Heart of China

Heart of China
Flavor text	"It's fragile"
Appearance
Item Pool	Curse Room Dire Chest Glass Chest Treasure Room Ultra Secret Room Curse Room Treasure Room
Quality	3
Item Tags
Unlocked By	Defeat ??? as Fiend

Heart of China is a passive item added in The Reheated Update.

Effects

• Grants an empty Red Heart container.
• Grants a special health bar that can be filled by "overhealing", determined by gaining health that would have healed extra hearts if Isaac had more empty Red Heart containers. The size of this special health bar scales with the number of Red Heart containers Isaac has, down to a minimum size of 3 hearts.
  • This health bar can be viewed by standing near a heart pickup that will overheal Isaac, or by expanding the map on the HUD.
• Completely filling Heart of China's health bar will empty the bar of all hearts and add an empty Red Heart container to Isaac's own health bar. Replacing other non-Red Heart Containers if Isaac's health bar is full.
  • If Isaac's health bar is completely filled with Red Heart Containers, more hearts can still be collected but activating this item will do nothing.

Notes

• Reducing how many Red Heart containers Isaac has will not reduce the amount of health stored in the special health bar, despite lowering its maximum capacity.
  • This means that it is possible to immediately restore health lost to a Devil Deal, Black Market, Evil Beggar, or other methods of removing Red Heart containers.

Interactions

• Shard of China: The size of the special health bar is overridden by the size set by Heart of China.
  • If Shard of China is already smelted, and Heart of China's health bar is filled, a permanent +0.15 damage is granted.
• Shard of Golem: The size of the special health bar is overridden by the size set by Heart of China.
  • If Shard of Golem is already smelted, and Heart of China's health bar is filled, a permanent +0.18 damage is granted.
  • This special damage boost will take priority over the one granted by Shard of China if both trinkets are smelted — the player will not gain both damage boosts.
• Yum Heart: Using Yum Heart is considered a valid method of overhealing.
• Maggy's Bow: The increased value of Red Heart healing granted by Maggy's Bow is taken into consideration when calculating overheal.
• Candy Heart: Overhealing does not boost any stats.
• Immaculate Conception: Overhealing will not contribute towards this item's activation.

Trivia

• Heart of China's name and sprite originally came from the Burned Out update of the Retribution MOD.
  • When it was decided that this item would not be in the initial Repentance release of Retribution, it was instead added to Fiend Folio with a new item effect.
  • This item was designed as a part of Retribution before China was conceptualized, but its effect in Fiend Folio was designed afterwards.
  • Heart of China's original effect was implemented in Retribution's Burned Out update as a new item: Heart of Ichor.
• Heart of China usurped Shard of China as Fiend's ??? unlock after the implementation of the Handle With Care challenge.
• Heart of China's health bar has unique skins for The Lost and The Forgotten.