Chapter 17: The Scripture of Deadly Poison

For Jiang Ping’an, being expelled from his master’s tutelage was nothing short of a thunderbolt on a clear day. In his heart, he was acutely aware that all his current reputation and power stemmed from Yan Buyu. If Yan Buyu cast him out, it meant the end of his career as a doctor.

From that moment on, a new title would cling to him: “The Abandoned Disciple of Master Yan.” This name would shadow him for life. With it, every resource and connection Yan possessed would be forever closed to him. His reputation would plummet from the heavens to the earth, his status and influence would vanish, and even with his medical skills, no hospital would dare employ him. Jiang Ping’an was now a stray dog, despised and cast out.

He collapsed in despair, sitting on the ground, glaring at Master Yan and then at Zhuang Zhou, his eyes brimming with rage.

“Zhuang Zhou, you’re the one who brought me to this! I’ll tear you limb from limb! I’ll never let you go!” he howled, hysterical.

Just yesterday, he was basking in glory, on the verge of being promoted to deputy director. Now he had nothing. Wu Dongjie would soon see him struck from the hospital’s roster, and all his former colleagues and subordinates would scramble to distance themselves. Even Liu Genghong, who had always stood by his side, took two steps away as if Jiang Ping’an had suddenly become a plague. No one wanted to be tainted.

Zhuang Zhou, having regained a trace of strength, stood up and approached Jiang Ping’an. “Those who court evil will meet their own destruction. Everything that happened today, you brought upon yourself. You have no one else to blame.”

“I’ll kill you!”

Driven mad with rage, Jiang Ping’an snatched up a scalpel and lunged at Zhuang Zhou. But before he could get close, Ye Song seized his arm and, with a forceful twist, broke it.

A sickening crack rang out.

Jiang Ping’an’s arm bent at an unnatural angle. Zhuang Zhou glanced at Ye Song, gratitude shining in his eyes. He hadn’t expected Jiang Ping’an to attack so suddenly—evil truly does reap its own reward. But Zhuang Zhou couldn’t help but shudder. This woman was absolutely ruthless—her first move destroyed the very hand that could have allowed Jiang Ping’an to become a black-market doctor.

With his arm ruined, even the underworld would have no place for him. Jiang Ping’an was finished.

Looking at the grotesquely twisted limb, Zhuang Zhou felt a chill run through his heart. Nothing is more poisonous than a woman’s heart! If he recalled correctly, he had once offended this woman as well. At the thought, a cold sweat broke out down his back.

The ICU’s critical care room was locked from within, with only Zhuang Zhou inside.

Stripped to the waist, wisps of white vapor began seeping from his limbs and bones. In an instant, his skin flushed bright red, like a crab steamed alive. His face contorted, and his black pupils had turned into blood-red, icy serpent eyes. The murderous aura emanating from him was like that of a war god.

This was the first layer of the Venom God’s Art—the entry level.

Suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed through his mind, as if a thousand needles pierced his spirit. His body trembled slightly, then violently. The pain was excruciating.

A trace of bitterness flashed across Zhuang Zhou’s face.

This body was truly weak! Even using silver needles to stimulate his energy and neutralize Old Ye’s poison had left him depleted. Though the Venom God’s Art was supposed to be immune to all toxins, forcibly stimulating his power this way had taken a heavy toll. Now, after saving someone, he found himself afflicted by a strange, chaotic energy within.

Damn it! He’d hoped that saving a life would win him karmic merit, but instead he’d been bitten by the backlash. Though the Venom God’s Art boasted immunity to poisons, forcibly pushing his limits with silver needles had drained him. Now, his body felt hollow and weak.

There are three kinds of weakness: deficiency of yang, deficiency of yin, and deficiency of qi. Zhuang Zhou felt like cursing. He’d believed that with the Venom God’s Art, he could soar again, peerless under heaven, but now his lofty ambitions had been dashed to the ground. Just as he, the newly reborn Poison Immortal, began anew, he found himself hollow and enfeebled.

As he wrestled with these frustrations, a tattered black ancient book began flipping rapidly through the pages in his mind, then abruptly stopped. On the ink-black page, a line of blood-red characters appeared: “Deficiency of yin and yang—may be resolved upon attaining the second layer of the Venom God’s Art.”

In that instant, Zhuang Zhou realized that this ancient black book had somehow appeared in his mind. Each filthy, tattered page hovered silently, and the words he’d just seen had emerged from its pages.

He couldn’t help but wonder what this thing was.

As the thought flickered through his mind, the book snapped shut. On its battered black cover, three blood-red archaic seal characters materialized, bold and flowing, each stroke as strong as iron wire, perfectly balanced and symmetrical, exuding a mysterious and ancient power.

“The Great Poison Sutra.”

A jolt ran through Zhuang Zhou’s heart, and a wild fervor flashed across his twisted features. Heaven never truly cuts off a man’s path. It seemed fate had not forgotten him; though his body was afflicted, he had never imagined that, upon reincarnation, this treasure would come with him!

The Great Poison Sutra—sacred manual of the Poison Dao, coveted by all who walk the way of poison in the other world. It encompassed everything: poisons and antidotes, arts both toxic and healing, methods of spreading and dispelling poison, each described in exhaustive detail. Every poison master had dreamed of obtaining it.

There had been a saying: “He who holds the Great Poison Sutra holds the world.” In the past, Zhuang Zhou had never understood what made this book so special. Now he did. It was a living book, capable of thought and deduction. Otherwise, how could it have responded to him? For it to have always hidden within his body truly made his scalp tingle. Yet, excitement surged in him, too.

He had once risked everything for this book, offending all the righteous and evil, black and white sects of the other world’s cultivators—even losing his life for it. He’d thought it all for naught, yielding no benefit. But now, it seemed that wasn’t the case at all. Somehow, it had come with him to this world!

Fate!

The Great Poison Sutra answered again.

With a flash of insight, Zhuang Zhou realized that this was indeed an opportunity. The Venom God’s Art was his own creation in his past life, theoretically divided into nine layers. He’d only finished compiling the first five layers, and had only ever personally mastered the first.

Even that first layer had allowed him to surpass his previous limits. Now, with the countless secret techniques and formulas within the Great Poison Sutra, he believed the Venom God’s Art could finally be perfected.

If perfected and cultivated to the peak, Zhuang Zhou could scarcely imagine what heights of power he might reach.

But another problem arose. In this world, spiritual energy was nearly nonexistent, and poisons and medicines here differed greatly from those in his former life. The same first-layer technique that had made him a dominant force in the other world was now limited to miraculous medicine and the occasional venomous snake or bat. The difference in the world’s energy determined everything. Where a single punch would shatter mountains in a world rich with spiritual energy, here, it might only break a brick.

Even drawing upon the first layer of the Venom God’s Art now took immense effort and brought about backlash. To master the second layer would require not just careful adaptation of the techniques to this world, but also critical external ingredients.

The road ahead would be long. He’d have to take it step by step: refining the second layer of the art, seeking the right materials, and striving to break through as soon as possible. Only strength was the true foundation. If he’d possessed it, a pest like Jiang Ping’an would have been crushed with a finger—no need for all this struggle and maneuvering. Alas, rice is eaten one mouthful at a time, and the road must be walked step by step.

It seemed that being good and doing good deeds didn’t pay.

Steadying his tangled thoughts, Zhuang Zhou began to condense the first layer of the Venom God’s Art.

Great rewards require great effort. Cultivating this art demanded rare and potent poisons, and the higher he climbed, the scarcer and more complex the required toxins. Zhuang Zhou knew this well—the process would be long, and would require luck.

Having just ingested the venom of the Tianshan Snow Toad and covertly activated his poison arts, he worked to lay a solid foundation. This body was frail; to cultivate the Venom God’s Art, every physical metric had to be up to par. Strengthening the body was essential. The venom’s stimulation sent the art’s energy surging through him, attacking every muscle, bone, vein, and cell, each one burning with fiery pain.

The agony was immense.

This savage, wildfire-like pain was all too familiar to Zhuang Zhou, and as he ran the Venom God’s Art through his body again and again, he gradually recaptured the sensation he remembered.

Yes.

That familiar, almost nostalgic feeling—it had finally returned.

Three hours passed, then half a day. Zhuang Zhou sat cross-legged on the bed, motionless as a statue. Gradually, his body began to change—not in size, but his upper body’s muscles lost their former softness, becoming taut and well-shaped. This was the benefit of the Venom God’s Art.

The first layer, as its name implied, used poisons and inner methods to nourish the body and spirit, ultimately achieving unity of mind and form.

The Crimson Venom Vulture was a terrifying beast in his past world, a master of the skies that fed on dragons and killer whales, possessed of an indestructible body and the most fearsome digestive fluids—one drop could poison an entire sea, eradicating all life for a hundred years.

Zhuang Zhou had only decided to create his supreme poison art after witnessing the Crimson Venom Vulture’s terrible power, naming it after the bird.

The Venom God’s Art was not only a grand ideal of combining poison and medicine, but also the embodiment of his ambition to dominate the world. Now, reborn and at his weakest—no stronger than a mortal—he was also at his strongest, for he could rebuild and perfect the Venom God’s Art from scratch. In this new life, he would climb to the true summit of the Poison Dao.