Hong Yi

Back at the academy at night, Hong Yi finishes nourishing his aperture and takes out rank two Rewind, a rare time path Gu that returns an enemy Gu worm to its state before activation. Even with an A-grade aperture and over ninety percent primeval essence he can activate it only once. He has already placed in the top ten without showing his true strength and expects the ten-strongest match and final to turn on that Gu. ^{ch. 679}

Fang Yuan completes Connect Luck on him; Hong Yi feels a brief empty shock as if something precious were stolen, then dismisses it. Luck inspection shows his milky white scholar-shaped luck shrink to under thirty percent of its former size after the link. Universal Life Academy then halts the sect competition after discovering an underground zhi forest, and Hong Yi sleeps through the cancellation that delays the memorial tablet plan. ^{ch. 680} Fang Yuan notes that Han Li and Hong Yi were chosen for strong luck inferior only to Ma Hong Yun. After linking Ye Fan as well, he lists all three with equal shares of connected luck. ^{ch. 681}

Elders name him the principal’s son and leader of the disciples while noting he is not a refinement hall disciple. Lord Principal has several sons; Hong Yi is the most capable, a concubine’s son with a rebellious nature, and he often faces suppression. He entered the refinement path competition behind his father’s back to push the memorial tablet demand. In the finals his uncontrolled fire seems to fail, then a sneeze finishes the red face Gu in an instant, and his father calls the outcome dogshit luck. ^{ch. 824} At a later Central Continent contest he watches Fang Yuan leave with yearning and, as a Universal Life Academy righteous path disciple, feels no dislike for that demonic style even after an early elimination. ^{ch. 837}

At Broken Sword Valley on Central Continent, Hong Yi grabs a shining, molting caterpillar before it finishes turning into a Gu. He refines it into a very strange rank five sword path Gu worm, black and palm-sized, shaped like a miniature sword sheath of iron: a rank five sword sheath Gu. A sword path Gu worm then flies out of a nearby bush and enters the sword sheath Gu in his hand. ^{ch. 1059}

Inside a Gu store he releases a rank five Gu Master aura, tests scholar Gu as it becomes a young scholar, and buys the rare human path worm after confirming it can use wisdom path and information path mortal Gu with his own habits. He and Ye Fan had been sent into that painting by Genesis Lotus’s will and split up to explore. ^{ch. 1947}