Old Li

Biodata

Feature	Details
Name	Li Xiangming (李相明), commonly Old Li / Old Li Tou (李老头) 362 363 429
Alias(es)	Paper Effigy Li; Banner Master Li; Southern Mourning 366 439 443
Gender	Male
Affiliation	White Gate; the Hundred Gates/Nine Trades; Demon-Slaying Allied Army 366 432 464
Occupation/Role	White Gate paper-effigy master, ritualist, Zhou You's master, and former allied-army leader 366 372 439 464
First Appearance	Chapter 362: “Encounter” 362

Background / History

In his youth, Li Xiangming was one of the Nine Trades' two great talents alongside Yu Three Fingers. While Li was known as Southern Mourning, Yu was called Northern Writing. At the time, the White Gate was stronger than it later became; Li's master was alive, and Li had a childhood sweetheart among his junior sisters. 439

Li won a contest for leadership by using the Soul-Summoning Banner to knock Yu Three Fingers from the platform, becoming leader of the allied force. The defeat appears to have fueled Yu's lasting resentment toward him. 439

His cultivation carries the Five Afflictions and Three Deprivations. When signs of Money Deprivation first appeared, Li nevertheless accepted sponsorship from the Eight Great Families, partly because he needed money to marry Sister Yao. 439

The force he led suppressed a Chongluan that had already claimed nearly ten thousand lives, at considerable cost and with help from the major sects. Li later learned that it possessed a final law that followed curses through causality. His acceptance of money for betrothal gifts gave that law an opening. He delayed his return to save the afflicted Flower Lady and came home to find three dismembered bodies; Sister Yao, he learned, had been carrying his child. He continues to wonder whether refusing the leadership contest would have changed their fate. 439

During the Great Qing scenario, Li encountered an injured, amnesiac Zhou You near Riverbend Crossing and explained the state of the world to him. Zhou soon became his nominal disciple in the White Gate. 362 363 366

Appearance

Old Li is usually a shabby, hunched old man with an unkempt face and an ingratiating manner. Despite later becoming noticeably rounder and wealthier, he keeps wearing the same tattered, grease-stained padded jacket. 429

• Often wears a glossy or shabby sheepskin coat. 370 372
• Has a handlebar mustache and a habit of looking disreputable even when acting as a ritual master. 366
• Normally appears short, scrawny, and bent-backed; when he straightens, Zhou You realizes he stands about 1.78 meters tall. 439 464
• When he reveals his true bearing, his back straightens, his wrinkles fade, and he becomes a solemn, imposing figure. 464

Personality

Old Li is boastful, lecherous, greedy, and thoroughly comfortable with bluffing desperate clients. He uses street tricks and grandiose claims to establish authority, yet his spiritual skills are genuine. 365 366 369

His greed is tempered by fear of the retribution attached to his cultivation. After resolving Liu Hao's crisis, he refuses a substantial reward despite visibly wanting it, accepting only a small sum and urging that the rest be used to repair the mass graveyard. 369

He also reduces the fee for Old Zhang's funeral and buys nourishing food for the bereaved family. 372

Beneath his shameless exterior, Li is deeply protective of Zhou You and unwilling to abandon ordinary people to catastrophe. He refuses to judge Zhou by his unknown origins, insisting that being his disciple is enough. 380 429 432

Abilities & Skills

White Gate Paper Effigies

Old Li is a White Gate specialist whose foremost craft is creating and animating paper effigies.

• Links a paper substitute to a target's fortune, as when he made an effigy for Liu Hao's grandson. 366
• Uses paper figures in exorcisms, funeral processions, and rites involving the dead. 369
• Can conceal real spiritual workings beneath apparently ordinary street tricks. 366
• Calls himself Paper Effigy Li and considers the craft the White Gate's defining inheritance. 366

Funeral and Yin Road Rites

Li performs funerary rites capable of confronting spirits and sending them onto the Yin Road.

• Uses incense smoke to obscure human presence from a hostile spirit. 367
• Conducts the Passing the Seven Gates rite with a paper funeral procession to force a red-cloth spirit back into its coffin and onto the Yin Road. 369
• Performs Wandering the Ten Halls funeral rites and teaches Zhou You practical White Gate work, including suona playing. 372
• Recognizes the distinction between human-summoned calamities and hauntings caused by gods and ghosts. 366
• Burns Soul-Returning Incense to protect the burial ground for three years after the Liu family rite. 369
• Uses a mourning staff to renew a spirit-sending rite while confronting the breach toward the Yin Road at Zhangping. 380

Soul-Summoning Banner

Li's signature implement is the Soul-Summoning Banner, a White Gate treasure associated with his earlier fame.

• Used it to defeat Yu Three Fingers and secure leadership of the old allied force. 439
• Its condition had deteriorated over the years; Li later intended to reforge it. 373 429
• During the campaign against the Qing court, he invokes the banner alongside Pacing the Dipper and a ritual register to command underworld forces. 461
• His rite transforms two underworld constables into Ox-Head and Horse-Face. 461

Five Afflictions and Three Deprivations

Li's cultivation is afflicted by a corruption known as the Five Afflictions and Three Deprivations.

• His Money Deprivation makes wealth dangerous to accept and contributes to his refusal of major rewards. 369 439
• He says he chose widowhood, loss of wealth, and loss of power as the deprivations attached to his practice. 369
• The curse has affected both his ambitions and personal life, including his plans to marry Sister Yao. The money he accepted for their betrothal gifts became an opening for Chongluan's final causal attack. 439
• He remains wary of jobs offering unusually large payments or promises connected to repairing his banner. 373

Equipment / Items

• Soul-Summoning Banner — Li's primary ritual treasure and symbol of his former authority. 439 461
• Paper effigies — Used as substitutes, ritual attendants, spirit-bound figures, and components of funeral processions. 366 369
• Mourning staff — Used to lead and renew White Gate spirit-sending rites. 369 380
• Ritual register — Recited during his underworld-constable summoning rite. 461
• Ancient Hundred Gates book — Given to Zhou You before the latter enters the Yin Road. 380

Relationships

• Zhou You — His disciple. Li takes in the amnesiac Zhou, teaches him White Gate practices, worries for him during the Chongluan crisis, and later accepts him without demanding an explanation for his identity. He asks Zhou to help settle their respective grudges against the Qing court. 366 380 429 439
• Yu Three Fingers — Former fellow prodigy and rival. Li defeated Yu in the contest for allied leadership, leaving a humiliation that may have shaped their hostility. 439
• Sister Yao — His childhood sweetheart and junior sister. They intended to marry, but she and their unborn child died after Chongluan's causal law exploited Li's Money Deprivation. 439
• Flower Lady / Madam Hua (Hua Yurong) — Peach Gate practitioner with a long, contentious history with Li and an apparent romantic attachment to him. She offers financial help and later pays for him, while Li insists her spending is merely a “loan.” Their argument over Chongluan escalates into a wager in which the loser must serve the winner for a year. Li says he once saved her from Chongluan's affliction, delaying his return to Sister Yao. 375 429 439
• Liu Hao — Client whose grandson is targeted as Chongluan's sacrifice. Li saves the family through a substitute-effigy plan and funeral rite. 365 366 369
• Yuan Chengwen — An ally who remembers Li's intervention against demons as having saved his life when he was young and hopes to repay him. 443

Story Role / Major Arcs

Liu Family and Chongluan

Old Li and Zhou You arrive at Liu Hao's home after Liu Hao's grandson is selected as Chongluan's sacrifice. Li proposes making a substitute, prepares a paper effigy tied to the boy's fortune, and ultimately performs rites that send the threat away through the Yin Road. 365 366 369

Zhangping Investigation

Li investigates the abnormality around Chongluan and learns that market folk were manipulated into worshipping and feeding the entity in exchange for food and clothing. He interrogates their surviving leader, seeking the hidden party that enabled the summoning. 380

When the Yin Road barrier collapses, Li entrusts Zhou with an ancestral Hundred Gates text and tells him to find him at the Ghost Market in Northern Peace City. 380

Ghost Market Reunion

Li reunites with Zhou months later, having become wealthier without improving his wardrobe. He reaffirms Zhou's place as his disciple regardless of his origins and reveals his intention to reforge the Soul-Summoning Banner. 429

After Beijing vanishes, Li concludes that the Empress Dowager is making a desperate move and joins Zhou in opposing her. When Ghost Gate assassins attack, he dispatches them through ritual means. 430

Demon-Slaying Allied Army

Li presents a plan to stop the Empress Dowager's heaven-swapping ritual before the Demon-Slaying Allied Army. When other members argue for self-preservation, he invokes their blood oath and warns that no one will survive if the Qing court succeeds. 432

Li recounts the earlier Chongluan campaign and its cost to Zhou, then asks for his help against the Qing court. Zhou agrees, reaffirming his own goal of bringing down the dynasty. 439

In the final campaign, Li abandons his usual comic demeanor and reveals the stature of the former leader who once commanded the Nine Schools Allied Army. 464

Notable Quotes

“All I know is that you're my, Li Xiangming's, disciple. That's enough.” 429

“We cannot simply say that because those ahead of us ran away, we can abandon our burden and leave the countless common people to their fate.” 432