Cloud Goat

Biodata

Appearance

• Clothing: Neatly fitted black robes, described as looking freshly pressed 16.
• Hair: Tidily gathered atop his head and secured with a hairpin 16.
• Bearing: Strikingly good-looking, with an upright posture and an appearance resembling a young nobleman in an opera 6 16.
• Disguises: Uses false facial hair and artificial wrinkles to impersonate an older man 27.

Background and History

Early Service

Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit began as low-ranking intelligence agents. According to Cloud Goat, they were repeatedly abandoned during those years. By the Liu Family investigation, he had held his place among the Twelve Zodiac Animals for only half a year and had previously specialized in killing rather than investigating spies 19 28.

A Jing Dynasty intelligence officer describes the pair as adopted killers of the Poison Minister and warns that they reached their positions by sacrificing their colleagues. This account accompanies an explicit warning to Chen Ji not to trust them 33.

Zhou Chengyi’s Interrogation

Cloud Goat first encounters Chen Ji during the interrogation of suspected Jing Dynasty spy Zhou Chengyi. When Chen Ji revives after apparently being killed, Cloud Goat insists that his heart must be unusually positioned rather than admitting to a failed killing 4.

To pressure Zhou Chengyi, Cloud Goat kills his wife, a maid, and his son with silver needles. He then offers survival to whichever of Chen Ji and the steward provides information first. After Chen Ji kills the steward and asks for time to find evidence, Cloud Goat grants him a quarter of an hour 4.

Cloud Goat repeatedly needles Chen Ji while he searches, then continues threatening interrogation after Chen Ji reveals an invisible message. Imperial Physician Yao’s arrival interrupts the confrontation. Cloud Goat recognizes Yao, speaks politely about the Inner Minister’s health, and allows Chen Ji to leave with him 5 6.

Still suspecting Chen Ji of espionage, Cloud Goat proposes leaving him free as bait: the Jing Dynasty might regard him as a traitor and send an assassin whom the Directorate could capture. After Bright Rabbit departs, he uses blood-activated shadow puppets to make the corpses walk out of the residence 6.

The Liu Shiyu Case

The paper-shop investigation leads to the Liu Family, but Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit lack evidence to justify their arrests. Facing pressure from the family, Cloud Goat seeks Chen Ji’s help. Their negotiation ends with an agreement to pay Chen Ji fifty taels of silver for each merit he helps Cloud Goat earn 16.

On their way to Zhou Chengyi’s residence, Lin Chaoqing attempts to arrest them. Cloud Goat fights the Fish-Dragon Guard, clashes with Lin, and escapes with Chen Ji, though the encounter leaves him coughing blood 17.

When the Liu Family surrounds the residence, Cloud Goat initially invokes the Directorate’s authority and threatens to treat intruders as rebels. Privately recognizing the danger, he agrees to flee with Bright Rabbit. Chen Ji secures his own escape by announcing that he knows where to find evidence 18.

Chen Ji’s examination of copied books ultimately establishes the connection between Zhou Chengyi and Liu Shiyu. Cloud Goat presents the evidence to the Liu Family and shields the masked Chen Ji from Liu Mingxian’s scrutiny. He also objects when Lin Chaoqing offers Chen Ji a position in the Bureau of Punishments 20 21.

Testing Chen Ji and Reopening the Investigation

Although Cloud Goat values Chen Ji’s abilities, he refuses to recruit him directly under their command. He fears that the Inner Minister would favor Chen Ji and eventually promote him above them. Instead, Cloud Goat cuts off a lock of Chen Ji’s hair and hires Dream Rooster to investigate him through a dream 21 24.

The interrogation does not proceed as expected: Chen Ji resists Dream Rooster’s control and turns the dream against him. Dream Rooster subsequently reports that Chen Ji is not a Jing Dynasty spy and possesses the potential to become a xingguan 24 25.

Cloud Goat later escorts Chen Ji to Luo City’s secret inner prison. There, Chen Ji challenges the conclusion that Liu Shiyu hanged himself. Cloud Goat orders a condemned prisoner hanged to test Chen Ji’s explanation about the position of a hanging victim’s feet; the result supports Chen Ji’s finding that Liu Shiyu was murdered 27 28.

Following Chen Ji’s suggestion, Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit investigate Old Master Liu’s tomb. Cloud Goat guards Bright Rabbit’s body while her Yin Spirit enters the tomb and discovers an empty coffin 29.

Tomb Raid, Arrest, and Exile

Cloud Goat and Bright Rabbit decide that Chen Ji is too dangerous to leave alive: he remembers their mistreatment, and his abilities could win him the Inner Minister’s favor. Since killing him themselves could expose them to investigation, Cloud Goat proposes using someone else to do it 35.

Meanwhile, the pair mobilize five hundred Trouble-Resolving Guards with a royal command token and raid the Liu Family’s ancestral graves. Cloud Goat expects the empty coffin to prove that the family deceived the sovereign. Instead, Old Master Liu’s body is inside when the coffin is opened 36.

Lin Chaoqing arrests both agents. Cloud Goat suspects that Chen Ji may have warned the Liu Family, but cannot establish how he would have known the raid’s timing. He believes the Inner Chancellor will preserve his life because his killing skills remain useful. Their eventual punishment is exile to Lingnan 36 49.

Personality

Cloud Goat treats violence as both routine work and entertainment. He turns Chen Ji’s search for evidence into a game of administering a needle for every falling leaf, and watches a prisoner’s execution while drinking tea and eating melon seeds 5 28.

He justifies indiscriminate counterintelligence methods through the losses spies can inflict on Ning soldiers. At the same time, merit, promotion, and self-preservation strongly influence his decisions. The prospect of receiving credit for Chen Ji’s discoveries persuades him to negotiate, while fear of losing his newly acquired Zodiac position makes him reluctant to challenge powerful officials without evidence 16 28.

His treatment of Chen Ji combines recognition and distrust: he protects a useful collaborator’s identity, pays for his work, and warns him about cultivation, yet also arranges covert interrogation and later plots his death 17 21 24 35. A contrasting moment occurs after the Zhou residence killings, when he pauses beside a freezing beggar child and leaves a string of copper coins 6.

Abilities & Skills

Silver-Needle Killing and Torture

Cloud Goat uses slender silver needles for rapid killing and precisely inflicted pain 4 5.

• Kills victims with swift strikes to the chest 4.
• Causes severe pain, spasms, and temporary immobility by needling different points on Chen Ji’s body 5 16.
• Conceals needles in his sleeves and deploys them with movements fast enough to prevent victims from dodging 4 16.
• Uses a needle to panic his horse into fleeing with Chen Ji during an attempted arrest 17.

Blood-Activated Shadow Puppets

Cloud Goat activates small shadow-puppet figures by painting their eyes with blood 6 17 29.

• Uses blood taken from corpses to make the dead stand and follow him out of Zhou Chengyi’s residence 6.
• Also activates puppets with his own blood 17 29.
• Prepares more than ten paper figures while guarding Bright Rabbit’s body during her Yin Spirit excursion 29.
• The technique’s cultivation path and operating limits are not disclosed.

Physical Combat and Mobility

Cloud Goat combines powerful unarmed strikes with exceptional speed and jumping ability 17.

• Knocks down a charging warhorse with a punch to its head 17.
• Meets Lin Chaoqing in a midair clash and uses the collision to reach the eaves 17.
• Traverses rooftops quickly enough to catch his fleeing horse and remount 17.
• Suffers internal injury during the encounter with Lin, coughing blood after escaping 17.

Covert Operations

• Disguise: Uses removable wrinkles and a false beard when collecting Chen Ji for the prison visit 27.
• Concealment: Keeps the inner prison’s location secret by blindfolding Chen Ji and having him plug his ears 27.
• Stealth: Delivers five silver ingots beside Chen Ji’s pillow without Chen Ji noticing his entry 23.
• Investigative limitations: Excels at killing and cleanup but relies on Chen Ji to uncover hidden messages and interpret crucial evidence 5 16 20.
• Cultivation secrecy: Conceals his own path and warns Chen Ji never to reveal what he cultivates or the realm he has reached 17.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Silver needles — Concealed weapons used for assassination, torture, and applying blood to puppet eyes 4 6.
• Shadow-puppet figures — Palm-sized figures used in his blood-activated techniques 6 29.
• Sleeve dagger — Used to cut a lock of Chen Ji’s hair for Dream Rooster’s interrogation 21.
• Horse — Responds to his whistle; its hooves are wrapped in coarse cloth during nighttime travel 16.
• Disguise materials — False beard and removable facial wrinkles 27.

Relationships

• Bright Rabbit — Long-standing partner and fellow fourth-tier Zodiac Animal. They share assignments, bargain over credit, protect one another, and jointly plot against Chen Ji before being arrested and exiled together 6 19 29 35 36 49.
• Chen Ji — Initially a captive and suspected spy, later a paid investigative collaborator. Cloud Goat values his intelligence but fears being surpassed by him, leading to covert testing and an eventual murder plot 4 16 21 24 35.
• Inner Minister / Inner Chancellor — Superior whose approval and rewards Cloud Goat seeks. Cloud Goat believes his usefulness as a killer will keep him alive after the failed tomb raid 16 28 36.
• Lin Chaoqing — Bureau of Punishments commander who fights Cloud Goat, attempts to recruit Chen Ji, and ultimately arrests him after the tomb raid fails 17 20 36.
• Dream Rooster — Fellow Zodiac Animal hired at considerable expense to determine whether Chen Ji is a Jing Dynasty spy 21 24 25.
• Imperial Physician Yao — Prior acquaintance whom Cloud Goat treats courteously; Yao’s arrival secures Chen Ji’s release from the Zhou residence 6.
• Liu Mingxian — Political adversary who challenges the Directorate’s arrests and demands accountability after the disturbance of Old Master Liu’s tomb 18 36.

Notable Quotes

“Relations between colleagues are harder to handle than corpses.” 6

“Cultivating in pursuit of longevity sounds wonderful, but that's only a story from a tale. On this path, there is only life and death.” 17

“I used to do nothing but kill, and I've only held my position among the Twelve Zodiac Animals for half a year. What a shame it would be to lose it... Officialdom isn't easy.” 28