Tang Feng's face abruptly turned purple. With a muffled groan, he sat cross-legged, circulating his Soul Power as though walking a tightrope, not daring to relax for even an instant.
Tang Feng devoted all his mental focus to guarding his mind, guiding the five-element poisons into a cycle within his body, slowly eating away at, breaking down, and assimilating the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's innate poison.
In the distance, Dugu Bo watched with his brows twitching repeatedly. Fighting poison with poison was not difficult; the difficulty lay in controlling five potent poisons with a mere rank twenty-four Soul Power without suffering a backlash. This youth's fine control over Soul Power actually rivaled that of some Soul Ancestors, showing how solid his foundations were.
Ten days passed in the flick of a finger.
At the cave entrance, Tang Feng leaned against the wall, his lips as pale as paper, his eyes sunken and his gaze somewhat listless. Although most of the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Poison in his body had been cleared away, his mental strength was nearly exhausted. At this moment, sheer determination alone kept him going.
Just then, a green figure drifted over.
Tang Feng forced himself up, swaying precariously. Before he could steady himself, he bowed in greeting. "Your Eminence, this poison truly is formidable. Although I have cleared away most of it, the remaining poison has yet to be completely removed, and my mind is already utterly exhausted... Were it not for the many medicinal herbs here, I fear I would truly have been powerless to turn the tide."
Dugu Bo gave Tang Feng a long look, then suddenly raised his hand and tossed him a jade bottle. "Take it."
Tang Feng caught the jade bottle and immediately opened it. The pills inside were emerald green. Without the slightest hesitation, he tipped one out and swallowed it. Once its medicinal effects spread, he spat out a mouthful of poisoned blood. Like spring rain nourishing all things, the lingering Serpent Emperor poison vanished like smoke in an instant.
Tang Feng's spirits lifted, and he bowed again. "Thank you, Your Eminence!"
Dugu Bo merely waved a hand, a rare trace of a smile appearing on his aged face. "Surviving my innate poison for ten days takes real ability. I must say, you really are a little monster. Tell me, where did you learn that method of reversing the five elements' restraining cycle?"
Tang Feng caught his breath and answered frankly, "My maternal grandfather, Yang Wudi, once said that all poisons under heaven fall within the five elements. Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Poison has the nature of fire within metal and is exceptionally domineering. Confronting it head-on means certain death.
"The only way is to numb it with wood poison, permeate it with water poison, counter it with fire poison, and neutralize it with earth poison, then use one's own Soul Power as a guide to reverse its five elements, making them wear one another down..."
Tang Feng recounted the detoxification method recorded in the book, point by point, and Dugu Bo did not interrupt him at all.
After Tang Feng finished, Poison Douluo stood with his hands behind his back and said, "Interesting... Then do you know why my pill could clear the poison instantly?"
Tang Feng thought briefly. "If my guess is correct, Your Eminence must have used opposing medicinal properties to envelop and guide the remaining poison, forcibly expelling it from the body. This treats the symptoms rather than the root, but it is the most efficient method."
"Good! Well said, treating the symptoms rather than the root!" Dugu Bo laughed heartily. "It has been a long time since I met a worthy opponent. Today, I'll debate you, Little Monster, and see who comes out on top!"
With that, Dugu Bo actually sat cross-legged and took a pitch-black poisonous herb from his robes. "This herb is called Nine Netherworlds Soul Severing. Tell me, how would you counter it?"
Tang Feng's eyes flashed, and he perked up as well. Taking the poisonous herb, he examined it closely. "This herb is cold in nature and belongs to water poison, yet it grows nine leaves, secretly corresponding to the numerical principle of nine times nine returning to one... To counter this poison, one needs..."
There at the cave entrance, the old man and the youth began debating back and forth over the poisonous and medicinal herbs strewn across the ground.
The setting sun stretched their shadows long, lending them something of the air of friends who had bridged the gulf of age.
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.
At noon that day, Tang Feng was sitting cross-legged inside the cave, meditating and cultivating as Soul Power circulated around him.
Suddenly, he felt a gust sweep past, and Dugu Bo was already standing before him. He casually tossed two bloodied Soul Beast legs onto the ground, his tone as offhand as though he were ordering his own grandson about. "Little Monster, go roast these two legs of lamb."
Without even lifting his eyelids, Tang Feng glanced at the bloody legs and curled his lip. "Old Monster, could you stop ordering children around? If you want to eat, roast them yourself."
"Hey!" Dugu Bo bristled and glared in anger. Raising his right hand, emerald light flowing between his fingers, he made as though to flick Tang Feng. "You little monster, you have no respect for your elders! Want another taste of how powerful my snake venom is?"
Tang Feng sprang up with a start, snatched up the lamb legs, and ran outside. His defiant voice drifted back from afar. "I'm not afraid of you! I'm just a good child who respects the old and cares for the young..."
Outside the cave, a campfire soon blazed. Fat dripped with a sizzling hiss, and the aroma of meat mingled with the fresh scent of pinewood, filling the valley.
Over their half-month together, the two had become both teachers and friends, each developing admiration for the other's mastery of poison. They had clearly formed a fine friendship, becoming friends despite their difference in age.
Tang Feng had also come to understand this Poison Douluo completely. Although Dugu Bo was eccentric, once someone earned his approval, he treated them with great sincerity, without any of the airs of a powerful Titled Douluo.
Gnawing on a lamb leg that was crisp outside and tender within, Tang Feng started to speak several times, then stopped. Finally, he made up his mind. "Old Monster, you saved my life, and there's something... I won't feel at ease unless I say it. Have you been poisoned?"
"What?!" Dugu Bo's expression changed at those words, but he immediately forced a calm smile. "I am Poison Douluo. Wouldn't I know whether I had been poisoned?"
Yet Dugu Bo's shifting, evasive gaze exposed everything.
Tang Feng put down the lamb leg, his expression solemn. "Rest assured, Old Monster. You saved my life. Even if someone held a blade to my throat, I would never reveal a word."
"Looking at your hair and eye color, I don't think they were naturally that way, so I guessed you had been poisoned."
Dugu Bo remained silent for a long time before heaving a deep sigh. At last, he slowly revealed the hidden anguish of his Martial Soul's backlash and the deadly poison afflicting him.
Tang Feng listened quietly. Only after Dugu Bo finished did he take a sheet of parchment he had prepared earlier from his robes. "I've been observing things over this past half-month. Many herbs on the hillside suit your symptoms. This is a prescription I've put together. Perhaps it can ease your suffering."
"Really?!" Dugu Bo took the prescription, his fingers trembling slightly.
"I'm fifty percent confident this prescription can keep the poison inside you from worsening," Tang Feng said, brimming with confidence, before shifting his tone and continuing, "Even so, it cannot provide a complete cure. For that, we would need more precious medicinal herbs. For now, this is the best method I can think of."
"A complete cure? You mean..." Dugu Bo's head snapped up.
Before he finished speaking, Tang Feng felt a gentle current of Soul Power lift him steadily into the air. The scenery raced backward before his eyes. Dugu Bo had seized Tang Feng's shoulder, his figure becoming a streak of emerald light that shot straight toward the mountaintop!
Amid the howling wind, the two arrived at a mountain hollow, and the view before Tang Feng suddenly opened up. A valley lay ahead, white mist billowing from its floor. Deep within the thick mist, red and blue light intertwined and flowed, illuminating the entire valley like a dream or illusion, like a secret realm from the first dawn of heaven and earth.
It was a vast, inverted-cone-shaped mountain hollow, as though an ancient deity had fallen from the nine heavens and smashed a gigantic pit into the earth.
Taking Tang Feng with him, Dugu Bo drifted down the steep mountainside like a falling leaf.
As his toes touched the ground, Tang Feng felt a strange presence wash over him. It was a mingling of ultimate cold and raging heat; two extremes of spiritual Qi actually coexisted within the same space.
When the two truly stepped onto the valley floor, the sight that greeted them instantly made Tang Feng hold his breath.
It was an exceedingly peculiar hot spring. The spring was not large, yet it was divided into two sections. Within the oval pool, the spring water was actually milky white on one side and vermilion on the other.
Stranger still, although they occupied the same pool, they remained as clearly divided as the Jing and Wei Rivers, neither encroaching upon the other, each always keeping to its own side. The billowing steam rose precisely from the boundary between the two spring waters.
Around the pool grew all the exotic flowers and rare herbs Tang Feng dreamed of obtaining. Many immortal-grade herbs he had only ever seen in the Immortal Herb Catalogue now grew everywhere like weeds, densely packed and vying in splendor.
Lovesick Heartbreak Red, the king of flowers, an immortal treasure among immortal treasures;
Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, its leaves like emerald, its dewdrops glimmering in the morning light with a deep radiance that pierced the heart;
Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum, dazzling gold;
Aromatic Silk Beauty, wreathed in purple Qi, its floral fragrance refreshing the heart and lungs, a breath of it granting immunity to all poisons;
There was also Aromatic Silk Beauty with golden petals and purple stamens, Vajra Arhat Fruit shaped like a vajra, Earth Dragon Golden Melon entwined in vines, Narcissus Jade Muscle Bone as white as jade, Cockscomb Phoenix Sunflower crimson as flame, and Ink Jade Divine Bamboo with jade-like joints...
With a single sweep of his eyes, Tang Feng counted more than twenty immortal-grade medicinal herbs in view alone. Every one gave off medicinal potency and fluctuations of spiritual power so dense they seemed impossible to disperse. This truly was a treasure land unique in all the world.