Li Chungang

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Li Chungang (厉淳罡)
Alias(es)	Blood-Handed Butcher 9 82 186
Gender	Male
Affiliation	History School; formerly associated with the Punishments Department; supporter of the Great Wilderness Council 64 285 286
Occupation/Role	Blood-tofu seller; history and Confucian teacher; former county magistrate 18 64 82
Cultivation Realm	Fifth Realm — Great Confucian 59 141
Residence	Chaoyang Street, Imperial Capital 64 186
Family	Li Feiyu, his granddaughter 64 104
First Appearance	Beside the well outside Li Chungang Tofu Shop 8

Background / History

Official career and disgrace

More than thirty years before his conversation with Wang Lin, Li Chungang served as a county magistrate in the Northwestern Circuit. Still in his teens, he was celebrated as the likeliest candidate to become the next Zhuangyuan. His killing of corrupt officials ended that promising career: he was dismissed, denied further promotion, and branded the Blood-Handed Butcher 82.

His campaign reportedly killed hundreds upon thousands of corrupt officials and shook officialdom. Disheartened by his dismissal, he withdrew to Chaoyang Street and began selling blood tofu. Certain high officials regarded the affair as a disgrace and kept it from becoming widely known 82 186.

Li believed his defeat reflected the way the world worked. Wang Lin later revealed that many people had fought to protect him but failed, leaving him stunned. The disclosure reopened a painful part of his past 82.

Life on Chaoyang Street

Although already a Great Confucian, Li supported himself through tofu-making because he held neither an official post nor a salary. He refused to sell his reputation, believing that doing so would ruin his literary heart. His granddaughter and lack of money also prevented him from traveling widely to study history 64.

Lin Ke first approached him while he was pulling a rope beside a well. The rope’s load was far beyond Lin Ke’s strength, and Minister Qi intervened before the attempt caused serious injury. Li nevertheless praised the young man’s drive and willingness to help 8.

Teaching Lin Ke

Lin Ke approached Li as his master and began studying from his history collection. Li combined reading with tofu-shop labor, requiring him to turn the millstone while studying and adding difficulty by sitting on it. His questions tested both factual recall and independent interpretation 17 18.

Li publicly defended Lin Ke during the confrontation with Lord Qiu and a Punishments Department powerhouse. He rejected the claim that Confucian teaching justified rigid social ranks and shielded his disciple when the official directed force at him 54 55.

After Li’s Great Confucian identity became public, he explained that openly selling blood tofu would attract crowds and people seeking favors. Lin Ke proposed giving him an “NPC” role in an escape-room attraction. During their discussion, Li offered his entire History School legacy; their subsequent conversation about inherited status turned an instructional relationship into a mutually chosen master–disciple bond 61 64 65.

Cooperation and reform

Li helped Butcher Zhang produce copies of Lin Ke’s novels and supported the escape room. When Lin Ke awakened the unfamiliar power of reform, Li investigated it with Wang Lin and Zhang, affirmed his trust in Lin Ke, and warned him to conceal its potential to bridge the Hundred Schools. The three agreed to teach him jointly 80 81 82 84 113.

Their relationship later became reciprocal: Li remained Lin Ke’s teacher while also becoming his disciple. He encouraged Lin Ke to transmit his distinctive skills to a younger generation rather than rely only on elderly followers 108 109 141.

At court, Lin Ke’s denunciation of corrupt officials renewed Li’s resolve. He publicly regretted allowing others to discourage his earlier campaign and joined the alliance supporting reform. Later, he supported pursuing corruption through legal proceedings and volunteered to help oversee the Punishments Department as part of Lin Ke’s reform program 186 188 283 286.

Appearance

Li Chungang appears as a white-haired, powerfully built old man. During his first meeting with Lin Ke, he is bare-chested, with his back muscles visibly working as he pulls the well rope 8.

• Sturdy physique: His build is noticeable even when he is seated inside the tofu shop 17.
• Beard: He frequently strokes it while explaining cultivation or speaking with Lin Ke 64 65 108.
• Blood-colored glow: A faint bloody radiance seeps from his hands when Wang Lin raises the subject of his disgrace 82.

Personality

Li’s hearty laughter and approachable manner contrast with his violent reputation. He appreciates initiative, welcomes Lin Ke’s willingness to help, and takes visible pride in his disciple’s successes. His generosity extends to obtaining expensive protective items for Lin Ke after an assassination attempt 8 119 141.

As a teacher, he is demanding rather than indulgent. He expects students to work, remember what they read, and form their own judgments. His warnings against arrogance and pursuing too much too quickly draw on his knowledge of talented people whose achievements proved short-lived 18 64 84.

Li opposes inherited social exclusion and refuses to accept the sacrifice of the weak for the benefit of others. He is also willing to reconsider his own assumptions: Lin Ke’s argument for fairness across all classes makes him acknowledge that he had focused on ordinary people’s hardships while overlooking his parents’ sacrifices 55 65 66 85.

His hatred of corruption remains intense, but his later support for lawful investigation shows that this does not always translate into immediate violence 186 283.

Abilities & Skills

Great Confucian Cultivation

• Literary heart: Possesses the condensed Great Confucian literary heart required for the Fifth Realm; he manifests it openly when challenging the Grand Tutor 59 171.
• Literary qi restraint: Instantly pins a fleeing disguised beggar to the ground. The agent dies when his head explodes before the group can question him 119.
• Energy defense: Sweeps away Lin Ke’s violet-blue lightning attack with his sleeve; the strike had reached mid-First-Realm strength 84.
• Qi shaping: Casually forms four chairs from invisible power 83.
• Protective intervention: Shields Lin Ke from the force of a Punishments Department powerhouse 55.

History School Techniques

• Historical reconstruction: The History School’s Great Confucians can summon phantom images of an object’s history, allowing even destroyed evidence to be examined. Li is identified as one of the school’s members associated with the Punishments Department 286.
• Time-flow support: Can support the escape room’s altered flow of time within its Painting Realm 113.
• Historical instruction: Maintains a substantial history collection and teaches through both reading and questions about motives, events, and interpretation 18 122.

Literary Production and Communication

• Book reproduction: Floats cross-legged while sheets of paper pass through an energy field, acquire the novels’ text, and bind themselves into books. Butcher Zhang supplies the paper 80.
• Great Confucian Documents: Helps produce communication documents containing contacts for Lin Ke’s teachers and elders, later supplied to Xi He for use when threatened 388.
• Heart-to-Heart Communion knowledge: Explains that the Buddhist method can be sustained by literary, Daoist, or Buddhist hearts. He resists serving as its host because repeated use would strain his literary heart and restrict his freedom of action 141.

Cultivation Assessment

• Injury assessment: Recognizes that Chen Pingping’s new injury has aggravated an older one and detects signs of his former Great Confucian cultivation 59.
• Breakthrough recognition: Identifies Lin Ke’s Qi Induction after sensing the disturbance 81.
• Hidden cultivation detection: Sees through Bai Zhantang’s concealed blood and qi, notices Shopkeeper Tong’s nightly sutra chanting, and exposes several neighbors’ concealed backgrounds 141.
• Limits: Cannot identify Lin Ke’s reform power as the aura of any existing school, despite finding no abnormality in his condition 82.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Blood blade — A blade beside Li flies out to intercept Lord Qiu’s attack; their collision sends wind and clouds surging 54.
• History collection — Includes National History and Treatise on the Warring States, which he assigns to Lin Ke 18.
• Literary Heart Jade Pendant and Heart-Guard Mirror — Obtains these for Lin Ke after promising additional protection. Each is reportedly capable of withstanding a Fourth Realm strike; together they are estimated to cost about twenty thousand taels of gold. He delivers them as a gift celebrating Lin Ke’s contest victory 119 141.
• Unusual suppression pendant — Takes the pendant involved in the assassination attempt to an old artifact-forging friend for examination after it suppresses the assassin’s supernatural manifestations 119.

Relationships

• Lin Ke — His history and Confucian disciple, later also his teacher. Li protects him, supports his reform plans, and encourages him to establish a teaching legacy 18 55 65 108 141 286.
• Li Feiyu — His granddaughter. He checks her hostility toward Lin Ke with a cough and later insists that she should become Lin Ke’s principal wife during the teachers’ marriage quarrel; no marriage is established in the provided account 18 64 104.
• Wang Lin / Princess Tian — Fellow teacher of Lin Ke and a teasing, argumentative companion. She reveals that people tried to protect Li after his dismissal; they later agree to joint instruction 82 84.
• Butcher Zhang — Collaborator in printing novels, escape-room operations, and Lin Ke’s training. Li resents Zhang securing the position of Lin Ke’s eldest disciple first 80 84 109 113.
• Chen Pingping — Recognizes him as Yu Ping’an, the renowned storyteller who overturned Hanging Sky Temple to save Yu Xi. Li assesses his injuries and promises to care for his son 59 94.
• Chen An — Entrusted to Li’s care by Chen Pingping as his death approaches 94.
• Minister Qi — Knows Li’s dangerous reputation and intervenes during the well incident, while Li defends Lin Ke’s helpful intentions 8.
• Shopkeeper Tong — Neighbor whose concealed Buddhist background Li exposes by challenging his denials and threatening to confiscate his Buddha statues 141.

Notable Quotes

“I am not the one obstinately deluded. Confucius's path is not about dividing people into ranked tiers. It is about teaching without distinction.” 55

“To hell with sacrificing the weak for our sake. I don't need that!” 66

“When has our History School ever known fear!” 186