Martial Soul and had yet to find a clear thread. After thinking for a while, he asked very seriously,
"Brother Dugu, you're saying the symptoms of Martial Soul poison started with your father. Did your grandfather or great-grandfather's generation ever experience anything like this?"
"No!"
Dugu Xin answered without the slightest hesitation.
"Then I have a rough idea of what happened. If my guess is correct, whenever your Dugu clan absorbs Soul Rings, you all choose snake-type Martial Souls!"
"Incredible! That's exactly right. Divine Physician, please explain your thinking in detail."
Dugu Xin, the person directly concerned, now looked at Long Qianming in astonishment. Although some of it was conjecture, reaching this point through conjecture was no easy feat.
After all, when most Beast Martial Soul Masters absorbed Soul Rings, they needed to consider the effects of the Soul Skill, as well as the varying degrees of beneficial mutation that the Soul Skill would bring to their Martial Soul.
Only a very small number of people with top-tier Martial Souls would choose to absorb Soul Rings from Soul Beasts of the same kind as their Martial Soul.
Bibi Dong, who had spent a long time with Long Qianming, quickly thought of something. As though she had discovered a new continent, she said with great excitement,
"Qianming, are you talking about Martial Soul Evolution?"
"Martial Soul Evolution?"
Hearing this, Dugu Xin and Su Qing'er were both deeply shocked and puzzled. Their Dugu Family specialized in absorbing snake-type Soul Beasts merely because they wanted to fully unleash the power of their own Martial Soul, just like the Star Luo Dai Family's inherited Martial Soul-the Evil-Eyed White Tiger.
Yet after three generations of effort, his father had discovered a very serious problem: when absorbing snake-type Soul Rings, there was an extremely high chance of obtaining Soul Skills with similar effects, differing fundamentally only in power.
As for Martial Soul Evolution, Dugu Xin had never thought about it, nor had he dared to hope for such an opportunity to evolve.
Long Qianming looked at Bibi Dong, sometimes nodding and sometimes shaking his head.
Honestly, Bibi Dong's later rise to Holy Maiden and then the first pope of a different sex was no fluke. She was far too clever even now, actually pinpointing the thought buried deepest in his mind.
Long Qianming turned back to Dugu Xin, maintaining his serious expression.
"The Jade Phosphorus Snake Martial Soul is inherently poisonous. Its poison is strong enough, but it still falls short of the venom of certain top-tier venomous snake Soul Beasts."
"And the ancestors of your Dugu Family all absorbed snake-type Soul Rings. Even if a few of those Soul Rings came from nonvenomous snakes, the snake origin gradually accumulated within the Soul Masters' bodies through inheritance. This is the underlying trigger for the poison's outbreak."
"Absorbing a top-tier, highly venomous Soul Beast like the Nine-Section Jade was the most direct cause of your outbreak. As physicians, what we emphasize most is that an illness begins with a trigger and erupts through a direct cause."
At that moment, Long Qianming gained a deeper understanding of why Dugu Bo would show symptoms of poisoning in his later years.
Had he not been fortunate enough to kill a Medusa Soul Beast for his Eighth Soul Ring, activating the snake origin that had accumulated for so long and allowing his Jade Phosphorous Serpent to evolve into a Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor,
he certainly would not have lived long enough to discover the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and suppress the backlash of the snake venom within his body.
However, Long Qianming said nothing about the snake origin causing the Martial Soul to undergo a complete transformation.
"So that's how it is!"
Dugu Xin nodded repeatedly, even more firmly convinced that Long Qianming could cure his Martial Soul poison.
"Brother Ming, you must have a way to resolve the poison in my body, right?"
"No, I can't resolve it either. I can only alleviate it. Judging by your current condition, in no more than ten days, the poisonous patches in your body will erupt again. When that happens, it will only be more dangerous than this time."
Faced with Long Qianming's conclusion, Dugu Xin and Su Qing'er both felt afraid, their legs carrying them a step backward against their will.
Sensing the heavy atmosphere, Bibi Dong immediately took Su Qing'er's hand and smiled.
"There will be a way to deal with all of this. Although Qianming has no idea how to treat it right now, that doesn't mean he won't in the future! We're friends now, so why don't you return to the clinic with us? You can liven the place up, too."
"Dong'er is right. Although I have no way to cure it completely, I can shorten the duration of your attacks."
Hearing this, Dugu Xin grew extremely excited and bowed to Long Qianming again.
"Brother Ming, if you ever need me for anything in the future, just say the word."
"The same goes for me, Su Qing'er."
By now, Su Qing'er had long since given her heart to Dugu Xin. Everything of his was everything of hers.