Shang

Biodata

Background / History

Musical heritage

The Shang were renowned for presiding over the world’s music. Their heritage encompassed the eight musical sounds: metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourd, clay, hide, and wood. As the clan expanded, it divided into three major branches 523.

Grand Pitch Shang originated as a small collateral lineage that became independent. It carried away three cultivation methods capable of reaching the Violet Palace, the strongest of which was fifth grade 384.

Dependence on the Tribulation Pool

Over hundreds and thousands of years, the clan repeatedly sent gifted members to the Tribulation Pool under the pretense of exploring a secret realm. Shang Chaohua admitted that these journeys were sacrifices intended to preserve the clan against the powerful High Sect controlling the pool 522.

Shang Sixian, Shang Qingzheng’s mother, was likely among those sacrificed. The elders pressured her by threatening her family, and her supposed companion on the journey was Qingzheng’s birth father, Song Ting, a Thunder Cultivator of the Tribulation Pool. True Person Xuan Xi could not save Sixian, but took Qingzheng away from the Shang 514 521 522.

The clan’s official account concealed its involvement: Sixian was said to have died during secluded cultivation after being disturbed by the Attached Fire True Lord’s ascension 520.

Jiang Yang’s investigation

Jiang Yang accompanied Qingzheng back to the clan after attaining divine powers. Shang Chaohua presented seventy-eight direct-line members from the household’s four branches, all of whom knelt before him. Jiang Yang questioned the clan’s history and strength before asking to visit Sixian 519.

At the ancestral hall, Qingzheng mourned before her mother’s spirit tablet, rejected the elders’ attempts to claim kinship, and demanded the truth. Jiang Yang exposed the clan’s hidden protector, Tinglan, and pressed the elders until Chaohua admitted that the clan had knowingly sent Sixian away 520 521.

Jiang Yang condemned the elders’ use of collective survival to justify sacrificing others. He sentenced Chaohua, the chief offender, to death; Chaohua destroyed his own immortal foundation. The remaining elders were spared, but explicitly warned that their survival did not erase their responsibility 522.

Leadership crisis

Shang Sibai succeeded his father during the ensuing crisis. Three clan elders subsequently developed overwhelming romantic attachments to a potted plant, a zither, and a wolfhound, and began preparing formal weddings. Their behavior was the result of Jiang Yang’s Conjoined Branch divine power 525.

Sibai appealed to True Person Yu Shan, fearing disgrace and further damage to the clan’s standing. Yu Shan found the elders’ minds and cultivation otherwise normal, but could neither understand nor remove the bonds. He refused to destroy their minds as a supposed cure and advised seeking the person responsible 526.

Organization & Leadership

• Local branches — The Grand Pitch household has four branches represented by Shang Chaohua, Shang Chaozhou, Shang Chaoyi, and Shang Chaojin. These are distinct from the wider Shang lineage’s three major branches 519 521 523.
• Direct-line household — Seventy-eight direct-line members attend Jiang Yang’s reception in the inner city 519.
• Outer branch families — After more than a thousand years of expansion, their numbers are described as beyond counting; they reside in the outer city 519.
• Succession rule — Tinglan recognizes the holder of the Pure Tone Nine Shao Flute as the rightful patriarch, following instructions from the qin’s former master 521.
• Qingzheng’s refusal — Although Tinglan bows to her and delivers the succession token, Qingzheng refuses the position. She considers herself first a Rain Xiang Mountain cultivator, not a member of the Shang household 521.

Abilities & Cultivation

Mystic Sound

• The lineage has transmitted Mystic Sound throughout its history 384.
• Grand Pitch Shang preserves zither and flute cultivation, but lacks the remaining instrumental inheritance of the wider clan 523.
• Its three inherited cultivation methods can lead directly to the Violet Palace; none exceeds fifth grade 384.
• Its unusual Mystic Sound heritage makes its gifted members targets of the High Sect’s schemes involving the merging of Mystic Sound into thunder 517 522 523.

Tinglan’s Protection

• Tinglan draws on the ancient qin’s divine status to provide protection at approximately the Violet Palace level 521.
• Without a capable cultivator wielding the treasure, he can respond only passively. Jiang Yang judges his maximum strength comparable to a Violet Palace cultivator with one divine power, possibly less 521.
• The qin is confined to the ancestral hall. Tinglan cannot readily leave it, act independently, or connect to the Great Void 521.
• His protection allows the clan to retain its Violet Palace Immortal Race standing without a living Violet Palace cultivator. Jiang Yang also regards that security as a shackle that has encouraged stagnation 521.

Territory & Treasures

• Clan city — Dominated by the Shang, with an inner residential estate and an outer city supporting trade. People of other surnames also live there, largely as dependents serving the clan 518.
• Ancestral hall — Located at the center of the estate; contains ancestral spirit tablets, the ancient qin, and genealogical scrolls stored in pearwood cabinets 520 523.
• Clear-Sound Jade Bamboo grove — A feature of the clan grounds that prompts Jiang Yang and Qingzheng to pause during their visit 520.
• Miaoxiang Tinglan — The ancient qin serving as the household’s last hidden safeguard and the vessel of its guardian deity 521.
• Pure Tone Nine Shao Flute — Qingzheng’s flute; its possession establishes patriarchal legitimacy under Tinglan’s inherited instructions 521.
• Succession token — Kept in a jade box and delivered to Qingzheng despite her refusal of the patriarch’s title 521.
• Ringing Jade — A spirit treasure secretly placed in the Shang household decades earlier by an outside lineage to help a woman fulfill a destined role. Its provenance was deliberately made difficult to trace 525.

Relationships

• Shang Qingzheng — Former prodigy and Sixian’s daughter. She retains memories of the household but little affection for it, rejects reconciliation, and refuses its patriarchal position 519 520 521.
• Jiang Yang — Investigates Sixian’s fate, executes Chaohua, and punishes three elders through Conjoined Branch 519 522 525.
• True Person Xuan Xi — Removed Qingzheng from the clan’s custody after being unable to save Sixian 514.
• Tribulation Pool / High Sect — The power invoked by Chaohua as protection, but also the destination of the clan’s coerced sacrifices 519 522.
• True Person Yu Shan — Responds to Sibai’s appeal and examines the afflicted elders, but declines a destructive intervention and cannot undo their bonds 525 526.