93 6.17

Due to Puppet Warrior Peak's particularly individualistic culture, Ning Taio didn't have to push his way through any disciples during his rush toward Duangan Pang's inner rooms. Far creepier than even the most wooden-faced human guards would have been, however, were the puppet sentries stationed at regular intervals throughout the hallways, each of which creepily rotated its head to follow his progress, then returned to its original stiff position after confirming that he was a guest permitted by its master.

Despite the seemingly lax nature of this peak's security, these mechanical movements cautioned Ning Taio that if Duangan Pang had refused his visit, even he, a Nascent Soul cultivator, would have been thrown out easily. Reminded of his position in this way, by the time he reached the door to the private workshop where the puppet master could almost always be found, he calmed himself and politely knocked, only entering once a toneless voice answered. After all, the problem he had to deal with wasn't one that he could solve by himself.

Upon walking in, the arrangement that greeted him was as precisely organized as usual. In the center of the large space was a heavy wooden table covered with a single row of gleaming instruments, while along the walls were neat stacks of various limbs and body parts. Also displayed on corner shelves were jars of more fragile components such as eyeballs and tongues, fingernails and organs, so that overall, the sterile distribution created an odd impression that innumerable human bodies had been dissected merely to be exhibited in this room.

Suppressing the instinctive shudders that came over him no matter how many times he confronted this sight, Ning Taio briefly dipped his chin to acknowledge the other man who hadn't raised his head from whatever he was operating on, then anxiously explained his sudden visit. "As you know, I had to let He'er go on that trip with the Moqi peak masters, because he wouldn't change his mind no matter what I said. So I gave him the medicine and even had him swear an oath to take it properly, but that Moqi Lirong apparently found out about the Golden Honey Flower in it and stopped him."

Although Duangan Pang hadn't paused fiddling with the arm he'd been dismembering when his guest had entered, he promptly asked, "Color?" in a faintly impatient voice, making it clear that he didn't care about such trivial details.

While his expression twisted at the other's brusqueness, Ning Taio also got to the point, shaking his head. "Red—and the trip took about a week, so it's been almost a month since the last distillation. He's always been golden on time, and the deadline is in a few days. What excuse can we possibly use?"

At this question, the man who'd been hunched over the table finally glanced up and slipped on the spotless white gloves that had been lying on the table, obviously unable to produce an answer right away. But merely a few minutes later, he declared, "Concentrated dosage."

In Duangan Pang's rational brain, the two reasons they had been administering such small amounts of the extract at a time had been firstly, to avoid notice and secondly, because there were no recorded cases of what happened to those who were given a greater quantity; now that the former issue wasn't a concern and the latter was superseded by their urgency, ordering the boy to ingest a month's worth of his normal prescription was the sole choice available to them.

Yet for Ning Taio, such a solution was absurd! The potential risk to his son's future was far too great to take when the benefits weren't even guaranteed. What if the higher dosage didn't translate to a faster transformation of his blood and just ruined the boy's physique permanently? Moreover, Ning He had already been informed that the Golden Honey Flower was among the ingredients in the tonic he'd been taking. Even though from the filial behavior he'd shown he couldn't have been told about the plant's function yet, based on the close relationship he appeared to have with the Moqi brothers, it was merely a matter of time before those interfering twins also taught him the effects of what his father had been feeding him.

Combined with the stress of worrying over how his treasured son might react to his father's betrayal, Duangan Pang's emotionless suggestion triggered an explosion. "How can you say that so readily? That's my precious child! What if he can't ever cultivate again? My whole purpose in approaching you that year was to help him advance faster, and now look where he is, barely average for his age! And I'm the one forced to suck what spiritual energy he does manage to gather out, I'm the one forced to deal with that filthy demonic cultivator, I'm the one forced to accept some crossbreed as an inner disciple!"

During his rant, Duangan Pang had shifted his attention back toward the arm on his table, but even in his distracted state, he refused to carry all the blame, spitting out, "I warned you."

Spurred by that reminder, the Ning Taio who'd scarcely recovered his breath from his previous speech flared up again. "What you 'warned' me was that you hadn't transferred dantians before, not that it would backfire and cause my son to nearly blow up! If your skills hadn't been inferior, would I have had to resort to such a disgusting method simply in order to save his life?"

In contrast with his detached reaction to the other insults and shouts, Duangan Pang was evidently extremely incensed at this disparagement of his abilities, since he exerted the effort to speak more than three words to the idiot in front of him. "If my skills were so inferior, could your son survive having his kidneys replaced every month? Besides, the result might have been different if the boy had been awake to properly channel the qi from his new dantian."

Ning Taio sputtered for several beats at this, then shot back, "He wouldn't have to replace his kidneys at all if that demonic cultivator you pulled in wasn't so dishonorable!"

---

In this way, the argument continued, but by this point, Chen Yu, who'd long grasped the situation from the part he'd heard so far, laughed and stopped paying attention. Instead, he lounged on his bed and curiously patted his back, reviewing the pieces he'd collected.

According to what the two men had implied, unlike his current doting image, Ning Taio had in reality been an overly ambitious father at first, and when teenage Ning He's talent had shown signs of being distinctly unremarkable, the man had tried to artificially improve his son by having Duangan Pang transplant some stronger martial arts practitioner's dantian into him. Based on the facts that the original owner's memories didn't include anything about this idea and that he hadn't been awake to integrate the new qi flowing into his body, he hadn't consented to or even been informed of the procedure, so he'd similarly remained oblivious of the ensuing consequences.

Unfortunately, the operation had failed, with Ning He nearly dying from the overload of spiritual energy, so that Ning Taio had had to involve a demonic cultivator who'd been acquainted with the puppet master in order to save him, promising in return a frequent delivery of his son's qi-infused blood which could be used for a variety of purposes like raising stronger demonic animal companions. No doubt there had also been some threats of exposing Ning Taio's plans and Duangan Pang's complicity to so frighten the dignified leader of Jade Sword Mountain, because even as peak masters they wouldn't be able to salvage their reputations.

Anyway, what had ended up happening was clearly that this body had been fed Golden Honey Flower extract for the past few years and, unconsciously, had been serving as a machine to distill spiritual energy. Also, for whatever reason, it seemed that the demonic cultivator had added a condition that someone with mixed blood be admitted to Jade Sword Mountain—presumably, this was Zhuo Biming, since no other disciple had incited Ning Taio into deviating from his typical conduct. Whether the protagonist was aware of his origins was uncertain, but the Demonic Path practitioner would definitely be monitoring how Zhuo Biming was being treated, which would explain why Ning Taio had uncharacteristically scolded his son for bullying the boy.

As for why Ning Taio had approached Duangan Pang in the first place, it was probably because the man's interest was very blatantly solely in testing out the limits of his skills, regardless of factors like ethical considerations. While this was an understandably necessary trait when searching for an ally to snatch someone else's core, such open unconcern was difficult to find among Righteous Path cultivators who generally valued their virtuous and heroic image, so that someone with a mission like Ning Taio's really wouldn't have had any other options.

Additionally, whereas appropriating other cultivators' power was frowned upon and therefore unexplored by most Righteous Path practitioners, the puppet master was also unusual in that he had close ties to those who followed the Demonic Path—this relationship was not only what had initially given him enough basic knowledge for him to attempt the dantian replacement to begin with, it had also later allowed him to contact a demonic cultivator in time to apply a technique exclusive to the Demonic Path for the sake of rescuing Ning He from internal combustion. Of course, this desperate measure likely hadn't been out of regard for the child's life, but rather for the sake of ensuring that no one followed the trail to discover any other human experiments he'd been conducting, which would almost certainly have damaged his standing and thereby reduced the resources he received from the sect.

In any case, Duangan Pang had merely been caught up in this mess, and Chen Yu wasn't really that excited to deal with him. Perhaps the only thing he was eager to see was if, pushed into a corner by Ning Taio's refusal to simply strip his mask and frankly sacrifice his son to prevent the demonic cultivator from pressuring them, the man would take action to eliminate these potential hazards to his funding.

On the other hand, Ning Taio was really quite interesting on his own. He was, in short, a man who'd presumably wished to show off his powerful genes by having a genius son, then, once he was unsuccessful even after endangering his child's life, had turned into an overindulgent father due to guilt, all the while secretly sucking out the very talent and blood he'd been so desperate to inject into the boy in order to safeguard his reputation. What a failure ah, and all self-induced. Even more amusing was that Ning Taio did truly love his son, he was genuinely convinced that he'd undertaken this venture for Ning He's future and was also genuinely afraid of being hated by the child.

Humming, Chen Yu mused on how to handle these players. He didn't mind simply responding in kind to whatever actions Zhuo Biming and Duangan Pang chose to take, but Ning Taio needed a special gift. The only issue, however, was that he'd already flaunted his outstanding talent, which would be too exactly tailored to the man's wishes.

To give a more creative present...Chen Yu curled his lips.