Zhang Qingyuan

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Transmigration and meeting Zhang Junbao

Before transmigrating, Zhang Qingyuan worked in real estate and once sold eighteen homes in a month, seventeen to elderly customers. He initially expected his knowledge of history to help him prosper in an ancient dynasty, only to discover that Great Qian was a martial world where fighters could project lethal attacks across several zhang 1 5.

His new body belonged to a refugee with memories of farming, trapping, hunting, and surviving famine. With little money and no martial training, he adopted the appearance of a Daoist fortune-teller to support himself before leaving the city to seek martial arts 1 2 22.

At a ruined temple, he shared his scarce flatbread with Zhang Junbao, an expelled Shaolin lay disciple grieving Master Jueyuan’s death. Recognizing Junbao’s name from his previous life’s fiction, Qingyuan suspected that he had encountered a future martial grandmaster. He offered companionship and decided to build his future alongside him 1.

Training in Sanhe Town

In Sanhe Town, Qingyuan earned their living while Junbao studied martial arts. Qingyuan’s own learning ability soon became apparent: he memorized and perfectly reproduced Junbao’s fist technique after a demonstration 3.

Recognizing that Junbao needed a foundation in meridians and internal cultivation, Qingyuan cultivated a friendship with Auntie Li to obtain instruction from her son, Zhao Pengju. Zhao’s explanations enabled Junbao to develop a new internal method, which Qingyuan immediately began practicing 5 6 7.

Their partnership combined Qingyuan’s remembered martial concepts and collected scriptures with Junbao’s ability to turn ideas into workable techniques. Over six months, Junbao created six arts, including the Supreme Yang and Supreme Yin Divine Skills, Taiji Fist, Nine Yang Palm, Cloud Ladder, and the Purple Firmament Thunder Ultimate Sword Technique 7.

First battles and the Wang family feud

The brothers intervened when Zhao Pengju was attacked, then rescued his family from the River Crocodile Gang. Qingyuan killed one of the Twelve Fiends and the gang’s deputy leader during these events. Subsequent combat against Blood Lump Sect fighters exposed his lack of practical experience, but he adapted rapidly during the fight 8 9 12.

After leaving Sanhe Town, the brothers became targets of the Wang family following the killing of its eldest young master. Repeated bounty attacks culminated in a public confrontation arranged by Qingyuan. He exposed the young master’s abuse and killing of a poor mother and daughter, winning the spectators’ sympathy before the brothers destroyed the Wang family’s fighting force 15 16 18 22 24.

Admission to Taiqing Palace

Anticipating trouble with Shaolin over Junbao, Qingyuan wrote to Taiqing Palace for assistance. Li Xuanzhen summoned Chen Xugu, whose intervention helped the brothers secure Daoist backing 25 28.

The Daoist leaders arranged for them to become disciples of the deceased Li Xuanxin rather than members of an even older generation. Li Xuanzhen formally inducted them at Mount Laojun, issued their register plaques, and declared them free to pursue their own missions before his ascension 28 29.

Xuanzhen’s remarks convinced Qingyuan that the elder had perceived his otherworldly origins. Qingyuan spent the following year reading and contemplating those remarks while advancing both internal methods to the seventh level 30.

Bingzhou and Pure Yang Palace

In Thousand Dragon City, Qingyuan escorted a scholar and doctor through a blocked gate while Junbao held off Mount Song Sword Sect disciples. After confirming that the endangered mother and baby had survived, he helped end Junbao’s standoff with Pei Wuya and warned Pei against oppressing ordinary people 33 34.

At Pure Yang Palace, the brothers sparred with Chen Xugu, repeatedly gained insights, and reached the eighth level of their internal arts. Qingyuan subsequently taught the palace’s disciples and helped Yuan Heqing abandon his impatience for shortcuts in favor of steady cultivation 43 44 45 47 48.

Return to Central Province

Returning east, the brothers destroyed three bandit strongholds and rescued eighteen abducted women, thirty-two children, and forty-five villagers. They supplied victims with travel money, escorted nearby residents home, and saved the remaining proceeds toward founding a sect 49.

At a restaurant, an attack from an ongoing fight interrupted Junbao’s inspiration for the Deadly Thirteen Swords. Qingyuan confronted the participants and killed the Eight Ultimates of the Central Plains after they insulted and attacked him. He rejected the survivors’ attempt to excuse their conduct as a misunderstanding 49 50.

Appearance

• Handsome young man: He considers Zhang Junbao approximately his equal in looks and height 1.
• Daoist clothing: He initially wears Daoist robes to support his fortune-telling livelihood, before formally entering the Daoist fold 20 22 29.
• Sword-bearing traveler: Carries a fine-iron sword purchased in Thousand Dragon City 32 50.

Personality

Qingyuan is sociable, resourceful, and shamelessly persuasive. He gathers information through neighborhood stallholders, builds friendships with elderly women, and uses favors and carefully framed stories to obtain help. His schemes are not necessarily exploitative: he regularly repays Auntie Li’s kindness and regards mutually beneficial manipulation as acceptable 3 5 6 9.

His pragmatism coexists with a growing commitment to protecting ordinary people. Although he initially rejects the obligations associated with being a “great hero,” he later resolves to use his strength against injustices he could only watch helplessly in his previous life. He still avoids dangerous affairs unrelated to his goals, including the conflict around Netherworld City 6 15 48.

He prefers to explain a misunderstanding before fighting, partly so that retaliation leaves his conscience clear. Once attacked, however, he can be merciless and does not accept a belated claim of misunderstanding as sufficient reason to forgive an aggressor 9 12 50.

With Junbao, he is playful and protective, frequently teasing him about romance. As an instructor, he is considerably more patient: he breaks techniques into understandable steps and encourages students to interrupt whenever they are confused 10 47 49.

Abilities & Skills

Exceptional Learning and Linked Insights

Qingyuan learns movements with extraordinary precision and develops practical experience during combat 3 12.

• Reproduces Junbao’s fist technique after watching it and learns newly improvised footwork during an ongoing fight 3 18.
• Progresses from struggling against three coordinated opponents to counterattacking them in roughly thirty exchanges 12.
• Appears to share breakthroughs with Junbao: either brother’s insight is often followed almost immediately by the other’s understanding 22 43.
• Suspects a “binding system,” but no such system is confirmed 22.

Supreme Yang and Supreme Yin Divine Skills

Both nine-stage methods can circulate within his body simultaneously, though their energies do not merge 14.

• Supreme Yang: Produces warm, forceful energy suited to explosive attacks; his primary method 14.
• Supreme Yin: Produces cool energy with stronger endurance 14.
• Limit: Early in his travels, his reserves are insufficient to maintain True Qi armor freely against sword attacks 16.

Purple Firmament Thunder Ultimate Sword Technique

His principal sword art projects Sword Qi accompanied by lightning 24.

• Can strike multiple opponents with sweeping Sword Qi and numerous lightning arcs 24 50.
• Can channel lightning through sword fingers when unarmed 16.
• Lacks sword intent when preparing for the Wang family confrontation; later gains insight into using sword force during his spar with Chen Xugu 22 43.
• Acknowledges that Jiang Muye’s sword technique is more sophisticated, despite Qingyuan and Junbao having greater overall martial prowess 49.

Nine Yang Palm

A nine-move palm art whose forms differ in temperature and the way True Qi is applied 22.

• Delivers scorching, lethal palm strikes 9 11 19.
• Can be combined with yielding Taiji movements to create openings against armed opponents 12.

Taiji Fist

Uses yielding softness, redirection, and borrowed force rather than meeting every attack head-on 12.

• Helps him survive coordinated attacks while adapting to actual combat 12.
• Redirects an opponent’s saber and uses its momentum to disrupt another attacker 12.
• Incorporates Taiji Fist intent into his combined assault on Chen Xugu 43.

Movement Techniques

• Cloud Ladder: Supports aerial movement and coordinated maneuvers; Qingyuan uses his arm and True Qi to launch Junbao toward Old Wang 24.
• Blue Butterfly Cloud-Gliding Wandering Body Steps: Learns Junbao’s butterfly-inspired footwork during battle and gives it its name 18.
• Controlled engagements: The improved footwork allows the brothers to wound and disable opponents instead of relying on lethal attacks 19.

Profound Comprehension

Provides intuitive impressions of a person’s future prosperity rather than conventional calculation-based divination 35.

• Senses that Qiao Tianci will prosper again 35.
• Cannot predict specific events occurring the next day 35.
• Grants no spells and is explicitly distinguished from immortal cultivation 30.

Martial Theory and Teaching

Supplies broad concepts from fiction remembered from his previous life, while Junbao works out their practical implementation 7 26.

• Uses remembered ideas involving Taiji, the Nine Swords of Dugu, Cloud Ladder, and other fictional martial arts as research directions—not as complete inherited manuals 7.
• Explains the Two Forms Sword Technique through the Four Symbols, Eight Trigrams positions, and individual movements 47.
• Helps Yuan Heqing correct an unhealthy fixation on rapid advancement 48.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Fine-iron sword — Purchased for fifteen taels at Yinghui Sword Pavilion. Measures three chi and one cun, with an engraved silvery blade and a snakeskin-wrapped wooden scabbard. Its blade bears the name “Welcoming Radiance Manor” 32 50.
• Metal register plaque — Received upon formal induction into Li Xuanxin’s lineage at Taiqing Palace 29.
• Martial manuals and scriptures — Carries cultivation materials while traveling; purchases scriptures and borrows unavailable texts from Daoist temples 7 18.
• Daoist robes and travel supplies — Receives robes, scriptures, money, and provisions when departing Pure Yang Palace 48.
• Sect-founding funds — Deposits surplus money recovered from bandit strongholds in banking houses for a future sect 49.

Relationships

• Zhang Junbao — Junior martial brother, closest companion, and training partner. Qingyuan supports their household, supplies theoretical inspiration, and manages practical affairs; Junbao develops their martial arts. Junbao is two months younger 2 3 7.
• Zhao Pengju — Friend whose instruction in internal cultivation enables Junbao’s first major breakthrough. Qingyuan later helps rescue his family 5 6 9.
• Auntie Li — Elderly friend and Zhao Pengju’s mother. Their friendship begins around Qingyuan’s fortune-telling work and becomes genuinely affectionate 5 9.
• Li Xuanxin — Deceased Taiqing Palace master under whose name Qingyuan is formally accepted as a disciple 28 29.
• Li Xuanzhen — Senior Daoist who arranges assistance, oversees Qingyuan’s induction, and apparently perceives his origins as a transmigrant 28 29 30.
• Chen Xugu — Senior martial brother, protector, host, and sparring partner. His demanding spar helps Qingyuan break through to the eighth level 28 43 44.
• Yuan Heqing — Junior Daoist whom Qingyuan teaches and counsels toward patient, methodical cultivation 45 47 48.

Notable Quotes

“Reading ten thousand books is no match for traveling ten thousand miles.” 9

“So after good people are bullied, they have to turn swords into gifts of jade and silk just because someone says it was a misunderstanding?” 50