Several days after the trip to Four Peaks Mountain, He Ping had already retreated into his private chamber to cultivate in seclusion. He had plenty to do, and the most important thing was to preserve and refine the Mountain Demon's heart.
"There's no need to rush into the Heart-Swapping Technique. Once I replace my heart, my entire body's qi and blood will undergo a transformation unlike any before. My constitution will be extremely weak during the process. I have too many things to deal with right now, so there's no need to hurry."
He Ping knew that after the heart transplant, his qi and blood would be depleted, and his body would likely remain weak for a while. His strength would also fall by a level.
Think about it: the heart was a blood pump, an organ in the circulatory system, and the center that governed the qi and blood throughout the body. Replacing it was a major bodily transformation. He would need time to adjust before his constitution could be thoroughly improved.
"But I can't put off dealing with the Mountain Demon's heart. If too much time passes and the spiritual essence within this demon heart is lost, it will gradually lose its vitality and become unusable."
The Mountain Demon was three hundred years old, barely qualifying as a great demon. Its heart had been ripped out while it was still alive, yet it could keep beating for days afterward. That showed just how vigorous the vitality of demons and monsters was. But even such vigorous vitality had its limits. Given enough time, the demon heart would rot and turn into a lump of putrid flesh.
At the moment, the heart bristled with countless gold needles, giving it a rather peculiar appearance. Layer upon layer of runes covered its surface, while strips of cloth wound around it like bandages.
But unlike when it had first been removed, the Mountain Demon's heart had clearly shrunk considerably. It had been the size of a mature coconut; even if he wanted to replace his own heart, it would never fit in a human chest. Before the transplant, he had to refine it with a secret method of the Immortal Puppet Sect, shrinking it several times over until it could serve as a replacement heart.
"I've spent days on this. At last, I've finished half the work."
He Ping held the Mountain Demon's heart in his palm, feeling the powerful vitality within it, and nodded with satisfaction. The process of preparing the demon heart had taken two full days and nights.
He inspected it once more and, after confirming that nothing had gone wrong, placed it in a glass jar filled with pale green, transparent liquid. The fluid would better preserve the heart's vitality. When the time was right, he could perform the transplant.
"I can't replace my heart with the Mountain Demon's just yet, but I can remake both my hands into Severed Ghost Hands..."
Earlier, He Ping had made a series of deals with Chixinzi, and the two had reached a preliminary agreement: they would trade Immortal Puppet Sect techniques, as well as the methods for crafting the puppets recorded in the Formless Secret Treasury.
Wu Yousheng of the Immortal Puppet Sect had found five successors, passing a volume of the Formless Secret Treasury to each of them. But none of the five had received a complete inheritance. This was meant to force the disciples to fight one another for the five volumes and slaughter each other in the process.
"Rather than fighting to the death, Junior Brother and I might as well trade our arts and take what we need. Besides, even if we can't make much progress in the Immortal Puppet Sect's inheritance, we can always change our course and turn to the Sanyuan Devil Palace's Seed Demon Technique. We can move forward or retreat, without cutting off our escape or leaving ourselves no way back."
Chixinzi's words made a great deal of sense, but He Ping did not believe him in the slightest. Setting aside the Sanyuan Devil Palace's inheritance, he did not believe Wu Yousheng had passed on his arts without laying other traps. The Immortal Puppet Sect's method of raising Gu surely had more troublesome contingencies. It could not be as simple as it appeared.
After all, the Immortal Puppet Sect's disciples were not all fools. Trading their copies of the Formless Secret Treasury would surely be easier than killing one another to seize those secret volumes. He Ping and Chixinzi had thought of trading them, so why wouldn't the others?
Still, the suggestion of exchanging arts suited him perfectly. Chixinzi was bound to know some powerful techniques. Neither the Severed Ghost Hand nor the Red-Scaled Earth-Armored Centipede Dragon appeared in He Ping's copy of the Formless Secret Treasury, and he was quite interested in both puppet arts.
"I'm very interested in your Severed Ghost Hand and Red-Scaled Earth-Armored Centipede Dragon, Senior Brother. Why don't you name your price?"
He Ping asked Chixinzi what he wanted in exchange.
"How about the Nine-Death Substitute Witch Puppet?"
Chixinzi made the suggestion tentatively.
He Ping laughed.
"Senior Brother, that's my trump card. Do you really think I'd hand it over so easily?"
He was no fool. He would never trade away the Nine-Death Substitute Witch Puppet. It was his last-resort means of saving his life.
The Nine-Death Substitute Witch Puppet could take nine fatal calamities in his place. Beyond that, it could also exchange positions and feign death to help him escape.
He Ping suspected that Chixinzi was unwilling to fall out with him completely because he feared the puppet.
After all, with the witch puppet in his hands, no ambush or assassination could succeed in one strike. As soon as it was triggered by an attack, the Nine-Death Substitute Witch Puppet would take the calamity in He Ping's place. If danger arose, it could exchange positions and whisk him several miles away.
As the saying went, "Fail to kill a tiger, and it will come back to harm you." If Chixinzi suddenly struck to kill but failed to finish the job in one blow, He Ping could escape. The two of them would then become mortal enemies, and He Ping's counterattack would be a serious problem.
The old man understood that unless he had a foolproof plan and secretly laid a deadly trap, he could never finish He Ping off for good. Without that assurance, the old ghost would not lightly make an enemy of him.
When He Ping refused his offer, Chixinzi merely smiled, unruffled.
"Since that's out, Junior Brother, do you have something else worth trading for my Severed Ghost Hand?"
He Ping lowered his head and thought it over before replying, "My copy of the Formless Secret Treasury records a Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet. It gathers the baleful causes of the world to refine three demon puppets: Green Corpse, White Corpse, and Red Corpse. Once completed, they can seize a person's true essence and, in the blink of an eye, reduce their body to dust and bones and utterly destroy their soul. Their power is almost inconceivable."
"So it's the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet..."
Chixinzi's expression turned solemn.
"I know of this Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet. Once the three secret demon puppets—the Green Corpse, White Corpse, and Red Corpse—are complete, even those who have entered the Dao can hardly escape their power. This thing is truly formidable."
He furrowed his brow and considered it for a moment, then suddenly smiled.
"But, Junior Brother, refining the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet is an extremely tedious and complicated undertaking. Just gathering all the necessary materials would take ages. Without ten or twenty years of work, you might not manage to refine even one of the three corpses. You've come up with a clever offer..."
"An exchange is always a matter of each side getting what they want, with both sides willing. I'd wager you don't have the detailed blueprints or crafting methods for the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet, Senior Brother. Of course, if you aren't interested in it, we can discuss another deal."
Of the many puppet-crafting methods at his disposal, He Ping had deliberately chosen the most difficult one to trade: the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet.
The puppet's power was immense. Once refined, it could run rampant even among those who had entered the Dao. But the process was anything but easy; simply gathering the materials would take countless years.
Chixinzi had seen through He Ping's intentions. If he chose the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet, he would have to spend decades refining it. Even if he acquired the art, it would be of no use to him in the short term.
Still, he had to admit that the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet was tremendously powerful. He found it hard to let go.
Seeing Chixinzi hesitate, He Ping chuckled to himself and named several other puppet arts.
He had been prepared for this. Every art he named was either extremely time-consuming to refine or called for materials that were hard to find, leaving Chixinzi at a loss.
"Fine. I'll trade for the Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet. And besides the blueprints for the Severed Ghost Hand and the Red-Scaled Earth-Armored Centipede Dragon, I'm also willing to trade you the Heart-Piercing Lock technique for your Milo Blade."
After further discussion, the two exchanged several techniques and puppet-refining methods, each getting what he wanted.
Once he obtained the blueprints for the Severed Ghost Hand, He Ping promptly crafted one.
He had already made up his mind. There was no need to rush into replacing his heart; trying out the Severed Ghost Hand as a puppet limb seemed like a good idea.
"The Severed Ghost Hand has two advantages. First, once I attach the puppet limb, I can activate the Armor-Clad Spirit Light technique. Second, the Severed Ghost Hand can strengthen my ability to control puppets..."
Most puppets of the Immortal Puppet Sect were controlled with the Formless String, a specially refined thread made using a secret art.
The Formless String was a thread driven by the power of the spirit. It was made from the hair of the dead. At the start of the refining process, a person's hair was transformed from coarse to fine. Gradually, it became as thin as a spider's web, and eventually it could turn into a thread with neither shape nor shadow.
Whether it was a Paper Doll Spirit Puppet or a Wood Demon Puppet, as long as one end was attached to a Formless String, it could be controlled at will with the mind.
But a person had only two hands and ten fingers. Once one had mastered the Immortal Puppet Sect's secret arts, dividing one's attention was easy; controlling ten puppets at once was child's play.
At He Ping's level, one finger could control five or six puppets simultaneously. With all ten fingers directing them, he could manage twenty-five or thirty puppets without a hitch.
He could just about manage more than seventy or eighty puppets, or even over a hundred, but spreading his awareness and thoughts so thin came at a cost. Dividing his mind among many tasks was one thing; dividing it among a hundred was bound to increase the burden of calculation.
Besides, no matter how skilled a person was, he still had only two hands and ten fingers. Under ordinary circumstances, it was no problem, but the more puppets he controlled, the more trouble he ran into.
At first, little things might go wrong when linking them up: their movements might slow, or their gestures become too stiff. Over time, his awareness would scatter, and mistakes in controlling the puppets with his ten fingers would inevitably leave a few openings.
Against ordinary foes, such issues were nothing to worry about. No mortal could possibly notice those subtle changes. But against a true expert, those flaws might prove fatal.
"That's where the Severed Ghost Hand truly shines. Attached to my body, this puppet limb can move as nimbly as my own hand. It can also control other Severed Ghost Hands. Once I've practiced until it moves as naturally as my own, I'll have several extra hands, and my ability to control puppets will multiply."
He Ping rolled up one sleeve and raised his hand, its skin pallid with a sickly whiteness. He clenched his fingers into a fist.
"I'll start by remaking my left hand..."