Chen Changsheng

Chen Changsheng is the principal protagonist of Way of Choices. Raised in a remote Daoist temple with a fatal meridian condition, he comes to the capital seeking a way to live and becomes the restorer of the Orthodox Academy, first-ranked student of the Grand Examination, successor to the Orthodoxy, and ultimately Pope. His authority rests as much on medicine, textual knowledge, and a refusal to treat lives as pieces as it does on his exceptional sword cultivation.

Biography

Leaving Xining and Founding the Orthodox Academy

Chen is raised at the old temple of Xining Village by Daoist Ji, later revealed as Shang Xingzhou, alongside his senior brother Yu Ren. His ruined sun wheel and severed meridians make physicians certain that he will not live past twenty. He responds by memorizing the Daoist Canon, studying medicine, maintaining an exacting daily routine, and refusing to accept a prediction as a verdict. At fourteen, he leaves Xining for the capital, outwardly to settle his engagement with Xu Yourong but fundamentally to seek the knowledge required to change his fate. (Chapters 1–4, 99–104, and 677)

At the Divine General's Estate, Chen initially intends to return the marriage agreement so that it will not obstruct Xu Yourong. Madam Xu's household instead attempts to humiliate and coerce him into surrendering it. The injustice changes his decision: he keeps the agreement, not because he demands the marriage, but because he will not let the estate decide his worth or make the choice for him. The dispute quietly mobilizes political pressure against his academy applications and turns a private errand into his first confrontation with the capital's hierarchy. (Chapters 1–15)

Repeated rejection leads Chen to an overlooked legal answer. He enrolls in the abandoned Orthodox Academy, whose eligibility has never formally been revoked, and begins living alone among its ruins. Luoluo recognizes that his command of the Daoist Canon lets him solve the obstruction in her demi-human meridians and takes him as her teacher. Tang Thirty-Six and Xuanyuan Po soon join them. Chen remains unable to complete Purification, yet his teaching rapidly advances Luoluo, establishing that cultivation level and understanding are not the same thing. (Chapters 16–53)

The Ivy Festival turns this household into a public institution. Chen refuses demands that he surrender the engagement, directs Tang through a winning sword sequence, and supports Luoluo when her identity as the demi-human princess is revealed. The group's victories break the assumption that the Orthodox Academy is merely a dead name and force the capital to acknowledge its students. Chen does not set out to become a political emblem, but by insisting on rules, dignity, and personal choice, he revives the academy around principles that later shape his conduct as principal and Pope. (Chapters 54–103)

The Grand Examination and the Heavenly Tome Mausoleum

Chen enters the Grand Examination because taking the first banner will grant access to Lingyan Pavilion, where he hopes Emperor Taizong's records contain a cure. He prepares with the same care he gives medicine: he studies opponents, formulates pills, and worries over Luoluo's unstable condition even when doing so distracts from his own prospects. His companions repay that care by clearing obstacles, lending weapons, and accepting his tactical advice, turning what began as his private struggle for survival into the Orthodox Academy's collective campaign. (Chapters 104–137)

His progress through the matches exposes the unusual structure of his cultivation. Hundreds of nights drawing in starlight without being able to circulate it have produced an enormous reserve, while the true dragon blood Zhizhi gives him after his first disastrous conversion of starlight into true essence rebuilds his body with exceptional strength. His memorized sword records also let him recognize and answer techniques he has never formally practiced. He defeats stronger-looking opponents through timing, knowledge, and the dangerous burning of stored starlight. In the final, he forces Gou Hanshi into a choice between mutual destruction and yielding; Gou concedes, making Chen first on the banner. (Chapters 124–127 and 138–183)

The Lingyan Pavilion does not provide the simple cure Chen sought, and the Heavenly Tome Mausoleum becomes a different kind of answer. After initially holding back, he studies the inscriptions as trajectories rather than static characters, traces their relation to starlight, and comprehends all seventeen monoliths of the front mausoleum in one day. He then rejects the conventional route through the site and goes upstream with Zhexiu. The feat expands his understanding of meridians, stars, and the Dao even though it does not erase his physical condition. (Chapters 184–249)

By the time he leaves the mausoleum, Chen has crossed into Ethereal Opening and has been formally identified as a possible successor to the Pope. Neither development solves his central problem: greater cultivation only makes the contradictions within his damaged body more dangerous, and ecclesiastical favor makes him a larger political target. He nevertheless accepts the Yellow Paper Umbrella, joins Zhexiu, and enters the Garden of Zhou, choosing another uncertain path because remaining safe would offer no prospect of a cure or meaningful progress. (Chapters 226–250)

The Garden of Zhou and the Unrecognized Fiancée

Inside the Garden of Zhou, Chen and Zhexiu become targets of demon infiltrators and are separated amid the pursuit. Chen encounters a gravely injured young woman calling herself Chujian while he uses the name Xu Sheng; she is Xu Yourong, but neither recognizes the fiancé or fiancée each knows only through reputation and letters. Their alliance begins with medical treatment and practical necessity. It deepens because both discover in the disguised stranger a disciplined, stubborn companion who makes choices without reference to their public identities. (Chapters 250–305)

The pursuit by Nanke and the demons forces Chen and Xu Yourong to combine their complementary strengths. Chen diagnoses injuries, rations medicine, interprets terrain, and uses the umbrella against attacks beyond his realm; Xu Yourong supplies superior cultivation, calculation, and the Phoenix blood that repeatedly keeps them moving. Each is prepared to sacrifice for the other, frustrating plans that assume isolated young cultivators will preserve themselves first. Their intimacy grows from this sustained cooperation, but their concealed identities keep its implications unresolved after they leave the Garden. (Chapters 288–322)

At Zhou Dufu's mausoleum, Chen discovers that the legendary Sword Pool is not merely a cache of weapons. Through the sword intent within the umbrella and his own spiritual sense, he calls the abandoned swords across the grassland. The Mountain Sea Sword, Dragoncry Sword, and hundreds of other blades answer him, allowing him to resist demon generals and Nanke's monster tide. The Dragoncry Sword breaks but passes its intent into his short sword, while the gathered swords become an army directed by one consciousness. (Chapters 323–338)

Chen uses the dagger and sheath he has carried from Xining—later identified as the Vault Sheath—to contain the recovered swords. Removing them destabilizes the miniature world's balance, so he accepts responsibility: he restores the displaced monoliths, sends Xu Yourong toward safety, and uses the umbrella and ten thousand swords to hold up the collapsing sky while the other cultivators escape. Instead of leaving with them, he is transported near Xuelao City, carrying a transformed sword inheritance and an unrecognized bond with his fiancée into the crisis surrounding Su Li. (Chapters 339–357)

Su Li's Student and the Academy's Return

After escaping the Garden, Chen appears near the northern battlefield and finds the wounded Su Li surrounded by enemies from both demon and human factions. Su Li has protected him and helped the Garden's survivors, so Chen chooses to escort him south despite knowing that powerful sects and court figures want the swordsman dead. The decision is not a calculation of likely victory. It is a refusal to accept gratitude, law, or orthodoxy only when they are convenient, and it repeatedly places Chen against opponents far above his level. (Chapters 357–403)

The journey becomes an apprenticeship conducted under pursuit. Su Li teaches Chen the Intellectual Sword, which models an opponent's intentions and likely responses, and the Blazing Sword, whose ferocity demands total commitment. Chen also studies the Yeshi Step and repeatedly applies medicine, deception, and terrain to keep them alive. At Xunyang City, he stands before Zhu Luo even though a direct clash is nearly suicidal. Assistance from Wang Po and other allies prevents the unequal contest from becoming a simple execution and lets Su Li continue south. (Chapters 372–429)

When Chen returns to the capital, the Orthodox Academy has become a stage on which its enemies can issue continuous challenges. He accepts the office of principal and uses the rules governing academy contests against those attempting to destroy it. His first public battle in that role pits him against a Star Condensation expert while he remains in Ethereal Opening. By combining sword methods learned from different schools with exact observation and Su Li's instruction, he wins without pretending that the victory eliminates the difference between their realms. (Chapters 430–470)

Chen and his companions then rebuild the academy as a functioning school rather than a symbol occupied by four students. Tang manages recruitment and public conflict, Su Moyu supplies administration, and Chen teaches, treats injuries, and bears the political consequences of being the Pope's named successor. The academy attracts students despite threats surrounding it. When Xu Yourong returns to the capital, the two finally confront the engagement and the bond formed in the Garden, bringing his private choices, public office, and unidentified affection toward the same reckoning. (Chapters 471–507)

The Divine Empress, the Coup, and the Master's Secret

Chen and Xu Yourong meet on the Bridge of Helplessness, identify each other as Xu Sheng and Chujian, and settle their public rivalry through a sword duel rather than allowing their families or factions to speak for them. Recognition converts the Garden's attachment into an acknowledged relationship without removing their independence. They cultivate and study together, but Chen's life remains measured in months. At Mount Han, an assault connected to the Demon Lord drives him to condense a perfect Star Domain under extreme pressure, advancing his strength without curing the meridian damage beneath it. (Chapters 508–600)

As his predicted death approaches, Chen turns against Zhou Tong, whose prison and killings embody the state violence that has harmed his companions. He nearly kills Zhou Tong through preparations that combine artifacts, medicine, and sword intent, then is taken to the summit of the Heavenly Tome Mausoleum as the capital's coup unfolds. There Tianhai Divine Empress shatters and reconstructs his organs, meridians, and Qi openings, spending enough power to weaken herself. The act cures the illness for which Chen came to the capital. (Chapters 601–650)

The cure reveals the design behind his life. Shang Xingzhou raised Chen as a false Crown Prince Zhaoming: conspirators had destroyed his infant body and filled it with Sacred Light so that the Empress would either consume the dangerous “fruit” or trigger the trap around his death. She instead saves him and later dies fighting the coup's leaders. Chen tries to take her away, then carries her body down the Divine Path, passing his master without reconciliation as Yu Ren—the genuine Zhaoming—ascends toward the throne. (Chapters 640–665)

Chen survives with perfect meridians and a perfect Star Domain, but the discovery leaves him feeling that even his former struggle belonged to someone else's plan. He nevertheless refuses the new court's demand for the Empress's body and defeats Eunuch Lin in the academy, his first full demonstration of what his unobstructed cultivation can do. The Pope and Li Palace protect him as successor, while Xu Yourong, Yu Ren, and his academy companions give him relationships not manufactured by the conspiracy. Those ties slowly provide a reason to live beyond merely escaping death. (Chapters 665–713)

The Northern Campaign and the Road through Wenshui

Chen finishes his pursuit of Zhou Tong and survives a brutal challenge from Xiaode, but the old Pope's death makes withdrawal impossible. He inherits the Divine Staff, is crowned Pope, and immediately faces an Orthodoxy divided between his office and Shang Xingzhou's imperial authority. Rather than remain a ceremonial captive in the capital, he accepts political exile and travels south. The departure lets him exercise the office through judgment and service, not proximity to the Li Palace, while the unresolved master-disciple conflict defines every institutional choice around him. (Chapters 714–739)

On the road, Chen's blood becomes the basis of the Cinnabar Pill. Its Sacred Light and life energy can restore grievously wounded cultivators, so he secretly bleeds himself for refinement while An Hua and the northern army encounter the pills as anonymous miracles. Chen also helps defeat the old Demon Lord, Nanke's father, in the snowy mountains by combining the Garden's three thousand swords, Heavenly Tome Monoliths, medicine, and allied attacks. The victory exposes both his versatility and the cost of treating his own body as a resource for others. (Chapters 740–821)

Chen next enters Wenshui because Tang has been confined and the Tang clan's succession struggle has become part of Shang Xingzhou's campaign against him. He uses papal authority to compel an audience with the Tang Old Master and wins a narrow interval in which Tang may command the clan. Chen does not direct the resulting purge; he gives his friend the opportunity to act, then remains present when Tang accepts the violent consequences. Their departure from Wenshui is marked by concern that defeating their elders may be making them resemble those elders. (Chapters 822–870)

From Wenshui, Chen proceeds to South Stream Temple, where an attempted closure threatens Xu Yourong's authority and the north-south accord. He studies the sword path cut through the mountain, communicates with allies across the temple's barriers, and rejects the imperial mission's claim that closure is an internal decision outsiders must accept. His arrival turns a controlled ceremony into a public choice: disciples, southern sects, the court, and the Orthodoxy must declare whether they support the temple's living community or those attempting to seal it away. (Chapters 861–890)

South Stream Temple and the Li Palace Succession

When fighting begins at South Stream Temple, Chen's papal status is tested beyond proclamations. He learns the Unity Sword Art in two days, stands behind Xu Yourong's right to decide the temple's future, and helps break the hostile array without treating the disciples inside it as enemies to be destroyed. Techniques once used against each other on the Bridge of Helplessness become a coordinated sword path; together they withstand Wuqiong Bi and earn Bie Yanghong's recognition as a pairing capable of challenging a Divine Domain expert. (Chapters 891–902)

Their southern journey also confronts them with the deaths of Bie Yanghong and Wuqiong Bi and leads Chen to White Emperor City, where Madam Mu has imprisoned the White Emperor and allied with forces from beyond the stars. Chen uses the South Stream Temple sword array with exceptional patience to erode the city's sealing array. He, Xu Yourong, Xuanyuan Po, Tang, and their allies then oppose the Demon Lord and an Angel of Sacred Light, combining institutional artifacts with personal cultivation. (Chapters 903–1029)

Chen's papal inheritance becomes a combat system rather than a title. The Orthodoxy's treasures reproduce the Li Palace array in White Emperor City; Tang bears the staff as its pivot while Chen directs hundreds of swords from the Vault Sheath. Against the Angel, Chen and Xu Yourong fuse the intents of the Stainless Sword and South Stream Temple's temple sword, forcing a being of Sacred Light into an earthly battle it can lose. The White Emperor is freed, and Madam Mu's political design collapses under the alliance she underestimated. (Chapters 1004–1039)

The victory does not make Chen an imperial kingmaker. He and Xu Yourong refuse arrangements that treat the demi-human succession, the Heavenly Selection, or human lives as movable assets. Chen entrusts the legacy of Bie Yanghong and Wuqiong Bi to Xuanyuan Po and returns toward the capital with Tang, now carrying experience as a teacher, healer, swordsman, and Pope exercised across factional boundaries. His silence at the end of the White Emperor City struggle reflects not indecision but recognition of the deaths and compromises hidden beneath a nominally successful outcome. (Chapters 1003–1041)

War, Xuelao, and the Final Choice

Back in the capital, Chen reclaims the Orthodox Academy and restores the Li Palace's personnel around principles of competence and loyalty rather than inherited faction. The deeper obstacle is Shang Xingzhou, who regards Chen's continued political presence as a threat to the human order he has designed. Their eventual battle is fought at the academy. Shang removes the Vault Sheath and appears to strip Chen of his sword advantage, but blades Tang hid throughout the grounds answer Chen one after another, making the community built around him stronger than his master's control over any single artifact. (Chapters 1042–1114)

Chen does not defeat Shang through superior cultivation. He survives long enough for the academy's swords and witnesses to expose the meaning of the contest, while Shang refuses a final stroke that would reveal his willingness to kill his disciple before the world. Chen's victory is therefore political and moral as well as tactical: the master who arranged nations and lives as pieces cannot make every person accept his account of necessity. The confrontation ends their immediate struggle and allows Orthodoxy and court to unite for the northern war. (Chapters 1091–1120)

During the campaign against the demons, Chen serves as Pope, physician, strategist, and front-line swordsman. Years of refining Cinnabar Pills have slowed his cultivation and depleted much of the Sacred Light planted in his body, but the pills save soldiers across the front. He participates in the advance to Xuelao, confronts Black Robe's traps, and enters the demon capital with Xu Yourong and the human armies. In the decisive struggle, their generation rejects the premise that crimes by ancient sovereigns justify sacrificing the people alive before them. (Chapters 1121–1177)

At Xuelao, Chen breaks into the Divine Domain and raises the Stainless Sword from the earth while a transmitted Heaven Shrouding Sword descends through the spatial path, helping end Black Robe. The depletion caused by years of bloodletting unexpectedly weakens the Sacred Light continent's hold on him, turning an apparent cultivation loss into part of his freedom. He later crosses to that continent and reaches Concealed Divinity as its abundant Sacred Light merges with his own. Xu Yourong remains behind temporarily, while the conclusion anticipates Luoluo one day following him. (Chapters 1178–1183)

Appearance and personality

Chen is a slight, clean-featured youth whose plain Daoist clothing and restrained manner initially make him seem unremarkable. He keeps his clothes, rooms, weapons, and hands meticulously clean, washes frequently, eats bland food, rises at the same time each morning, and treats disruptions to routine as practical problems rather than romantic signs of genius. Even after becoming Pope, he usually dresses simply enough that strangers struggle to connect him with the grandeur of his office. (Chapters 1–7, 202, 508, 792, and 1122)

His composure is neither indifference nor fearlessness. Chen worries intensely about death, friends, patients, and choices that may harm others, but turns fear into preparation rather than display. He is literal, courteous, stubborn, and sometimes socially slow, with a dry directness that complements Tang's flamboyance. The defining development in his personality is from wanting only to preserve his own life to willingly spending blood, authority, and safety for other lives—while increasingly resisting any leader who describes people as expendable means. (Chapters 99–105, 288–305, 665–677, 743–769, and 1091–1118)

Abilities and cultivation

Chen's combat ability grows from an unusual interaction between a deliberately damaged body, exhaustive textual study, medical skill, and several independent sword inheritances. His strongest results normally require preparation, artifacts, allies, or a willingness to accept serious injury; the corpus repeatedly distinguishes his capacity to threaten a higher realm from effortless superiority over it.

Physiology and cultivation progression

Before birth, Chen's sun wheel was destroyed, his meridians severed, and his body filled with Sacred Light so that he could serve as bait for the Tianhai Divine Empress. This prevents ordinary circulation and gives him a fatal prognosis, but years of drawing starlight leave an immense reserve stored like snow across blocked terrain. When his first attempt to convert that starlight tears apart his unpurified body, Zhizhi bathes him in true dragon blood; it repairs the immediate damage and leaves his physique tougher than an ordinary perfect Purification, but does not mend the severed meridians beneath it. He reaches Ethereal Opening during the Grand Examination and deepens it through the Heavenly Tome Monoliths and Garden of Zhou. Each advance increases usable power without repairing the underlying damage. (Chapters 99–183, 226–249, 337–356, and 677)

At Mount Han, Chen condenses a perfect Star Domain after years of unconventionally practicing methods associated with higher realms. The Empress later destroys and reconstructs his interior, creating unobstructed meridians and perfect Qi openings; this lets his stored true essence finally flow at full strength. He thereafter fights as a complete Star Condensation expert and can challenge opponents near the threshold of the Divine Domain, although major differences of realm remain real. He enters the Divine Domain at Xuelao and, after crossing worlds, reaches the still-higher Concealed Divinity Realm through the Sacred Light saturating that continent. (Chapters 592–600, 640–677, 714–715, 899–902, and 1178–1183)

Sacred Light is both resource and vulnerability. Chen's blood carries extraordinary life energy, can attract demons, and can heal injuries when properly refined, but blood loss taxes his health and holds back further cultivation. A decade of making Cinnabar Pills depletes the foreign Light enough to weaken the spatial mechanism intended to reclaim him for the Sacred Light Continent. The corpus shows the consequences but does not fully formalize the quantity of Light, the exact conversion rate into pills, or every condition governing the final passage between worlds. (Chapters 305–356, 640–677, 743–750, 819, and 1140–1182)

Daoist Canon, medicine, and Cinnabar Pills

Chen has memorized the Three Thousand Scriptures of the Dao and can retrieve obscure passages, cultivation records, sword descriptions, and institutional rules with exceptional accuracy. This knowledge lets him teach Luoluo despite her unusual meridians, identify techniques in live combat, interpret the Heavenly Tome Monoliths through an unconventional model, and notice legal routes others dismiss. Memorization does not automatically grant execution: he must still build true essence, practice movements, and adapt theory to a body or opponent. His best applications join textual recall with patient observation. (Chapters 16–77, 104–183, and 197–249)

His medical training includes diagnosis, acupuncture, meridian treatment, pharmacology, wound care, and the management of chronic cultivation illnesses. He treats Luoluo, Zhexiu, Xu Yourong, Su Li, soldiers, and former enemies, often working while injured himself. His limitations are explicit: some poisons, rare diseases, and injuries exceed his immediate ability, and battlefield medicine cannot save everyone. Chen's reputation as the continent's finest young physician comes from disciplined practice and breadth rather than a universal cure. (Chapters 53, 104–105, 203, 288–356, 357–429, 743–769, and 1140–1165)

The Cinnabar Pill is the most consequential fusion of Chen's physiology and medicine. It is refined from his Sacred-Light-rich blood with other ingredients and can rescue people from wounds that ordinary medicines cannot treat. He initially conceals authorship, allowing northern patients to know only a mysterious master, and later stockpiles pills for the demon war. Production requires repeated bloodletting, cannot reverse every death, and becomes a strategic resource subject to political pressure. Its efficacy therefore expands Chen's reach while making his own body part of the war's logistics. (Chapters 718–750, 797–821, 1121–1165)

Sword knowledge and Su Li's inheritance

Chen's sword talent begins with recognition and precision. Because the Daoist Canon records many schools' forms, he can identify openings, call corrections to Tang, and reproduce transitions after limited exposure. Su Li turns that breadth into a personal system. The Intellectual Sword predicts choices through observation and calculation; the Blazing Sword converts absolute commitment into overwhelming offense; the Yeshi Step supplies evasive movement. These methods are powerful but conditional: incorrect information undermines prediction, the Blazing Sword exposes its user, and movement cannot erase a large difference in cultivation. (Chapters 65–77, 138–183, and 357–429)

Chen continues integrating sword paths instead of treating schools as sealed inheritances. He uses Mount Li forms, the Orthodox Academy's accumulated records, South Stream Temple's Unity Sword Art, and techniques designed for specific opponents. Against Xu Yourong, their separate sword intents can oppose each other; later, familiarity allows them to join those intents against Divine Domain experts and an Angel. This adaptability is not instant mastery of every style. The South Stream achievement requires two days of concentrated study, and breaking large arrays still demands time, patience, and support. (Chapters 430–507, 508–575, 871–902, and 1004–1039)

Sword Pool, Vault Sheath, and the three thousand swords

In the Garden of Zhou, Chen's spiritual sense resonates with the abandoned Sword Pool. Famous weapons answer his summons because of the linked sword intent and their desire to return to the world, not because he has personally mastered every original style. He can direct them individually, combine their inherited intents, or form a mass assault. Early use burns the old swords' remaining strength and breaks some of them; later, years of nourishment inside the Vault Sheath restore many survivors and produce a stable force of roughly three thousand combat-ready swords. (Chapters 323–356 and 714–776)

The Vault Sheath stores the swords in a separate internal space and acts as both container and component of Chen's primary weapon. Joined to the Stainless Sword, it forms a longer sword suited to his strongest direct attacks; opened through spiritual sense, it releases a sword army or array. Control requires concentration and connection. Shang Xingzhou demonstrates the central weakness by seizing the sheath and cutting it off from Chen, while Tang's hidden swords demonstrate the counterpoint: blades outside the sheath can still answer a sufficiently strong shared summons. (Chapters 665–715, 763–776, 896–902, 1020–1037, and 1100–1118)

Orthodoxy artifacts and arrays

As papal successor and later Pope, Chen inherits authority over the Divine Staff, the Green Leaf, and the network of Li Palace treasures. The staff is a symbol of office and a key array instrument rather than a simple amplifier he carries in every duel. The Green Leaf contains a miniature world linked to the Pope's spiritual sense. In White Emperor City, Chen coordinates these institutional resources across distance, with Tang temporarily holding the staff as pivot while hundreds of swords reproduce the Li Palace array's structure. (Chapters 104–183, 714–739, and 1004–1039)

Chen can also translate sword groups into formal arrays. He learns South Stream Temple's Unity Sword Art, breaks hostile formations by patiently wearing down their connections, and later deploys three thousand swords as the temple's sword array. These feats depend on sufficient swords, spiritual attention, spatial access, and collaborators capable of holding other array positions. An enemy who isolates him, disrupts the pivot, or severs his bond with the Vault Sheath can sharply reduce this advantage. The arrays make his leadership tangible, but they do not replace the people and artifacts composing them. (Chapters 871–902, 1004–1037, and 1121–1129)

Power progression

Relationships

• Xu Yourong: Chen's betrothed, Garden of Zhou companion, eventual partner, and closest martial collaborator. Their relationship survives mistaken identities and factional expectations because both insist on choosing it for themselves; their joined sword intent becomes one of their strongest assets.
• Tang Thirty-Six: Chen's first close friend in the capital and the Orthodox Academy's indispensable organizer. Chen provides steadiness and trust, while Tang supplies money, social judgment, provocation, and preparations whose value often appears years later.
• Luoluo: Chen's first disciple. Teaching her proves the practical value of his textual and medical knowledge before he can cultivate successfully himself; her trust and affection remain among the personal bonds that give meaning to the life others designed as a tool.
• Zhexiu: Patient, examination ally, Garden companion, and academy friend. Chen repeatedly treats Zhexiu's meridian illness and trusts his direct judgment, while Zhexiu offers unsentimental loyalty in the academy's most dangerous conflicts.
• Shang Xingzhou: Chen's master, educator, and principal political adversary. Shang gives him knowledge and weapons but also engineers his damaged body and false identity as part of the coup; their final battle asks whether a teacher's plans can own the life he shaped.
• Yu Ren: Chen's senior brother and the genuine Crown Prince Zhaoming. Their quiet familial loyalty survives the revelation that Chen was used as Yu Ren's body double and later helps prevent the imperial throne and Li Palace from becoming permanent enemies.
• Tianhai Divine Empress: The ruler Chen was created to deceive and destroy. She chooses to reconstruct his body at immense cost, defeating the premise of Shang's trap; Chen later protects and carries her body despite knowing she is not his mother.
• The Pope: Chen's martial uncle, protector, and predecessor. The Pope recognizes him as successor, shields the Orthodox Academy after the coup, and helps him find a future after his illness and supposed identity have both been stripped away.
• Su Li: Savior, traveling companion, and sword teacher. Chen's decision to escort him south earns an inheritance in the Intellectual and Blazing Swords, while their relationship repeatedly crosses the boundary between formal Orthodoxy and personal justice.
• Demon Lord: The old ruler's pursuit of Chen's blood culminates in their battle in the snowy mountains, forcing Chen to combine medicine, swords, and allies against a Divine Domain sovereign.
• Young Demon Lord: The old ruler's successor confronts Chen in White Emperor City and later across the northern war, turning their enmity into a strategic contest over the survival and surrender of the demon state.

Items

• Yellow Paper Umbrella: A disguised legendary weapon that responds to the Sword Pool and protects Chen during the Garden of Zhou. Its sword intent helps him summon the abandoned blades and later reaches Su Li at a critical battlefield moment.
• Stainless Sword: Chen's principal sword, forged from a Golden Dragon's whisker and given to him by Shang Xingzhou. Its extreme sharpness and resilience make it the core of his direct sword style and his joined attacks with Xu Yourong.
• Vault Sheath: A former Li Palace treasure that stores Chen's recovered swords and joins with the Stainless Sword. It enables the three-thousand-sword army but can be neutralized if an opponent severs Chen's spiritual connection to it.
• Green Leaf: The Pope's miniature world and one of the Orthodoxy's central artifacts. Chen encounters it during the Grand Examination and later inherits authority over it as part of the papal office.
• Divine Staff: The emblem and array instrument of the Pope. Chen receives it with the succession and entrusts it to allies when an array requires a distant pivot, most notably Tang in White Emperor City.
• Cinnabar Pill: A medicine refined from Chen's Sacred-Light-rich blood. It saves severely wounded cultivators and becomes a major wartime resource, at the cost of repeated blood loss and delayed cultivation for Chen.
• Heaven Shrouding Sword: A renowned sword whose intent helps guide the Sword Pool's blades. In the final struggle, the physical sword is transmitted across space to coordinate with Chen's earthbound attack against Black Robe.
• Mountain Sea Sword: One of the first great swords to answer Chen in the Garden of Zhou. He wields its immense weight against demon forces and later gives it to Xuanyuan Po, whose strength suits the weapon.
• Dragoncry Sword: A sword once carried by Chen Xuanba that answers Chen's summons in the Garden. After breaking against Nanke's power, it passes its proud sword intent into Chen's short sword rather than disappearing without an inheritance.