The nurturing art of witch poison was also called the Beautiful woman's head.
Because witch poison in the Western Regions was mostly passed down through women, few men practiced it. This was also related to the pastoral tribes. Men generally fought outside, while women stayed behind to raise cattle and sheep, continue the bloodline, and so on.
One of their duties was treating sick members of the tribe and livestock. However, since this was the Western Regions, its traditions differed greatly from those of the Central Plains, and a kind of witchcraft developed from it. Thus, the nurturing art Lan Caijie learned was also called the Beautiful woman's head.
In truth, it involved lodging the body and soul within the body of a Strange Beast. Since the two needed to be separated, the body would form a lodging area inside the Strange Beast's body, usually in its head. The soul, meanwhile, would enter the Strange Beast's brain, suppress its soul, and seize its nest. Only then could the nurturing succeed.
Once the soul occupied the brain while the body lodged in the head, she could attend to both at all times and conveniently check on their condition. If the body developed a problem, the person being nurtured might ultimately turn into a Strange Beast and never return to her body. Therefore, the nurtured body was the top priority and had to be watched constantly.
Thus, when Western Regions witchcraft nurtured a body, it lodged it in the head. Since it was attended to by the soul and washed by energy, it gradually became affected. What had initially been a lump of flesh forming an area to gestate the body slowly transformed into the image of the head of the body being housed within. It could even project the soul's expressions