NovelPantheon

Fourth Uncle

Wang Lin's paternal uncle and benefactor who gives him a Heng Yue Sect recommendationWang family

Fourth Uncle, later identified as Wang Tian Tu, is the paternal uncle whose generosity places Wang Lin on the path of cultivation. By giving Wang Lin the Heng Yue Sect recommendation intended for his own son, he changes not only one nephew's life but the history of the cave world.

Biography

Supporting his second brother's household

Tian Tu remains close to Wang Lin's father after the latter leaves the main Wang household. He helps keep the family's wood carvings selling at a fair price, visits the village, and brings Wang Lin books because he knows the boy longs to study. His loyalty has a personal root: Tian Tu's mother died early, and Wang Lin's grandmother helped raise him. He therefore treats assistance to his second brother and nephew as repayment of a family debt rather than charity. (Chapter 1)

Giving away the Heng Yue recommendation

When the Wang family receives three opportunities to present children to the Heng Yue Sect, Tian Tu obtains one for his own son. Believing that son better suited to swords than study and doubting the immortals will accept him, Tian Tu gives the precious place to fifteen-year-old Wang Lin. He transports Wang Lin from the village to his home and then to the main family gathering, where the candidates are collected. The choice creates enormous expectation and pressure, but it is also the first concrete opening beyond the scholar's examination that Wang Lin had expected to take. (Chapters 1–2)

Defending Wang Lin after rejection

Wang Lin fails the sect's talent test. When he later disappears into the mountains, his parents return to the main family in fear. Tian Tu pressures Wang Zhuo's father and the Wang clan to ask Heng Yue for a search, helping force a reluctant immortal sect to find the injured boy. After Wang Lin's apparent suicide attempt embarrasses the sect into making an exception, Tian Tu contributes a piece of metal during the negotiations around his admission. Wang Lin enters Heng Yue despite poor measured talent because his own resolve is reinforced by a family that refuses to abandon him. (Chapters 6–10)

Later mortal success

Tian Tu continues helping Wang Lin's parents after their son leaves home and assists his second brother in recovering a share of the Wang inheritance. In middle age, Tian Tu attracts the notice of an immortal from the Piao Miao Sect. After leaving the mountain, he establishes himself in Zhao's capital as a royal-family vassal and lays the foundation for a prosperous branch of the Wang family. The source does not state his cultivation realm or whether he formally remained a sect cultivator. He dies at ninety-eight, and his son Wang Hu dies three years later. (Chapters 70 and 235)

The debt carried forward

When Wang Lin returns to Zhao four centuries later, he finds Tian Tu's descendants maintaining the ancestral home and doing well in the capital. Relieved that his uncle lived a long life, he cures a descendant's harmful Yin energy, gives the family pills, and leaves a Ji Realm jade for protection. He explicitly describes this as repayment for the chance Tian Tu gave him. Centuries afterward, the uncle's descendants and the memory of his arrival remain among Wang Lin's strongest links to his mortal beginning. (Chapters 235, 414, 892–893, and 1628)

Appearance and personality

Tian Tu is a strong, burly middle-aged man with bright, fierce-looking eyes and a hearty laugh. His forceful presence is paired with warmth: he rubs Wang Lin's head, remembers promised books, drinks with his second brother, and pulls the boy up rather than accept submissive gratitude. He is practical enough to judge his own son's prospects honestly and decisive enough to oppose senior family members when Wang Lin needs help. His generosity is not abstract kindness; it is sustained action across trade, inheritance, education, and family standing. (Chapters 1–2 and 9)

Abilities and cultivation

Mortal household and commercial influence

Before any connection to the Piao Miao Sect, Tian Tu's demonstrated strengths are social and practical. He maintains business links that protect the price of his brother's carvings, secures one of the clan's scarce immortal recommendations, moves between village and main household, and can pressure the family leadership to petition Heng Yue. These are mortal forms of influence, but they are the abilities that matter most to Wang Lin's origin. (Chapters 1–2, 9, and 70)

Later contact with cultivation

An immortal notices Tian Tu in middle age, after which he spends time connected to the Piao Miao Sect before entering service in the capital. His lifespan of ninety-eight and the description of coming “off the mountain” suggest real contact with cultivation, but the corpus gives no named technique, realm, spell, or combat feat. He should therefore not be assigned a speculative cultivation stage. (Chapter 235)

Enduring legacy rather than supernatural power

Tian Tu's greatest effect is causal rather than martial. His recommendation starts Wang Lin's cultivation; his insistence helps bring the rejected boy back to Heng Yue; and the family branch he establishes survives long enough for Wang Lin to repay the debt through its descendants. Wang Lin repeatedly imagines that without this intervention he would have remained a mortal scholar, making Tian Tu's judgment one of the story's foundational human choices. (Chapters 1–10, 203, and 235)

Relationships

  • Wang Lin: Tian Tu gives Wang Lin his son's recommendation, transports him to the clan, supports the search after his disappearance, and becomes the relative Wang Lin most cherishes after his parents. Wang Lin later protects Tian Tu's descendants in repayment. (Chapters 1–10 and 235)
  • Wang Tianshui: Wang Lin's father is Tian Tu's second brother. Tian Tu helps his household commercially and with inheritance, partly because Tianshui's mother raised him after his own mother died. (Chapters 1 and 70)
  • Wang Hu: Tian Tu gives away the recommendation originally assigned to his son Wang Hu. Wang Hu outlives his father by three years, and their descendants continue Tian Tu's family line. (Chapters 1 and 235)
  • Wang Zhuo's father: The main-family elder initially resents Tian Tu's decision and later yields when Tian Tu pressures the clan to seek Heng Yue's help for the missing Wang Lin. (Chapters 1 and 9)

Items

  • Heng Yue Sect recommendation: The scarce family opportunity Tian Tu transfers from his son to Wang Lin. It is the decisive material gift behind Wang Lin's entry into the cultivation world. (Chapters 1–2)
  • Two books: Tian Tu brings Wang Lin promised books during his village visit, encouraging the curiosity and study that shape the boy before cultivation. (Chapter 1)
  • Piece of metal: Tian Tu offers a metal object during the family's effort to secure Wang Lin's exceptional admission to Heng Yue. A sect elder accepts it, and the item is later remembered when Wang Lin's success vindicates the decision. (Chapters 10 and 52–53)