Zhexiu

Zhexiu is a human–wolf demi-human who grows up alone on the northern snow plains, hunting demons before most cultivators his age have faced a real battle. His search for a cure draws him to Chen Changsheng and the Orthodox Academy, where a hired alliance becomes an enduring friendship. Patient enough to wait weeks or months for prey, he applies the same ruthless endurance to protecting Qi Jian, avenging his torture in Zhou Prison, fighting the demons, and hunting Black Robe.

Biography

The Grand Examination

Zhexiu is born to a wolf-tribe father and human mother, but his mixed ancestry leaves him outside both communities. Expelled from the Wolf tribe while young, he grows up without a teacher or sect and survives by hunting monsters and demons along the northern front. This life earns enormous military merit and a fearsome reputation, yet it also conceals a worsening conflict between his blood and meridians. He comes to the capital not for the Grand Examination's honors, but because Chen has already solved a related bloodline problem for Luoluo, making the Orthodox Academy his best hope of living longer. (Chapters 139, 159, and 292)

In the dueling stage, Zhexiu treats every contest like a battlefield. He seriously injures Su Moyu, defeats Gou Hanshi's fellow disciples Guan Feibai and Qi Jian in succession, and accepts no distinction between an examination maneuver and a technique meant to end a real fight. Tang Thirty-Six recognizes both his value and his poverty, then offers money for him to clear Chen's path. Zhexiu accepts, but his actual objective is the unnamed treatment he believes only Chen can provide; the money makes the contract explicit, while the cure makes its stakes a matter of survival. (Chapters 146, 156–160, and 166–167)

The bargain culminates in Zhexiu fighting Gou Hanshi for more than an hour despite the gap between Meditation and Ethereal Opening. He cannot win under the examination's restrictions, but his willingness to risk death exhausts and injures Gou Hanshi enough to give Chen a better chance in the final. Chen receives him when others fear the blood-covered youth, feeds him medicine, and later examines the violent surges in his pulse. Their exchange continues in the Heavenly Tome Mausoleum: Zhexiu eats and studies beside the academy group, accepts Chen's repeated treatment, and watches over him during monolith comprehension, converting a transaction into practiced loyalty. (Chapters 167–170 and 202–229)

Survival in the Garden of Zhou

Zhexiu enters the Garden of Zhou beside Chen as both patient and paid bodyguard. When disputes arise among the trapped human cultivators, he places himself between Chen and danger, while Chen chooses to spend precious time treating the wounded rather than rushing toward the Sword Pool. Zhexiu initially regards this compassion as a weakness, but he keeps pace because Tang has paid in advance and because he judges that following Chen will not leave him empty-handed. Their partnership combines his threat perception and battlefield practicality with Chen's medical knowledge and responsibility for the wider group. (Chapters 249–253)

The demons' ambush at the lakeshore breaks that partnership apart. Liang Xiaoxiao betrays the human side, Qi Jian is run through the abdomen, and Zhexiu is poisoned by Nanke's Peacock Plume. Chen uses a Thousand Mile Button to send the two wounded youths away together. The poison gradually blinds Zhexiu, but he refuses to abandon Qi Jian; instead, he carries the injured sword cultivator while Qi Jian becomes his eyes. Their earlier hostility is forced into exact mutual dependence, with Zhexiu supplying movement and judgment while Qi Jian supplies direction through terrain their pursuers are trying to close off. (Chapters 264–265)

When escape requires crossing cliffs and entering the Plains of the Unsetting Sun, Zhexiu partially metamorphoses, growing fur and claws and bending his legs into a form suited to running over rock. He falls, rises, and continues with Qi Jian on his back, suppressing the poison through true essence until they escape their Demon General pursuers. On the plain, he treats Qi Jian's wound, learns that she is a girl, and listens when she says he no longer has to be alone. Their awkward tenderness develops from the same survival arrangement: she remains his sight, he remains her legs, and each gives the other a reason to endure. (Chapters 265–294)

Zhexiu ultimately carries Qi Jian out of the collapsing plain and leaves her with healers, remaining nearby despite his own poisoning and injuries. Liang Xiaoxiao's dying accusation and Zhuang Huanyu's supporting lie then reverse the meaning of that rescue, naming Zhexiu as the demon collaborator responsible for the disaster. He answers with characteristic directness: Liang deserved death for serving the demons, but Zhexiu did not kill him and would not conceal it if he had. With Chen missing and Qi Jian unconscious, the denial cannot prevent the Imperial Court from taking him to Zhou Prison. (Chapters 343 and 355–358)

The Orthodox Academy and Zhou Prison

Zhou Tong keeps Zhexiu imprisoned because a confession would implicate Chen and because the unresolved accusation places political pressure on Mount Li. Interrogation therefore becomes systematic torture rather than an investigation: poison and instruments are applied to a prisoner already suffering from the Tide Rush of Blood, while the official waits for him to say that the Orthodox Academy worked with the demons. Zhexiu does not provide the desired testimony. His silence preserves Chen's position and Qi Jian's defense, but it also leaves him carrying the physical price of a conflict aimed at institutions far more powerful than himself. (Chapters 382 and 400–425)

After returning to the capital, Chen formally claims Zhexiu as an Orthodox Academy student and confronts Zhou Tong with a choice: imprison Chen under the same accusation or release them both. Zhou Tong yields, but the clean clothes on the stretcher hide rotted flesh, exposed bone, and the accumulated effects of torture across nearly all of Zhexiu's body. When his friends want to turn back immediately, Zhexiu stops them. A wolf unable to defeat its enemy must endure, watch, grow stronger, and kill later; revenge is not abandoned, only delayed until it can succeed. (Chapters 448–453)

At the academy, Sacred Light treatment, Chen's needles, and Zhexiu's own deliberate use of pain slowly restore his shattered meridians. He chooses the Demon Commander's Banner Sword from Chen's recovered Sword Pool, offers tactical judgments during the academy's run of public challenges, and becomes part of its daily household even while confined to bed. Recovery eventually opens seventeen Qi channels unique to human–demi-human bodies and strengthens him beyond his former state. The academy thus fulfills more than the original medical bargain: it gives the expelled wolf a room, a role, and companions who treat his survival as their concern. (Chapters 453–455, 469, and 482–509)

When Tang disappears during the coup, Zhexiu leaves the academy to pursue the unfinished debt to Zhou Tong. He spends weeks buried beneath the Department for Purging Officials, surviving with the same stillness once used in the snow, then works through the wall of Zhou Prison to coordinate with Xue He. A drop placed in Zhou Tong's wine carries Zhexiu's poison; when the official flees through his secret tunnels, the weakened hunter follows by scent. Mo Yu intercepts the prey at his refuge and drives him through the capital, while Zhexiu's patient preparation ensures that Zhou Tong can no longer escape the punishment born from his own prison. (Chapters 656, 695, and 717–723)

The War against the Demons

After Zhou Tong's death, Zhexiu is sent north and returns to the work that formed him. He refuses administrative command, cavalry training, and the ordinary protections of rank, instead serving as scout, spy, ambusher, and assassin behind or beyond the front lines. The choice limits his institutional authority but maximizes the skills no unit can reproduce: concealment, solitary pursuit, and survival without fire or supplies. Over nearly two years, his individual military achievements rival those of entire schools, and because he is Vice Superintendent, those victories also defend the Orthodox Academy's standing during Chen's absence. (Chapters 725 and 788)

His reunion with Chen restores the medical side of their bond without ending the war. Chen discovers that Zhexiu cannot follow a boiled prescription while hiding in snow for days and confirms that even the Cinnabar Pill cannot cure the Tide Rush of Blood. Zhexiu nevertheless continues to support him in the south, joining a perfectly timed ambush against a stronger opponent and placing Tang behind himself when danger stirs the swords of Mount Li. The route eventually brings him to Qi Jian's valley, where the academy and Mount Li connections that began in hostility now operate as a single protective network. (Chapters 813, 819, 908–928)

Zhexiu remains near Qi Jian at Mount Li, where the Sect Master's Clear Music substantially reduces the Tide Rush of Blood and lets him reach the peak of Star Condensation. The softer lines of his face and the clothes Qi Jian makes for him show a settled life, but he does not mistake comfort for the end of war. When Nanke recovers and intends to return to Xuelao City, he is prepared to kill her rather than let a future enemy leave; only Chen's prior instruction and Mount Li's intervention stop the fight. The dispute makes his governing principle explicit: mercy cannot be allowed to manufacture a battlefield loss later. (Chapters 1130–1132)

During the final northern war, Zhexiu crosses into Xuelao City by hiding inside the corpse of a demon noble and reaches places no human has entered for centuries. He discovers the sacrificial graveyard connected to Black Robe's escape, then remains concealed there for dozens of days on the intuition that she will return. When she finally revives, his longer patience ends the hunt and he kills the strategist who had engineered the Garden of Zhou disaster. He declines public honor, asks that captured grasslands be given to the Wolf tribe, and survives to return to a life with Qi Jian that their friends recognize as an established partnership. (Chapters 1149 and 1180–1183)

Appearance and personality

Zhexiu is a lean young man whose solitary posture can make him appear frail even when he is one of the most dangerous people present. His face is usually pale and expressionless, his gaze icy, and his movements economical. In ordinary dress, his sleeves and pantlegs are unusually short, a practical style later copied by the Wolf tribe. Metamorphosis makes the contrast stark: coarse dark fur spreads over his limbs and face, claws break through his footwear, his knees change angle, and his eyes turn blood-red as his body enlarges and releases a savage Qi. (Chapters 139, 167, 633, and 1130–1131)

His reserve is the discipline of a hunter rather than an absence of feeling. He eats slowly because food was scarce in the snow, speaks only when a sentence has use, and regards promises, payment, and mission completion as binding. The same practicality produces dry humor—often about money—and a capacity for severe violence without ceremony. Yet companionship gradually exposes a gentler awkwardness: he tries to stop Qi Jian from crying, values the room kept for him at the academy, and becomes protective of people whose generosity he does not always understand. (Chapters 159, 167–168, 265, 292–293, and 993)

Abilities and cultivation

Zhexiu begins the story as a Meditation Realm cultivator capable of threatening opponents above his realm through experience and will. By the Garden of Zhou he has reached Ethereal Opening, and his recuperation at the Orthodox Academy opens seventeen unusual Qi channels belonging to his mixed constitution. Years of battle and treatment eventually bring him to peak Star Condensation, where his bloodline-enhanced strength lets him fight Mount Li Sword Hall elders and rapidly overwhelm cultivators who cannot survive his first close assault. His progress is formidable, but every increase in cultivation also intensifies the bloodline conflict that threatens his life. (Chapters 167–168, 251, 482, and 1130)

Wolf blood and metamorphosis

His human–wolf blood grants exceptional strength, balance, speed, and adaptation to rough terrain. In partial metamorphosis, altered legs and hooked claws let him run down steep rock while carrying another person; fur protects exposed skin, and heightened balance corrects falls almost instinctively. Berserk metamorphosis enlarges his body and multiplies his Qi in moments, making it useful for sudden close-range attacks. It is not a harmless enhancement: forcing true essence through the transformation while wounded or poisoned accelerates his exhaustion, and the same blood that produces these advantages is the source of his fatal illness. (Chapters 265, 633, and 1131)

Hunting, stealth, and perception

Zhexiu's supreme advantages are patience and an instinctive sensitivity to danger. He can detect a threat before cultivated spiritual senses identify its source, distinguish healing incenses by smell, follow a poisoned target through interlocking tunnels, and wait without fire, food, or ordinary movement for weeks. These skills support scouting and assassination more than open command. They also have a clear limit: intuition does not provide complete information, and he can still be deceived or forced to test a conjecture. His answer is to control exposure, remain concealed, and accept that a failed hunt can be attempted again. (Chapters 251, 264–265, 292, 717–718, 788, and 1181)

Close combat and weapons

Raised without a formal teacher, Zhexiu builds his fighting method around killing rather than performance. He attacks joints, meridians, and openings with claws or bare hands, uses stealth to begin at decisive range, and carries vigorous true essence into an opponent so that damage continues after contact. This style lets him defeat sword geniuses of the same generation and combine with Chen to suppress a stronger foe before that opponent can counterattack. He later adopts the Demon Commander's Banner Sword, an ancient weapon steeped in demonic Qi, but treats it as one more efficient tool rather than the center of a named sword system. (Chapters 156–168, 454, 507, 824, and 908–909)

Tide Rush of Blood

The Tide Rush of Blood is an inherited conflict between Zhexiu's blood vessels and meridians. His pulse rises like a flood, true essence and blood surge together, and the resulting pressure produces continuous pain severe enough to jolt away a physician's hand. Its attacks become more frequent as his blood strengthens with age and cultivation, so physical advancement simultaneously brings him closer to death. Chen's needles and prescriptions reduce symptoms, and Mount Li's Clear Music later prevents an outbreak for several years, but neither treatment is a cure. Even the Cinnabar Pill, useful for blood loss and battlefield trauma, has no effect on this underlying bloodline contradiction. (Chapters 203, 292, 453, 813, and 1130)

Power progression

Relationships

• Chen Changsheng: Zhexiu first seeks Chen as the only physician likely to understand his bloodline illness, then risks his life to weaken Gou Hanshi and serves beside him in the Garden of Zhou. Chen claims him as an academy student, frees him from Zhou Prison, and continues treating him; Zhexiu answers with protection, military service, and trust in Chen's decisions even when he disputes their mercy. (Chapters 159–170, 202–253, 448–469, and 813)
• Qi Jian: They begin as opponents in the Grand Examination, but the Garden of Zhou makes her his eyes and him her legs. Zhexiu carries her through the Plains of the Unsetting Sun, treats her wound, and remains nearby after their escape. Their attachment survives the accusation that follows, opposition to his illness, and years of separation, eventually becoming a relationship accepted by Mount Li and visible in their life together. (Chapters 156, 264–294, 355–358, 928, 1130, and 1183)
• Tang Thirty-Six: Tang discovers that the feared wolf youth will negotiate for money and brokers the Grand Examination bargain that brings him into the academy's orbit. Their friendship retains the language of contracts and unpaid sums, but Tang's alarm over Zhexiu's torture and their later teasing show that the transaction has long since become familial loyalty. (Chapters 159, 166–170, 453, 509, and 993)
• Zhou Tong: Zhou Tong tortures Zhexiu to extract a confession against Chen and uses his imprisonment as pressure on the Orthodox Academy and Mount Li. Zhexiu responds on a hunter's timetable, waiting until he can infiltrate Zhou Prison, poison Zhou Tong, and pursue him into the revenge completed with Mo Yu and Chen. (Chapters 400–453 and 656–723)
• Mo Yu: Although they are not close companions, their plans converge against Zhou Tong. Zhexiu poisons and tracks the fleeing official; Mo Yu waits at his hidden refuge and administers the public punishment that follows. Their separate preparations leave Zhou Tong unable to escape the vengeance gathering around him. (Chapters 718–723)
• Nanke: Nanke's Peacock Plume blinds and poisons Zhexiu in the Garden of Zhou. Years later, Chen leaves the impaired Demon Princess at Mount Li, where Zhexiu helps watch her recovery. When her memory returns and she chooses the demon side in the coming war, he treats that choice as an immediate military threat, revealing the severity with which he separates personal care from battlefield duty. (Chapters 264–265 and 1130–1132)
• Black Robe: Black Robe's Garden of Zhou plan targets Zhexiu and destroys the safety of his alliance with Qi Jian. In the final campaign, Zhexiu uses the patience Black Robe underestimated to wait beside her hidden route of revival and personally ends her life after the fall of Xuelao City. (Chapters 264–275 and 1149–1181)

Items

• Cinnabar Pill: Chen has a pill delivered to Zhexiu in hope that its power to restore blood and battlefield injuries will treat the Tide Rush of Blood. Zhexiu takes it and later recognizes its scent, but the experiment establishes an important limitation: the pill cannot correct the underlying conflict between his blood and meridians. (Chapters 813 and 819)
• Demon Commander's Banner Sword: Zhexiu selects this ancient, damaged sword from the weapons Chen brings out of the Garden of Zhou. Its lingering demonic Qi suits his dry answer to being called a demon spy, and it becomes his regular weapon in later group battles. (Chapters 454 and 824)