Zhao Lian Yun

As Zhao tribe leader’s daughter of about five or six, she has soft dark hair and large gleaming black eyes, and her appearance is extremely similar to her late mother’s. ^{ch. 502} After love Gu consumes her lifespan, she becomes an elderly woman with a bent back, wrinkles covering her body, blurry sight, and white hair that pulls out easily. Her hands are old and skinny. She can only transmit her voice through Gu worms. ^{ch. 1266} She is dressed in white with clothes moving along with the wind, long black silky hair, and clear skin. ^{ch. 2091}

Zhao tribe leader’s remaining daughter is about five or six when Hei tribe and Dong Fang tribe pressure the tribe. She uses a sheep, wolf, and tiger comparison, then pushes alliance with Ma tribe, until her father decides to leave at once. ^{ch. 502} After Zhao tribe joins Ma tribe’s army, she is called Lady Xiao Yun, befriends the servant Fei Cai for information, and coaches him through a shoe theft frame to keep her informant; ^{ch. 520} she is surprised when he then becomes head of the young tribe leader’s slaves. ^{ch. 521 ch. 522} Her father, the Zhao tribe leader, dies in battle, and on the night of his death her stepmother remarries the new tribe leader, sinking her position sharply. The old caretaker tells her the tribe lady has already betrothed her to Wei tribe’s eldest young master, and she refuses the match. ^{ch. 529}

When Ma tribe collapses, she flees with Fei Cai as mortals. They find the injured Ma Ying Jie, ^{ch. 543} and when he wakes Fei Cai and Zhao Lian Yun both nod that they saved him. ^{ch. 544} Fei Cai later becomes Ma Hong Yun after that coincidental save and Hei tribe’s takeover of Ma tribe. ^{ch. 570} She continues coaching him, including what to say when Ma Ying Jie summons him over an invitation. ^{ch. 578}

Her private thoughts treat the world as one she has transmigrated into and state that she is not a person of this world. ^{ch. 502 ch. 522} An information report notes Zhao tribe’s departure and names Zhao Lian Yun. Fang Yuan’s past-life memory recalls that after she became a wisdom path Gu Immortal, someone made a biography on her: extraordinary intelligence from youth, the tiger-wolf-sheep persuasion that sends Zhao tribe to Ma tribe, and later status with Ma Hong Yun as Northern Plains cornerstones against Heavenly Court in the battle of the five regions. ^{ch. 503}

Hei Lou Lan tries to kill her because Giant Sun’s will calls her an otherworldly demon, while Ma Hong Yun shields her; ^{ch. 616} Frost Jade Peacock’s barrier and then Giant Sun’s luck path true inheritance protect the pair, ^{ch. 622} and the land spirit acknowledges them as masters. ^{ch. 616} Among those contending on the collapsing Imperial Court platform, the stage roll call names her the legendary woman viewed as an otherworldly demon by Giant Sun’s will, Ma Hong Yun’s wife in Fang Yuan’s previous life, and a wisdom path Gu Immortal who gives him vast help. ^{ch. 622} In Reverse Flow River, Fang Yuan seizes both of them; Ma Hong Yun dies of exhaustion after overexerting himself, and rank nine love Gu bursts from Zhao Lian Yun and carries her out of the river while Ma Hong Yun’s corpse remains. ^{ch. 1284}

Qin Bai Sheng auctions the unconscious pair: he names her Zhao Lian Yun and tells the hall that she was not the true inheritor but took a great deal from inside the luck path true inheritance light lump and holds a portion of that inheritance herself. She is sold to Feng Jiu Ge while Old Ancestor Xue Hu buys Ma Hong Yun. ^{ch. 761} Shadow Sect learns that she has been secretly sent to Central Continent. ^{ch. 989} At Spirit Affinity House, love Gu acknowledges her; Duke Long orders her made the current generation fairy, gives her a phantom aperture that turns her into a Gu Immortal, and orders the ten great ancient sects to form a rescue team for Ma Hong Yun with her as the core. First supreme elder also names her an otherworldly demon who obtained a Thieving Heaven true inheritance. ^{ch. 1230} A Gu Immortal later states that relic Gu raised her cultivation to rank five peak stage before that phantom aperture and Immortal Gu support from Heavenly Court. ^{ch. 1234}

Sent into Luo Po valley’s Thieving Heaven inheritance space to save Feng Jiu Ge, Zhao Lian Yun reaches her hand into a tornado of the winds of assimilation on his word that her nature as an otherworldly demon leaves it harmless to her, and the tornado dissolves at her touch. She clears her way to the center and the pillar of wind holding Feng Jiu Ge disperses, but he only opens his right hand to show her two words written on it in blood before his body scatters on the wind, dead. She had gone in after asking Prince Feng Xian whether saving him would make her Spirit Affinity House’s next generation fairy, since the sect’s power was how she meant to save Ma Hong Yun. ^{ch. 951}

With Feng Jiu Ge dead, Zhao Lian Yun is the only claimant left inside the inheritance space, and since the inheritance asks nothing but proof that the claimant is an otherworldly demon, it passes to her at once. The Thieving Heaven true inheritance she takes there is Ghostly Concealment. ^{ch. 953}

A letter from Spirit Affinity House reaches Prince Feng Xian saying that Zhao Lian Yun obtained divine concealment some days earlier, and that the sect has learned ghostly concealment lay in Luo Po valley’s Thieving Heaven true inheritance. From how old that news is, he works out that someone inside the sect held it back on purpose. ^{ch. 993}

Zhao Lian Yun is one of five Central Continent Gu Immortals who kill Hair Mistress inside Snowy Mountain blessed land and then find themselves trapped by its super Gu formation, and while they are trapped love Immortal Gu activates on its own inside her immortal aperture and takes her body over. The other four recognize its aura from the spaceless tunnel and realize that love Gu was what shielded them there. She wakes a while later and tells the group she now knows every secret of the Gu formation trapping them, nodding when they ask whether love Gu is what gave it to her. ^{ch. 1251}

Zhao Lian Yun explains that love Gu’s activation gave her the origins and history of the fate reversing sacrificial refinement formation, a Gu formation Sun Ming Lu built for Lady Wan Shou, drawing its power from the water of Reverse Flow River. It amplifies the strength of the Gu Immortals who hold its cores, lifting a rank six to rank seven might, while a rank seven gains a large boost that still falls short of rank eight. Any Gu Immortal who dies inside the formation counts as a life sacrificed to it, helping Lady Wan Shou at the center refine Ma Hong Yun. ^{ch. 1252}

Hearing her own name called out of the darkness, Zhao Lian Yun recalls the days of the Imperial Court contest, when her father was already dead and her marriage was being arranged for her as a political bargain, and how she went against that fate by relying on Ma Hong Yun. In a short time she had turned from a wealthy young miss to an orphan. Ma Hong Yun once brought her to a valley and taught her to shout her own name so it would echo back, telling her he had done the same as a child when he was teased and no one played with him, and that she should come to the valley whenever she was unhappy, since serving the young clan leader kept him from always being with her. ^{ch. 1256}

The voice in the darkness tells her she is not alone and that someone is still waiting for her to rescue him, and she answers that she will save him. She wakes from her stupor with her whole body burning in a pale blue light let out by love Immortal Gu, her injuries recovering rapidly and her condition soaring. The light shines out around her and Zhao Da Niu retreats in horror from its weight. ^{ch. 1256}

The battle with Zhao Da Niu that freed her with a burst of light is now shown to have cost her something: love Immortal Gu took her voice as its price instead of immortal essence, leaving her unable to make any sound at all. Called on again in a later battle, love Gu shows no sign of responding to her. ^{ch. 1261}

Losing a drawn-out fight with the blood path demonic immortal Zhao Pu, Zhao Lian Yun bleeds from her eyes and every pore until she collapses in a pool of her own blood, and Zhao Pu moves in for a fatal strike. Love Immortal Gu bursts out of her in a blinding light and destroys Zhao Pu on the spot. ^{ch. 1264}

Snowy Mountain blessed land suddenly collapses, and the secluded domain Reverse Flow River sweeps out over the battlefield. Zhao Lian Yun, the Snowy Mountain peak lords, Lady Wan Shou, Ying Wu Xie’s group, and Ma Hong Yun are all swept into the river together. ^{ch. 1271}

As the price of an earlier use of love Gu, she has been speaking only through Gu worms, and because no Gu worm can function inside Reverse Flow River, no voice comes out when she tries to speak to Ma Hong Yun on the floating mound. She hesitates, unwilling to let Ma Hong Yun see how she looks now, and lowers her head rather than meet his eyes. Ma Hong Yun calls her Lady Xiao Yun, throws away his fruit and runs over to take her hands, and she feels that every sacrifice she made was worth it. ^{ch. 1277}

Ma Hong Yun holds Zhao Lian Yun’s hand and takes what should be the final step out of Reverse Flow River, but the river extends itself with every step, so the two remain trapped inside it. ^{ch. 1283}

During Imperial Court blessed land the all living being’s luck true inheritance protected Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun, and each of them gained a portion of that inheritance. Love Immortal Gu carries her clear of the danger and back to Bi Chen Tian and Wei Ling Yang, and Fang Yuan, blocked by that rank nine Immortal Gu, fails to capture her. She screams in a shrill voice that she wants Fang Yuan dead, and the love she held for Ma Hong Yun becomes hatred for Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 1286}

Soul-searching Ma Hong Yun’s captured soul for his portion of the all living being’s luck true inheritance, Fang Yuan notes that Zhao Lian Yun is not dead yet. ^{ch. 1304}