Chapter 262: Grandfather and Granddaughter Meet, Dugu Bo Refuses to Leave

At this moment, time seemed to freeze.

Seeing that her grandfather was still alive and well, the stone that had weighed on Dugu Yan's heart for many years was finally lifted.

No matter the circumstances, her grandfather currently looked safe.

Her grandfather's mental state appeared quite good; he looked nothing like someone suffering in the Spirit Hall Transformation Field, and Dugu Yan even felt he looked better than before he had been captured by the Spirit Hall.

Dugu Yan was now a supervisor and could check the daily work situation of every prisoner.

She glanced at the number on the clothes on her grandfather's chest, 54188, and then found her grandfather's file in the work log.

Looking at the earliest work logs, it had been several years; it seemed her grandfather had been here all along, and judging by the time, he had come when this Transformation Field was first built.

However, this did not match the time her grandfather was captured; there were still several years before that.

During those years, Dugu Bo had been locked in a dungeon; it was only after the Spirit Guidance Shackle was developed that the Transformation Field came into existence.

In this Transformation Field, Dugu Bo could be considered a veteran, having been here from the very beginning.

However, Dugu Bo's personal file was classified, and ordinary people could not view it.

Dugu Yan could only see in the work log that her grandfather completed his work every day, never missing a single day.

It seemed the management here was also unaware of her grandfather's strength, as the assigned work did not match his capabilities, which was why her grandfather could finish it so quickly every day.

The work in this Transformation Field was divided into several categories: stone quarrying, planting, animal husbandry, and processing.

Stone quarrying was arguably the most tiring, and the work assigned to her grandfather was also stone quarrying.

For a Title Douluo, even without soul power, his Body Strength was still very high.

Moreover, her grandfather had also fused with a soul bone, which could enhance his Body Strength.

That her grandfather was still alive proved that the soul bone was still on his body; after all, her grandfather had fused with a Head Soul Bone, and if it were removed, her grandfather would have lost his life long ago.

Dugu Bo's work was very easy for him; the stone quarrying work that others had to spend four hours to complete in the morning, Dugu Bo finished in two.

For the remaining time, Dugu Bo found a cool place to rest; the Transformation Field provided water, and although it was plain boiled water, Dugu Bo drank it with a unique relish.

While sipping the plain water, he directed the other prisoners.

"89757, hurry up, moving so slowly, didn't you eat breakfast? You're not even as good as an old man like me."

"94121, your body is no good; you've only been at it for a little while and you're already panting."

"94188, your movements are soft and weak, like a woman, put more strength into it."

……

Everyone Dugu Bo pointed out wanted to beat him up, but unfortunately, everyone currently lacked soul power, and judging by the way Dugu Bo completed his tasks, they were no match for him at all, so they could only silently endure Dugu Bo's mockery.

Seeing Dugu Bo being so provocative, the other prisoners in the transformation process couldn't help but speed up their stone quarrying, fearing they would be singled out by him.

Seeing this, Dugu Yan couldn't help but laugh; her grandfather was still the same grandfather, his mouth still as poisonous as before.

She then turned to ask a colleague beside her:

"Can they rest once the task is finished? Is that old man with number 54188 always like this?"

A colleague next to her, who was looking down at a Mobile Phone, raised his head after hearing Dugu Yan's question, smiled, and said: "Yes, this 54188 is very efficient, he finishes his tasks very quickly, and it has been like this for years; he rests two hours early in the morning, and the same in the afternoon."

Hearing her colleague say this, Dugu Yan felt very strange.

The prisoners here were sent for labor reform, so how could they be allowed to be so relaxed?

Finishing two hours early proved that the workload was not arranged reasonably; the workload should have been increased.

Although it was her own grandfather, she had been working in Wuhun City for some time, and her work attitude had always been proactive, so she was used to considering things more carefully.

Seeing the confusion on Dugu Yan's face, the colleague continued:

"These prisoners sent for labor reform didn't commit any heinous crimes; they are just here for transformation, which counts as punishment for the mistakes they made before."

"According to the degree of their mistakes, everyone's transformation time is different; some are short, a few months, others are long, ten or twenty years, but they will get out sooner or later."

"Those who committed heinous crimes wouldn't be sent to us; they would have been publicly executed long ago."

"Our work here is still very humane, and there is no need to exploit them."

"They don't have soul power now, just like ordinary people, and their daily work tasks are formulated by the higher-ups after research, so there won't be any cases of over-exhaustion."

"In Wuhun City, everyone has their own use; even prisoners must contribute to Wuhun City."

"So for us, a living person is more important than a dead one."

"If they are alive, they can work every day, all contributing to Wuhun City; if we exploited them and worked them to death, while it wouldn't be much trouble, wouldn't that be one less person working?"

"As for this 54188, that is his own ability; his workload is not small, the same as a robust man, and look at his age, he can finish his tasks two hours early. Look at the others, aren't they working more proactively? That is the effect we want; the people above say this is called the Catfish Effect."

"Don't ask me what a catfish is, I don't know either, I've never seen one; it should be a type of fish Soul Beast, I only heard it from the people above."

"Although I don't know how this old man got in, this old man is not bad; I've chatted with him before, he is very knowledgeable, you can tell at a glance he is a man with a story."

"Don't underestimate this old man, he was probably a somebody in the past; although I don't know his name, basically everyone knows the number 54188."

"Because he doesn't even count as a prisoner now; his transformation period was two years, he could have left years ago, but he just insists on not leaving."

"Insisting on not leaving, of course, someone reported it to the higher-ups, but the final result was that as long as he doesn't commit any mistakes, we don't need to worry about him; he can stay as long as he wants."

"And he earns points for his work every day now; honestly, wouldn't it be better to find a job outside? The points are issued by the Transformation Field, he's just staying in the Transformation Field to fleece us."

When the colleague said this, Dugu Yan was extremely surprised, her eyes wide, wanting to see if the colleague was joking, but she didn't see any abnormal expression on the colleague's face.

This was simply unbelievable.

"Not a prisoner? Insisting on not leaving?"

Dugu Yan never expected that her grandfather was not a prisoner, and that he was the one insisting on staying here and not leaving.

The grandfather she had been looking for for many years, he was insisting on staying in the Transformation Field and not leaving?

He didn't want to leave?

He was unwilling to leave on his own?

Why?

Dugu Yan's mind was full of questions at this moment.

"Right, that's also the reason he's famous. Many people want to know why, but he won't say. Some even went to check his file, only to find it's SSS-level. There aren't many people in the entire Wuhun City who can view files of that level, so this old man must be someone important. You'd better not offend him if you have nothing to do!"

The colleague had warned Dugu Yan in advance that this old man was not someone to be trifled with.

Dugu Yan was now not only shocked but also had questions. She suddenly thought of something: the guard who had handed over the prisoners to her outside earlier was clearly bullshitting her.

If her grandfather wasn't even a prisoner, did he not have visitation rights?

Thinking of this, Dugu Yan scanned the area but didn't see the guard who had handed over the prisoners to her earlier.

"By the way, every time I handed over prisoners before, there was someone specifically responsible for the handover. Isn't he a guard too? Where is he now?"

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and Dugu Yan asked her colleague directly.

"You mean that Zhao Qiankong? He's just a small clerk who sits in an office on the periphery of the Spirit Hall Transformation Field. The work of the guards watching the prisoners inside is the real important job; he has no qualifications to enter at all."

Hearing her colleague say this, Dugu Yan was now very angry; she couldn't wait to run out and beat that Zhao Qiankong up.

Thinking about what he had said to her earlier—half-true, half-false, and vague—it was truly damnable.

Moreover, she had even given him benefits to help her scout for information; other than the SSS-level file being true, not a single word was the truth.

Having just heard from her colleague that he had no qualifications to enter at all, the information he had scouted before was likely just because her grandfather was too famous; he had heard some things and taken them to bullshit her.

Once she found an opportunity, she would definitely beat him up in secret.

At this moment, Zhao Qiankong was still napping in the outer office; he had gone to watch Soul Fighting last night and had watched all night, so he hadn't rested well.

"Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!..."

He suddenly sneezed several times in a row.

"Must have caught a cold from staying up all night watching!"

Zhao Qiankong thought to himself. He didn't yet know what he was about to face; the revenge of a god was something he would have to suffer through.

The day's work finally ended.

At night, there were only ten guards on duty outside, and the prisoners had all returned to their cells to sleep.

Dugu Yan quietly snuck into the cell block and quickly found her grandfather's cell.

Walking to the front of her grandfather's cell door, she had originally been thinking about how to open it, but the cell door opened directly.

"Good granddaughter, come in!"

Dugu Bo stood behind the door and whispered.

Dugu Yan had too many questions to ask Dugu Bo in person, and without thinking too much, she went straight in.

Closing the door, Dugu Bo stopped whispering.

"Yanyan, how did you end up working in Wuhun City? It looks like your position isn't small either."

Before Dugu Yan could speak, Dugu Bo asked first.

"Grandfather, I was just trying to find you!"

After Dugu Yan finished this sentence, she felt very aggrieved; the tears in her eyes could no longer be held back, and with a wail, she burst into tears.

Seeing her granddaughter suddenly crying, Dugu Bo couldn't help but cry along with her. He stepped forward and hugged Dugu Yan, comforting her: "Yanyan, don't cry, don't cry. It's Grandfather's fault for making our Yanyan worry!"

After Dugu Bo finished speaking, Dugu Yan cried even more sadly, as if she wanted to cry out all the grievances of these past few years.

Dugu Yan cried in Dugu Bo's arms, and Dugu Bo cried along with her.

Finally, both of them stopped talking and just hugged each other, sobbing bitterly.

After crying for nearly half an hour, the tears finally stopped.

Dugu Yan looked up at her grandfather and said with a tearful voice: "Grandfather, I heard you could have left a long time ago. Why didn't you leave? Did you forget you still have a granddaughter outside?"

"Yanyan, I need to tell you about this slowly."

"It is true that I could have left a long time ago, but I didn't. You know our family's martial soul, right?"

"It carries its own toxicity. Many clansmen eventually died from the backlash of the martial soul's toxicity. Your father was also backlashed back then."

"Because I was lucky, when the toxic backlash occurred, I found a place that could suppress the toxic backlash. That is the reason I survived the backlash. However, later on, even in that place, the effect of suppressing the backlash became smaller and smaller, and the interval between my backlashes became shorter and shorter."

"If nothing unexpected had happened, I would have likely died from the toxic backlash several years ago."

"Look at this Soul Guidance Shackle on my feet; it is truly a great invention. It can drain all the soul power in the body."

"All of it. Even the parts fused into the flesh and the blood are drained away."

"Because this Soul Guidance Shackle drained all my soul power, there was no toxic soul power left in my body, and I was never backlashed by the toxicity again."

"Furthermore, every time the martial soul automatically generates soul power, it is immediately drained away by the Soul Guidance Shackle."

"What might look like shackles to others is actually the thing that saved my life."

"I had previously sent people to look for you, thinking that since you have been in Cultivation until now, you must have accumulated quite a bit of toxicity, and I was afraid you would also encounter toxic backlash."

"It's a pity that even using the channels of the Spirit Hall, I only knew that you last appeared in Heaven Dou City, and after that, there was no trace of you."

"The Spirit Hall had no reason to lie to me about this. I couldn't find you, had nowhere else to go, and wasn't sure if you were still alive. But I felt that if you were still alive, you would eventually come to the Spirit Hall to find me, so I prepared to wait for you in Wuhun City."

"Moreover, at this time, I discovered that as my soul power was continuously drained, over time, my martial soul began to mutate. Although the mutation is very slow, it can be felt."

"This Soul Guidance Shackle isn't for sale, so I could only stay here."

"Yanyan, where have you been all these years? Even the Spirit Hall couldn't find you."

Dugu Bo explained his situation and really wanted to know where his granddaughter had been all these years.

For so many years, his granddaughter hadn't appeared on the continent, and he had always assumed she had met with foul play. Once the martial soul mutation was complete, he was going to go out and find the culprit who harmed her.

He didn't expect that his granddaughter would appear on her own.

Hearing Dugu Bo's explanation, so that was how it was. Dugu Yan was also a bit speechless.

Of course her grandfather couldn't find her; after she lost her backing, a group of noble disciples at the Heaven Dou Imperial Academy started bullying her. Rather than staying at the academy to be mocked, it was better to go out and gain experience in secret.

Later, she obtained the inheritance of the Poison God, which guided her to the Extreme North, where she met Tang San and the others.

The reason her tracks couldn't be found was because there were few Spirit Hall personnel in the Extreme North, and as Tang San had said, it was a place that even gods could not investigate.

Even if there are some Special Spirit that can track and find people, as long as one enters the Extreme North, such tracking soul skills will also become ineffective.

Moreover, having heard Tang San's account, he offended Jerry and was almost killed by Jerry; it was a god who teleported him to the Extreme North and even told him that Jerry could not find him here.

I have been staying in a place where even tracking soul skills do not work; the Spirit Hall cannot find me, so of course Grandfather cannot find me either.

For many years, the reason hindering me from meeting Grandfather was actually myself.

……

(End of this chapter)