Cui Jiuyang

Biodata

Power Progression

Cultivation Goals

Cui Chengshou identifies the following milestones as the means to save Jiuyang’s life and eventually return him to his own time. These are promised outcomes, not a record of attained realms 11.

Background / History

Jiuyang grew up in the village’s only Cui household. As an adult, he worked in a large city, suffered nervous exhaustion and insomnia, then angrily quit his job without arranging another. Returning to the family’s old house restored his ability to sleep 1 2 4.

His father gave him an ancestral jade pendant, and Jiuyang regularly visited the family graves to offer incense and burn paper offerings. He therefore knew Cui Chengshou as his deceased great-grandfather before meeting the young man who claimed that identity 3 4 6.

The elderly Cui Chengshou later revealed that he had named Jiuyang as a newborn while already remembering his death in an earlier course of events. Tormented by that knowledge, he sent a strand of his soul seventy years into the past to prevent the fatal Drought Ghost sealing 8 9.

Appearance

Jiuyang is described as having regular, handsome features and a face like Xiuyan jade. During his travels, his stained blue cloth robe gives him a visibly travel-worn appearance 46.

• Height: A full head taller than the young Cui Chengshou and half a head taller than the elderly version 7 8.
• Usual clothing: A blue cloth robe or cotton gown 13 18 43.
• Travelling presentation: Carries a fortune-telling banner and rings a bell while walking into unfamiliar settlements 46.

Personality

Jiuyang is stubborn, irreverent, and quick to vent frustration. The temper that drove him to quit his job also led him to punch his great-grandfather when confronted with time travel, frightening fog, and conflicting explanations. His skepticism nevertheless proves useful: he tests Cui Chengshou’s reactions, notices contradictions, and deliberately preserves the elderly soul while appearing to obey the younger man 4 7 9 10.

He is sociable without being deferential. Ninth Lady notices that he speaks casually to Fifth Master Yang but chats just as readily with a rickshaw puller about wages, family expenses, and cheap food. He enjoys eating and flirts openly, yet becomes awkward when faced with Ninth Lady’s tears and affection 17 39 42 45.

His concern for others can outweigh his own safety. He refuses to let an exhausted Ninth Lady risk her soul through another Nuo Mask use, carries her while coughing blood, and later destroys his own meridians to supply the power she needs against the Malevolent Flood Dragon. Despite this apparent fearlessness, he conceals the severity of his shortened lifespan from her 30 36 41 43.

Abilities & Skills

The Eight Extremes

• Cultivates the method inherited from Cui Chengshou, using both the manual and his great-grandfather’s personal insights 11.
• Gains heightened spiritual perception and accelerated healing as he approaches the First Extremity 30 32.
• Reports learning his occult abilities in less than half a year 42.
• Remains inexperienced in applying magic instinctively: while following sleepwalkers, he initially forgets that he can cast a lightness spell on himself 49.

Divination

• Uses finger calculations, copper coins, and other fortune-telling tools to identify danger, locate people, and advise clients 11 46 48.
• Detects Wang Dali’s household bereavement, helping prevent his wife’s death; later predicts that the couple’s unborn child is a boy 11 12 41.
• Locates the Iron Rhino by combining divination with the absence of fish and shrimp near the Malevolent Flood Dragon 21.
• Uses a missing person’s possessions as a link, determining from Old Li’s bowl that he is alive on the mountain 46.
• The Eight Extremes makes the differences between finger, coin, and yarrow-stalk methods relatively small for him 48.
• Limits: Supernatural opponents can interfere with readings, and particularly dangerous affairs can yield no result. His readings of the forest mystery indicate tranquility despite its powerful influence on people 13 16 50.

Thunder and Five-Element Arts

• Golden Thunder: Initially modifies an unmastered Thunder Technique into a blinding flash without thunder 19 22.
• Fire Thunder: Early talismans release sudden intense heat but fall short of a true Fire Talisman 22.
• Combat applications: Uses fire spells against Togo’s insects and Golden Thunder against Togo himself 33.
• Five Elements Evil-Breaking Technique: Combines copper coins, talisman paper, condensed mist, flame arts, and ash into reversed five-element power. Casting it beyond his level while depleted makes him cough blood 34.
• Mysterious Thunder Strike: Calls down violet-indigo lightning to split the stone platform producing the forest’s enchanted wine 50.

Formations and Support Spells

• Striking the Drum and Sounding the Metal: Uses copper coins and vital blood to create martial clangor capable of attacking the mind and inducing illusions. Before reaching the First Extremity, he can barely produce seventy percent of its power 26.
• Lightness enhancement: Makes Ninth Lady fleet-footed and light as smoke through a mirage-based talisman spell; later uses a lightness spell on himself 33 49.
• Vast Marsh Jidu Heavenly Cycle Formation: Directs the Ancient Ji River Course’s spiritual energy into Ninth Lady to amplify her Nuo Masks 35.
• Dragon-Binding Curse: Temporarily contains the formation’s immense energy inside his body. This does not prevent his meridians from rupturing 36.

Three Realms Clear-Sight Spell

• Opens a heavenly eye on his forehead using a streak of his own blood and an incantation 50.
• Reveals otherwise invisible white vapor gathering beneath the wine jar’s stone platform 50.
• Keeps the eye open while approaching the broken platform to watch for threats invisible to ordinary sight 50.

Occult Knowledge and Investigation

• Has practically memorized Cui Chengshou’s travel record, allowing him to explain the Iron Rhino’s history and recognize supernatural mechanisms 15 25.
• Identifies Puppet Gu as the means controlling already-dead attackers 19.
• Recognizes the Japanese imperial chrysanthemum emblem on a salvaged wreck through knowledge from his original era 17.
• Uses recorded methods for countering Miao borderland Gu sorcery when fighting Togo 33.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Ancestral jade pendant/plaque — Given to him by his father. Its identical counterpart helps establish Cui Chengshou’s identity; it later trembles while Jiuyang is under the wine’s influence, and he identifies it as his great-grandfather’s ward 4 50.
• Huai Bao Belt / Locust-Tree Belt — A ring woven from the old locust spirit’s green branches. Makes him feel unusually light and connects him with yin and yang, but can accidentally draw him onto the Underworld Road in places with strong yin energy 5 7.
• Ghost-Driving Mallet — Refined by Cui Chengshou from a fox’s skeleton. Jiuyang uses it during the Drought Ghost ritual to strike himself and disrupt the Soul-Guiding Bell 6 9.
• Three inherited books — The Eight Extremes, Cui Chengshou’s cultivation insights, and his record of travels 11.
• Paper talismans and copper coins — Portable implements for divination, thunder arts, support spells, and formations; some talismans are waterproof and fireproof 19 22 26 33 34.
• Dragon-Transformation Wall — A Numinous Treasure embedded in his dantian and incorporated into his energy circulation. Reconstructs his meridians and later releases cooling energy against the wine’s influence, though it and the jade ward cannot fully counter that influence 37 50.
• Celadon Porcelain Gourds — Carries two after parting from Ninth Lady; later draws the strange beast’s corpse vapor into one, where it condenses into roughly half a gourd of wine 45 50.
• Fortune-telling kit — Includes a yin-yang and eight-trigrams table covering, fortune sticks, compass, brushes, paper, divining stalks, almanac, copper coins, and the Book of Changes 11.
• Banner and travelling bell — Announces his services with promises of accurate predictions and protection from calamity 11 46.

Relationships

• Cui Chengshou — Great-grandfather and cultivation mentor. The young version summons Jiuyang as a Drought Ghost vessel; the elderly version intervenes out of remorse. The surviving great-grandfather admits his wrongdoing and gives Jiuyang the means to cultivate independently 4 8 9 11.
• Jiu Yizhi / Ninth Lady — Fellow practitioner and romantic interest. Jiuyang nearly gives his life for her twice; she accepts confinement to the Jidu Shrine to save him. He promises to return with a Numinous Treasure and take her away 30 36 37 45.
• Xiang Qiming / Old Man Xiang — Initially a competitive fellow fortune-teller, later an ally and rescuer. Jiuyang resolves to help him oppose the Japanese and subsequently attends his funeral 13 31 39.
• Turtle Chancellor — Guide to the Water God’s palace and Jidu Shrine. Despite frequent bickering, he saves Jiuyang through the Dragon-Transformation Wall 27 28 30 37.
• Fifth Master Yang — Shengdelong patron and collaborator. Supplies Jiuyang with records and a hydrological chart for investigating the Japanese plot 13 20.
• Mama Liu — Trusted investigative companion whose association with Toad Boy helps the group survive underwater. Jiuyang respects her abilities and regards her as a genuinely decent woman 15 24 31.
• Spirit Medium Wei / Granny Wei — Fellow investigator who becomes wary of his family background. Leaves Jining after his underwater disappearance, fearing intervention by his elders 14 19 31.
• Wang Dali and his family — Beneficiaries of Jiuyang’s divination. He helps save Wang’s wife and later arranges a shop-management opportunity so Wang can raise their future son well 11 12 41.
• Abe and Togo — Japanese adversaries competing over the Iron Rhino and the Water God’s revival. Jiuyang fights their spirit and insect techniques at the Jidu Shrine 27 28 33 34.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Summoning and the Drought Ghost

A dense fog cuts off Jiuyang’s phone signal and repeatedly returns him to his own gate. After crossing a vermilion gate, he finds his modern village replaced by its Republican-era counterpart. Cui Chengshou explains that the Heaven and Earth Creation Art brought him from the future because his extreme-yang fate makes him suitable for a Drought Ghost ritual 1 4.

Warned by the elderly Cui Chengshou’s soul, Jiuyang only appears to comply fully with the younger man. He deliberately misdirects his final self-strike, then hits the Soul-Guiding Bell to disrupt the sealing. Although the ghost withdraws, its yin energy has already circulated through his mortal body and shortened his life. His injured great-grandfather can no longer send him home, leaving cultivation as his route to both survival and a return to the future 9 10 11.

Fortune-Telling in Jining

Jiuyang establishes a stall near Jining’s wharf and gains a reputation after helping save Wang Dali’s wife and Little Huzi. The resulting stream of clients provides income, but his search for a cultivation opportunity leads him to accept Shengdelong’s invitation despite an ominously blank divination 11 12 13.

Iron Rhino and the Divine Tomb

The missing Iron Rhino investigation exposes Japanese involvement, corpse-controlling Gu, and a scheme concerning the Ji River Water God. Jiuyang leads Ninth Lady and Mama Liu beneath Lake Taibai, reaching the Divine Tomb and identifying the Iron Rhino on its offering platform 15 17 19 21 24 25.

The expedition leaves Jiuyang and Ninth Lady trapped by the Malevolent Flood Dragon. During their escape from the collapsing tomb, he carries her despite exhaustion and bleeding. Old Man Xiang rescues them from the sinkhole, and Jiuyang awakens at the threshold of the First Extremity 28 30 31.

Battle at the Jidu Shrine

Jiuyang fights Togo, counters five-element sorcery, and operates the shrine’s formation so Ninth Lady can confront the Malevolent Flood Dragon. When ordinary amplification proves insufficient, he forces the formation’s energy through his own body and channels it into her at the cost of his meridians 33 34 35 36.

Ninth Lady kills the dragon, but Jiuyang collapses. The Turtle Chancellor saves him with the Dragon-Transformation Wall; using the treasure binds Ninth Lady to the shrine for life. She later asks Jiuyang to return with another Numinous Treasure, and he agrees 37 45.

Heyang Village and the Enchanted Wine

While travelling toward Weihaiwei, Jiuyang follows a divination to the mountain where Old Li has disappeared. He joins Li Jinbo and Li Jincai’s search and discovers missing villagers gathered around a wine jar in a forest clearing 46 47 49.

The jar overwhelms him with visions of carefree life. His embedded treasure and ancestral ward alert him but cannot fully dispel the influence. He uses the Three Realms Clear-Sight Spell to expose vapor rising from a small beast’s skeleton, breaks the platform with lightning, and collects the vapor in a porcelain gourd 50.

Notable Quotes

“Pfft, don’t take scholars for lacking combat capability.” 19

“I’m not boasting. I practice one of the finest cultivation arts in the world.” 30

“I’ll be there!” — His answer to Ninth Lady’s request that he return and free her from the Jidu Shrine 45