Nan Youlong — World’s End: My Keyword is One More Than Others

Nan Youlong is a veteran Alien Star warrior and the chief of staff who recruits Du Ge for Qi Yuan Star's battlefield program. He begins as Du Ge's manipulative handler and instructor, but repeated victories force him to become an advocate, logistical partner, and increasingly cautious intermediary between Du Ge, the federal leadership, and Pan-Universal Entertainment.

Biography

Recruiting a prodigy who does not want the job

Nan Youlong arrives at Du Ge's school in a helicopter with armed security and enough mental perception to address people hundreds of meters away. As chief of staff of the Eastern Zone Pre-War Committee, he has authority to determine Du Ge's treatment after an abnormal simulation. He immediately isolates the conversation, assigns Liang Fei and Liang Le to Du Ge's household, and offers food, housing, protection, and privilege before discussing military obligation. The generosity is deliberate recruitment pressure: Nan wants an exceptional but death-averse student to associate battlefield service with everything denied to ordinary civilians. (Chapters 122–123)

He then dismantles Du Ge's assumptions about selection. High mental power improves the chance of possession but can tempt a warrior to target a conspicuous expert whose defenses or social scrutiny make survival less likely. Nan argues that moderate starting power, an obscure host, and behavior consistent with the host are often safer than obvious genius. He also tells Du Ge that refusing service means losing elite privileges and entering the lowest labor class. The combination of tactical candor and coercion makes Du Ge listen, but it also teaches him to distrust every benefit Nan offers. (Chapters 123–124)

Nan's most consequential inducement is Hua Guyun's hypothesis that a sufficiently powerful soul might possess someone aboard Pan-Universal Entertainment's ship and escape its control. He cannot supply a proven threshold or method, and he admits that the federal government cannot gamble civilization's annual resources on the theory. Even so, the possibility gives Du Ge a goal beyond comfort or patriotic duty. Nan later brings him to Cloud City, where a month of unrestricted luxury doubles as a psychological test; Du Ge's refusal to become decadent confirms that he can be sent onward, while the hidden test deepens his resentment of institutional manipulation. (Chapters 124–126)

Teaching caution to an uncontrollable candidate

When Du Ge clears another elite simulation in little more than a month, Nan recognizes his style before the result is announced, then joins General Fu and the training staff in reviewing his earlier performances. Nan had repeatedly told Du Ge to restrain himself and develop keywords patiently, yet happiness has produced another rapid collapse. The review convinces the committee that Du Ge has exceptional creative ability but an alarming tendency to overturn the environment around him. Since Pan-Universal Entertainment has specifically required his participation, Nan's task changes from deciding whether he should go to finding a way for him to survive. (Chapter 184)

Nan questions Du Ge closely about Knowing the Joy of Fish, the Fountain of Joy, and the Trident of Poseidon, trying to convert his unconventional results into repeatable doctrine. He refuses Du Ge's request for another simulation because the elite assessment cycle cannot be reopened for one person, but secures access to the replay archive of earlier Alien Star Battlefields instead. He explains ranking announcements, vast battlefield scale, native resistance, compromised recognition codes, and the danger of assuming that warriors from Qi Yuan Star will remain allies. His instruction is severe because he has survived the battlefield himself, yet Du Ge accepts enough of it to study rather than enter unprepared. (Chapters 185–188)

The mentorship has a persistent limitation: Nan understands how previous survivors avoided disaster, while Du Ge succeeds by creating situations those survivors never faced. Nan's doctrine treats secrecy, gradual growth, and distrust as the safest general rule; Du Ge treats them as options whose value depends on the keyword and opening. Nan nevertheless visits during the training period, checks that Du Ge is studying, gives a final instruction to remain himself and survive, and personally escorts him to the projection center even though he lacks authority to enter the Pan-Universal facility. (Chapters 186–188)

A first victory that overturns the old doctrine

When Du Ge calls less than a day after deployment and says the Alien Star Battlefield is over, Nan initially assumes that he is joking or has been eliminated. The victory is real: Du Ge has taken first place after six internal months and returns with a strategy that defeats the conservative model Nan taught. During the flight home, Nan concludes that the decisive difference is not mere aggression but Du Ge's ability to interpret a keyword through economic organization. He advises eliminating surviving rivals so they cannot copy the method, then accepts Du Ge's counterargument that imitators will expose themselves and absorb attention. (Chapters 260–261)

Nan responds institutionally rather than defending his prior doctrine. He promises to arrange further simulations, reports that selection and education policies may need wholesale revision, and brings Du Ge's performance before the federal leadership. When officials accuse Du Ge of irresponsibility for allowing foreign warriors to survive, Nan argues that elite imitators performed worse than children who had copied the same style. He cannot end the dispute and privately shares some of their doubts, but he continues defending the person he recruited while warning that the next battlefield will be designed around him. (Chapters 261–264)

The extra match forces Nan into a compromise between policy and personal judgment. The federal president orders familiar warriors onto Du Ge's team to exploit his loyalty and increase the chance of monopolizing the rankings. Nan voices concern that Du Ge is too capricious to guarantee such an outcome, yet obeys the decision, arranges an elite simulation, permits passcodes, and grants Du Ge nomination rights. After Du Ge again dominates the exercise instead of identifying new talent, Nan ends the experiment, refuses to spend scarce resources on another, and shifts him toward advisory work, technique testing, and the practical privileges earned by victory. (Chapters 263–297)

Nan also builds the infrastructure around Du Ge's growing status. He offers a place in the Pre-Battle Advisory Group, arranges trained doctors and technique testers when Du Ge refuses the post, warns him not to experiment recklessly on his real body, and brings him to the mobilization meeting where familiar students have already been selected. Du Ge initially interprets their inclusion as political leverage, but Nan argues that known companions are still more reliable than strangers under an unpredictable keyword system. The later success of the group partly vindicates that judgment, even though it contradicts Nan's earlier rule against battlefield recognition codes. (Chapters 296–298 and 376)

From handler to institutional advocate

Du Ge's second victory brings more than thirty Qi Yuan Star warriors home and secures eight of the top ten positions. Nan waits outside the projection center, leads the applause, and congratulates Du Ge with a humility absent from their first meeting. He no longer treats the young warrior as a disposable candidate: when Du Ge requests a propaganda position and claims that Bai Long has called him Qi Yuan Star's chosen one, Nan takes the assertion seriously enough to carry it into federal deliberations. His willingness to reconsider is grounded in results—Du Ge has stabilized resource expectations while every conventional group risks total defeat. (Chapters 376–377)

At the federal meeting, officials fear that Du Ge's returned skills may influence public thought and make him impossible to restrain. Nan investigates the survivors, distinguishes admiration and jealousy from direct mental control, and argues that Du Ge has never harmed his own people. He recommends granting the request rather than alienating the planet's most valuable warrior, reasoning that Du Ge's focus on future battlefields limits the immediate political risk. The government approves the propaganda appointment with oversight, marking Nan's transition from recruiter guarding the state against Du Ge to advocate urging the state to cooperate with him. (Chapter 377)

That advocacy does not eliminate operational caution. When Pan-Universal Entertainment reduces the team to one hundred, Nan compiles a new national shortlist and offers Du Ge the choice of candidates. Du Ge leaves selection and tactics to the officials but retains the right to establish new codes. Nan's earlier warning about compromised codes remains valid, yet the extraordinary survival of Du Ge's veteran circle makes controlled cooperation a reasonable exception. Nan adapts doctrine to the warrior in front of him rather than pretending that the old system still governs a battlefield whose rules now change around Du Ge. (Chapter 379)

Managing risk as the rules close around Du Ge

After Pan-Universal Entertainment forcibly ends the divine battlefield, Nan waits with the survivors and asks whether Bai Long detained Du Ge again. Du Ge's claim that he was merely reprimanded leaves Nan visibly afraid that one man's defiance may bring punishment upon Qi Yuan Star. He stops pressing when Du Ge refuses details, recognizing that their power relationship has reversed: the student he once controlled through privilege can now destabilize the entire planet, and even federal investigators must seek an appointment before approaching him. Nan therefore relies on observation, replay analysis, and negotiation rather than direct demands. (Chapters 445–448)

The next rule change limits resource awards to three positions and encourages every other planet to target Du Ge. Nan tells him that officials unsuccessfully sought an exemption from Bai Long, reports another team's total defeat, and urges him to abandon his usual prominence because Qi Yuan Star can survive on the resources already won but cannot replace him. His warning combines personal concern with institutional calculation: Du Ge is simultaneously the chief hope of escape, the foundation of the resource system, and the person most likely to provoke Pan-Universal Entertainment into retaliation. (Chapter 449)

After Bi Xing, Nan collects the survivors, questions them about the battlefield, and carefully probes Du Ge's future. He is relieved when Du Ge chooses to keep fighting rather than enter domestic politics, because Du Ge's popularity has grown beyond federal control and could overturn the government as easily as another battlefield. Nan responds by offering better treatment rather than coercion, then schedules the next briefing. During that meeting he notices Du Ge's distraction and prompts him when it is time to address the candidates, continuing to function as liaison even after his authority over Du Ge has become mostly procedural. (Chapters 509–511)

The final return and the threat of abandonment

At the final pre-battle briefing, Du Ge uses Nan's name as a private rallying signal because his own has become too recognizable. Nan does not originate the plan, but his trusted identity becomes part of Qi Yuan Star's survival strategy: warriors who hear another name are to remain hidden and develop independently. They obey the condition even after recognizing Du Ge as the Human Emperor, demonstrating that Nan's long work of organizing briefings, codes, and disciplined deployment still matters in a battlefield far beyond his personal power. (Chapters 511, 555, and 560)

When the warriors return, Nan initially beams at another expected victory, then learns that many now possess sixty to ninety million mental power. He immediately sees what celebration conceals: Qi Yuan Star cannot train replacements at that scale, and Pan-Universal Entertainment may abandon the planet once its current stars retire. The sudden closure of every simulation strengthens his fear. Rather than conceal it, he gathers the survivors, contacts the federal president, and forces the group to confront how temporary resources cannot replace a viable world. (Chapter 596)

The crisis also reveals the endpoint of Nan's relationship with Du Ge. He learns that the original student died in the first simulation and that the present Du Ge intends to leave Pan-Universal Entertainment if given a chance. Nan bitterly admits that the revelation explains the impossible rise, but he no longer has leverage to object. When Du Ge promises to restore Qi Yuan Star's environment before departing, Nan can only accept a solution beyond his institutions. He remains alive on Qi Yuan Star, having guided the warrior who both saved its population from immediate scarcity and ended the assumptions on which its two-hundred-year survival system depended. (Chapter 596)

Appearance and personality

Nan Youlong is a middle-aged man in his forties. His first appearance is deliberately imposing: he arrives by helicopter with armed personnel, detects Du Ge watching from several hundred meters away, and uses private sound transmission before entering the school. His bearing and official entourage make the principal defer to him immediately, while his relaxed smile and willingness to joke soften the threat without removing it. (Chapters 122–124)

He is pragmatic, psychologically perceptive, and willing to manipulate people for what he sees as Qi Yuan Star's survival. He offers luxury, tests recruits without disclosure, encourages family ties as an incentive to return, and accepts battlefield deaths without sentiment when resources are secure. The same realism lets him change course when evidence defeats his assumptions: he defends Du Ge before skeptical officials, admits when he cannot understand his strategy, and gradually replaces command with respectful negotiation. His deepest loyalty is institutional rather than personal, but repeated responsibility for Du Ge produces genuine admiration and concern. (Chapters 123–126, 184–188, 261–264, 376–377, and 445–449)

Abilities and competencies

Nan Youlong's known strengths come from two completed Alien Star Battlefields, a large mental-power reserve, and years of recruitment and strategic work. No keyword or derived skill from his own deployments is identified, so his demonstrated physical and professional capabilities cannot be attributed to a specific keyword. His greatest influence is exercised through assessment, instruction, access, and institutional coordination rather than direct combat. (Chapters 122–124, 184, and 261–264)

Veteran mental power and physical conditioning

Nan reports a mental-power value of 78,000 after surviving two Alien Star Battlefields. He states that this reserve would let his unpossessed soul endure for about nine days, and Du Ge observes that it supports perception and private sound transmission over at least several hundred meters. Mental power also gradually alters the real body, giving surviving warriors physical advantages beyond ordinary citizens. Nan arrives with martial escorts and is treated as personally formidable, but he never fights on page and no named offensive, defensive, or movement skill is established. (Chapters 122 and 124)

His reserve is exceptional when he meets Du Ge but remains static in the known period. Du Ge surpasses it during his first deployment, and later survivors return with tens of millions, leaving Nan acutely aware that his own strength can no longer enforce federal authority. Age rules prevent him from returning to the battlefield after twenty-five, so he cannot close the gap through new keyword growth. His mental power remains useful for perception, communication, and bodily reinforcement, but it offers no demonstrated answer to the skills or cultivation of the newer veterans. (Chapters 124, 259, 262, and 596)

Recruitment and psychological assessment

Nan is skilled at identifying motives and applying incentives. He reads Du Ge's distribution of mental power as evidence of fear, uses the offer of luxury and companions to test his priorities, and recognizes quiet resentment when Du Ge refuses even to pour him water. Cloud City lets Nan observe whether abundance produces decadence, anger, or self-control before committing a recruit to the battlefield. These methods give him information ordinary interviews would not, but concealed tests and coercive choices damage trust; Du Ge soon assumes that every gift may be another attempt to control him. (Chapters 123–126)

He continues assessing people after recruitment. Nan monitors Du Ge's study habits, compares reported skills with observed events, investigates whether returned abilities control the survivors' minds, and notices distraction during the final briefing. His readings are often sharp, yet Du Ge can feed him false explanations because Nan lacks direct access to hidden keywords, multiple souls, or Pan-Universal Entertainment's internal decisions. Assessment allows Nan to manage risk, not to make an unprecedented subject fully predictable. (Chapters 185, 188, 377, 445–448, and 511)

Battlefield doctrine and instruction

Nan's doctrine is built from two centuries of Qi Yuan Star experience. He teaches host selection, possession risk, monthly ranking pressure, the danger posed by native experts, the weakness of public codes, and the strategic difference between moderate mental power and conspicuous starting strength. He also provides access to long-form battlefield replays and urges attention to recent cases because tactics age as competing planets adapt. This instruction corrects Du Ge's early ignorance and gives him enough context to recognize when stealth, delayed development, or an obscure host may be valuable. (Chapters 123–124 and 186–188)

The doctrine is reliable as a catalogue of hazards, not a universal winning formula. Nan's default preference for caution comes from survivors of older, slower battlefields and repeatedly fails to anticipate Du Ge's rapid social and economic campaigns. He improves by distinguishing principle from habit: after the first victory, he helps redesign selection and training; after familiar allies succeed, he accepts coordinated teams; after codes become necessary, he allows Du Ge to set them. His adaptability is therefore a more important strategic competency than any single rule he teaches. (Chapters 261–264, 296–298, 376, and 379)

Institutional coordination and policy access

As chief of staff, Nan can transport candidates, isolate classified conversations, grant controlled access to the replay archive, convene analysts, recommend simulation placements, organize briefings, and carry requests to the federal leadership. He arranges medical and technique-testing personnel for Du Ge and translates battlefield results into changes in propaganda, candidate selection, and training. This network lets him act quickly when a decision is within Qi Yuan Star's control and makes him Du Ge's principal bridge to the state. (Chapters 122, 184–188, 261–264, and 295–298)

His office has hard limits. Nan cannot enter the projection center, alter Pan-Universal Entertainment's rules, excuse a named participant, or open simulations without sufficient resource quotas and higher approval. Federal leaders can overrule his warnings and use Du Ge's relationships for political ends, while Bai Long can reject the government's requests without negotiation. Nan is most effective as an interpreter and coordinator between stronger powers, not as the final authority over either of them. (Chapters 188, 263–264, 295–298, 376, and 449)

Relationships

Du Ge: Nan recruits Du Ge through privilege, pressure, and the promise of eventual escape, then tries to train away his destabilizing habits. Repeated victories reverse their hierarchy: Nan becomes his advocate and liaison, while still warning that his methods may endanger Qi Yuan Star. By the final return, he can neither command Du Ge nor dismiss him, but remains the official who understands most clearly both what the planet owes him and what his departure may cost.
Bai Long: Bai Long represents the authority Nan cannot reach. Nan conveys Pan-Universal Entertainment's orders, unsuccessfully seeks exemptions through official channels, and questions Du Ge after private detentions, but has no power to verify Bai Long's statements or enter his facility.
Hua Guyun: Nan uses Hua Guyun's survival record and escape hypothesis to motivate Du Ge. Hua Guyun is initially his standard for greatness, yet Nan eventually judges that Du Ge's influence and repeated victories have surpassed the older legend.
Gao Ming: Gao Ming is one of the familiar students Nan supports selecting for Du Ge's later teams. Nan receives battlefield reports from him and notices when Gao Ming's group knows more about Du Ge's intentions than the government does, making Gao Ming an informal bridge to the veteran circle.
Liang Fei and Liang Le: Nan assigns the twins to manage Du Ge's household, protect him in ordinary crises, and give him personal ties to Qi Yuan Star. The arrangement works as logistical support but fails as a reliable method of controlling his decisions.
Federal President: Nan advises the president on Du Ge's methods, risks, and political intentions. He sometimes objects to using Du Ge's loyalties as leverage, but ultimately implements federal decisions and depends on the president to authorize major changes in simulation access and battlefield policy.

Items

Official helicopter and transport aircraft: Nan uses federal aircraft to recruit, brief, deploy, and recover Alien Star warriors. The transports embody his logistical authority and allow him to respond rapidly when a battlefield ends unexpectedly. (Chapters 122, 126, 188, 260–261, and 376)
Battlefield replay credentials: When another simulation cannot be opened, Nan gives Du Ge a username and password granting access to the historical replay archive. The substitute training exposes Du Ge to possession failures, long-duration campaigns, and keyword strategies that simulations had not taught him. (Chapters 186–188)
Candidate dossiers and briefing materials: Nan repeatedly brings national shortlists, tactical summaries, and candidate information for Du Ge to review before deployment. The materials support team selection, but their value is limited by random keywords and sudden rule changes after entry. (Chapters 379 and 449)
Communicator: Nan remains reachable when Du Ge exits a battlefield unexpectedly and uses calls and messages to arrange recovery, report new schedules, and coordinate briefings. Its immediate connection after Du Ge's first victory makes it one of the practical links between the sealed projection center and Qi Yuan Star's government. (Chapters 260, 295–296, and 511)