I Have 10 Equipment Slots-Chapter 46 - 40: Demon Points +215

"Cutting open the abdomen doesn’t necessarily mean death, of course, but among those implanted with a Demon Egg, who is at the Heroic Body Realm?"

Chen Zhizhen stared directly at Gu Zheng, who had just spoken, and laid out the facts. "A Heroic Body Realm expert can have their limbs severed and reattached. Or they could take a Seventh-Transition healing Treasure Pill and not fear having their stomach cut open. But do we have any Seven-Turn Treasure Pills here? Even if we did, who would we use them on? A single Seven-Turn Treasure Pill is worth over a million taels of silver. Who here can afford that?"

"We don’t have a Seven-Turn Treasure Pill, but a Marvel that allows for rapid healing would also work. Who has such a Marvel on hand? I doubt even the headquarters in the State City has one!"

"So you’re saying we should just watch them die?" Zhang Ning couldn’t help but retort. "If we don’t cut them open, should we just try to abort it? Can a Demon Egg even be aborted with medicine?"

"Of course not." Chen Zhizhen took a deep breath. "I’m also deeply saddened. I don’t want them to die, but in this situation, aside from burning them directly, there’s no other..."

"Enough."

Gu Zheng cut him off with a sharp tone. "When I said they wouldn’t necessarily die, I never said anything about using Treasure Pills or Marvels. Why can’t we just cut them open, take out the Demon Egg, and then sew them back up?"

"Huh?"

An Xiaoxue, Zhang Ning, Tao Liu, and even Yan Hongxue couldn’t help but stare, their mouths agape.

"S-sew them back up?" Zhang Ning’s jaw worked, finding the idea hard to imagine.

Chen Zhizhen even let out a laugh. "Do you think cutting open a stomach and sewing it back up is as simple as mending clothes?"

"In principle, it’s the same."

Gu Zheng said calmly, "Besides, we won’t know if it will work until we try. It’s better than your solution of just setting them on fire and burning them alive."

"Right!"

An Xiaoxue was supportive. "No matter what, let’s try first. With us here, we can at least keep them alive."

"..." Chen Zhizhen opened his mouth, wanting to argue, but seeing the supportive expressions on everyone else’s faces, he nodded. "Then let’s give it a try."

"...Even if it’s just an attempt, we need to prepare properly." Gu Zheng gave Chen Zhizhen a deep look. "First, the thread for sewing. We need to use sutures made from the intestinal casings of cows, sheep, or pigs. The human body can absorb them directly. Second, we need high-proof liquor and a clean environment."

Naturally, he would be the one to perform the final dissection.

’The key steps of a C-section are few and simple.’

’Anesthesia, disinfection, locating the fetus, removing it, and suturing.’

’For anesthesia, I can just block their meridians to shut off the pain nerves. Disinfection will be done with high-proof liquor, enhanced by my Divine Wondrous abilities. Removing the fetus will be even simpler; with a Spirit of 50, I’ll never make a wrong incision. The final suturing... I’m not familiar with that, but it doesn’t matter. An ugly scar is better than no life at all.’

’The only problem is that after removing the Demon Egg, I can’t just magically produce a baby to give to the expecting couple. Not even a stillborn one.’

’In any case, we can’t tell them about the Demon Egg, especially not the pregnant women.’

’If a woman found out a monster had been inside her, she’d be traumatized for life. She would probably never want to get pregnant again.’

’So, there’s a lot to do.’

This included figuring out how to get the people implanted with Demon Eggs to come to the County Magistrate’s Office and cooperate with the procedure.

That part would have to be handled by the people from the Baishui County Magistrate’s Office.

Whether by placating or by threatening, saving their lives was the most important thing.

...

The matter was urgent.

Everyone sprang into action.

The entire Baishui County Magistrate’s Office was once again too busy to even eat.

Finding the people implanted with Demon Eggs, bringing them to the County Magistrate’s Office, making absorbable sutures, distilling alcohol, preparing a bright, dust-free room...

After three days of frantic work, the first procedure could finally begin.

The first person on the operating table was Wang Gui’s wife. Before being moved from the adjacent room, the woman had been knocked unconscious and was in a deep slumber.

Gu Zheng changed into a clean surgical gown, holding the hastily forged surgical instruments in his hands.

Yan Hongxue stood to the side, assisting—or perhaps, supervising.

Gu Zheng focused his mind and calmly began the operation.

He remained calm from beginning to end, right up until he pulled a curled-up Lizard Demon hatchling from the woman’s abdomen.

The demon whelp was already fully formed!

As Gu Zheng used forceps to extract it, the creature seemed to sense the danger. It slowly unfurled its body, revealing a miniature Lizard Demon, and opened its mouth full of fine teeth to let out a sharp hiss.

Yan Hongxue’s eyes widened in shock.

SNAP!

With a slight exertion of force, Gu Zheng snapped the Lizard Demon fledgling’s neck.

Then, he performed Spirit Capturing.

[Demon Points +1]

’Nice, so it wasn’t all for nothing!’

He tossed the dead Lizard Demon hatchling into a wooden bucket on the side.

Gu Zheng calmly cleaned, disinfected, and sutured the wound.

The suturing left an ugly wound, but at least the stitches were hidden beneath the skin.

Once everything was done, Yan Hongxue looked at Gu Zheng with a complicated expression. Through her self-made mask, she said softly, "Thank you."

"There’s nothing to thank me for."

Gu Zheng gave her a cool glance. "Let’s continue. Tell the people outside to send in the second patient. We can speed things up from here."

"...Alright."

Yan Hongxue nodded, grabbed the bedboard with one hand, and moved the patient to the adjacent room.

Then, she brought back the second person.

It was another pregnant woman with a large belly. She was only four months along, but she looked even bigger than Wang Gui’s wife.

The Lizard Demon’s methods were nothing short of advanced.

Gu Zheng held his breath and focused, repeating the process: anesthetize, disinfect, operate, remove the Lizard Demon fledgling, kill it, use Spirit Capturing to gain Demon Points, and suture the wound.

The entire process unfolded in an orderly manner, becoming smoother with each repetition.

Of course, not every Lizard Demon fledgling he removed yielded Demon Points.

It seemed that only the fully formed Lizard Demon fledglings possessed Bloodshed.

Those that were not yet formed and were still in an egg-like state had not yet developed Bloodshed, so naturally, they provided no Demon Points.

But there were far too many people who had been implanted with Demon Eggs.

Over three hundred in total.

The pregnant, the obese, and the wealthy.

That’s right, with Liu Baozi’s help, the Lizard Demon had also targeted the wealthy for implantation.

This was because incubation required energy, and that energy came from a nutritious diet. Only the wealthy could afford to eat and drink well.

With so many people, Gu Zheng alone was naturally not fast enough.

Yan Hongxue assisted from the side for half a day before decisively joining in on the operations herself.

She was the only one whose Spiritual Power could rival Gu Zheng’s.

Without sufficiently strong Spirit, the chance of damaging other organs during the incision was extremely high.

After all, neither of them were professional modern obstetricians.

The fact that they could be forced into this role and not have anyone die was already quite an achievement.

For the Lizard Demon fledglings that Yan Hongxue removed, Gu Zheng would conveniently perform Spirit Capturing to obtain the Demon Points.

Yan Hongxue had no reaction to this, tacitly approving of Gu Zheng’s actions.

She knew of the Soul Capturing Technique.

Demon-Transforming Blood was a precious ingredient for alchemy and was highly valuable.

But compared to Gu Zheng’s contribution, these materials were nothing.

And so, Gu Zheng worked nonstop for another three days and three nights, his rewards continuously growing.

By the time the operations on all the discovered individuals were complete, he had harvested a total of 215 Demon Points!