Jia Hua

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Jia Hua (贾化)
Alias(es)	Gao Qin, used as a disguise; an old shepherd within his illusion 14 70
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Peaceful Way Abbey 13 133
Occupation/Role	Daoist cultivator; intermediary and covert agent managing the abbey’s arrangements involving Gao Huan, Xu Xuan, and Black Mountain 70 137
Master	True Person Quan Lian 133
Cultivation	Outer Scenery; completed his Nature Root 70 71
Status	Deceased; killed by Li Fuchan 136
First Appearance	First named appearance in Chapter 13; identified by Li Fuchan as the cultivator previously seen near Black Mountain 13 14

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Outer Scenery — seeking the Nature Root	14	Planned to plant a precious medicine within his Outer Scenery to complete his Nature Root. Sent out two motes of spirituality to temper his spirit and mind; their destruction injured his real body and threatened to delay the undertaking by at least five years.
Outer Scenery — completed Nature Root	71	Explicitly described as having recently completed his Nature Root. Used it to empower his self-created illusion, Mirror Flowers and Moon in Water. Completion of the corresponding Dao Fruit remained beyond him.

Appearance

Jia Hua appears as a middle-aged Daoist with a lean face, a long beard, and a yellow Daoist cap or crown 14 70.

• Wears a silk cord around his waist and flowing sleeves that lend him an immortal-like bearing 70.
• Usually maintains a warm, composed expression, concealing anger or anxiety when dealing with others 73 130.
• Adopts an old shepherd’s appearance inside his shepherd-and-woodcutter illusion 70.

Personality

Jia Hua is patient, calculating, and willing to cultivate useful people rather than immediately punish them. After Li Fuchan defeats his spiritual projections, Jia Hua becomes more interested in recruiting him: he regards Li’s ferocity and cunning as valuable qualities, provided they can eventually be put to the abbey’s use 17.

His devotion to Quan Yong shapes his decisions. Believing his senior brother to be kindhearted and burdened by the abbey’s affairs, Jia Hua willingly assumes the role of villain and accepts responsibility for morally compromising plans. His loyalty extends to arranging Mu Liang’er’s fate as the Wisdom King’s Wisdom Consort, although guilt afterward makes him avoid Quan Yong 14 72 130 133.

That devotion does not prevent atrocities. In a simulation, he restores his injured spirituality through the sacrifice of twelve hundred women. In another sequence, he supplies human Blood Qi to recruited fighters while presenting the abbey as an institution that does not cultivate through consuming it 14 74 77 78.

Jia Hua is usually flexible when survival demands it. He apologizes and offers compensation when Li Fuchan proves too dangerous to fight, and later invokes his sect’s protection when his sea of qi is sealed. At their final confrontation, however, he refuses to submit: recognizing that Li is trying to force Quan Yong’s hand, he chooses not to provide that leverage 71 133 136.

Abilities & Skills

Upper Pool Fishing Azure Art

Peaceful Way Abbey’s cultivation art traces its origins to Shi Water, the water of transformation in the yin position. One of its manifestations is mirror-clear water; its associated Dao Fruit is called Reflecting Shadow Chill 71.

• The completed Dao Fruit can reflect people and reveal their shadows, clarify turbid waters, cleanse mystic vision, and repair cracks in heart and nature 71.
• Jia Hua has completed his Nature Root but remains far from attaining that Dao Fruit 71.

Mirror Flowers and Moon in Water

Jia Hua creates this technique by combining illusion arts, methods of probing the heart, and the power of his Nature Root. It draws a weaker cultivator into a carefully arranged scenario and attacks their convictions through his understanding of the Dao 71.

• Constructed roles: Casts himself as a shepherd and Li Fuchan as a woodcutter, with the encounter’s outcome governed by the illusion’s concealed rules 70.
• Interrogation and instruction: Uses the technique to examine a young Ancient Art Cultivator’s disposition and impart the Purple Firmament Thunder-Script Treasure Register 77.
• Cost: Empowering the technique heavily depletes his Nature Root. Li Fuchan later suspects that its use damages Jia Hua’s life-force foundations 71 77 135.
• Limits: Intended for opponents of lower cultivation and unlikely to overcome stronger ones. Li Fuchan, assisted by his mysterious book, refuses its premises and forces Jia Hua to concede 70 71.

Spiritual Projections and Disguise

Jia Hua can send motes of spirituality away from his real body and use them to manifest disguised forms 14.

• Impersonates Gao Qin to manipulate the confrontation over the Resurrection Clam 14.
• Damage to the projections can return through their spiritual connection and injure his real body 14.
• His projections prove vulnerable to Li Fuchan’s unusually powerful Ancient Art spirituality and prepared counterattack 14 17.

Name-Aspect Method and Spiritual Perception

Jia Hua has enough knowledge of the name-aspect method to interpret names as clues to identity and fate 13 135.

• Warns Quan Yong that Li Fuchan’s grand title, particularly “beneath the Azure Heavens,” suggests a dangerous fate 13.
• Finds the alias Li Yaoshi plausible after making a quiet deduction, despite its deliberate construction to obstruct divination 135 136.
• Uses intuition and his Nature Root to detect a concealed observer near Xu Xuan, even when ordinary divination yields no answer 70 133.

Cultivation Manipulation and Corpse Refining

Jia Hua directs other people’s cultivation to create fighters dependent on Peaceful Way Abbey 77 78.

• Uses Li Thunder to break an Ancient Art Cultivator’s Three Lights, replacing a severed path with one that requires the abbey’s assistance against the three calamities 77.
• Allows that recruit to return temporarily to ancient arts and consume Blood Qi to recover from injuries 77.
• Turns a man with exceptional Blood Qi affinity into a Golden-Armored Corpse, retaining the man’s consciousness after feeding him the Blood Qi of 3,600 Pure Yang youths 78.
• The corpse’s physical strength rivals an Outer Scenery cultivator, but it lacks the spells and other abilities needed to match one fully 78.

Limitations

• Jia Hua is not proficient in direct magical combat and considers entering the Ming Beast Hunting Grounds personally too dangerous 72 78.
• Incomplete nature-and-life foundations leave him susceptible to outside influence. Three Nothing repeatedly redirects his thoughts and weakens his vigilance 75 77 89 95.
• Li Fuchan’s Embrace-Lock Crouching Cicada seal immobilizes his Dharma power without injuring him; Jia Hua cannot break it despite repeated attempts 133 135.

Equipment / Items

• Purple Firmament Thunder-Script Treasure Register — A Li Thunder formula acquired by his master through a fortuitous encounter. Jia Hua gives it to Li Fuchan and later uses it to bind another Ancient Art Cultivator to the abbey 17 72 77.
• Communication Jade Talisman — Sends a letter to Quan Yong even while Jia Hua’s Dharma power is sealed 133.
• Fate Jade — Kept in the abbey’s Patriarch Hall; its shattering confirms his death to Quan Yong 137.
• Storage Bag and magical implements — Remain untouched beside his corpse when Quan Yong finds it 137.

History

Early Recruitment Attempts

At Peaceful Way Abbey, Jia Hua advises Quan Yong against pursuing Li Fuchan after the latter enters the river. His warning about Li’s title persuades the abbot to abandon the proposed recruitment 13.

During an early simulation, Jia Hua nevertheless attempts to secure Li’s services for the abbey. He discovers the Resurrection Clam, follows Gao Qin’s activities, and uses disguised spiritual projections to lure Li into revealing himself. Li’s prepared decoy and counterattack destroy the projections, injuring Jia Hua’s real body. Jia leaves an apology and invitation, then restores his spirituality through a sacrificial array involving twelve hundred women 14 15 74.

Jia later draws Li into his Outer Scenery and grants him the Purple Firmament Thunder-Script Treasure Register. The gift is intended as a restraint: Li Thunder should extinguish Li’s Three Lights and make him easier to control. Jia also asks Quan Yong to prepare the abbey’s Contrary Thunder artifact to kill Li thirty years later. Li preserves his Three Lights and leaves without following Jia’s assignment 17 18.

Arrangements for the Abbey’s Return South

Jia Hua works to establish favorable karmic ties for Peaceful Way Abbey’s eventual return south. He arranges for a man to marry into the Gao Household as Gao Huan, expecting him to become useful to the abbey. Li Fuchan later identifies Gao Huan as He Liuhun 25 82.

He also sends Mu Liang’er to become the Wisdom King’s Wisdom Consort. Believing that his senior brother would be distressed by the truth, Jia Hua shoulders the blame and avoids returning to Flying Yellow Mountain 70 72.

Around Black Mountain, he oversees Xu Xuan’s developing connection to the force within the mountain. His task is not simply to encourage that development, but to restrain it at the critical moment. Li Fuchan infers that Gao Huan is being cultivated to eventually kill Xu Xuan 70 83.

The Contrary Thunder Dispute

In a later simulation, Jia Hua pursues Li Fuchan near Black Mountain and traps him in the shepherd-and-woodcutter illusion. Li breaks the encounter’s logic, threatens Jia directly, and secures an apology and compensation 70 71.

Mistaking Li for a Welcome Ying Isle cultivator, Jia seeks to recruit him as a Ming Beast hunter. He offers the abbey’s Contrary Thunder artifact as an inducement and negotiates a quota of either 600 Aperture Opening Ming Beasts or 21 Outer Scenery Ming Beasts, including their cultivation benefits or materials 72 73 74.

Quan Yong refuses to release the artifact before verifying Li’s identity. Jia offers to swear a binding oath on his Nature Root, but Li rejects the revised bargain and leaves 75.

Three Nothing’s influence then pushes Jia into recruiting replacement fighters. Li attacks the abbey’s agents, provoking Jia to seek the artifact as a countermeasure. Quan Yong eventually intervenes and breaks the influence distorting Jia’s judgment 77 78 80. Three Nothing later admits that it also encouraged Jia’s original promise by repeatedly suggesting that the artifact was useless to the abbey 95.

Sealing and Death

Outside simulation, Jia Hua continues monitoring Xu Xuan and supporting Gao Huan. He expresses remorse over Mu Liang’er but resolves to keep serving the abbey and Quan Yong 130 133.

Li Fuchan approaches him near Xu Xuan’s chamber and seals his sea of qi. Unable to restrain Xu Xuan or entrust the abbey’s decades-long undertaking to another person, Jia writes to Quan Yong for help 133.

Li returns under the name Li Yaoshi, reveals that he is the shadow responsible for the seal, and demands that Jia bring Quan Yong down from Flying Yellow Mountain. He threatens Gao Huan, any replacement for him, and Jia himself. Jia refuses to yield, and Li kills him with murky thunderlight between the brows 135 136.

Aftermath

Jia Hua’s death removes the intermediary responsible for numerous matters the abbey cannot handle openly. Quan Yong travels to Black Mountain after discovering the broken Fate Jade, only to find Jia’s body untouched and without the anticipated trap 137.

His disappearance also exposes the abbey’s weakness to rivals. Gu Tong notices that reports Jia normally forwards have not reached Quan Yong and later concludes that Jia is probably dead or otherwise unavailable 141.

Using the Clear-Sight Subtlety Mirror, Quan Yong retrieves Jia’s strongest thought before death: concern for his senior brother. Zilu’s grieving response indicates that Jia died without understanding Quan Yong’s true nature. Quan Yong nevertheless includes him among those he dismisses as having died through foolishness 145.

Relationships

• Quan Yong — Senior fellow disciple and abbot. Jia devotes himself to easing Quan’s burdens and accepts blame for the abbey’s schemes. His trust persists until death, despite accusations that Quan exploited him and damaged his cultivation 14 74 75 145.
• True Person Quan Lian — Master of both Jia Hua and Quan Yong. Jia invokes his name when seeking protection from Li Fuchan 133 135.
• Li Fuchan — Intended recruit, recurring opponent, and eventual killer. Their dealings involve disguises, coercive instruction, failed bargains, and contests of perception 14 17 71 75 136.
• Mu Liang’er — Martial niece whom Jia sends to become the Wisdom King’s Wisdom Consort. His guilt over her fate drives his prolonged avoidance of Quan Yong 72 130 133.
• Gao Huan / He Liuhun — Cultivator whose household placement and development Jia manages for the abbey. Jia maintains a mark on him and instructs the Gao Household to keep supplying cultivation resources 25 82 99 130.
• Xu Xuan — Central figure in the abbey’s Black Mountain arrangements. Jia monitors his increasing power and attempts to prevent his transformation from escaping control 70 78 133.
• Gao Gonglu — Gao Household leader who cooperates with Jia’s arrangements but privately resents outsiders’ exploitation of the household 25 130.
• Three Nothing — Hidden manipulator who influences Jia’s thoughts, decisions, and willingness to bargain with the Contrary Thunder artifact 77 89 95.

Notable Quotes

“Liang’er, your martial uncle has wronged you. But for the sake of the Peaceful Way Abbey, for the sake of my senior brother, I had no choice.” 130

“No, no, no! I do not need to know who you are, Senior. I understand all the rules! I never saw you. I never came here tonight, nor did I meet anyone.” 133

“I am going to die; only, this will be hard on Senior Brother.”
— His strongest final thought, revealed after death by the Clear-Sight Subtlety Mirror 145