Zhou Yang

Biodata

Power Progression

Mindfulness measures spiritual resolve; the Knife Credit Ledger places ordinary people within a range of 1–9. Right Mindfulness Lock, the controlling discipline of Breathing of the Ghost, has nine layers 3 17. After passing the numerical limit of Mindfulness, a practitioner can work toward forging an Upright Heart capable of tethering an evil ghost. Zhou Yang has obtained a cultivation method and begun practicing, but has not yet been shown completing an Upright Heart 66 85 123 131 133.

History

Transmigration and Guan Village

Zhou Yang comes from a world of abundant goods and convenient living. By his first appearance, he has spent more than three months trapped in Guan Village without managing to leave. He works at A Fu’s smithy and lives with a supposed family whose behavior conceals a threat to his life 1 3.

His Blade-Credit Merchant ability allows him to collect the final words and images of the dead. These remnants teach him the village’s lethal rules, including the need to vary his routes and identify himself by name when greeting villagers. He maintains a quiet, emotionally distant persona to avoid exposing himself as a living outsider 2 3 14.

Collecting Cao Qing’s lingering image reveals that A Fu killed the man after he searched for an escape route. The image completes the ledger’s story, “Performing for Ghosts and Gods,” as Zhou Yang faces the approaching Revelation Ceremony 1.

The Knife Sale and Ding Ling

The completed story directs Zhou Yang to sell a blade on credit to Ding Ling and resolve her life-threatening predicament. He waits until his household settles down before sending his crudely sharpened blade into the ledger. Ding Ling becomes his Karmic Retribution Body, connecting him to the Lampstand Opera Troupe in Daliang Village 2 3 6.

Through Ding Ling, he challenges Chang Dafeng’s demands and helps secure the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting. When the midnight mirror ritual turns dangerous, he fights through its interference to regain control of her body and attacks the mirror with a horsewhip while singing an operatic curse 6 8 11.

Learning Ghost Methods

Back in Guan Village, Zhou Yang discovers that challenging Huang Shaozi as an unloved son can force her to behave like a caring mother. He also begins suspecting that Zhou Heigou’s targeted hostility distinguishes him from the household’s ghosts 14.

A Fu subsequently forces Ghost Mouths to open on Zhou Yang’s arms and attempts to make him follow an externally controlled breathing rhythm. Zhou Yang refuses, forms a shadow through his own resolve, and shuts the mouths himself. He accepts learning Breathing of the Ghost while rejecting A Fu’s authority over his life 16.

His experiences through Ding Ling also expose him to the Great Zhao court’s Official Bodies. Chang Dafeng explains that Guan Villages produce bodies for officials and that their ceremonies correspond to different kinds of Official Body 33.

The Opera Ghost and Return Preparations

Zhou Yang and Ding Ling survive escalating attacks around the troupe, combining their efforts to make Ghost Mouths sing. After Ding Ling forms an Averting God, Zhou Yang removes the suppression curse Chang Dafeng secretly placed on it 29 38 40.

Their investigation uncovers paper figures modeled on roles from the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting. Zhou Yang concludes that Chang Dafeng was likely the Opera Ghost’s original target. After encountering the ghost, he wakes in Guan Village through his incense-and-rope precaution, uncertain whether Ding Ling survived; her increased Mindfulness later reassures him 42 43 44 45.

By Chapter 50, his newly developed ripples erase his nominal family’s Ghost Rhyme from his room. The absence of Zhou Heigou’s trace confirms to him that his second brother is not a ghost. Unable to imprint Ding Ling’s Gate of Opening without establishing his own foundation, he preserves mud carrying Cao Qing’s dead-man aura for a ritual and reconnects with Ding Ling. Recalling the Opera Ghost’s desire for an unheard play gives him an idea for captivating the Opera Lady 50.

Ding Ling’s Transformation and the Debt of Love

At the bridge, Chang Dafeng unexpectedly assigns Ding Ling to guard the Rear Slaughter Gate and hold back the Gate of Death. Zhou Yang uses his Supernatural Ripple to block Chang’s Bloated Aspect Averting God, but Ghost Da Le strikes Ding Ling with yellow paper and spreads Ghost Rhyme through her body. Zhou Yang loses his senses before restoring communication through their causal connection; Ding Ling can still answer him internally, but can no longer speak 59.

Zhou Yang is eventually swept out of Daliangzi Village. The ledger records that he has disturbed the Zhan and that Ding Ling has no regrets. Back in Guan Village, he discovers blood staining the ledger’s second page and a declaration that he owes Ding Ling a debt of love. She has become the Opera Lady and left him a paper garment bearing sewn blessings, while preserving her abilities in the ledger. He spends the remaining hours until dawn holding the cloak and grieving for her 64.

The Gate of Opening and the Zhou Household

The paper garment appears to improve the Zhou ghosts’ reception of him: Zhou Laogou recognizes him without first hearing his name, and Huang Shaozi becomes warmer. Zhou Yang uses this opportunity to investigate Heigou’s daily work in the fields and asks his nominal mother to help him find more remunerative work. She arranges for him to guard the fire tower in three days, alarming him because of the many deaths associated with the duty 65.

He continues collecting lingering shadows, including an official slave’s warning against following members of other households. While sharpening a new blade blank, he records the remnants gathered near the fire tower, then prepares his own Gate of Opening ritual 70 71.

Using his Supernatural Ripples and Ghost Mouths, Zhou Yang traps the ghostly shadows inside a false belly, burns it, and drinks the ashes. The ritual produces the Ghost Head Averting God, whose warnings help him conceal the operation from his family’s surprise inspection. Combining its transformation ability with Ding Ling’s paper clothing, he assumes Heigou’s appearance 72.

After enhancing the Averting God through Imprinting, he follows Heigou’s living aura toward the fields. There he conceals himself from Zhou Laogou and learns that Heigou possesses an uncanny stomach pouch capable of producing organs to feed the ghost. Meanwhile, his efforts to cultivate Huang Shaozi’s maternal role create friction between her and the household’s father and second son 73 74 76.

Fire-Tower Duty and Acceptance by Guan Village

Accompanied by Zhou Baigou, Zhou Yang discovers that the villagers’ human skins preserve a fixed network of relationships. Introducing themselves unlocks old friendships and disputes, including an unfinished fight between Guan Village’s Zhou Yang and Cui He. His Ghost Head Averting God identifies Cui Zhu, Cui He, and other living people concealed among the ghosts 76.

During the second watch, the tower’s fire burns holes in the villagers’ skins and threatens to release the ghosts beneath. Zhou Yang repeatedly invokes his brotherhood with Baigou, restoring the latter’s human role and securing his protection. He then feeds Baigou offal to prevent him from joining the ghosts devouring Wang Si’er 77.

Zhou Yang combines his paper clothing, imitated Ghost Rhymes, and speech through Ghost Mouths to make his performance of the village’s Zhou Yang more convincing. When the Cui brothers are endangered, he invokes Baigou’s support and persuades the surrounding villagers to count him among their own people. He redirects their fear toward the ghosts of the Guo family 79 82.

A supernatural white light subsequently draws his soul out of his body, but pain transmitted through Huang Shaozi’s needle-pierced straw effigy pulls him back. He shakes and slaps the Cui brothers until their souls return as well, then arranges a meeting after daybreak. Recognizing that the light repairs the ghosts’ human skins, he also examines the eye-shaped ripple associated with it and prepares to test A Fu’s white paper banner 83.

By dawn, absorbing the light has raised his Mindfulness to nine. The villagers now recognize him without requiring an introduction, suggesting that Guan Village has accepted his performed identity, although their continued surveillance shows that his living presence remains under observation. He asks Baigou to delay telling the household about his rescue of the Cui brothers, principally to keep Heigou uninformed for a little longer 85.

Fellow Survivors and the Second Knife

Through his contact with the Cui brothers, Zhou Yang learns more about the Great Zhao court’s division between officials and official slaves. Luan Xiaofeng also relays inherited stories from the Jinping Local Gazetteer, identifying Guan Village with the former Square Well Village and stating that its original Zhou Yang was adopted from another village 88 90.

Returning to the smithy, Zhou Yang stages a confession about his night at the tower, showing A Fu the little coffin and ruined straw figure while concealing the extent of his actions. He responds to A Fu’s probing ripples by opening his Ghost Mouths, leaving the smith satisfied that his pupil remains under control 91.

Zhou Yang finishes the ledger’s second story while forging a flat-tipped chopping knife. His improved circumstances nevertheless intensify Heigou’s hostility. When Baigou is late returning from the Xiao household, Zhou Laogou orders Zhou Yang to search outside near nightfall, attacks Huang Shaozi when she protests, and strikes Zhou Yang when he intervenes. Baigou returns before the search becomes necessary and reports Xiao Fei’s impending marriage to a dead woman 92 93.

After accumulating nourishment around his navel, Zhou Yang manifests the Ghost Ruler. He also recognizes that his Supernatural Ripple has evolved into the Fat Mirror Lamp. Selling his newly forged machete on credit connects him to Aji; the ledger rates the blade as middling or ordinary rather than inferior, greatly improving the terms for imprinting ordinary abilities from the new body 94 95.

Aji, Zhuoma, and the Sky Burial

Awakening in Aji’s body, Zhou Yang pretends to have lost his memory rather than risk exposing himself through unfamiliarity with Aji’s family. Aji’s consciousness remains available to him and supplies explanations of esoteric practices and implements, though Zhou Yang treats its extravagant claims cautiously 95 96 97.

Working with Gonpo, he examines the corpse of a skinned child whom Deqin names Zhuoma. Despite the obvious violence done to her, Deqin insists that she died naturally and demands a sky burial on his master Jiawang Riba’s authority. Zhou Yang questions the temple’s handling of the body but agrees to carry it up the mountain 100.

Deqin later directs an invisible poison arrow at him, but the ripples surrounding Zhou Yang’s nine strands of Mindfulness dissolve it. Zhou Yang communicates with the child’s Tsen Demon through Mindfulness and urges her to seek vengeance on those responsible rather than harm him 103 104.

To make Zhuoma’s body whole for the burial, Zhou Yang sews pieces of her sheepskin bag over the exposed flesh. Zhuoma helps prepare her own face, and he uses the Fat Mirror Lamp to restore her appearance. He endures the dismemberment through contemplation, imagining her whole as the vultures consume her remains. A vulture then lands on his shoulder and leaves him with a lasting connection; the ledger adds “Dakini Incarnation Primordial Right Consciousness (Zhuoma)” to his personal abilities 106 107.

After Gonpo explains that even powerful practitioners cannot simply escape black-bone status, Zhou Yang resolves to rely on his own abilities. He builds a mani pile, makes and fires a clay figure from Zhuoma’s remains, and strengthens their connection by telling her a fairy tale instead of reciting a rebirth mantra 109.

Sangsang and the Path Toward an Upright Heart

While investigating a Tsen Demon associated with the name Sangsang, Zhou Yang pulls it from Zeweng’s body with the Ghost Ruler. Its corpse-like manifestation breaks apart within his ripple and escapes, prompting him and Jiekan to pursue it 117.

When Luodu attempts to devour Sangsang’s emanation right consciousness, Zhou Yang shelters her in a clay figure and severs their connection. He blocks a summoned ghost arm with his Ghost Ruler and later strikes his own crown with the cracked limb, buying time for Zeweng and Zhima to take Jiekan out of the dream. As Luodu’s mantra surrounds him with Ghost Rhyme, Aji recites a method that stirs his Mindfulness 122.

Zhou Yang repeatedly braids his nine strands into a rope, reconstructing it each time the hostile Ghost Rhyme scatters it. The strengthening rope restores his shattered Fat Mirror Lamp ripples and helps extinguish the surrounding bloodfire. Although the ledger does not change his recorded Mindfulness, he recognizes the practice as a correct path toward forging an Upright Heart. Sangsang and Little Zhuoma also develop their own Mindfulness 123.

After Jiekan returns Sangsang’s clay figure, her spirit flows back into Zhou Yang’s soul. He assures Zeweng’s family that she will no longer trouble them and invites others to bring him dangerous corpses so he can help them depart in purity. Before the connection to Aji ends, he obtains a visualization ritual and instructs Aji’s sister Zhuoma to bind the body and trust a future return only if confirmed by the Dakini 125.

Renewed Preparations in Guan Village

Back in Guan Village, Zhou Yang judges that the increasingly open conflict with Heigou can no longer be postponed. He experiments with offering methods using his incompletely refined Ghost Ruler, producing an uncanny field around a clay stove 126 127.

By Chapter 129, he is considering whether fragments of Heigou remain in the Zhou fields. He later plans to gather Heigou’s residual deathly aura for the Gate of Rest ritual, treating him as a possible source of the aura of someone newly dead 129 133.

An encounter with Elder Sister Liu introduces further claims about his assumed identity. She says the Liu family is his maternal uncle’s family and that his true family is noble and lives far outside the village. Zhou Yang does not accept her invitation to seek them, remaining wary of both her threats and the discomfort she causes the consciousnesses attached to him 130.

A Fu offers an exaggerated account of the safety an Upright Heart would provide. Zhou Yang recognizes the deception: forging one only begins the process of tethering a ghost and does not make a practitioner invulnerable to ghosts, the Zhan, or the Great Darkness No-Man’s Land. He nevertheless pretends to be impressed 131.

Zhou Yang cooks dinner for the household and uses the improved atmosphere to secure Zhou Laogou’s agreement that he may temporarily use the Zhou family’s Old Chain after the Revelation Ceremony, subject to returning it when Heigou comes home. In his room, he builds a mani pile for Zhuoma and Sangsang, establishes and tests a defensive Square Offering, and places Zhuoma in a waxed-dough tiger soaked with purified fat paste. He continues Upright Heart exercises while investigating the purplish-cyan light inside Elder Sister Liu’s grass mantis 132 133.

The ledger subsequently adds “Choked-to-Death Puppet’s Stomach” to his abilities. Zhuoma and Sangsang each gain another strand of Mindfulness from sharing his Guan Village experiences, reaching three and two respectively 134.

Appearance

• Thin, undernourished frame: Prolonged exposure to food unsuitable for the living leaves him exceptionally weak and thinner than when he arrived in Guan Village 15 48.
• Simple clothing: Wears straw sandals and cloth shoes; his bedding includes a coarse-cloth quilt 1 13.
• Ghost Breathing changes: Black, mouthlike openings appear in his skin, while his muscles swell and veins become pronounced as the technique supplies temporary strength 16 17.
• Gradual physical recovery: Sustained use of Ghost Breathing and nourishment from dead people’s meals eventually improve his ordinary strength enough for him to hammer iron for a time without activating the technique 67.
• Facial appearance: His reflection during his own Gate of Opening preparations is described as lean and handsome 71.
• Paper cloak: Wears the dark blue paper garment Ding Ling leaves him, which also contributes to his supernatural disguises 64 65 72.
• Corpse-like concealment: When the Ghost Ruler covers his organs, his breathing becomes exceptionally slow, his heartbeat drops, and his skin turns corpse-pale despite his remaining mobile 94.

Personality

Zhou Yang is frightened by ghosts rather than immune to them. Guan Village terrifies him more deeply than the dangers he initially encounters through Ding Ling, but he repeatedly forces his expression and behavior back into character. He uses memorized passages from Su Xun’s The Art of the Mind to regain composure, though the method sometimes fails under extreme fear 11 13 14 15.

He is analytical and skilled at verbal maneuvering. Drawing on experience arguing on online forums, he answers dangerous questions with pointed counterquestions and exploits contradictions in the villagers’ prescribed family roles. He eventually recognizes that their apparent emotions depend on rigid, inflexible common sense rather than genuine human feeling 14 45.

His caution does not prevent defiance when his autonomy is threatened. He resists A Fu’s attempt to turn him into a puppet and deliberately withholds Breathing Lock when teaching Ding Ling because it would give him a means to control her. Against Zhou Heigou, however, he prefers investigation and indirect action to a confrontation that might alert the village’s ghosts 16 40 47.

His manipulation of the Zhou household becomes increasingly deliberate. He uses sincere-seeming filial affection to deepen Huang Shaozi’s attachment and considers exploiting the resulting estrangement to remove his opponents. He also carefully performs weakness before A Fu and Heigou, aiming to conceal both his progress and any responsibility for Heigou’s eventual death 73 91 93 94.

He nevertheless shows genuine grief and compassion. Ding Ling’s departure leaves him mourning through the night, while his efforts for Little Zhuoma extend beyond immediate self-preservation to restoring her dignity and helping her reach the sky. Even knowing Huang Shaozi is a ghost, he feels pity when Zhou Laogou abuses her and intervenes to stop him 64 93 106.

Zhou Yang is pragmatic about dangerous opportunities. He recognizes that his Upright Heart method may carry hidden hazards from the Esoteric Treasury Domain, but continues practicing because Guan Village offers few safer paths forward 133.

Abilities & Skills

Blade-Credit Merchant

His identity grants access to the Knife Credit Ledger and its system of knife sales, causal connections, and Good Karma 1 2 3.

• Last Words and Final Images Collection: Collects remnants of the dead, revealing their experiences and helping him identify lethal village rules 1 2.
• Collection through a Manifestation Body: Can gather the last words and lingering shadows of people who recently died near Ding Ling while his consciousness is attached to her 31 32.
• Remote consciousness and bodily control: Can speak within Ding Ling’s mind, take control of her body, and return control to her 6 8 29.
• Shared Mindfulness: His presence supplements Ding Ling’s own resolve; her early ledger entry records seven Mindfulness as two of her own plus five from him 6.
• Interference: Supernatural forces can obstruct his access to Ding Ling, as occurs during the mirror ritual 11.
• Additional Karmic Retribution Body: Selling his second knife connects him to Aji. Aji’s ledger entry lists “Esoteric Nature Complete” alongside Zhou Yang’s nine Mindfulness and identifies him as the son of the silversmith Queji 95 104.
• Concealed ledger: Other people present do not see the Knife Credit Ledger when he consults it openly during the aftermath of Luodu’s attack 123.

Imprinting

Imprinting spends Good Karma to copy abilities belonging to a Karmic Retribution Body 14.

• His first knife’s extremely poor quality limits each Good Karma to one-tenth of the source ability’s proficiency 4 14 49.
• Additional Good Karma can copy a larger portion of an ability 49.
• Each imprint increases the probability that the Manifestation Body will sever its causal connection with him; severance permanently loses him that body 4.
• Copying requires a suitable foundation. The ledger refuses Ding Ling’s Gate of Opening because his own gate has not manifested 50.
• After creating his own Ghost Head Averting God, he imprints an ability from Ding Ling’s Averting God to improve its impersonations and overcome its inability to speak convincingly 72 73.
• His second blade’s middling quality permits one-to-one effectiveness for relatively ordinary abilities obtained from Aji. This improvement belongs to that knife’s connection and does not retroactively remove the first knife’s restrictions 95.
• The ledger does not immediately explain which abilities count as “ordinary”; Zhou Yang explicitly wonders whether Ghost Breathing and the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting qualify 95.
• Ding Ling preserves her abilities in the ledger after becoming the Opera Lady, allowing him to continue benefiting from what she leaves behind 64 73.

Breathing of the Ghost

Breathing of the Ghost opens Ghost Mouths in the skin. These consume nourishment and exhale Ghost Qi, producing temporary physical power 16 17.

• Strength enhancement: Makes a smithing hammer weighing more than ten jin easy for him to handle after it had previously strained him 16.
• Right Mindfulness Lock: Uses his own resolve to regulate the mouths and resist outside control 16.
• Alternative nourishment: Burning paper money feeds the mouths; his altered skin can also draw nourishment from food meant for the dead 17 18 48.
• Efficient operation: Closing most mouths reduces consumption without immediately diminishing the power already supplied 17.
• Mobility through Ding Ling: While controlling her body, uses enhanced strength to climb a rammed-earth wall and escape through a window 39.
• Spiritual contact: With sufficient Mindfulness and Ghost Breathing assistance, can seize an otherwise ethereal Averting God and erase Chang Dafeng’s suppression curse 40.
• Early limits: Unfed mouths consume his flesh and blood. At seven Mindfulness, he still cannot safely open and control those inside his mouth, on his soles, or around his navel 16 49.
• Blood-qi feedback: Later perceives absorbed nourishment becoming blood qi that replenishes his body. A portion accumulates around his navel as the seed of a Phantom-Grown Limb 73 94.
• Expanded control: By fire-tower duty he can speak through Ghost Mouths beneath his tongue. With nine Mindfulness, opening the mouths around his navel is no longer beyond his capacity; he delays doing so to accumulate nourishment for the Ghost Ruler 79 94.

Supernatural Ripple

Supernatural Ripple combines human Mindfulness with a ghost’s aura, with Mindfulness directing the result. Zhou Yang’s version manifests as expanding handprints 49 50.

• Ghost Rhyme removal: Reveals and erases traces left on surfaces by ghosts 50.
• Concentrated force: Compresses the ripples into his right hand, giving it greater power to tear apart or erase Ghost Rhyme than the dispersed form 50.
• Aura imitation: Adopts the aura of erased Ghost Rhyme, allowing him to make Ghost Mouths mistake his commands for those of a ghost 50.
• Ghost Mouth vocalization: Enables controlled sounds that can affect ghosts, previously achievable only with Ding Ling’s combined Mindfulness and fortunate circumstances 50.
• Endurance limit: Can continue operating as long as his Mindfulness is not exhausted 50.
• Defensive application through Ding Ling: Uses the ripple to obstruct Chang Dafeng’s Bloated Aspect Averting God at the bridge 59.
• Role consolidation: Combines imitated auras with paper clothing and Ghost Mouth speech so that Guan Village’s inhabitants increasingly recognize his performance as the authentic Zhou Yang 79 82 85.

Fat Mirror Lamp

The Fat Mirror Lamp is the evolved form of Zhou Yang’s Supernatural Ripple 94.

• Mirror-like radiance: A ripple spreading from between his brows makes brilliant white light shine beneath his Ghost Mouths, turning him into a human-shaped mirror 94.
• Disguise and protection: Combined with Ding Ling’s paper garment, it greatly reduces the likelihood of his living identity being exposed. Under ordinary circumstances, weaker ghosts’ Ghost Rhymes have little effect on him while he wears the garment 94.
• Restoring outward appearance: Makes Little Zhuoma’s sheepskin-covered corpse look as it did in life before her sky burial 106.
• Recovery through Mindfulness: Reconstitutes its shattered ripples when he braids his nine strands of Mindfulness together during Luodu’s assault 123.
• Ritual utility: Zhou Yang judges its ripples suitable for performing the Three Transformations of White Bone required to cultivate a Gate of Rest Averting God 133.

Ghost Head Averting God

Zhou Yang creates this Averting God through his own Gate of Opening ritual 72.

• Smell the Living and Detect the Dead: Uses holes in its blank face to sense nearby deathly auras, helping Zhou Yang locate danger and additional lingering images of the dead 72.
• Warning of observation: Detects when ghosts or gods watch him, even before they place Ghost Rhyme on him 72.
• Living-person transformation: Absorbs a living person’s aura and copies their appearance. Its first demonstrated disguise is Zhou Heigou 72 73.
• Paper-garment synergy: Its original transformation is crude enough that ghosts could quickly expose it, but Ding Ling’s paper clothing lets the combined disguise fool them for a short time 72.
• Improved impersonation: An imprinted ability from Ding Ling’s Averting God addresses the inability to speak that previously endangered its disguises 73.
• Tracking and identification: Follows Heigou’s lingering living aura and distinguishes living survivors from the ghosts gathered at the fire tower 73 76.
• Watchkeeping: Zhou Yang sends it out to monitor his surroundings while he rests or performs other work 133.

Ghost Ruler

The Ghost Ruler is a Phantom-Grown Limb produced through Breathing of the Ghost. It initially emerges from Zhou Yang’s navel as two arms joined together, thumbs hooked and the other eight fingers spread like an eagle’s wings 94.

• Ghost Rhyme dispersal: Brushes aside Ghost Rhymes approaching him without leaving a trace 94.
• Concealment of living aura: Dissolves into blood qi, enters his body through the Ghost Mouths, and reforms as enormous hands covering his organs. This suppresses signs of life without preventing movement 94.
• Growth potential: Is attached to his Mindfulness and can grow with him; Zhou Yang recognizes that its further applications depend on how he develops it 94.
• Flexible manifestation: Can be summoned from any part of his body rather than only its original point of emergence 110.
• Use through Aji: Accompanies his consciousness into the second Karmic Retribution Body, where he uses it against supernatural threats 110 117 122.
• Extraction and interception: Pulls a possessing Tsen Demon out of Zeweng and blocks a summoned ghost arm attacking Sangsang’s clay figure 117 122.
• Vajra refinement: Develops luminous esoteric characters and later resembles a bronze vajra pestle with five claws at each end. It remains cracked and incompletely refined by Chapter 127 110 127.

Mindfulness and Upright Heart Cultivation

Zhou Yang reaches nine strands of Mindfulness during the fire-tower night 85.

• Resistance to esoteric attack: Deqin’s invisible poison arrow collapses on contact with the ripples around his nine strands of Mindfulness 103.
• Spiritual communication: Communicates with Little Zhuoma in her Tsen Demon state and enables her to enter and leave his consciousness while preparing her new covering 104 106.
• Braiding method: Uses the formula recited by Aji to weave his nine strands into a single rope, then separate and recombine them 122 123 133.
• Tempering under pressure: Repeatedly reforms the rope after hostile Ghost Rhyme breaks it apart, making it stronger and restoring his Fat Mirror Lamp’s defenses 123.
• Divided attention: With practice, can cultivate while tending a flame, walking around his room, and considering other matters 133.
• Unfinished advancement: Has begun the correct path but has not completed an Upright Heart. He understands that even a completed heart must be used to tether a ghost before it grants a genuine means of contending with ghosts 123 131.
• Possible hidden danger: Suspects the method may originate with Luodu in the Esoteric Treasury Domain and carry risks associated with that domain 133.

Primordial Right Consciousnesses

Zhuoma and Sangsang become separately recorded consciousnesses attached to Zhou Yang’s soul rather than additional Karmic Retribution Bodies 107 123 125 134.

• Zhuoma: Recorded as “Dakini Incarnation Primordial Right Consciousness.” His connection begins after her sky burial and strengthens through a clay figure made from her remains and his storytelling 106 107 109.
• Sangsang: Recorded as “Dalu Primordial Right Consciousness.” Zhou Yang protects her using a clay figure, and she later flows back into his soul when he receives it 122 123 125.
• Independent Mindfulness: Initially develop Mindfulness values of two for Zhuoma and one for Sangsang; these rise to three and two after sharing his Guan Village experiences 123 134.
• Shared perception and warning: Their discomfort alerts Zhou Yang to the danger surrounding Elder Sister Liu and the peculiar light associated with her grass mantis 130 133.
• Housing and shelter: Builds a mani pile to shelter them and enables Zhuoma to reside in a waxed-dough tiger soaked in purified fat paste 133.
• Unresolved properties: The ledger initially provides no explanation of Zhuoma’s entry, and Zhou Yang does not immediately understand its full effects 107.

Opera and Ritual Knowledge

Through Ding Ling’s experiences and Chang Dafeng’s instruction, Zhou Yang studies the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, its Eight Gates, and the creation of Averting Gods 9 23 33 36.

• Explains the false belly, intestines, and curse-bearing ashes required for the Gate of Opening ritual 23.
• Cooperates with Ding Ling in making Ghost Mouths perform an opera passage during the troupe’s encirclement 29.
• Recognizes opera characters represented by the paper figures in the abandoned courtyard 42.
• Has not independently manifested his Gate of Opening by Chapter 50; later completes it himself using a water vat in place of a mirror and his ripples to assist the ritual 50 71 72.
• Studies an additional visualization ritual obtained from Aji before returning to Guan Village 125.
• Experiments with offerings using fat, hair, a covered stove, and his partially refined Ghost Ruler, producing an unnatural field around the stove 127.
• Establishes a Square Offering around his bedroom. It can briefly force ghosts back, but he leaves it inactive to prevent the Zhou family from noticing the obstruction during ordinary visits 133.
• Prepares for the Gate of Rest, which requires transferring the deathly aura of someone newly dead onto himself and performing the Three Transformations of White Bone. By Chapter 133 this remains a plan, not a completed gate 133.

Blacksmithing

• Listed as an ability in the Knife Credit Ledger, though much of his early smithy work consists of exhausting odd jobs rather than formal forging instruction 1 15.
• Makes his first credit-sale blade by grinding an edge onto a pointed strip of iron 1 3.
• Seeks proper blade-forging skills because usable weapons at A Fu’s smithy are locked away, and he is unsure whether another person’s weapon can be sold through his ability 15.
• Progresses to hammering scrap iron and preparing a simple brush knife or flat-tipped chopping blade suited to his still-crude skills 67 71 92.
• Forges the machete used for his second credit sale. Its middling quality is above the ledger’s three inferior grades and permits full-effect imprinting of ordinary abilities from Aji 95.
• Continues working with A Fu on agricultural tools, including hoes and sickles for the approaching winter harvest, while concealing his improved stamina 131.

Other Recorded Abilities

• Choked-to-Death Puppet’s Stomach: Appears in his personal abilities list after his renewed preparations in Guan Village. The available ledger passage names the ability without explaining its operation 134.

Equipment & Items

• Knife Credit Ledger — Records his identity, Mindfulness, abilities, Good Karma, collected stories, and Ding Ling’s condition; mediates their connection 1 3 14 50.
• Makeshift iron knife — His first blade sold on credit; its poor quality imposes lasting restrictions on Imprinting 1 3 4.
• Paper money and joss paper — Used to nourish Ghost Mouths during practice 17 49.
• Incense-and-rope precaution — Arranged to wake his Guan Village body while his consciousness is elsewhere 44 50.
• Pig offal — Obtained for studying and preparing the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting 18 44.
• Mud carrying Cao Qing’s dead-man aura — Collected for his planned Gate of Opening ritual and hidden beneath the earthen stove 46 50.
• Ding Ling’s paper garment — A dark blue cloak bearing her sewn blessings, left after she becomes the Opera Lady. Improves his reception among the Zhou ghosts and works with his aura imitation and Ghost Head Averting God to strengthen disguises 64 65 72 79.
• Needle-pierced straw effigy — Associated with Huang Shaozi; the pain it transmits returns his soul to his body when the supernatural white light draws it out. He later shows A Fu its ruined remains 83 91.
• Little coffin — A protective object that helps him survive the fourth two-hour period of fire-tower duty. He displays it to A Fu and his family to support his claim that he survived through borrowed protection rather than personal strength 91 93.
• White paper funeral banner — Given to him by A Fu. Zhou Yang tests it during the fire-tower night while remaining suspicious of its intended purpose 83 91.
• Middling-quality machete — His second credit-sale blade, forged at the smithy and used to connect with Aji 92 95.
• Zhuoma’s clay figure — Made with her remains and placed in a mani pile to strengthen his connection to her 109.
• Sangsang’s clay figure — Used to protect her consciousness from Luodu; her spirit returns to Zhou Yang when Jiekan brings the figure back 122 125.
• Mani piles — Builds one after Little Zhuoma’s burial and another in his Guan Village room to shelter Zhuoma and Sangsang and support offering practice 109 133.
• Waxed-dough tiger — Soaks it in purified fat paste, hangs it around his neck, and uses it as a dwelling for Zhuoma 133.
• Elder Sister Liu’s grass mantis — Contains a peculiar mass of purplish-cyan light that affects Zhuoma and Sangsang but not Zhou Yang in the same way. He considers whether it can reveal the truth of the Liu family’s “Seedling Sprouting,” while recognizing that mishandling it could cause disaster 133 134.
• Zhou family’s Old Chain — conditional access — Secures permission to use it temporarily after the Revelation Ceremony, with Zhou Laogou requiring its return when Heigou comes home. This is a promised right of use rather than confirmed possession 133.

Relationships

• Ding Ling — His first Karmic Retribution Body and partner in surviving the opera troupe’s dangers. He protects her, shares control of her body, and assures her that they will face future trials together 3 6 8 29. After she becomes the Opera Lady, the ledger declares that he owes her a debt of love. Her paper garment and preserved abilities remain with him, and he grieves deeply over their separation 64 73.
• A Fu — Employer and dangerous teacher. Teaches him Breathing of the Ghost while attempting to control him; Zhou Yang knows A Fu killed Cao Qing and remains wary of his motives 1 16 49. Zhou Yang later conceals his progress through staged weakness and misleading disclosures, allowing A Fu to believe their original power relationship remains intact. He also recognizes the misleading promises in A Fu’s account of the Upright Heart 91 131.
• Huang Shaozi — Nominal mother and a confirmed ghost. Zhou Yang redirects her behavior by appealing to maternal obligations, while recognizing her affection as a predatory performance 14 45 50. His paper garment and sustained filial performance deepen her attachment: she rebukes Heigou, arranges Baigou’s protection, and tries to prevent Zhou Yang from being forced outside near nightfall. Her ability to oppose Zhou Laogou remains limited, and Zhou Yang continues to distinguish her affection from dependable safety 65 70 73 76 93 126.
• Zhou Laogou — Nominal father and a confirmed ghost. Forbids him from accompanying the family to its fields outside the village 3 17 50. Later attacks Zhou Yang when he intervenes in the abuse of Huang Shaozi. Zhou Yang nevertheless continues cultivating the household relationship and obtains conditional permission to use Old Chain after the Revelation Ceremony 93 133.
• Zhou Baigou — Nominal eldest brother and a confirmed ghost who watches the household like a guard dog. Zhou Yang tries to obtain his support through Huang Shaozi 18 45 50. Baigou accompanies him to the fire tower, where Zhou Yang’s repeated appeals to their brotherhood restore his human role and secure his protection. Their relationship grows closer afterward, although Baigou remains a ghost whose behavior depends on the role and its limits 76 77 82 85.
• Zhou Heigou — Hostile nominal second brother. Repeatedly tries to place Zhou Yang in dangerous situations; the absence of his Ghost Rhyme eventually confirms Zhou Yang’s conclusion that he is not a ghost 3 47 48 50. Zhou Yang discovers his organ-producing stomach pouch and investigates its nature while planning an untraceable death for him. Later passages have Zhou Yang considering Heigou’s possible remains in the fields and seeking his residual deathly aura, while Zhou Laogou still speaks of Heigou coming home 76 93 94 129 133.
• Chang Dafeng — Source of occult knowledge through Ding Ling, but also a manipulator. Zhou Yang conceals his intervention while undoing the curse Chang places on Ding Ling’s Averting God 8 20 38 40. Later opposes Chang’s Bloated Aspect when Ding Ling is unexpectedly assigned to the Rear Slaughter Gate 59.
• Cao Qing — Murdered smithy coworker whose final image exposes A Fu’s crime and completes Zhou Yang’s first recorded story. His lingering aura later becomes material for Zhou Yang’s ritual preparations 1 46 50.
• Cui Zhu and Cui He — Fellow living people encountered during fire-tower duty. Zhou Yang identifies them with his Averting God, helps shield them from the villagers, restores their souls when the white light endangers them, and arranges further meetings at Old Zhang’s ruined house 76 82 83. Their Guan Village identities must still be maintained; Zhou Yang explicitly warns the men using those identities to discard their original names while outside their private meeting place 91.
• Luan Xiaofeng — Source of inherited knowledge about Guan Village, the Jinping Local Gazetteer, and the adopted origins of the village identity Zhou Yang inhabits. Zhou Yang continues arranging meetings with him and You Chuntian 90 130.
• You Chuntian — Contact among the survivors with whom Zhou Yang arranges further discussions at Old Zhang’s dilapidated house 130.
• Aji — Second Karmic Retribution Body, the son of the silversmith Queji. Zhou Yang acts through his body while communicating with his consciousness. Aji supplies esoteric knowledge, the formula that begins Zhou Yang’s Upright Heart cultivation, and a visualization ritual 95 97 104 122 125.
• Zhuoma, Aji’s sister — Cares for Aji when Zhou Yang first awakens in his body. Zhou Yang initially feigns amnesia to avoid exposing his unfamiliarity with their relationship. Before leaving, he warns her against an unverified return by someone impersonating him 95 96 125.
• Gonpo — Partner and guide during Zhou Yang’s work with dangerous corpses and sky burials. Helps him prepare Little Zhuoma’s remains and explains aspects of the local social order and ritual practices 100 106 109.
• Little Zhuoma — A skinned child who becomes a Tsen Demon. Zhou Yang communicates with her, restores a covering and a lifelike appearance to her corpse, and helps send her into the sky. Her Dakini Incarnation Primordial Right Consciousness subsequently attaches to him, develops Mindfulness, and accompanies him back to Guan Village 104 106 107 123 133 134.
• Sangsang — A consciousness Zhou Yang protects from Luodu through a clay figure. Becomes recorded as a Dalu Primordial Right Consciousness, returns to his soul, and shares his later Guan Village experiences 122 123 125 134.
• Jiekan — Helps during the confrontation involving Sangsang and Luodu, later returning Sangsang’s clay figure. Zhou Yang invites him to visit and considers testing whether he possesses Mindfulness 122 125.
• Luodu — Hostile esoteric practitioner who attempts to devour Sangsang’s consciousness and attacks Zhou Yang through summoned ghostly power. The struggle prompts Zhou Yang’s first successful use of the Upright Heart cultivation method 122 123.
• Elder Sister Liu — Dangerous village elder who claims that the Liu family is Zhou Yang’s maternal uncle’s family and that his real relatives are nobles outside Guan Village. Zhou Yang remains wary of these unverified claims and investigates the grass mantis she gives him 130 133 134.

Notable Quotes

“I won't let myself be butchered!” 16

“I'm going to learn Breathing of the Ghost, but my life is mine to control!” 16

“Zhuoma, avenge every grudge and repay every wrong. Wash away the injustice done to you with their blood.” 103

“Zhuoma, you and I have never had any connection, nor any shared origin. Go kill the people you should kill. Go kill the people who sinned against you. Don't provoke me. Don't make me angry.” 104

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