Li Xijun

Li Xijun grows up apart from his father and becomes one of the Li family’s most controlled strategists. He chooses a cold cultivation path, guards the clan’s expanding future and repeatedly spends personal opportunity to protect his kin. His careful restraint also conceals a grave act: after Xijun is killed while securing the Radiant Sky Stone for Ximing, the flower in his effects leads Ximing to realize that Xijun killed Meng Zhuoyun. Tu Longjian arranges for Pu Yu to preserve Xijun’s soul, but no completed return to a body is shown. (Chapters 348, 430–431, 655, 936)

Biography

A mountain childhood and a demanding family inheritance

Xijun is the youngest son of Li Yuanyun. He has spent little time with his father: sent to a marketplace at age one, he grows up among the family peaks, where his nature is initially cheerier than that of his elder brother, Xicheng. His place in the family changes when his spiritual orifice is confirmed. During the family’s early use of the Profound Pearl Talisman Seeds, he receives one alongside other young heirs. The seed transforms the chakras he had already cultivated into the Supreme Yin form and ties his future to the immortal mirror’s inheritance. (Chapters 348–350)

News of Yuanyun’s death brings grief into Xijun’s young life. Qinghong, herself familiar with repeated loss, gives Xijun and his brother demanding work rather than let them sink into helpless mourning. Xijun’s later composure grows out of this family discipline: he learns to make himself useful even when emotion would otherwise overwhelm him. He is not indifferent to his kin, but increasingly treats responsibility as the form his attachment should take. (Chapters 365, 388)

His cultivation develops through a different resource path from Ximing’s. The family reserves scarce Golden Yang qi for Ximing, while Xijun takes up the Cold Pine Dew Snow technique and receives a Talisman Pill from Yuanjiao. By Chapter 431 he has reached the sixth Embryonic Breathing stage; the cold method becomes the basis of his later combat style. When Xizhi reports that no suitable Purple Mansion continuation is known in Yue State, Xijun continues with the path rather than abandon the investment already made in it. (Chapters 430–431, 469)

Clan unity, a cold blessing and an unexpected Buddhist ally

As the Li family reorganizes its holdings and authority across several peaks, Xijun challenges his elder brother Xicheng’s preferred arrangements. Their disagreement is about how to keep an expanding family governable without dividing its common purpose. Xijun’s reserve can make his judgment seem severe, but he wants people, territory and responsibility connected by a structure that will survive beyond the current elders. He helps with relocation and takes on a share of the practical work that gives the family’s new order effect. (Chapters 488–499)

Cold cultivation gives him an advantage, but it does not immediately make him the family’s leading young fighter. Heavy snowfall helps him advance, and the Radiant Snow Pine Ridge blessing raises him from the second to the fourth Qi layer while calming his mind. He reaches the fifth layer by Chapter 481 and has formed Sword Qi by Chapter 483. He remains candid about his limits, and his growing strength is the product of a specific cold lineage, training and careful judgment rather than a general superiority over other cultivators. (Chapters 469–483)

His caution is tested by Kongheng, an ancient Buddhist cultivator moving toward a place where an elder of the Li family is breaking through. Xijun stops him with the Green Ox River Embrace Formation and his sword, refusing to trust a reassuring explanation without checking the risk to his family. Kongheng swears a cultivation oath and demonstrates his sincerity; Xijun then allows him to proceed and later vouches for his practice. The same guarded relationship includes practical care: Xijun pays in advance for Kongheng’s help with Xuanxuan’s mental suffering, accepting the expense and the chance of being rebuked for intervening. (Chapters 483, 488–499)

The cost of guarding the family’s hidden future

Xijun’s suspicion of Xu Xiao is not blind hostility. Xu Xiao rises unusually quickly and carries a powerful flame, so Xijun gathers information about him and Liu Lingzhen, watches their behavior and tests what they know through intermediaries. When the danger becomes immediate, he coordinates the family’s response rather than trusting the sect cultivator who arrives to claim Xu Xiao and demand the Hooked Serpent. He lends Hanlin to Wushao and waits for Qinghong; once she arrives, he orders Wushao to strike. The Hooked Serpent kills Xu Xiao, while Xijun concludes that the mirror’s intervention has broken a thread of fate. (Chapters 535–544)

His guarding of family secrets also reaches into Ximing’s private life. Meng Zhuoyun, Ximing’s lover and an alchemist who has contributed to the family, leaves after confronting Ximing about his treatment of her. Xijun checks her belongings, insists that she swear not to reveal Li family secrets and gives her compensation for her work before allowing her to go. He later tells Qinghong that she is no longer in contact with Ximing. At the time, his conduct appears to be a guarded but courteous departure; what happened after that remains hidden. (Chapters 520, 524, 550)

Xijun’s concern for the family costs him a personal breakthrough. He interrupts the seclusion intended to reach the seventh Qi layer to investigate Xu Xiao, and later recognizes that intervening around the Six Ding Merging Fire Token has cost him another chance to advance. Yuanping, dying after the confrontation, asks Xijun to clean up Ximing’s mess and says the family will depend on him when the elders are gone. Xijun accepts the responsibility without complaint. He reaches the seventh layer only in Chapter 582, after the immediate danger has passed. (Chapters 537–546, 582–583)

Snow on Pine and the discipline of succession

Yuanjiao’s death leaves the family without a central elder just as its territories and dependents become harder to manage. Xijun establishes the Snow on Pine Foundation with the aid of an Essence Gathering Pill, despite disrupted spiritual energy. It lets him tread on snow, command cold winds, strengthen spells and sword light, and endure injury or sparse spiritual energy better than before. The foundation makes him an independent defender, but its benefits mitigate harm rather than make him invulnerable. He returns from seclusion to a family still grieving and needing someone to coordinate its next decisions. (Chapters 612–619, 655–659)

Working with Qinghong, Xijun handles disputes over the Yuan family and other branches whose interests do not automatically align with the Li clan’s. He will use binding measures against people who might defect, yet he also resists moving blood-consuming dependents onto Li land without control, since doing so could expose ordinary residents to their practices. His administration is therefore protective and coercive at once: he values stability, but will impose obligations when he thinks the family’s survival depends on them. (Chapters 661–709)

Xijun also plans for a generation that may outlast the elders who raised him. He instructs Chengliao and Yuexiang to look beyond their own lifetimes, helps consolidate territory around Milin and works alongside Ximing as the family expands. He is particularly close to Xuanxuan, who welcomes him warmly when he emerges from foundation seclusion. By this point Xijun has moved from a guarded younger cultivator to one of the people who must decide what the family’s continuity will cost. (Chapters 655, 684–709)

A sword of his own, injury and renewed responsibility

Xijun’s first major duel as a Foundation cultivator tests more than his cold techniques. When Yu Mujian threatens a crowded restaurant, Xijun draws the fight away from the people inside and summons Ximing to help. He uses the family’s sword inheritance and the Qingche Sword in a decisive borrowed strike, but Yu Mujian’s attack leaves Xijun’s organs shattered. Ximing gives him a Wanglin Blossom; Xijun then inserts an Earth-View Bloodstone into his abdomen and binds his damaged organs with mana. His survival depends on treatment and recovery, not natural invulnerability. (Chapters 760–765)

The injury keeps him in seclusion for years. When he emerges in Chapter 858, he is only about sixty percent recovered, but worry over the family draws him out before healing is complete. He demonstrates Sword Essence, a meaningful personal attainment beyond his earlier Sword Qi, while his body still limits how often he can fight. His own Sword Essence remains distinct from the Sword Intent he borrowed through Qingche in the duel. (Chapters 764, 858)

His return also brings regret. Xijun had trusted Zhao Tinggui’s assurances, and the consequences now threaten the family. He recognizes that his judgment failed, but he cannot simply resume recovery while Qinghong and Ximing face the danger. The choice to come back early repeats the pattern of his life: he accepts lasting costs to himself when he believes that leaving relatives to face a threat alone would be worse. (Chapter 858)

The Radiant Sky Stone and a life hidden in Penglai

Ximing needs a Bright Yang spirit item to pursue his next breakthrough, and Xijun goes to investigate whether the Radiant Sky Stone can be obtained from Yu Fuzi. He finds that a straightforward purchase is unlikely and that the item may not even remain in its presumed owner’s possession. When the Guo siblings escort the stone, Xijun takes the risk himself: he kills Guo Hongyao, uses the Shamanic Dao Golden Talismans to impersonate her, and kills Guo Hongkang to seize the box. The purpose is to secure the resource for his family, but the plan makes him a target of the more powerful people watching the dispute. (Chapters 909–923)

Guo Hongjian finds Xijun as he flees from the Merging Fire, badly injured. He escapes to a small island, where two rogue cultivators behead him; Xijun kills them before his body finally fails. Tu Longjian does not intervene openly while other Purple Mansion cultivators watch. Instead, he collects Xijun’s body and the Radiant Sky Stone as repayment of his debt to the Li family, then has Pu Yu preserve Xijun’s soul. Pu Yu proposes shaping a body for him from Gaoxuan Bright Frost, but no completed reconstruction is shown. (Chapters 928–929, 935–936)

The family receives both the stone and Xijun’s remains. Ximing finds Hanlin and the rest of Xijun’s effects in the returned pouch, then opens a small box containing the lapis-lantern orchid. He remembers the earlier departure and realizes that Xijun had killed Meng Zhuoyun after appearing to send her away safely. When and why Xijun killed her remain unknown. The preservation of his soul likewise does not establish that he has returned to embodied life. His final legacy is therefore double: a resource obtained at fatal cost and a revelation that permanently changes how Ximing understands his brother. (Chapters 520, 524, 935–936)

Appearance and personality

Xijun is introduced as a cheerier child than Xicheng, but in adulthood he is reserved, sharply observant and most often seen in white robes with a sword at his back. When he emerges from Foundation seclusion, he seems younger than before and carries an ethereal chill from the Snow on Pine Foundation. His lifted, sharp brows rarely give way to open delight; receiving Hanlin is one of the few moments when his excitement becomes unmistakable. (Chapters 348, 522, 655)

He combines restraint with a strong sense of familial obligation. He studies risks closely, tests a monk before trusting him and invests in the family’s future even when his own advancement suffers. But his security decisions can become coercive, as his treatment of Meng Zhuoyun shows. He can care for relatives and still conceal violence from them; his self-control makes that contradiction harder, not easier, for Ximing to discover. (Chapters 483, 524, 582, 936)

Abilities and cultivation

Cold cultivation and Snow on Pine

Xijun follows the Cold Pine Dew Snow technique, a Grade Three cold method that lets him ride cold winds and shape frost-like true essence. Snowfall supports its cultivation, while Radiant Snow Pine Ridge quiets his heart and carries him from the second to the fourth Qi layer. The associated Snow on Pine Foundation extends longevity, reduces the effect of injuries, strengthens cold spells and sword light, and helps him function where spiritual energy is sparse. It can disperse hostile wind-based spells and improves his endurance, but does not prevent critical injury or the loss of his body. (Chapters 436, 469–472, 655, 764)

The foundation also changes his tactical range. He can travel across snow and use cold wind to pressure Qi cultivators, while his strengthened Slaughter Jun Kui Light is nearly thirty percent more powerful than before the Foundation. His cultivation stops at early Foundation in the scenes that establish his state; the absence of a suitable Purple Mansion continuation for the Cold Pine line remains a limit, not an attainment he later overcomes. (Chapters 469, 655, 730, 858)

Swordsmanship and borrowed inheritance

Xijun develops his own sword practice alongside the cold method. He has formed Sword Qi by Chapter 483, uses the Hanlin Sword and its Threefold Moonlight technique, and later condenses Sword Essence. The cold Foundation enhances his sword light, while Threefold Moonlight gives him a controlled, multi-stream attack. His progression is distinct from the legacy he receives through Qingche. (Chapters 483, 522, 655, 858)

Against Yu Mujian, a mirror-linked vision and the Qingche inheritance allow Xijun to deliver a temporary strike drawing on the sword-intent legacy of Li Chejing. It is an inherited, conditional resource activated during the crisis, not Xijun’s permanent mastery. His own Sword Essence appears later while he remains wounded. The novel does not confirm that Xijun ever attains Sword Intent. (Chapters 764, 858)

Tactics and talisman inheritance

Xijun’s strength also lies in preparation. He uses formations, surveillance and carefully chosen intermediaries to test possible threats, and he can recognize when protecting the clan requires waiting for more information instead of rushing into a duel. He receives a Talisman Pill from Yuanjiao to advance his Embryonic Breathing cultivation, and later uses a Shamanic Dao transformation talisman to approach his targets in disguise. These are resources with defined uses, not evidence that he can control every form of the family’s talisman or mirror inheritance. (Chapters 430–431, 483, 535–543, 921–922)

Power progression

Relationships

• Li Yuanyun: His father, with whom Xijun spent little time before growing up among the family peaks. Yuanyun’s death is one of the losses that shapes Xijun’s reserved sense of duty. (Chapters 348, 365, 388)
• Li Xicheng: His elder brother. They differ over how the expanding family should distribute authority, but both take responsibility for its continuity. (Chapters 348, 488–499)
• Li Yuanjiao: A senior relative who guides Xijun’s cultivation and supplies the Talisman Pill used to reach Nascent Spirit. (Chapters 430–431)
• Li Qinghong: His aunt and closest governing ally after the older generation declines. She shares decisions with him and helps manage the family’s crises. (Chapters 655, 661–709)
• Li Ximing: A younger kinsman and trusted partner in defense and cultivation. Xijun protects his advancement, but the orchid in Xijun’s effects later reveals that he also hid Meng Zhuoyun’s killing from him. (Chapters 550, 764, 936)
• Li Yuanping: An elder whose final requests leave Xijun responsible for helping settle Ximing’s affairs. (Chapters 537–550)
• Li Xuanxuan: A senior relative especially glad to see Xijun return from Foundation seclusion; Xijun also pays for Kongheng to help address Xuanxuan’s mental suffering. (Chapters 655, 684–709)
• Li Yuexiang: His younger sister. He helps place her in a safer cultivation setting and teaches her to plan beyond her own lifetime. (Chapters 519, 669, 684–709)
• Kongheng: An ancient Buddhist cultivator whose honesty Xijun tests before trusting. They become allies, and Xijun relies on his knowledge and judgment. (Chapters 483, 488–499, 522)
• Meng Zhuoyun: Ximing’s former partner and a contributor to the Li family. Xijun first arranges her departure under an oath of secrecy; after his death, the hidden orchid reveals to Ximing that Xijun later killed her. (Chapters 520, 524, 936)
• Tu Longjian and Pu Yu: Tu uses the Radiant Sky Stone to settle a debt to the Li family and asks Pu Yu to preserve Xijun’s soul. Pu Yu retains it in Penglai and proposes a new body. (Chapters 928–929, 932)

Items

• Hanlin Sword: Recast from the captured Dinglin Piercer on Xizhi’s commission, then delivered to Xijun by Kongheng. It returns to him after Guo Hongyao takes it and remains among his belongings after his death; the family later stores it for a successor. (Chapters 511–517, 522, 543, 936, 1199–1200)
• Radiant Sky Stone: Xijun seizes the stone for Ximing’s use. Tu Longjian later sends it, with Xijun’s body and effects, back to the Li family to settle his debt. Xijun dies for the acquisition; it does not become his personal Foundation. (Chapters 914, 920–923, 928, 935–936)
• Shamanic Dao Golden Talismans: A valued family collection. Xijun uses one Transformation talisman to impersonate Guo Hongyao during the Radiant Sky Stone mission; the remaining talismans are recovered from his pouch. (Chapters 921–922, 936, 1167–1168)
• Talisman Pill: Given by Yuanjiao and consumed as Xijun advances from the fifth to the sixth Embryonic Breathing stage. (Chapters 430–431)