By the time Dugu Bo returned, Feng Lingtian had been sitting before the pill-refining platform for a long time.
He was not refining pills. He was simply staring at the furnace fire, watching the flames flicker again and again. A full day and night had passed since Dugu Bo left with the pill. Feng Lingtian was waiting. He had refined the pill, but whether Dugu Yan could survive the poison's backlash depended on her. He had said that this backlash would be fiercer than any before it. He did not know whether Dugu Yan could endure it.
Hurried footsteps sounded at the valley entrance. Feng Lingtian sprang to his feet.
Dugu Bo entered the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, moving faster than ever before, almost at a jog. He stopped before Feng Lingtian, a light surging in his emerald eyes that Feng Lingtian had never seen before-that layer of icy green had receded for the first time, revealing what lay beneath.
"She made it!" Dugu Bo's voice shook with a tremor he could not suppress. "That girl made it! When the poison's backlash was at its worst, she cracked a tooth from clenching her teeth, but she never once cried out in pain. After the backlash subsided, she looked at me and said-Grandpa, I feel so at ease. For the first time in all these years, I feel so at ease."
Dugu Bo's voice suddenly caught on the last sentence.
Feng Lingtian's heart finally settled. He unconsciously clenched a fist, the corners of his mouth lifting of their own accord. She made it. The stone that had weighed on his heart for a full day and night finally fell away.
Then Dugu Bo drew a deep breath, cupped his hands, and bowed deeply to him.
Feng Lingtian froze. A Titled Douluo was actually bowing to him! He instinctively reached out to help him up, his voice turning urgent. "Senior Dugu, please don't-"
"No." Dugu Bo straightened, the coldness gone from his emerald eyes. "You deserve this bow. You saved her. From this day forward, your affairs, Feng Lingtian, are my affairs, Dugu Bo's."
Feng Lingtian opened his mouth, wanting to say more, but when he saw Dugu Bo's eyes, he swallowed his words and merely nodded.
Feng Lingtian fell silent for a breath. "Senior Dugu, Dugu Yan's poison has not been completely cured. Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison is a poison of the Martial Soul Origin. As long as her Martial Soul remains, the poison will keep regenerating. This pill stripped away the accumulated poison, but the newly generated poison will still require long-term medication to slowly neutralize it. However, she won't suffer pain the way she used to."
Dugu Bo nodded, his voice still a little hoarse. "As long as it doesn't hurt anymore. As long as it doesn't hurt anymore."
Feng Lingtian looked at Dugu Bo and paused.
"Senior Dugu, there's something I've always found strange." Feng Lingtian's voice was quiet. "The Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Poison in your body is more than ten times as potent as Dugu Yan's. Hers is only Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison, while yours mutated into a Serpent Emperor, so the backlash should be fiercer. Yet all these years, you've relied solely on the environment of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well to suppress it. By rights, that shouldn't be enough."
Dugu Bo's pupils contracted slightly.
"The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well is indeed a treasure land, but it can only delay the poison's onset, not restrain it at its root," Feng Lingtian said. "There should be another reason you've managed to hold on until now."
Dugu Bo remained silent for a long time. Moonlight spilled down from above the valley, illuminating half his face.
"You do have a sharp eye." Dugu Bo's voice was quiet.
He extended his right hand, palm up. An emerald glow emerged from his palm, gathering and gradually taking the shape of a pill the size of a longan. The pill was deep emerald, its surface covered in fine patterns layered like snake scales. It slowly rotated in Dugu Bo's palm. With each turn, an extremely faint wisp of emerald mist seeped from its surface and spread along Dugu Bo's arm, before an invisible force pulled it back at his shoulder blade and merged it into the pill once more.
"This is my Poison Core." Dugu Bo's voice was quiet, but Feng Lingtian could hear how much lay beneath those words-decades of torment, countless disappointments, and an old man's desire to live. "I condensed the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's poison into this core. Only through it can I suppress the backlash."
Feng Lingtian stared at the Poison Core. Poison seeped out of it, spread through the meridians, then flowed back. Out and in, one complete cycle. But with every cycle, a trace of poison settled on the meridian walls.
Feng Lingtian raised his head and looked at Dugu Bo. "But you've also realized that the Poison Core can't suppress it forever. Every cycle leaves poison deposits behind. The more it accumulates, the fiercer the backlash."
Dugu Bo's emerald pupils contracted slightly. He said nothing, but Feng Lingtian knew he was right. The fingers with which Dugu Bo held the Poison Core had unconsciously tightened.
"I have an idea," Feng Lingtian said.
Dugu Bo abruptly raised his head.
"But it isn't fully developed yet." Feng Lingtian looked into Dugu Bo's eyes. "It's only a rough direction. I have no idea how to carry it out yet. If I could study your Poison Core, perhaps I could find a way."
The light in Dugu Bo's eyes flickered, then slowly dimmed. He remained silent for a long time.
Moonlight spilled down from above the valley, illuminating half his face. For the first time, Feng Lingtian noticed how much white had already crept into this Titled Douluo's temples.
"So be it." Dugu Bo's voice was quiet and slightly hoarse.
Feng Lingtian raised his head.
"This life of mine was salvaged from poison to begin with. Over all these years, I've tried every method. No one understands the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's poison better than I do. Sooner or later, I won't be able to suppress it." Dugu Bo looked at Feng Lingtian. "You've suppressed that girl's poison. My greatest wish has already been fulfilled."
Dugu Bo extended his right hand, and the Poison Core appeared again, slowly rotating in his palm. He looked at the Poison Core that had accompanied him for decades. The usual meticulous caution was gone from his gaze, replaced only by an indescribable calm.
"If you want to study it, take it." Dugu Bo held the Poison Core out to Feng Lingtian. "I have nothing left to lose anyway. There's no harm in letting you try."
Feng Lingtian looked at the Poison Core, then at Dugu Bo. Through their time together these past days, Feng Lingtian had come to understand this old man. Dugu Bo ranked at the bottom among Titled Douluo and was called the gatekeeper. Everyone looked down on him. Yet no one dared truly do anything to him-he could not defeat the other Titled Douluo, but his poison could leave a clan with only its Titled Douluo alive. That was Dugu Bo's deterrent. He did not deliberately use his aloofness and poison to keep people a thousand miles away; only by wrapping himself up could he protect his granddaughter. It was not that he did not want to trust people. He did not dare.
Feng Lingtian extended both hands and solemnly accepted the Poison Core. It trembled faintly in his palms, as though sensing his resolve.
"Senior Dugu." Feng Lingtian's voice was quiet but steady. "I will definitely find a way. Not for the Immortal Herbs in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. I just want you to stop suffering the torment of the poison's backlash."
Dugu Bo looked at Feng Lingtian, something trembling faintly in his emerald eyes. It had been a long time since anyone had said such words to him. Not out of fear of his poison, nor a desire to gain something from him. Simply wanting to help him.
Dugu Bo turned away, his back to Feng Lingtian. The moonlight stretched his shadow long.
"There's no hurry." Dugu Bo's voice was slightly hoarse. "Take your time thinking it over."
Feng Lingtian stood where he was, watching Dugu Bo's retreating figure disappear at the valley entrance. Moonlight shone on the old man's back, the white hair at his temples particularly glaring in the night.
Feng Lingtian withdrew his gaze and sat cross-legged. Dugu Bo's Poison Core hovered before him, slowly rotating. Emerald mist seeped from its surface, spreading along the lingering traces of Dugu Bo's Soul Power, flowing back, then spreading and flowing back again.
He watched those circulating paths for a long time. At the end of each cycle, when the poison flowed back into the Poison Core, the patterns on its surface dimmed slightly, as though something had drawn away a sliver of their light. Then, as the next cycle began, that sliver of light slowly returned.
Between that brightening and dimming, something had failed to return to the core.
Feng Lingtian spread out a sheet of paper and drew several lines on it. The poison left the Poison Core, spread outward, then flowed back. The amount going out and coming in should have been the same. But if a trace was missing when it flowed back, where had that missing trace gone?
He stared at the lines on the paper for a long time, his brow furrowing slightly.
Atop a tree at the valley entrance, the Peregrine Falcon appeared again. It perched quietly in the treetop, its pale golden eyes looking toward the pill-refining platform.