Fu Shaoping

Biodata

Power Progression

Cultivation

Reaching the sixth level satisfies the cultivation requirement for promotion to Commandant; placing in the Spring Hunt’s top three offers priority for that promotion, but no promotion is documented in the supplied chapters 27 40 48.

Martial Arts and Alchemy

Background / History

Fu Shaoping’s father died in the line of duty when Shaoping was thirteen. His mother required ongoing medicine, and taxes, treatment costs, and daily expenses exhausted the family’s savings. He supported the household through odd jobs and errands while sharing a modest courtyard with Zhou Pan’er and her younger brother 1.

Zhou Pan’er helped care for his bedridden mother, allowing him to work outside the home. In return, he helped prepare and transport her tofu stall each morning. After his first breakthrough, she gave him her entire savings—seven taels of silver—to help him navigate his registration at the Hundred Households Office 1.

At fifteen, he inherited Fu Changsheng’s Martial Guard position and number, 666. He requested prison punishment duties during his probation month to test his fate’s rewards 2. Madam Jiang opposed his decision because his father had been killed despite reaching the third level of Body Tempering. Once the appointment was settled, she entrusted him with his father’s most valuable inheritance, Notes of True Person Gu 3.

After probation, he chose criminal investigations involving ordinary villagers rather than frontline combat. He became a full guard under Old Zhan and received a Martial Suppression Saber and deeds to one mu each of paddy field and sloping farmland 14 15.

Appearance

• Described as a handsome young man at fifteen, with a resemblance to his father 1 2.
• His guard uniform is a Flying Fish Uniform with its flying-fish design embroidered in silk thread, distinguishing his rank from higher officers’ uniforms 2.
• Wears a fox mask when visiting the Black Market to purchase alchemy ingredients 11.

Personality

Fu Shaoping combines opposition to wrongdoing with a practical interest in the rewards it brings. His declared aim is to carry on his father’s wish to vanquish demons and uphold justice, but his fate also makes criminal investigations the most useful path for his advancement. He declines a Pill-Refining Hall appointment despite its safer, systematic training opportunities 1 13.

He is cautious rather than eager to prove himself through unnecessary danger. He initially seeks cases involving non-martial artists, conceals sudden breakthroughs through announced seclusion, and changes trading locations when carrying valuable goods. During hunts, he retreats when circumstances become uncertain or his immediate objective is achieved 5 7 14 28 44 48.

He takes obligations of care seriously. He improves Zhou Pan’er’s living conditions, shares cultivation supplies with her, resolves to support Old Zhan in old age, and gives his coat to a freezing young complainant before arranging food and warmth for her 8 26 29 44 49 50.

Abilities & Skills

Mystic Mandate Codex / Treasure Mirror

The supernatural aid in his sea of consciousness is called the Mystic Mandate Codex, Treasure Mirror, and, in one chapter summary, Mystic Fate Mirror 1 10 39 40.

• Punishment feedback: His fate rewards acts of punishing the guilty. It works even when he did not personally capture the offender 1 4.
• Reward strength: His observations indicate that the gravity of an offender’s evil matters more than their cultivation. Personally apprehending a criminal also produces greater feedback 14 17.
• Indirect credit: Receives rewards for providing the lead that enables another officer to kill the Fish-Head Man 22.
• Multiple applications: Improves cultivation, martial arts, and Blood Qi Powder refining 7 10.
• Directed allocation: Learns to choose the reward’s destination rather than accept its previous sequence 22.
• Stored attributes: After the third of its sixteen runes lights, rewards can be retained as attribute points and spent later 39 40.
• Internal training: Its evolved archery space provides prolonged practice while almost no time passes outside, leaving deeply ingrained practical experience 41.
• Scaling limit: Higher cultivation requires more energy; earlier reward gains do not translate into equally large advances at later levels 40.

Mysterious Tortoise Qi-Nourishing Art

• A second-rate cultivation art created by True Person Gu and recorded in his inherited notes 3.
• Uses a breathing pattern of three long breaths and one short to disperse and refine powerful medicinal energy 27.
• Supports his absorption of demonic-beast blood essence and his progression through skin and bone tempering 44 48.

Ethereal Steps

• A second-grade movement art consisting of eighteen directions and thirty-six steps 3 5.
• Used to escape beasts, evade attacks at unusual angles, and travel rapidly through crowds or villages 8 11 37 46.
• At minor mastery, gives him confidence that he can escape a fourth-level Body Tempering opponent 18.
• The inherited manual states that perfection would prevent even a ninth-level Body Tempering expert from approaching him; Fu Shaoping has not reached that stage in the documented chapters 3 18.

Tiger Roar Fist

• A first-grade close-combat martial art that produces an audible tiger-like roar 8.
• Learns it faster than the more demanding second-grade Ethereal Steps 8.
• Uses it to knock an Ironwood Fox from a tree after avoiding the creature’s illusion-inducing mist 43.

Heavenstone Archery

• A second-grade ranged martial art borrowed from Chief Banner Chen to fill the gap between his movement and close-combat techniques 23.
• Demonstrates precision against a willow leaf at one hundred paces 26.
• After Treasure Mirror training, achieves nearly forty-percent accuracy against prey at one hundred and fifty paces 41.
• Can fire rapid successive shots in battle, including paired attacks against the Stable-Horse Beast’s heads 46.
• Arrows remain vulnerable to sufficiently strong physical defenses or projected demon essence 30 46.

Alchemy

• Produces Blood Qi Powder ranging from ordinary grades to Special Grade, a full tier above Grade A 19 27 28.
• Special Grade powder has a distinctive wheat fragrance and is valued by Granny Tang at ten low-grade Essence Stones per packet 28 29.
• Uses alchemy income to fund cultivation supplies, a home furnace, and better equipment 29 30.
• Compiles refining notes and teaches Zhou Pan’er, improving his own understanding in the process 32 33.
• Attributes his unusually strong mental capacity partly to awakened past-life wisdom 12.

Investigation and Interrogation

• Forces Chang Xiaotian to disclose the location of abducted women through repeated suffocation with wet mulberry-bark paper 4 5.
• Uses water-drop torture to obtain the location of stolen yin baleful qi from a long-imprisoned former officer 10.
• Bluffs a murderer into exposing himself by claiming that footprints remain after rain 17.
• Locates the Fish-Head Man by connecting an empty fishing basket with fish fleeing its presence 21.
• Recognizes infant trafficking after finding a puppy substituted for a supposedly buried child 36.
• Uses a staged claim that someone has identified Cai Shi’s killer to provoke a revealing reaction from the suspect 50.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Town Martial Token — Identifies him as a Green Ox Town guard; bears his surname and inherited number, 666 2.
• Martial Suppression Saber — Issued after probation; valued at fifty Origin Stones and heavy even with his second-level strength 14.
• Hou Yi Bow — Top-grade first-tier weapon forged from Cold Netherstone by Qiu Yan; purchased for fifteen Ninth-Rank Merits. Can potentially become a second-tier magical artifact through the addition of Cold Yin Stone 30 41.
• Darklight Arrows and quiver — Initially buys five arrows forged from dark granary iron. Uses poisoned Darklight Arrows against the Stable-Horse Beast, whose own venomous nature renders the poison ineffective 41 46.
• Damaged Millennium Bow — Earlier hunting weapon purchased for fifteen low-grade Essence Stones. Would have been a mid-grade second-tier artifact intact, but its cracks worsen when drawn and sharply limit its remaining uses 30.
• Purple-Gold Alchemy Furnace — Top-grade first-tier furnace bought for 218 low-grade Essence Stones and fifty spirit shells after his guard discount; enables home refining 29 30.
• Notes of True Person Gu — Inherited book containing the Mysterious Tortoise Qi-Nourishing Art, Ethereal Steps, and an incomplete transcription of the Longevity Art. The notes claim the completed Longevity Art could reach the Origin Core Realm; his practice of it is not documented 3.
• Hunting Manual — Gift from Old Zhan containing terrain maps, herb locations, beast weaknesses, and hunting advice. Its decades-old information is not always reliable 42 43.
• Azure Zhao Horse and carriage — Purchased after selling a Granary Bear, replacing his repeated carriage rentals 28 32.

Relationships

• Fu Changsheng — Deceased father and predecessor as Martial Guard number 666. His inherited cultivation notes underpin Shaoping’s early training 2 3.
• Madam Jiang — Mother. Initially opposes his guard career out of fear for his safety, later arranges his betrothal and urges him not to pursue merit recklessly 3 15 40.
• Zhou Pan’er — Neighbor, benefactor, fiancée, and regular cultivation and hunting partner. He teaches her movement techniques and alchemy, shares supplies, and supports her search for her birth parents 1 15 26 29 33 44.
• Zhou Xinxiang — Zhou Pan’er’s younger brother and part of their shared household. Calls Fu Shaoping “brother-in-law” after the betrothal 1 28 49.
• Old Zhan / Commandant Zhan — Superior and increasingly a family elder. Secures suitable cases, gives him cultivation and hunting resources, and joins his household for New Year; Shaoping resolves to care for him in old age 15 26 42 49.
• Chief Banner Chen — Rewards his investigative work, lends him Heavenstone Archery, and repeatedly attempts to recruit him into the Hunting Team 22 23 26 37.
• Junior Banner Liu — Alchemy patron who offers a Pill-Refining Hall recommendation, commissions Grade A powder for his son, and grants favorable Earthfire Hall access 13 18 19 27 28.
• Zhuo Tianqi / Junior Banner Zhuo — Hall of Myriad Treasures manager, equipment supplier, and private alchemy client. Reserves the Hou Yi Bow for him; Shaoping later returns his daughter’s body and helps arrange mourning 5 32 41 48.
• Granny Tang — Recurring supplier of medicinal ingredients and buyer of his Blood Qi Powder 28 29 48.
• Ghost-Faced Youth — Guides him through the children’s graves and toward the trafficking cavern. Shaoping promises him meat buns and later carries him back after he is subdued 36 37.
• Chen Shichao — Fellow guard and temporary hunting partner who plots to have the expedition’s other members killed. Shaoping executes him without authorization and asks Zhou Pan’er to keep his death secret 45 46 48.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Notable Quotes

“Thank you for your kindness, sir, but I joined the Martial Suppression Bureau to carry on my father’s dying wish: to vanquish demons, defend the righteous path, and uphold justice.” 13

“We’re getting married soon. You mustn’t treat me like an outsider again.” 29