Fang Yuan

Fang Yuan is the protagonist of Reverend Insanity. He wakes in his own fifteen-year-old body carrying the memory of a life that already ran five hundred years.

The novel opens with him in Gu Yue Village on Qing Mao Mountain.^{ch. 1} The same early stretch names the South Border as the region the Gu Yue clan migrated into when it founded that village.^{ch. 4}

Appearance

At the end of his first life he stands surrounded on a mountainside in deep green robes torn to shreds, his hair disheveled and his entire body covered in blood. Blood loss leaves his face deathly pale, and his gaze stays quiet, his eyes like deep pools of water in a well. After his rebirth he has young and soft, pale palms.^{ch. 1} He has messy short hair and untidy clothes. His eyes are a deep black, faintly resembling a deep ancient pool.^{ch. 8} He and Fang Zheng are twin brothers, their outer appearance similar to a fault.^{ch. 20}

Killer move activation

Fighting alongside Tai Bai Yun Sheng against Hei Lou Lan, Fang Yuan activates a killer move: his body expands rapidly, and his skin loses its gloss and moisture, becoming dark and hard. He transforms into a six metre tall giant. On his back, six huge monstrous arms grow out, the fingers thick and scary, each with their own distinctive appearance. With his own two arms he has eight arms.^{ch. 621}

Appearance in battle

Still transformed and fighting Giant Sun’s will, Fang Yuan has green eyes and fangs, and looks extremely vicious and ruthless. Injury on his arm oozes with green blood.^{ch. 640}

Origins

The opening states the first life in summary. He was originally a Chinese scholar on Earth who entered this world by chance, then lived through about five hundred years as a Gu Master before using the Spring Autumn Cicada to return.^{ch. 1} In that life he cultivated to rank six, founded the Blood Wing Demon Sect in the Middle Kingdom, taught tens of thousands of people, and was reputed as a giant figurehead of the demonic faction.^{ch. 22} Later recollection adds that building and managing that sect cost him much time and effort.^{ch. 734} At its peak the sect had ten thousand members while he learned the true essence of strength there.^{ch. 2102} A late chapter title uses the clan-prefixed form Gu Yue Fang Yuan.^{ch. 1673}

Two features of the opening are worth separating. The first is that the return moves the person and not the world. He wakes into his own youth, with the same village and the same events still ahead of him.^{ch. 1} The second is that his advantage is memory rather than power. He begins again as a mortal who has not opened his primeval sea, and at first he believes the Spring Autumn Cicada did not come with him.^{ch. 2}

The second life begins

The Gu Yue clan holds its Awakening Ceremony for fifteen-year-old youths, and the distance a child walks during it reveals a talent grade from A to D.^{ch. 4} After Fang Yuan opens his aperture, his primeval sea is the accumulation of his life potential over the past fifteen years; he has formally entered the route of a rank one Gu Master with C grade aptitude.^{ch. 6} Soon after, his uncle addresses both brothers as fifteen years old.^{ch. 9}

From the academy Gu room he picks a Moonlight Gu, the clan’s local specialty, as a safe first choice while he hunts for something better.^{ch. 8} He obtains the Liquor worm from the Flower Wine Monk’s remains.^{ch. 14} ^{ch. 16} He begins refining it.^{ch. 17} He completes that refinement so the worm rests in his aperture.^{ch. 20} He later uses it openly with monkey wine at a caravan wine shop.^{ch. 44} Later in the same Southern Border stretch a buyer asks to purchase that Liquor worm from him.^{ch. 104} A second Liquor worm is then found on display for sale in a treehouse.^{ch. 109} He fuses what he holds into a Four Flavours Liquor worm.^{ch. 121}

He digs through an image wall on Qing Mao Mountain into the Flower Wine Monk’s strength inheritance, a trial ground the monk left to raise an avenger against the Gu Yue clan.^{ch. 60} He works his way through that inheritance ground to a sixth Gu.^{ch. 79}

While staying in Jiang He’s village he breaks through to rank two.^{ch. 92} He later advances to rank three and, under clan rules, assumes the role of Gu Yue clan elder.^{ch. 152} After roughly two to three years in Shang clan city he advances into rank four.^{ch. 331}

Cultivation approach

A chapter titled for the resolution of the demonic way shows him settling the stance early: murder invites retaliation, and he accepts that as the path he chose.^{ch. 75} Fang Yuan later argues the laws of survival on that path directly, naming greed, selfishness, extremity, and risk-taking as what demonic path members live by when the righteous path can afford stability.^{ch. 383} Elsewhere the novel names the same split as a difference in ideals between demonic path and righteous path that has never been settled.^{ch. 460} Other characters read the trait in him as inbred demonic nature rather than a chosen stance, which is a reading the text records without endorsing.^{ch. 171}

His goal underneath all of it is eternal life, and he states it in terms that leave no room for a second priority.^{ch. 464}

Rebirth and the Spring Autumn Cicada

The Gu that returned him to his youth is the Spring Autumn Cicada.^{ch. 1} At first he believes it did not follow him.^{ch. 2} He later finds it sleeping in his body as his vital Gu, still rank six.^{ch. 19} He uses its aura to press lesser Gu into surrender.^{ch. 20}

During the conflict inside the Gu Yue clan, a Photo-audio Gu replay of the Awakening Ceremony puts Fang Yuan on the wall as an image the investigators watch. That scene is a recording, not a rebirth landing.^{ch. 180} The text then names the river of time and calls the Spring Autumn Cicada the boat that crosses it.^{ch. 187} Driven into a position he cannot win from, he uses the Gu again and is reborn once more. At rank three peak stage that activation requires self-detonation: all his cultivation, flesh and blood, and other Gu worms become the driving force that pushes the Spring Autumn Cicada, and he judges the chance of success at less than ten percent.^{ch. 196}

Hu Immortal years

The Hu Immortal Blessed Land opens while Fang Yuan is still elsewhere.^{ch. 365} He later appears on Dang Hun Mountain, inherits that blessed land under the ten Gu Immortals’ supervision, and the land spirit addresses him as master.^{ch. 405} Inside that land he breaks into rank five, then uses purple crystal relic Gu to reach rank five peak stage.^{ch. 475} In the same earlier stretch a land spirit classifies the Spring Autumn Cicada as a time path Gu whose historical master was Demon Venerable Hong Lian, the Red Lotus Demon Venerable’s name reaches a chapter title.^{ch. 383} The Spring Autumn Cicada gets a chapter under its own name shortly after.^{ch. 399} From Hu Immortal Blessed Land he leaves by Fixed Immortal Travel and steps into the Northern Plains.^{ch. 425} ^{ch. 426}

His immortal aperture is born during that northern stretch.^{ch. 630} Afterwards the Spring Autumn Cicada is sealed rather than spent.^{ch. 671} He obtains a wisdom path inheritance.^{ch. 735} He later decides that, if he has the chance, he will choose time path for a future immortal ascension.^{ch. 748} The wisdom path inheritance grows into the reputation that precedes him in the Eastern Sea.^{ch. 986}

Soul from outside

Fang Yuan states the definition for himself: his body is of this world, but his soul is from outside, and thus he is an otherworldly demon.^{ch. 992}

Listed pursuit

Fairy Zi Wei states that Fang Yuan is a wanted criminal listed on the Demon Judgment Board by Heavenly Court. Heavenly Court Gu Immortals discuss him as a dangerous variable that must be eliminated.^{ch. 1052}

The final arcs

Fang Yuan’s time path work becomes central late. He refines the Spring Autumn Cicada in parallel.^{ch. 1479} The novel records him becoming a time path grandmaster in the same stretch.^{ch. 1597} The Gu is eventually raised to rank seven.^{ch. 1645}

The last chapters have three Venerables striking at the Heavenly Court.^{ch. 2333} The final chapter breaks off mid-conflict with Fang Yuan and Giant Sun against Star Constellation.^{ch. 2334}