Xu Yuan

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Xu Yuan (许渊)
Alias(es)	Living Person Apartment — his Jialan Society chat ID; President 14 19
Species/Race	Human during his lifetime; Vengeful Ghost after death 19 20
Gender	Male 27
Affiliation	Jialan Society; formerly a resident of the Living Person Apartment 14 20
Occupation/Role	Ghost Hunter; founder and president of the Jialan Society; owner of its chat group 14 19 20
Hometown	Hengzhou City 32
Status	Deceased; remains active as a ghost in the Jialan Society chat group 26 40
First Appearance	Named in the apartment’s history in Chapter 14; his childhood self appears directly in Chapter 19 14 19

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Ten Green Text Missions completed	14 16	Completed the Living Person Apartment’s escape requirement approximately ten years before Gao Tian’s arrival. He is described as its only resident to have completed all ten missions and left alive.
Vengeful Ghost	18 19 20	Became a ghost after being killed at Sapphire Mall. Continued participating in the Jialan Society through its chat group.

Background / History

Childhood and Teacher

Xu Yuan was born with the Ghost Eye, allowing him to see supernatural things that others could not. As a child, he saw a blood corpse approaching a hospital patient and predicted the patient’s death. His accurate warnings led others to label him a jinx; relatives refused to take him in, and classmates isolated him 19.

His childhood account blames himself for having “cursed” his parents to death, while the records obtained by Zhao Qiang identify a car accident as their cause of death. After spending time in an orphanage, he was adopted by Lin Nan’an, whom he called Teacher. Lin explained that Xu Yuan was not a bringer of misfortune but a born Ghost Hunter 19 32.

Xu Yuan attended Class 3 at Honglong Elementary School, followed by Mingde Middle School. While waiting for his teacher to collect him after school, he regularly played at the Sapphire arcade, three streets from his elementary school. He later entered a top university in Shanghai but dropped out during his second year 20 32.

Ghost-Hunting Career and Escape

Xu Yuan moved to Shanghai in his twenties. His ordinary records list neither a profession nor a source of income. His supernatural career included recruiting Ghost Hunters into the Jialan Society and handling numerous incidents at Supernatural Locations 20 32.

He completed ten Green Text Missions and escaped the Living Person Apartment. Before leaving, he promised its residents that he would return, find a way for them to escape, and end their nightmare. His failure to return produced conflicting legends: some residents believed he had abandoned his former life, while others believed he had died in an unrelated supernatural incident. After his escape, he became president of the Jialan Society 14 19.

Death at Sapphire Mall

Xu Yuan’s last recorded appearance was at Sapphire Mall, around the age of thirty-five. The police treated his disappearance as an unsolved missing-person case; his limited social connections and lack of obvious enemies offered few leads 32.

He was actually killed by a ghost with four stacked faces, which took his head. Before dying, he concealed parts of his body in human vessels, including an old security guard who had witnessed the attack. Xu Yuan subsequently became a Vengeful Ghost himself 19 22 47.

Appearance

• Childhood self: A young boy encountered playing an arcade machine within a Space-Time Vortex 19.
• Adult self: Wore a trench coat at the time of his death 22.
• Remains: His corpse was divided into pieces and lacked its original head. A female star ghost’s head later parasitized the reassembled body 25 26.

Personality

As a child, Xu Yuan was polite, curious, and eager to find someone who understood his unusual experiences. He dreamed of eliminating every ghost in the world. Learning that he would instead become one horrified him, but he accepted Gao Tian’s account after recognizing his teacher’s treasured spear in Gao Tian’s possession 19 20.

His ghost self is secretive and indifferent to human life. He jokes that the Ghost Transformation Spear can turn a desirable living companion into a ghost, and he treats killing as an unavoidable part of ghost existence. His attachment to the pot in his old home exposes a particularly vindictive side: after its theft, he demands torture and revenge even if the victims surrender it 26 40.

Despite his legendary reputation, Xu Yuan openly fears the ghost that killed him. He believes recovering his stolen head is hopeless and refuses to discuss the creature’s name in the group 26.

Abilities & Skills

Ghost Eye

Xu Yuan’s innate Ghost Eye extends beyond ordinary ghost sight, allowing him to perceive people across different eras 19.

• Sees ghosts invisible to ordinary people 19.
• Connects his childhood timeline with visitors from the future through a Space-Time Vortex at the Sapphire arcade 19.
• Previously brought him into contact with his adult self, who mistook him for a mission trap or ghost illusion and attempted to attack him 19.
• Becomes temporarily ineffective near Lin Nan’an, whose presence suppresses supernatural phenomena and breaks the connection between timelines 20 21.

Resistance to Memory Manipulation

• Gao Tian’s Memory Ghost ability is completely ineffective against the childhood Xu Yuan 19.
• Other adults drawn into the vortex also failed to eliminate him after mistaking him for a ghost; the passages do not establish how he survived each attempt 19.

Corpse Preservation and Concealment

Xu Yuan used supernatural means to preserve and hide his remains at Sapphire Mall 18 22.

• Five mall staff members became vessels carrying his corpse parts. They continued their former routines while losing awareness of their own existence 21.
• The old security guard carried Xu Yuan’s severed hand after witnessing his murder 22.
• His corpse remained responsive to the aura of his former weapon, enabling Gao Tian to suppress its transformed body with the Ghost Transformation Spear 25.

Ghost-Raising and Defensive Traps

Xu Yuan protected his old home with resident ghosts and a Ghost Domain 37 39 40.

• Sensed intruders entering the house while communicating through the chat group 37.
• Kept a woman’s photograph and ashes on the third floor, where her Vengeful Ghost attacked living intruders 39.
• Combined the indoor ghost threat with a deadly exterior Ghost Domain, leaving intruders trapped between the two 37.
• Believed even professional Ghost Hunters would struggle to escape this arrangement 40.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Ghost Transformation Spear — Xu Yuan’s principal weapon during his lifetime. Gao Tian receives its silver-gray broken spearhead through a Black Packet requiring no lifespan payment. Anyone killed with it becomes a ghost with 100% certainty. Its sharpness also makes it useful as a physical cutting weapon 16 18 25.
  • According to Xu Yuan’s inherited account, the spear contains a secret capable of overturning an era. His teacher’s predecessors spent more than fifty years investigating it without finding the correct method of use 16.
  • Lin Nan’an promised it to Xu Yuan when he reached adulthood. Neither Xu Yuan nor Gao Tian had solved its deeper mystery by their conversation in the vortex 20.
  • Xu Yuan allows Gao Tian to keep it after completing the corpse-disposal commission 26.
• Red pot from his old home — A highly durable, blood-red vessel guarded on the house’s third floor. Gao Tian steals it despite the surrounding traps 39 40.
  • Contains a viewable but intangible miniature scene featuring a skeleton, a cave residence, and inscriptions recounting the life of Myriad Laws True Monarch 41.
  • Later displays Gao Tian aboard a bus and arriving at Pagoda Elementary School. Gao Tian interprets this as a probable future projection; the subsequent mission announcement matches the destination 42 43.
  • Its full capabilities, and Xu Yuan’s precise reasons for valuing it, remain unresolved 32 42.

Relationships

• Lin Nan’an — Adoptive guardian and Teacher. Identified Xu Yuan’s Ghost Eye, raised him after his parents’ deaths, and promised him the Ghost Transformation Spear. His supernatural-suppressing presence interrupts Xu Yuan’s temporal ability; he is later stated to be deceased 19 20 32 34.
• Gao Tian — Accepts Xu Yuan’s corpse-disposal commission under the chat identity Memory Ghost. His relationship with the childhood Xu Yuan is cooperative, but he later steals the adult ghost’s treasured pot. Xu Yuan fails to identify him beneath Zhao Qiang’s stolen identity 16 20 26 40.
• Li Jialan — Class monitor at Honglong Elementary School. Supervised Xu Yuan’s homework and tutored him after school. The childhood Xu Yuan insists he would never name a society after her, despite the future organization being called Jialan Society 20.
• Multi-headed Ghost — Killed Xu Yuan at Sapphire Mall and collected his head. Later identified as an S-level Vengeful Ghost 22 47 48.
• Ghost Infant — Jialan Society member entrusted with locating the apparent pot thief through cyberspace and pursuing his family 40.
• Infinite Floors — Challenges Xu Yuan’s judgment and leadership, warning that exhausted patience would lead to more than simply leaving the chat group 40.
• Zhao Qiang and the Zhao family — Mistaken targets of Xu Yuan’s revenge because Gao Tian stole the pot while wearing Zhao Qiang’s identity. Xu Yuan orders attacks on approximately a hundred relatives and associates 40 45.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Arc	Xu Yuan’s involvement
The apartment’s escape legend	His ten-mission achievement establishes that escape is possible, while his unfulfilled promise leaves current residents without the rescue they expected 14.
Sapphire Mall commission	Asks a single group member to handle his corpse discreetly, fearing that other ghosts could follow its trail to his pot. Gao Tian accepts the task alongside the apartment’s mission 15 16.
Meeting his childhood self	Gives Gao Tian information about his teacher, school, and past. His final clue, “Hide Leaf in Forest,” helps the team deduce that his remains are hidden among the mall’s people. Gao Tian finds no change in the present chat history afterward 19 20 21.
Corpse suppression	Gao Tian impales the transformed, headless corpse with Xu Yuan’s spear, completing both commissions. Xu Yuan then warns him about the female star ghost and refuses further discussion of his killer 25 26.
Investigation of his former life	Zhao Qiang uncovers Xu Yuan’s schooling, adoption, disappearance, and old house. Gao Tian suspects that a deleted post associated with Xu Yuan caused Cao Hua’s death through supernatural contamination or a deliberate trap; the cause remains unconfirmed 27 32.
Pot theft and retaliation	Gao Tian escapes the old house with the red pot. Xu Yuan mistakes him for Zhao Qiang and mobilizes the Jialan Society against the Zhao family; subsequent chat messages show the family being tortured 39 40 45.

Notable Quotes

“What kind of person did the grown-up Xu Yuan become? Did he fulfill his childhood Wish? Did he eliminate all the ghosts in this world?” 20

“If you want to hide a leaf, the best method is to hide it in a forest!” 21

“After all, a ghost is a ghost. Ghosts cannot help but kill.” 26