Mr. Li

Biodata

Feature	Detail
Name	Li Yunsheng 146
Alias(es)	Mr. Li; Grandpa Li; Temple Priest Li 102 142
Gender	Male 105
Affiliation	Three Matron Temple; a family line that kept the Houtu Goddess Temple 98 105
Occupation/Role	Temple keeper and ritual practitioner 98 142
Status	Deceased; Xu Feng stitched his body and buried him in the Charity Cemetery 206
First Appearance	Mentioned in Chapter 98; appears in Chapter 102 98 102

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Life-and-Death Mystery Gate	103	Had crossed this cultivation threshold before the events shown. He failed to nurture a Divine Embryo, however, and said the breakthrough would not prevent his death.

Background and History

Mr. Li’s family served as keepers of the Houtu Goddess Temple for generations. An ancestor helped transfer divine presence to what became the Three Matron Temple; Mr. Li later spent more than fifty years guarding the area’s troubled Earth Vein 98 105 140. He and his son also helped Zhao Er learn methods by which he could earn a living, without passing on teachings that their own rules forbade them to share 139.

When Xu Feng and Zhao Er sought a divine presence for their planned shrine, Mr. Li agreed to guide their ritual. He gave Xu Feng an introductory book he had written and taught him hand seals, while making clear that he could not teach the accompanying formulas and visualization 103 105. At the time, he expected to die within the year. Zhao Er later learned that Mr. Li’s son and the son’s family were gone; Mr. Li’s daughter and son-in-law had been sent elsewhere 103 105.

An investigation around the Three Matron Temple uncovered waterlogged corpses and evidence that its protection had waned. Mr. Li helped Xu Feng and Zhao Er put the bodies to rest, then arranged to open his son’s grave 119 138. He found remains caught in a trap of gu and witchcraft aimed at him and concluded that his son had taken the intended blow. He had the remains burned and set out against the Earth-Fire Cult and those who had aided it 140 142.

After destroying the cult’s operations and confronting its Elder of Transmission, Mr. Li continued investigating the underground palace and its Earth Vein 143 148 151. In his final confrontation beneath the Three Matron Temple, he fought a practitioner who had spread through the Earth Vein. Xu Feng carried the exhausted priest back to the temple; after Mr. Li died, Xu Feng stitched and buried him 206.

Appearance

Mr. Li is an elderly man who initially walks with a cane and a stoop, despite his formidable physical ability 102 137 140.

• He has a goatee 102.
• During the investigation of his family’s deaths, his hair turns completely white; later, it thins and his eyes grow cloudy 140 146.
• Before setting out to kill those responsible, he lets down his hair and covers his head and face with cloth 142.

Personality

Mr. Li is affectionate toward Xu Feng, inviting him to call him “Grandpa Li,” praising his memory, and sharing what instruction he can 102 105. He urges Xu Feng to do good deeds and accumulate Yin Virtue, treating spiritual knowledge as a responsibility rather than simply a means to gain power 105 147.

He is also cautious about trust. Mr. Li later admits that he handled the Elixir of Immortality alone partly to protect Xu Feng and partly because he did not want to test another person’s character against temptation 153. His response to his family’s fate is uncompromising: he protects Zhao Er from a witchcraft trap, then pursues the people behind it at great cost to his own failing body 140 142 146.

Abilities & Skills

Temple rites and inviting deities

Mr. Li teaches Xu Feng the principles of ritual invitation and guides the establishment of his planned temple 104 105.

• He explains that inviting a deity borrows spiritual presence rather than permanently taking it away 105.
• He presides over Xu Feng’s ritual, prepares its petition, and offers to calculate auspicious dates 105.
• He teaches the Incense-Offering, Appeal, and Offering-Acceptance hand seals, but cannot pass on the formulas and visualization needed for their full use 105.

Perception and Earth Veins

Mr. Li can detect baleful objects and hidden Yin Virtue protection carried by Xu Feng and Zhao Er 102. He also recognizes that buried corpses have revealed a deeper problem with the Earth Vein his family had guarded 137.

• He reads Dayuan Town’s wealth-gathering feng shui formation and identifies measures used to contain its baleful energy 143.
• His Incense-Burning Horse Ride, a form of Yin-Walking, carries him and Xu Feng along an Earth Vein; he warns Xu Feng not to look inside the Dragon Vein 142.
• Sealing Dayuan Town and halting its Earth Vein consumes years’ worth of cultivated power 142.

Inner cultivation and combat

Mr. Li uses inner alchemy, immense reserves of essence and qi, a sword, and thunder arts against the Earth-Fire Cult 143 144 206.

• His sword cuts through transformed corpses, and he breaks a feng shui formation with a thrust 143 144.
• He breathes true fire to ignite a tainted alchemy furnace and holds down its lid while a Corpse Immortal burns inside 146.
• He fights the practitioner beneath the Three Matron Temple with thunderous breathing, but emerges with his strength and breath spent 206.

Instruction

Mr. Li gives Xu Feng a breathing method intended to help regulate his abundant vitality and draw more from the Great Fish Essence he consumed 137 199.

• He directs Xu Feng to study the divine figures in an underground palace mural as a foundation for advancing Corpse Stitching 151.
• He points to Corpse-Liberation Immortals’ underground palaces as possible sources of knowledge about the craft’s Needle, Tracing, and Filling branches 142.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Sword — used against the cult’s transformed corpses and its feng shui formation 143 144.
• Small bell — used to gather and refine the souls of fallen cultists 148.
• Large incense sticks — used to seal Dayuan Town and halt its Earth Vein 142.
• Handwritten introductory book — Mr. Li gives Xu Feng his guide to inviting gods and shrine rites 105.

Relationships

• Xu Feng / Zhao San — a younger practitioner Mr. Li treats like a grandson, teaches, and takes with him during his campaign against the cult. Xu Feng later stitches and buries him 102 105 142 206.
• Zhao Er — an old acquaintance whom Mr. Li and his son once helped learn a livelihood; Mr. Li protects him from the trap laid in his family’s remains 98 139 140.
• His son, “Second Baby” — Mr. Li believes his son took the blow of witchcraft intended for him; the discovery drives his grief and pursuit of those responsible 140 143.
• Earth-Fire Cult’s Elder of Transmission — an enemy whom Mr. Li tracks to an underground palace and confronts after destroying the cult’s outer defenses 147 148.

Notable Quotes

“Do more good deeds and accumulate more Yin Virtue; you can always change your fate!” 105

“They have my son's and grandson's blood and bone. If they intend to use those as a medium, I'd like to see which is stronger: their witchcraft and gu, or the inner alchemy I've cultivated all my life!” 143