Cui Hao

Biodata

Power Progression

Cui Hao practices both immortal cultivation and Confucian cultivation; the two paths have separate realms 225 560.

Background

Riverwash Cui Clan

Cui Hao was born into a prominent local clan and displayed exceptional intelligence from childhood. Where other children needed repeated instruction, he could understand a single explanation and apply it to related problems. His clan devoted its resources to nurturing him, treating him as a central member regardless of any distinction between main and collateral branches 668.

Known for a thousand miles as Cui Puyu, he became an outstanding Confucian student whose own teacher sometimes sought his guidance. He grew up proud and confident that he could surpass other scholars. His expected future was to become a leading Great Confucian and elevate the Cui Clan into Riverwash’s foremost lineage 668.

Entering Chu Xingchen’s Sect

Cui Hao traveled to Yuzhou City to seek an opportunity for immortality. He obtained a recruitment token and befriended Lin Luoyu before the trials. During an illusion trial, he entered a village where Wang Dagou and Wang Ergou disputed Xiaocui’s marriage, then asked where Xiaocui herself was 110 111.

Chu Xingchen found his intelligence, answers, and wealth-related trait appealing despite his failure to meet the system’s recruitment requirements. He accepted Cui Hao as a disciple nonetheless 115 127.

Unlike the system-recognized disciples, Cui Hao initially practiced an ordinary cultivation method. Although discouraged by the difference, he did not blame his master and genuinely valued the sect’s atmosphere. Chu Xingchen subsequently arranged a stronger method suited to his spiritual roots 127 128 129 130.

Appearance

• Has a fringe that he brushes aside when making a confident entrance 515.
• Wears an unusually formal, sumptuous white robe while performing the guzheng at a sect gathering 625.
• During his travels with Chen Baiqing, carries Myriad Forms at his waist in the form of a translucent, white-jade-like longsword 655.

Personality

Cui Hao is sociable, irreverent, and exceptionally thick-skinned. He can move from boasting to apologizing without embarrassment, and readily befriends people outside cultivation circles. His easygoing conversations with Yuzhou City’s guards and residents make him locally well known as an approachable immortal master 151 166 230.

His outward frivolity conceals considerable competence. When entrusted with serious work, he handles it carefully and frequently exceeds expectations without demanding credit. He is particularly good at reading reactions, identifying openings, and making people accept ideas they believe they reached themselves 340 404 478 658.

He understands his limitations as a fighter and sees little value in reckless heroics. He prefers directing events from behind the scenes, refuses unnecessary solitary battles, and follows his master’s principle of using numbers whenever possible. Nevertheless, he maintains daily cultivation and rejects advancing through a weakened foundation 219 225 392 699.

His loyalty to the sect is genuine. He trusts Chu Xingchen rather than interpreting delayed gifts as favoritism, appreciates the protection his senior sisters provide, and considers the home he helped design at Ten Thousand Flowers Ridge his true sect—not merely the safer accommodation at Heavenly Derivation Sect 404 667 828. After his master disappears, that attachment drives him to shoulder the sect’s administration and organize the search for a way to retrieve him 881.

Abilities & Skills

System-Identified Traits

Chu Xingchen’s system identifies four traits, although Cui Hao does not satisfy its disciple recruitment requirements 115.

Heaven-Burning Li-Jin Great Dao Heart Method

The heart method Chu Xingchen provides replaces Cui Hao’s ordinary Qi Refining and Spirit-Nourishing Art 127 404.

• Activates both spiritual roots: metal energy enters the Bone Sea, while fire energy circulates through his meridians before the two blend in his dantian 130.
• Absorbs spiritual energy far faster than his previous method 130.
• Cui Hao understands its essentials after a few quarters of an hour of Chu Xingchen’s instruction 129.
• His cultivation still progresses more slowly than that of the system-recognized disciples 364.

Fist-Based Divine Ability

The Profound Clarity Heavenly Sect creates a divine ability specifically for Cui Hao, which Chu Xingchen delivers through a jade slip 404 405.

• Includes illustrations, virtual imagery, movements, and spiritual-power circulation instructions 404.
• Chu Xingchen presents fist techniques as a foundation from which Cui Hao can branch into other martial arts; mastery of all eighteen martial arts is a promised prospect, not a demonstrated achievement 405.
• Cui Hao initially objects because he considers swordsmanship more impressive-looking 405.
• His combat ability remains below that of his senior disciples. Lin Luoyu later helps him train by feeding him moves and demonstrating changes in spiritual power and momentum 633.

Confucian Cultivation

Cui Hao retains substantial Confucian attainment alongside his immortal cultivation 225 560 712.

• Recognizes that Li Junzi’s writing contains wisdom but lacks literary qi and spiritual radiance, prompting him to ask whether her cultivation has encountered a problem 225.
• Skips the Writing Brush Realm and directly enters the Book Rubbing Realm 225.
• At Understanding Principle, writes in the air without material support and makes his characters shine with Confucian Righteous Qi 712.

Persuasion, Infiltration, and Intelligence

Cui Hao’s strongest practical talents lie in relationships and manipulation rather than direct combat 445 476 657.

• Builds rapport through drinking, storytelling, games, and apparently casual conversation 230 550 658.
• Gains Winter Melon’s confidence sufficiently to receive recruitment, messaging, fundraising, and disruptive assignments, with Li Yingling supporting his operations 476.
• Deliberately loses early rounds of Truth or Dare so that answering difficult questions will encourage his teammates to participate openly 658.
• Uses an opponent’s assumptions to let them complete his argument for him 478 820.
• Changes Cloud Dream Marsh’s accepted arrangements through schemes without needing to display his own cultivation 820.

Design and Construction

Cui Hao helps design and build the sect’s home at Ten Thousand Flowers Ridge 353 828.

• Designs distinctive sect buildings 353.
• Creates Sandong’s house with a mechanical roof that opens and closes through a jade token 353.
• Draws extravagant remodeling plans for his own residence, though his attempt to test the senior sisters’ reactions through Sandong earns a reprimand 332.

Music

• Plays the guzheng with practiced technique, producing a varied, layered performance that surprises Lin Luoyu 625.

Equipment & Items

• Myriad Forms — Chu Xingchen’s divine weapon, entrusted to Cui Hao before his journey with Chen Baiqing. It transforms into conventional weapons, including swords, sabers, and bricks 654 655.
  • Cui Hao communicates with it through Divine Sense and interprets movement or transformation as agreement 655.
  • It refuses his proposed gauntlets fitted with conspicuously long daggers and can reject his attempts to draw or handle it 655 688.
  • Its divine aura forces the Wild Boar Demon to prostrate himself. Its recognizable connection to Chu Xingchen also gives Cui Hao political leverage far beyond his cultivation 668 689.
• Divine Ability Jade Slip — Contains his tailor-made fist technique and its instructional imagery 404 405.
• Soundproofing Talismans — Used for private conversations during the Winter Melon operation 467 471.
• Spatial Ring — Stores wine and gaming equipment used to socialize with his operational team 658.
• Nai River Shuttle — Completed by Cui Hao during the search for Chu Xingchen; carries the personal disciples and Xie Lingyu into the Myriad Dao River 881.

Relationships

• Chu Xingchen — Master. Accepts him despite the system’s rejection and personally arranges his cultivation method, divine ability, and equipment. Cui Hao frequently claims to be his most beloved disciple, but sincerely insists that his master owes him nothing 115 404 590 654 879.
• Li Yingling — Eldest senior sister, disciplinarian, and operational supporter. Cui Hao fears her punishments while recognizing her care for the disciples. She supports his infiltration work and punctures his exaggerated version of the mission afterward 229 476 488.
• Li Xingtian — Second senior brother. Gives him Dharma Treasures and sometimes joins his drinking conversations; Cui Hao readily flatters him when requesting help 208 653 722.
• Chen Baiqing — Third senior sister and frequent mission partner. Cui Hao considers her exceptionally difficult to deceive; she insists on protecting him in dangerous situations, while he increasingly appreciates her loyalty to their own people 653 654 667 828.
• Lin Luoyu — Fourth senior sister and friend from before recruitment. Their relationship combines teasing, travel, and sparring. He sometimes adopts the pose of her senior brother to shield her from awkward demands, while she helps improve his fist techniques 111 218 633.
• Li Junzi — Lin Luoyu’s teacher and a fellow Confucian cultivator. Cui Hao treats her respectfully, examines her writing, and later becomes involved in the disputes surrounding her educational ambitions 225 720 725.
• Zheng Zhaoling — Cloud Dream Pavilion contact and drinking companion. Their friendship supports inter-sect cooperation; he offers her a place as his sect’s Grand Elder if she can no longer remain at the pavilion 765 775 854.
• Winter Melon — Adversary whom he manipulates through an apparent betrayal proposal. He later offers to spare her and orders her sent to Wukong as part of an operation against Xu Linglong 467 568 569.
• Sandong — Enthusiastic audience for his embellished stories and recipient of his mechanical-roof house 353 488.
• Qinghe — Frequent target of his teasing and persuasive wordplay; calls him “Black-Hearted Brat Number Two” 445 495.

Major Story Arcs

Demon Campaign and Sect Life

Cui Hao and Lin Luoyu serve as bait while Li Yingling tracks fleeing demons to their camp. The camp’s human remains expose the demons’ treatment of their victims 144. Back at the sect, his antics include submitting a lengthy report whose criticism of flawed leadership plans brings Li Yingling’s attention down on him 169.

He also helps conceal Chu Xingchen’s birthday surprise for Li Yingling, taking care not to reveal the preparations despite her suspicions 228 229 231.

Winter Melon Operation

While traveling with Lin Luoyu, Cui Hao privately approaches Winter Melon with a proposal to keep a supposed Great Dao rather than surrender it to the Great Dao Sect 467. His behavior unsettles her, while Watermelon notices that the relationship between Cui Hao and Lin Luoyu does not match his account 471.

He gains enough trust to receive substantial work, much of which Li Yingling quietly supports. One supposedly dangerous evil-cultivator organization is actually a sham staffed by their allies—a detail Li Yingling reveals when Cui Hao later boasts about infiltrating it alone 476 488.

In a later operation, Cui Hao uses Winter Melon to unsettle Xu Linglong. After she rejects release and attacks him, he orders her delivered to Wukong on the Western Ox-He Continent 569.

Cloud Dream Marsh

Entrusted with Myriad Forms, Cui Hao accompanies Chen Baiqing on an operation involving evil cultivators 654 657 688. He pursues his own intervention in Flower Marsh Village, directing the Wild Boar Demon to expand influence by winning people’s hearts rather than provoking territorial conflict 668.

His methods alter the marsh’s established rules and bring him into contact with Zheng Zhaoling. Revealing Myriad Forms establishes his connection to Chu Xingchen, turning his master’s reputation into a significant source of leverage 688 689 820.

Education and the Great Calamity

In the Black Tortoise Kingdom capital, Cui Hao questions travelers about Li Junzi’s ambition to make books available to everyone. He also writes a widely circulated insulting children’s song; Li Yingling declines to punish him after Li Junzi explains his reasons 720 725.

Chen Baiqing later sends him to seek Cloud Dream Pavilion’s help over a reported Heavenly Demon situation. A token bearing Chu Xingchen’s and Bai Xuanling’s divine senses formalizes his role in cooperating with the pavilion against the Great Calamity 765 775.

Searching for Chu Xingchen

After Chu Xingchen disappears, Cui Hao takes responsibility for a struggling sect and organizes searches for fragments of Authority. The burden becomes especially severe when other core disciples depart on their own searches 881.

Li Xingtian and Chen Baiqing return after 237 years with the final fragment, restoring the Spirit-Shattering Butterfly Jade without restoring their master. Cui Hao completes the Nai River Shuttle, activates the restored jade with Myriad Forms, and leads Chu Xingchen’s personal disciples and Xie Lingyu into the Myriad Dao River to bring him back 881.

Notable Quotes

“Cui Hao. Middle Golden Core cultivation. Not particularly good at combat.”

“But I’m a genius.” 657

“You don’t owe me anything, Master. There’s nothing I’m inherently entitled to.” 879