Dugu Bo grabbed Chen Ming with one hand and Xiao Wu with the other, preparing to leave with them, but Chen Ming slightly shook his head instead.
Holding the Blue Silver Empress, he began walking around the cave nonstop, staring fixedly at Ah Yin's true body as though trying to discover something.
But after carefully searching the entire cave once, Ah Yin still showed no reaction at all.
"Big brother, take Xiao Wu outside first. I need to conduct an experiment. Come back up and pick me up in ten minutes."
"Alright then. I'll head down first."
Dugu Bo nodded and jumped out directly without asking any further questions.
In truth, he already had some guesses.
After all, Chen Ming had already called it the Blue Silver Empress. And during his conversations with the Worship Hall Elders, Dugu Bo had also learned exactly what kind of hundred-thousand-year Spirit Beast had been involved back then.
He guessed that Chen Ming had deliberately come here because he had obtained information regarding the Blue Silver Empress.
As for the deeper implications… Dugu Bo also had some suspicions.
But he had no intention of repaying kindness with betrayal.
Dugu Bo's temperament was strange and extremely vengeful, which was why people called him the Old Poison.
But at the same time, he never forgot the kindness others showed him, nor would he ever do something heartless and ungrateful.
Since Chen Ming had never done anything to wrong him, then he absolutely would not do anything to wrong Chen Ming either.
So what if it was a hundred-thousand-year Spirit Bone?
Even though that little rabbit had been right in front of him the entire time, he had never once considered killing her and taking the hundred-thousand-year Spirit Bone.
Taking Xiao Wu with him, Dugu Bo leapt out through the waterfall.
Facing Qian Renfeng outside, Dugu Bo explained that they should wait a little before bringing Chen Ming back out.
Qian Renfeng suspiciously nodded, but after thinking about the close friendship between Dugu Bo and Chen Ming, he stopped overthinking it.
...
After setting down the flowerpot containing the Blue Silver Empress, Chen Ming began gathering information from the surroundings. At the same time, he used his clawed hands to probe around, utilizing his metal-earth attributed Spirit Power to sense whether any foreign object existed nearby.
Spirit Power was a type of radiating energy.
Although this substance wasn't harmful to people of the Douluo world, as a special kind of radiation, containers made primarily from lead could greatly conceal and isolate Spirit Power fluctuations.
The reason Chen Ming had carried Ah Yin around earlier was to see whether the Blue Silver Empress could sense her own Spirit Bone hidden inside the box Tang Hao left behind.
But clearly, in her weakened state, Ah Yin still couldn't sense her Spirit Bone through the lead container.
After searching for seven or eight minutes, Chen Ming finally found the lead box Tang Hao had hidden away in a concealed corner.
The moment he opened it, a rich life aura immediately poured out.
Inside was a right leg Spirit Bone, crystal clear like a human skeleton carved from gemstones.
The Spirit Bone shimmered with intertwining blue and green colors, mixed with faint golden patterns.
The instant the Spirit Bone appeared, Ah Yin—who had originally been in a blissful post-nutrient state—immediately raised her leaves.
It was as though she were staring at Chen Ming in shock and confusion.
Ah Yin's soul was actually still quite complete within the seed.
The reason she previously showed almost no intelligence was mainly because her growing environment had been terrible, and she truly hadn't received any nourishment for a long time.
As a result, she could only maintain an extremely low-energy standby state.
But after Chen Ming changed her environment and fed her some nutrient solution, Ah Yin's brain finally came back online for once, allowing her to think again.
Looking at the Spirit Bone in Chen Ming's hand—the one condensed from her own body—Ah Yin instinctively wanted to snatch it back.
But after her leaves swayed slightly once, she gave up on the thought.
Not to mention that Chen Ming had just fed her nutrient solution and promised to transplant her outside—if she acted now, there was a high chance she would simply continue rotting away imprisoned in this place.
And purely in terms of strength, Ah Yin also understood she had absolutely no chance.
In her current state, forget facing a Titled Douluo—even against a mere Spirit Elder with a dragon Martial Soul like Chen Ming, she had no possibility of victory whatsoever.
Still, as she looked at her own Spirit Bone and that lead box, Ah Yin—who had finally regained the ability to think clearly—couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of grievance.
If Tang Hao had replanted her back into the Blue Silver Forest, then with the power of the Blue Silver Grass clan there, she would have long since recovered to over twenty thousand years of cultivation during all these years.
And after reabsorbing the Spirit Bone formed from her Spirit Core, although she wouldn't immediately return to a hundred-thousand-year cultivation level, she could at least have recovered to seventy or eighty thousand years.
Once a Blue Silver Grass reached the ten-thousand-year level, it gained the ability to project its spiritual power outward and form a phantom human image.
Even if she couldn't regain the chance to become human again during Tang Hao's lifetime, she would at least have been able to personally watch the child she and Tang Hao had together grow up.
Though awkward, they still could have continued functioning as a family in their own way.
When Ah Yin sacrificed herself to Tang Hao back then, she had been gambling on Tang Hao understanding her well enough.
She believed he should know that after her sacrifice, she wouldn't truly die. As long as he returned her to the Blue Silver Forest, there would still be hope for recovery.
But reality proved Ah Yin had gambled wrong.
Tang Hao had not brought her back to her happy homeland.
Instead, he planted her inside this dark cave.
Honestly, with the Blue Silver Empress' vitality, even if her seed had simply been tossed into a random crack between rocks, Ah Yin would have grown far better than she had here.
Moreover, Blue Silver Grass was basically a weed that existed almost everywhere across the continent. Unless in extremely harsh environments, Blue Silver Grass could always be found, allowing Ah Yin to connect to the Blue Silver network.
As long as she could reconnect with the Blue Silver Grass clan, even if some losses occurred, she could still borrow strength from her people and gain the ability to move herself back to the Blue Silver Forest.
But now, the truth before her was worse than anything Ah Yin could have imagined.
She hadn't died.
She had been replanted.
But the place she had been replanted in was practically worse than death.
The Spirit Bone she left behind was meant for her beloved to absorb.
Yet not only had Tang Hao refused to absorb it, he also hadn't returned it to her.
Instead, he deliberately sealed it away inside a lead box.
He intentionally kept it by her side, ensuring she could neither sense the Spirit Bone nor reabsorb it to continue growing.
Right or wrong. Yes or no.
Tang Hao had somehow chosen every possible wrong answer at once.
He had successfully created a situation even worse than the worst outcome Ah Yin had ever imagined.
Back when even absorbing energy was difficult and she lacked the strength to maintain clear, rational thought, Ah Yin still faintly clung to her love for Tang Hao, desperately trying to grow while having no energy left to think about anything else.
But now—
As her ability to think gradually returned, Ah Yin suddenly felt unbearably miserable.
Like a clown who had been utterly betrayed.