Zhizhi

Zhizhi is the young Black Frost Dragon imprisoned for centuries beneath New North Bridge who becomes Chen Changsheng's rescuer, confidante, and sworn Protector. “Zhizhi” is the name Chen favors, while “Zhusha” is a human name bestowed and reinforced by her captor Wang Zhice; “Black Dragon” and “Black Frost Dragon” describe her dragon identity and bloodline rather than a separate being. She is a sentient dragon princess and ally, not an object owned by Chen or the Orthodoxy. (Chapters 238–240, 726, 758, 935, and 1093–1094)

Biography

The Prisoner beneath New North Bridge

When Chen Changsheng is cast into the sealed grounds of the Black Dragon Lake, Zhizhi is initially presented as the lethal presence at its heart. Her breath fills the underground cavern with deadly cold, and her enormous black form appears ready to kill the intruder. Close inspection overturns the capital's legend that she is a palace guardian: two chains cut into her rear claws and bind her to an array associated with Qin Zhong, Yu Gong, and Wang Zhice. Centuries of confinement have left her scales dusty and damaged, and the isolation behind her hostility becomes as important as her physical threat. (Chapters 57–62)

Chen's knowledge of Dragon language gives Zhizhi something she has lacked for centuries: the possibility of conversation. She stops her attack, guides his pronunciation with a whisker, and reacts with uninhibited delight when he begins to understand her. The squeaking sound rendered as “zhi zhi” becomes the basis of Chen's familiar address, although the narrative later makes clear that it is not her full dragon name. Suspicious of humans because of her imprisonment, she nevertheless accepts Chen's promise to return and allows him to leave, changing their encounter from attempted predation into a fragile exchange of trust. (Chapters 61–63 and 239)

Chen keeps that promise and later attempts Meditative Introspection in her cavern, catastrophically burning and tearing his unpurified body. Zhizhi first respects his choice even though she expects him to die, then sacrifices a drop of true dragon blood when she realizes that only she can save him. The blood restores his vessels, skin, bones, and organs and leaves his body extraordinarily strong, but the sacrifice weakens her. Tianhai Divine Empress exploits that act by extracting one wisp of Zhizhi's spiritual soul and placing it in a jade ruyi, compelling her to accompany Chen into the Garden of Zhou under threat that the separated soul will otherwise dissipate. (Chapters 124–125 and 238–242)

The Garden of Zhou and the Academy

In the Garden of Zhou, Zhizhi's separated spiritual soul can leave the ruyi as a miniature dragon, but it has only a fraction of her full strength and cannot travel indefinitely far from her body or remain away without eventually dissipating. These constraints make her cooperation consequential rather than automatic. She scouts dangerous water for Chen, carries messages, and sometimes demands food or responds with scorn when he treats her like a subordinate. Her protests establish the terms of their partnership: she helps by choice within the coercive conditions imposed by the Divine Empress, not because Chen commands or possesses her. (Chapters 240, 242, 252, and 257)

Zhizhi becomes an active safeguard when Chen is wounded. Her Black Frost cold continuously repairs his internal injuries and induces hibernation to preserve his life, and her soul later awakens within his Ethereal Palace and enters his dagger during the conflict with the Golden-winged Great Peng. The effort leaves both of them vulnerable, yet her first concern after the Garden collapses is whether Chen is still alive. Their exchange on the snowy plain also shows that reliance has become mutual: Chen checks on her condition before his own, while she cautiously tests whether his assurance that he will survive is sincere. (Chapters 294, 348, and 352)

After her spiritual soul returns, Chen repeatedly visits the cavern with food and researches the wall formation and chains instead of treating a spoken “thank you” as sufficient repayment. Zhizhi notices that sustained effort and grows content with his company; during a period when he avoids most people, he chooses to spend more time with her. He promises to release her and continues working toward that promise even when his calculations show that the chains will take years to break. By the time he makes final preparations at New North Bridge, their bond has developed from a chance truce into a long-term commitment to each other's freedom and survival. (Chapters 428, 492–503, 545, 696, and 708)

Protector of the Exiled Pope

At the death of The Pope, the Li Palace's rainbow empowers a Green Leaf whose roots penetrate the prison array and pull Zhizhi's chains free far earlier than Chen's method could have managed. Confused and frightened by sudden freedom, she crosses the snow to the person she trusts most. Before Shang Xingzhou, she identifies herself as Chen's Protector and accepts the Orthodoxy's ancient oath to love, protect, respect, and comfort him, even at the risk of her life. The oath formalizes a promise she voluntarily embraces; it does not turn her into Chen's property or erase her independent judgment. (Chapters 726–728 and 733–736)

Because Chen is barred from the capital, Zhizhi accompanies him through the northern frontier and snowy mountains. She helps him treat human soldiers and kill demons, separates her spiritual soul from her body to evade Hai Di's perception, and takes part in delaying enemies far above their apparent position. Her concern becomes bluntly personal when Chen spends too much blood refining Cinnabar Pills, and she angrily challenges anyone who treats his body as a resource. Their shared exile also deepens their communication: she can be frightened by overwhelming enemies, but she turns to Chen rather than withdrawing from the danger, while he trusts her with missions beyond his direct reach. (Chapters 758–770 and 790)

That trust is exploited in the conspiracy surrounding Bie Tianxin's murder. Evidence fabricated with Black Frost Dragon breath causes Zhizhi to be blamed, while she is actually in White Emperor City attempting to contact the White Emperor or Luoluo on Chen's behalf. Madam Mu captures her, extracts her Deep Freeze Dragon Breath, and fastens her to a mountain with the Tiger Cage, screening the mental connection that would otherwise reveal her location. Chen refuses to surrender her to public accusation, follows the remaining connection when it becomes usable, and eventually locates her; the episode transforms her recognized political value into a vulnerability but also confirms that neither abandons the other when separated. (Chapters 891–918, 935, and 994–1008)

Once freed from the mountain prison, Zhizhi becomes decisive in the battle with the Angels of Sacred Light. Shang Xingzhou tells her to kill the Angel escaping White Emperor City, but she looks to Chen and departs only after he gives the order, explicitly because she is his Protector. Her immature dragon form blocks the Angel's route to the Southern Sea; at the Dragon Isles, she turns its assumption that she is isolated into a trap, and the gathered dragons overwhelm the already wounded enemy with their breaths. The victory removes a future threat to the human expedition while showing that Zhizhi's effectiveness comes from personal loyalty, dragon identity, and judgment rather than obedience to whoever issues a command. (Chapters 1036–1037)

Dragon in the Northern War

Zhizhi later confronts the unresolved power of Wang Zhice, the man who captured and named her. His use of “Zhusha” sends fear through her before Chen physically places himself between them and rejects the captor's claim over her name, insisting that she may be called Zhizhi or by her true dragon name instead. During the subsequent struggle at the Orthodox Academy, she protects Chen with dragon breath, waits above the clouds for the arranged moment, and crashes down in her mountainous dragon form. The sequence does not erase her fear, but it shows her acting through it beside the people who recognize her chosen identity. (Chapters 1093–1100 and 1108–1115)

In the war against the demons, Zhizhi remains near the front rather than returning to the Southern Sea. The narrative credits her with several crucial interventions, including extinguishing the unnatural fires consuming a human supply convoy after a wolf-cavalry raid. She also knows of Chen's secret decade-long correspondence with the young Demon Lord, placing her within the small circle trusted with his most politically dangerous plan. Her motive is characteristically personal as well as strategic: she says plainly that a human defeat would mean Chen's death, binding the larger campaign to the life she has sworn to protect. (Chapters 1167 and 1170)

During the final crisis in Xuelao City, Zhizhi tries to freeze the fiery connection intended to ignite the Sacred Light in Chen's body. Her dragon breath drives back the frost along the line but cannot extinguish the Celestial Fire, exposing a clear limit even to Black Frost cold. She immediately proposes swallowing Chen to block the beacon, accepts that even a dragon's body would not contain its light, and remains with his allies through the confrontation with Black Robe and Wang Zhice. After the crisis, she is alive and still attentive to his needs, personally preparing food for his departure even though he ultimately takes only a fruit. She later leaves their world before Xu Yourong, emerges from an abyss on the Sacred Light Continent, and continues seeking Chen while dismissing its supposed dragon knights as riders on mere flying lizards. (Chapters 1175–1179 and 1182–1183)

Appearance and personality

In dragon form, Zhizhi is vast enough to resemble a mountain range, with black scales that absorb light, enormous cold eyes, long whiskers, and breath that turns the surrounding air into a killing frost. Her imprisonment initially leaves those scales dusty, broken, and partly detached, contrary to the Black Frost Dragon love of cleanliness. Her human transformation is a beautiful young girl in an old black dress, with black hair, pale bare feet, vertical pupils, and a red line or cinnabar birthmark between her brows. Later appearances preserve the black clothing and the striking contrast between her small human form and the force contained within it. (Chapters 58–62, 125, 239, 614, 726–728, and 758)

Zhizhi is proud, suspicious, fastidious, and sharply expressive. She scorns being treated as a subordinate, remembers debts and broken promises, loves fine food, and reacts to disrespect with dragon aura or cutting remarks. Centuries of isolation also leave her unusually responsive to sincere companionship: simple communication delights her, consistent visits matter more than formal thanks, and fear drives her toward Chen as her most trusted support. Her courage is not an absence of fear—Wang Zhice, the Divine Empress, Su Li, Shang Xingzhou, and other supreme experts can terrify her—but a willingness to remain loyal and outspoken despite that fear. (Chapters 62–64, 239, 257, 492–503, 728, 733–737, 769, and 1093–1094)

Abilities and cultivation

Zhizhi does not follow an ordinary human cultivation progression. She is an immature Black Frost Dragon whose bloodline grants innate divine attributes even before her Dao and soul have formally melded with the laws of the Divine Domain. The corpus describes her as foreordained to reach that domain and, by the later capital confrontation, effectively invincible beneath it. This potential is not the same as already being a mature Divine Domain expert: Saints and certain supreme techniques can defeat, bind, frighten, or exploit her, and her long imprisonments repeatedly restrict how much of her natural power she can use. (Chapters 734–737, 1037, 1093, and 1100)

Dragon body and innate senses

Her true body combines extreme size, strength, speed, flight, and durability. She can cross immense distances, move through the sky as a ten-li mountain range, block an Angel's escape routes, and crush downward with enough force to dominate a battlefield's physical space. Her senses are comparably supernatural: she can see a silver leaf tens of thousands of li away, recognize powerful presences, and communicate in the information-dense language of dragons. Her royal bloodline also carries political and spiritual authority among demi-humans and other dragons, although that authority does not guarantee obedience or victory against mature supreme beings. (Chapters 726, 734–736, 1036–1037, and 1093–1115)

Deep Freeze Dragon Breath and dragon aura

Zhizhi's breath produces the coldest frost described on the continent. It freezes people and terrain, counters sinister cold arts, extinguishes demon fire that water and sand cannot quench, and can shroud Chen against hostile effects. Her dragon aura exerts a separate spiritual pressure: a momentary release is enough to make Xuanyuan Po collapse because his demi-human blood cannot resist its ancient Qi, while later observers describe Black Frost Dragons as innately suppressing human souls. Both abilities have limits. Madam Mu can extract the breath from Zhizhi after exploiting her previously separated soul, extraordinary zither cold can exceed it, and Celestial Fire connected to Sacred Light resists even her direct attempt to extinguish it. (Chapters 242, 764, 829, 918, 984, 1069, 1099, 1167, and 1175)

True dragon blood and preservation

Zhizhi's true blood is both precious and personally costly. One voluntarily released drop is enough to bathe Chen's ruined body, restore otherwise fatal damage, erase old scars, and leave his physique stronger than ordinary perfect Purification. The loss severely weakens Zhizhi, and it also enables the Divine Empress to take one of her three wisps of dragon soul, demonstrating that healing another person can expose her own defenses. As a spiritual presence within Chen's Ethereal Palace, she can also release Black Frost cold to mend internal injuries and induce hibernation, preserving him when immediate recovery is impossible rather than curing every underlying injury. (Chapters 124–127, 240, 294, 511, and 896)

Transformation, spiritual soul, and the Protector connection

Zhizhi can assume a young human form and, through a far more dangerous soul technique, act separately from her massive body. When the Divine Empress forces her spiritual soul into the jade ruyi, the resulting miniature dragon can scout, carry information, enter Chen's dagger or Ethereal Palace, and participate in combat. In that state she possesses only about one percent of her original power, must remain within range of her body, and risks gradual dissipation if she cannot return in time. Later voluntary uses let her evade detection, but her earlier extraction leaves a lasting vulnerability that Madam Mu exploits. (Chapters 239–242, 257, 294, 348–352, 760, and 918)

Her Protector oath creates an exceptionally persistent mental connection with Chen. He can summon or notify her, confirm that she remains alive, and ordinarily sense her despite great distance; the Wildfire of the Celestial Tree can screen the connection enough to conceal her exact position without fully severing it. The bond is therefore a channel for coordination, not mind control. Zhizhi still refuses, questions, interprets, and chooses, most visibly when she waits for Chen's decision before pursuing the Angel. She also teaches him Dragon language over many years, eventually giving him enough understanding to receive ancient Daoist information encoded in a single dragon word. (Chapters 734, 790, 917, 994, 1026, 1036, and 1115)

Power progression

Relationships

• Chen Changsheng: Zhizhi first spares Chen when he offers conversation, then gives true blood to save him. He returns with food, treats her as a confidante, and works for years to free her; she becomes his sworn Protector, shares a mental connection with him, and repeatedly intervenes in battles and political crises. Their relationship is reciprocal loyalty between sentient allies, never ownership. (Chapters 61–63, 124–125, 239, 492–503, 734–738, 994, and 1036–1037)
• The Pope: The Pope arranges both Chen's initial encounter with Zhizhi and her eventual release through the Green Leaf. He selects her as the next Pope's Protector partly for her strength and partly because her Black Frost Dragon lineage affects relations with White Emperor City. (Chapters 726–727, 734–736, and 1115)
• Tianhai Divine Empress: Zhizhi fears the Divine Empress, who can overpower her, extract a wisp of her soul, and compel that soul to accompany Chen. The coercion nevertheless places Zhizhi beside Chen during the Garden of Zhou and becomes one of the conditions through which their trust develops. (Chapters 240–242, 728, and 1047)
• Wang Zhice: Wang Zhice captures the young dragon, confines her for centuries, and gives her the human name Zhusha. His return produces immediate terror and resentment; Chen's rejection of that imposed name supports Zhizhi's separation of her present identity from her captor's authority. (Chapters 120, 727, 733–735, 891, and 1093–1100)
• Shang Xingzhou: Zhizhi regards Shang Xingzhou as one of the few humans able to kill her. He recognizes her Protector oath, later assists in freeing her from the Tiger Cage, and directs her against the fleeing Angel, but she still waits for Chen's order before acting. Their alliance is therefore strategic and wary rather than obedient. (Chapters 734–738 and 1036)
• Luoluo: Zhizhi's royal dragon lineage is tied to the founding history of the demi-human state. She later enters White Emperor City partly to contact Luoluo and help Chen counter Madam Mu's plans, a mission that leads to her capture when she refuses to reveal Chen's purpose. (Chapters 736, 916–918)

Items

Zhizhi is a character, not an owned artifact, and no catalogued item is established as her personal property. The objects most important to her story are defined by temporary use or outside custody:

• Green Leaf: The Pope uses the Green Leaf, empowered by the Li Palace's rainbow, to penetrate Wang Zhice's prison array and free Zhizhi. She neither owns nor wields it. (Chapters 726–727)
• Cinnabar Pill: Zhizhi serves as a courier when Chen asks her to deliver a pill to Zhexiu. The medicine is made from Chen's blood and is not Zhizhi's possession or dragon blood. (Chapters 769 and 813)
• Black jade ruyi: The Divine Empress forces a wisp of Zhizhi's spiritual soul into this vessel for the Garden of Zhou mission. It functions as an imposed container and temporary anchor, not as an item owned by Zhizhi or evidence that she herself is an item. (Chapters 240–242 and 352)