Huo Zhu

Huo Zhu is a True Sacred Yin World general who exists through a woman's face in an oil lamp and controls subordinates by descending her will into them. Her attempt to study and devour the Bald Crane's original identity, Kong Mo, drives her experiments with green feathers and creates the enmity that eventually brings Su Ming to her hidden world.

Biography

Divine Essence and Ecang

From her lamp, Huo Zhu receives True Guard Dao Ren's reports and grants him a wisp of her power and status as her messenger. She acquires part of Kong Mo's body and forcibly fuses its blood and feathers into Wu Li Zi, promising freedom only if the experiment succeeds. The plan uses green feathers to lure the Bald Crane into a trap so Huo Zhu can devour its soul and uncover its body's secret. Her descended will monitors the operation through Dao Ren, but Su Ming destroys that will and kills the messenger. (Chapters 806–849)

At the time, the strong wills guarding the True World camp make direct pursuit suicidal, so Huo Zhu retains the remaining feathers and safety of the inner camp. This delay is strategic rather than forgiveness: Su Ming leaves knowing that killing her is necessary to retrieve what belongs to the Bald Crane. (Chapter 849)

The Fifth Furnace and Morning Dao

More than a millennium later, Su Ming returns with enough force to destroy the planets hiding Huo Zhu. Protected officials attempt to warn or shield her, but the Fifth Kiln and his allies remove the old balance of power. Huo Zhu responds with her greatest time art, reversing thousands and then thirty thousand years of Su Ming's existence at the cost of her life. When the reversal reaches the curse surrounding him before birth, that curse invades her soul instead. The book and flame break, revealing her rotting corpse inside the candlestick's dimension; Su Ming takes her storage bag and the black coffin it contains. (Chapters 1042–1048)

Appearance and personality

Huo Zhu first appears only as shifting faces in an oil lamp, settling on a woman's face with a cold voice and faint smile. Her hidden physical body is an old female corpse that rots rapidly once the lamp is extinguished. She is controlling, secretive, and willing to mutilate subordinates for research. Her superiority collapses into fear when Su Ming returns beyond her ability to command or intimidate.

Abilities and cultivation

Lamp-bound existence and descended will

Huo Zhu preserves her presence in a flame while her corpse occupies a dimension inside the candlestick. She can project a wisp of power into Dao Ren, speak remotely, and descend her will to monitor him. These fragments can be destroyed independently, and the lamp's extinction ends the body-preserving state. (Chapters 806–849, 1048)

Passing and reversal of time

Her art can rapidly wither a target as if millennia pass and, in its strongest form, reverse the target's body, cultivation, and Nascent Divinity toward an earlier state. Reversal is fueled by Huo Zhu's life and escalates from three thousand to thirty thousand years. It fails against Su Ming's Abyss Builder time affinity and becomes fatal when it touches the prenatal curse he deliberately lets her reach. (Chapter 1048)

Kong Mo experiments

Using an acquired body fragment, blood, and green feathers, Huo Zhu attempts to reconstruct the Bald Crane's secret and devour its soul. The demonstrated result is Wu Li Zi's forced transformation and captivity, not successful control of Kong Mo. Her possession of only part of the feathers also makes the plan dependent on luring the target into the camp. (Chapters 811–849)

Relationships

• Bald Crane: Target identified as Kong Mo; Huo Zhu covets its body and soul rather than forming any mutual bond.
• Su Ming: Destroys her projected will, returns for the feathers, and turns her strongest technique into the cause of her death.
• Dao Ren: True Guard messenger who carries her power and monitoring will until Su Ming kills him.

Items

• Oil lamp and ancient book: Sustain and operate Huo Zhu's time-bound state; both fail when the curse destroys her.
• Green feathers: Pieces associated with Kong Mo's body, used in her experiments and lure.
• Black coffin: Recovered from her storage bag after death; its contents are tied to the Bald Crane mystery.