"This is a... Eyeless Bodhisattva?"
He Ping felt a little surprised. There weren't many temples in the northern lands, though there were plenty of Taoist temples. He was unfamiliar with this Bodhisattva statue carved from black stone, especially when he saw it sitting cross-legged, its hands spread to either side, with an eyeball set into each palm.
"What a strange Bodhisattva statue."
He didn't reach out to touch it. Instead, his expression turned wary, and his gaze quickly shifted elsewhere.
"What's this?"
He Ping looked slightly surprised.
As it turned out, the female corpse beside it was undergoing a transformation. White fuzz had been growing slowly on her body, but the moment the Bodhisattva statue was brought out, its growth stopped...
The corpse's head and face quickly returned to their normal appearance.
"Is this the effect of the Eyeless Bodhisattva? Still, it's a bit of a shame..."
He Ping had initially been somewhat disappointed, since this Black Stone Bodhisattva was unlikely to be a treasure that could prolong life, which made it of little value to him. However, it could suppress a corpse's transformation after encountering baleful intent, so it was likely a treasure after all. Taking it with him couldn't hurt.
"While I'm at it, I'll take the corpse, this person, and the Bodhisattva statue with me."
He Ping stayed inside the sedan. First, he used the Eight Element Bone Locking Method to seal the corpse that seemed likely to transform, along with the Bodhisattva statue, then had several paper puppets carry them away.
The paper puppets quickly lifted the sedan. Sitting in his sedan chair, he quietly steadied his breathing. Now that the Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array had been broken, the area around this ghost domain was undergoing violent changes.
In the blink of an eye, the village buildings vanished, and the mountain hollow became a desolate mass grave.
As for the ghosts that had occupied the village, most had fled into the Nether Realm and wouldn't appear again.
Only a few human and horse corpses remained in the mass grave. They belonged to the men of the Hu Ma Gang.
"The Hu Ma Gang... It's as good as finished now."
He Ping said this lightly, then shook his head and lowered the paper curtain. With nothing in the ghost domain to restrain them, the paper sedan puppets lifted the sedan and turned into a shadowy mass. They streamed quickly through the shadows of the trees, gradually disappearing into the void.
Several days later, the Hu Ma Gang's second-in-command, Chen Xing Stone, mysteriously vanished. All the men sent to track down and assassinate Xie San had died in a mass grave thirty li outside Suian City.
Without a doubt, the news that Xie San was dead and Chen Er was missing sent shockwaves through the Hu Ma Gang.
The Hu Ma Gang was a major force in Mobei, and Xie San was a formidable figure in the martial world. He was well-known throughout Beizhou Prefecture and the northern lands, and famous even beyond Lingbei Pass. His death was certain to cause an uproar in the martial world.
Xie San and Chen Xing Stone had also been the mainstays of the entire Hu Ma Gang. With the first and second-in-command both gone, several of Xie San's sworn sons might turn against one another, causing the whole gang to fall apart.
If the Hu Ma Gang really did collapse in an internal struggle, it would mean a major reshuffling of the martial world's forces in North Prefecture.
The vacuum left by the Hu Ma Gang's absence would be filled by other forces, and the situation around Suian City would change as a result... Yet none of this seemed to have anything to do with He Ping.
Although Xie San had died at the He Family's banquet, it had little effect on a wealthy household like theirs.
The He Family was involved in the martial world, but had never truly immersed itself in it. Besides, with its official standing, it had always maintained an air of detachment.
As for He Ping himself, he had spent the past few days behind closed doors studying the items he had taken from Wandering Soul Village.
This secret room in the He Family mansion had been protected by the Immortal Puppet Sect's secret wards, which could block magical tracking and prying eyes from outsiders.
"I really didn't expect that my biggest haul this time would be this black umbrella..."
He Ping opened the black umbrella in his hand. After the evil ghost guarding the Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array had been killed, it had left behind this large black umbrella. When he brought it back and examined it, he discovered that it concealed a mystery.
The umbrella itself was made in an ancient style and looked quite old. Its ribs, shaft, and handle were made of some unknown material. They clearly had the grain of bamboo, yet rang like metal when struck.
The black umbrella's design was more like an ornate ceremonial canopy used by nobles when traveling. Only part of the canopy had been damaged, making it look more like an ordinary black umbrella now.
He Ping opened the umbrella, gripped its handle, held it above his head, and spun it once.
Whoosh...
The black umbrella turned slightly, and a low, whistling wind sounded through the air, like the wailing of ghosts.
The black umbrella held by the evil ghost in the Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array was itself a magical artifact.
However, He Ping didn't know how the black umbrella had been refined, or what it was used for. But back then, the evil ghost guarding the ancestral hall had used a powerful forbidden technique that had caught him off guard.
"That wasn't the power of the Screaming Soul Blood Silk Array, but a technique similar to a ward. It wouldn't be bad if I could master it."
He had spent several days puzzling over it and trying different methods. At last, he discovered something strange about the inside of the umbrella canopy.
"Looks like several cultivation techniques were drawn on the inside of the canopy in a special way. They're invisible by ordinary means, but the writing can be revealed with a solution..."
After he applied the solution to the inside of the black umbrella, several lines of text, like ghostly scribbles, appeared.
"But these aren't any sacred scriptures or true words of the Dao. They're unorthodox arts mixed with sorcery, prayers for deliverance, and shamanic healing methods. Still, there's something in here that's of great use to me!"
The volume of the Formless Secret Treasury in He Ping's possession was far more sophisticated than the several spells recorded in the black umbrella. Things like "Nailing Footprints to Track a Villain's Soul," "Making a Straw Man to Take the Place of an Unborn Fetus," "Crossing a Pass and Dispelling Baleful Intent," and "The Tongue-Sore Curse"...
These kinds of tricks practiced by spirit mediums and witches were of little use to He Ping. However, he had noticed that one of the spells recorded in the umbrella was called "Borrowing Yin Lifespan."
"Borrowing Yin Lifespan" had an upper and a lower part. The upper part was called the Five-Child Peach-Plucking Method, also known as the Immortal Peach Corpse Pill. The method required finding five female corpses carrying children in their wombs. Their pregnancies had to be full-term, and the fetuses had to die before birth. This would create Mother-Child Corpse Baleful Intent.
If their bellies were cut open and the infant corpses removed, the five of them could be used to nourish a peach tree. The five infant corpses only had to be buried beneath the tree. Once the tree ripened, it would bear five Human-Face Fruits. The fruits could then be picked and refined into Immortal Peach Corpse Pills.
A single Corpse Pill could let someone borrow ten years of Yin lifespan. However, after taking one, they would fear sunlight and grow withered and gaunt, becoming half human and half ghost. They would need a Yin coffin to maintain the faint spark of life within them.
After all, an Immortal Peach Corpse Pill couldn't extend one's lifespan. It could only force life to linger, unable to add years to a living person's Yang lifespan. This was because people had only Yang lifespans, not Yin ones, while ghosts had Yin lifespans but no Yang ones. Borrowing Yin lifespan meant adding to one's own years by taking them from Yin spirits and ghosts. It was a forbidden art.
"What a sinister method. Refining the Immortal Peach Corpse Pill is quite complicated and time-consuming,
"and to be honest... I don't have much time left myself. How could I find the Mother-Child Corpse Baleful Intent, grow Human-Face Fruits, and then slowly refine them into Immortal Peach Corpse Pills?"
He Ping shook his head. Compared with the Immortal Peach Corpse Pill's method of refinement, he preferred the technique in the lower part of "Borrowing Yin Lifespan."