Meng Yuan

Biodata

Power Progression

Reincarnation preserves Meng Yuan’s knowledge, but his internal cultivation must be rebuilt. Later lives therefore include repeated breakthroughs rather than one uninterrupted ascent 13 29 43.

Background / History

Transmigration and First Death

Meng Yuan transmigrates into a poor hired reaper who has been secretly involved with Pan Shi, the Cheng household’s widowed daughter-in-law. Although he initially intends to end the affair, he pretends to propose elopement to obtain her savings. Master Cheng discovers them, kills Pan Shi, and attacks Meng Yuan with a saber. Facing death, Meng Yuan sees his mysterious stone disc activate and reveal the Hundred-Life Reincarnation inscription 1.

Second Life: Counselor, Marquis, and Chancellor

After returning to the harvest period, Meng Yuan investigates the surrounding society and anticipates widespread rebellion. He learns martial arts and literacy in the county town, partly supported by his relationship with Widow Cao. Rather than accept a comfortable future with her family, he spends eight years traveling through nearly half the realm, studying geography, customs, and the competing powers 2 3.

At twenty-seven, he returns to Qingping County and joins Lü Yinglong with Old Yang and Yang Dayong. His proposal to establish a secure base in Shu wins the confidence of Lü and Madam Chen. He accepts a military counselor’s position rather than the chief advisory post initially offered, and persuades Lü to leave grain for Huai’an’s inhabitants instead of stripping the prefecture bare 3 4.

Meng Yuan helps guide Lü’s rise to the throne and receives a marquisate. He negotiates for the title Marquis of Qu rather than accepting the original offer of Marquis of Changxin with ten thousand households. Recognizing the danger of the growing rivalry between Lü and the Chen clan, he repeatedly tries to withdraw from court affairs 5 6.

Unable to leave the capital permanently, he begins compiling the Yu Kingdom’s history as a means of searching old records for immortal lore. After Lü Yinglong’s death, he accepts Empress Dowager Chen’s patronage and becomes chancellor under Lü Chan. His lenient policies, refusal to raise taxes, and punishment of corrupt officials earn him a reputation as a worthy minister 7 9 10 11.

He retires at seventy after eighteen years as chancellor, but remains in the capital with extensive family and marriage connections. At eighty-one, Empress Dowager Chen summons him and reveals her intention to replace the Lü dynasty. Though she knows he does not seek the throne, she fears his descendants and followers might push him toward it. Before being taken to execution, he obtains a reading of the Pure Yang Dragon-Controlling Art and learns that the Chen, Pei, and Bai clans descend from immortals 10 11 12.

Third Life: Founding the Chen Dynasty

Armed with his memories and the Martial Arts Prodigy talent, Meng Yuan pursues Lü Yinglong’s earlier opportunity. He spends two years training near the hidden valley, then obtains the Red Flame Fruit and Black Serpent’s gallbladder. Lü dies during this altered course of events, and Meng Yuan takes his belongings before approaching the Chen household 13 14 16.

Unable to find written records of the family’s immortal secret, he instead makes himself useful to Wang and her sons, Chen Huaixian and Chen Huaiyuan. When Chen Yuyin returns, he presents himself as Lü’s sworn brother and claims Lü taught him the family’s Pure Yang art. Both recognize the other’s usefulness: she needs a powerful commander, while he wants access to the secrets of immortals 16 17.

Meng Yuan marries into the Chen family, defends Spring Radiance Prefecture, and eventually leads its soldiers and clansmen away. Repeated victories establish his authority, and he follows the route remembered from his previous life to conquer Shu by twenty-six. He then delays further campaigning while pressing Chen Yuyin for information 19 20 22.

After learning of the Immortal Mausoleum, he resumes the struggle for the realm. A costly defeat teaches him not to rely excessively on bribery and accepted surrenders; he defeats Commander Li through methodical campaigning, captures the capital, and names his dynasty Chen, after his wife’s surname. He adopts Huaixian and Huaiyuan, entrusts Huaixian with the remaining war against King Zhang, and later leaves state affairs in his hands while traveling south 23.

The Immortal Mausoleum

Meng Yuan explores the mausoleum with Chen Yuyin, Pei Huasheng, and Bai Xingshuang. He helps overcome the Sword Qi Bottle’s formation and saves Chen Yuyin when she nearly falls to its attacks, but the group cannot initially pass the Bronze Candle Stand 27.

He spends decades examining the site. At fifty-two, he appears to pass the candlestick and discover a peach grove containing an immortal cultivation method and pills. While he believes himself to be approaching immortality, he hears his companions discussing his dying body. His apparent success ends in death and another return to youth, rather than a confirmed cultivation breakthrough 28 29.

Fourth Life: Leaving the Mortal World

In his fourth life, Meng Yuan goes directly to Peach Valley rather than building another dynasty. He practices the Purple Cloud Technique, befriends Pei Liuguang, and eventually uses his awareness of the Turning Wheel to extinguish the candlestick’s flame. Beyond the stone door, they meet a chained, gray-robed cultivator who explains that the world’s Spiritual Qi has been drained 29 30 31 32.

The cultivator selects Meng Yuan as the only person present with suitable aptitude, binds him with a Soul-Tracking Thread, and gives him ten years to reach late-stage Qi Refining. He then sends Meng Yuan through a transportation formation. Meng Yuan emerges underwater in the sea and encounters cultivators whose power renders his mortal martial arts useless 32 33 34.

Repeated Attempts on Deer Island

On Deer Island, Meng Yuan attempts to force his way into the Thirteen Families by organizing fishermen and defeating four weaker households. Du Yueyi accuses him of using her, and her cultivator sister Du Xingyi intervenes. After this life ends, Meng Yuan discovers a new reincarnation starting point before his arrival on the island 37 38.

He changes tactics, cultivates his relationship with Du Yueyi, and obtains Du Xingyi’s recommendation to Huo Qiushi. Although Huo teaches him cultivation and treats him as a successor, the Bright Garment Art leaves his growing spiritual power constrained. Meng Yuan later recalls that attempting the Bronze Gate in this life triggered a vision of a towering blood tide, warning of extreme danger 39 40 41 48.

In another life, he purifies his spiritual roots and cultivates independently before returning to Deer Island. He makes Li Nineteen his sworn brother and joins Huo Qiushi and Du Xingyi’s investigation of the ruins. Du Xingyi supplies the method, pills, and resources that enable him to reach late-stage Qi Refining before the Soul-Tracking Thread’s deadline 43 45 47.

White Deer Pavilion and Renewed Travels

Meng Yuan subsequently manages White Deer Pavilion in Goldstone Market. He quadruples its profits, develops contacts among other shop managers, and enriches himself through off-book transactions. Attempts to learn pill refining and artifact refining fail, while expensive cultivation pills no longer produce any advancement 49.

At forty-two, he abandons the position and leaves Longstone Island to seek treatment for his pill toxins and explore the wider world. At the Starsea Alliance’s Main Mountain, he reunites with Li Nineteen but declines a secret-realm expedition. Li Nineteen joins it despite Meng Yuan’s offer to take his place; Xin Li later returns with news of his death and his wish to be buried beside the peach trees the two brothers planted 49 50.

Appearance

• Dark complexion: Repeatedly described as dark-faced, including when traveling as a scholar and staying with the Chen household 13 16 17.
• Trained physique: Develops a muscular body during his first year of external martial training 2.
• Scholar and Daoist dress: Travels with worn books and writing supplies in his third life, and adopts a Daoist robe before returning to Peach Valley in his fourth 13 29.
• Visible aging: His hair becomes entirely white during his years as chancellor; by forty-two in his later cultivation life, his temples are already frosted 10 49.

Personality

Meng Yuan is patient, opportunistic, and highly conscious of personal relationships. He uses flattery, feigned sincerity, romantic attachment, and calculated generosity to obtain support. His courtly performances often conceal a practical objective, from declining excessive honors to making himself indispensable to Chen Yuyin. He can endure years or decades of preparation when the reward concerns immortality 6 16 20 24 31.

His pursuit of pleasure coexists with diligence. He repeatedly seeks lovers and concubines, yet continues reading, practicing martial arts, investigating old records, and studying unfamiliar places. After learning how easily cultivators can crush mortal schemes, he abandons the assumption that political influence and numbers can compensate for a lack of personal power 4 7 10 38.

Although self-serving, he repeatedly acts to protect ordinary people and repay old kindnesses. He discourages plunder, rewards his family and former benefactors, forbids violence against the defeated Yu royal household, and supports policies of rest and recuperation. Ultimately, neither high office nor profitable retirement satisfies him: he leaves both an imperial realm and a comfortable commercial position to continue seeking the Dao 4 7 10 23 49.

Abilities & Skills

Hundred-Life Reincarnation / Turning Wheel

The mysterious revolving stone disc allows Meng Yuan to live again after death and evaluates his completed lives 1 11 13.

• Retained knowledge: Remembers manuals, routes, political developments, and personal histories, though his memory is not photographic 13 29.
• Talent selection: Receives choices connected to his experiences and persistent pursuits in earlier lives 11 13 29.
• Changing starting point: Initially returns to the Cheng household period; later gains an anchor before landing on Deer Island 13 38.
• Mental focus: Concentrating on the Turning Wheel lets him resist the candlestick’s distracting thoughts and extinguish its flame 31.
• Limit: Remembering a technique does not preserve the internal power accumulated through practicing it 13.

Danger Premonition

His tide-associated talent can anticipate certain life-threatening killing moves 38.

• Interprets a rising tide as a warning connected to the collapse of his first Deer Island scheme 38.
• Sees a towering blood tide when attempting to open the Bronze Gate, revealing danger beyond his ability to handle safely 48.

Martial Arts and Cultivation

Meng Yuan accumulates numerous internal methods and weapon routines across his lives, compensating for weak initial aptitude through practice, talents, and external resources 4 13 16.

• Martial foundation: Trains with fists, feet, sabers, spears, and swords 2 4 13.
• Internal arts: Practices the Everlasting Spring Skill, Pure Yang Dragon-Controlling Art, and Purple Cloud Technique in different lives 4 13 29.
• Cultivator methods: Learns the Circulating Heaven Qi-Gathering Method, Bright Garment Art, and Supreme Clarity True Art of Qi Control 40 43 47.
• Detoxification: Later practices the Pure Heart Art and takes Dust-Cleansing Pills, with little success against accumulated pill toxins 50.
• Limit: His seventh-layer cultivation is pill-driven; toxins and frailty severely reduce his practical fighting strength and block further progress 48 49.

Strategy and Command

His strongest early contribution is broad strategy rather than battlefield tactics or practical administration 3 4 11.

• Identifies Shu as a defensible base and judges when rival powers should be allowed to exhaust one another 3 4 19.
• Builds military authority through shared hardships, personal leadership, and consistent rewards and punishments 19.
• Uses sieges, attacks on reinforcements, division, and bribery during his own conquest 23.
• Recognizes that previous-life knowledge cannot eliminate changed circumstances or replace hard campaigning 23.

Medicine, Scholarship, and Commerce

• Medicine: Studies medical books, works as an itinerant physician, and offers free consultations in the Chen household’s name 4 17 29.
• Historical research: Studies roughly two thousand years of history while searching for traces of immortals and inherited techniques 7 8.
• Commercial management: Quadruples White Deer Pavilion’s profits and develops a network of market contacts 49.
• Crafting limits: Pays for instruction in pill and artifact refining but fails to learn either properly 49.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Lü Yinglong’s saber — Retrieves it from the Black Serpent’s eye and wears it at his waist in his third life 16.
• Black Serpent’s fangs — Collects them after obtaining the serpent’s gallbladder 16.
• Iron swords and protective pills — Buys three iron swords and pills against poison and miasma before entering the mountains in his fourth life 29.
• Flying sword and pill furnace — Acquires them through Du Xingyi during his later Deer Island cultivation 47.
• Exploration notebook — Gives Li Nineteen a notebook of advice before the secret-realm expedition 50.

Relationships

• Pan Shi — His predecessor’s lover and the woman involved in the encounter that triggers his first recorded death. He returns to the period of their affair in subsequent lives 1 13.
• Widow Cao — Lover and early financial supporter. Offers him marriage into her family and a route into clerical work, which he declines in favor of traveling 2 3.
• Lü Yinglong — Patron and emperor in his second life. Meng Yuan later takes his fortuitous opportunity and marries his widow, but still acknowledges Lü’s exceptional battlefield valor 4 5 16 23 32.
• Chen Yuyin / Empress Dowager Chen — Patron who orders his execution in his second life; wife and empress in his third. Their relationship combines attraction, bargaining, distrust, and a shared willingness to use one another 9 11 19 22 24.
• Old Yang — Fellow harvest worker and longstanding elder companion. Meng Yuan brings him and his grandson into Lü Yinglong’s camp and later into his own household 2 3 7.
• Yang Dayong — Old Yang’s grandson, whom Meng Yuan treats like a son and marries to his eldest niece. Accompanies him through his political career and faces the execution ground beside him 7 10 12.
• Chen Huaixian and Chen Huaiyuan — Pupils and later adopted sons in his third life. Huaixian helps pacify the realm and oversees the state; Huaiyuan is charged with supporting the Pear Blossom Chen branch 17 23.
• Pei Liuguang — Peach Valley companion who explores the mausoleum with him. Before departing through the transportation formation, he promises to watch peach blossoms and spring rain with her if he returns 31 32 33.
• Gray-Robed Skeleton Guest, surnamed Jiang — Provides passage into the cultivation world but imposes the Soul-Tracking Thread and its deadline. Meng Yuan remains wary of him and later considers investigating his lineage in West Yunzhou 32 33 50.
• Du Yueyi — Deer Island lover whose family connections become central to his search for cultivation instruction. Their first relationship ends in broken trust; in a later life, her intervention prevents Du Xingyi from killing him 37 38 39.
• Du Xingyi — Initially a deadly opponent, later an ally and principal cultivation benefactor. Supplies his new method and pills, while he assists her investigation of the Bronze Gate 37 45 47.
• Huo Qiushi / Huo Old Freak — Cultivation teacher whose instruction combines genuine knowledge with the restrictive Bright Garment Art. Later works with Meng Yuan on formations and ruins exploration 39 40 41 45.
• Li Nineteen — Sworn brother and cultivation pupil with a talent for spirit plants. His death in a secret realm ends their planned reunion beside the peach trees they planted together 45 50.
• Xin Li — Cultivator acquaintance who offers assistance and an expedition invitation. Later brings Meng Yuan news of Li Nineteen’s death 45 50.

Notable Quotes

“A marquisate was never my wish; I only wished the seas lay calm.” 6

“I failed to master martial arts all my life, yet I still strode unhindered across the realm.” 12

“Cultivation isn't about fighting and killing. It's about worldly wisdom and human connections.” 39

“On this journey, like a bird taking to the blue heavens, like a fish entering the vast sea, I will no longer be bound!” 47