Spring Autumn Cicada

Spring Autumn Cicada is Fang Yuan's vital Gu and the means behind his return to youth. It lives within a cultivator's aperture and draws on the River of Time to carry the user's will upstream. Activation demands the user's body and cultivation as fuel, and the result is not guaranteed; Fang Yuan's opening use succeeds only after he is driven into a fatal encirclement. (Chapters 1–2)

History and function

The cicada begins the new timeline in a weakened state and slowly recovers inside Fang Yuan's aperture. As a rank-six Gu, its growing pressure can threaten an aperture whose owner is still mortal. Fang Yuan also lacks a time path inheritance for much of the story, limiting how directly he can develop it despite its status as his vital Gu. (Chapters 2, 380, and 710)

Spring Autumn Cicada later serves as the key to Red Lotus Demon Venerable's arrangements and true inheritances. Its dependence on the River of Time, heaven's will, luck, and the changing history prevents it from functioning as a cost-free reset. By the latest explicit assessment, it can no longer be used, leaving Fang Yuan without the future knowledge that another rebirth might have supplied. (Chapters 1448 and 2286)