"Ughhh…"
A pained, childish groan echoed through the quiet house. On a simple wooden bed, a small child—no older than six—writhed beneath the pale glow of moonlight. He was unusually small for his age, his frame delicate, almost fragile. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dampening his light green hair, which clung to his skin in messy strands. His face twisted in discomfort, his sickly pale complexion illuminated by the silver light filtering through the window, painting a pitiful picture of suffering.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps pounded against the wooden floor, growing louder with each passing second. The door burst open with a sharp thud.
"Xin'er!"
A young man rushed in, his long, poison-green hair streaming behind him like a living shadow. Clean-shaven and sharp-eyed, his golden irises shimmered with a mix of worry and steely resolve. He dropped to his knees beside the bed, his expression softening as he took in the sight of his son—a near-perfect mirror of himself, only smaller, weaker.
This man was Dugu Bo.
One day, he would be known as the Poison Douluo, a Titled Douluo whose very name struck fear into the hearts of Spirit Masters across the continent. But now? He was still just a young Spirit Saint, barely Rank 71, caught between desperation and hope.
Gently, Dugu Bo placed a weathered hand on his son's fevered brow. A faint green light pulsed from his palm, casting an eerie glow across the dimly lit room. The sinister poison energy writhing within Dugu Xin's meridians stirred under the guidance of his father's Spirit Power. Slowly, the contorted pain on the boy's face eased, his breathing steadying.
Dugu Bo exhaled, withdrawing his hand. A complicated emotion flickered in his eyes.
"I must move faster…" he muttered under his breath, his gaze lingering on the sleeping child.
With uncharacteristic tenderness—so unlike the future Poison Douluo, known for his ruthlessness—he brushed a damp strand of hair from Xin's forehead and carefully tucked the blanket around his small frame.
At the doorway, he paused, casting one last glance at his son. Tears welled up unbidden, slipping silently down his face. He wiped them away with a sharp motion, his expression hardening.
The door closed behind him with a quiet thud.
On the bed, the boy once known as Dugu Xin stirred.
Within him, two souls—one native, one foreign—had merged, forming something entirely new. The oppressive poison in his bloodline receded ever so slightly as his Spirit Power surged, breaking through to the peak of Rank 10.
His eyes fluttered open, their clarity betraying a wisdom far beyond his years.
"Well," he muttered, voice soft but laced with disbelief, "as if a gender identity crisis wasn't enough… this is something else entirely."
He raised his small, delicate hands, examining them with a tired sigh.
"From a Marine to a professor… and now this? Becoming the son of the Poison Douluo?" A bitter chuckle escaped him. "I used to think his past was tragic. Now I am his past."
The spirit flowing through his veins was no ordinary one—it was the Jade Phosphor Serpent, a fearsome legacy passed down through generations of the Dugu Clan. Yet, no one had ever overcome its venomous backlash. One by one, each bearer succumbed to its toxicity, consumed by their own power.
And now, that same cursed inheritance lived on in Dugu Xin.
'In the Manhua, Dugu Xin lives until thirty-five, but that's all they ever said about him,' Xin thought, lips curling into a faint, bitter smile. 'He was swept aside, a forgotten footnote in his father's legend. Deemed unimportant. Disposable.'
She—no, he—drew a slow breath, chest rising and falling in rhythm with the silence of the room.
'Which, frankly, was the story of my life. Back then… being a Queer Black woman in positions of authority, it infuriated people. I was always seen as the "other." The threat. The second option. Even my parents never truly fought for me. But here...'
His fingers curled against the sheets, the softness unfamiliar. His eyes wandered to the closed door, where his father—his actual father—had just stood.
'But in this world, I have a father willing to sacrifice his cultivation… the very thing that defines one's worth in this society… just to keep me alive.' His voice cracked in his thoughts, overwhelmed by the sheer contrast.
It was love. Fierce. Unquestioning. Something he'd never tasted before.
Pushing aside the tangled blanket, Xin slowly sat up. His new body felt light, small, humming with dormant power. The shift was disorienting, like standing in a room where gravity had changed without warning.
Then, the memories hit him.
A tidal wave of six years' worth of sights, sounds, and emotions crashed through his mind. He doubled over as searing pain lanced through his head, body, and meridians—echoes of poison, of inherited agony. But he gritted his teeth and let it pass.
Visions of a young Dugu Xin played out like a fast-moving film: the cold nights drenched in sweat, the crushing loneliness of a child burdened by death, the fleeting warmth of his father's tenderness… all of it now belonged to her.
No—to him.
She was Dugu Xin now.
'So it's not exactly the same world,' he mused, eyes narrowing as understanding dawned. 'It's not the Light Novel, not the Donghua, not even the Manhua. Similar… but not identical.'
The pieces began to fall into place.
'In this version, the Douluo Continent is just one part of the planet. There are other continents—vast oceans teeming with spirit beasts so powerful, humans don't dare venture far. The other continents are inaccessible, some even unknown. Humanity is confined not by borders, but by fear.'
He exhaled slowly, his shoulders trembling from the weight of the truth.
'This world is bigger than I thought. The alternate timeline theory… Well, I guess it's more than just a nerdy Reddit thread now.'
His gaze drifted to the ceiling, lost in thought.
'Still… the power structure on this continent hasn't changed. Spirit Masters, Clans, Sects, Empires. It's a world where your fate is bound by the strength of your Spirit and the purity of your bloodline. In that sense, nothing's changed at all.'
A soft green shimmer flickered at the edge of his vision. His body pulsed with faint Spirit Energy, tangled and raw, but there was potential. He could feel it. The poison wasn't killing him yet. Not like it had his ancestors.
'This time, I won't just survive Dugu Xin's fate,' he thought. 'I'll rewrite it.'
Looking around the room, Xin took in the only treasures the former him had ever known—books. Stacked floor to ceiling, the shelves were meticulously organized, every section labeled with care. He could almost see the tiny hands of the sickly child he now inhabited, reaching for knowledge the way other children reached for toys or swords.
Denied the freedom to explore the outside world, the old Xin had turned inward, devouring anything his father could provide.
Dugu Bo, though aloof in many ways, had spared no effort or coin. He'd scoured the continent for tomes that might hold the cure—books on plants, alchemy, medicine, Spirit Beasts, rare constitutions, and, of course, cultivation. Anything that might save his son from their cursed bloodline.
With great effort, Xin pulled himself out of bed. His body was still weak, his muscles barely cooperating, but he moved with the determination of someone who had already faced death once and didn't intend to do it again.
He approached the shelf marked "Cultivation Methods" and reached for a particularly aged volume. The title read:
"The Internal Flow: A Dugu Clan Legacy."
The moment his fingers made contact with the book, a sudden pulse rippled through his mind. A screen flickered into existence behind his eyes—startling, yet eerily intuitive. The entire contents of the book flowed into him in an instant, as if uploaded directly into his consciousness.
Then came the warning.
Flashing red lines dissected the technique's diagrams, highlighting fatal flaws in the Dugu Clan's traditional cultivation method.
[WARNING: Dugu Cultivation Technique Detected — Fatal Inefficiencies Present.]
Xin blinked, then stared wide-eyed as new text appeared, neutral and clinical, yet brutal in its implications:
"The Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor and its descendants despise the weak. Having the bloodline of a Divine Beast, their true power cannot manifest until Rank 99 and above. The inherited poison is so potent that only a force of similar magnitude can counteract it.
There are three known paths to survive the Curse of the Jade Phosphor Lineage:
Ascend to Godhood.Modify the DNA of Dugu Clan members to forge an immune constitution.Form a Soul bond with a 100,000-year-old Spirit Beast or absorb its Spirit Ring.
Xin's lips parted slightly.
"Holy fuck…"
His heart pounded in his chest, heat radiating through his limbs. It wasn't just shock—it was the exhilaration of understanding something so far beyond the scope of normal comprehension. Not as a child, not even as a Spirit Master, but as a scholar.
"Is this... a system?" he murmured, placing his right hand against his chest.
A soft hum answered him. Another screen appeared.
[Name: Dugu Xin]
[Species: Human (Mortal)]
[Lifespan: 6/27]
[Spirit: Jade Phosphor Serpent]
[Cultivation: Rank 10 Spirit Trainee]
[Status: Only child of Dugu Bo (a man who would trade everything, even his life, for his son's survival), dying]
[Fate Projection: Death at age 27 due to Spirit Poison.]
[To Survive, One Must:]
Ascend to Godhood.Modify the genetic structure of the Dugu Clan to develop immunity.Form a soul bond or absorb a 100,000-year-old Spirit Beast's Ring.
[Probability of Success:]
Option 1 — [0.00001%]
Option 2 — [Not Available: Insufficient technological framework in this world.]
Option 3 — [Marginally Plausible.]
[Analysis: Lmao... good luck.]
A grin stretched across Xin's face—wide, defiant, almost deranged. It was the kind of smile only someone who had nothing left to lose could make.
"You really said 'Lmao'? Damn, even the system has jokes."
But Xin wasn't laughing. His mind was racing.
'If I remember correctly, Spirit Masters can't absorb Spirit Rings older than 423 years for their first ring. The body just can't take it. The spirit's will lashes out and breaks your soul into pieces.'
His eyes narrowed.
'Unless… a Spirit Douluo or higher assists in the process. Then the risk drops to zero.'
He clenched his fist, feeling that faint flicker of Spirit Energy surge through him.
'And if a 100,000-year-old Spirit Beast willingly becomes a Spirit Soul? They can grant up to seven Spirit Rings, completely bypassing the normal bottlenecks.'
Xin laughed under his breath, quiet and sharp.
"Everyone else is playing checkers… I have a whole damn supercomputer in my head."
He turned toward the window, staring out at the vast unknown of the Douluo Continent.
"I might have 21 years," he whispered, "but I only need one to change everything."
Standing there in the quiet darkness, the pale glow of moonlight washing across his bookshelf-lined sanctuary, Dugu Xin's grin widened. Not with arrogance, but with the spark of revolution.
'In one of the Manhua, a Spirit Beast used Huo Yuhao to create a God rather than waiting to be chosen as the successor of a god. It flipped the entire script. That one action changed the balance of the world.'
His gaze narrowed, eyes gleaming with purpose.
'This world is different from my last… and here, it isn't justice or virtue that defines history. It's power. Pure, unrelenting power. The kind that shapes mountains and topples kingdoms. The kind that rewrites what's possible.'
He clenched his small fists, feeling the latent heat of his Spirit pulse under his skin like coiled venom.
'In the story, the Poison Douluo, Dugu Bo, was feared, yes. But only by those under Rank 95. He was wasted. No inheritance. No legacy. Just a man doomed to watch his line rot from within. But if the poison had been refined, if he didn't have to worry about me, if he could cultivate without the weight of grief, he would've been unrivaled.'
Xin's breath was steady now. Focused.
'He reached Rank 65 at 37. That was with a dying son, with no clan to support him, with a cultivation method that was killing him by the day. What if he had none of those burdens? What if he had me—with the help of the system at full force, with knowledge from another world, and a plan that no one here could even fathom?'
His thoughts sharpened into resolve.
'Tomorrow is my Spirit Awakening Ceremony.
And that means tomorrow… everything will begin.'
His cultivation. His survival. His father's ascension. The rewriting of the Dugu legacy.
He moved to the shelves again, methodical and silent, placing a hand on each row in turn. One by one, the books became echoes in his mind, their contents transferring with that strange system—a seamless, painless integration. Titles, authors, theories, diagrams, every medicinal herb, every Spirit Beast classification, every known Spirit Ring combination, every single cultivation route and flaw…
All of it now belonged to him.
And more importantly… he understood it.
It wasn't just raw knowledge. It was like having a hundred masters whispering in his ear, explaining concepts in perfect clarity.
'My Spirit is poison,' Xin thought. 'But so is ignorance. And I'm going to cure both.'
He paused at the last shelf, one filled with treatises on Spirit Beast biology and ancient lore. A final flash of green light flickered in his mind as the last set of data settled.
His smile faded slightly—serious now, his inner monologue turning quieter.
'This world mirrors Ancient China in many ways: rigid hierarchies, imperial clans, deeply patriarchal traditions… practices that, even in my last life, would've been considered barbaric. Spirit power only makes the strong crueler, more entitled. And women, queer people—anyone outside the mold—they get crushed under the weight of "tradition" and "Filial Piety."'
His fingers curled. His voice inside was steady but low and cold.
'Not this time. Not if I have anything to say about it.'
The path ahead wouldn't just be one of survival or revenge. It would be one of change—small, slow, and dangerous, but change nonetheless. Brick by brick, law by law, soul by soul.
Returning to the bed, he lay down with a heavy exhale. His body still ached, his frame far too fragile for the storm in his mind, the poison slowly killing him, but he didn't mind.
'The good thing about being six? No one expects you to know much. My "lack" of cultural knowledge will be dismissed as innocence. Perfect cover to learn, to grow, and to strike when the time is right.'
His eyes drifted to the ceiling, distant and thoughtful.
'Tomorrow, I'll awaken my Spirit… and start my life in this world of cultivation officially. One step at a time, I'll make this body strong enough to bear the poison, the pressure, the pain, and then… I'll bend this world into something new.'