Li Family

Biodata

Feature	Details
Name	Li Family (李家) 1
Alias(es)	Li Estate 1
Affiliation	Cloudflow County 12
Occupation/Role	Martial household controlling medicinal production, an iron mine, pharmacies, escort teams, a hunting team, and a martial arts school 12 34
Status	Active 50
First Appearance	Chapter 1, “Learning Martial Arts” 1

Background

The Li Family is one of Cloudflow County’s five leading powers, though it remains below the century-old Fang family in wealth and influence. Its authority is centered on the Li Estate, divided into heavily controlled outer and inner courts. 20

The family recruits servants on long contracts and uses them as labor, trainees, and martial personnel. Chen Xun sold himself to the estate for ten years at one tael of silver per month; after becoming a Martial Artist, his stipend rose to three taels and he received an identity token, a private room, and limited inner-court access. 1 10

Its servant administration is overseen by three chief stewards: the Head Steward, Second Housekeeper, and Third Steward. The Third Steward controls servants’ promotions, punishments, and rewards, and directly supervised the selection of outer-court servants for martial training. 1

Household Structure

Direct and collateral branches

The family’s direct descendants hold privileged access and authority within the estate. Gate A between the inner and outer courts is reserved for them, while martial artists and other qualified outsiders must use Gate B under guard supervision. 10

Collateral-branch members rank below the direct line, but even a Li Family Martial Artist who remains a servant must bow to them. 26

A declining related branch, referred to as the Old Li Family, seeks to restore its standing and potentially surpass the main branch by sending its heir to Qingyun Martial Academy. Its leaders plan to exploit Chen Xun’s Iron Garment Art cultivation for that purpose. 15

Known personnel

Person	Position / connection
Li Tiangang	Fourth Master and captain of the Hunting Team 36 37
Li Mingbo	Fifth Master; assigns newly promoted Martial Artists to family duties 11
Li Mingyuan	Direct descendant and master of the Li Family Martial Arts School 29
Li Yuan	Estate steward and Li Peng’s father; politically calculating and connected to the Third Steward 1 33
Third Steward	Oversees servant promotions, punishment, rewards, and initial martial-trainee selection 1
Xie An	Steward of the Medicine Escort Team 12
Seventh Young Master	Inner-court descendant who recruits Martial Artists as sparring targets for palm-technique training 26
Eighth Young Lady	Young mistress assigned Hunting Team escorts during the Flower Thief crisis 48

Holdings and Commerce

Holding / operation	Function
Medicinal fields	The family cultivates herbs across several thousand mu outside the city; its production supplies roughly thirty percent of Cloudflow County’s medicinal herbs. 12
Pharmacies	The family owns Cloudflow County’s largest pharmacy and employs pharmacists to refine martial cultivation powders and pills. 12
Hundred Medicines Estate	Its most valuable farmstead, guarded by a ten-person Martial Artist squad and used to load medicinal-herb shipments. 19
Iron mine	An exceptionally rich mine about one hundred li from Cloudflow County; the family sells the ore rather than forging it. 12
Li Family Martial Arts School	A low-cost school primarily intended to cultivate future Li Family Martial Artists; graduates are generally required to prioritize service to the family. 25 36
Martial Repository Pavilion	Repository where personnel may obtain martial manuals; it provides paid one-on-one translation for illiterate practitioners. 13
Tower of Ten Thousand Beasts	Hunting Team facility containing the Beast Pavilion, exotic-beast cold storage, martial repository, and alchemy repository. 36

Martial Forces

The family’s Martial Artists may enter the internal Guard Team, serve a direct descendant as a personal attendant, or join one of three external teams. 12

Division	Duties	Benefits / conditions
Guard Team	Protects the Li Estate internally. 12	A route for internal service.
Personal attendants	Serve direct descendants closely. 12	Can offer substantial status advancement when attached to an influential young master. 9
Medicine Escort Team	Transports herbs from Li Family fields to pharmacies in Cloudflow County and nearby regions. 12	One discounted bottle of Blood-Strength Powder per month and one free low-grade martial skill. 12
Ore Escort Team	Escorts ore from the family’s mine. 11 12	More physically demanding work that can interfere with cultivation. 11
Hunting Team	Hunts exotic beasts for meat, materials, and cultivation resources. 12 35	Greater rewards and access to rare materials, but an exceptionally high casualty rate. 35 36

Hunting Team regulations

The Hunting Team is limited to fifteen members and operates under five death-penalty “iron laws”: members may not kill teammates, conceal prey, privately sell team supplies, privately teach team martial arts, or disobey the captain during hunts. 36

Seventy percent of each hunt goes to the estate. Of the remaining thirty percent, half is divided among members and half is sold into a public reward fund. 36

Before its emergency recruitment, the team lost eight of fifteen former members to death, with three severely injured, one crippled, and three lightly injured. 36

Recruitment and Training

The family periodically selects servants with suitable bone aptitude for martial training. During the initial selection, candidates were given one month to cultivate qi and blood; those who failed were returned to menial work. 1

Access to this system is not entirely merit-based. Li Yuan bribed the Third Steward to insert his son Li Peng into a limited training group, temporarily displacing the qualified Chen Xun. 1

After catastrophic Hunting Team losses, the family urgently expanded recruitment. It dismissed servants without martial aptitude, hired replacements, selected more promising servants for training, and temporarily cut Li Family Martial Arts School admission fees by thirty percent. 34

Major Incidents

One-Line Sky operation

The Third Medicine Escort Squad was attacked while escorting medicinal herbs through One-Line Sky, losing the shipment to bandits. The Li Family later retaliated, killed most of the bandits, and occupied the route. 22 23

Vice-Captain Ke Jun explained that the bandits’ attack gave the family justification to seize One-Line Sky without provoking intervention from Blackwind Stronghold. Chen Xun consequently suspected that the escort squad may have been used as bait. 23

Hunting Team disaster

The Hunting Team later suffered catastrophic losses in the mountains. The Li Family initially dismissed reports as rumors, but the rival Huo Family produced identifiable corpses of Li Family hunters, forcing the estate to acknowledge the disaster. 33 34

The family prohibited servants from discussing the incident under threat of severe punishment. Li Yuan treated the crisis as politically valuable information and inferred that an important family figure had been injured after the Inner Courtyard Clinic closed. 33 34

Relationships

• Chen Xun — Former outer-court servant who became a Li Family Martial Artist, served in the Medicine Escort Team, and later joined the Hunting Team. The family’s protection also deters the Wild Wolf Gang from targeting him openly. 1 12 24 35
• Li Peng — Son of Steward Li Yuan. His position in the original martial-trainee group was purchased through bribery, and he repeatedly attempts to leverage family connections against Chen Xun. 1 12 33
• Huo Family — Rival family that publicly exposed the Li Family Hunting Team’s losses by producing the bodies of dead hunters. 34
• Fang family — More powerful Cloudflow County household; the Li Family is described as a tier below it. 20
• Wild Wolf Gang — Criminal organization restrained from openly acting against Chen Xun because of his connection to the Li Family. Li Mingyuan’s warning letter compelled its leader to order Ma Qianli to withdraw his surveillance. 24 29
• Blackwind Stronghold — Powerful force whose possible intervention prevented the family from openly taking One-Line Sky before the bandits attacked Li personnel. 23
• Old Li Family — Related branch whose leadership seeks to rise again and challenge the main branch through its heir’s prospective entry into Qingyun Martial Academy. 15