Zhou Yi

Biodata

Power Progression

• Dao Attainment measures accumulated cultivation, not chronological age. Compendium rewards can grant years of power immediately 6 7.
• Magical power and formal cultivation understanding develop unevenly. Despite possessing ten thousand years of power, Zhou Yi cannot perceive his Yin Spirit when studying the Heavenly Fox Secret Canon. No successful Yin Spirit condensation is documented in the supplied chapters 23 28 38.

Background / History

Before transmigrating, Zhou Yi lived on Blue Star and died in a hospital bed. He awakens in the body of another Zhou Yi, a twenty-year-old executioner whose soul had scattered after executing a thousand-year-old vengeful ghost. The predecessor had already worked in the Demon-Slaying Bureau for half a year 1.

His predecessor left Hengyang during famine and unrest, hoping to sell himself into service, obtain food, and help his family. After reaching the capital as a refugee, he accepted an execution-chamber recruitment offer promising food and lodging, signing a ten-year indenture 1 40.

Initially desperate to escape the prison, Zhou Yi changes his plans after discovering that executions produce supernatural rewards. The Bureau’s sealed prisoners offer a comparatively safe source of cultivation, while its powerful personnel shield him from the dangers outside. He therefore cultivates secretly and preserves the appearance of an ordinary executioner 2 4.

Appearance

• True appearance: Sword-like eyebrows, star-bright eyes, a jade-like face, and long hair 18.
• Executioner disguise: An aged face, snowy-white hair, and a hunched back imitate the effects of prolonged baleful-energy exposure. His actual body is free of that contamination 14.
• After Fahai’s apparent cleansing: Changes the disguise to dark-gray hair and a straightened back, making the improvement appear to result from Buddhist treatment 14.
• Usual later appearance: A handsome, slightly weathered middle-aged man with a few gray strands in his black hair 46.
• Travel disguise: Uses the Body-Shifting Technique to assume a sallow face, frost-white temples, and a different build, accompanied by black-scaled armor and a golden sword-breaker 34.

Personality

Zhou Yi places survival above fame or public recognition. He hides his cultivation even after becoming exceptionally powerful, reasoning that enemies can flee, cooperate, ambush, poison, or curse him regardless of his strength. His caution includes maintaining mundane habits, cultivating inconspicuously, and avoiding heavily guarded events that offer uncertain benefits 2 4 20 38.

His sympathy is practical rather than indiscriminate. He saves fellow executioners and Feng Ling’er, but does not regard every imprisoned demon as an innocent victim. He condemns demons who harm humans while allowing Hu Jiuying to leave rather than treating her race alone as grounds for execution. For ordinary people, he favors teaching methods of self-protection over making them dependent on a powerful rescuer 11 13 14 32 43.

He also enjoys ordinary comforts: wine, tea, calligraphy, familiar food, and the warmth of neighborhood life. His writing becomes more satirical as he witnesses the prison’s injustices, although he withholds dangerous stories while still confined there 12 22 29 36.

Abilities & Skills

Demon and Monster Compendium

The mysterious compendium appears after his first fish-demon execution, records slain beings, and reveals fragments of their histories 1 2.

• Awards spirit pills, spells, innate talents, magical artifacts, and cultivation 6.
• Previously recorded demon types can yield years of Dao Attainment on subsequent kills 6 7.
• Awarded cultivation methods and divine abilities include cultivation insights, allowing eventual mastery rather than providing only written instructions 9.
• Rewards from weaker creatures diminish as his power increases; after ten thousand years, more than a dozen minor demons may be needed for a single year of attainment 9 28.

Yellow Court Dao Scripture

His principal cultivation method refines spiritual energy through silent recitation, without requiring seated meditation 4.

• Circulates pure qi, widens meridians, strengthens muscles and bones, and produces magical power in the dantian 4.
• Supports continuous cultivation while he works or rests 4 7.
• Its vast accumulated power allows him to overwhelm sophisticated spells and curses by force, an approach he describes as “breaking all arts with qi” 16 23 32.

Perception and Soul Search

• Qi-Reading Technique: Reads auras associated with danger, romance, official fortune, terrain, and spiritual energy. He uses it to identify a violent-death omen and locate a spiritual spring 14 24 27 31.
• Qi-reading limitation: Inspecting the penal department’s overwhelming killing intent blinds him for seven days early in his career 2 3.
• Spirit Eye Technique: Reveals demon forms, penetrates illusions and mundane disguises, and exposes the ruined, ghost-filled state of Zhou Family Village 20 24 43 47.
• Soul search: Extracts useful information from slain demons, helping him assemble a mental map of Great Qian and learn about concealed threats 12.
• Heaven-and-earth sensing: After reaching ten thousand years of attainment, detects flows of baleful energy, death energy, resentment, spiritual energy, and vitality 23.

Concealment, Disguise, and Illusions

• Presence Concealment Technique: Suppresses magical-power fluctuations and diminishes his presence. Weaker people retain only a hazy impression of him, even when discussing him directly 7.
• Shapeshifting: Assumes the appearance of anyone he has seen 9.
• Body-Shifting Technique: Alters height and build; observers may need to sense his soul’s aura deliberately to recognize him 28.
• Illusions: Makes executioners believe they performed executions while he takes the kills and rewards himself 9 23 38.
• Magical avatar: Leaves an avatar behind while secretly returning to investigate the mountain god’s temple 44.

Wind-Calling and Rain-Summoning

One of the thirty-six Heavenly Gang arts, obtained by executing the Azure Wave Dragon King 9.

• Summons or disperses wind, clouds, and rain; also commands blizzards, hailstorms, and typhoons 9.
• Requires at least five thousand years of cultivation to cast 9.
• Uses wind to carry corpse aura and locate a Silver Corpse in Hengyang, spending nearly a tenth of his reserves on the search 46.
• A capital rainstorm triggers an investigation and bounty campaign against hidden demons, entangling him indirectly in Hu Jiu-Niang and Feng Ling’er’s tragedy 11 35.

Swordsmanship

The Swordsmanship divine ability transforms his relationship with the Purple Ying Sword from brute-force artifact use into an instinctive bond 39.

• Doubles his sword-control power before he employs formal sword techniques 39.
• Provides a basis for creating sword arts once he understands their principles 39.
• Immortal Points the Way: Condenses the Sword Scripture’s thirty-six forms into one thrust. Without magical power, its concentrated force remains effective a foot beyond the blade and cuts three inches into stone 40.
• Uses sword light to kill demonic crows and the monstrous beasts surrounding the fallen mountain god 41 44.

Other Supernatural Techniques

• Earthly Pole True Flame: Traps and destroys Saintess Jialan’s attacking blood shadow; the flame is powerful enough to threaten a dragon’s soul 15.
• Five-Element Escape Technique: Passes through earth, water, fire, metal, and wood. Ordinary restrictive formations can block it 27.
• Poison immunity: Receives the innate talent of immunity to all poisons after killing a scorpion spirit 6.
• Lunar Body-Refining Art: Obtained from a wolf demon during his early prison cultivation 4.
• Soul nourishment: Refines pure soul power from slain creatures to strengthen Feng Ling’er’s preserved spirit 11.
• Bloodline Soul-Summoning Art: Uses karmic and bloodline connections to summon relatives’ souls from evil cultivators’ bondage 48.
• Buddhist arts: Uses mantras and a Wooden Fish to soothe his father’s resentment and resist his transformation into a fierce wraith 48.
• Lightning: Destroys a Silver Corpse and threatens his sister-in-law’s ghostly form 46 48.

Execution, Writing, and Calligraphy

• Demon dissection: Harvests organs with such precision that Materials Division personnel praise his workmanship. His commandant assigns him more demons because their usable materials improve the commandant’s rewards 4.
• Anatomical insight: Eventually recognizes demons’ meridians and bones without the Spirit Eye Technique, developing a self-taught skill independent of the compendium 12.
• Records work: Classifies and transcribes demon-material ledgers; Zhang Cheng praises his handwriting on his first day as a clerk 17.
• Calligraphy: Sells copied Daoist scriptures through Top Scholar Hall. Expert appraisal raises their value to more than twenty taels per volume 27 28.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Demon and Monster Compendium — His source of execution rewards and recorded creature histories 1 6.
• Ziying Immortal Sword / Purple Ying Sword — Reward for killing Saintess Jialan. Measures three feet seven inches, has a dragon-shaped hilt and purple blade, and is forged from refined Taibai essence. Can become a tiny light stored in his dantian; displaces his other artifacts from its center 16.
• Evil-Banisher — A sword obtained from a B-grade fiend, particularly effective against the demon race 16.
• Execution implements — Specialized daggers, spikes, and cutting tools used to dissect sealed prisoners and prevent dangerous postmortem effects 3 4.
• Water-Avoiding Pearl — Awarded for slaying a python spirit 6.
• Buddha Disciple Token — Given by Fahai from Golden Light Temple 14.
• Wooden Fish — Fahai offers it as a means of contacting him; Zhou Yi later uses a Wooden Fish with Buddhist arts to calm his father’s ghost 5 48.
• Bright Moon Jade — Produces lunar spiritual energy and Lunar Essence, which Zhou Yi uses to improve wine 35 40.
• Black-scaled armor and golden sword-breaker — Dharma artifacts acquired from demonic cultivators and worn during his disguised journey to Fuzhou 34.
• Thunder Talismans and Bureau token — Supplied by Zhang Cheng and Clerk Chen for his journey to Hengyang 40.

Relationships

• Fahai — Buddhist friend and benefactor. Zhou Yi helps him overcome an inner demon; Fahai explains cultivation ranks, offers him refuge in Buddhism, and intervenes to ensure his release and future employment 5 13 14.
• Feng Ling’er — A fox girl whose soul he rescues at her mother’s request. He shelters and nourishes her, then arranges her departure to Green Mound and a final visit to her father 11 32 33 34.
• Hu Jiu-Niang — Feng Ling’er’s mother. Before her soul dissipates, Zhou Yi promises to preserve her daughter’s life or soul 11.
• Zhang Cheng — Senior colleague, drinking companion, and cultivation adviser. Lends him lodging money, teaches him calligraphy and tea appreciation, and guides his study of the Yin Spirit and Sword Scripture 17 22 38 40.
• Hu Jiuying — Initially pursues him over Hu Yue’s death. After he severs a tail and spares her, she accepts Feng Ling’er as a disciple and helps locate Feng Zhen 32 33 34.
• Green Mound Fox Immortal — Protects Hu Jiuying and clashes with Zhou Yi through an avatar. Their exchange ends without Zhou Yi gaining the upper hand; she warns him of Great Qian’s approaching calamity 32 33.
• He Yongyan — Top Scholar Hall shopkeeper and publishing partner. Contracts to publish Tales of the Executioner and markets Zhou Yi’s scripture calligraphy 26 27 28.
• Yan Chixiao — Travel companion and fellow demon hunter on the road to Hengyang. Together they locate and kill a Silver Corpse 44 46.
• Bai Yutang — Inn waiter whose disguise Zhou Yi sees through. Zhou Yi helps bring about his marriage and later receives a thousand-tael thank-you from the Bai household 24 25 35.
• Wang Bo’an — Scholar and official whose defense of demons provokes Zhou Yi. Zhou Yi challenges his privileged background and later questions his unusually rapid promotion 21 36.
• Zhou Xinfu and Mother Zhou — Parents of his inherited body. He returns to find them among the village’s dead; his father, briefly restored to lucidity, urges him to protect himself rather than seek revenge 47 48.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Ten Years in the Execution Prison

Zhou Yi conceals his growing cultivation while surviving a workplace where executioners regularly die from supernatural exposure. He supplements daily assignments with covert executions, rescues colleagues when possible, and investigates Han Er’s connection to Saintess Jialan. Killing Jialan earns him the Ziying Immortal Sword 4 9 12 14 15 16.

Fahai’s intervention brings his extraordinary survival to the Bureau’s attention. With no precedent for an executioner completing the term and leaving, the matter reaches the Prince of Chu, who orders the contract honored and rewards Zhou Yi with a Ministry of Works appointment. He finishes his final executions and reports for clerical duty 14 16 17.

Life as a Capital Clerk

His new post lets him study old demon records, build friendships, and establish a public identity as an unremarkable minor clerk. He still enters the prison secretly, disguising himself as an executioner and concealing his kills with illusions 17 22 23.

He turns his writing and calligraphy into income through Top Scholar Hall. After staying at the Same Fortune Inn, he purchases a secluded courtyard for 3,300 strings of cash and names it Breeze Cottage 26 27 28 36.

Green Mound Conflict

Executing Hu Yue brings both a major cultivation breakthrough and a concealed vengeance curse. Hu Jiuying subsequently seeks revenge, leading to a confrontation outside the capital in which Zhou Yi cuts off one of her tails and exchanges attacks with the Fox Immortal’s avatar 23 29 32 33.

He removes the curse, spares Hu Jiuying on condition that she leave human territory, and sends Feng Ling’er to Green Mound as her disciple. The encounter reinforces his caution about powerful cultivators and the consequences of seemingly minor interventions 32 33 35 36.

Swordsmanship and Return to Hengyang

After secretly killing Li Shan, Zhou Yi receives the Swordsmanship divine ability. He rapidly masters the first volume of the Sword Scripture, reaches the pinnacle of bodily tempering, and creates Immortal Points the Way 38 39 40.

A drunken dream of his parents prompts him to return home. Along the way, he investigates a fallen mountain god and joins Yan Chixiao in destroying a Silver Corpse in Hengyang 40 44 46.

Zhou Family Village and the Single-Dragon Fiend

His homecoming initially appears to be a joyful family reunion, but the Spirit Eye Technique reveals ruined buildings and dead villagers. The spirits behave as though only a short time has passed, despite his twelve-year absence 47.

He discovers that his sister-in-law has dealt with a devil who holds her child’s soul. After restraining her, he summons his father’s spirit and learns that the villagers have been dead for ten years. He resolves to find the person responsible while trying to free his relatives from their torment 48.

Zhou Yi then confronts Hengyang’s City God for failing to stop the Single-Dragon Fiend. Following the god’s information westward, he rescues earthquake survivors and finds a Demon Banner awakening victims’ corpses at a yin pool 49.

Literary Works

Notable Quotes

“Here, I can clearly recognize demons and monsters. The world outside is treacherous, and I cannot tell who is human and who is a ghost.” 5

“The only backing you can rely on in this world is yourself.” 23

“I’m not a nanny. I deal with demons who commit evil. Acts of vengeance are none of my concern.” 32