Qihua

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Qihua and Youwo knew each other from the age of fifteen. Qihua eventually became the Star Sea’s number-one player, a position later held by Yu Xunge 1299 1304.

After showing Youwo stories from other timelines, Qihua entrusted Midsummer’s affairs to her. While Qihua was away at the Burial Ground, Youwo sacrificed the Fragrant Branch people. The resulting destruction was not the outcome Qihua had wanted: Youwo had deceived her and redirected her life through the loss of everything she had tried to protect 1298 1359 1406.

Qihua personally buried Youwo but never visited her afterward. She also accepted blame within Youwo’s altered memories. Yu Xunge later understood this refusal to visit as Qihua’s unwillingness to reconcile with the past or release its burden 1298 1379.

The sacrifice left Qihua feeling responsible for her people’s deaths and compelled to safeguard Fragrant Branch’s future in every epoch. Yu Xunge described this as an eternal obligation to remain brilliant enough to justify the price paid for her survival 1379.

Appearance

• Hair and eyes: Long silver hair and bright red eyes 1146.
• Hunter attire: A black hooded cloak with subtle silver embroidery, dark leather armor, a tool belt, fitted trousers, black over-the-knee boots, and three-fingered gloves. She also wears a long tassel earring on her right ear 1146.
• Divine attire: Long, trailing divine robes; during Godly Instruction, she wears a deep burgundy robe with black accessories 1041 1203.
• Flower Branch: Usually coils around her wrist but can climb onto her head as a crown. One recorded crown bears ruby-like crystal stamens and brilliant scarlet petals 997.
• Animal forms: Appears as a white bear, enlarging to ten meters during the Fishing Competition, and as a rabbit with expressive ears during AS174 885 930.

Personality

Qihua seeks emotionally intense relationships rather than peaceful, predictable ones. Deceiving an ordinary player offers her little satisfaction; earning influence over someone exceptional makes her Flower of Deceit bloom. She openly identifies Yu Xunge as the most worthwhile challenge of the era 1174.

Her affection does not guarantee protection from manipulation. She can teach, help, exploit, and provoke the same person while regarding those actions as compatible. When challenged over her treatment of Yu Xunge, she insists that interests never remain perfectly aligned and denies needing forgiveness 1156 1394.

Yu Xunge eventually connects Qihua’s appetite for conflict to her trauma and resistance to being controlled. Despite her denials of wrongdoing, Qihua continues teaching after their estrangement and shows unusual tolerance toward her. Yu Xunge interprets this as an unspoken form of compensation and apology 1379.

Qihua is also competitive and mischievous in small ways. Her branch repeatedly makes her slightly taller than Yudun, and she answers Yu Xunge’s portrait-cushion prank with an island full of noisy dolls modeled on her student 1203 1214 1438.

Abilities & Skills

Flower of Deceit

Qihua’s signature flower specializes in deception and control. Its nature reflects her personality, just as other Fragrant Branch flowers reflect their owners 1157.

• Behavioral manipulation: Plants a beguilement that can make a target accept instructions as a Godly Game quest 1148 1149.
• Personality-based application: Works best when the deception accommodates the target’s instincts, desires, and goals. This preserves initiative and combat ability instead of producing an ineffective puppet 1149.
• Resistance: Exceptionally strong wills resist it. Contradicting the target’s nature makes the effect less stable 1149.
• Sensory sharing: Qihua can connect to a planted seed and share the target’s senses 1153.
• Communication: A flowering branch serves as a long-distance channel between Quiet Mountains and the Demon Tavern 1155 1163.

Flower Branch Manipulation

Qihua reshapes branches and petals into weapons, restraints, and defensive structures 1148 1161 1453.

• Binds targets, forms cages, and restrains a condensed lightning element 1148.
• Scatters into flowers to evade a sword strike and creates a Flower Shield to block attacks 1148 1161.
• Grows branches into enormous flowering trees that occupy much of a battlefield 1292.
• Creates bows, arrows, and whips; after her bow breaks, she immediately switches to a Flower Whip 1146 1453.

Deity Talent Word

Qihua keeps the actual word secret, even from Youwo. Historical recordings show several effects, but Yu Xunge cannot determine whether these represent different applications or changes to the word itself 1292 1294.

• Causes opponents to lose consciousness or become trapped in illusions.
• Alters attributes and even other Deity Talent Words.
• Transforms Youwo’s Flower Branch into Camellia Word Jazz during a duel 1294.

Adventure Lamb Soul Fire

Qihua’s Soul Fire is Adventure Lamb, described as growing in the abyss and feeding on fierce love and hatred 1406.

• Her Soul Fire awakened before Midsummer and Fragrant Branch were destroyed; Yu Xunge rejects the claim that those losses created it 1406.
• She can expend Soul Fire to strengthen an investigation. Combining several points with an item and her ultimate Godly Skill lets her detect an otherwise elusive anomaly 1349.

Combat and Godly Skills

Qihua combines control and damage through tightly linked attacks and setups. She is proficient with every weapon 1293 1453.

• Survivability: Possesses extensive defensive, evasive, and recovery methods accumulated over many years 1161.
• Movement and protection: Uses teleportation, movement skills, and protective barriers 1149 1161.
• Probing: A Godly Skill reveals the names and ranks of the four Mountain Players’ talents 1160.
• Golden Lightning Whip: Uses it while pursuing Yu Xunge through AS174 928.
• Suppressed strength: Estimates that her experience would let her fight four or five Apostles of God even below god-level strength, although Quiet Mountains’ rules prevent her from freely attacking them 1157.

Fragrant Branch Combo Skills

Qihua combines her Flower Branch with Yu Xunge’s to create large-scale floral phenomena 1156 1157.

• Demonstrates a Sea of Red and White Flowers and sustains a nearly hundred-meter-long Flower Dragon 1156 1157.
• Changes the dragon from a white attacking form to one covered in ruby scales, emphasizing her flower’s control-oriented nature 1157.
• Uses the combined effect to help Yu Xunge practice influencing the Celestial Phenomenon Tribe’s companion elements 1155 1157.
• Can lose leadership of the combination: Yu Xunge’s Who Is the Master takes control during their first demonstration 1156.

Teaching, Crafting, and Cultivation

• Instruction: Teaches cooking, combat, floral perception, and advanced applications of racial abilities 713 1153 1195.
• Gashapon Machine: Manufactures the machine and retains a backdoor, as does Drummer; she can dismantle it 1148.
• Magic stabilization: Cultivates flowers that stabilize Magic Element during skill synthesis and reduce ambiguities in magic runes 1214.
• Flower research: Attempts to grow Crown of Flowers Murder and collects a hybrid variety combining it with Camellia Word Jazz and Companion Thunder 1182 1342.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Flower Bow and arrows — A petal-built longbow and Flower Branch arrows. The bow eventually breaks in battle 1146 1148 1453.
• Flower Whip — A transformed branch used to strip Flower Scales from Rust Tablet 1453.
• Hooded cloak — Its second skill provides concealment comparable to Yu Xunge’s antenna artifact; Qihua can still sense the wearer’s condition and location 1154.
• Black ring — Worn on her right index finger, with a flowing wine-red line. Its ability assists her investigation of an anomaly 1349.
• Flower of Deceit gift — Gives Yu Xunge a flower containing exceptionally powerful traits and abilities for an emergency requiring “stage three” 1379.

Relationships

• Yu Xunge / Zai Jiu Xunge — Student, opponent, and later someone Qihua also calls her teacher. Their relationship includes sincere instruction, exploitation, retaliation, and growing mutual understanding. Qihua values being the teacher who has taught her longest 1160 1379 1394.
• Yudun — Fellow god, equal in status, frequent visitor, and teasing rival. She questions Qihua’s manipulation of Yu Xunge and later fights beside her 1174 1203 1453.
• Youwo / Lighthouse Youwo — Childhood companion whose devotion became a betrayal. Youwo’s sacrifice of Fragrant Branch shaped Qihua’s enduring guilt; Qihua buried her but refused to visit 1298 1299 1379.
• Dawn Cicada / Xianchan — A Fragrant Branch who once deified Qihua. Qihua exploits that devotion to guide her toward Zai Jiu and arranges a replacement Flower Branch as a game reward 1039.
• Tulan and B80 — Yu Xunge’s companions and Qihua’s reluctant collaborators during Quiet Mountains. They shelter in her hood, assist with their owner’s recovery, and repeatedly challenge Qihua’s motives 1152 1153 1156.
• Drummer — Fellow instructor pursued by Yu Xunge for lessons; also retains a backdoor in the Gashapon Machine 713 1148.
• Captain — Another god whose game philosophy differs from Qihua’s. Their association does not prevent him from joining the others in teasing her 973 1039.
• Mountains Qihua — Her counterpart from Quiet Mountains. Their first meeting remains one of Qihua’s most unforgettable experiences there 1154.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Early Instruction and the “Golden Apple”

• Yu Xunge first encounters Qihua’s name on a cloud-shaped petal offering twenty Star Sea years of comprehensive combat courses, with its requirements still unmet 560.
• During Building Blocks and Me, Yu Xunge chases Qihua and Drummer to obtain additional lessons through Q&A Gashapon. When Qihua silences her, B voices the question instead 713.
• Qihua denies being Yu Xunge’s protector during Card Swap, while the other gods tease her about their connection 856.
• The Fishing Competition places Qihua against Yu Xunge as an angler; she becomes a ten-meter white bear to resist being dragged into the sea 885.
• Qihua later calls Yu Xunge a golden apple. Her explanation is that she has realized Yu Xunge sees even her as “just an apple,” rather than an untouchable god 973.

Divine Politics and the Dawn Cicada Scheme

• Qihua and seven other High Gods amend the Game Invasion rules. Defending the changes and answering questions about Yu Xunge leave her exhausted 997.
• During Temple Q&A, she deliberately steps out from her throne’s shadows and reveals her true appearance 1035.
• Yu Xunge uncovers Qihua’s role in steering Dawn Cicada toward Zai Jiu. She recognizes that Qihua has manipulated both of them, though she cannot establish all of Qihua’s motives 1039.

Quiet Mountains

Qihua enters Quiet Mountains under an agreement that suppresses her strength and restricts her conduct. She may interfere with Midsummer’s weather, but killing a resident or exceeding the permitted limits would allow her expulsion 1157 1161.

• Control: Confronting Yu Xunge’s emotionally numb Rhapsody Mode, Qihua disguises her instructions as a main quest. She deliberately adds that Yu Xunge must trust her unconditionally 1148 1149.
• Recovery: Identifies My Sigh, a gold coin holding important memories, as Yu Xunge’s preparation against losing herself 1152.
• Training: Takes her to Midsummer to learn elemental resonance and Combo Skills. She explains that self-comprehended abilities can transcend restrictions placed on god-bestowed powers 1153 1155.
• Defense: Protects the unconscious Yu Xunge from Mountains Xunge, Maple Sugar, Mistblade, and Queque, sustaining injuries while unable to freely retaliate 1160 1161.
• Retaliation: After recovering her memories, Yu Xunge imprisons Qihua in Furious Moon and drains her Racial Talent traits with Crown of Flowers Murder. Qihua admits her manipulation to the gods as they arrange her recall 1162 1163.
• Aftermath: Qihua refuses to disown her desire to control such an exceptional player. The Chaotic Star Sea later warns her that Yu Xunge remains angry despite acknowledging the help she provided 1174 1182.

Godly Instruction

• Teaches students in her garden to perceive and investigate the secrets within flowers 1195.
• Welcomes Yu Xunge’s threat to retaliate through Dawn and Fragrant Branch: the counterattack is precisely what she wanted 1204.
• Responds to Yu Xunge’s portrait-cushion prank with dolls that repeat “I did nothing wrong!” while watering Flower Island 1209 1214.
• Yudun explains that Qihua’s anger since Card Swap arose from Yu Xunge treating her as a spectator rather than a teacher who mattered 1243.

Burial Ground and Mutual Understanding

• Yu Xunge watches Qihua’s historical matches and uncovers Youwo’s role in the destruction of Fragrant Branch 1292 1294 1298.
• Qihua’s answer to what sustained her is revealed as a tear falling onto the Clock Dial Battlefield. Yu Xunge and Tulan see resilience in it, while Youwo sees heartbreak 1299.
• After learning her past, Yu Xunge recognizes their shared hatred of control. Qihua gives her an emergency Flower of Deceit and returns to hear her thanks again 1379.
• Qihua asks whether any alternate version of herself visited Youwo. Yu Xunge answers that none did 1391.

Arbiter Game

• On the Bridge of Sighs, Qihua confronts an apparition of Youwo and the fear that her enjoyment of intense emotions makes her complicit in her own suffering 1406.
• Yu Xunge destroys the apparition and tells her that pain is simply pain—not something that made her brilliant. Qihua receives the answer she could not reach through repeated self-questioning 1406 1407.
• Accepts Star Sea Youwo’s apology but has nothing to say in return 1431.
• Visits Yu Xunge with Yudun over the proposed sacrifice of World Sigh, then leaves to finish the invasion 1438.
• Fights Rust Tablet alongside Yudun, assuring Yu Xunge that they can handle the battle while she carries out her own plan 1453.

Alternate Timelines and Scenario Roles

• Zelan Wildfire’s timeline: Qihua nurtures Wildfire and encourages her to join Dawn. Unlike her scheme involving Zai Jiu Xunge, this agenda does not require sacrificing Wildfire’s interests because Zai Jiu and humanity are already gone 1248.
• District 21 scenario: Qihua occupies the role of Xunge’s aunt. After the family’s deaths, she becomes a Mail Carrier at eight years old to protect their household and raise the newborn Xunge. This is a scenario role, not their ordinary familial relationship 1323 1327.

Notable Quotes

“Talents and skills bestowed by ‘gods’ must adhere to balance and tiers. Only what you comprehend and learn yourself can transcend rules and constraints.” 1155

“Do you remember? Living beings have no upper limit.” 1155

“You sacrificed what I did everything in my power to protect.” 1406

“Do what you want to do. Yudun and I have things here.” 1453