Du Yu

Biodata

Power Progression

• “Outside-System Immortal” is Du Yu’s own description of his unusual early status, not a confirmed cultivation rank. He tells Lady Houtu that he is neither an ordinary mortal nor an Immortal and still has no magical power of his own at that point 49.
• “Time,” “Creator,” and “Terminator” describe temporal roles rather than ordinary cultivation realms. Time explains that the Creator begins a cycle, while the protagonist occupies its end as the Terminator, separated from the Creator by more than four hundred intervening Du Yus 431.
• Borrowed strength does not make his early body an Immortal’s body. Even much later in his Operator career, Zhan Qisheng calls his body mortal when he cannot lift the Golden Flood Dragon Scissors 258.

Background / History

Du Yu grew up in an orphanage and was never adopted. He attributes this partly to his unwillingness to compete or take initiative. After graduation, he worked exhausting workshop shifts without accumulating much money. With few attachments to his former life, he initially welcomed the possibility of starting again 1 2.

A runaway truck struck his bus and killed him while leaving every other passenger unharmed. The collecting officers, Fan Xiaoguo and Xie Jin, explained that Zhou Zhuangshi had been destined to die instead. Du Yu selected reincarnation into a wealthy household as his wrongful-death benefit 1.

At the Ghost Gate, Cui Jue personally ruled his death unjust after Du Yu’s presence awakened memories of the nineteenth year of Zhenguan. Faced with a 726-year reincarnation queue, Du Yu accepted a dangerous assignment in exchange for Cui Jue’s promise to try to advance his place. He was delivered to the ruined Legend Management Bureau Netherworld Office 2.

After his first successful mission, Cui Jue admitted that the success could not shorten his wait. Du Yu nevertheless continued working as an Operator, later explicitly identifying himself with the role 16 17.

Orphanage Records and Alternate Family History

Du Yu’s records state that he was abandoned at three months old. The orphanage repeatedly used his rescue as a publicity example for more than twenty years, and annual interviews about his gratitude gradually wore away his appreciation 406.

During his later temporal journey, Du Yu witnesses a family consisting of Du Lao’er, Du Yi, Nana, and a young child named Du Yu. He initially struggles to reconcile this happy household with his own orphanage background and suspects that Time is fabricating memories. The history he observes instead belongs to a different Du Yu: the Sage’s account describes a man raised by his family who died in an accidental fire, rather than the protagonist’s bus accident 405 406 407 411.

Time eventually explains that the childhood self shown to him is the Creator, while the protagonist is the Terminator. Hundreds of intervening lives and timelines have made them effectively different people. The final timeline analysis distinguishes Du Lao’er, the Creator’s grandfather, from Du Nanshan, the protagonist’s true direct-bloodline ancestor 431 456.

Origin of the Temporal Cycle

The original temporal loop begins with Ancestor Du Yu and Shiranui Asuka. In the Ancestor Timeline, Asuka travels to China for the Peach Banquet, meets Du Yu as a lonely ghost, and falls in love with him. Seven years later, his soul scatters. Her unauthorized use of the Cause-and-Effect Reversal Formula revives him, pushes time back farther than she realizes, and makes her the first Time 456.

Second-Generation Du Yu later becomes Time in Asuka’s place. His efforts to alter his past include making a past Du Yu an orphan, sending assassins against past selves, and searching for Great Dark Heaven. These interventions help produce the sequence of Du Yus and legends inherited by the protagonist 456.

The apparent early memories of the protagonist held by Cui Jue and Zhongli Chun are ultimately explained as memories of a preceding Du Yu, not proof that they had already met this particular protagonist. Successive Du Yus had become similar enough in behavior and mission choices that the protagonist appeared to fulfill those inherited encounters 456.

Final Timeline

Du Yu ultimately sees through Time’s manipulation, becomes Time himself, and develops a plan to abolish the cycle. He uses He Suoyi’s accumulated suffering and explosion to destroy the Time Caves, escapes with a Time Spell, kills Ancestor Du Yu, and replaces him in the timeline 431 454 456.

He returns to a point before his meeting with Asuka to expose fewer inconsistencies. The Legend Management Bureau disappears, but his friends are preserved. He becomes the world’s last Supreme Pivot and can remain with his friends and loved ones forever. The final analysis leaves open the possibility of still larger closed loops and an agency operating above the system he destroyed 456.

Personality

Du Yu’s casual manner conceals a methodical mind. He jokes, complains, and improvises extravagant lies, but also records inconsistencies and compares competing accounts before acting. Dong Qianqiu revises her early opinion of him after seeing how carefully he organizes the mysteries surrounding Da Yi 5 6 42.

Personal bonds strongly influence his decisions. He risks himself for Da Yi, refuses to abandon Zhongli Chun on a battlefield, and treats kindness as something to repay. Dong Qianqiu connects this attachment to his lonely upbringing, while He Suoyi argues that his mortal emotions explain his unusually successful legend completions 8 32 37 44.

His concern for individuals frequently conflicts with his responsibility to preserve history. He is devastated by the requirement to separate Da Yi and Heng’e, yet accepts that sparing them could endanger countless others. Later, rather than decide Cui Jue’s future for him, Du Yu proposes asking Cui Jue’s past self to make the choice 13 15 40.

Du Yu is irreverent toward divine authority but fierce about injustice. He calls powerful figures “boss,” strokes the Queen Mother of the West’s fur, and confronts Cui Jue physically when the magistrate refuses to reconsider an abused woman’s case 11 48.

Respect for Personal Choice

His principle of not deciding another person’s life becomes explicit during Cui Jue’s mission. Rather than let Cui Jue assume what his mother wants, Du Yu urges him to ask her directly. When Qu Xi later chooses to preserve her memories and remain at the Bureau, he closes the Portal instead of changing her past against her wishes 51 223.

He also shows compassion toward people who deceive or misunderstand him. He returns an injured amnesiac man’s cursed spirit stones and carries him to find his brother, and he gently persuades Xu Liunian that her supposed film shoot has ended rather than immediately confronting her with the full horror of her death 191 240.

Protective Anger and Ruthlessness

Du Yu’s protectiveness can become lethal when his friends are threatened. He initially restrains himself when Ju Wu harasses Shiranui Asuka because the mission and the Jiang Tribe’s rules require caution. After repeated threats, he crushes Ju Wu’s wrist, gives him a final chance to apologize, and refuses to keep holding back merely for the aggressor’s benefit 270 271.

He explicitly tells Xie Yujiao that hurting his friends would make her his enemy and that he would never forgive her. During the great battle, his treatment of Horse-Face becomes markedly colder and more humiliating than his usual approachable manner 315 371.

The deaths of Dong Qianqiu and Xiao Qi push his anger into a desire for revenge even at catastrophic cost. He initially rejects warnings that killing Great Dark Heaven would destroy the world, naming the dead he wants to avenge and refusing to let others dictate his decision 388 392.

Long-Term Scheming and Moral Conflict

Du Yu’s later apparent recklessness is not always impulsive. The final analysis explains that his repeated courting of death, beginning in the White Snake legend, was intended to expose Time’s interference and test how much Time could repair to keep him alive 456.

He also becomes willing to sacrifice innocent alternate versions of himself to preserve his own world. Killing Ancestor Du Yu troubles him because the ancestor has done nothing wrong and may never understand why he dies. The mocking figure undergoing Demonization represents Du Yu’s rejection of his own decision rather than a separate ally 456.

Unlike Second-Generation Du Yu, who initially regards the Seven Outstanding Disciples largely as fellow survivors, the protagonist comes to regard the companions he gathers as family. Preserving them is central to his final scheme 456.

Abilities & Skills

Legend Intervention

Du Yu operates through assigned identities within historical and mythological legends 4 22 40.

• Mission duration varies: his first descent into Zhongli Chun’s long-term legend lasts one day, the second lasts three days, and the Cui Jue mission allows one seven-day descent 22 26 40.
• Injuries carry over: damage suffered in a legend appears on his body at the Bureau, including the wounds caused by wielding Da Yi’s fan 12 16.
• Support depends on the liaison: Dong Qianqiu enables him to bring small objects into legends; Xiao Qi instead transmits images 42.
• Communication can be severed: Zhan Qisheng temporarily blocks both Du Yu’s voice connection and the Bureau’s visual feed 15.
• Observation is not guaranteed: during his Shang-era descent as Zhang Zhen, Xiao Qi explains that the Bureau can neither see nor hear events inside the legend 71.
• Transmission can be hijacked: He Suoyi puts Xiao Qi to sleep and takes over her voice connection to pressure Du Yu into killing Zhang Jian 85.
• Interventions can affect other legends: his incidental rescue of a white snake on Mount Emei leads him to recognize that he has interfered in the White Snake legend 94.
• Historical contradictions have consequences: Dong Qianqiu explains that the world corrects inconsistencies, but an irreparable flaw can destroy it 143.
• Timeline order can differ from legend order: when coordinating “Gonggong Rages Against Mount Buzhou” and “Nüwa Mends the Sky,” he must account for both the chronological order of the legends and the order in which different Du Yus participate 307.

Eight Directions Ghost Record

The Eight Directions Ghost Record is described as the legendary cultivation method Lady Houtu used when founding the underworld. Its extreme yin-based nature supposedly permits cultivation despite the exhaustion of spiritual energy 17.

• Initially appears to be a gift from Fan Wujiao, delivered by Fan Xiaoguo; Fan Wujiao later reveals that Lady Houtu entrusted it to him for Du Yu 17 39.
• Du Yu subsequently sees an inner clearing marked with the character for “ghost” and eight blood-red lines 37.
• His later ghost-strength borrowing is explicitly recognized by Chi Ghost, but no named realm or complete mastery is established at that stage 38.
• His inner world later accommodates Zhongli Chun and Chada. He enters it to stop their fight, discovers that their conflict arose from a missing Translation Talisman, and introduces them properly 147.
• Du Yu chooses to relinquish the Record and erases his name while preparing for the underworld’s evacuation. Zhan Qisheng warns that abandoning it would leave him an ordinary mortal 334 342.
• Subsequent battle passages nevertheless show him combining several companions’ powers. The cited events do not explicitly explain how this later access relates to his erased name 349.
• The Record is empty at the end of the story; its final condition remains among the unresolved mysteries noted in the timeline analysis 456.

Zhongli Chun’s Borrowed Strength

Du Yu can draw on Zhongli Chun’s abilities through their guardian-ghost bond 38 42.

• Ghostly Movement Technique: rapid evasive movement used against soldiers and Chi Ghost 35 38.
• Enhanced senses: Zhongli Chun’s cultivation physique provides keen hearing and eyesight, allowing him to locate Cui Jue inside his residence 48.
• Strength and precision: he catches Li Neng’s saber between two fingers and prevents him from pulling it free 48.
• Initial limits: he cannot initially access all of Zhongli Chun’s power and is still overpowered by Chi Ghost 38.
• Later concentrated attack: gathers all of Zhongli Chun’s power into a punch against Zhong Kui after catching and evading the Demon-Slaying Sword 63.
• Continued battlefield use: draws on her footwork and strength against the Black Arhats, driving a fat monk backward with a full-power exchange while recognizing that their unusually tough bodies cannot be killed with fists alone 321.
• Demonic power is not treated as safe: after Zhongli Chun awakens strength through anger, Du Yu warns that using it could turn her into a Demon and make her forget him. This warning concerns her power, not a confirmed demonic transformation of Du Yu 147.

Other Borrowed Powers and Possession

Du Yu’s later combat repertoire extends beyond Zhongli Chun, although these abilities are initially associated with beings whose strength he borrows or whose presence he hosts 288 335 349.

• Xingtian: takes Xingtian into his body and suffers disordered heart meridians. Later identifies possession by Xingtian as a possible escalation against the monks, but avoids it because of the expected drain on his vitality 288 321.
• Yinglong: unleashes dragon breath during the coordinated attack on Fuxi. Yinglong subsequently takes over his speech and presence to examine A Can and A Kui 329 335.
• Zhan Qisheng: gathers Zhan Qisheng’s power alongside Zhongli Chun’s when resisting Maudgalyayana 349.
• Yingning: summons her power to cover his hands in thick ice during the same encounter 349.
• Combined defenses have limits: even these layered powers do not allow him to easily withstand Maudgalyayana, whose cultivation is described as Great Power level and approaching Heavenly Venerable 349.

Investigation and Improvisation

Du Yu repeatedly solves problems by organizing evidence and disguising practical tricks as divine abilities 6 8 33 42 45.

• Clue analysis: lists contradictions in Da Yi’s legend and the old woman’s account before pursuing missing witnesses 6 42.
• Thousand-Autumn Divine Art: uses Dong Qianqiu’s voice transmission to distract Nine-Infant rather than casting a spell himself 8.
• Fire Cloud Palm: presents thrown grenades as a supernatural martial technique to frighten enemy soldiers 33.
• Red Seven Art: uses Xiao Qi’s transmitted red image to blind opponents while he fights them 45.
• Impersonation: combines his performance with Dong Qianqiu’s voice to pose as the Queen Mother of the West when confronting Zhongli Chun’s mother 24.
• Liaison dependence: embarrasses himself by attempting the Thousand-Autumn Divine Art and Red Seven Art when neither Dong Qianqiu nor Xiao Qi is available 92.
• Exploiting protective conditions: charges into a battle of immortal spells to force Yingning to act after she declares that she will only help if he is about to die 92.
• Disguise detection: recognizes a false Fan Wujiao because the impostor calls him “Du Yu,” a name the real Fan Wujiao has not heard in that historical encounter 211.
• Staged conflict: disguises himself as a monk and pretends to attack Bai Suzhen and Medusa to encourage them to accept one another as sisters 162.
• Temporal deduction: infers that the various historical versions of You Si are pursuing an important forgotten task, then later investigates her origin directly with Time 269 313 332.
• Testing hidden intervention: deliberately endangers himself to determine the extent of Time’s protection and expose the larger scheme behind his survival 456.

Command and Battlefield Leadership

During the guardian-ghost episode, Du Yu reorganizes retreating Qi troops, promotes Kuang Zhang, and orders three forces to attack the Zhao camp along separate roads. The coordinated assault ends in Qi victory and the withdrawal of Lian Po and Bai Qi 36.

• His ordinary self is explicitly inexperienced in both lethal combat and military strategy before this episode 32.
• Without borrowed power, Li Neng recognizes that Du Yu lacks proper fighting skills 45.
• In the Shang-era mission, he organizes sect leaders to learn basic Voice Transmission, Flight, and Breathing Techniques from an Immortal, then instructs them to teach their disciples and maintain ties between the five sects. The passage does not establish that Du Yu himself has mastered those techniques at that time 83.
• Before the expected attack on the Jiang Tribe, he assigns the Shame and Guilt Brothers to watch Xingtian, Xiao Nian and Xie Yujiao to protect Houtu, and Liu Ling and Shiranui Asuka to defend the tribespeople 270.
• During the paired Elder Era legends, he seeks a plan that allows both his group and Sage’s group to succeed rather than securing one victory at the expense of the other 307.

Resistance to Immobilization

Lady Houtu’s Immobilizing Spell fails to freeze Du Yu. She takes this as evidence that he is not an ordinary mortal, but the passage does not establish broader immunity to magic 50.

Temporal Powers

After becoming Time, Du Yu perceives an inner world resembling a starry expanse of fragments and stories. He can move these fragments and manipulate the progression of events, while his physical self initially remains fused to a stone seat 433 434.

• Timeline observation: watches different selves and historical sequences, including lives that do not match his own experience 413 431 434.
• Temporal advancement: advances the entire great battle by an hour; the manipulation entails more than a hundred years of his own experience in the temporal space 434.
• Connection to cut Lines: notices strange Lines arriving in his inner world and considers whether the Shiranui Household’s severed Lines end up there. This is presented as his deduction rather than a fully explained mechanism 434.
• Time Spell: escapes the Time Cave before He Suoyi’s final explosion destroys the caves 456.
• Final exclusivity: after abolishing the cycle and replacing Ancestor Du Yu, he is the world’s only remaining person capable of time travel 456.

Regeneration and Fire-Element Physique

As Time, Du Yu’s flesh regenerates so quickly that severed connections to the stone seat regrow before he can pull free. Repeated Wind Blades cause immense pain without freeing him; fire temporarily suppresses the regeneration, but the flesh returns when the flames cease 437 438.

His eventual strategy is to keep himself burning. The continuous interaction of fire and regeneration supplies extraordinary spiritual energy, producing what he identifies as an unprecedented fire-element immortal physique. He later stands, but explains that surrendering the identity of Time outright would remove his regenerative protection and cause the flames to consume him 441 443 456.

Portal Manipulation and Final Containment

By the final battle, Du Yu can create and physically reshape enormous portals. He bends two into hemispheres and joins them around Great Dark Heaven, making one side an entrance and the other an exit so that the destructive explosion circulates within the enclosure 454.

He then transports the sphere into a Time Cave. His plan makes He Suoyi absorb the suffering of Great Dark Heaven’s explosion, increasing He Suoyi’s eventual detonation enough to destroy the interconnected Time Caves. The maneuver depends on controlling and redirecting the catastrophe, not merely overpowering Great Dark Heaven in a conventional exchange 454 456.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Time-travel gift pack — contains legend accounts, soul jars, and basic support talismans during his first mission 4.
• Basic talismans — initially two Teleportation Talismans, one Eavesdropping Talisman, one Loudness Talisman, and one Rejuvenation Talisman. He uses them to reach Kunlun, overhear Da Yi and Heng’e, amplify his voice, and heal Da Yi 4 8 10 12.
• Sun Wukong soul jar — supplied for the first mission but smashed by Nine-Infant before Du Yu can use it 4 8.
• Zhuge Kongming soul jar — consumed to summon Kongming for advice. Such soul effects last only five minutes 10.
• Three brocade pouches — Kongming’s staged guidance; the third contains “Keep all living souls in your heart” 10 13.
• Da Yi’s immortal fan — temporarily wielded to extinguish the false suns’ flames. Using it splits Du Yu’s palms and badly injures his arms 12.
• Eight Directions Ghost Record — cultivation scroll ultimately supplied by Lady Houtu. Du Yu later erases his name from it, and it is left empty at the story’s end 17 39 342 456.
• Underworld phone — Bureau-issued device used for GhostChat, calls, and summoning allies 21 38.
• Candy and Qi knife coins — requested supplies for rescuing and caring for Zhongli Chun 23.
• Grenades — carried into the Warring States battlefield and disguised as “Fire Cloud Palm” attacks 33.
• Amoxicillin — the only recovery gift he keeps after returning the miraculous medicines offered by powerful underworld figures 16.
• Jade pendant — unexpectedly accompanies him into a legend despite Xiao Qi being his liaison. After his return, he uses Zhongli Chun’s strength to crack and eventually shatter it while trying to confront the mystery surrounding Lady Houtu 52.
• Green Writing Brush / Green Pen — associated with Yingning, who uses it to protect him at critical moments. It blocks the King of Qin’guang’s Birth Chart and an Ice Spike after Zhang San’s death; Du Yu also throws it into the air to block a four-element attack in Heaven 62 75 101.
• Jade pearl — produces golden protection when A Can and A Kui attempt to pierce his heart during the An Lushan encounter. Their direct attacks fail to break the light 197.
• Translation Talisman — swallowed before You Si sets him alight so that the flames will not destroy it and leave him unable to understand a recording on a stone. His later vomiting of the talisman helps confirm that the protagonist has successfully replaced Ancestor Du Yu 456.
• Golden Flood Dragon Scissors — examined by Du Yu but given to Jin Jianglang, not retained as Du Yu’s weapon. He falls while trying to lift them and has to be freed by Zhan Qisheng’s spell 257 258.

Relationships

• Dong Qianqiu — principal mission liaison and close companion. She cares for him through his thirteen-day unconscious recovery; he later protects her from Zhongli Chun and summons help when visitors attempt to take her away. Great Dark Heaven kills her in front of him during the great battle, intensifying his determination to retaliate. His final scheme preserves his friends in the restored timeline 16 18 38 388 456.
• Zhongli Chun / Zhong Wuyan — Du Yu rescues her from childhood abuse and becomes the person she waits 2,300 years to see again. She asks to marry him; he insists that she fulfill her historical role, later risks his life to save her, and eventually borrows her ghost strength. Her recognition of him before his own descent is ultimately explained as an inherited memory of a previous Du Yu. He later warns her against the demonic strength awakened by anger 21 23 29 30 32 38 147 456.
• Cui Jue — recruiter, benefactor, and later the subject of Du Yu’s intervention. Du Yu feels indebted to him but refuses to excuse his unjust treatment of Sihuang and the old woman. He encourages Cui Jue to ask his mother whether he should become an Underworld Judge. During the great battle, Cui Jue attacks him under the effects of Great Dark Heaven’s backward Heart Sutra, then warns Du Yu to be careful before falling after the Northern Emperor’s counterattack 2 40 48 51 52 365.
• Da Yi — friend and ally during the sun-shooting mission. Du Yu adopts the cover of his disciple, saves him from Nine-Infant, and helps restore his heroic role 7 8 12.
• Heng’e / Chang’e — Da Yi’s wife, whose required ascension becomes Du Yu’s first major moral crisis. In the present, she recognizes him as Pang Meng after more than four thousand years 13 21 22.
• Fan Xiaoguo — one of the officers who collects him after death. Her ancestor promotes a possible match between them, but she resists having her marriage decided for her; she later delivers the cultivation scroll. She also helps him locate the Supreme Pivot Xu Liunian 1 10 16 17 240.
• Xie Bi’an — influential underworld ally. Du Yu calls him for assistance and negotiates a fifty-fifty share when Xie Bi’an sells access to his GhostChat contact. Du Yu visits Impermanence Hall after learning that the Seventh and Eighth Masters are injured, and later seeks Xie Bi’an’s cooperation concerning Xie Yujiao even when her existence has been forgotten 18 21 94 96 201.
• Fan Wujiao — underworld ally who delivers Lady Houtu’s cultivation method through Fan Xiaoguo. Du Yu later helps investigate events connected to his past and distinguishes him from a historical impostor by noticing an incorrect form of address 17 39 201 211.
• Zhan Qisheng — former Bureau traveler who challenges Du Yu’s choices and offers him freedom in the ancient era. Du Yu rejects the offer and argues that Zhan’s interference helped create the dilemma he was forced to resolve. Their relationship later becomes cooperative: Du Yu secretly asks him to contact Houtu through Yingning, works alongside him in later legends, and borrows his power during the great battle 6 15 85 147 349.
• Xiao Qi — replacement liaison during the Cui Jue mission. Her image-transmission ability supplies maps and becomes the basis of Du Yu’s Red Seven Art. Du Yu tries to protect her when He Suoyi takes over the Bureau. A Xiao Qi from another timeline later reveals herself as Sage’s Voice Transmitter and a Seven-Lives Cat. During the great battle, she warns Du Yu to keep fighting before Great Dark Heaven kills her and burns her blood, severing his connection to Sage 40 42 45 85 307 388.
• Lady Houtu — hidden source of the Eight Directions Ghost Record. Her past self offers Du Yu an Underworld Enforcer post; he refuses and instead helps her consider the organization of the underworld’s eight posts. Her inconsistent memories initially make him suspicious, but the loss is connected to Meng Po Soup and her use of magical power. She later treats him after he hosts Xingtian and assigns Chi Ghost to protect him 39 49 50 52 57 214 223 288 342.
• Sihuang — tiger demon whose case Du Yu investigates. He prevents Sihuang’s killing, treats his wound, and secures a retrial that clears him 45 48 49.
• Yingning — companion associated with the Green Writing Brush, repeatedly intervening when his life is in immediate danger. Her refusal to help except in such emergencies becomes something he exploits by deliberately entering dangerous fights. She later watches over him and participates in his wider efforts against the temporal crisis 75 85 92 101 147.
• Shiranui Asuka / A-Xiang — close companion whose connection to Du Yu lies at the origin of the temporal system. Ancestor Du Yu and Asuka fall in love, and her attempt to revive him makes her the first Time. The protagonist travels with her through foreign and Elder Era legends, protects her from Ju Wu, and ultimately returns to a point before their meeting while preserving the people he loves 143 147 270 271 456.
• He Suoyi — Bureau director whose early explanations of cause and effect give way to open coercion. He pressures Du Yu to kill Zhang Jian, appears among the future invasion’s leaders as the counterpart of Subhuti, and becomes central to Time’s plan for shaping Du Yu’s fate. Du Yu ultimately uses his absorption of suffering and final explosion to destroy the Time Caves 37 85 86 307 431 454 456.
• Qu Xi — Bureau companion whom Du Yu entrusts with preparations for the exchange gathering. When he offers to alter her past, she chooses to retain her memories and stay, and he respects her decision 117 223.
• Chada — friend whom Du Yu tries to protect from Cavendish. Later stays in Du Yu’s inner world, where a language misunderstanding causes him to fight Zhongli Chun until Du Yu intervenes 130 147.
• Medusa / Gorgon / Xiao Qing — Du Yu attempts to save her from Athena’s punishment, warns her of her eventual death, and lets her flee. He later helps establish her identity as Bai Suzhen’s younger sister, Xiao Qing, through a staged attack 143 162.
• Bai Suzhen — the white snake Du Yu inadvertently helps on Mount Emei. He later works to complete her legend and encourages her bond with Medusa as an older sister 94 162 164.
• A Can and A Kui / Shame and Guilt Brothers — initially overwhelming opponents who attempt to kill him, but pledge lifelong service after he gives them a second life. Du Yu remains troubled by their earlier willingness to kill him, later relies on them in battle, and fulfills his promise to investigate their origins through Yinglong 197 198 270 329 335.
• Xie Yujiao / You Si — Du Yu investigates Xie Yujiao’s repeated reincarnations and their relationship to historical versions of You Si. He makes clear that harming his friends would make her his enemy. You Si later warns him not to kill Great Dark Heaven, accompanies him in the Time Cave, and helps with his agonizing attempts to separate from the stone seat. Her love for Time and her role in maintaining the temporal machinery are central to the final cycle 257 269 313 315 332 392 435 437 438 456.
• Sage — an alternate Du Yu associated with the Seven Outstanding Disciples. Du Yu investigates Sage’s attacks on past selves and recognizes that Sage’s history is not identical to his own. Sage intervenes to prevent him from killing Great Dark Heaven because a Black Buddha’s death would destroy the world 392 411 413.
• Time — a predecessor and manipulator who tries to make Du Yu a suitable successor. Du Yu initially alternates between confrontation and cooperation, then reveals that he has understood the scheme and deliberately made Time choose him. He eventually abolishes the system of succession altogether 331 332 403 431 456.
• Great Dark Heaven — principal catastrophic enemy of the great battle. Kills Dong Qianqiu and Xiao Qi to break Du Yu’s resolve, absorbs suffering and injuries as power, and becomes the target of Du Yu’s final portal-containment plan 388 392 454.
• Du Lao’er, Du Yi, and Nana — grandfather, father, and mother in the family history Du Yu observes during his temporal journey. That history belongs to the Creator’s line, not straightforwardly to the orphaned protagonist’s own remembered upbringing 405 406 411 431 456.
• Seven Outstanding Disciples of the Sage — the protagonist gathers the companions associated with this group and regards them as family rather than merely fellow survivors. Preserving them motivates his final attack on the temporal cycle 456.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Yi Shoots Down Nine Suns and Chang’e Flies to the Moon

• Enters Emperor Yao’s era as Pang Meng and discovers that Da Yi is mortal, while Zhan Qisheng’s earlier intervention has altered his circumstances 4 6.
• Survives Nine-Infant’s attack, heals Da Yi, and devises a voice-transmission distraction during the fight 8.
• Consults Zhuge Kongming, investigates the Queen Mother of the West, and identifies Da Yi’s hidden fan as the key to extinguishing the false suns 10 11 12.
• Learns that failure to complete Chang’e’s ascension would produce twenty-one million Supreme Pivots in the present. He approaches Heng’e with a knife to force the necessary outcome 13.
• Is stabbed by Youqiong after Heng’e’s departure, then confronts Zhan Qisheng while wounded. The legend reaches its first 100% completion when Emperor Yao takes away the child Hou Yi, and Du Yu’s soul returns to the Bureau 14 15.

Saltless Woman

• Chooses Zhongli Chun’s legend over the politically advantageous missions He Suoyi recommends 21.
• Rescues her from a pigsty, gives her food and candy, and arranges for her to reach Guiguzi 23 24.
• Returns twenty years later and faces her desire to marry him. He explains their separation across more than two thousand years and asks her to marry King Xuan of Qi at forty 26 29.
• Insists on entering her battlefield despite an estimated eighty percent chance of her dying there 32.
• Refuses to use her as a human shield during the emergency recall crisis, then gains extraordinary combat capability and leads Qi to victory 34 35 36.
• Leaves her with another promise of reunion; the later underworld encounter initially appears to explain why she recognizes and obeys him. The final timeline analysis clarifies that her recognition before his own descents originated with a previous Du Yu 18 36 456.

Cui Jue Slays the Tiger

• Agrees to consult Cui Jue’s past self rather than simply erase his future as Grand Judge. Enters Tang-era Qi County as a Misfit 40.
• Investigates the old woman’s suspicious account and discovers an intelligent tiger studying Guiguzi’s writings 41 42.
• Prevents Constable Li and the other Misfits from killing Sihuang, then learns that the tiger killed Mengshan while protecting the old woman from murder 45 48.
• Forces Cui Jue to reconsider the evidence. The retrial clears Sihuang and makes him the old woman’s adopted son at Du Yu’s suggestion 48 49.
• Declines Lady Houtu’s offer of an official underworld position and helps her devise a way to resolve the public embarrassment without revealing his full identity 49 50.
• Reveals his future origin to Cui Jue and urges him to ask his mother what she wants instead of deciding for her. Her wish for an Underworld Judge who understands the greater good resolves his hesitation, and he leaves with Lady Houtu 51 52.
• Returns with a mysterious jade pendant and begins questioning how it entered the legend and what Lady Houtu’s involvement means for Dong Qianqiu’s safety 52.

Underworld Conflict and the Jade Emperor’s Legend

• Tries to confront the conflict between the Eastern and Northern Emperors openly, drawing on the ethical position Cui Jue expressed in the earlier legend 60.
• Survives the King of Qin’guang’s attack through the intervention of the Green Writing Brush, then opposes Zhong Kui’s attempt to take the Eastern Emperor away and fights him with Zhongli Chun’s borrowed strength 62 63.
• Descends into the Shang-era investiture legend as Zhang Zhen, investigating the suspicious relationship between Zhang Jian and Zhang Youren. Learns that his assigned identity and Zhang San are bandits in a world where even travelers wield powerful magic 71.
• Witnesses Zhang San’s sudden death and is saved from an Ice Spike by Yingning 75.
• Helps organize five sects into a network whose leaders can learn and share basic cultivation techniques 83.
• Recognizes He Suoyi’s pressure through Xiao Qi’s transmission as a trap. Stalls, secretly asks Zhan Qisheng to contact Houtu through Yingning, and refuses to kill Zhang Jian merely for a possible safe return 85 86.
• Forces Yingning’s intervention during the Investiture Altar battle by deliberately risking his life when his usual liaison-based tricks are unavailable 92.
• Leaves Zhang Youren and returns to the scorched Bureau after rescue and recovery efforts begin in the underworld. His later realization links the Eastern Emperor’s resentment to the exchange of identities he helped arrange with the Jade Emperor 94 365.

Exchange Gathering and Foreign Legends

• Receives Wazhang’s warning that his fate is bound to He Suoyi’s and that leaving his Operator post could end the bond, but continues preparing the exchange gathering 117.
• Opens the Legend Livestream Room and sells membership cards to visiting Immortals, while allowing selected friends and officials free entry 117.
• Investigates foreign legends using materials concerning Athena, Jack the Ripper, and Izanagi 117.
• Tries to save Gorgon from Athena, narrowly avoids petrification after she becomes Medusa, warns her of her future death, and concludes that Athena’s legend no longer requires correction 143.
• Returns to Mount Olympus with Shiranui Asuka and encounters the injured Ganymede, whose request to enter the river of stars will lead to his becoming Aquarius 143.
• Reconciles Zhongli Chun and Chada inside his inner world, then resumes waiting with his companions in Takamagahara for Izanagi and Izanami to speak the required line 147.

White Snake Legend

• Accidentally frees a white snake trapped beneath jade on Mount Emei and meets a scholar surnamed Xu. Realizing the encounter resembles the White Snake legend, he encourages Xu to care for the snake so it will remember him 94.
• After Bai Suzhen and Medusa survive their tribulations, disguises himself as a monk and stages an attack to strengthen their relationship. Bai Suzhen repeatedly protects Medusa and acknowledges her as her younger sister, Xiao Qing 162.
• Coordinates an inside-and-outside approach to the legend: Medusa acts as Bai Suzhen’s sister, another companion works alongside Xu Xian, and Du Yu plans to infiltrate the opposing camp 164.
• The final analysis identifies his apparent death-seeking behavior in this legend as an attempt to draw out Time and test the limits of its interference 456.

Gathering Companions and Investigating Sage

• Helps an injured amnesiac man despite learning that the spirit stones offered as payment are explosive. Carries him to a bar while accompanying Qu Xi and Weaver Girl in the search for Cowherd 191.
• Survives A Can and A Kui’s assassination attempt with a jade pearl. After giving the brothers a second life, accepts their pledge of service while questioning whether their loyalty can be trusted 197 198.
• Investigates Xie Yujiao’s disappearance and asks Xie Bi’an for cooperation even though he no longer remembers her 201.
• Notices anomalies in the martial techniques used by Xie Bi’an and Fan Wujiao and their connection to Xiao Nian’s instruction 207.
• Escapes Red Turban Army soldiers, then exposes an apparent Fan Wujiao as an impostor because of the name used to address him 211.
• Experiences episodes in which his hands pass through people, clothing, and furniture. Fearing a terrible fate, considers changing Qu Xi’s past but respects her wish to stay, then warns her, Yingning, and Zhan Qisheng not to challenge Sage 223.
• Comforts Xu Liunian, a Supreme Pivot deceived into believing her death and afterlife are a film production, by telling her that filming is over and identifying himself as a fan of her minor roles 240.
• Learns Xie Yujiao’s account of repeated reincarnations without entering the underworld or losing her memories 257.

Elder Era and the Paired Legends

• Enters the Yan-Huang Era and investigates You Si’s presence across different historical periods, concluding that her many versions appear to be searching for something 258 269.
• Prepares defenses for the Jiang Tribe and protects Shiranui Asuka from Ju Wu’s harassment, eventually crushing his wrist after repeated provocations 270 271.
• Is overwhelmed by magically magnified reluctance to part from the many people he has met, despite initially claiming that his solitary childhood leaves him immune to such feelings 285.
• Returns from a legend with disordered heart meridians after hosting Xingtian. Houtu and the Queen Mother of the West sense an unusually strong Elder Era aura around him 288.
• Encounters an emaciated prisoner behind a mysterious stone door, who warns him away from two Super Grade A Legends and denies having summoned him 288.
• Struggles to coordinate success in “Gonggong Rages Against Mount Buzhou” and “Nüwa Mends the Sky” across conflicting temporal orders. Receives a warning from another timeline’s Xiao Qi that the Extreme Darkness World will invade in five days 307.
• Investigates You Si’s search for a new Time and warns Xie Yujiao that hurting his friends would permanently make them enemies 313 315.
• Uses Zhongli Chun’s strength against the Black Arhats while avoiding Xingtian’s costly possession, then attacks Fuxi with dragon breath and the Shame and Guilt Brothers’ assistance 321 329.
• Confronts Time over its schemes and forces answers about You Si’s nonhuman origin. Later lets Yinglong speak through him to investigate the brothers’ origins 331 332 335.

Great War Against the Extreme Darkness World

• Decides that his reliance on others has helped place them in danger and chooses to relinquish the Eight Directions Ghost Record. Erases his name, helps initiate the underworld’s evacuation, and privately visits people to whom he is attached 334 342.
• Participates in the confrontation with Great Dark Heaven as Houtu, the Queen Mother of the West, and other powers intervene 345.
• Faces Maudgalyayana and discovers that even multiple borrowed powers are inadequate against the strongest divine-ability specialist among the opposing Ten Great Disciples 349.
• Is attacked by Cui Jue and saved by the Northern Emperor. Learns that Great Dark Heaven’s backward Heart Sutra magnifies regrets into murderous causes and effects, then realizes why the Eastern Emperor had attacked him 364 365.
• Confronts Horse-Face’s accusations and becomes increasingly severe toward former acquaintances who turn against him 370 371.
• Tries to provoke Great Dark Heaven into revealing an opening. The enemy recognizes the tactic, kills Dong Qianqiu, then kills Xiao Qi and burns her blood, cutting Du Yu off from Sage 388.
• Attempts to kill the injured Great Dark Heaven despite You Si’s warning. Sage drains his strength and explains that killing a Black Buddha releases accumulated pain through world-destroying explosions 392.

Peach Blossom Spring and the Histories of Other Du Yus

• Encounters Du Lao’er while seeking Peach Blossom Spring and becomes disturbed by trees marked with the characters of his own name 398 401 402.
• Follows the mystery into temporal spaces and witnesses a family history in which a young Du Yu lives with his grandfather, father, and mother rather than in an orphanage 403 405 406 407.
• Learns that Sage’s early life and death differ from his own. Questions whether the selves shown to him are truly versions of the same person 410 411.
• Watches another Sage plan attacks on a different Du Yu and recognizes that the targeted man experienced legends the protagonist never entered. Time subsequently draws him into its Cave Abode and asks about his understanding of time 413.
• Observes You Si across vast spans of history, including her encounters connected to Xingtian, Fuxi, and the Shame and Guilt Brothers 417 420.

Becoming Time and Breaking the Cycle

• Learns that Time has arranged a long list of conditions for its successor, including a relationship with Shiranui Asuka and a catastrophe involving He Suoyi. Time reveals that spacetime travel has already made Du Yu its successor, but Du Yu states that he deliberately made Time choose him 431.
• Gains immense temporal control while finding his flesh fused to a stone seat. Experiences the gulf between his apparently limitless inner world and his immobilized physical existence 433 434.
• Encounters You Si’s love for Time and tries to leave the seat through repeated cutting and burning, discovering that his regeneration defeats each attempt 435 437 438.
• Uses perpetual burning and regeneration to develop an extraordinary physique. Meets another Du Yu and changes his strategy to becoming Time alongside another person, since surrendering regeneration while still burning would kill him 441 443 456.
• Seeks the Cause-and-Effect Reversal Formula before Xu Fu as part of his attempt to unify the timelines 446.
• Replays the great battle with a final containment scheme. Encloses Great Dark Heaven in connected portal hemispheres, directs the catastrophe into a Time Cave, and makes He Suoyi absorb enough suffering to destroy every cave 454.
• Escapes before the explosion, kills Ancestor Du Yu, and replaces him. The gamble sacrifices the other Du Yus while ending Time’s system permanently 456.
• Returns to live with his preserved friends as the last Supreme Pivot. The Bureau is gone, the Eight Directions Ghost Record is empty, and the possibility of larger cosmic loops remains unresolved 456.

Notable Quotes

“I couldn’t switch the tracks just because I knew them and send it crashing into people who were supposed to survive!” 15

“Little Zhongli... you’re a person... not a pig...” 23

“None of us should decide for you. Just like with Da Yi and Heng’e, I’ll ask your past self and let you make your own choice.” 40

“Xiao Qi, I’m going to make Cui Jue a true judge!” 48

“I've learned one thing from these legends: never make someone else's decisions for them.” 51

“I've grown too used to borrowing other people's strength. I've been doing it since my first day in the Underworld. This time, I want to face it on my own.” 334

“I stake the lives of every Du Yu in the timelines on making sure this world never has Time again.” 456

Trivia

• His apparent “superpower” over Zhongli Chun initially baffles him. Later events reveal that she recognizes the Du Yu figure from encounters in her lifetime; the obedience is not established as a general mind-control ability. The final analysis clarifies that the memories preceding the protagonist’s own descents belong to a previous Du Yu 18 21 36 456.
• His unchanged appearance across descents astonishes A-Da after twenty years and Xiao Xia after another twelve 28 36.
• Keeping Fan Xiaoguo’s inexpensive amoxicillin accidentally pleases her ancestor, because accepting a gift is treated as accepting its sender’s favor 16.
• His poor history knowledge repeatedly complicates missions: he admits that even his best middle-school history score was more than twenty points short of passing 25.
• His later knowledge of Xu Liunian’s obscure acting roles surprises her because she never expected to have a fan 240.
• He cannot lift the Golden Flood Dragon Scissors with his mortal body because the treasure consists of two flood dragons; Zhan Qisheng frees him with a spell 257 258.
• His strange intangibility episodes before confronting Sage are intermittent events, not evidence that he has mastered voluntary phasing as a combat technique 223.
• The lack of sustained dizziness when he observes the Creator’s childhood self is explained by the enormous temporal distance between them: more than four hundred intervening Du Yus make them effectively different people 431.
• The final analysis corrects his inference about Second-Generation Du Yu’s destroyed world: that catastrophe began with the second generation accidentally saving Great Dark Heaven in a legend, not with He Suoyi 456.
• His final “Supreme Gamble” excludes himself because he has already become Time when he stakes the lives of every Du Yu in the timelines 456.
• The Translation Talisman he later vomits up is evidence connecting the survivor in the final timeline to the protagonist’s preparations in the Time Cave, rather than to the original Ancestor Du Yu 456.
• Although he succeeds in removing Time and preserving his companions, hearing Xu Fu give the surname “Shiranui” to the children makes him recognize that a still higher agency may be manipulating events 456.

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