Song Zhi

Song Zhi is an Ancient Shi woman whose unusual compatibility with Li Muwan's soul causes the Ancient Dao Emperor to select her as empress. She remains a distinct person throughout the fusion: another woman's memories bleed into her, but Song Zhi's own fear, attachments, and mortal future are never erased. (Chapters 2005–2042 and 2084)

Biography

Selection and forced elevation

Song Zhi comes from a powerful Blackstone City family distantly related to Grand Empyrean Song. She possesses an ancient demon bloodline but lacks the demonic aura normally associated with it. When Ancient Dao ambassadors take her away from Aunt Chang and Sister Dong, she is melancholy rather than ambitious. Her gentle disposition and difficulty refusing others make the departure feel imposed even before its purpose is revealed. The imperial household has spent centuries testing women as possible vessels for a soul obtained by the Imperial Teacher; Song Zhi is chosen because she alone successfully fuses with it. (Chapters 2005–2012)

The Ancient Dao Emperor publicly names Song Zhi his empress, but the fusion destabilizes her sense of self. She sees fragments of Wang Lin and Li Muwan's shared past, cries without understanding why, and sometimes speaks or reacts from memories that are not her own. These effects explain the change in temperament Wang notices when he later sees her in the palace. They do not make her Li Muwan: Song Zhi is the living host experiencing an involuntary overlap, while Li Muwan remains the separate soul concealed inside her. (Chapters 2013 and 2019–2023)

The palace conflict

Wang recognizes Song Zhi from Blackstone City and then discovers the hidden soul despite a fog that interferes with his divine sense. Divination reveals how the Imperial Teacher obtained Li Muwan's soul and how the emperor's long search culminated in Song Zhi. Wang demands her release, and the emperor's refusal turns the palace confrontation into an assault. Song Zhi spends much of the conflict silent and confused, treated by the emperor as possession and proof of legitimacy rather than as an informed participant. (Chapters 2022–2030)

When fighting reaches her, Wang carries Song Zhi away and shields her from the surrounding attacks. She is terrified of the old woman Ye Wei, and her weak body cannot withstand the pressure of high-level combat, so Wang stores her safely while confronting the Imperial Teacher. Her rescue is therefore not a combat alliance: she neither directs the assault nor wields Li Muwan's memories as power. She is the endangered person around whom three stronger actors struggle. (Chapters 2032–2035)

Separation and mortal life

Removing Li Muwan immediately would kill Song Zhi because her body is weak and the fused souls have become unstable. Wang consequently spends roughly two years returning her toward Blackstone City while continuously nourishing her and loosening the bond little by little. Song Zhi feels that separation may mean death and also senses the other soul withdrawing. Her feelings toward Wang are bittersweet and partly shaped by memories she never chose; before the process ends, she asks to touch his face. Wang completes the separation without sacrificing her and leaves her a warm jade pendant. (Chapters 2041–2042)

Song Zhi returns to Aunt Chang and Sister Dong as herself. Ji Du is charged with guarding her, and Wang explicitly describes her as an innocent person who would have died under a forceful extraction. More than a century later she has aged normally rather than entering the life of an imperial cultivator. She ultimately reaches the roughly five-hundred-year natural lifespan of an ordinary Ancient clansperson and dies. Her ending confirms the identity distinction maintained through the palace arc: Li Muwan continues elsewhere, while Song Zhi lives and completes her own mortal life. (Chapters 2042, 2054, and 2084)

Appearance and personality

Song Zhi wears blue and has a small birthmark beneath her right eye. The narrative says she is not flawlessly beautiful and compares her reserved purity to a white lotus. She is gentle, quiet, and reluctant to refuse people, traits that leave her vulnerable to her family's and the imperial court's decisions. In the palace she often sits with lowered head, frightened and uncertain. Her longing during the soul separation must be read with care: it belongs to Song Zhi as she experiences Li Muwan's memories, but it does not prove that the two women share one identity. (Chapters 2005–2006, 2013, 2025, and 2041)

Abilities and cultivation

Ancient demon bloodline

Song Zhi carries an ancient demon bloodline through her Ancient Shi ancestry. The corpus immediately qualifies this fact: she gives off no demonic aura and is never shown activating the bloodline for combat, transformation, or cultivation. It is a lineage trait and possibly part of the bodily compatibility that interested the imperial search, but the narrative does not explicitly establish that causal connection. It should therefore not be upgraded into a technique she consciously controls. (Chapters 2005–2006)

Soul compatibility and memory bleed

Her defining supernatural condition is the successful fusion with Li Muwan's soul after many earlier candidates failed. The fusion allows foreign memories, emotions, and recognition to surface through Song Zhi, while a fog around the soul obstructs ordinary divine-sense inspection. This is not possession in the sense of Song Zhi disappearing: both identities persist, and Wang must separate them carefully. Nor is it a reusable ability. The procedure was arranged by the Ancient Dao court, and its main effects on Song Zhi are confusion, involuntary tears, physical instability, and mortal danger. (Chapters 2012–2013, 2019, and 2022–2023)

Physical limits and assisted separation

Song Zhi has no established cultivation realm or named combat art. Her body is explicitly too weak for abrupt soul extraction, forcing Wang to spend about two years sending cultivation into her and gradually undoing the fusion. That nourishment lets her survive, but it does not turn her into a high-level cultivator. Her later aging and five-hundred-year lifespan follow the ordinary limits of the Ancient clan. The distinction matters mechanically: the endurance and memory phenomena seen in the palace come from bloodline, fusion, and Wang's support, not from techniques Song Zhi masters herself. (Chapters 2034, 2041–2042, 2054, and 2084)

Relationships

• Wang Lin: Wang recognizes Li Muwan's soul inside Song Zhi, removes her from the palace, then spends years separating the souls slowly enough to preserve Song Zhi's life. (Chapters 2022–2042)
• Li Muwan: Li Muwan's soul is fused into Song Zhi and causes memories and emotions to bleed across, but the narrative repeatedly preserves their separate identities and ultimately separates them. (Chapters 2012–2042 and 2084)
• Ji Du: Ji Du participates in the delegation surrounding Song Zhi's selection and is later instructed to protect her after she returns to Blackstone City. (Chapters 2019 and 2042)

Items

• Warm jade pendant: Wang leaves Song Zhi a pendant containing his warmth and protection after separating Li Muwan's soul from her body. (Chapter 2041)