Old Yao

Biodata

Background / History

Career in the Capital

Old Yao was highly respected at the Imperial Medical Academy. Officials and nobles sought his services, and the emperor wanted him to reside in the palace. He refused and moved to Luo City three years before the current events to serve as an imperial physician at Prince Jing’s Estate. Cloud Goat considers this unexplained relocation suspicious, but his suggestion that Old Yao might be a Jing Dynasty spy remains speculation 29.

According to the inner minister’s account, Old Yao was once kind and charitable enough to treat patients for free. His sharp tongue was already well known during his later years in the capital 29.

The Mountain Lord Inheritance

Old Yao practices Mountain Lord, a secret cultivation path whose practitioners compete for a limited share of the Dao. He says he has killed several other practitioners, though he does not know whether any remain 30 31.

He also admits to killing a former disciple. When Chen Ji subsequently asks whether he has children, Old Yao answers that he has already addressed the question, leading Chen Ji to infer that the dead disciple was his son. Old Yao does not explicitly confirm the identification 31.

Despite the danger of betrayal, he takes Chen Ji, Liu Quxing, and She Dengke as disciples because he does not want the inheritance to end with him. All three apprentices share the same birth year, month, day, and hour 8 31.

Life at Taiping Medical Hall

Old Yao runs a small courtyard clinic on Anxi Street, separated from Prince Jing’s Estate by a single wall. Its entrance couplet promises fair dealing while refusing credit 7 42.

After retrieving Chen Ji from the Zhou residence, he brings him back to the clinic and tells him to discard the bloodied porcelain shard in his hand. He asks whether Chen Ji killed someone but does not press him after his denial 7.

His teaching combines medical study, household chores, and morning stance training. He demands tuition and repayment for lost medicine, threatening to dismiss Chen Ji when his family fails to pay 7 8.

When divination warns against visiting Consort Jing, Old Yao sends Chen Ji instead. He bluntly justifies choosing the unpaid apprentice over the two whose families still provide tuition 9 10.

Becoming Chen Ji’s Protector

Old Yao’s visit to the dying Liu patriarch is delayed when his carriage breaks down. He arrives after the patriarch’s reported death and returns without examining him. Chen Ji suspects the breakdown was too convenient to be accidental 12 22.

He later deduces that Chen Ji’s tuition came from work for the Secret Intelligence Directorate. Although displeased, he declines to interfere. He eventually explains the dangers of their cultivation path and reveals that his crow has been watching Chen Ji 24 30 31.

Chen Ji comes to regard the medical hall as home and Old Yao as his only elder. Despite rejecting this attempt at closeness, Old Yao publicly defends him when Chunhua accuses him of stealing Consort Jing’s pearl 37 39.

He also secures saber instruction for Chen Ji by offering Liang Gou’er lodging and meals. He distinguishes ordinary saber skills from the Liang family’s guarded Saber Dao, then tells Chen Ji to pay the brothers’ food expenses 42 43.

The Gunpowder Experiment

Old Yao catches Chen Ji secretly processing saltpeter at night. Although he cannot identify the experiment by inspection, divination and observation of the stars reveal that Chen Ji is making something unusually powerful. He warns that discovery would put Chen Ji in mortal danger 50.

Rather than report him, Old Yao demands six taels in hush money and stands guard while the experiment continues. The amount matches the tolls Chen Ji collected for helping the prince’s children pass through the clinic 50.

Appearance

Old Yao is a small, hunched elderly man with deeply wrinkled skin, snow-white hair, and a beard reaching his chest. Despite looking extremely old, he remains remarkably agile 6 7.

• Clothing: A long gray robe and black cloth shoes with white soles 6.
• Hair: Gathered atop his head with a green hairpin 6.
• Habitual posture: Often walks or stands with his hands behind his back 7 22.
• Intimidating presence: A glance from him makes Chen Ji feel as though a fierce tiger is watching him 22.

Personality

Old Yao is caustic, suspicious, and openly fond of money. He collects debts closely, resents patients who evade agreed fees, and admires Chen Ji’s ability to charge Consort Yun’s household for expensive medicine. His concern for profit does not erase his medical standards: he insists that unqualified apprentices must not endanger patients and that their prescriptions require his approval 9 22.

He treats attachment as a source of eventual loss and insists that teaching is merely an exchange of tuition for skills. His conduct repeatedly softens that claim: he protects Chen Ji, arranges further instruction for him, and shows unabashed affection toward Dark Cloud 27 31 39 42.

His preferred survival strategy is discretion and longevity rather than public confrontation. He advises Chen Ji to make his fortune quietly and live long enough to outlast his enemies 37.

Abilities & Skills

Medicine

• Acupuncture: Cured the Li family’s old madam of a headache with a single needle during an earlier visit 9.
• Medical instruction: Teaches medical texts, pulse diagnosis, and prescription writing 8 22 27.
• Clinical oversight: Requires apprentices to submit prescriptions before treating patients independently, explicitly rejecting the careless treatment of human life 22.
• Knowledge of revival cases: Personally examined an elderly couple who had regained vital signs after death but remained unconscious. He also recounts the reported revival of Grand Secretary Xu’s son through the Seven-Treasure Lotus Lamp 26.

Mountain Lord / Dragon Swallowing

• Cultivation method: Uses a patient’s illness Qi after curing them, unlike Chen Ji’s method of acquiring power through deaths 31.
• Shared inheritance: Explains that additional practitioners divide the path’s available cultivation speed; in his example, two practitioners each receive half the speed available to a sole practitioner 31.
• Secrecy: Warns that discovery would make practitioners targets of the emperor, Prince Jing, the Secret Intelligence Directorate, and other authorities 31.
• Documented limits: His precise realm and number of furnace fires are not disclosed.

Stone-Bearing Stance

• Instruction: Teaches the apprentices the Stone-Bearing Stake-Embracing Technique through daily stance practice 7 9.
• Effect on Chen Ji: Correct posture produces a warm current that suppresses his internal icy force 7.
• Cultivation application: The stance later organizes Chen Ji’s molten current during the ignition of his Tianshu furnace fires 15.

Six-Coin Divination

• Methods: Uses six copper coins or tosses a single coin six times to interpret hexagrams 8 9 27.
• Risk assessment: Consults divination before house calls and refuses visits associated with dangerous omens 9.
• Detection: Discerns the powerful nature of Chen Ji’s secret experiment despite not recognizing its materials or process 50.
• Limits: States that divination gives direction rather than exact answers; it cannot calculate an account down to the last coin 39.
• Uncertain attribution: Some apparently divined information may come from his crow’s surveillance. He refuses to clarify this when Chen Ji questions him 37.

Physical Prowess

• Agility: Strikes evasive apprentices accurately with a bamboo switch despite being ninety-two 7.
• Stealth: Approaches without either Chen Ji or Dark Cloud noticing 30.
• Strength: Carries an enormous bamboo reclining chair as lightly as a toy 50.

Equipment / Items

• Copper divination coins — Carried in his sleeve and used to cast hexagrams 8 27.
• Bamboo switch — Used to correct stances, punish oversleeping, and discipline mistakes during medical lessons 7 27.
• Medicine chest — Carried over one shoulder when returning from the Liu estate 22.
• Abacus and account books — Used to manage the clinic’s finances 8 39.
• Purple wooden box — Holds pastries and candied fruit, which he shares generously with Dark Cloud 27 30.

Relationships

• Chen Ji — Medical and cultivation disciple. Chen Ji regards him as his only elder; Old Yao verbally resists that bond while defending and supporting him 31 37 39 42.
• Liu Quxing — Apprentice frequently targeted by his sarcasm and bamboo switch, especially for poor stance work or attempts to avoid examinations 7 27.
• She Dengke — Apprentice whose unreliable pulse diagnosis draws repeated punishment. Old Yao nevertheless says he does not consider him a bad person when discussing his betrayal of Chen Ji 9 27 42.
• Dark Cloud — A particular favorite. He feeds the cat expensive pastries, holds and pets it, and yields to its coaxing when withholding information from Chen Ji 27 30 31.
• Unnamed crow — Spirit companion and observer. Old Yao understands its calls and gestures, uses its reports to monitor Chen Ji, and introduces Dark Cloud to it as a new friend 30 42 50.
• Cloud Goat — An acquaintance from before Old Yao’s move to Luo City. Their familiarity does not prevent Cloud Goat from questioning his motives 6 29.
• Liang Gou’er — An old acquaintance whom he houses in exchange for teaching Chen Ji saber techniques 42.
• Former disciple — Killed by Old Yao; implied, but not explicitly confirmed, to have been his son 31.

Notable Quotes

“I, Yao Qimen, may love money, but I would never treat human life like grass.” 22

“When you've lived long enough, you'll understand something: don't form bonds with people lightly. Those bonds are all destined to end in parting and disappointment.” 31

“The Dao is an intangible direction; technique is the road beneath your feet.” 43