Zhao Ming

Biodata

Background / History

Attempts to Purchase the Qin Shop

Zhao Ming represented the Heavenly Craft Workshop in its efforts to acquire the Qin Household Blacksmith Shop. While Qin Feng was still alive, he offered five hundred taels for its land and signboard, suggesting that the elderly smith retire. Qin Feng rejected the offer outright 2.

After Qin Feng’s funeral, Zhao Ming approached Qin Tiexin with condolences and an increased offer of six hundred taels. When Qin refused, Zhao Ming abandoned his sympathetic manner and warned that the failing shop would eventually be worth nothing. Qin ordered him and his two assistants to leave 5.

Zhao Ming returned with four workers, mocked Qin’s repair and farm-tool business, and offered six hundred taels on the condition that he leave Ink City. When he tried to pat Qin’s shoulder, Qin seized his wrist and threw him into the alley. Qin then defeated the workers and snapped Zhao Ming’s ivory-ribbed fan as a warning against further harassment 6.

Commercial Pressure and the Spirit Awakening Pill

After Zhao Ming reported his defeat, his father, Zhao Xuan, explained why acquiring the property mattered: joining the plots would allow the workshop to expand and seek a second Divine Forging Furnace. Greater production could improve its sect contribution ranking and earn a Spirit Awakening Pill for a direct descendant. Zhao Ming eagerly embraced the prospect of gaining a spirit root 7.

Zhao Xuan ordered him to restrict Qin’s iron supply, spread rumors about the shop’s products, pressure established customers, and keep the workshop’s furnace operating day and night to wear down Qin’s resolve 7.

When Qin resorted to hauling cargo, Zhao Ming reported his hardship with satisfaction. At his father’s direction, he brought Qin six hundred taels, restaurant food, and an offer of a workshop steward’s position. Qin overturned the food and threw him outside with the silver 9 10.

Zhao Ming then accepted instructions to cut off Qin’s dock employment, arrange a fraudulent claim that the shop was rented rather than owned, and recruit a false complainant. Qin retained his property by producing the purchase deed and tax records, and exposed the fabricated product complaint 10. Zhao Ming reported these failures and helped prepare for Zhao Xuan’s next move: using Qin Feng’s cremation as grounds for legal pressure 11.

Damage to the Workshop’s Reputation

During the workshop’s New Year reopening, Scarred Eye and Yellow Hair publicly complained about broken sabers. Zhao Ming moved them into the backyard and reassured customers with a three-month refund-or-exchange guarantee for damage not caused by human action, alongside long-term repairs. He paid the pair hush money but privately resolved to recover it later 14 15.

He subsequently received Li Zhenwei as a customer. Although initially impressed by Li’s bearing, he became condescending after seeing the worn military saber brought for repair. The workshop’s master smith dismissed the weapon as impractical to restore 15.

After Qin repaired the saber, Li bought the workshop’s Armor-Piercing Spear and cut through its refined-steel shaft in public. Zhao Ming dropped his fan in shock, then angrily ordered the displayed weapons removed. He later admitted to spending money to suppress the incident 19 24.

Misreading Qin Tiexin’s Departure

Zhao Ming mistook Qin’s farewell repairs and preparations to join the army for proof that the family’s pressure had succeeded. He planned to lower the purchase price further and prepared two hundred taels to take over the shop 21 23 24.

During Qin’s overnight forging of the weapon later named Edgeless, Zhao Ming watched the unusual light and listened to the hammering with unease. He dismissed it as a final, futile struggle, later interpreting the work as an attempt to make a weapon for military service or earn travel money 22 23 24.

Zhao Xuan’s return exposed how little Zhao Ming had investigated. He had neither identified Li Zhenwei nor followed up on the county office’s failure to seize the property. Under questioning, he disclosed the saber demonstration and his attempt to conceal it. Zhao Xuan then learned that Li’s intervention had protected Qin from further official pressure 24.

Final Negotiation and Failure

Zhao Xuan gave his son one last chance, threatening to consider another son as the future recipient of the Spirit Awakening Pill if he failed. Zhao Ming approached Qin with one thousand taels, presenting the payment as rent for temporary care of the shop and promising a larger replacement premises upon his return 25.

When Qin refused, Zhao Ming fell to his knees and begged, admitting that failure would ruin him in his father’s eyes. Qin maintained that the shop would neither be sold nor rented and sent him away 25.

Zhao Xuan then resorted to poisoned needles, but Qin and Li survived the attack. After Li confronted the workshop and threatened Zhao Xuan, Zhao Ming timidly emerged from behind a door. His father shouted him back inside, and Qin departed with his shop under military protection 26.

Demotion and Family Estrangement

By the time Qin returned to Ink City, Zhao Ming was managing a shop whose monthly earnings had fallen another thirty percent. Zhao Xuan rejected his explanation that the recently ended northern war had impoverished customers, pointing out that a southern shop managed by the Xue Household had increased its revenue by fifty percent. He accused Zhao Ming of spending his time drinking, gambling, and associating with disreputable companions 65.

Zhao Xuan removed him from management and ordered him to start as an assistant at the newly opened western branch. When Zhao Ming protested that such work would disgrace him, his father offered only the choice of accepting the demotion or leaving the household. Zhao Ming submitted, but blamed Qin for the loss of his standing and for his father’s subsequent remarriage 65.

The marriage had originally been intended for Zhao Ming: Zhao Xuan sought a match with the wealthy Xue Household to obtain support for expansion without acquiring Qin’s property. Instead, the Xue patriarch insisted that his daughter marry Zhao Xuan as his second wife and offered increased investment. Their infant son, Zhao Lang, became a focus of Zhao Ming’s jealousy 65.

At the western branch, Zhao Ming swept floors, inventoried goods, and served customers buying inexpensive ironware. He resented both the work and the poor customers, driving away a woman who wanted her damaged pot repaired and earning a reprimand from the shopkeeper. His accommodation was also reduced to shared servants’ quarters. Hearing his father, Lady Xue, and Zhao Lang enjoying family life together reinforced his belief that he had been displaced 66.

Theft of the Spirit Awakening Pill

Zhao Ming decided that awakening a spirit root would prove his worth and compel his father to restore his former position. Believing Zhao Xuan would never voluntarily give him the Spirit Awakening Pill, he began planning to steal it, considering the secret chamber behind his father’s study as a likely hiding place 66.

After two months as an assistant, he overheard that Zhao Xuan had obtained a treasure intended for Zhao Lang and identified it as the Spirit Awakening Pill. Remembering his father’s childhood promise that the Heavenly Craft Workshop would one day be his, he treated the pill’s apparent reassignment as another loss caused by Qin. He began tracking Qin’s movements and discovered that he visited a grave on Emerald Cloud Mountain at dusk every five or six days 67.

Zhao Ming ultimately obtained the pill, but his apparent success concealed his father’s intentions. Zhao Xuan later reflected that he had deliberately allowed the theft; without his cooperation, Zhao Ming could not have found the hiding place. He had intended the demotion to temper his son’s disposition and believed that future workshop earnings could earn additional pills, whereas withholding this one might leave Zhao Ming without another opportunity 68 69.

Ambush and Death

Zhao Ming ambushed Qin on Emerald Cloud Mountain with a bow, having carefully judged his shot’s timing and angle. Qin evaded the arrow and moved through the trees. Panicking when he lost sight of his target, Zhao Ming fired at a disturbance caused by a thrown stone, allowing Qin to approach from the opposite side 68.

Qin overpowered him and pinned him to the ground. Zhao Ming accused Qin of depriving him of the shop, causing his father to remarry, and obstructing his path to immortality. He openly acknowledged wanting to kill Qin. Qin incapacitated him with a knife-hand strike, searched his clothes, and found the Spirit Awakening Pill in a small jade bottle 68.

Qin took the pill, killed Zhao Ming, and disposed of his body, bow, and arrows in a deep ravine. He returned to the shop and later denied any dealings with Zhao Ming when questioned by bailiffs 68.

Investigation and Aftermath

Zhao Xuan ordered searches of the taverns and gambling dens his son frequented, offered twenty taels for information, and eventually searched personally. A report that Zhao Ming had drunkenly cursed his father, stepmother, and a blacksmith surnamed Qin prompted Zhao Xuan to seek the county office’s assistance 68.

When Zhao Ming’s body was recovered from the ravine, wild animals had damaged it beyond recognition. A broken bow and shattered arrows lay nearby. The coroner concluded that he had lost his footing and fallen to his death. Zhao Xuan fainted on seeing the body, then secluded himself in his study. He suspected Qin because the location and timing matched Qin’s grave visits and Zhao Ming’s known desire for revenge 68.

After Zhao Ming’s burial, Zhao Xuan became increasingly withdrawn and hostile. Convinced that Qin had killed his son and taken the missing pill, he attacked Qin with cultivation techniques. The Great Xuan Law Enforcement Squad intervened and arrested him for attacking a mortal without evidence, explicitly maintaining the official conclusion that Zhao Ming had died accidentally 69.

Zhao Xuan was subsequently stripped of his cultivation and sentenced to ten years of labor in the mines. Lady Xue’s representatives later offered Qin ten thousand taels for the pill, which he denied having seen 71.

Appearance in Qin Tiexin’s Illusory Life

In an illusory experience, Qin accepted Zhao Ming’s six-hundred-tael offer and left the family shop. This alternative course led Qin to rebuild his livelihood in Qingzhou and eventually become an imperial craftsman. Zhao Ming’s successful purchase belongs to the illusion rather than the actual history in which Qin repeatedly refused him 406.

Appearance

• Face and age: Fair-faced, with the appearance of a young man in his early twenties 5.
• Clothing: Wears brocade robes 2 5. After his demotion, he wears a shop assistant’s coarse clothes 66.
• Hairstyle: Wears his hair in a topknot, which becomes disheveled after Qin throws him down 6.
• Characteristic accessory: Frequently carries and waves a folding fan 2 19 21.
• Later condition: Appears before his father in rumpled brocade, flushed with drink and with unfocused eyes, shortly before losing his management position 65.

Personality

Zhao Ming uses merchant courtesy when seeking an advantage, but his politeness quickly gives way to anger when rejected. His condolences after Qin Feng’s death turn into threats, while his dealings with Li Zhenwei shift from respect to condescension once he judges the customer by his old weapon 5 15.

He scorns poverty and manual labor, mocking Qin’s farm-tool work and employment hauling rice. Nevertheless, his defeat leaves him deeply wary of Qin: even after the bruises fade, he rubs his wrist at the memory and decides against approaching merely to gloat 6 9 21.

His ambition centers on the Spirit Awakening Pill and the status cultivation could bring. He depends heavily on his father’s plans, mistakes Qin’s departure for capitulation, and conceals damaging information rather than investigating it. His final negotiation reveals how readily his arrogance collapses under his father’s threat to replace him 7 24 25.

His later demotion exposes a strong sense of entitlement. He regards ordinary shop work and serving poor customers as humiliations, while attributing his declining position to Qin rather than his own conduct. His father’s remarriage and affection for Zhao Lang intensify his jealousy and fear of replacement 65 66 67.

His desire to regain paternal approval becomes inseparable from his cultivation ambitions: he believes that obtaining a spirit root will restore everything he has lost. Resentment ultimately overrides his earlier fear of Qin, leading him to steal the pill and attempt a lethal ambush. Even when subdued, he insists that Qin deserves death for blocking his supposed path to immortality 66 68.

Abilities & Skills

Sales and Customer Relations

• Promotes the Divine Forging Furnace’s supposed immortal craftsmanship and advertises discounts to neighbors and traveling merchants 14 19.
• Negotiates property offers, employment incentives, and proposed rental arrangements on the workshop’s behalf 2 10 25.
• Handles public complaints through private settlements, hush money, and customer guarantees 14 15.
• Later performs basic assistant duties, including cleaning, inventory work, and attending to customers, but his impatience and disdain for inexpensive repair jobs lead to conflict with his shopkeeper 66.
• Fails to maintain the earnings of the shop entrusted to him; Zhao Xuan cites a further thirty-percent monthly decline when removing him from management 65.

Authority and Combat Limitations

• Directs workshop assistants and workers, including the men accompanying his confrontations with Qin 5 6 14.
• Is decisively overpowered by Qin despite bringing four workers for support 6.
• Seeks a Spirit Awakening Pill as an entry into cultivation; no successful spirit-root awakening or cultivation advancement is documented before his death 7 24 25 68.
• Tracks Qin’s grave-visiting routine and uses a bow for an ambush, but fails to hit him and is deceived by a thrown-stone diversion 67 68.
• Cannot escape or effectively resist Qin in close quarters during their final confrontation 68.

Power Progression

Equipment / Items

• Ivory-ribbed folding fan — Carried during his early purchase attempts; snapped in half by Qin as a warning 2 6.
• Jade-ribbed folding fan — Dropped in shock when Li Zhenwei’s repaired saber cuts through the workshop’s spear 19.
• Sandalwood folding fan — Used while observing Qin’s departure preparations 21 23.
• Bow and arrows — Used in his failed ambush on Emerald Cloud Mountain. Qin disposes of them with his body; a broken bow and shattered arrows are found beside the remains 68.
• Spirit Awakening Pill and jade bottle — Carried in a small cloth bundle inside his clothing after he steals the pill. Qin confiscates the bottle before killing him; Zhao Xuan later reveals that he deliberately allowed Zhao Ming to obtain it 68 69.

Relationships

• Zhao Xuan — Father and superior. Directs his actions and intends to secure a cultivation opportunity for him, but threatens to replace him as the intended beneficiary after repeated failures 7 24 25. Later demotes him to an assistant, ostensibly to correct his conduct. Despite their estrangement, Zhao Xuan secretly permits him to steal the Spirit Awakening Pill, grieves his death, and attacks Qin in an attempt to avenge him and recover the pill 65 69.
• Qin Tiexin — Business rival and target of repeated acquisition attempts. Qin rejects his offers, defeats him physically, and retains ownership of the shop 5 6 10 25. Zhao Ming later blames him for losing his inheritance and cultivation opportunity, tracks his movements, and attempts to kill him with arrows. Qin kills him after defeating the ambush and takes the Spirit Awakening Pill 65 67 68.
• Qin Feng — Former owner of the coveted property; refuses Zhao Ming’s initial five-hundred-tael offer 2.
• Li Zhenwei — Customer whom Zhao Ming underestimates. Li publicly disproves his weapon-quality boasts and becomes Qin’s protector 15 19 24.
• Scarred Eye and Yellow Hair — Ruffians whose broken-saber complaints force Zhao Ming into a hush-money settlement 14 15.
• Lady Xue — Stepmother, whom Zhao Xuan marries after negotiations originally intended to secure Zhao Ming a wife from the Xue Household. Zhao Ming resents her influence and blames her and her son for his exclusion from his father’s favor 65 66.
• Zhao Lang — Infant younger half-brother. Zhao Ming regards him as a rival for both the workshop inheritance and the Spirit Awakening Pill, reacting bitterly to reports that the pill is being reserved for him 65 67.
• Western branch shopkeeper — Zhao Ming’s superior after his demotion. Reprimands him for driving away a poor customer seeking a pot repair and rejects his contempt for small earnings 66.

Notable Quotes

“That shop is meat on our chopping board. When the time comes, we’ll push the price down even further!” 21

“Young Brother Qin! Grandpa Qin! Please agree! I’m begging you! If you refuse, I... my father will... I’ll be finished!” 25

“I'm your son! How can I work as an assistant? Where would I put my face?” 65

“The shop should have been mine! Father wouldn't have married again! The Spirit Awakening Pill... the Spirit Awakening Pill should have been mine!” 68

“You blocked my path to immortality! You deserve to die!” 68

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