Ice God's Pearl

Outside the valley!

While Li Jin was cultivating the Ice and Fire Golden Body, Dugu Bo's poison had been acting up the entire time.

He was completely numb!

In the past, the poison had flared up at noon and midnight, lasting a little over two hours each time.

Though it was agonizing, after so many years, he had almost gotten used to it.

But this time, it had lasted an entire day and night!

And he had no idea how much longer it would last. Tormented by endless pain, Dugu Bo felt that he might as well die rather than go on living like this.

Two streams of murky tears ran down from his emerald-green eyes.

He had roamed the Douluo Continent unchallenged all his life, only to meet such an end.

How tragic, how lamentable!

Just then, accompanied by faint footsteps, Li Jin walked out of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Dugu Bo's heart trembled, and a feeling welled up inside him that he could not tell was fear or anticipation.

He was afraid the youth would kill him outright, but in his current state, where living was worse than dying, death would be a release instead.

Li Jin stopped beside Dugu Bo and saw the subservience and pleading in his eyes.

"Dugu Bo, I'm leaving."

"I have a way to cure your poison, but I don't want to cure you right now. Don't do anything to displease me in the future."

"The next time we meet, don't put on a sour face like you did today. If you dare show killing intent again, you can go through everything you suffered today all over again."

With that, Li Jin used his flying skill and leaped high into the sky, flying north toward the Far North.

Seeing this, Dugu Bo was certain:

This is definitely some old monster. He walks through the air as though it were level ground. His Soul Power looks low, but that's definitely a disguise. He amuses himself by playing the pig to eat the tiger.

He knows about the poison in my body and can make it flare up whenever he wants. If he can cure my poison, he can cure my granddaughter's too. Yanyan absolutely must not follow in my footsteps...

Once Li Jin had vanished completely over the horizon, the symptoms of Dugu Bo's poisoning eased, but his body was already numb. Even with the symptoms easing, he could not so much as stand.

After a long while, Dugu Bo finally struggled shakily to his feet, panting as he wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth.

He gazed into the distance in the direction Li Jin had disappeared, his heart full of fear, with not a trace of killing intent remaining.

He had truly been frightened by the ordeal.

After a moment of silence, Dugu Bo returned to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. He had occupied it for so long that, even if he could not identify all its plants, he had committed every one of them to memory.

A plant as red as fire, one as white as ice, and a delicate little flower were missing.

In their place was a stalk of Blue Silver Grass that radiated a blue-gold halo.

Dugu Bo stared at the Blue Silver Emperor for a long time.

"Since a senior left it here, for the sake of curing my poison and Yanyan's poison, I'll have to treat this plant as an offering."

Back to Li Jin.

After leaving the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Li Jin traveled for a day and arrived at the Frozen Forest.

This was the outer edge of the Far North, home to a great many ice-attribute Soul Beasts. Only after passing through the Frozen Forest would one reach the true Far North.

Soul Masters still came to the Frozen Forest to hunt for souls.

As for the Far North, it was a true forbidden zone for living beings.

"It's not cold! Not cold at all. The Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass really is effective!"

Li Jin was dressed in a single, very thin layer of red. Even after entering the Frozen Forest, where a person's breath turned to frost, he did not feel the slightest discomfort.

As he ventured deeper into the Frozen Forest, he encountered only a few Ten-Year Soul Beasts. He did not see so much as a hair of a Hundred-Year or Thousand-Year Soul Beast, and he grew so bored that he began to yawn.

Just as Li Jin was bored out of his mind-

"Run! That's a fifty-thousand-year Ice Jade Scorpion, strong enough to rival a Ten-Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast! If we don't run now, it'll be too late!"

A panicked voice came from the distance.

Li Jin used the Purple Demon Eye, divine light flickering in his eyes, and saw clearly what was happening several hundred meters away.

A beautiful middle-aged woman in a long blue dress, with a voluptuous figure, was fleeing in a panic with a little girl in each arm.

She was also a Soul Douluo, with eight Soul Rings-two yellow, two purple, and four black-pulsing up and down around her.

A powerhouse like her had actually been frightened into fleeing.

Li Jin looked past them and saw a scorpion-type Soul Beast clad in an emerald-green carapace, waving two great pincers, its stinger raised high.

An Ice Jade Scorpion!

One of the strongest Soul Beast groups in the Far North had actually appeared in the Frozen Forest, on the outer edge of the Far North.

Sensing that something was amiss, Li Jin activated the Purple Demon Eye with all his strength, relying on the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew's ability to see through all manner of wondrous things.

He saw clearly that beneath the Ice Jade Scorpion's appearance was actually a plump Ice Silkworm, the same kind as the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm.

The Ice Jade Scorpion's appearance was entirely the result of the Ice Silkworm's Simulation skill.

No, wait?

The icy chill coming from this "Ice Jade Scorpion" was truly no weaker than that of a Ten-Ten-Thousand-Year ice-attribute Soul Beast. That chill could not be simulated.

Li Jin immediately activated Martial Soul Possession. With the aid of Spiritual Detection, he saw a white pearl the size of a fist inside the Ice Silkworm. It was this pearl that produced the icy chill comparable to that of a Ten-Ten-Thousand-Year ice-attribute Soul Beast.

A mere pearl possessed an icy chill that could rival a Ten-Ten-Thousand-Year ice-attribute Soul Beast?!

A thoughtful look appeared in Li Jin's eyes...

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

The Ice God's Pearl!

Like the Sea God's Heart, the Vast Sea Cosmic Shroud, it was the object through which the Ice God's inheritance was passed down. It was also called the Ice God's Heart.

The Ice Silkworm Clan really was favored by fortune.

The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had fallen into a pit of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, eating and sleeping, then sleeping and eating, until he actually broke through to a million years of cultivation.

And now another Ice Silkworm had swallowed the Ice God's Pearl by chance. Thanks to the pearl's icy Qi, the "Ice Jade Scorpion" he simulated truly had the presence of a Ten-Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast.

"In the end, it still came to me. With the Ice God's Pearl and the Ice God's inheritance, the Ice Empress and the Snow Empress have no reason to refuse me."

Just then-

The beautiful middle-aged woman had raced up beside Li Jin, holding a little girl in each arm. When she saw him, she only had time to give him a warning.

"Child, run! There's a fifty-thousand-year Ice Jade Scorpion behind us!"

By the time the words left her mouth, she had already run far away.

The two little girls in her arms, however, had both had their attention drawn to Li Jin.

His red robes fluttered around him like a burning flame.

With Martial Soul Possession active, his exquisitely beautiful face made it impossible for anyone who saw it once to ever forget it.

One glance that lasted ten thousand years!

"Pretty little brother, run, run! Come to your senses and stop standing there like a fool!"

"Mom, take that little brother with us! He's innocent!"

The beautiful middle-aged woman hesitated. Kindhearted as she was, if she ran too slowly now, she and her two precious daughters might all fail to escape.

While she hesitated, Li Jin not only failed to flee, but instead used Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track to dart swiftly through the Frozen Forest toward the "Ice Jade Scorpion" at an astonishing speed.

Seeing this, the beautiful middle-aged woman, who had still been hesitating, finally made up her mind.

The child was probably a fool, delivering himself straight to the Ice Jade Scorpion's mouth. What a waste of such a handsome face; it was truly a pity.

"Bing'er, Yue'er, everyone has their own fate. It's enough if we make it out alive ourselves. We can't possibly go back to save him..."

Tears welled up in the two little girls' eyes as they watched the red-clad figure rapidly recede into the distance. They were the ones who had provoked the Ice Jade Scorpion, yet someone else had ended up suffering for it.

Guilt-ridden, they engraved that red-clad figure deep in their hearts.

If Li Jin had known, he would surely have laughed out loud.

How was this suffering for someone else? He was clearly intercepting someone else's fortune. The three of them, mother and daughters, had encountered the Ice Silkworm who had swallowed the Ice God's Pearl first, but unfortunately, they had been fooled, and in the end, though fate had brought them together, it had not meant the pearl to be theirs.