Qingmu

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Obscured past

Qingmu’s difficulty is not presented simply as having no past. He knows his name and possesses ordinary biographical memories, but attempts to reach crucial earlier memories produce mental discomfort, headaches, or an overwhelming reluctance to think. He compares those memories to blurred shapes sealed inside thick ice rather than something entirely erased 113 188 340.

Investigations by Xia Wenyuan’s side uncover an apparently unremarkable family background, upbringing, and social circle. Those findings do not explain Qingmu’s exceptional Mental Power, languages, firearms proficiency, or fighting instincts 182 188.

Later recollections show him working at a seaside fishery and a logging camp, traveling through Phnom Penh and Yangon, and carrying a black, gnarled staff. After parting with Enkun, he leaves the staff behind and heads east, following an instinctive feeling of home without knowing where home is 669 671.

Life in Liuying Lane

When Qingmu first arrived in Liuying Lane, the residents treated him as a beggar; Bi Shenghua was the one who took him in. He later suspects that his arrival, the old willow, the buried mulberry roots, and the street’s history may be connected to his inaccessible past 338.

He establishes a studio offering dream interpretation and psychological counseling and becomes closely involved with Ruhua Bar. By the time of the bar’s renovation, the workers recognize him as its principal boss 151 180.

During the renovations, Bi Shenghua arranges temporary work for him at the community counseling room. His agreement allows him to work by appointment rather than attend daily, but his eccentric appearance discourages residents from seeking counseling 76.

Appearance

• Face and eyes: Handsome, masculine features and clear, deep eyes; his unconventional presentation frequently obscures how attractive others find him 106 224 389.
• Hair: Messy, often compared to a bird’s nest; Boss Coal habitually perches on his head 3 13.
• Clothing: An old gray trench coat over a T-shirt, faded jeans with frayed hems, and slippers that slap or clack as he walks 3.
• Posture: Slightly hunched, usually with his hands in his pockets and a conspicuously leisurely gait 3 224.
• Cleanliness: Despite his worn clothes and disheveled hair, he is notably clean, without stains on his clothing or dandruff in his hair 389.
• Resistance to change: Rejects efforts to make him cut his hair or adopt more conventional clothing, even when his appearance interferes with his counseling work 76.

Personality

Qingmu is habitually lazy, informal, and largely indifferent to strangers’ opinions. He considers getting a haircut too troublesome and often abandons questions when thinking becomes uncomfortable. His laziness also shapes his response to authority: even after a tribe accepts him as its god, he has little interest in becoming a competent ruler or calculating the advantages of leadership 3 34 495.

His relaxed manner coexists with exceptional composure under threat. Su Huilan initially sees him as naturally gifted but dull and unambitious; after watching him assess a sniper trap, she recognizes a steadiness that seems to require rigorous training or brutal experience 349.

He is deeply protective of friends and children, but that protectiveness can become lethal. He explicitly tells Ma Fuqing that threatening his friends’ lives is what he hates most. During Yu Meiren’s rescue, his rare anger at open drug trafficking, rape, and murder leads him to shoot his way out of Wu Suotun’s residence 141 159.

Qingmu can be painfully literal about affection and jealousy. He actually checks a seat for the “musky scent” Bi Shenghua complains about and fails to recognize Su Huilan’s romantic film references. His eventual promise to remain with Bi Shenghua marks a much more direct acknowledgment of his feelings 30 291 412.

Abilities & Skills

Dream Entry and Manipulation

• Can enter other people’s dreams despite being unable to dream himself 188.
• Uses Mental Power to establish a form within a dream; otherwise, his appearance depends on the dreamer’s memories 257.
• Alters dream environments to expose hidden phenomena, including enlarging a tree to bring Xia Wenyuan’s parasitic shadow into view 341.
• Can enter and reshape the dreams of a machine consciousness, not just those of humans 257 265.
• Avoids forcibly manipulating Mama Yao’s dream or searching her memories because her weakened condition could make the intrusion fatal 171.

Hypnosis and Mental Suppression

• Induces convincing false perceptions, making an aircraft passenger accept a card as special authorization and mistake the lavatory for a dining area 87.
• Disrupts an armed opponent’s ability to act and causes gunmen to lose accuracy while they believe themselves awake 141.
• Suppresses Petru’s movements through Mental Power, although releasing that suppression leaves Petru free to attack physically 353.
• Prefers precise hypnosis and control over sustained, indiscriminate pressure, which consumes excessive Mental Power 423.

Mental Combat and Concentration

• Breaks the medicine woman’s serene Buddhist vision through deliberately irreverent questioning, leaving her bleeding 104.
• Condenses Mental Power into a scalpel with much subtler fluctuations than Zhao Pengcheng’s earlier technique 290 318.
• Exchanges attacks represented by stars and galaxies during his mental battle with Ronald Cohen 688.
• Does not rely exclusively on psychic victory: he ends that confrontation by leaving the mental exchange and stabbing Ronald’s physical body with a fruit knife 688.

Dream Corridor

• Opens a corridor capable of receiving an independent consciousness from within another person’s dream 303.
• Uses it to keep Xue’er from dissipating while arranging a physical body for her 303.
• Considers capturing Xia Wenyuan’s parasite with it, but instead brings Ruxue into the dream to confront the parasite 341.

Sacred Staffs and Mental Power Fields

• Uses the Divine Wooden Staff to access the island’s external Mental Power and greatly expand his perception 450.
• Extends connected subsidiary consciousnesses into his tribe, allowing coordinated action without simply replacing every individual’s mind 506.
• Manifests a vast tree-shaped consciousness whose branches defend against mental storms 507.
• Cannot command another tribe through his own staff; Situ likewise cannot command Qingmu’s tribespeople 522.
• Finds Situ’s silver scepter less effective than his ebony staff and cannot reproduce its tribal connections 510.
• Can be overwhelmed by linked suffering: injuries and deaths among his fighters are simulated within his own mind 507.
• Loses control of the field when the shaman suddenly removes the staff, nearly allowing his and Boss Coal’s dispersed consciousnesses to dissipate 451.

Combat and Tactical Skills

• Fights Hou Biao evenly using instinctive martial arts and adapts to a dagger-and-wire confrontation 189.
• Handles and disassembles firearms despite having no accessible memory of military training 188 353 384.
• Uses captured bows, spears, and firearms as circumstances require 141 405 420.
• Coordinates with Petru’s sniper coverage when capturing an islander alive 419.
• Reads tracks, identifies a likely wounded fugitive, and uses a stream to conceal his group’s route 412.

Mental-Bullet Deflection

• Alters the trajectories of Petru’s bullets by interfering with the Mental Power attached to them 350 352.
• The technique depends on the bullets carrying a temporary, consciousness-like quality; it is not ordinary telekinesis 350.
• Uses the bullets’ psychic trails to calculate Petru’s precise hiding place 352.
• Does not claim that Mental Power can generally move physical objects; he explicitly distinguishes it from fictional spoon-bending 350.

Teaching and Languages

• Teaches lucid dreaming to Hu Xing and Yao Jingjing, recognizing the latter’s unexpectedly deep potential after training begins 76 471 500.
• Trains Ghost to consolidate scattered Mental Power, distinguish human emotions, and develop emotions of her own 315.
• Demonstrates a refined concentration method to Zhao Pengcheng through a scalpel imbued with Mental Power 290 318.
• Speaks Chinese, English, Japanese, Burmese, and several regional dialects without understanding how he acquired all of them 136.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Willow twig — Carried from home; develops a weak connection to the island’s Mental Power Field. Later grows into a full tree through the Soul of Wood 455 657.
• Divine Wooden Staff / ebony scepter — A crooked, darkly polished wooden staff that channels the island’s Mental Power and connects Qingmu to the Sangqi Tribe 450 495 543.
• Soul of Wood — Used to grow the willow twig during his escape from a spacetime bubble; he also temporarily entrusts it to Su Huilan before swimming ashore 611 657.
• S.T. Dupont lighter — A gift from Hu Xing. Bi Shenghua refuses to accept it as rent and later recalls it with jealousy 13 41 364.
• Improvised weapons — Uses Hou Biao’s dagger, a disassembled rifle barrel against Petru, captured tribal weapons, and the fruit knife that kills Ronald Cohen 189 353 405 688.

Relationships

• Bi Shenghua / Ruhua — The woman who first shelters him in Liuying Lane and remains beside him. After witnessing an illusory future in which she is alone, he thanks her and promises they will be together once he fulfills his mission 291 338.
• Boss Coal / Crow — His talking raven companion, habitual head-percher, scout, and mental-combat ally. Their constant teasing accompanies a dependable partnership; Qingmu refuses an offer of thirty thousand to sell him 13 300 419 688.
• Mei Yiqiu / Professor Mei — A close friend, not his teacher. They share a compatible temperament, and Qingmu helps investigate consciousness-related problems alongside him 41 175 183.
• Hu Xing — Policewoman, lucid-dreaming pupil, and trusted associate. She gives him his lighter and regularly escorts the children to his studio 41 76 183 230.
• Shi Dazhuang — Police collaborator. Qingmu assists interrogations and investigations, including identifying Ma Fuqing’s possible connection to the Southern Yunnan drug network 151 364.
• Xia Wenyuan — Patient and ally whose parasitic consciousness Qingmu investigates. The Xia family credits Qingmu with saving him and increasingly welcomes his visits 52 339 341.
• Xia Chujue / Meimei — His goddaughter. He gives her the formal name Xia Chujue and helps reunite her with the Xia family 230.
• Yu Meiren / Beauty — A child he rescues from Mianyue’s drug traffickers and subsequently cares for; she calls him “Yeye Qingmu” 141 149 152.
• Yao Jingjing — Friend and lucid-dreaming pupil. Qingmu helps her mother and protects her from threats; Mama Yao hopes he will become her son-in-law 173 471 490.
• Hou Biao — A formidable opponent in their physical test and later an ally. Qingmu eventually wonders whether their inaccessible memories share a cause 189 662.
• Su Huilan — Awakened companion and expedition partner. She initially mistakes him for the man from her dreams, later distinguishes him from Situ, and comes to recognize the depth of his concealed abilities 373 412 479.
• Situ — A mysterious figure repeatedly connected to Qingmu’s investigations before they meet. They cooperate in battle, but Qingmu remains wary of how conveniently Situ’s discoveries fit events 462 466 479 507.
• Ghost — Machine-consciousness student and research assistant. She calls him “Teacher,” and he uses her help when investigating Wuzhong’s historical records 315 340.
• Zhao Pengcheng — A former opponent who becomes a covert collaborator. Qingmu’s guidance gives him hope, stronger mental techniques, and a renewed attachment to human life 316 318 725.
• Ruxue / Xue’er / Hanran — A powerful consciousness Qingmu preserves and plans to house in Hanran’s body. He later brings her into Xia Wenyuan’s dream to test her ability against a parasite 303 339 341.
• Petru — Initially attacks Qingmu with traps and a sniper rifle, then becomes an expedition ally and coordinated combat partner 350 353 419.
• Xia Xiaoxiao — Entrusts Qingmu with finding Situ after he gives her evidence that her husband may still be alive 383.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Notable Quotes

“His name was Qingmu, he had a studio, and he kept a crow.
That was all, but it was enough.”
— Narration describing his acceptance of an inaccessible past 113.

“What makes humans human is their spirit, not anything else.”
— To Ghost 265.

“To be honest, I don't know who I am either, but I wouldn't go so far as to stop considering myself human.”
— To Zhao Pengcheng 289.

Trivia

• Qingmu sees no reflection of himself in the mirror in which Meimei reports seeing herself as a butterfly; he keeps the observation to himself 230.
• His absence lasts more than two years, yet Huang Ziqiang still feels the business and social influence of having known him 581.
• Ghost initially treats Qingmu’s eccentric outfit as a normal human appearance because similar images recur in its stored material 265.