Chang Dafeng

Biodata

Background / History

Chang Dafeng came from a makeshift traveling opera troupe and earned his living without a fixed home. His master and fellow apprentices in the Lampstand Opera Troupe all died in ghost calamities, leaving him as its surviving member. Repeated escapes taught him to keep a reserve method and avoid committing everything to a single plan 30.

As a troupe leader, he attracted followers seeking both a livelihood and the supernatural methods behind Opera Communion with Spirits. He controlled access to the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting, claiming that his other performers had studied it for half a year without making progress 7.

His preparations in Daliangzi Village ultimately serve a purpose beyond his own escape: reviving his senior brother, whose soul is trapped in Ghost Da Le’s Gate of Death. Chang plans to set Ghost Da Le and the Opera Ghost against each other, open his own Gate of Life, and transfer his senior brother into Ding Ling’s body. His memories of performing Farewell My Concubine with his senior brother reveal a deeply personal attachment behind this scheme 61 62.

Appearance

Chang Dafeng is lean, with an aged, somewhat feminine face 5 12.

• Clothing: A blue-cloth cotton jacket and dogskin cap when first shown 5.
• Eyes: Exceptionally bright; his supernatural glare can make him appear like a ghost wearing bloody makeup 6 7.
• Build: Smaller and thinner than Qian Heng, despite being strong enough to pin him down 31.
• Left arm: After using his reserve method to escape the Opera Ghost, his left arm remains attached but becomes bluish gray, lifeless, and foul-smelling. Washing it in the river only worsens its rotten odor 51 53.
• Zhong Mei costume: Wears bridal robes, rouge, and a red veil. His slight build and convincing feminine movements make him appear like a graceful young woman rather than an elderly man 51 56.
• Final injuries: Ghost Da Le consumes part of his face, and both arms eventually hang limp. The Opera Ghost’s Ghost Rhyme later turns his clothing and flesh paperlike, causing them to tear when he tries to move 59 62.

Personality

Chang Dafeng places his own survival above his followers’ lives. Although he recognizes that a real ghost is responsible for Daliang Village’s calamity, he calls the threat a collection of Puppets to keep the troupe cooperating. His intended performance is a means of using their lives to secure an escape for himself 30.

He alternates reassurance, promises, intimidation, and violence to maintain authority. He offers Ding Ling his inheritance and discipleship, but reacts with resentment when she passes his Ghost Candle test. Later, he secretly contaminates her Averting God while teaching her how to create it 7 8 38.

His contempt for women persists even when he recognizes Ding Ling’s talent. He invokes ancestral rules against women learning opera, dismisses her resistance as rebellion, and regrets that someone capable of spontaneous Opera Communion with Spirits is a girl 6 7 30.

His ruthlessness nevertheless has practical limits. When his curse fails to make Ding Ling return, he stops short of killing her, releases the technique, and changes his approach 40.

His attachment to his senior brother exposes emotions usually concealed beneath his threatening manner. At the bridge, he displays shyness and anticipation at the prospect of their reunion, then weeps while singing the opera they once performed together. His final lament contrasts Ding Ling’s womanhood with his own birth as a man 60 62.

After his resurrection scheme fails, Chang abandons his attempt to sacrifice Ding Ling and gives his own remaining life instead. This final act does not undo his earlier coercion, but enables Ghost Da Le to free her from the sunshade paper and gives her a chance to escape 62.

Power Progression

Abilities & Skills

Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting

Chang Dafeng practices an unorthodox art organized around the Eight Gates. It combines opera, divine makeup, ghost painting, and curse rituals to protect practitioners and frighten supernatural beings 7 23 36.

• Teaching: Guides Ding Ling through sensing Mindfulness, preparing ritual materials, opening the Gate of Opening, and creating an Averting God 34 36 37.
• Intimidating gaze: Frightens his followers into silence and makes Zhou Yang momentarily perceive him as a painted ghost. Zhou Yang withstands it using his and Ding Ling’s combined Mindfulness 7.
• Incomplete mastery: Admits that he has not finished practicing the draft and does not know whether the entire system can be successfully completed 35.
• Reserve Averting Gods: Claims to keep other gates’ Averting Gods in reserve. Zhou Yang initially suspects he possesses only two or three in total; the later revelation of his Gate of Rest method confirms at least a second gate, but does not establish his full inventory 38 51 53.
• Face-changing: Can change his face into successive operatic masks without visibly applying makeup. He identifies face-changing with the opening of the Gate of Life, reasoning that change brings life 61 62.

Opera Communion with Spirits

His performances manifest the presence and powers of operatic characters. After learning the draft, he can deliberately achieve this state rather than depend on chance 28 37.

• Ding Ling previously witnessed him perform the Fire Judge while spitting a jet of fire over ten feet long 28.
• The entity occupying Gao Hongbo’s corpse can absorb or imitate his operatic forms, preventing him from easily driving it back even with the Ghost Candle’s assistance 28 29 30.
• Although he usually performs painted-face roles, his portrayal of Zhong Mei suggests extensive familiarity with female roles as well 56.
• He uses the Opera Ghost’s tendency to follow his singing to intensify its Ghost Rhyme and turn it against Ghost Da Le. The Opera Ghost can immediately reproduce his songs but does not reproduce his Zhong Kui face-change, while Ghost Da Le begins forming the corresponding mask 61.

Gate of Opening: Corpse Bloat Form

Also called the Bloated Aspect, this Averting God appears as a swollen, rotting giant. Ding Ling initially sees it only in fleeting peripheral glimpses, while Zhou Yang can perceive it clearly 28 36.

• Strength enhancement: Helps Chang overpower the force influencing the Ghost Opera Selection; later attaches to his back before he knocks down Ding Ling’s door with one palm 25 39.
• Manifestation: Becomes more solid and grows over ten feet tall as he strengthens the Ghost Candle’s flame 28.
• Surveillance: Enters Ding Ling’s room in the form of corpse water to check whether she is asleep 39.
• Curse medium: Releases corpse fluid that contaminates Ding Ling’s newly created Averting God 38.
• Possession and restraint: Can attach to Ding Ling to restrict her movements. Chang dismisses it when she agrees to resume the performance, leaving no further suppression measure that Zhou Yang can detect 53.
• Vulnerability to Supernatural Ripple: Zhou Yang blocks its advance at the bridge with layers of handprint ripples, making its body increasingly insubstantial 59.

Curse of Aversion

By leaving corpse-water contamination on Ding Ling’s Averting God, Chang establishes a means of coercing her remotely 38 40.

• Forces her Averting God to manifest, speak in his voice, and seize her throat 40.
• Makes the Bloated Aspect strangle itself so that Ding Ling’s own Averting God will correspondingly strangle her 40.
• Zhou Yang counters with Breathing of the Ghost, erasing the contamination. Chang releases his technique without realizing that his control has already been removed 40.
• Chang later describes the planted influence as his Gate of Opening Malefic Force, attributing its failure to Ding Ling’s unexpectedly strong Mindfulness and Averting God 51.

Gate of Rest: Daliao / Ghost Da Le

Chang’s Gate of Rest Averting God is connected to a true ghost called Daliao, also rendered Ghost Da Le. Ding Ling identifies it as a dead funeral worker that drains the vitality of the living 53.

• Emergency escape: Chang summons the Gate of Rest method to escape the Opera Ghost, sacrificing his left arm in the process. The arm remains physically present but becomes lifeless and rotten 51 53.
• Control: His Gate of Rest Averting God is described as possessing Ding Ling and restricting her resistance while allowing her to speak 51.
• Procession: Da Le Averting carries a lantern and leads Chang and Ding Ling from the troupe’s courtyard toward the village road 56.
• Bodily payment: Ghost Da Le consumes part of Chang’s face beneath his bridal veil. Zhou Yang later recognizes that obtaining its help requires sacrificing parts of one’s body 59 62.
• Yellow-paper attack: Strikes Ding Ling with yellow paper and spreads its Ghost Rhyme through her, interfering with Zhou Yang’s perception and leaving her unable to speak 59.
• Gate of Death connection: Chang’s senior brother is trapped in its Gate of Death. Chang attempts to exploit its clash with the Opera Ghost to release his senior brother’s soul 61 62.
• Final intervention: After Chang sacrifices his entire remaining life, Ghost Da Le tears the sunshade paper away from Ding Ling and holds off the Opera Ghost, allowing Zhou Yang to carry her away 62.

Supernatural Knowledge

His travels give him practical knowledge of ghosts, rituals, and dangerous locations 13 32 33.

• Ghost identification: Explains that kui display threadlike energies in a spirit-channeling mirror, while ghosts are surrounded by rippling Ghost Rhyme 9.
• Ghost-viewing ritual: Teaches Ding Ling Combing Hair at Midnight to reveal a supernatural entity’s form 5.
• Mindfulness: Explains its cultivation through life-threatening ordeals and steadfast conviction, how to sense its strands through one’s pulse, and the possibility of forming an Upright Heart after exceeding nine strands 34 35.
• Knowledge limits: Cannot personally restrain a true ghost through an Upright Heart and does not know what fully mastering that process entails 35.
• Official Bodies: Tells Zhou Yang, who is occupying Ding Ling, that Guan Villages produce bodies for Great Zhao officials. He admits that he has never been an official and does not know their full uses 33.
• Village boundary: Demonstrates that the river’s opposite bank mirrors their own side, explaining that simply crossing the bridge returns escapees to the same ghost-bound village 51.
• Life-and-death manipulation: Plans to make two ghosts’ Gates of Death collide, temporarily suppress Ghost Da Le, and transfer his senior brother from its Gate of Death into his own Gate of Life. The plan’s intended result is not achieved 61 62.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Ghost Candle — A palm-length piece of bone fashioned into a candle. Chang lights it through his gaze, extinguishes it by inhaling its intangible smoke, and uses its flame in combat, shadow-capturing rituals, and corpse disposal. He treasures it because it was difficult to obtain 7 30 34 36.
  • During the final procession, its light discourages the dead villagers from reaching for the performers, but cannot burn the withered hand that reaches Zhong Kui. It burns down rapidly during the escape performance 56.
• Divine painting — Bears the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting and its Eight Gates on the reverse 9 34.
• Dagger — Initially concealed in his boot; used to beat and kill Qian Heng, then handed to Ding Ling for her initiation ritual 31 36.
• Birch-bark route map — A crude network of routes beginning at Pheasant Neck Village, without directional markings. He gives it to Ding Ling as an initiation gift 32.
• Opera costumes and makeup — Stored in locked chests. He outfits Ding Ling as Zhong Kui with raised boots, padding, and elaborate robes 7 34 39.
  • Prepares bridal clothing for his own Zhong Mei role and a military general’s costume for a third participant. He tells Ding Ling that an Averting God will possess a straw man wearing the latter costume to act as Zhong Kui’s attendant 54.
• Smoking pipe — Smokes while questioning troupe members and uses it to gesture threateningly at Qian Heng 22 33.

Relationships

• Ding Ling — His troupe’s odd-job worker, later his student and intended Zhong Kui performer. He promises to make her his final disciple but secretly attempts to control her through her Averting God. She escapes his lodging and defeats his coercion with Zhou Yang’s help 7 30 38 40.
  • Chang recaptures her and persuades her to return to the troupe’s camp for the performance. At the bridge, he reveals his intention to make her guard the Rear Slaughter Gate and use her body to revive his senior brother. When that scheme fails, he sacrifices himself to help free her 51 53 59 61 62.
• Zhou Yang — An unseen opponent acting through Ding Ling. Zhou negotiates for Chang’s teachings, recognizes his traps, and removes his corpse-water curse; Chang addresses these confrontations as though he is dealing only with Ding Ling 7 8 38 40.
  • Zhou later blocks the Bloated Aspect with Supernatural Ripple and confronts Chang through Ding Ling’s body. Chang is alarmed by the concealed breathing technique, but continues to regard it as something Ding Ling learned 59 60 61.
• Qian Heng — A troupe member whom Chang interrogates over Shitou’s death. Chang kills him after discovering his attempt to become a ghost, arguing that someone who sacrifices a companion can no longer be trusted 31 32.
• Li Yichun — A performer under his authority. Chang assigns him the Umbrella Ghost role and later burns his possessed corpse 26 30.
• Former master and fellow apprentices — Members of the Lampstand Opera Troupe who died in earlier ghost calamities 30.
• Senior brother — A former performing partner to whom Chang remains deeply attached. His soul is trapped in Ghost Da Le’s Gate of Death, and Chang’s hidden objective is to revive him in Ding Ling’s body. Chang recalls that his senior brother would answer his singing in Farewell My Concubine; the failure to recover him destroys Chang’s remaining hope 60 61 62.
• Ghost Da Le / Daliao — A true ghost connected to Chang’s Gate of Rest method. Its aid costs him bodily sacrifices, and its Gate of Death holds his senior brother. Chang attempts to suppress it with the Opera Ghost before finally offering it his life to help Ding Ling 53 59 61 62.
• Opera Ghost — The true threat concealed behind Chang’s claims about Puppets. Paper figures discovered in its preparations lead Zhou Yang to infer that Chang was probably its original target 30 42.
  • Chang eventually admits its identity and tries to manipulate its operatic responses into suppressing Ghost Da Le. Its Ghost Rhyme instead spreads over his body and makes his flesh paperlike before his death 53 61 62.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Ding Ling’s Ghost-Viewing Ritual

Chang selects Ding Ling to comb her hair before a mirror at midnight. When she threatens suicide rather than accept the risk, Zhou Yang takes control of her body and demands Chang’s supernatural teachings as payment 5 6 7.

Chang challenges her to light a Ghost Candle with her gaze, promising both instruction and succession to the troupe. Zhou Yang succeeds through Ding Ling, exposing Chang’s resentment at having to honor the bargain. After the mirror ritual, Chang identifies Puppet Threads in her account but prevents her from telling the troupe how many figures she saw 7 8 13.

Selecting the Escape Performance

During Ghost Opera Selection, Chang struggles against an outside force steering the ritual toward Three Battles with the White Bone Demon. With Ding Ling’s assistance and the Bloated Aspect’s strength, he instead selects Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister. The clash crushes his, Qian Heng’s, and Li Yichun’s thumbs 25.

He assigns Ding Ling the powerful lead role of Zhong Kui and takes the vulnerable mortal role of Zhong Kui’s sister himself. He argues that their paired roles will sustain the performance, but Zhou Yang suspects an undisclosed purpose behind this apparent self-sacrifice 26.

Attack on the Troupe

The animated corpses of Gao Hongbo and Li Yichun attack before Chang’s planned performance. Facing what he believes may be two ghosts, Chang nearly loses his resolve. Ding Ling’s unexpected Opera Communion with Spirits restores his confidence, allowing him to destroy Gao Hongbo’s corpse while she overcomes Li Yichun’s 28 29 30.

Chang then confronts Qian Heng, who confesses to following a ritual from the Health Preservation Scripture after Shitou’s death. He stabs Qian Heng when the man begins reciting the scripture and subsequently burns his remains 31 33.

Initiation and Failed Control

With Ding Ling as his remaining partner, Chang continues preparing Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister. He helps her create an Averting God, secretly contaminates it, and dresses her in a heavy Zhong Kui costume intended partly to hinder escape 34 36 38 39.

Ding Ling nevertheless escapes through a window with Zhou Yang’s assistance. Chang tries to summon her back and threatens her through the curse, but eventually stops the strangulation attempt. Unaware that Zhou Yang has completely removed his contamination, he gathers his belongings and leaves the courtyard at dawn 39 40.

Recapture and Renewed Cooperation

Chang subsequently recaptures Ding Ling, paying a substantial price in the process. By the time they reach the riverbank, his left arm has become lifeless after being sacrificed to a ghost, while Ding Ling’s movements are restricted by his Averting God. He acknowledges that his planted Gate of Opening Malefic Force failed to control her and marvels at her Mindfulness 51.

At the river, Chang shows her the mirrored opposite bank and explains why ordinary flight cannot free them. He finally admits that the village’s threat is not a Puppet, then identifies it as the Opera Ghost and reveals that he called upon his Gate of Rest reserve to escape it 51 53.

Ding Ling agrees to perform with him, while she and Zhou Yang privately plan to stage Wujia Slope within Zhong Kui Marries Off His Sister. Chang releases the Bloated Aspect’s hold without leaving another detectable suppression measure, and they return to the ridge camp. Their apparent cooperation conceals separate plans for the performance 53 54.

The Marriage Procession and Betrayal

When the grand performance begins, Ding Ling plays Zhong Kui and Chang plays Zhong Mei. His convincing portrayal of a graceful young woman surprises Zhou Yang. Led by Da Le Averting’s lantern, they leave the courtyard and proceed through the dead villagers toward the river 56.

Ghost Da Le slips beneath Chang’s bridal veil and consumes part of his face. Chang allows it to approach and reaches toward the face on its yellow paper, addressing his senior brother. Despite his injuries, he continues the procession toward the bridge 59.

At the bridge, Chang abruptly declares that Ding Ling will forever guard the Rear Slaughter Gate and hold back the Gate of Death. Zhou Yang stops the Bloated Aspect with Supernatural Ripple, but Ghost Da Le attacks Ding Ling with yellow paper and spreads its Ghost Rhyme through her body 59.

Failed Resurrection and Final Sacrifice

Chang’s true plan is to revive his senior brother in Ding Ling’s body. He uses his singing to draw the Opera Ghost’s Ghost Rhyme into conflict with Ghost Da Le, hoping that their colliding Gates of Death will temporarily suppress Da Le. He then attempts to open his Gate of Life through face-changing and transfer his senior brother’s soul into it 61.

He rapidly changes between operatic masks as the Opera Ghost follows his songs. A third face resembling his senior brother appears on the sunshade paper, briefly convincing Chang that the soul is about to escape. He changes to a female-role face and sings Farewell My Concubine, remembering how his senior brother once answered his lines 62.

The apparent reunion fails. Only the two ghosts remain on the paper, and Ding Ling’s face beneath it has not changed. Already reduced to paperlike fragility by the Opera Ghost’s Ghost Rhyme, Chang tears his skin and clothing when he tries to move, then collapses at the bridgehead 62.

After lamenting their circumstances, Chang decides to do a good deed and dies, sacrificing his remaining life to Ghost Da Le. The ghost removes the sunshade paper from Ding Ling and holds off the Opera Ghost, allowing Zhou Yang to carry her across the bridge and out of Daliangzi Village 62.

Posthumous Remnant

A remnant image of Chang later appears in connection with the Knife Credit Ledger, filling in the opening paragraph of a new story while Zhou Yang forges scrap iron 67.

Notable Quotes

“Apply divine makeup to ward off evil, paint ghosts to walk in the yin—my art isn't an orthodox path.” 7

“The Upright Heart is the post, the cultivation method is the rope, and the ghost is the livestock.” 35

“How hateful that you were born a woman, while I had to be born a man...” 62

“Never mind, never mind. I'll do a good deed for once...” 62