Sun Tai
Sun Tai is the Corpse Sect's former head elder, a mid-stage Soul Transformation cultivator whom Zhou Yi binds to Wang Lin with a slave seal. Their coercive beginning slowly becomes mutual recognition, and Sun Tai spends his final mortal years beside Wang Lin's son before Wang Lin carries his ashes home. (Chapters 318–320, 369–370, 670–691, and 947)
Biography
Bound in the Rain Celestial Realm
Sun Tai enters the story as the Corpse Sect head elder contesting Zhou Yi over the female celestial corpse. When Zhou Yi burns away his remaining soul, he places a slave seal in Sun Tai and transfers authority over it to Wang Lin. Sun Tai is forced to call a much weaker junior “master,” a humiliation he immediately tries to reverse. On the damaged star compass he offers puppets, cultivation methods, pills, and safe passage in exchange for freedom, then threatens to trap Wang Lin when bargaining fails. Wang Lin exploits the unstable seal, Zhou Yi's pagoda, and Sun Tai's uncertainty about whether a hidden fourth soul can save him. The bluff convinces Sun Tai that open rebellion risks both cultivation and lifespan, establishing a relationship in which neither side trusts the other but both understand the cost of rash action. (Chapters 318–320)
Reluctant protector and dangerous servant
The seal later gives Wang Lin a desperate means of survival. When Xue Yue and the Giant Demon ancestor corner him, Wang Lin summons Sun Tai. Sun Tai arrives because Wang Lin's death may damage the bound soul and because the relationship still offers a path to release. He dismisses the weaker Xue Yue cultivator, deploys corpse puppets against the Giant Demon ancestor, and carries Wang Lin away. His rescue is not altruistic—he seals Wang Lin and still considers controlling him—but it keeps his nominal master alive against enemies Wang Lin cannot then face alone. Wang Lin can in turn compel lethal service: after Chi Hu helps him, he reflects that one order would have been enough for Sun Tai to kill the Giant Demon heir. The arrangement turns Sun Tai's superior cultivation into a weapon constrained by constant fear of the seal. (Chapters 320, 326, and 368–370)
Exile on Ran Yun
Centuries later Wang Lin encounters Sun Tai on planet Ran Yun. The former head elder has lost his old dominance and lives as a Ran-family guest at the Whole Treasure Pavilion, valued for alchemy and treasure refining. His body carries an unmistakable death aura and he estimates that only twenty years remain. Sun Tai warns Wang Lin about the Ran ancestor's pill scheme, then gives up more than fifty thousand celestial jades and records of his technical experience. In return he asks only that, if Wang Lin outlives him, his ashes be carried to the mountain village of his birth on planet Dark Moon. The request marks a change from their first bargain: instead of offering treasures to escape bondage and kill Wang Lin afterward, he entrusts his final return to the same person. (Chapters 670 and 671)
Wang Ping's grandfather and final return
Sun Tai settles beside Wang Lin during Wang Ping's mortal childhood. He becomes genuinely fond of the boy, adopts him as a step-grandson, and quietly passes on cultivation methods despite Wang Lin's refusal to let his son cultivate. The transmission costs Sun Tai four years of his remaining life, yet Wang Ping never practices it. When death comes, Sun Tai accepts Wang Lin's promise peacefully and is cremated; Wang Ping inscribes his empty village tomb as a grandson. Much later, Wang Lin reaches planet Dark Moon and buries the ashes outside Apricot Flower Village. He explicitly declares their old grievance ended, completing a promise that transforms Sun Tai's death in a foreign land into a return home. (Chapters 689–691 and 947)
Appearance and personality
Sun Tai is an old man, initially imposing enough that his identity as a red-robed Corpse Sect elder carries immediate authority. By his years on Ran Yun he appears far older: wrinkles deepen, death aura gathers around him, and sunset light makes him resemble a mortal near the end of life. He begins proud, threatening, and unwilling to bow to a junior, but he is also cautious enough to retreat from uncertain risks. Age strips away much of that hostility. With Wang Ping he is warm, teasing, and openly affectionate; at death his expression is peaceful rather than defiant. (Chapters 319, 369, 670, and 689–691)
Abilities and cultivation
Mid-stage Soul Transformation cultivation
Sun Tai is explicitly a mid-stage Soul Transformation cultivator during his conflict with Wang Lin. His pressure can dismiss an early-stage opponent raised by force, and he can contest the Giant Demon ancestor despite the latter's unusually strong body and bloodline power. He opens and traverses spatial rifts, forms a giant palm from cultivation, and applies seals directly to Wang Lin's body. The level is powerful but not invulnerable. Giant Demon bloodline techniques remain dangerous enough that Sun Tai avoids a simple head-on exchange, and Zhou Yi's Ascendant domain overwhelms him. By the Ran Yun period his cultivation has declined with age and approaching death, leaving his former combat status as memory rather than a renewable advantage. (Chapters 319, 369, 370, and 670)
Corpse puppets and divided souls
As a Corpse Sect elder, Sun Tai carries multiple refined corpses. He sends a mummified body from the coffin on his back to intercept the Giant Demon ancestor and later releases three green-lit corpse puppets that self-destruct, using their explosions to create distance before following with a giant-palm strike. His own soul is divided into at least three parts affected by Zhou Yi's slave seal, while an incomplete fourth soul serves as a possible reserve. That reserve limits Wang Lin's certainty that killing the bound soul will kill Sun Tai outright, but it is not a clean escape: Sun Tai admits that losing the third soul would reduce his cultivation and lifespan, and Zhou Yi's pagoda directly harms him through the seal. (Chapters 319, 320, 369, and 370)
Alchemy, treasure refining, and inheritance
Sun Tai's later value to the Ran family comes from alchemy and treasure refinement rather than battle. He spends his retirement at the Whole Treasure Pavilion and preserves records of both crafts, along with a large reserve of celestial jades meant for recovering his cultivation. Once he accepts that recovery is no longer realistic, he gives those resources to Wang Lin. He also possesses cultivation methods broad enough to offer Wang Lin a choice of traditions during their first negotiation and later transmits an immortal method to Wang Ping. The final transmission demonstrates both knowledge and cost: imparting it consumes enough remaining vitality that Sun Tai dies four years earlier, and the method itself produces no progression because Wang Ping obeys his father and never cultivates it. (Chapters 319, 670, 671, and 691)
Relationships
- Wang Lin: Zhou Yi's seal makes Wang Lin Sun Tai's nominal master. Sun Tai first seeks freedom and control, later rescues him under the seal, and finally trusts him with his ashes. Wang Lin fulfills that request and declares their grievance ended. (Chapters 318–320, 369–370, 670, and 947)
- Liu Mei: Sun Tai's role in Wang Lin's survival places him near the conflicts involving Liu Mei, but the cited corpus does not establish a meaningful direct relationship between them. (Chapters 368 and 378)
- Zhou Yi: Zhou Yi defeats Sun Tai during the struggle over the celestial corpse and burns his soul to impose the slave seal. His pagoda and Ascendant domain remain the mechanism Wang Lin uses to keep Sun Tai cautious. (Chapters 318–320)
Items
- Zhou Yi's pagoda is not owned by Sun Tai, but its Ascendant domain interacts with the slave seal and can directly harm him. (Chapter 319)
- Sun Tai's coffin houses a mummified combat puppet and is central to his Corpse Sect fighting style. (Chapters 319 and 369)
- His final bag contains celestial jades and records of his alchemy and treasure-refining experience, given to Wang Lin in exchange for carrying his ashes home. (Chapters 670 and 671)