Yan Ruhua

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Yan Ruhua was once known as Xiaohua. She and Chen Ping were close companions, and Chen helped her master the Twenty-Eight-Move River-Intercepting Staff Technique. Their paths separated after Yan’s transformation: Chen became Wang Yuyan’s guard, while Yan went to perform hard labor in the flower fertilizer house 35.

Madam Wang punished Xiaohua for an affair with a man with whom Madam Wang herself had been involved. Yan’s appearance became grotesquely altered, and her temperament changed alongside it. She subsequently trained with increasing desperation. Over more than a decade, her former identity faded from the household’s memory, leaving only the feared Old Woman Yan of the fertilizer room 35 42.

Her apparent loyalty concealed a long-term ambition to recover her original appearance. She believed an internal martial arts manual in Langhuan Jade Grotto could restore it, but only Madam Wang and Wang Yuyan knew how to enter. When confronting Chen Ping, she referred to the incident behind her punishment as having occurred seventeen years earlier 36.

Appearance

• Build: Approximately five feet tall, with a waist measuring three feet six inches, short limbs, and an exceptionally round, heavy body 3 18.
• Face: An upturned nose and tiny eyes almost buried beneath folds of flesh 3.
• Hair and hands: Withered yellow-gray hair and unusually thin, clawlike hands despite her otherwise bloated physique 32.
• After poison cultivation: Her hands developed bluish blotches; she subsequently wore silk gloves 32.
• Former appearance: A treasured painting depicts a pretty young woman wearing red silk and a green hairpin 32.

Personality

Yan rules through intimidation, humiliation, and pain. She threatens subordinates with mutilation, strikes them when angered, and enjoys watching their suffering. Although she readily accepts flattery, declarations of loyalty do not satisfy her: she inflicts agonizing attacks on four followers specifically to ensure their obedience 3 19 32.

She is particularly hostile toward young, attractive women. She disparages Abi and Azhu, objects to a maid addressing Azhu as “Miss,” and privately resolves to mutilate Wang Yuyan after the girl exposes her martial techniques. Her treatment of Li Yu is similarly coercive: a seemingly generous employment offer becomes a violent attempt to prevent his refusal 18 32 37.

Her service to Madam Wang is calculating rather than forgiving. She performs the manor’s filthy work for years while believing its mistress neither trusts her nor has forgotten the past. Recovering what she lost matters more to her than loyalty, friendship, or the lives of her own followers 35 36 38.

Abilities & Skills

Internal Strength and Iron Staff Combat

A second-rate expert whose internal strength exceeds Li Yu’s during their first fight and Chen Ping’s during their courtyard confrontation 18 35 36.

• Wields a solid-iron snake-headed staff weighing approximately forty jin; its internally powered blows can break timber and stone 18.
• Blocks three successive sword thrusts from Li Yu, leaving his hand numb from the impact 18.
• Uses her staff to launch heavy objects, including flowerpots and a corpse 35 37.
• Channels internal force through shattered pottery, soil, and foliage to intercept incoming plum-blossom darts 35.

Twenty-Eight-Move River-Intercepting Staff Technique

A staff art she learned with Chen Ping’s assistance 35.

• Demonstrates Waves Beat the Cloud Cliff and Giant Waves Surge during their duel 36.
• Chen Ping remains the more proficient practitioner of this particular technique, despite Yan’s greater internal strength 36.
• Announces Great River Flows North as a supposedly lost ultimate move, then launches a poisoned corpse at Chen Ping 37.

Pearls and Jade Fill the Platter Art

A sophisticated art from the Red Cinnabar Great Stronghold in Guizhou. Its nimble, compact movements complement the broad attacks of her staff technique 36.

• Uses Pearls Roll and Jade Falls, identified by Wang Yuyan as its twenty-third form 36.
• Specializes in redirecting an opponent’s strength and attacking the lower body 36.
• Allows Yan to roll, spin, change position, and recover her staff during close combat 36.
• Wang Yuyan’s instructions enable Chen Ping to counter it, preventing Yan and her four followers from overwhelming the courtyard’s defense 36.

Corpse-Based Poison Technique

An unnamed technique cultivated through decomposing bodies in the fertilizer house 32.

• Leaves two corpses reduced to dried skeletons during its completion 32.
• Produces dark marks on an unconscious woman when Yan channels power through her hands 32.
• Her subsequent waist strikes leave four followers in unbearable, burning pain, giving her leverage over them 32.
• Uses a corpse as a poison-delivery trap: Chen Ping strikes it and is splashed with poisonous blood 37.
• Possesses camellia-scented antidote pills, which she uses to bargain for access to Langhuan Jade Grotto 38.

Equipment / Items

• Snake-headed iron staff — Her principal weapon, used for striking, blocking, throwing objects, and lifting Wang Yuyan by her belt 18 35 38.
• Silk gloves — Worn after completing her corpse-poison technique 32.
• Treasured portrait — An old painting associated with her youthful appearance and former lover. She protects it during her fight with Li Yu and later remarks on his resemblance to the young man depicted on its reverse 18 19 32.
• Antidote pills — Camellia-scented medicine administered to the poisoned Chen Ping 38.

Relationships

• Madam Wang — Mistress and former romantic rival. Yan gains authority by pleasing her and performing brutal work, but secretly seeks to undo the punishment Madam inflicted on her 25 35 36 42.
• Chen Ping — Former close friend and martial instructor, nine years her senior. Their reunion becomes a lethal confrontation when Chen refuses to let her reach Wang Yuyan 35 36 37.
• Wang Yuyan — Targeted for her knowledge of the grotto entrance. Yan threatens her and exploits her concern for Chen Ping, but Wang ultimately leads her into an ambush 36 38 39.
• Li Yu — Intended captive and eventual enemy. Abi explains that Yan recruits handsome men for her own pleasure; Li escapes her first trap and later helps kill her 18 19 39.
• Abi — Foils Yan’s attempt to capture Li Yu by warning him and helping him escape the Camellia 18 19.
• Four fertilizer-house women — Subordinates forced into rebellion through pain and threats. After their defeat, Yan uses the bearded woman’s corpse as a poison weapon and kills the remaining three 32 36 37 38.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Pursuit of Qin Xiu

• Investigates Guo Yanzhi and the pockmarked man at the ruined temple, identifying single palm strikes as the underlying cause of their deaths despite their conspicuous sword wounds 3.
• Incorrectly attributes the rescue to Qin Xiu’s master and interprets the tracks as a deception pointing toward Lake Tai. She heads southwest while Li Yu and Qin Xiu travel southeast toward Gusu 3.

Trap aboard the *Camellia*

• Offers Li Yu wealth, property, prestige, and limited access to Mantuo Manor’s martial manuals as inducements to become a guest retainer 18.
• Attacks when he refuses. Li creates an opening by threatening her painting and vase, forcing her to restrain her staff blows 18.
• Abi defeats his pursuers and helps him escape. Yan abandons the chase and returns to studying her portrait 19.

Rebellion at Mantuo Manor

• Completes her corpse-poison technique and coerces four subordinates into helping with a private operation 32.
• Enters Wang Yuyan’s courtyard under the pretense of protecting her from an intruder. Chen Ping accuses her of leading people around setting fires 34 35.
• Reveals her goal of obtaining a restorative internal cultivation manual and attacks Chen Ping when denied access 36.
• After Wang Yuyan’s guidance helps defeat her followers, Yan poisons Chen Ping with a corpse trap 36 37.
• Kills her three surviving followers, terrorizes Wang Yuyan, and trades another antidote pill for directions toward the grotto entrance 38.

Death and Aftermath

• Follows Wang Yuyan into the west wing, where Li Yu attacks with his sword and Mu Wanqing fires arrows. Their ambush kills her before she reaches the grotto 39.
• After learning that Yan kept the old portrait, Madam Wang destroys it and orders Granny Sun to turn her remains into fertilizer for use away from the island 42.