Fang Zheng

At the Awakening Ceremony the academy elder calls Gu Yue Fang Zheng after Fang Yuan’s C grade result. Fang Zheng trips into the river, struggles there while the crowd laughs, and Fang Yuan then speaks to him and pats his back before Fang Zheng walks into the flower sea. The flower sea names him an A grade talent. ^{ch. 6} A week later the academy treats the class as rank one Gu Masters, and the students look to Fang Zheng as the A grade among them. ^{ch. 7}

He works on a Moonlight Gu as his early worm. Fang Yuan’s refining chapter calculates that A grade recovery would let Fang Zheng finish a Moonlight Gu without leaning on primeval stones, ^{ch. 10} and a later scene shows Fang Zheng already spending a stone to speed that same refinement. ^{ch. 18} In the moonblade assessment he aims to outshine Fang Yuan after placing second in vital Gu refining, and the academy elder is already inclined to favor him as clan leader Gu Yue Bo’s A grade set. ^{ch. 25} Gu Yue Bo later places a Jade Skin Gu in Fang Zheng’s hand as a better defensive worm than Bronze Skin Gu, on the condition that Fang Zheng be first to rank two. ^{ch. 63}

The year-end examination announces him as rank two initial stage, ^{ch. 81} and in the arena he faces Fang Yuan while already rank two, holding red steel primeval essence, Jade Skin Gu, and Moonlight Gu, and still loses the match. ^{ch. 84} Under Gu Yue Bo’s arrangement Fang Zheng is the first of his cohort to reach rank one upper stage, peak stage, and rank two initial stage. ^{ch. 86} A later fusion lesson still lists Jade Skin Gu and Moonlight Gu among the worms he has on hand. ^{ch. 98} When Fang Yuan becomes an elder, clan talk still places Fang Zheng at rank two upper stage. ^{ch. 158}

Inside the clan he is the rising A grade the elders expect to protect. When Tie Ruo Nan exposes that a demonic Gu Master once attacked him by mistaking him for Fang Yuan, Fang Zheng turns that discovery into open rage at his brother in front of the elders. ^{ch. 175} In the same elder hall stretch Fang Zheng hears Fang Yuan admit to massacring old Wang’s whole family, and tells him he already has the qualifications to breakthrough to rank three. ^{ch. 176}

During the final Qing Mao fighting Fang Zheng is lost in the wild and does not return to the village. His life or death is left unsettled at that moment. ^{ch. 193} A later Immortal Crane Sect account fills the gap. Lord Sky Crane, after Bai Ning Bing’s self-detonation, finds Fang Zheng near death under the ice, brings him into the sect as a pupil, and plans to use that bond against Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 211}

While the real brother is inside Immortal Crane Sect, Fang Yuan uses the name Gu Yue Fang Zheng in public. He first gives that name to Bai clan elites as young master of Qing Mao Mountain’s Gu Yue clan, ^{ch. 215} later drops Hei Tu for Gu Yue Fang Zheng to Shang clan’s Wei Yang and before Shang Xin Ci, ^{ch. 266 ch. 270} and signs up for Shang clan city’s battle stage under the same name. ^{ch. 279 ch. 302} Later city talk that treats Fang Zheng and Bai Ning Bing as the most famous pair in the battle zone is still that impersonation, not the younger brother’s own timeline. ^{ch. 305} Crowd talk that names Fang Zheng as a rank three middle stage or peak stage fighter on that Southern Border stage is talking about Fang Yuan under the stolen name, not the twin inside Immortal Crane Sect. ^{ch. 316} Mid Southern Border scenes under that name are impersonation, not Fang Zheng’s own timeline.

Years on, he reaches the final of Immortal Crane Sect’s eight year middle examination against the veteran Sun Yuan Hua. Observers place both finalists near twenty years old, call him a black horse who kept a low profile for years, and state that he has cultivated to rank four middle stage while building an ironbeak flying crane group near ten thousand strong, with Lord Sky Crane still advising him from within his mind. He takes first place, defeats Sun Yuan Hua, and becomes an elite disciple. ^{ch. 334} The sect leader tells him that his rank four cultivation already qualifies him to be a sect elder, but that he has only entered the sect for a short time and must prove his loyalty on sect missions, then win the large examination to become a legacy disciple. ^{ch. 335} Fang Zheng names revenge for clan, uncle and aunt, clan leader, and Gu Yue Qing Shu as the drive behind those years of work. ^{ch. 334 ch. 339}

A year after the Hu Immortal competition setback, Fang Zheng is a rank five Gu Master drilling ironbeak flying crane formations on Fei He mountain, and Lord Sky Crane sends him to the flying crane manipulation test. Sky Crane frames the B grade reward, a rank five five hole jade flute Gu, as what would raise his crane control to quasi enslavement master level. Sect disciples already call him an enslavement path genius and say he has reached quasi enslavement path master, and Sky Crane later uses the same quasi enslavement master label while urging him on. ^{ch. 656}

When he wakes after the Hu Immortal attempt, Immortal Crane Sect announces him as a sect elder; that chapter’s narration also says Gu Immortals had forcibly raised his cultivation to rank five for that plan. Lord Sky Crane had put his own soul in a Gu worm inside Fang Zheng’s aperture in order to possess him one day, then abandons the possession and asks He Feng Yang to mend Fang Zheng’s soul instead, which is what wakes him. The sect had spent him on that attempt and now loads him with an elder’s standing and its rewards to win his loyalty back, and he does not see it. ^{ch. 827} Soon after, his main cultivation path is named as enslavement path, with outstanding mortal battle strength when he controls cranes, though he has no refinement path grounding of his own. ^{ch. 828}

Fang Yuan attacks him in public in front of Immortal Crane Sect’s elders, immobilizes him from a distance, and announces that as the elder brother he will keep him at his side and teach him refinement path. He is an enslavement path Gu Master whose mortal battle strength sits mainly in crane groups. A wisdom path killer move taken from Dong Fang Chang Fan feeds him false thoughts, so the refusal he shouts back is not his own. Fang Yuan also cuts his link to his aperture, so Lord Sky Crane’s soul cannot answer him. ^{ch. 842}

In captivity Fang Yuan plays a combination of his own memories and Lord Sky Crane’s memories into Fang Zheng’s mind and tries to break the sect loyalty that still holds. Fang Zheng refuses, names Fang Yuan the killer of their uncle, aunt, and clan, and swears personal revenge. ^{ch. 846} On Heavenly Court orders, He Feng Yang later kills the body Fang Yuan hands over in front of Fang Yuan, ^{ch. 857} but Fang Yuan has already kept a severed limb and asks Tai Bai Yun Sheng to use man as before Immortal Gu on that limb, so Fang Zheng lives in secret while Immortal Crane Sect believes him gone. ^{ch. 858}

Fang Yuan keeps him imprisoned in Hu Immortal blessed land until hairy men seize that land and take Fang Zheng into Lang Ya blessed land as a captive. ^{ch. 1037} Slave merchant Kang Ba later sells him on a market stage as a rare rank five human slave, ^{ch. 1049} and the next chapter shows him still enslaved under Steel Thread City’s control, unable even to choose death, while a will of Fang Yuan pushes him to win a contest for a chance at freedom. He has given the hairy men his brother’s name instead of his own, and the will mocks him for taking the name of a brother he believes dead. Following its instructions he wins the refinement contest, which the will promises will take him into a martial competition and out of slavery. ^{ch. 1050}

In the Black Hair Kingdom capital inside Lang Ya blessed land, Fang Zheng reaches the final of the kingdom’s first national martial contest as its only human finalist, facing a rank five fire path hairy man Gu Master. Not wanting a human to win, the Black Hair King has already tampered with the match beforehand, and mid-fight a soul path Gu worm the King planted in Fang Zheng’s soul activates, leaving him dizzy and too soul-injured to use River Swallowing Toad. Fang Yuan’s will, still working to reeducate him, tells Fang Zheng of the sabotage and its source, and Fang Zheng resolves to win anyway out of fury rather than settle for second. Under the will’s instructions he defeats his opponent and takes first place, a result Fang Yuan judges will cost Black Hair Kingdom face while serving his own plan for Fang Zheng. ^{ch. 1084} Fang Yuan’s later count of his own captives still places Fang Zheng in Lang Ya blessed land. ^{ch. 1291}

When Heavenly Court attacked Lang Ya blessed land, Feng Jiu Ge saved him for his unique identity and took him out of that land. After that, he returned to Central Continent. Immortal Crane Sect then pushes him toward blood path as a weapon against Fang Yuan. Fang Zheng accepts a blood path Immortal Gu while saying aloud that a righteous path sect is asking him to become a demonic path Gu Immortal, and that he cultivates blood path because they are blood brothers. ^{ch. 1642}

His immortal ascension follows. Ahead of the tribulation he thinks Immortal Crane Sect should be nervous, or rather the Heavenly Court behind them. A forbidden technique he used in one of Lang Ya blessed land’s wars had cracked his aperture and dropped his aptitude to B grade, and Heavenly Court restored the A grade while leaving the cracks to make his ascension easier. He undergoes tribulation as a blood path candidate, forms a high grade blessed land, and raises his vital Gu into a second blood path Immortal Gu. Immortal Crane Sect then announces the success and presents him as a main force against the demonic path figure Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 1646} He then holds rank six blood path Immortal Gu Cold Blood and Blood Revenge. ^{ch. 1647} Heaven’s will framing treats him as a key restraint on Fang Yuan later as well. ^{ch. 2005}

Qin Ding Ling later backs him as the next Demon Judgment Board Lord. He becomes the disciple of Red Heart Traveler inside Demon Judgment Board, and when that master leaves, Fang Zheng is told to take over as Demon Judgment Board Lord. ^{ch. 1886} At rank seven he is the board’s current owner and can use it against most rank eight Gu Immortals, ^{ch. 1986} though he has not yet met the cultivation condition to join Heavenly Court formally and has not handed over his blessed land. ^{ch. 1989} He is still alive inside Demon Judgment Board during the late Crazed Demon formation fighting. ^{ch. 2198}

Steel Thread City Lord later tells her son that Gu Yue Fang Zheng was once a human slave she owned, then escaped and became a renowned demonic path Gu Master expert. ^{ch. 2244}