Ouyang Cai

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Ouyang Cai is the only son of Minister of Revenue Ouyang De, who dotes on him. His wealth and family standing give him access to exclusive aristocratic events, but his indulgence in eating, drinking, brothels, and gambling earns him notoriety rather than respect. He and his close friend Gu Chenfeng become known together as the imperial capital’s two good-for-nothings 3 11 31.

Appearance

Ouyang Cai has decent features and dresses conspicuously in expensive clothing and jewelry 3.

• Clothing: Lavish brocade garments 3.
• Accessories: Jade rings and gold bracelets 3.
• Transport: A dazzlingly opulent carriage 3.

Personality

Ouyang Cai is impulsive and highly susceptible to provocation when his pride is involved. During Zhang You’s gambling scheme, early wins, rising stakes, and public mockery drive him to chase his losses. He becomes frantic enough to seize a staff member and attempt to punch him for refusing further credit 4.

Despite his wastrel habits, he genuinely treats Gu Chenfeng as a brother. Once he recognizes the debt trap, he offers to send home for money rather than drag his friend into it. After Gu Chenfeng helps him, he repays the forty-thousand-tael debt with an additional ten thousand taels as interest 4 11.

His admiration for Gu Chenfeng’s romantic success coexists with envy. He tries to imitate his friend’s courtship methods, reveres Lady Su as an unattainable goddess, and is devastated when she privately invites Gu Chenfeng to meet her. Gu Chenfeng’s later display of poetic talent leaves him ruefully feeling that their agreement to be useless together has been betrayed 11 13 15 39.

Abilities & Skills

Beast-Fighting Knowledge

Ouyang Cai is familiar with noble beast-fighting wagers, although Zhang You successfully exploits his gambling habits 3 4.

• Recognizes that Gu Chenfeng’s chosen female Leopard Hound is normally kept for breeding and notices its injured leg 5.
• Warns that Zhang You’s ownership of the Rare Beast Garden may give him access to a concealed, powerful Origin Beast 5.
• Fails to recognize the injured hound’s authority as Hound Queen and attributes Gu Chenfeng’s unexpected victory to extraordinary luck 5.

Aristocratic Connections

His family position provides access to political information, exclusive venues, and influential acquaintances 3 11 29.

• Receives an invitation to the Rare Beast Garden’s opening, restricted to wealthy and powerful families 3.
• Relays information about his father’s tax crackdown and the discovery of armed insect-raising fighters 11.
• Explains the Golden Kylin Gathering’s participants and identifies Imperial Uncle Xiao and his resentment toward Gu Chenfeng 29 31.
• Gains admission to the literary gathering through his family’s financial contribution rather than demonstrated literary distinction 29.

Equipment / Items

• Crystal vial containing a jade-white beetle — Secretly taken from a silk shop investigated during the tax crackdown. Ouyang Cai intended to give the attractive insect to a woman as a courtship gift; Gu Chenfeng identifies it as a Lifebound Gu and takes possession of it 11 12.
• Banknotes — Brings ten thousand taels to the Rare Beast Garden and loses the entire sum. Later gives Gu Chenfeng fifty thousand taels in repayment and interest 4 11.

Relationships

• Gu Chenfeng — Closest friend and fellow member of the capital’s notorious wastrel pair. Ouyang Cai supports him against slander and comes to regard him as an authority on courting women 3 15 36.
• Ouyang De — Father and Minister of Revenue. Responds to his son’s humiliation by directing a tax crackdown against Zhang Lineage businesses 11.
• Zhang You — Gambling adversary who deliberately provokes him into losing fifty thousand taels, including forty thousand borrowed from the Rare Beast Garden 4.
• Su Wanyue / Lady Su — Idolized performer whose beauty and accomplishments make Ouyang Cai feel unworthy of her. Her interest in Gu Chenfeng shatters his image of her as unreachable 13 15.
• Shangguan Bingxin — Delivers her Golden Kylin Gathering invitation to Gu Chenfeng; she later welcomes both men as guests 29 32.
• Unnamed concubine — A woman at three-star Body Tempering whom he takes as a concubine shortly before the Golden Kylin Gathering 29.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Rare Beast Garden

• Brings Gu Chenfeng to the garden’s opening, mentioning Princess Yaoyin’s attendance to encourage him to come 3.
• Falls into Zhang You’s gambling trap, losing his own ten thousand taels and borrowing another forty thousand 4.
• Accompanies Gu Chenfeng as he wins enough through beast-fighting wagers to cover the losses, then confronts Zhang You in a fifty-thousand-tael duel 5 6.
• Leaves after Gu Chenfeng settles the debt and turns the confrontation against Zhang You. During the carriage ride home, he learns that leaving the wolf cub with Shangguan Bingxin gives Gu Chenfeng a reason to visit her 7.

Tax Crackdown and the Lifebound Gu

• Reports the gambling setup to his father after Gu Chenfeng encourages him to seek family retaliation. The resulting tax audit heavily fines Zhang Lineage businesses, and a portion of the proceeds reaches the Ouyang family 8 11.
• Visits the silk shop where authorities discovered armed fighters and secretly captures a glowing beetle 11.
• Unknowingly supplies Gu Chenfeng with a clue to an injured gu practitioner. Gu Chenfeng uses the insect’s spiritual connection to trace its master to the Thousand Beauties Pavilion 12.
• Assumes their arrival at the brothel is a discreet pleasure visit and instructs the guards to say he dragged Gu Chenfeng inside against his will 12.
• Watches Lady Su invite Gu Chenfeng to a private meeting, then declares his friend his “founding forefather” in the art of picking up women 13 15.

Golden Kylin Gathering

• Delivers Shangguan Bingxin’s invitation and attends as a member of a sponsoring family 29 31.
• Is embarrassed by the scholars’ disdain for his and Gu Chenfeng’s reputations 31.
• Warns Gu Chenfeng about Imperial Uncle Xiao’s hostility over Lady Su 31.
• Publicly threatens the people spreading accusations that Gu Chenfeng stole “Drunken West Chamber,” offering to have them arrested and punished with eighty strokes of the rod 36.
• Witnesses Gu Chenfeng overturn the gathering’s hostility with poetry, reacting with wounded disbelief at how far his fellow good-for-nothing has changed 39.

Notable Quotes

“The extra ten thousand is interest. You helped me vent my anger, Third Young Master. How could I shortchange my own brother?” 11

“From now on, you're my founding forefather in the art of picking up women. Forefather, I bow before you!” 15