Xu Hui

Xu Hui is one of Phoenix Sect's two Sacred Ladies and a major companion of Su Ming during his passage through Divine Essence Star Ocean and the Fifth Furnace. Introduced as Dao Kong's unwilling fiancée, she first tries to use the Sacred Constellation Robe to escape a marriage arranged for sectarian advantage. After Su Ming Possesses Dao Kong, her hostility turns into suspicion, then companionship and trust. Her refusal to kill him when Phoenix Sect rebels gives that change a decisive cost: she chooses a person she has come to know over the role both Phoenix Sect and Morning Dao Sect imposed on her. (Chapters 895, 902–941)

Xu Hui's later story is defined by survival and separation. She crosses the Fifth Furnace with Su Ming's group, survives the destruction of Morning Dao Sect by dividing her soul, and eventually awakens from the second consciousness created by that art. She reaches the other side of Su Ming's River of Forgetfulness before being erased with his world. Although Ancient Zang contains another woman with her name and appearance, Su Ming recognizes that counterpart as a different person. He ultimately gathers Xu Hui's marks from cycles of existence, gives her Brand his life force, and restores her within his own world. (Chapters 964–1002, 1145, 1217–1218, 1355–1373, 1432–1434, 1478–1481)

Biography

A Sacred Lady bound to Dao Kong

Xu Hui was born to an ordinary family and taken into Phoenix Sect while young. Her parents faded from her memory, while the sect shaped both her cultivation and her future. As one of its Sacred Ladies, she was assigned to Dao Kong, a direct descendant of Morning Dao Sect. The arrangement bound her life to his through a seal and treated her as the bearer of Phoenix Sect's ancient inheritance and as a partner who could aid Dao Kong's breakthrough through dual cultivation. Dao Kong calls her his wife before he has even seen the face she habitually conceals; Xu Hui, by contrast, regards him with disgust and sees the engagement as a fate decided for her. (Chapters 895, 902–903, 926)

At the Black Ink Auction, Xu Hui bids two hundred million crystals for the Sacred Constellation Robe and proposes presenting it to Morning Dao Sect in exchange for ending the engagement. She knows one robe may not overturn the traditions joining the two sects, but the bid forces Dao Kong to pay more and allows her to vent some of her frustration. The episode establishes both the limits on her freedom and her refusal to submit quietly: she cannot simply annul the arrangement, yet she uses the sects' own valuable symbol as leverage against it. (Chapters 902–903)

When Dao Kong vanishes during the auction, the bond between their lives lets Xu Hui identify the room to which he has been moved. She leads Morning Dao's party against Black Ink Planet's defenders, threatens a larger conflict, and uses the Eighteen Strikes from the Lake of Phoenix to break through the door. Her intervention is not affection for Dao Kong. His disappearance threatens the political charge entrusted to her and draws on a bond she cannot ignore, so she acts with the authority and violence expected of a Sacred Lady even while hating the man she is recovering. (Chapters 903–904)

The Dao Kong she finds is actually Su Ming, who has Possessed Dao Kong without disturbing the presence recognized by their soul bond. Xu Hui immediately senses that details of his behavior are wrong. She hides in his chamber, questions his account, and watches him closely, but Su Ming imitates Dao Kong's arrogance and lechery well enough to weaken her suspicions. The seal proves powerful but fallible: it can locate and identify Dao Kong's continuing body and soul presence, yet it cannot distinguish the original man from a Possessor who has inherited that presence. (Chapters 905–907)

Rescue, recognition, and a chosen journey

Xu Hui is later defeated and captured in Divine Essence Star Ocean. Her cultivation is scattered and sealed, and she accepts death as release from a life whose direction Phoenix Sect fixed when it took her from her family. Su Ming returns for his “wife in name,” rescues her, and gives her time to recover among the Ninth Tribe. The act overturns her understanding of the man wearing Dao Kong's face: where Dao Kong represented possession and obligation, Su Ming risks himself to save her without demanding the marriage that the seal supposedly grants him. (Chapters 924–937)

While recuperating in sackcloth, Xu Hui hears Su Ming speak openly and realizes who he is. She tells him that whether he is called Su Ming or Dao Kong matters less than the promise that they drink together, and her uninhibited, competitive drunkenness breaks through his isolation after memories of Bai Ling reopen an old wound. She asks to see his true face; once he shows it, she identifies him as the wanted Mo Su whose deeds had shaken the Barren Lands of Divine Essence. Recognition does not send her away. It replaces the false relationship to Dao Kong with an honest knowledge of the person beside her. (Chapters 939–940)

The political break between the sects then tests that choice. Phoenix Sect transmits an order through a barrier designed to bypass Xu Hui's soul link: she is to kill Dao Kong, after which the sect will break her engagement seal. Xu Hui tells Su Ming the order instead of concealing it. After considering her position, she chooses to accompany him when he leaves. This decision is neither passive loyalty nor simple defection. It gives up the immediate route to freedom offered by her sect because that freedom requires murdering the man who saved her, and it begins a period in which companionship rather than institutional duty determines her path. (Chapter 941)

During their years traveling toward the inner reaches of Divine Essence Star Ocean, Xu Hui and Su Ming share watches, dangers, jokes, and wine. She can question his plans and warn him about the strength of the races he means to confront, but when he has accounted for the danger she accepts his judgment. They alternate carrying one another across the galaxy, escape hostile beasts together, and tame a gigantic crocodile-like Void Beast. When Su Ming leaves to execute a dangerous plan, Xu Hui prepares the required Relocation Rune; despite his instruction to depart after a month, she privately resolves to search for him if he does not return. Familiarity grows through repeated reliance rather than a formal declaration. (Chapters 943–960)

The Fifth Furnace expedition

Xu Hui joins Xuan Shang, his companions, the Bald Crane, and Su Ming inside the body formed by the Xuan Family's supreme treasure. Within it, their strength and divine senses can be combined under the main soul's direction. Xu Hui supplies cultivation, perception, and healing to the collective form; she also recognizes figures and techniques that the others do not, including Progenitor Long Hai and the binding weight of his oath. Her Phoenix Sect presence and cultivation remain identifiable even while she is hidden in the construct. (Chapters 965–989)

Travel through the Furnace's dimensions extracts one thousand years of life each time, divided among those fused into the body. When the others become discouraged, Xu Hui points out that sharing the cost is precisely what lets them travel farther and warns that separating would force each person to bear the full loss. Her response is practical and communal: the danger cannot be removed, but discipline and unity can prevent it from becoming fatal. Throughout the expedition she supports Su Ming's choices, helps spread the group's combined senses, and heals the construct after combat. (Chapters 972–984)

The group is repeatedly separated as it moves through hostile dimensions, but Xu Hui's presence remains one of the connections by which Su Ming can detect the supreme-treasure body once they enter the same world. When he catches up and finds it fighting Zhu You Cai, she is unsurprised; unlike Xuan Shang's group, she has confidence that he will find them. That confidence reflects the settled trust created during their earlier journey, even though the Furnace exposes her to weapons and pressures capable of overwhelming her consciousness. (Chapters 998–1002)

Morning Dao's ruin and the divided soul

After the expedition, the destruction of Morning Dao Sect leaves Xu Hui gravely injured amid its ruins. Her hair has turned white, a purple scorpion-shaped light surrounds her, and a scorpion mark shines on her brow. When De Shun approaches, her original consciousness wakes only long enough to suppress him and plant Scorpion Shadow Gu Poison, ordering him to take her to Su Ming. The contingency demonstrates how clearly Su Ming has become her intended refuge: even while collapsing, she builds her survival around reaching him. (Chapters 1145–1157)

The art that saves her is imperfect. Xu Hui's body shrinks to that of a six- or seven-year-old girl, her original soul falls asleep, and a second consciousness takes control. This childlike consciousness does not understand her surroundings or remember Su Ming, but the gu in De Shun makes its spoken wishes into commands his body must obey. He becomes her fearful caretaker and, over years together, falls in love with this new consciousness. Instead of taking her to Su Ming as ordered, he keeps her from contacts that might wake the original Xu Hui, hoping the new self will eventually suppress her. (Chapters 1145, 1207–1218)

When Su Ming finally meets them near the forces of South Union, he diagnoses the divided soul and begins awakening Xu Hui's original consciousness. De Shun tries to stop him because restoration means the disappearance of the person he loves. Xu Hui wakes with her memories and recognizes Su Ming despite his changed appearance, then pursues De Shun after he flees. Su Ming asks her not to kill him, acknowledging that De Shun also kept her alive, but leaves the resolution to her. The reunion restores Xu Hui while making clear that her survival art carried a personal cost not only to herself, but to a consciousness and relationship produced by its flaw. (Chapters 1211–1218)

The River of Forgetfulness and erasure

Xu Hui later becomes one of the people carried across the River of Forgetfulness in Su Ming's long vigil. Along with his senior brothers, Yu Xuan, and Fang Cang Lan, she reaches the other shore while he ferries the dead through repeating cycles. Her place in this group marks her as part of the home and human connection he tries to preserve as the aeon approaches destruction. (Chapter 1355)

That preservation fails against Xuan Zang. His descending finger replaces the faces in Su Ming's world and shatters the River; Xu Hui purses her lips and closes her eyes in anguish before she disappears. Her erasure becomes part of the loss that drives Su Ming's later madness. The woman who once chose to accompany him is now one of the people whose absence defines the loneliness of the path he continues to walk. (Chapters 1366–1373)

A counterpart in Ancient Zang and restoration

In Ancient Zang, Xu Hui initially exists only in Su Ming's memory. He repeatedly names her among those he misses, but later meets a woman with the same name, face, and even the same moles. This Xu Hui is a cultivator pursued by Cloud Sieve Sect, not the companion from his prior world. She drinks with him and, moved by his grief, briefly tries to stand in for his lost friend; Su Ming is tempted by the resemblance but ultimately tells her that she is not the woman he remembers. He protects her from further pursuit, blurs her memory of him, and leaves rather than substituting a counterpart for the person he lost. (Chapters 1380, 1418, 1432–1434)

After leaving Ancient Zang, Su Ming searches other Harmonious Morus Alba worlds for traces corresponding to the people in his memory. The first feeble souls he gathers contain only identifying marks, not the exact versions he wants, so he continues through cycles of life and death until he finds enough of Xu Hui's marks to form her Brand of life. He infuses that Brand with his life force and the conglomeration of his life, allowing it to open its eyes in his inner world. (Chapters 1478–1481)

The restored Xu Hui stands on the mountain closest to the sky, her robes and long hair moving in the wind. She looks into the distance, turns away at dusk, and sheds a tear while her warning about Su Ming's solitary road is recalled. The ending confirms her renewed existence but does not supply a new cultivation state or an ordinary reunion with Su Ming, who has sunk into the cycles of life and death after giving life to the world within him. (Chapter 1481)

Appearance and personality

Xu Hui is a beautiful woman with long dark hair and distinctive moles. During her introduction she habitually keeps her face concealed, denying Dao Kong even the sight that he assumes marriage will entitle him to. Severe injuries change her appearance more than once: after her rescue she wears simple sackcloth while healing; after Morning Dao's destruction her hair is white and a scorpion mark appears on her brow; and her soul-dividing art temporarily reduces her body to that of a small child. The Ancient Zang counterpart shares her face and moles, but the narrative explicitly treats that physical identity as insufficient to make the two women the same person. (Chapters 895, 937, 1145, 1432–1434)

Proud, perceptive, and difficult to intimidate, Xu Hui challenges Dao Kong, detects discrepancies after his Possession, and speaks frankly even when sect orders place her in danger. Her reserve is paired with a more exuberant private nature: when she drinks without dispersing the alcohol through cultivation, she becomes competitive, outspoken, and heroically unrestrained. With Su Ming she is teasing as well as loyal, capable of questioning him without withdrawing support. Her strongest decisions are acts of chosen trust—revealing Phoenix Sect's assassination order, accompanying him into danger, and planning to search for him rather than abandon him when a deadline expires. (Chapters 902–906, 939–960, 972–984)

She is also pragmatic and severe. Xu Hui has killed many people, responds to Morning Dao's ruin by poisoning the first useful survivor she finds, and is prepared to handle De Shun herself after regaining her memories. Yet her attachment is not blind: she understands the risks in Su Ming's plans, notices the cost of Furnace travel, and distinguishes a look-alike from the person she actually knows through the same problem that Su Ming later faces in Ancient Zang. Her characterization balances the authority of a Sacred Lady with the fatigue of someone whose choices were long controlled by institutions. (Chapters 926, 941–945, 984, 1145, 1217–1218, 1432–1434)

Abilities and cultivation

Cultivation and movement. Xu Hui is explicitly in Lunar Kalpa Realm when she confronts Black Ink Planet. Her cultivation produces the illusion of a bright moon and gives her the speed and force to suppress lesser opponents, shift across the galaxy, and kill the beasts occupying a meteor. These are her own established abilities, but the corpus does not show the formal sequence by which she attained the realm or confirm a later advancement. Grave injuries can scatter or seal her cultivation, and sufficiently powerful opponents can stop or overwhelm her despite the disparity between her and ordinary cultivators. (Chapters 903–904, 926–937, 943, 960, 1145)

Phoenix Sect arts. Her clearest learned combat technique is the Eighteen Strikes from the Lake of Phoenix. She divides from four figures into sixteen; their force gathers into a seventeenth body and strike powerful and fast enough to smash the protected auction-room door. The scene demonstrates accumulation through successive manifestations, but does not show an eighteenth strike, so its final form and full cost remain unconfirmed. Xu Hui can also call forth a several-thousand-foot Flame Phoenix whose fire burns the surrounding whirlwind, direct it against a sand giant, or use a fire phoenix as rapid transport. Phoenix Sect's unique cultivation presence remains recognizable to knowledgeable observers even when she is inside another construct. (Chapters 904, 925, 943, 991)

Concealment and survival. Xu Hui can fuse into the air or void, making herself difficult to detect until forced out by a broad wave of Divine Essence. Her post-disaster survival art divides her soul so that the original consciousness sleeps while a second one controls a child-sized body. It prevents immediate death, but its limitations are severe: memory and identity are disrupted, the second consciousness can become independent, and the art is described as imperfect. Su Ming's intervention is needed to awaken her original soul. (Chapters 905–906, 945, 1145, 1217–1218)

Scorpion Shadow Gu Poison. After Morning Dao's destruction, Xu Hui plants a scorpion-shaped gu in De Shun. It twists his veins into the form of a scorpion and lets commands spoken by Xu Hui's second consciousness control his movement, even forcing him to retreat, fall, or walk on his hands. This is a learned, implanted technique rather than unrestricted mind control: she must first strike the target and place the gu, and she warns that only people she acknowledges can safely remove it. The art remains functional while her original consciousness sleeps, which turns the child's frightened statements into involuntary orders. (Chapter 1145)

Linked and borrowed power. The life-and-soul seal joining Xu Hui to Dao Kong is an imposed sect mechanism, not an innate sense. It lets her locate him and causes transmissions associated with him to be heard across their link, but Su Ming's Possession shows its central limit: it recognizes Dao Kong's continuing soul presence without identifying the consciousness in control. Phoenix Sect can also screen its own message from the bond. Separately, the Xuan Family's supreme-treasure body lets Xu Hui pool cultivation and divine sense with the group, assist healing, and help sustain a much stronger external form. Those feats depend on the seal or construct and should not be treated as her unaided combat power. (Chapters 903–906, 941, 965–1002)

Beast handling. With Su Ming's help, Xu Hui tames a gigantic crocodile-like Void Beast and later uses it as a concealed guard while preparing a Relocation Rune. The beast is an allied living creature, not a technique she creates, and the dossier does not show that she can compel arbitrary Void Beasts without assistance. (Chapters 945, 960)

At her latest confirmed state, Xu Hui exists again as a Brand of life awakened by Su Ming's life force. The ending depicts her conscious and emotional, but does not establish whether her Lunar Kalpa cultivation, Phoenix arts, gu techniques, or prior engagement seal were restored with her. (Chapter 1481)

Relationships

Su Ming. Their relationship begins under a false identity: Xu Hui is bound to Dao Kong's presence, while Su Ming has Possessed his body. Rescue and shared honesty replace that coercive arrangement with chosen companionship. She refuses Phoenix Sect's order to kill him, travels with him for years, supports him through the Fifth Furnace, and directs De Shun to find him after Morning Dao's fall. Xu Hui becomes one of the people whose loss Su Ming cannot accept; he distinguishes her from her Ancient Zang counterpart and ultimately gives his life force to restore her Brand. (Chapters 905–941, 943–1002, 1145–1218, 1373–1481)

Dao Kong. Phoenix Sect and Morning Dao Sect bind Xu Hui to Dao Kong as his prospective wife. She detests him and attempts to buy her way out with the Sacred Constellation Robe, while he values the marriage for prestige, inheritance, and a dual-cultivation breakthrough. Her bond to him later becomes the mechanism through which Su Ming's impersonation initially succeeds. (Chapters 895, 902–906)

De Shun. Xu Hui poisons De Shun and orders him to find Su Ming. Her second, childlike consciousness then depends on him for years, and his fear becomes attachment and possessive love. He protects that consciousness by hiding her from Su Ming; when the original Xu Hui wakes, she regards his deception as a matter she must resolve, though Su Ming asks her to spare him because he kept her alive. (Chapters 1145, 1207–1218)

Phoenix Sect and Bai Feng. Phoenix Sect trains Xu Hui, names her a Sacred Lady, and determines her engagement. It later offers to break the seal if she kills Dao Kong, exposing how conditional its supposedly unbreakable traditions are. Bai Feng is the sect's other Sacred Lady and Xu Hui's senior sister, but their shared office does not produce a close relationship in the supplied scenes. (Chapters 895, 939–941, 991)

The Fifth Furnace group. Xu Hui works within Xuan Shang's supreme-treasure body alongside Xuan Shang, his companions, the Bald Crane, and Progenitor Long Hai. She generally supports Su Ming's leadership while supplying the group with knowledge, composure, and a practical insistence on remaining united against the Furnace's life-span cost. (Chapters 965–1002)

Items

Sacred Constellation Robe. Xu Hui bids for the robe to offer it to Morning Dao Sect as the price of ending her engagement, but Dao Kong wins the auction and she never becomes its owner. After Su Ming takes Dao Kong's place, messages from Morning Dao travel through the robe, while its displayed effects also help him conceal the Divine Essence that exposes Xu Hui's hiding place. The robe is therefore central to her attempted liberation and later deception, but its powers are not hers. (Chapters 902–906, 940–941)

Xuan Family supreme treasure. Xu Hui enters the treasure's blood-like core with Xuan Shang's group and contributes power to the humanoid body it creates. The body enables pooled thought, senses, cultivation, and recovery, while travel between Fifth Furnace dimensions drains the participants' life spans. It belongs to Xuan Shang's family rather than Xu Hui. (Chapters 965–1002)

Wine pots and travel provisions. Wine repeatedly mediates Xu Hui's companionship with Su Ming. She deliberately allows herself to become drunk instead of clearing the alcohol with cultivation, revealing a relaxed and unguarded side that contrasts with her public reserve. These vessels carry no confirmed supernatural property. (Chapters 939–945)