Gu Yanzhi

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Gu Yanzhi (顾衍之) 1
Alias(es)	“Chovy,” a self-applied nickname 2 26
Species/Race	Originally human; inhabits human, transfigured-human, and cursed-spirit bodies across successive lives 1 4 19 33
Gender	Male; later transmigrates into Mai Zenin’s female body 34 47
Affiliation	Host of the Causality System; ally of Jujutsu High during the battles against Kenjaku and Sukuna 1 41 42 43
Occupation/Role	Transmigrator; Culling Game Swimmer; Mishima Yuto’s cursed-spirit mentor 1 21 33
Status	Alive in Mai Zenin’s body, fighting the Hei squad while protecting Maki at the latest documented appearance 50
First Appearance	Chapter 1, “I have to fight Suguru Geto? Seriously?” 1

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Ordinary human; empty ability slots	1	Begins as A Cheng, a labor-hardened villager without a cursed technique or the ability to see cursed spirits.
First inherited physique	2	Preserves A Cheng’s physique after death. Added to an office worker’s body, it grants approximately two adults’ strength and improves chronic ailments.
Transfigured-human physique	4 5	Mahito’s alterations increase his strength to roughly six or seven adults’ worth. He retains awareness through the transformation and subsequently inherits the altered physique.
Seven-Person Share physique	6 10	Carries his accumulated physique into Tanaka’s body. The student’s incomplete development limits its current capacity to about seven people’s worth; the enhancement also corrects nearsightedness.
Grade 1 sorcerer-level combat strength	11	Further transfiguration grants four hands, additional eyes, cursed-spirit sight, and rapid healing. Defeats a genuine Grade 1 cursed spirit in Kenjaku’s trial.
Further physique inheritance	16	Preserves his latest transfigured-human physique after dying. Chooses a causality reward that guarantees reincarnation into a random key plot character rather than doubled settlement rewards.
Special-grade cursed-spirit body	18 19	Becomes Kurourushi, adding his accumulated physique to the spirit’s body and gaining its cursed energy, cockroach technique, and Festering Life Sword. Human-eating instincts compromise his judgment.
Human-vessel partnership	20 21 24 25	Attaches himself to Mishima Yuto. Dormancy suppresses his bloodlust; he can lend the boy energy and techniques, take control, and manifest parts of Kurourushi’s body.
Inherited special-grade cursed energy	31	Chooses Kurourushi’s reserves instead of its physique or cockroach technique. Adds the energy to his inheritance bank alongside his accumulated physique.
Object Manipulation and barrier expertise	33	Inhabits a former disciple of Kenjaku. Gains the body’s technique, extensive jujutsu knowledge, and modified Hollow Wicker Basket; his inherited reserves more than double Object Manipulation’s raw power.
Incomplete Domain Expansion	36 37	Deploys Court of Ten Thousand Treasured Arms against Kashimo. Its enhanced restraints and movable battlefield enable a harbor trap that ends their fight in a draw.
Four ability slots; inherited Object Manipulation	45	After Sukuna kills him, chooses a fourth slot over doubled rewards and permanently preserves Object Manipulation for later lives.
Physique exceeding twenty people’s worth	47	Awakens in Mai Zenin’s body with greatly accumulated physical strength. Defeats Naoya, although Mai’s young body makes cursed-energy control unstable.
Two cursed techniques demonstrated	50	After his cursed tools are sealed, uses a second, unnamed technique involving metallic liquid to withstand Jinichi’s attack.

Background / History

Before transmigration, Gu lived a largely homebound life: he worked overtime, spent weekends reading manga in his rented apartment, and argued about character strength online. Jujutsu Kaisen was his favorite series, and he had followed its manga from beginning to end 1 34.

The Causality System states that he died after “elbowing a truck” while crossing the road. It retrieves his soul and offers successive lives as characters connected to Jujutsu Kaisen, allowing him to preserve one ability after each death 1.

His first incarnation is A Cheng, the villager assigned to guard Nanako and Mimiko. The body’s memories reveal that A Cheng repeatedly abused the children. Gu rejects that cruelty but prioritizes escape, reasoning that Geto will rescue the girls without his intervention. Geto’s cursed spirits nevertheless find and kill him outside the village 1 2.

Appearance

Gu has no single persistent bodily appearance: his consciousness passes between different hosts, while inherited abilities modify their physical capabilities 1 2 31 47.

• A Cheng: A fairly strong man in his early forties, with dirt beneath his fingernails and an old scar between his thumb and forefinger 1.
• Tanaka: A high-school student wearing a stand-collar uniform, black trousers, brown leather shoes, and black-framed glasses that become unnecessary after Gu’s enhancement corrects his eyesight 6.
• Mahito-modified body: Four hands and additional eyes, created through further Idle Transfiguration 11.
• Kurourushi: A cockroach-like body over three meters tall, with six legs, compound eyes, a carapace, wings, and green blood 18 27 30.
• Kenjaku’s former disciple: A youthful-looking face with fine lines at the corners of the eyes 33.
• Mai Zenin: A young girl’s body whose tears can express Mai’s emotions independently of Gu’s conscious feelings 47 48.

Personality

Gu is pragmatic, sarcastic, and inclined toward long-term investment. He initially favors dependable physique accumulation over gambling on useful techniques, later revising that strategy when special-grade cursed energy becomes available. His fourth-slot choice likewise prioritizes future combinations over immediate gains 2 31 45.

His confidence as a manga reader repeatedly collides with firsthand danger. He learns that knowing an opponent’s abilities does not supply the experience, perception, or defenses needed to defeat them. After fighting Uro and Dhruv, he explicitly recognizes his shortcomings against veteran sorcerers; after dying to Sukuna, he accepts that the difference in strength was overwhelming 10 31 45.

Repeated deaths also make him emotionally detached. He sometimes experiences the world as a game and its inhabitants as NPCs, even while recognizing the risks his decisions impose on Mishima. That detachment is not absolute: he protects strangers, shields his vessel, and rejects the potential reward of sparing Kenjaku because doing so would enable further deaths 4 22 27 41.

He can be cruel toward aggressors. He robs Ito after being attacked, later burns the bully’s forehead with a cigarette, and disguises coercion as friendly reconciliation. Against more sympathetic opponents, he exercises restraint: he listens to Charles’s despair and spares him after their fight 6 7 8 34 35.

Abilities & Skills

Causality System and Ability Inheritance

The system retrieves Gu’s soul after death and allows him to retain one of the deceased identity’s abilities: physique, cursed energy, or cursed technique 1.

• Cumulative attributes: Physique and cursed energy stack, with each category occupying only one slot regardless of the number of inheritances 2 45.
• Equipped abilities: Begins with three slots and later gains a fourth, allowing additional techniques without sacrificing physique or cursed energy 1 45.
• Host memories: Receives the new body’s memories, though their clarity varies; Kurourushi’s memories arrive fragmented 6 16 33.
• Causality rewards: Meaningful changes to the main plot earn causality points. Merely performing actions absent from the original story is insufficient 16 31.
• Unreliable starts: Random identities can place him directly in lethal situations. After his Sukuna battle, nine successive civilian lives end almost immediately in Sukuna’s attacks 45.

Accumulated Physique

Physique inheritance improves muscle density, bone strength, explosive power, and durability together rather than simply adding lifting strength 5.

• Enables him to withstand a brick breaking against his body and overpower groups of armed attackers 6 8.
• Produces a bodily danger sense before he gains reliable cursed-spirit perception 5 9.
• Helps him survive Uro’s point-blank ambush and Kashimo’s severe lightning injuries 27 38.
• Remains constrained by the host: Tanaka’s unfinished development limits his usable capacity, while Mai’s young body complicates energy control 6 48.
• Kenjaku interprets Tanaka’s low cursed energy and extraordinary physical ability as a Heavenly Restriction; Gu’s documented enhancement originates in system inheritance 6 11.

Consciousness and Soul Resistance

System protection preserves Gu’s identity through transformations that erase ordinary victims’ awareness 4 10 12.

• Resists Mahito’s initial command to attack survivors and instead protects a woman 4.
• Retains partial awareness in Unlimited Void, comparing its information overload to the system’s memory transfers 5.
• Can remain conscious while Mahito compresses and stores his body 10 12.
• Not bodily immunity: Mahito can still reshape, immobilize, and command his body 11 12 15.
• Not complete instinct control: Kurourushi’s hunger and survival drive overwhelm his rational intentions despite system protection 19.

Cursed Energy

Gu permanently inherits Kurourushi’s special-grade cursed-energy reserves after the Sendai life 31.

• Supplies reinforcement and substantially greater output for later hosts’ techniques 31 33.
• Lends energy to Mishima for defense and physical enhancement, and suppresses leakage to avoid attracting Dhruv 21 23.
• Strengthens his output by revealing his technique during the Uro battle 27.
• Has finite reserves: controlling thousands of weapons drains him rapidly, and prolonged restraints against powerful opponents cause severe strain 41 43.

Object Manipulation / Psychokinesis

Object Manipulation envelops targets in cursed energy and controls their movement. Gu acquires it through Kenjaku’s former disciple and later preserves it through inheritance 33 45.

• Weapon control: Recalls blades, redirects fragments, launches debris, and commands large formations of cursed tools 36 41 43.
• Defense: Arranges weapons into shields and protective nets 42 49 50.
• Flight and transport: Levitates himself, rides a sword, and carries Maki with psychokinesis 36 49.
• Living-target restraint: Briefly immobilizes Kashimo, Naoya, and Sukuna 36 43 47.
• Tool activation: Can trigger a cursed tool’s technique by enveloping it in energy. Okkotsu uses this property with his domain’s copied-technique blades 43.
• Limits: Greater range increases consumption; living targets cost more to control, and resistance can drain energy or cause backlash 33.

Barrier Techniques and Hollow Wicker Basket

The former disciple’s memories provide extensive barrier knowledge and an instantly deployable, modified Hollow Wicker Basket 33 34.

• Uses Perception and Amplification Barriers, then dismantles them and removes residual energy to conceal his trail 34.
• Bypasses protected cursed-tool vaults and creates a containment barrier around Kenjaku’s battlefield 41 49.
• Modified Hollow Wicker Basket offers brief protection, but its small range and short duration cannot fully neutralize Kashimo’s lightning 36.

Domain Expansion: Court of Ten Thousand Treasured Arms

Gu’s domain is incomplete because he cannot fully integrate Object Manipulation into its barrier. It functions primarily as a barrier that greatly enhances the technique 37.

• Restrains Kashimo despite his Hollow Wicker Basket, enabling repeated close-range attacks 37.
• Can shift the enclosed battle’s coordinates; Gu moves it over the harbor before dropping Kashimo into the sea 37.
• Provides the restraint needed to finish Kenjaku while he is distracted by Takaba 41.
• Does not guarantee victory: Kashimo gradually overwhelms its restraints through cursed-energy output, while maintaining the fight exhausts and injures Gu 37.

Kurourushi’s Abilities

These abilities belong to Gu’s Kurourushi incarnation. He chooses cursed energy—not the cockroach technique—at that life’s settlement 31.

• Cockroach manipulation: Uses swarms for scouting, shields, encirclement, attacks, and flight support 23 25 27 31.
• Parasitism: Attaches his damaged body to Mishima, saving both their lives and suppressing his bloodlust while dormant 20 21.
• Manifestation and possession: Takes control of Mishima when the boy is outmatched and manifests Kurourushi’s limbs, wings, or full body 24 25 27.
• Recovery: A cursed spirit’s constitution permits healing without Reverse Cursed Technique 20.
• Danger to the vessel: As his body recovers, his bloodlust returns; Gu warns that Mishima would be his first victim if he lost control 21 26.

Metallic-Liquid Technique

While inhabiting Mai, Gu demonstrates a second technique involving a flowing metallic mass. Its name and full mechanics are not identified in the provided account 50.

• Uses the liquid to withstand Jinichi’s phantom-fist barrage after the clan seals his cursed tools 50.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Festering Life Sword — Kurourushi’s cursed tool; wounds introduce parasitic eggs whose larvae consume the target. Gu uses it against Dhruv’s shikigami and Uro, and Mishima can manifest it through their bond 23 25 27.
• Telekinetically controlled blade — His principal weapon in the Tokyo No. 2 Colony; remains useful as remotely controlled fragments after Kashimo shatters it 33 36.
• Massed cursed-tool arsenal — Thousands of weapons taken from Jujutsu High and the Gojo, Kamo, and Zenin vaults for the Kenjaku operation and subsequent protection against Sukuna’s flames 41 42.
• Flaming katana — Wielded during the Zenin escape and recovered mid-fight through psychokinesis 49 50.

Relationships

• Causality System — Source of his rebirths and advancement. Gu repeatedly argues with its indifference and disastrous identity selections, but continues using it 1 2 45.
• Suguru Geto — Responsible for his first incarnation’s death through a cursed spirit sent to eliminate massacre witnesses 1 2.
• Mahito — Both an enemy and an unintended source of physical growth. Gu initially seeks further transfiguration, then resists being reduced to Mahito’s specimen or prisoner 6 10 11 15.
• Satoru Gojo — Kills his second incarnation during the Shibuya Incident; later interrupts Mahito’s attack. Gu admires his overwhelming strength but struggles to arrange a later meeting 5 15 16 40.
• Mishima Yuto — Vessel, pupil, and combat partner. Mishima refuses to abandon him, while Gu trains and protects the boy despite fearing his own returning bloodlust 21 22 27 28.
• Yuta Okkotsu — Offers to help resolve Gu and Mishima’s bond rather than kill him. In a later life, becomes Gu’s trusted teammate and copies Object Manipulation during the Sukuna battle 26 43.
• Yuji Itadori — Cares for Gu’s dying transfigured body, later receives training from him, and mourns his death against Sukuna 16 42 45.
• Kenjaku — Tests him as Mahito’s specimen and was the teacher of a later host body. Gu ultimately exploits the mismatch between that familiar body and his unfamiliar soul to kill him 11 33 41.
• Hajime Kashimo — Relentless opponent who forces Gu into a near-fatal fight. Their agreed draw earns Kashimo’s respect; Gu later reassesses his earlier mockery after experiencing Sukuna’s strength 36 37 45.
• Charles — Briefly bonds with Gu over manga before attacking over their different tastes. Gu defeats but spares him 34 35.
• Takaba — Distracts Kenjaku through comedy, enabling Gu’s finishing attack; carries the preserved brain fragment back to Jujutsu High 41.
• Mai Zenin — Current host whose consciousness remains able to communicate her fear and desire to leave the clan 47 48.
• Maki Zenin — Mai’s injured older sister. Gu repeatedly risks his escape to carry, shield, and protect her 47 49 50.
• Zenin Clan — Opposes his intervention in Mai’s body; Naoya, the Kukuru Unit, and the Hei attempt to subdue him and Maki 47 48 49 50.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Shibuya: From Escape to Resistance

• His second life places him on a train entering Shibuya on October 31, 2018. After initially paying three extortionists to leave him alone, he rejects using death as an easy restart and fights back 2 3.
• Mahito transforms him, but Gu retains his identity and protects a survivor before Gojo’s Unlimited Void immobilizes him. Gojo decapitates him; his first two lives lasted only 19 and 47 minutes respectively 4 5.

Tanaka: Challenging Mahito

• Reincarnates as Junpei’s classmate, defeats local bullies, and forces them to attend the screening where Mahito is expected to attack 6 7 8 9.
• Chooses intervention over spectatorship, but his inability to locate an invisible curse makes his opening punch miss. Mahito captures and further modifies him 9 10 11.
• Remains defiant while Mahito mutilates him inside Self-Embodiment of Perfection. After Gojo arrives, Gu dies following a final warning to Yuji and earns causality rewards for altering the plot 15 16.

Sendai: Kurourushi and Mishima

• Human-eating instincts drive him to kill two curse users. His attempt to end the life fails when Kurourushi’s survival reflexes take over, eventually attaching him to Mishima 18 19 20.
• Trains Mishima and seeks Okkotsu, initially hoping the sorcerer will kill him before he becomes dangerous. Okkotsu instead offers assistance 21 23 26.
• Fights Dhruv’s shikigami and then Uro while protecting Mishima. Their joint attack forces Uro to expand her domain, where her barrage destroys Gu’s body 25 27 28 29.
• Kurourushi’s offspring survives independently, but Gu’s consciousness does not transfer to it. Back in System Space, he receives no causality points because his actions failed to meaningfully change a main plotline 30 31.

Kenjaku’s Former Disciple: From Kashimo to Sukuna

• Awakens in the Tokyo No. 2 Colony with Object Manipulation and barrier expertise. Despite trying to avoid Kashimo, he is forced into combat and engineers a draw through a harbor trap 33 34 36 37.
• Recovers at Jujutsu High after five or six days unconscious. His concealed host identity contributes to the school’s distrust 38 40.
• Volunteers to deliver Kenjaku’s finishing blow, prepares containment measures, and kills him during Takaba’s distraction rather than preserve him for possible rewards 40 41.
• Advises the Sukuna operation, including a plan for two trials to address Deadly Sentencing’s likely priority of confiscating a cursed tool. His stolen arsenal subsequently shields the fighters from Furnace 42 44.
• Coordinates Object Manipulation with Okkotsu and creates openings for Yuji, but ultimately dies to Malevolent Shrine 43 45.

Mai Zenin: Escape from the Clan

• After gaining a fourth slot and enduring nine near-instant civilian deaths, awakens as Mai while Naoya is choking her 45 47.
• Defeats Naoya and acts on Mai’s expressed wish to leave, carrying the badly injured Maki out of the clan’s judgment hall 47 48.
• Raids the cursed-tool vault and attempts an aerial escape. Ranta’s immobilization disrupts the flight, forcing Gu to catch Maki and confront the Hei 49.
• Continues protecting Maki despite exhaustion, sealed weapons, and Jinichi’s attacks; reveals the metallic-liquid technique as the fight continues 50.

Notable Quotes

“Then none of us are running. Let’s go to hell together.” 3

“I have a name. Gu Yanzhi.” 16

“If I come out myself, you’ll be the first person to die.” 21

“Then that day is today.” 48