A Fu

Biodata

History

Cao Qing’s Death

A Fu employed Zhou Yang and Cao Qing at his smithy, where Cao Qing worked the bellows. After Cao Qing disappeared, A Fu remarked that he had seen him wandering around Crooked Lane and suggested that he had been scouting an escape route. He then questioned Zhou Yang about whether he also wanted to flee Guan Village 1.

Cao Qing’s lingering image revealed that he had begged A Fu not to wall him up or take him to the Revelation Ceremony. His body bore a long wound, and his internal organs appeared to have been removed. Zhou Yang later explicitly identified A Fu as Cao Qing’s killer and collected soil from the wall where he had died for use in the Gate of Opening Ritual 1 46.

A Fu also warned Zhou Yang to save enough wages to buy at least thirty jin of grease for the approaching Revelation Ceremony. Although he claimed village rules prevented him from explaining it outright, he described the ceremony as opening children up to show everyone what they were like inside and out 1.

Zhou Yang later reasons that A Fu could kill Cao Qing without violating Guan Village’s rules because Cao Qing had openly expressed a desire to escape. He also recalls that A Fu had killed several people before Cao Qing, whose last words Zhou Yang had collected 91 131.

Teaching Zhou Yang

A Fu promised to teach Zhou Yang to swing a sledgehammer and raise his wages once he learned. The following morning, however, he assigned ordinary smelting chores without mentioning the promise. That afternoon, he acknowledged it and began the lesson 2 15 16.

Using Zhou Yang’s weakness and need to earn money for the ceremony as his justification, A Fu demonstrated Breathing of the Ghost. He forcibly opened Ghost Mouths on Zhou Yang’s arms, then offered to teach him how to close them. The lesson concealed an attempt to make Zhou Yang dependent on A Fu’s control over the technique 16.

Zhou Yang resisted the flayed figure produced by A Fu’s Ghost Qi and independently closed his Ghost Mouths through Right Mindfulness Lock. A Fu sensed something unusual but could not identify it. When Zhou Yang confronted him with a hammer, A Fu dismissed the threat, pointing out that he had supplied the very strength Zhou Yang was relying on 16.

Before dismissing him, A Fu demonstrated how burning paper money replenished the technique’s expenditure. He left Zhou Yang extra wages and threatened to kill both him and anyone to whom he taught Breathing of the Ghost 16.

Continued Work at the Smithy

On a later morning, Zhou Yang found A Fu standing motionless like an empty, dried skin. After a rustling sound came from his mouth, his limbs and torso inflated, restoring his middle-aged appearance. A Fu instructed Zhou Yang to begin work without waiting whenever he found him resting 46.

A Fu established the work routine as smelting in the morning and forging in the afternoon. He ignored Zhou Yang’s use of Breathing of the Ghost at the forge and confirmed that his increased wages would be permanent now that he was properly forging iron. Zhou Yang’s daily pay had risen from one liang to three liang of paper money 16 46 49.

A Fu did not react to Zhou Yang having secretly taught the method to Ding Ling. Zhou Yang took this as evidence that A Fu either could not monitor him at that distance or had lost his means of interference when Zhou Yang rejected his control 46.

A Fu’s frequent absences later attracted Zhou Yang’s attention. Unlike other villagers, who rigidly maintained the activities associated with their identities, A Fu could leave his smithy unattended or close it without provoking obvious scrutiny. Zhou Yang wondered whether this freedom came from having condensed an Upright Heart and tethered a ghost 66 71.

The smithy did not provide meals, but A Fu allowed Zhou Yang an hour at midday to rest and work on projects of his own 67.

Concealed Independence and the Flayed Figure

After returning from an absence, A Fu questioned Zhou Yang about his activities around the house and smithy. Zhou Yang recognized that the accusations did not match the work he had completed and concluded that A Fu was bluffing. A Fu also failed to identify anything unusual about Ding Ling’s paper clothes 69.

While forging, A Fu sent ghostly breaths toward Zhou Yang’s Ghost Mouths. Zhou Yang could have suppressed their response, but instead opened them in time with A Fu’s breathing to maintain the appearance of dependence. A Fu judged his Right Mindfulness Lock to be at the fifth layer, unaware that Zhou Yang was concealing his actual progress 69.

A Fu explained that completing the ninth layer could produce either a Phantom-Grown Limb or a Supernatural Ripple. He claimed not to know their uses, but said that later methods might allow a practitioner to wrap a ghost in their own skin. This reinforced Zhou Yang’s suspicions about A Fu’s nature and possible connection to the Upright Heart 69.

After Zhou Yang left, the stiff, smiling A Fu waving from the gate collapsed into a yellow skin and withdrew behind the doors. A bloody, flayed figure scratched clumps of black hair and flesh from its chest, then used a red-hot iron to halt the hair’s growth. The yellow skin subsequently slid into the shed, opened along its back, and was donned by the flayed figure like a garment. The resulting A Fu had loose, sagging skin and a numb expression, unlike his manner during the afternoon’s work 69.

The White Paper Banner

When Zhou Yang sought advice about guarding the fire tower, A Fu hinted that living people faced much greater danger than Guan Village’s human-skin ghosts. He warned that Zhou Yang’s family would not provide safe shelter that night and again suggested that he might try leaving the village. Zhou Yang refused 74 75.

A Fu withheld further help until the end of the workday, then gave Zhou Yang a white paper banner. He warned that surviving the night would not end the danger, since the first day afterward would be especially deadly, and instructed Zhou Yang to wear the banner and call A Fu’s name in his heart. Zhou Yang recognized the deliberate progression from intimidation to apparent rescue, but acted grateful 75.

After encountering the soul-drawing white light, Zhou Yang tested the banner alone. His Ghost Mouths began calling A Fu’s name, and his skin wrinkled and struggled to carry his body in a particular direction. Because his consciousness remained within his body, however, the attempt could not move him. His Ghost Mouths expelled a bloody, skinned figure, which vanished under the white light 83 84.

The incident transformed Zhou Yang’s Handprint Ripple into the Fat Mirror Lamp. Zhou Yang concluded that A Fu had intended to seize his body through the banner, recovering his investment in a student whom he expected to die during the fire-tower duty 84.

Testing Zhou Yang After the Night Watch

When Zhou Yang next arrived for work, A Fu blocked his entry and claimed that Sun San had told him about the night’s events. His repeated accusations of lying convinced Zhou Yang that he was again bluffing rather than drawing on reliable information 91.

Zhou Yang concealed his actions during the first three two-hour periods and instead claimed to have used the banner incorrectly. He showed A Fu the little coffin and ruined straw effigy associated with Huang Shaozi’s protection. A Fu understood that the pain caused by the suppression object had returned Zhou Yang’s soul to his body during the white light 91.

The evidence also suggested that the Zhou family valued Zhou Yang and would investigate his disappearance. Zhou Yang reasoned that, despite A Fu’s unusual freedom, he remained subject to Guan Village’s rules and could not simply kill him as he had Cao Qing. A Fu reluctantly allowed him to begin work 91.

Before Zhou Yang entered the shed, A Fu called his name and sent Supernatural Ripples toward him. Zhou Yang opened his Ghost Mouths and made them repeat his name, feigning an involuntary response. A Fu praised his improved breathing technique and was satisfied that he remained under control 91.

The Upright Heart and Continued Employment

Zhou Yang later saw A Fu’s withered yellow skin hanging from the great locust tree outside the smithy before it abruptly disappeared. He understood that such displays partly served to frighten and test him, but also suspected that A Fu might not fully control his own skin 130 131.

At work, A Fu questioned Zhou Yang about Zhou Heigou’s supposed “long journey” and claimed to undertake such journeys himself every few days. When Zhou Yang asked how he could do so despite the ghosts outside, A Fu attributed his safety to the Upright Heart 131.

A Fu explained that forging an Upright Heart required a special method, followed by another method using a ghost as a medicinal catalyst to produce medicine. He warned that forcibly using a ghost without the proper process left hidden dangers in the body, and that cultivation methods could carry an Evil Karma Puzzle through which a ghost associated with a method pursued later practitioners 131.

Zhou Yang noticed that A Fu exaggerated the protection an Upright Heart alone could provide. When asked whether he possessed both necessary methods, A Fu answered evasively. Zhou Yang suspected that A Fu lacked complete mastery of one or both methods and that his bodily abnormalities might be consequences of flawed cultivation; these suspicions remain unconfirmed 131.

After an afternoon forging sickles, A Fu gave Zhou Yang over six taels of paper money to buy ointment for the Revelation Ceremony. He asked whether Zhou Yang would continue working with him afterward. Zhou Yang promised to do so if he could choose for himself, while privately fearing that remaining at the smithy would endanger his life 131.

Appearance

• Usual form: A yellow-faced, middle-aged man with tangled hair and an oily sheen. Dirty yellow oil seeps from his hair and skin, staining his clothing and carrying a persistent smell like old lard 1 46.
• Unstable facial texture: His skin can appear deeply wrinkled, taut and cracked, or swollen and glossy like an inflated pig’s bladder 1 2.
• Resting state: His body can collapse into a withered sheet of hide, with hands hanging like empty gloves and hollows where flesh would normally fill out his frame 46.
• Breathing of the Ghost: Dense, ant-hole-like openings cover his exposed skin, and his body becomes gaunt enough to resemble a skeleton 16.
• Skin washing: Zhou Yang witnesses a bloody figure washing an entire human skin immediately before A Fu emerges from the hall. The soap-pod scent on A Fu reinforces Zhou Yang’s conclusion that he had been washing his own skin 15 17.
• Flayed figure: A bloody figure capable of putting on the yellow skin through a large opening in its back. Black hair grows from its chest amid blood and scraps of flesh, leaving dense roots after being burned back 69.
• Mannequin-like behavior: His smiling skin can move mechanically and stiffly, especially when waving from the gate. After the flayed figure dons it, his face can instead become loose, sagging, and numb 69 131.
• Hanging skin: His withered yellow skin, with its disheveled hair still attached, can hang from the great locust tree outside his courtyard and disappear between glances 130.

Personality

A Fu alternates between sinister intimidation and apparent friendliness. On the morning of Cao Qing’s disappearance, he probes Zhou Yang about escaping and watches him with cold eyes; later that day, he returns beaming and repeats his remarks about Cao Qing as though he has forgotten the earlier conversation. Zhou Yang compares these changes to several ghosts taking turns possessing one body, but this remains an interpretation rather than a confirmed explanation 1 2.

His treatment of Zhou Yang combines wages and instruction with coercion. He pays for time worked and follows through on a promised raise, yet uses the Revelation Ceremony to pressure Zhou Yang and turns a practical lesson into an attempt at control. Zhou Yang suspects that A Fu considers him worth cultivating only to preserve him for eventual slaughter 1 16 46.

Unlike most villagers Zhou Yang encounters, A Fu remembers him without requiring a fresh introduction each day 15.

A Fu repeatedly uses bluffing to conceal gaps in his knowledge. He accuses Zhou Yang of misconduct or dishonesty while watching for reactions that might reveal the truth. These tactics fail when Zhou Yang recognizes the inconsistencies and deliberately performs fear, weakness, or gratitude 69 75 91.

His apparent generosity also serves his interest in retaining Zhou Yang. The white paper banner follows a calculated effort to make Zhou Yang desperate for help, while his later explanations about cultivation and substantial payment precede a request that Zhou Yang remain at the forge after the Revelation Ceremony 75 131.

Abilities & Skills

Blacksmithing

A Fu operates a smithy producing primarily agricultural ironware 2 15.

• Smelts iron slag and melts down scrap ironware into ingots for further forging 1 2.
• Keeps sickles, kitchen knives, and similar finished tools locked in a storeroom 15.
• Can forge a new hound chain using a bell supplied by the Zhou household, according to Zhou Laogou. Such a chain would not restrain a Dog King puppy, which requires the family’s old chain 48 49.
• Produces hoes and sickles for sale around the village, sometimes leaving the smithy with a basket of finished ironware 75 92.
• Coordinates his small hammer with Zhou Yang’s sledgehammer during forging and can maintain a demanding pace for extended periods 69 131.

Heat Resistance and Strength

A Fu handles heated metal directly rather than relying entirely on tools 2 16.

• Grasps glowing iron barehanded without visible burns; only foul-smelling white smoke rises from his palm 2.
• Reaches into the charcoal furnace to retrieve a red-hot ingot 16.
• While using Breathing of the Ghost, kneads a cooling, dark-red ingot as easily as dough 16.

Breathing of the Ghost

The technique opens Ghost Mouths across the skin, exchanging bodily nourishment for Ghost Qi and greatly increased strength 16.

• A Fu’s Ghost Mouths breathe and wail in a coordinated rhythm 16.
• He can induce Ghost Mouths in another person through physical contact 16.
• Uncontrolled Ghost Mouths consume the user’s flesh and blood; A Fu warns that they can leave nothing behind 16.
• His Ghost Mouths absorb smoke from burning paper money, restoring his shriveled body 16.
• Whether A Fu could produce the Supernatural Ripples developed by Zhou Yang was initially unknown; he later demonstrates ripples of his own 50 91.
• He explains that completing the ninth layer of Right Mindfulness Lock can produce either a Phantom-Grown Limb or a Supernatural Ripple, with the latter’s form and emphasis varying according to the practitioner’s temperament 69.
• He claims that subsequent methods may allow practitioners to wrap a ghost in their own skin, but does not disclose those methods to Zhou Yang 69.

Ghost Mouth Control

A Fu uses a bloody, flayed figure formed from his Ghost Qi to impose a breathing rhythm on another practitioner 16.

• The figure seizes the Ghost Qi released by Zhou Yang and grows skin resembling his 16.
• Following its rhythm would allow Zhou Yang to close his Ghost Mouths, but would also place him under A Fu’s control 16.
• Zhou Yang later explains that this form of control could let the teacher forcibly open a student’s Ghost Mouths and drive them beyond the body’s limits 40.
• The attempt fails when Zhou Yang forms his own shadow and closes the mouths independently 16.
• A Fu later directs breaths from his Ghost Mouths toward Zhou Yang, apparently expecting them to activate the student’s mouths. Zhou Yang deliberately follows the rhythm to hide that their connection was severed when he first learned the technique 69.
• His later ripple-based test likewise fails to reveal Zhou Yang’s independence because Zhou Yang voluntarily supplies the expected response 91.

Supernatural Ripples

A Fu can project a colorless, odorless fluctuation associated with the impression of thick blood plasma and a heavy smell of blood. He uses it while calling Zhou Yang’s name to test whether the student’s Ghost Mouths remain responsive to him 91.

The demonstration confirms that A Fu possesses Supernatural Ripples, but does not establish their full capabilities or show that he can overcome Zhou Yang’s independent control 91.

Removable Skin

A Fu’s yellow skin can move separately from the flayed figure, collapse into an empty hide, slide along the ground, and resume a human shape. The flayed figure can put it on through an opening down its back 69.

The precise relationship between the skin, the flayed figure, and A Fu’s identity remains unresolved. Zhou Yang suspects both that the skin may contain a tethered ghost and that A Fu’s command over it may be incomplete 69 131.

Upright Heart and Ghost Medicine

A Fu possesses knowledge of the Upright Heart, ghost-based medicine, and the dangers of cultivation methods carrying an Evil Karma Puzzle. He claims that the Upright Heart enables his frequent journeys despite the ghosts outside Guan Village 131.

His actual attainment and mastery of the necessary methods remain uncertain. Zhou Yang identifies his claim of complete protection as exaggerated and suspects that his physical problems may result from incomplete or unsafe cultivation 131.

Power Progression

Equipment & Items

• Smithing tools — Furnace, bellows, anvil, iron shovels, tongs, and hammers used in the workshop 1 2 16.
• Paper copper coins — Round paper coins with square holes, used both to pay Zhou Yang and to replenish A Fu through their smoke when burned 16.
• Iron basin — Holds the burning paper money used during replenishment 16.
• Removable yellow skin — A human-shaped skin worn by the flayed figure, capable of independent movement and collapse. It is also seen hanging from the locust tree outside his courtyard 69 130.
• White paper funeral banner — Given to Zhou Yang as supposed protection during the fire-tower duty. Invoking A Fu’s name while wearing it causes the Ghost Mouths to call his name and the skin to attempt to move the body; Zhou Yang believes it was intended to enable bodily seizure 75 84.
• Red-hot iron — Used by the flayed figure to burn back the black hair growing from its chest 69.
• Money chest — A chest in the smithy from which A Fu takes over six taels of paper money for Zhou Yang shortly before the Revelation Ceremony 131.

Relationships

• Zhou Yang — Employee and smithing student. A Fu teaches him Breathing of the Ghost while attempting to establish control over him; Zhou Yang continues working for him without trusting him 16 46 49. Zhou Yang later conceals both his advancement and his independence, survives the banner’s apparent possession mechanism, and deceives A Fu into believing his control remains intact. A Fu offers further cultivation knowledge and money while seeking to retain him after the Revelation Ceremony 69 84 91 131.
• Cao Qing — Former bellows worker whom A Fu killed and sealed inside a wall after he sought a way out of Guan Village 1 46. A Fu later invokes Cao Qing’s fate to intimidate Zhou Yang during questioning 91.
• Zhou Laogou — A fellow villager who directs that Zhou Yang bring the household’s remaining bell to A Fu for a new hound chain if he survives the Revelation Ceremony 48.
• Huang Shaozi — Her suppression objects help Zhou Yang survive the white light, frustrating A Fu’s apparent plan. A Fu interprets the little coffin as evidence that she dotes on Zhou Yang, while Zhou Yang uses it to suggest that the Zhou family would investigate any harm done to him 91.
• Sun San — A Fu claims to have learned about Zhou Yang’s night watch from him. Zhou Yang concludes that this claim is a bluff, so their actual acquaintance or exchange of information is not established 91.

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