Chapter 98: The Soul

    It was midnight when Yang Yang, who had always slept well, woke up inexplicably. He then realised that the house was brightly lit and Archibald was also awake and looking out through the window.

    “What’s wrong?”

    Yang Yang sat up, hearing the muted voices outside, he felt uneasy in his heart.

    Archibald hurried over and put clothes on Yang Yang.

    “An elderly person fell ill and the village chief just passed by.”

    Yang Yang’s heart skipped a beat, “Is it serious?”

    Archibald’s expression was also a little dignified: “There had been no sound since just now.”

    “Then let’s go and have a look. “

    Yang Yang dressed in clothes, put on his shoes and went out.

    After going out, Yang Yang found that, except for the children, almost everyone in the village was awake. They all gathered in front of the sick elderly man’s house, there was no noise, no loud noise, no sorrow and crying, only standing there quietly.

    Yang Yang felt that this scene was a bit weird, after a moment of thinking he realised— it’s because the villagers were all carrying a simple paper lantern.

    “The Duke is here.”

    Someone said and the crowd turned their heads.

    Yang Yang saw their expressions clearly, they were the same as usual.

    —Was the elderly man safe?

    Yang Yang thought so in his heart, but subconsciously felt that it wasn’t the case.

    At this time, the voice of the village chief came from the room: “Little Duke and Duchess are here? Let them in.”

    Hearing this, the villagers quickly made way before the door for them.

    Yang Yang walked in with Archibald.

    There were many lamps in the room, but they were not the lamps made of soul crystals that were used in ordinary times, but the same paper oil lamps as those of villagers outside.

    There were many small ones, at least a dozen of them were stacked just in this room, illuminating it brightly.

    In the room stood the village chief and the rest of the older people. The sick elderly man was lying on the bed, staring blankly into space and trembling. His condition did not look good.

    And the old village chief was holding medicine stone tea in his hand, obviously he had already gave it.

    “Village chief, how is the situation?”

    Yang Yang was a little flustered, his voice could not help but soften.

    The old village head shook his head and put aside the medicine stone tea in his hand, “It’s time.”

    This time he meant the elderly man’s life.

    Yang Yang was stunned, but looking at the trembling elderly man, he didn’t give up: “Have you fed the medicine stone tea? How about feeding some more?”

    The old village head: “Just like Duchess said, this medicine stone is not a good thing. Stimulation of its medicinal properties requires the soul beast’s soul power and his body can no longer bear so much of it.”

    Yang Yang grasped the point: “So he’s overloaded with the soul beast’s soul power, not that his soul palace had been destroyed? “

    The old village chief nodded: “It is indeed the case now.”

    Yang Yang only thought for a second before making a decision: “If I have a way to get rid of some of the soul power of the soul beast in his body, can you use the medicine stone tea to rescue him?”

    The old village chief was stunned, he looked at Yang Yang in astonishment: “Eliminate the soul power of the soul beast?”

    Yang Yang nodded: “I have some medicine here, which is harmless for ordinary people, but no sick person had taken it yet… If there is no other way, can you let me try?”

    The old village chief smiled and then moved to the side: “Of course.”

    Yang Yang took a deep breath and walked to the sick elderly man’s bed, then he reached out into his pocket to take out a red fruit from the Soul Cube.

    ——Although the experimental results on animals couldn’t be used as a reference, this was the only way now.

    But Yang Yang didn’t feed it directly to the old man, but first opened his soul power vision, then released his soul power, pierced the fruit with the soul power and then channeled its soul power, slowly sending it into the elderly man’s mouth, so that if something unexpected happens, the remaining soul power could be withdrawn in time.

    While Yang Yang was feeding the old man the fruit, he was also observing the old man’s soul power.

    The soul power of the old man was very hollow, the abdomen was the most obvious, but to Yang Yang’s surprise, the old man didn’t have much black soul power.

    When the fruit’s soul power flowed to the old man’s abdomen, it was instantly torn and weakened, but some of it escaped the damage of the soul palace and flowed to other parts of the body.

    The soul power of the fruit could purify the soul power of the soul beast. Yang Yang had seen this process more than once, just like the one in front of him—— alike to hunting spiders, it into spider webs to wrap the black soul beast’s infection and then using the method of “dying together with its enemy” it quickly disintegrated the soul power of the soul beast until it was completely eliminated.

    But this time it was a little different.

    After the fruit’s soul power consumed some of the black soul power, a beige soul power suddenly appeared in the old man’s abdomen—it was the soul power that Yang Yang had seen on Scarface, it came from the medicine stone.

    The soul power of the medicine stone needed to be stimulated by the soul beast’s soul power and the soul power of the fruit was also judged to be the soul beast’s soul power by the detector. Because it was harmless to the human body, it didn’t increase the burden on the elderly man’s body and smoothly stimulates the soul power of the medicine stone.

    Saved.

    Yang Yang breathed a sigh of relief and after putting the last bit of fruit’s soul power into the old man’s mouth, he withdrew his hand and waited quietly.

    But soon, Yang Yang realized something was wrong.

    The beige soul power devoured not only the black soul power, but all the soul power.

    It was like a pen dipped in beige ink. After painting on the old man’s body, there was no hole, no black soul power, no “spider silk” white of fruit and no white soul power of the old man himself.

    The only thing that could compete with the off-white soul power a little bit was the white soul power of the fruit. It quickly entangled and consumed some of the beige soul power, merging into a whitish gray, but it was quickly replaced by more beige.

    In the end, only the beige soul power remained on the old man’s body. Although it was intact, it was very strange.

    “How could this be?”

    Yang Yang stared blankly at the beige soul power, he didn’t know why it happened and what it meant.

    “Aii.”

    The old village chief’s sigh sounded in Yang Yang’s ears, “The Duchess’s medicine was effective, but his soul palace couldn’t take it anymore.”

    Yang Yang said unwillingly: “But you just said…”

    Yang Yang Yang paused in the middle of speaking, because he realized that what the old village chief said was “now”.

    The old village head said out loud Yang Yang’s thoughts: “It is true that he was overloaded with the soul power of the soul beast just now, but his soul palace was also at the end of his battle. If his soul palace was not damaged so badly, maybe the Duchess would have rescued him.”

    Rescued?

    Yang Yang moved his lips, but made no sound.

    And at this moment, there was a “bang!” sound on the bed.

    Yang Yang looked back and saw that the beige soul power-wrapped body looked like a fish out of water, bouncing violently on the bed and then returned to calm.

    Then, beige soul power began to fade from the old man’s body, no, it was detaching.

    From bottom to top, with the old man’s abdomen as the center, as if being lifted by a rope, the beige soul power slowly floated up, and the moment it left the old man’s body, it turned into a solid, transparent jelly-like whitish substance.

    Within a few breaths, the old man’s soul power could no longer be seen in the part where the old man was lying flat on the bed. The beige soul power was like a piece of clothing, which was taken off by an unknown force.

    And the jelly-like thing slowly spread out and gradually elongated…

   It looked like a soul born from the elderly man’s body.

    Yang Yang was stunned by the scene in front of him, staring blankly at the thing sprouting from the elderly man’s body, unable to recover.

    But Archibald had come to his senses and took out a firearm from the storage space, loaded it with a “click”, and pointed it at the old man on the bed—to be precise, it was the egg-shaped “soul” that gradually grew from elderly man’s body.

    “Little Duke, don’t shoot.”

    At the very moment, the old village head stopped Archibald’s movement, and stepped forward with other old people, blocking Archibald.

    Archibald’s face was cold and he didn’t retract his gun, “That’s a soul beast.”

    The expressions of the old people were calm, but Yang Yang’s eyes widened: “Soul beast?”

    He had seen a soul beast before, both films and combat footage. ——Soul power beasts had all kinds of strange appearances, but each level was about the same size and their bodies are translucent white, covered with blood vessel-like blue networks.

    But the one in front of him didn’t seem to have any blue blood vessels.

    No, there were.

    Yang Yang took back his soul power vision and then saw the connection between the “soul beast” and the old man’s body, the place covered by the beige soul power before, was now entranced in a light transparent blue.

    “He’s not one yet.”

    The old village chief looked at Archibald, “Please trust us little Duke and give him a little more time.”

    Yang Yang thought this was a bit strange, thought about it carefully, and then his heart skipped a beat. He looked up at the old man on the bed.

    ——Although the eyes were closed, the elderly man’s chest was still heaving slightly.

    “He’s still alive.”

    Yang Yang was stunned, he couldn’t understand what was happening in front of him.

    The old village chief shook his head: “He is dead. But, he may be able to live in another way.”

    Archibald didn’t back down: “In what way?”

    The old village chief didn’t hide it either: “Soul.”

    Archibald frowned, although the Lesters used soul power and also had the concept of soul, but the soul was more a synonym for self-awareness, soul palace and soul power system.

    In this way, an objectively existing independent “soul”, even in this world, was a myth.

    “I know you won’t believe it, but even if it’s a soul beast, it’s just a weak soul beast that can’t even be considered an A-level one. Wait a bit, little Duke.”

    Archibald didn’t answer and he didn’t retract his gun. No shots were fired either.

    The old village chief smiled, then turned to look at the old man on the bed and his “soul”.

    They waited for another two minutes, and the old man’s “soul” took shape completely. It was not the animal shape of a soul beast, but a human-like bowling ball shape.

    The moment it completely detached from the old man’s body, the old man’s breathing also completely stopped. But the light blue color at its tail didn’t disappear, instead it flickered like a firefly, as if it was wrestling with something, then the blue color spread up a little bit, only to be suppressed a little bit later.

    The whole process lasted about five minutes, and in the end, blue won.

    The blue color began to spread upwards, not like blood vessel-like lines, but like ink soaking paper.

    “Aii.”

    Seeing this, the old village chief sighed heavily and the other old people also shook their heads.

    Then, something that surprised Yang Yang happened—the old village head suddenly pulled out a dagger and then stabbed it into the old man’s “soul”.

    Obviously it was just a harmless knife, but the “soul” was like a punctured balloon, shattered in an instant and then disappeared in an instant.

    There was no soul crystal drop that was unique to soul beasts, nor any other traces.

    After everything calmed down, Archibald withdrew his gun and looked at the old village chief, “That’s why you refused to leave with us.”

    The old village chief nodded helplessly: “Yes. We don’t know why it became like this. The little Duke may still be able to protect us when it’s just a matter of a simple medicine stone chip, but what if it was soul materialization?”

    Archibald frowned and a while, then fell silent —he couldn’t protect.

    Soul, a mystery that had surrounded Lesters for thousands of years and had not been solved, if a possible answer appeared in front of the public, what chaos would world usher in?

    The old village chief waved his hand to let the people outside disperse and then said to Archibald and Yang Yang: “The little Duke and his wife should go to rest too.”

    Both Yang Yang and Archibald still had a lot of questions, but they also They all had the same premonition—the old village head wouldn’t say anything.

    In such a village that was forgotten by the world, people were born in pain and could only wait for death for the rest of their lives. Only the destination after death could become their hope and belief to live on.

    Such a hope, even if the old village chief knew the “truth”, he would not have spoken it out.

    And Yang Yang and Archibald didn’t want to break this hope. So they chose to remain silent and stopped asking questions.

    Yang Yang: “Let’s go back and rest.”

    Archibald: “Okay.”

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Author’s early idea for this novel’s title (which translates to, “Marry In With a Cub) was “I, the duchess, start a supermarket”

Author’s brain hole?!?!