Big Fatty Zhang

Big Fatty Zhang, whose personal name is Zhang Dahai, is the eldest of Bai Xiaochun’s Ovens brothers, a spirit enhancer whose cultivation follows the unusual path of Will, and one of Bai Xiaochun’s oldest and most enduring friends.

Biography

Ovens Brotherhood and an Enhancement Calling

Big Fatty Zhang begins as the enormous, good-humored leader of the Spirit Stream Sect’s Ovens servants. He welcomes the newly arrived Bai Xiaochun as Ninth Junior Brother, teaches him how the sect and servant trials work, and folds him into the Ovens’ collective efforts to divert precious ingredients into their own meals. Their profiteering scheme at the trial paths is driven by the Supervisors Department’s extortion, but when Chen Fei tries to stop them, Big Fatty Zhang chooses to fight rather than keep surrendering their earnings. The chaos unexpectedly carries him into the Outer Sect, turning a profit-minded servant into a formal disciple of Violet Cauldron Peak. (Chapters 2–14)

Outer Sect life separates Big Fatty Zhang from the Ovens without ending the brotherhood formed there. Training under Xu Meixiang costs him much of his former weight, while Bai Xiaochun’s visits restore both his appetite and their old habit of stealing delicacies, now in the form of spirit tail chickens. More seriously, when Bai Xiaochun is reported dead after the Luochen Clan mission, Big Fatty Zhang mourns at his grave and remembers their shared meals and schemes; when Bai Xiaochun returns, his tears and immediate embrace establish that the relationship has become familial rather than merely convenient. (Chapters 19–25, 35, 64, and 66)

His first sense of an individual calling comes when Xu Meixiang identifies a talent for spirit enhancement. Big Fatty Zhang has struggled because his ordinary cultivation aptitude no longer lets him keep pace with his companions, so the discovery promises usefulness, recognition, and a way to help Bai Xiaochun without charging him. His first demonstrations are unstable: one flying sword fails, another appears to succeed only because Bai Xiaochun secretly uses the turtle-wok, and Big Fatty Zhang’s attempted second enhancement destroys that sword before Bai Xiaochun substitutes an identical, successfully enhanced weapon. Big Fatty Zhang leaves believing in his own breakthrough, while the concealed substitution makes his confidence—and therefore his later path—partly the consequence of Bai Xiaochun’s protective deception. (Chapters 80–82)

That confidence quickly changes Big Fatty Zhang’s status. Bai Xiaochun repeatedly and secretly ensures successful results, then uses many enhanced swords in the south-bank Chosen battles and publicly credits his eldest brother. The display makes Big Fatty Zhang famous, elevates him to a Violet Cauldron Peak Chosen, and attracts disciples seeking his services. Xu Meixiang recognizes that the two men’s unusual compatibility may produce exceptional results, but restricts Big Fatty Zhang from taking general commissions until he can achieve a fivefold enhancement for Bai Xiaochun. His new reputation thus brings both the validation he wanted and a higher standard he has not yet independently demonstrated. (Chapters 82 and 97–98)

War and the River-Defying Sect

During the conflict between the Spirit and Blood Stream Sects, Big Fatty Zhang’s loyalty initially takes the form of hostility toward the feared “Nightcrypt,” whom he does not know is Bai Xiaochun. When war becomes unavoidable, he advances to the Inner Sect, deploys with the third wave, and joins the Luochen Mountain formations despite Bai Xiaochun’s fear that his friends will die. Bai Xiaochun’s revelation and intervention stop the sects from destroying each other; Big Fatty Zhang survives exhausted rather than triumphant, and the former enemies become the River-Defying Sect. The change preserves his old friendships while placing his enhancement work inside a larger, unified institution. (Chapters 207, 213–217, 267–283, and 310)

In the River-Defying Sect, richer spiritual energy carries Big Fatty Zhang to mid Foundation Establishment, while his work with Xu Meixiang and other spirit enhancers becomes useful enough that he refuses even Bai Xiaochun’s distractions when assignments are waiting. Bai Xiaochun’s selection as a hostage-disciple for the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect then presents a choice between safety and opportunity. After hearing the risks, Big Fatty Zhang immediately asks to go as a Dao Protector, motivated by both loyalty and the chance for greater good fortune. He leaves having independently completed a threefold enhancement, evidence that the confidence first built through deception has begun to support genuine professional growth. (Chapters 314–378)

Sky City and the Will Core

The Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect strips away the security Big Fatty Zhang had known. Unable to afford Sky City’s food, he leaves Bai Xiaochun’s residence intending to earn enough through spirit enhancement to support them both. Instead, repeated failures lead a cultivator clan to imprison him for half a year, force him to keep enhancing items, and deny him adequate food. Bai Xiaochun eventually uses the Azure Dragon Society to find him, and the terrified clan chief releases and appeases him. Their reunion restores Big Fatty Zhang to family, but the ordeal shows that enhancement prestige cannot protect him when his technique fails and he lacks institutional power. (Chapters 379–392)

Once rescued, Big Fatty Zhang becomes the Azure Dragon Society’s second-ranking figure because Bai Xiaochun trusts him more deeply than the organization’s other officers. Bai Xiaochun delegates daily authority to him, while Big Fatty Zhang responds to the Celestial Sky Society’s attacks with a willingness to confront them directly. When Bai Xiaochun is promoted out of Sky City, Big Fatty Zhang spends the required merit points to follow him to Sky Quarter Rainbow and chooses the Hall of Spirit Enhancement as his new institutional home. His experience has made him sharper and more self-directed, yet his decisions remain grounded in a relationship that began before either man possessed status. (Chapters 393–409)

Big Fatty Zhang’s attempt to form a Will Core nearly kills him. He enters seclusion because he senses a breakthrough, but repeated failures leave him skeletal, unconscious, and unable to accept outside life force as mist repeatedly gathers and collapses in his dantian. The same confidence that powers his enhancement path has become an absolute determination that will kill him if the core does not form. Bai Xiaochun forces his way through the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Superstars trials to obtain deva power, and Feng Youde uses it to stabilize the process. Big Fatty Zhang survives, completes the rare core, and is accepted as Feng Youde’s apprentice, converting a potentially fatal personal gamble into a new cultivation foundation. (Chapters 431–443 and 524)

Years later, the Will Core makes Big Fatty Zhang a major chosen rather than merely a protected friend. After Bai Xiaochun disappears, he and Xu Baocai keep the inn running; when Li Yuansheng attacks, Big Fatty Zhang saves Xu Baocai from a potentially fatal injury. He then cultivates to late Core Formation, defeats Li Yuansheng, and reaches the top twenty of the sect’s superstar rankings so that he can return to help the River-Defying Sect. Li Yuansheng answers by using clan influence to imprison both men, but Big Fatty Zhang’s official rank prevents his execution. Bai Xiaochun’s return finally frees them, revealing that Big Fatty Zhang had developed enough agency and strength to protect others even while still vulnerable to higher political power. (Chapters 899–906)

A Premonition Beyond Heavenspan

Big Fatty Zhang next chooses the Celestial’s trial by fire despite being below its Nascent Soul requirement. He wants to travel farther than the sect territories he knows, and a rare Will Core premonition has convinced him that the journey will change his life. Bai Xiaochun secures him passage and supplies five deva beast souls, medicine, and protection for an Earth-Dao Nascent Soul breakthrough. Big Fatty Zhang accepts the risk even after it is explained, and the core-to-nascent-soul transformation succeeds after Bai Xiaochun disperses the tribulation clouds. His resulting battle prowess is described as exceptional, although the source does not isolate how much comes from the Will path rather than the breakthrough resources. (Chapters 915–918)

Inside the trial, Big Fatty Zhang’s new rank does not make him safe. Pursued through a lethal swamp by Master Lightning Origin and other northern cultivators, he uses residual Will Core power to resist lesser dangers and receives a warning intuition when powerful entities approach, but after three days he is exhausted and nearly out of energy. He chooses to rise and take enemies with him rather than die passively, only for Bai Xiaochun’s arrival to turn the confrontation into a rescue. After recovering, Big Fatty Zhang joins Bai Xiaochun, Song Que, and Sun Wu; his humor and curiosity help the group cohere, while their survival still depends heavily on Bai Xiaochun’s deva protection. (Chapters 924–940)

The trial’s apparent goal collapses when the bone galleon enters a vortex leading beyond their world. Big Fatty Zhang helps support injured companions in the Deadmire, then finds himself trapped aboard the vessel as Ghostmother steers toward the opening. Looking into it, he recognizes the strange world from his dream and understands that the premonition had not promised ordinary fortune but departure from Heavenspan itself. Bai Xiaochun cannot pull him free before the ship vanishes. The involuntary separation fulfills Big Fatty Zhang’s desire to see the farthest reaches of existence, but does so through loss, danger, and years away from the friend with whom he hoped to share that journey. (Chapters 943–953)

Grandmaster Zhang in the Eternal Immortal Domains

Big Fatty Zhang arrives early in the Eternal Immortal Domains with only Nascent Soul cultivation and no established allies. Spirit enhancement is unfamiliar there, so revealing his craft attracts the Vile-Emperor’s interest and earns him the title Grandmaster Zhang, a residence beside the enormous trident that supports Vile-Emperor City, and a mission to enhance that structure. The standing protects him and lets him quietly aid displaced Heavenspan cultivators, but it does not make him free: he cannot leave through the locked teleportation network, and he deliberately understates his ability so that a failed enhancement will not cost him his life. His professional success is therefore both an achievement and a form of controlled service. (Chapters 1050–1051, 1103, and 1167–1168)

When Bai Xiaochun reaches Vile-Emperor City, Big Fatty Zhang brings him two forms of intelligence gathered under that constraint. He has located Li Qinghou, Patriarch Spirit Stream, and other refugees without visiting them and exposing their hiding place. More dangerously, each successful enhancement of the city’s trident gives him a vision; after three enhancements, those visions indicate that the original Vile-Emperor is dead and that the ruler on the throne is someone else. Big Fatty Zhang has hidden both his knowledge and the visions from the dynasty, then entrusts them to Bai Xiaochun because their long relationship outweighs the risk of disclosure. (Chapters 1167–1169)

That loyalty becomes active resistance when the Vile-Prince moves against the River-Defying survivors. Big Fatty Zhang has secretly helped their coalition, and when its members are captured for a blood-extraction formation, he sends Bai Xiaochun repeated warnings filled with anger and urgency. The rescue and subsequent conflict place him in danger of being treated as a traitor, so Ghostmother, still using Gongsun Wan’er’s appearance and name, takes him with her when she leaves. He later appears safely in Arch-Emperor City, where he responds to the destruction of his old institutions by entering seclusion because he judges his own cultivation insufficient. (Chapters 1178, 1185–1186, 1195, 1214, and 1218)

In the final peace, Big Fatty Zhang remains part of Bai Xiaochun’s household circle and helps preserve the memory of the Ovens by retelling their early misadventures to friends who never witnessed them. The supplied epilogue then establishes two further outcomes without describing their process: he eventually becomes a celestial and finds a Daoist partner. His latest state is therefore alive, settled, and powerful, but the corpus does not identify his partner, explain his Celestial breakthrough, or demonstrate whether his maximum spirit-enhancement level advanced alongside his cultivation. (Chapters 1270–1271, 1281–1282, and 1313)

Appearance and personality

Big Fatty Zhang is introduced as an enormous “mountain of flesh,” with enough weight that slapping his chest sends ripples through his body. Xu Meixiang’s training makes him dramatically thinner, and prolonged hunger during his imprisonment leaves him gaunt and shriveled. He later regains substantial weight before the Celestial’s trial, but by the time he reunites with Bai Xiaochun in Vile-Emperor City, years of hardship have made him tall and lanky. His facial features remain recognizable throughout these changes; the corpus gives no stable account of his clothing, eye color, or other fine details. (Chapters 2, 80, 391–392, 904, and 1167)

Warm, emotional, and proudly theatrical, Big Fatty Zhang readily laughs, boasts about his successes, and frames his bond with Bai Xiaochun through the Ovens’ language of senior and junior brothers. His appetite and fear of hunger recur as comic traits, but starvation and captivity give that fear a serious basis. He is also loyal enough to fight for the sect, protect Xu Baocai, conceal refugees, and risk retaliation from the Vile-Emperor Dynasty. Confidence is both a personality trait and part of his cultivation mechanics: it can drive genuine achievement, yet early failure plunges him into despondency and the Will Core path nearly kills him. (Chapters 2–14, 64–66, 80–82, 274, 381, 391–392, 905, and 1167–1186)

Abilities and cultivation

Big Fatty Zhang’s capabilities center on spirit enhancement and the cultivation of Will. His ordinary aptitude begins as limited, but a confidence-dependent enhancement practice leads to an unusual Will Core, an Earth-Dao Nascent Soul, and eventually the Celestial Realm. His final cultivation rank is explicit; the techniques and enhancement ceiling associated with that rank are not.

Cultivation progression

Family connections help Big Fatty Zhang enter the Spirit Stream Sect despite what the narrative describes as average latent talent. Precious Ovens ingredients carry him to the great circle of the third level of Qi Condensation, but after joining the Outer Sect he lacks the same resources and struggles to keep pace. He later reaches the tenth level of Qi Condensation, becomes an Inner Sect disciple, and advances to mid Foundation Establishment after the sect moves into the Middle Reaches. These stages improve his basic cultivation, but the corpus does not name a personal combat scripture or show a distinctive early fighting style. (Chapters 5, 13–14, 81, 214, 274, and 354)

His cultivation becomes distinctive at Core Formation. The Will Core grants battle prowess approximately equivalent to an Earth-Dao Violet Core, but forming it is unusually difficult and failure is fatal; his own attempt requires outside deva power and months of stabilization. By late Core Formation he can defeat Li Yuansheng and enter the top twenty Starry Sky Dao Polarity Superstars. Bai Xiaochun later provides a five-element set of deva beast souls for an Earth-Dao Nascent Soul. The core must crumble and transform, and its Will-derived advantages are normally expected to become only average after that conversion, although Big Fatty Zhang continues to display exceptional Willpower. (Chapters 431–443, 524, 905, and 915–918)

As a Nascent Soul cultivator, residual Will Core power helps him endure creatures and conditions in the Deadmire swamp that would otherwise overwhelm him, but it does not prevent exhaustion, venom, capture, or defeat by stronger pursuers. In the Eternal Immortal Domains, Bai Xiaochun assesses his Willpower as surpassing most demigods and approaching a celestial’s even while his cultivation remains Nascent Soul. The epilogue says he later becomes a celestial, but supplies no breakthrough method, timing, tribulation, combat demonstration, or evidence that he reached a higher realm. (Chapters 924, 931–935, 1051, 1168, 1214, and 1313)

Spirit enhancement

Big Fatty Zhang learns the Spirit Stream Sect’s orthodox enhancement method from Xu Meixiang. He draws the energy of heaven and earth through pieces of ore, which filter and soften it before the melted material and energy gather through his hand; the concluding Spirit Actuation drives silver light into the target. A successful test condenses that light into silver designs marking the enhancement count. The process costs ore and spiritual energy, becomes harder at higher levels, and can destroy the target on failure. Under the orthodox taboo, an enhancer does not test another owner’s item or watch the result, protecting the enhancer’s mental state from failure. (Chapters 80–81)

His early practice instead becomes entangled with the Will-Spirit Grand Magic, an extreme approach in which observed success strengthens confidence and Will, which in turn can improve later success. Failure can reverse that cycle and even ruin the practitioner’s talent. Bai Xiaochun secretly substitutes turtle-wok successes for failures until Big Fatty Zhang accepts himself as a genius; this creates an artificial beginning, but later evidence shows real progress, including an independently displayed threefold sword and professional work for the River-Defying Sect. The exact point at which his results cease depending on Bai Xiaochun’s substitutions is not stated. (Chapters 81–82, 97–98, 344, and 376)

The completed Will Core further improves his enhancements, allowing him to rise as a sect chosen and later establish himself in the Vile-Emperor Dynasty. In the Eternal Immortal Domains, he adopts substitute materials comparable to the combustible soulstones used for multi-colored flame, making lower enhancements easier; the scarcity of sufficiently high flame makes levels beyond sevenfold or eightfold extremely difficult in general. Big Fatty Zhang is reported by another grandmaster to be capable of fourfold enhancement and tells the Vile-Emperor he can safely complete fivefold work over a full sixty-year-cycle, but the corpus directly shows only three silver designs on the city trident. His latest personal maximum is therefore unknown. (Chapters 524, 905, 1050–1051, 1103, 1128, and 1168)

Will, premonitions, and enhancement visions

Will manifests in Big Fatty Zhang as a strand of unusual energy in his spiritual power, as the determination that forms his Will Core, and later as mental force approaching Celestial scale. It strengthens his enhancement path and can provide limited danger intuition: in the Deadmire, he senses the approach of a powerful being before ordinary perception identifies it. It is not omniscience or an automatic defense; his warnings are imprecise, his pursuers still exhaust him, and the exact origin of his unusual affinity for Will is never explained. (Chapters 431–443, 917, 931–933, and 1168)

After forming the Will Core, he also experiences rare premonitory dreams that he says have proved accurate. The dream preceding the Celestial’s trial shows a strange world and leads him to believe the journey will change his life; it is fulfilled when Ghostmother’s ship carries him through a vortex to the Eternal Immortal Domains. His enhancements of Vile-Emperor City’s trident later produce private visions that reveal the original Vile-Emperor’s apparent death, and Bai Xiaochun receives the same vision by touching the enhanced weapon. The corpus associates these experiences with Big Fatty Zhang’s Will and enhancement ability but does not give an activation method, guarantee, range, or explanation of why particular targets reveal future or hidden truths. (Chapters 916–917, 952–953, and 1168–1169)

Power progression

Relationships

• Bai Xiaochun: Big Fatty Zhang’s Ninth Junior Brother, oldest cultivation-world friend, and chosen family. Their bond begins in the Ovens and develops through mutual protection: Big Fatty Zhang welcomes and repeatedly stands by him, while Bai Xiaochun rescues him from captivity, saves his Will Core breakthrough, and provides the resources for his Nascent Soul.
• Xu Meixiang: Big Fatty Zhang’s master on Violet Cauldron Peak. Her severe training changes his physique, but she also discovers and directs his spirit-enhancement talent, imposes professional limits, and recognizes his unusual compatibility with Bai Xiaochun.
• Xu Baocai: A fellow Dao Protector and long-term companion. The two manage Bai Xiaochun’s inn, endure political imprisonment together, and continue as members of the same circle; Big Fatty Zhang’s rescue of Xu Baocai from Li Yuansheng turns their association into a demonstrated protective loyalty.
• Feng Youde: The Hall of Devil Slayers master who stabilizes Big Fatty Zhang’s failing Will Core and later accepts him as an apprentice. His guidance permits the dangerous formation process to finish after Bai Xiaochun secures the required deva power.
• Li Yuansheng: Big Fatty Zhang’s Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect rival. Big Fatty Zhang defeats him for a top-twenty ranking, after which Li Yuansheng uses clan authority to frame and imprison him rather than accept the result.
• Ghostmother: Ghostmother, the banesoul who later uses the name Gongsun Wan’er, carries Big Fatty Zhang from Heavenspan into the Eternal Immortal Domains. She later provides Bai Xiaochun with information about his survival and removes Big Fatty Zhang from danger when his assistance to Heavenspan refugees puts him at odds with the Vile-Emperor Dynasty.
• Li Qinghou: A senior from the Spirit Stream Sect whom Big Fatty Zhang locates after the Heavenspan Realm’s destruction. He protects Li Qinghou’s refugee group indirectly by keeping its location secret and helping the survivors without visiting them openly.

Items

• Big Fatty Zhang’s Spirit-Enhanced Flying Sword: The narratively significant proof object from his first enhancement experiments. An attempted second enhancement destroys the sword he worked on; Bai Xiaochun then secretly substitutes an identical sword from his own inventory and gives it a twofold enhancement, preserving Big Fatty Zhang’s confidence. The surviving substitute is not evidence that Big Fatty Zhang successfully performed that enhancement, and the corpus does not state who retains it after he leaves Bai Xiaochun’s courtyard. (Chapters 80–81)