Great-Grandfather

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Early Life

According to the elderly Cui Chengshou, his birth filled the courtyard with azure light and an extraordinary fragrance. The midwife called him a reincarnated spirit child. On his hundredth day, a wandering Daoist stopped for water and left a Bagua Compass for him 8.

When he was seven, stars appeared in broad daylight. Their light opened the compass’s hidden mechanism, revealing an ancient book titled The Eight Extremes. By seventeen, he had mastered six Extremes; by twenty, he had reached the Seventh 8.

Convinced that other occultists were beneath him, he destroyed defeated opponents in both body and soul. After divination indicated that merit would bring his opportunity for ascension, he traveled widely to subdue demons, capture monsters, and vanquish evil 8.

The Original Failed Ascension

In the elderly Chengshou’s account, his younger self summoned Cui Jiuyang from the future to seal a Drought Ghost and complete his merit. The ritual brought him to the Eight Extremes, but the Heavenly Gate’s astral winds broke the seal. The Drought Ghost became a Ghost Immortal, destroyed Jiuyang’s body and soul, and shattered Chengshou’s ascension attainment 8 10.

More than seventy years later, Jiuyang’s father brought the newborn child to Chengshou to be named. Recognizing the infant as the great-grandson whose death he had caused, Chengshou named him Cui Jiuyang. The encounter drove him to send a strand of his soul seventy years into the past to prevent that death 9.

Appearance

• Younger self: Dark-complexioned and sturdy, with muscles developed through farmwork; approximately a full head shorter than Cui Jiuyang 4 6 7.
• Clothing: A patched coarse-cloth jacket with knotted buttons, indigo trousers, and cloth strips wrapped from his ankles to below his knees; initially appears barefoot 4.
• Elderly self: Broad-framed, white-haired, white-bearded, and slightly stooped, but only half a head shorter than Jiuyang 7 8.
• Unusual youthful features: The elderly self has smooth, nearly wrinkle-free skin and features resembling a man in his thirties, despite a bearing that suggests someone at least eighty 8.
• After the duel: Deathly pale and visibly weakened. Following the merger, his gaze becomes gentle and kindly like his elderly self’s 10 11.

Personality

The young Chengshou is proud, impatient, and ruthless in pursuit of immortality. He enjoys Jiuyang’s flattery, reacts violently when the Great Locust Tree refuses him, and treats his elderly self’s restored soul-body as another opportunity to ascend. Even after his dantian is pierced, he is fascinated that the Sword Within the Soul he once envisioned can actually be achieved 5 10.

His elderly self is patient with Jiuyang’s anger and openly acknowledges his youthful cruelty. His overriding purpose is to save his great-grandson, although traces of his old arrogance remain: he claims that, by the time he mastered the Soul Sword, nobody under heaven was worthy of facing it 8 9 10.

After their merger, Chengshou admits that he wronged Jiuyang and chooses to spend his remaining lucid years on marriage, children, and ordinary pleasures. He also regards supporting oneself through honest labor as a cultivator’s duty; using magic to avoid farmwork would damage cultivation 11 25.

Abilities & Skills

Heaven and Earth Creation Art

A supreme spell capable of summoning someone from the future 4.

• Summons Cui Jiuyang from roughly a century ahead to assist with the Drought Ghost ritual 4 5.
• Chengshou’s first use does not follow the experience described in its records: Jiuyang was supposed to arrive in his sleep, but instead encounters terrifying fog 4.
• After Chengshou’s injuries, he tells Jiuyang that reaching the Seventh Extreme would allow Jiuyang to reverse the art and return to his own time 11.

Divine Soul and Soul Sword

Chengshou’s elderly self can send a soul fragment into the past, communicate through dreams, and inhabit Jiuyang 8 9 10.

• Initially exists as a dreamlike strand of divine consciousness, unable to physically assist his younger self 8.
• Absorbs ghostly energy to form a body and recover cultivation 9 10.
• Carries a Sword Within the Soul, whose strike destroys the younger Chengshou’s dantian and nearly ruins his soul 10.
• Ultimately enters his younger self’s dantian, allowing the younger body to survive 10.

Lightning, Fire, and Golden Light

Chengshou uses powerful offensive magic in combat 10.

• Drives back the Drought Ghost with lightning flowing between his fingers 10.
• Together, his young and elderly selves summon twelve bolts of heavenly lightning, annihilating the ghost’s soul and refining away its resentment 10.
• Uses lightning, flame, and golden light during the duel between his two selves 10.
• The elderly self throws a Fire Talisman to protect Jiuyang from the Bloodsucking Sickle 10.

Divination and Occult Knowledge

Chengshou uses divination to investigate fate, cultivation opportunities, and supernatural beings 5 8.

• Calculates that the Great Locust Tree should have approximately four hundred years of life remaining 5.
• Learns through divination that accumulating merit can bring his ascension opportunity 8.
• Records knowledge of the Yellow River Iron Rhinoceroses and methods for fighting Miao borderland gu sorcery, later used by Jiuyang 15 33.

Ritual Crafting and Spirit Control

Chengshou prepares tools and formations for dealing with ghosts and spirits 5 6 9.

• Uses blood-colored tree sap with Curse-Blood Beads to establish a connection to the Great Locust Tree’s soul and force its surrender 5.
• Refines a giant spirit fox’s bones into a Ghost-Driving Mallet using a ritual cauldron 6.
• Immobilizes Jiuyang with a drop of magically empowered Black Dog Blood 9.
• Uses the Soul-Guiding Bell and a sealing talisman to draw the Drought Ghost into Jiuyang 9.
• Commands captured demons, monsters, and ghosts through the Five Warlords Register; destroying the register frees them 10.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Peerless Jade pendant — An ancestral emerald-green pendant. Its exact match with Jiuyang’s inherited pendant provides evidence of their connection 4.
• Bagua Compass — A gift from a wandering Daoist; concealed the original Eight Extremes book until Chengshou was seven 8.
• Pipe — Smokes while discussing the drought and resting during excavation 5 6.
• Ox-tail whip — Used to lash the Great Locust Tree and draw its blood-colored sap 5.
• Curse-Blood Beads — Taken from a sorcerer he fatally defeated. Contact with blood links them to the source creature’s soul 5.
• Five Warlords Register — A cloth register containing bound supernatural troops. Burns apart during his duel with his elderly self 10.
• Small wooden flying sword — A dark-wood sword three finger-widths long; silently pierces the elderly self’s chest when he is distracted 10.
• Three books entrusted to Jiuyang — The Eight Extremes, Chengshou’s cultivation insights, and his account of travels and discoveries 11.
• Protective ward — A protection carried by Jiuyang; proves insufficient, even alongside a Water Palace treasure, to fully counter the enchantment associated with the Feifei remains 50.

Relationships

• Cui Jiuyang — Great-grandson, ritual assistant, and heir to his cultivation knowledge. The younger Chengshou endangers him in pursuit of ascension; the elderly Chengshou intervenes to save him. After merging, Chengshou apologizes and equips Jiuyang to seek survival through cultivation 4 9 10 11.
• Great Locust Tree / Old Huai — Village tree spirit whom the younger Chengshou coerces into surrendering the Huai Bao Belt. The elderly Chengshou later meets Jiuyang beneath the tree while holding its small green spirit 5 7 8.
• Wandering Daoist — Leaves the compass that becomes the source of Chengshou’s cultivation method 8.
• Drought Ghost — Intended source of merit for Chengshou’s ascension. Its escape ruins the original attempt; his two selves later destroy it together 8 10.
• Spirit Medium Wei and her Gray Family Immortal — Jiuyang suspects that one of them recognizes Chengshou’s name. Wei leaves after Jiuyang disappears underwater, saying his elders would be difficult to deal with if they came looking 31.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Summoning and Ritual Preparations

Chengshou greets Jiuyang in the transformed village and establishes their connection through the matching jade pendants. Their first meeting escalates into a fistfight before Chengshou explains the summoning and their shared extreme yang fate 4.

He then assembles the ritual equipment: the Great Locust Tree’s belt, a fox-bone Ghost-Driving Mallet, and the Soul-Guiding Bell. Fog in the ancestral graveyard and his evasive explanations lead Jiuyang to doubt his intentions 5 6 7.

Two Great-Grandfathers

The elderly soul reveals the original disaster and urges Jiuyang not to cooperate. During the ritual, the two Chengshous issue conflicting instructions. Jiuyang appears to obey the younger man but secretly strikes the bell, disrupting the seal and allowing the elderly soul to absorb the Drought Ghost’s power 8 9.

After destroying the ghost together, the younger Chengshou attempts to refine his elderly self to reach the Eight Extremes. Their duel gravely wounds both. Faced with the consequences of the younger self’s death, they join palms and merge, returning home in the younger body 10.

Inheritance and Lasting Influence

After six days unconscious and a month spent writing, Chengshou gives Jiuyang three books. He explains that Jiuyang cannot presently return home and must cultivate to survive the malign yin in his body 11.

His records remain useful after Jiuyang leaves: they supply information about the Iron Rhino and tactics against Togo’s insect arts. Jiuyang also treats his great-grandfather’s former strength as a benchmark, telling Ninth Lady that Chengshou would regard the Malevolent Flood Dragon as no more than a loach 15 33 42.

Notable Quotes

“I've been young. You've never been old. You don't understand.” 10

“Jiuyang is alive... all Great-Grandfather's trouble wasn't for nothing.” 10

“Jiuyang, the old man was right. I wronged you.” 11