It was late at night.
Insects buzzed like boiling water, clamoring in the grass. It was a kind of clamor unlike the noise of daytime. Even so, most people in Suian City were asleep by this hour.
He Ping was not asleep, but not because he was an insomniac or unable to sleep. He simply had almost no need for it.
The Formless Secret Treasury contained a Taoist art called "Soul-Forging Palace," also known as the "Nine Palaces Bright Moon Ascension Method." This art held that all things possessed a spirit, with humans being the foremost. The spiritual nature of a person came from the dantian and the joints throughout the body. Hidden within the upper dantian, Niwan, were nine chambers of the true spirit, known as the Nine Palaces.
These nine palaces were Mingtang Palace, Dongfang Palace, Niwan Palace, Liuzhu Palace, Tianting Palace, Jizhen Palace, Danxuan Palace, Taihuang Palace, and Yudi Palace.
This secret method focused on quiet contemplation and gathering the spirit. It transformed the true spiritual light within one's soul into a bright moon that illuminated the Nine Palaces of the upper dantian. Like adding oil to a lamp, one lit the palaces one after another. This was called Soul-Forging Palace.
This Taoist art was used to sharpen the mind's acuity and strengthen the wisdom of one's thoughts. In the end, it allowed one to set the soul in motion and comprehend the Great Dao. Practicing it brought the benefit of making a day's progress every thousand miles.
After all these years, He Ping's Nine Palaces Bright Moon Ascension Method had nearly reached Great Cheng. Years ago, he had already lit eight soul palaces one after another: Niwan, Mingtang, Dongfang, Liuzhu, Tianting, Jizhen, Danxuan, and Yudi. For some reason, though, he had made no progress with the last one, Taihuang Palace...
According to Wu Yousheng, once all nine soul palaces had been forged, one would have the chance to enter the Dao Realm and ascend to the heavens in a single step. One's cultivation would become unfathomably profound, and one would gain all manner of incredible powers.
Yet He Ping was still a long way from that step. Perhaps the Formless Secret Treasury itself was flawed, or perhaps his vital essence had been depleted too greatly for him to light Taihuang Palace and break through the final level in one fell swoop. But because of his constitution, he also possessed an unusual ability—or perhaps it was a kind of innate trait.
It was worth mentioning that the greatest difference between him and ordinary people actually stemmed from his identity as a transmigrator. He only discovered this after cultivating Soul-Forging Palace: he possessed two souls.
One soul was naturally the one he had brought with him when he transmigrated. The other belonged to the original owner of this body, the true young master of the He Family, He Ping.
Unlike his own soul, though, the original He Ping's soul was steeped in deathly stillness. It was muddled and dazed, without the slightest sign of life.
He Ping had no idea why it was like this. Perhaps the original He Ping had already died when he transmigrated into the body, but the soul of that seven- or eight-year-old child had somehow remained, reduced to a muddled, senseless state.
He Ping had tried to rouse the original body's soul, but to no avail. It was like an empty eggshell, hollow inside, with not the slightest trace of intelligence remaining.
Strangely, however, after cultivating the Soul-Forging Palace art, He Ping gradually discovered that he could control the original body's soul—or rather, that the original body's soul had become his secondary soul.
There was no way to put the situation into words, and He Ping himself could not explain it. When he deliberately controlled this secondary soul, it could handle all sorts of tasks... For instance, he could use the hollow soul to cultivate the Soul-Forging Palace art, or issue it simple commands and have it control his body in his place.
This hollow soul allowed him to split his attention in two. He could control his left and right hands to do different things, run while sleeping, or read two books at once...
Perhaps because the hollow soul lacked intelligence, it could only handle simple tasks. Even so, it was a tremendous help to He Ping.
Perhaps it was because he was born with two souls, combined with the extraordinary power of the Soul-Forging Palace secret art, but after beginning his cultivation, He Ping almost never needed to sleep. When he was tired, he would switch places with the hollow soul and rest a little. Alternatively, he could have the hollow soul sleep in his place, allowing him to stay mentally sharp for long periods.
He Ping also strongly suspected that his cultivation was progressing so quickly, and that his vital energy and spirit were being depleted far beyond normal, because he possessed two souls.
At that moment, he was tucked away in his side room, holding a vermilion brush and dotting the eyes.
That was right: he was giving the finishing touches to several paper puppets he had made from bamboo-strip frames and lake paper, painting their eyes and bringing them to life. These paper puppets, made from specially treated paper mulberry bark, were usually funerary objects offered to the dead and burned for them on the seventh day after their passing.
There was a long-standing folk rule in the paper-puppet trade, a strange and peculiar one: never dot the eyes of a paper puppet.
As the saying went, "Dot the eyes of a painted dragon, and it will fly away." Many believed that once a paper puppet's eyes were dotted, it would gain spiritual energy, making it easy for a ghost to attach itself to the puppet and bring misfortune.
But for a cultivator like He Ping, such things were hardly cause for concern. As he ground ink on a blood-red inkstone, he swept his brush across the paper puppets, dotting their eyes.
With each dab of the vermilion brush, he made a hand seal and murmured a chant. As his incantation flowed, the paper puppets, which had been expressionless, began to display different looks, one after another.
They seemed like a crowd of living people. The dozen or so paper puppets in the side room had been lifeless objects, but with a light touch of the cinnabar brush, they all came alive in that instant.
Some of the paper mulberry puppets wore eerie smiles; some scowled in anger; some were overcome with grief; others looked sorrowful. A rare few had twisted faces, their expressions filled with terror.
"Man's five viscera transform into the five vital energies, giving rise to joy, anger, grief, worry, and fear. Thus, joy and anger harm the vital energy; joy and anger harm the vital energy, while cold and heat harm the body. Great rage harms yin, and overwhelming joy harms yang. Rebellious energy surges upward, filling the channels and stripping away the form. When joy and anger are unchecked, and cold and heat are excessive, life itself cannot be secure..."
In the candlelight, a trace of a smile suddenly appeared on He Ping's wan, pale face.
"After gathering so many materials and spending a great deal of silver, I can finally put this Paper Puppet Spirit Art to use."
In the Immortal Puppet Sect's Formless Secret Treasury, these paper mulberry puppets were called the Paper Puppet Spirit Art. The technique originally belonged to the paper effigy makers, a heterodox branch of the occult arts, before the Immortal Puppet Sect adopted and refined it.
The puppets recorded in the Formless Secret Treasury came in all shapes and varieties, and there were quite a few of them. Some had fearsome power, while others were so strange and unpredictable that they were hard to fathom.
The Paper Puppet Spirit Art was not a superior puppet technique. The Three Corpses Secret Demon Puppet, the Vajra Demon Statue, the Emperor Aspect Divine Soldier, and the Qianji Armored Beast recorded in the treasury were all far more powerful than it.
But the Paper Puppet Spirit Art had one advantage: it was relatively easy to make, and the manufacturing process took less time.
Of course, that was only in comparison to the time needed to refine other puppets. For He Ping, simply making all the necessary preparations for the Paper Puppet Spirit Art had already consumed a great deal of manpower and resources.
First of all, the material used to make the Paper Puppet Spirit Puppets was a specially treated paper mulberry bark. Common paper mulberry paper was mostly made from the bark of mulberry trees, mountain cherry trees, or paper mulberry trees.
The papermaking process was not only complicated, but expensive as well. During production, the paper had to be treated with the sap of Iron-Heart Wood and precious medicinal wine before it could be used.
However, this paper had its advantages: it could not be cut by blades or scissors, and was impervious to fire and rain. It was also extraordinarily tough. After being refined with magic arts, it could even summon souls and draw in spirits.
Once these paper puppets had been made from paper mulberry bark, the practitioner only needed to summon a ghost or spirit and attach it to one. Then, with the proper magic arts, the puppets could be driven to move like the wind, remain impervious to blades and spears, and wield all manner of abilities beyond those of ordinary people.
"That alone isn't enough. The most special thing about paper puppets is that they need to absorb five kinds of killing intent, mixed with the five emotions of joy, anger, grief, worry, and fear. One must extract their spiritual essence, refining and transforming the yin spirits into curse spirits... Once they reach this stage, the paper puppets' power increases greatly. They can also unleash curse-spirit flames against their enemies and form an array that specifically bewilders the six desires, confuses the mind, and muddles the intellect. It's a formidable art in its own right."