Lin Household

Biodata

Power Progression

The cultivation milestones below belong to Lin Xiye, the household’s only cultivator when he returned to Qiao Town 2.

History

Origins and Sect Protection

The Lin Household’s recorded history extends back only a few hundred years. Lin Xiye’s father once served as patriarch and reached Early-stage Bone Refining; a Zhao elder also recalled that the household had previously produced an Organ Refining cultivator 2 3 26.

An Immortal Ascension Token enabled Lin Xiye to enter the Falling Rosy Clouds Sect despite his poor aptitude. During his century there, the household supplied most of his food, clothing, and daily necessities, while his sect affiliation afforded it a long period of stability 2 3 24.

Under Lin Changge, the household’s wealth and population doubled. Nevertheless, its lack of additional Spirit Root descendants confined its expansion to Qiao Town and left its future dependent on Lin Xiye’s survival 2 9.

Lin Xiye’s Return and the Zhao War

After failing his fifth inner-sect assessment, Lin Xiye returned home expecting to spend his remaining years with his lineage. His discovery of the Immortal-Appraising Treasure Mirror in his father’s courtyard instead gave him the means to improve his aptitude and renew his cultivation. Whether the mirror was an ancestral inheritance or a chance acquisition remained unknown 1 3.

The Zhao Household attempted to force the Lin Household into submission and demanded nine-tenths of Qiao Town’s holdings. Lin Xiye destroyed its envoy’s party, then ordered reforms to the household’s guards, recruitment, and education 7 8 9.

The Zhao Household retaliated with an army whose subordinate forces massacred nearby villagers. Qiao Town’s defenders held the walls while Lin Xiye trapped the enemy cultivators in the Three Talents Formation. A heavy crossbow shot helped incapacitate the Zhao ancestor, allowing Lin Xiye to kill him and compel the surviving troops to surrender 19 20 22 23.

Taking Zichuan City

Lin Changge assembled three thousand armored guards and marched on Zichuan City. He deliberately required the clansmen to fight rather than leave the conquest entirely to Lin Xiye, treating the campaign as a means of building unity, resolve, and experience. The siege inflicted heavy losses before the attackers broke through 25 28 30 31.

The Lin Household destroyed the remaining Zhao leadership, seized its accumulated wealth, and restored order without permitting general plunder. Lin Xiye then moved against the Bai, Zhou, and Xu ancestors when their coalition challenged the household’s authority 32 33 37.

The Song Household subsequently demanded Zichuan City. After Lin Xiye trapped its Fifth and Seventh Elders and threatened them with Five Thunder Talismans, negotiations preserved Lin control of the city and the Zhao treasury. The settlement nevertheless ceded the outermost five hundred li of Zichuan City’s former sphere of influence 35 36 37.

Consolidation and the Silver Vein

Over the next six months, Lin Changge established new ancestral grounds, built roads and bridges, expanded the army, and worked to integrate the city, towns, and villages into a single economy. These expenditures exhausted the available reserves, leaving only five thousand taels of silver—enough for roughly half a month of operations 39.

Lin Mo’s discovery of a silver vein near Clear Spring Town offered a possible solution. Its estimated reserves rose from ten billion to two hundred billion taels, but the discovery also threatened to attract stronger powers, particularly Blood Wolf Hall. Lin Xiye ordered Lin Changge to delay rival survey teams—or feign surrender if necessary—while he acquired and enhanced resources for the coming confrontation 39 40 41 46.

Leadership and Organization

Recruitment and Development

• Talent-based assignments: Young descendants are assessed for accounting, commerce, and administrative ability, then placed in suitable work 9.
• Guard reform: Elderly, weak, sick, and disabled guards are removed from active service with arrangements made for them 9.
• Outside recruitment: Children under ten, especially homeless children and orphans, are to be brought into the household. Those with Spirit Roots can learn cultivation; others can train in martial arts 13.
• Birth incentives: Families receive rewards for having children, with additional rewards and personal instruction from Lin Xiye for Spirit Root descendants 13.
• Merit-based advancement: Servants and guards are promised opportunities to rise into the household’s upper ranks. Life-extending pills are a future incentive, not an established benefit 10.
• Expansion strategy: Lin Xiye advocates marriage alliances, infiltration, and bloodline assimilation alongside military conquest 9.

Laws and Commemoration

• Civilian protection: Lin Changge prohibits looting and indiscriminate killing during the Zichuan campaign, with execution by a thousand cuts prescribed even for offending elders 25.
• Enemy policy: The household targets hostile lineages and their fighting supporters while ordering ordinary, unaffiliated residents spared 31 32.
• Hall of Meritorious Deeds: Records the names of clansmen and guards killed in service, preserving their memory through incense offerings 39.

Military Strength

Defensive Assets

• Qiao Town heavy crossbow: Fires an arrow weighing ten thousand jin; its strike gravely injures the Zhao ancestor through the Earth River Shield 22 23.
• Giant vicious tiger: Captured from the Zhao envoy and subdued by Lin Xiye. By Early-stage Skin Refining, it possesses nearly human intelligence and guards Qiao Town during the Zichuan campaign 9 28.
• Three Talents Formation Flags: Lin Xiye’s Spirit-Nurturing Grade Law Treasure, decisive against the Zhao army and the Song elders. Before Spirit Nourishing, he requires Spirit Stone fragments to activate it 17 20 36.
• Five Thunder Talisman Treasures: Two enhanced treasures held by Lin Xiye, upgraded to quasi-Foundation Establishment level during preparations for conflict over the silver vein 38 46.

Territory and Resources

• Qiao Town: The household’s original base, with a total population slightly above forty thousand before the Zhao war, including the Lin clan 4.
• Zichuan City: Administrative center and site of the new ancestral grounds. The former Zhao residence offers a better spiritual-energy environment than the old Lin grounds 37 39.
• Four towns and more than fifty villages: Governed within the household’s five-hundred-li sphere of influence; road construction links Zichuan City to its towns 39.
• Zhao treasury: Captured wealth initially judged sufficient to finance at least fifty thousand armored guards. Lin Xiye takes half, leaving the remainder for household development 32 33.
• Clear Spring Town silver vein: Estimated at two hundred billion taels of silver. The household claims it, but its ability to retain it remains under threat 39 41.
• Immortal-Appraising Treasure Mirror: Secretly held by Lin Xiye and used to convert worldly wealth and Spirit Stones into improved aptitude, medicines, and equipment. He conceals it because discovery could bring catastrophe upon the household 3 4 11.

Relations with Other Powers

• Falling Rosy Clouds Sect — Lin Xiye’s former sect. His membership protected the household’s development for a century; an Immortal Ascension Token also offers a Spirit Root descendant a route into the sect 1 24.
• Zhao Household — Former regional overlord and principal enemy. Its attempt to annex Qiao Town led to war, defeat, and destruction by the Lin Household 7 23 32.
• Bai, Zhou, and Xu Households — Neighboring cultivation clans that jointly resisted subordination. Lin Xiye killed their ancestors during the consolidation of Lin rule 33 37.
• Song Household — A stronger power based in Thousand Rocks City. Its intervention forced a five-hundred-li territorial concession; Lin Xiye regards the loss as temporary and intends to recover it once the household is stronger 35 37.
• Blood Wolf Hall — A prospective rival over the silver vein. Lin Changge considers direct confrontation beyond the household’s current strength, while Lin Xiye prepares enhanced treasures to contest its intervention 41 46.

Notable Quotes

“With this old man here, the Lin Household’s sky... will not fall!”
— Lin Xiye after destroying the Zhao envoy’s party 8

“For the entire lineage to truly rise, it could not rely on its ancestor Lin Xiye for everything!”
— Narration during the siege of Zichuan City 30

“Remember, when you suffer humiliation in weakness, don’t be angry. Know your shame and draw courage from it...”
— Lin Xiye after the territorial concession to the Song Household 37