Zhou Yan

Biodata

Power Progression

Background and History

Heavenly Secrets Heir

Zhou Yan trained his body from childhood despite belonging to a lineage associated with divination and heavenly secrets. He took particular pride in his physique, challenging Black Mountain to ask who ranked first in physical toughness among their generation of the Heavenly Secrets Lineage 109.

His background supplied both specialized techniques and a household treasure capable of detecting abnormalities in Mistveil Valley. On a later return to the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, he added formations, taught junior disciples divination, and searched the library for material he might previously have overlooked 102 313.

Mistveil Valley

Inside the ruins, Zhou Yan discovered increasingly chaotic time flows and repeatedly divined great danger. Rather than proceed alone, he waited for companions. He identified the site as part of the Demon Race’s Ancestral Court and brought Si Chen’s group to a stele concerning the Covenant of Time 102.

He helped relieve Luo Qingyin’s predicament by disrupting demon beasts from the battlefield’s edges. His evasive behavior nevertheless attracted suspicion, and Si Chen prevented him from slipping away during their retreat 103 104.

Zhou Yan later explained that he and Xie Changsheng had been investigating Hui Ming. His surveillance of Si Chen’s group had another motive as well: he wanted a closer look at Red Bean because it was adorable. He also recognized that the hall’s different time flow could have given Hui Ming far longer outside than they realized 109.

Great Yin Expedition

Zhou Yan helped invite Si Chen to Great Yin, explaining that the Eastern Region’s sects wanted to assess its increasingly domineering dynasty and newly enthroned emperor. He arranged their meeting at the Regional Border Pass and specifically asked Si Chen to bring Red Bean 121.

At the Four Directions Lodge, he briefed the group on Prince Ye Jing and warned that the prince would likely single out Si Chen at the Jade Forest Banquet. In the dynasty’s secret realm, he proposed demanding Storage Rings before resorting to violence and partnered with Black Mountain for the group’s contest 126 136.

He stood with Si Chen during the Great Yin crisis, earning Ye Fu’s gratitude. Later, at the Si Household, he joined the friends’ promise to ascend together someday 150 168.

Murong Residence and Murong Li

In the Immortal Realm, Zhou Yan crashed through Murong Li’s roof and landed in her bathtub. She fell in love with him immediately, while her household confined him and prepared a marriage he repeatedly tried to escape. Seven escape attempts ended in recapture; another was intercepted by Nanny Wang and two True Immortal maids 205.

An attempt to prevent the wedding by claiming impotence instead led to a humiliating examination by Nanny Wang. Despite his resentment over the confinement, Zhou Yan objected when Li Sheng publicly humiliated the Murong family at the ceremony and spoke in their defense 209 212 214.

During the ensuing attack, Murong Li’s presence unexpectedly amplified his Star River Chessboard. He shielded her from a killing blow and began seeing her as another victim rather than merely the source of his predicament. This change coincided with a loosening of the shackles within both their souls 215.

After Murong Li recovered her appearance and clarity, Si Chen explained that her curse was lifted but their fates remained connected. They could preserve their balance by staying close or meeting every ten years; forcibly severing the bond would require crushing and reshaping both fates. Zhou Yan ultimately allowed her to accompany the party 217 218 219.

Undying Mountain and the Wider Realms

Zhou Yan joined his companions in deciding to establish a shared home rather than continue living aboard their Starship. He later fought alongside Undying Mountain against Gu Hong’s Immortal Kings, combining his chessboard with Murong Li’s fate abilities under Si Chen’s empowerment 237 281.

He accompanied the journey to the Demon Realm to find Red Bean. Learning that the Ying intended to challenge the Imperial Lord provoked furious denunciations, and his friends had to restrain him again when accusations were directed at Zhu Yao. When the group departed, he told her that she had been cuter as a little bird 315 323 332 345.

During the conflict with the Filth Demons, Zhou Yan and Murong Li could not untangle the overwhelming karma afflicting Song Chi after his rescue of the Soaring Cloud Realm. Zhou Yan also helped gather Time Amber for the group’s reincarnation project 475 525.

Yu Jiutian’s Reincarnation

While constructing a time-interfering formation with Xie Changsheng, Zhou Yan deduced that he too was a reincarnation. He later arranged a tea meeting with Zhu Yao and Feng Qing, partly to learn his former identity. Zhu Yao immediately addressed him as Jiutian 544 559 560 561.

Zhou Yan rejected the restoration of his past-life memories. He argued that hundreds of thousands of years of Yu Jiutian’s experiences would overwhelm Zhou Yan’s identity, making the supposed restoration an obliteration of his present self. Zhu Yao agreed not to pursue the other reincarnations for the time being, though she reserved the right to awaken them in a desperate situation 560.

In the River of Time, Shi Yin offered a different inheritance: Yu Jiutian’s Great Dao insights without his memories, attachments, or grudges. Zhou Yan accepted it and encountered a final message from his former incarnation, who entrusted him with protecting those he cared about—while repeatedly insulting his looks and folding fan 582 583.

Reincarnation and the Battle Against Luo Hou

After refining the inheritance, Zhou Yan directed the combination of karma, fate, time, and the Great Dream Dao to establish the Eye of Reincarnation. The method originated with Yu Jiutian, who had lacked a suitable bearer of the Law of Fate in Ancient Times 584 585.

When Luo Hou grew stronger by devouring Yu Han, Zhou Yan proposed joining the River Chart World and the Underworld through the Eye of Reincarnation to create a complete universe. He organized the formation and linked his companions’ fates, but the attempt nearly exhausted all seven to death before seven Immortal Emperor Origin Sources supplied renewed power 615 621.

Following the transformation, Zhou Yan wielded the Innate Law of Karma against Luo Hou. His attitude toward his former self had also changed: while healing Feng Qing, he told her, “I am me, but I am also him” 627 628.

After a long separation, he and Murong Li rejoined the others upon receiving Gray Gray’s news that someone had left behind a seed. Zhou Yan relayed the news to Xie Changsheng in the River of Time 648.

Appearance

• Handsome features: His appearance earns him the title “Jade-Faced Young Master,” although he strongly dislikes being called a “pretty boy” 109 583.
• Tall, muscular build: At twenty-one, he describes himself as over seven feet tall, with a solid chest, thick arms, and evenly developed muscles 109.
• Folding fan: Frequently carries and waves a folding fan, tapping it against his palm while thinking or explaining matters 102 126.
• Star-filled eyes during techniques: His eyes fill with icy starlight when deploying the Star River Chessboard; after refining his inheritance, they display intertwined stars and karma 106 584.

Personality

Zhou Yan is calculating, observant, and reluctant to enter danger without preparation. In Mistveil Valley, unfavorable divinations persuaded him to wait for allies, and even while helping Luo Qingyin he watched the battlefield and his companions closely. His polished manners coexist with opportunism: he readily joins Storage Ring raids and chooses the River of Time for refining his inheritance because its unusual conditions offer free cultivation time 102 103 136 583.

He is proud of both his looks and physical strength, especially sensitive to being treated as a pawn or dismissed as a “pretty boy.” Among friends, that pride feeds constant teasing and exchanges of embarrassing stories. His affection for Red Bean is unusually unguarded, prompting him to follow Si Chen’s group and even attempt bird language 109 145 168 544.

Beneath his evasiveness, Zhou Yan values compassion and personal choice. He defended the Murong family despite their coercion, risked injury to protect Murong Li, and refused an easy return to ancient power at the cost of his present identity. He nevertheless offered Zhu Yao and Feng Qing his loyalty as a comrade in this life 214 215 560.

Abilities and Skills

Divination and Heavenly Secrets

Zhou Yan uses divination to evaluate danger, investigate hidden circumstances, and plan encounters 102 559 561.

• Detected great peril within the time-disordered ruins of Mistveil Valley 102.
• Prepared tea for Zhu Yao and Feng Qing before their arrival, surprising them despite his much lower cultivation 559.
• Deduced his connection to reincarnation from Xie Changsheng’s scattered remarks, but could not determine his former name unaided 544 561.
• His calculations can become unreliable when heavenly secrets are chaotic, as during his confinement at the Murong Residence 205.

Star River Chessboard

The Heavenly Secrets Lineage’s secret art creates a starlit domain in which Zhou Yan reads opponents as pieces on a board 106.

• Tracks movement, breathing, muscular reactions, and spiritual-power circulation 106.
• Amplifies his strength and offers the possibility of “taking back a move” 106.
• Dissipates attacks through interwoven starlight and restrains enemies with chains 215.
• Enables precise tactical instructions, allowing allies to evade killing blows and exploit openings 215.
• Becomes substantially stronger through Murong Li’s proximity and Fate Perception 215 220.
• Does not automatically overcome a cultivation gap: against ordinary True Immortals, he could evade their spells while struggling to injure them 220.

Star Shift

• Turns Zhou Yan into a streak of starlight for rapid repositioning.
• Used to intercept an attack intended for Murong Li; the movement did not prevent him from taking the blow himself 215.

Dao of Karma

Karma is Zhou Yan’s principal cultivation path and the basis of his growing sensitivity to bonds across lifetimes 561.

• Recognizes a profound, initially unexplained debt connecting him to Murong Li 561.
• Anchors the northern position of the reincarnation formation through the karma of myriad phenomena 584.
• Links his companions’ fates during the attempted fusion of the River Chart World and Underworld 621.
• Later manifests the Innate Law of Karma, declaring that Luo Hou has “no such person” within the karma of that heaven and earth 628.

Myriad Phenomena Heavenly Derivation Art

Inherited from Yu Jiutian, this art encompasses numerous laws and disciplines rather than a single specialization 582 583 584.

• Includes insights into formations, talismans, artifact refining, fate, karma, Sword Dao, time, and the five elements 583 584.
• Provides Great Dao understanding without replacing Zhou Yan’s personality with Yu Jiutian’s memories 582.
• Allows him to combine multiple laws into structures capable of reshaping the order of a world 584 585.
• Supplies lightning, fire, spontaneous formations, obscure curses, and Sword Dao attacks in combat; he uses a sword strike to save Song Chi from an Immortal King-level Filth Demon 597.
• Requires extraordinary resources and cooperation for world-scale applications; the fusion attempt nearly kills its participants 615 621.

Eight Trigrams Heaven-Deriving Formation

A battlefield formation that alters local rules through Myriad Phenomena Heavenly Derivation 604.

• Prevents Filth Demons from absorbing black qi and regenerating severed limbs.
• Distorts their speed and direction, making forward attacks carry them backward.
• Freezes internal energy to stop attempted self-detonation 604.

Equipment and Items

• Folding fan — His habitual accessory and a tool used while directing formations. During the reincarnation ritual, the river of stars on its ribs encompasses the myriad phenomena of the heavens 584.
• Household secret treasure — Allowed him to notice that something was wrong immediately upon entering Mistveil Valley; its name and precise mechanism are not given 102.
• Formation flags and spirit materials — Deployed by the tens of thousands when preparing to unite the River Chart World and Underworld 615.

Relationships

• Si Chen — Close friend and trusted ally. Si Chen describes them as being as close as brothers, lends him power in battle, and leaves decisions concerning Murong Li’s companionship to him 212 219 281.
• Xie Changsheng — Fellow investigator, formation collaborator, and frequent partner in mutual mockery. Their shared resistance to being replaced by past-life identities brings them into agreement; Xie Changsheng guards him while he refines Yu Jiutian’s inheritance 109 544 560 583.
• Murong Li — Initially his unwillingly accepted bride-to-be; later his fate-linked companion and combat partner. Their early coercive relationship develops into a close friendship through shared dangers, though the attempted forced marriage remains embarrassing to discuss 215 218 219 397.
• Red Bean / Zhu Yao — The object of his enthusiastic affection when she is a bird, and later a powerful ally who recognizes his former incarnation. He fiercely defends her, but opposes her plans to restore the reincarnations’ memories 109 323 332 560.
• Song Chi — Close friend and cultivation rival. Zhou Yan envies his earlier entry into the Immortal King Realm but later saves him from a Filth Demon’s attack 561 597.
• Black Mountain — Friend, raiding partner, and persistent teaser whose “pretty boy” remarks and references to Nanny Wang repeatedly provoke him 109 136 397.
• Murong Yuan — Murong Li’s father. Their relationship begins with Zhou Yan’s confinement in the Murong household; Murong Yuan later welcomes him back with conspicuous warmth 212 219 398.
• Nanny Wang — Overseer of his confinement and the source of an enduring humiliation. Her later greeting leaves him frightened enough to retreat behind Xie Changsheng 205 209 398.
• Yu Jiutian — His former incarnation and the creator of his inheritance. Zhou Yan rejects becoming a continuation of Yu Jiutian’s memories but accepts his knowledge and eventually acknowledges their connection without surrendering his identity 560 582 583 627.

Notable Quotes

“My life, Zhou Yan’s life, can only be held in my own hands.” 560

“No matter how glorious my previous life was, in this life, I am Zhou Yan.” 561

“Today, I shall use Myriad Phenomena Heavenly Derivation as its bones and reshape the order of this world!” 584

“I am me, but I am also him.” 627