Bamboo Gentleman

Jia Fu brings it out at Gu Yue Village when he interrogates Fang Yuan over Jia Jin Sheng’s disappearance. Gu Yue elders recognise the sealed Gu at once, and Gu Yue Bo names it a rank four Gu that is not easily refined. ^{ch. 57}

Appearance

It is a phasmid, long and slim, jade coloured, its body looking like a bamboo tube. It is normally longer than a palm, but this copy is only fingernail size. A white glow sits on its surface: green jade for a body, white light around its form. It is sealed in a translucent emerald jade piece inside a jade box. In an aperture it emits a faint green glow over the primeval sea. ^{ch. 57}

Form and rank

Jia Fu keeps it sealed in a translucent emerald jade piece inside a jade box. The Gu is a phasmid shaped like a bamboo tube, jade coloured, normally longer than a palm but here only fingernail size, with a white glow on its surface. Elders describe it as green jade for a body with white light around its form. ^{ch. 57}

Gu Yue Bo and Fang Yuan’s own later recollection both call this specimen rank four. ^{ch. 57 ch. 59}

Effect

The test Jia Fu runs is to place the Gu in the subject’s aperture, ask questions, then show the Gu again. A colour change away from green means a lie. While it sits in Fang Yuan’s aperture it gives off a faint green glow over the primeval sea, and Fang Yuan senses that a single lie would turn it from green to another colour. ^{ch. 57}

Bamboo Gentleman can only be used by a Gu Master who has never lied. ^{ch. 186}

Feeding and refinement

It lives in an honest gentleman’s aperture. Failed refinement kills the Bamboo Gentleman on the spot. ^{ch. 57}

Jia Fu obtained his copy through rock gambling when young. The rock was opened only halfway and the Gu could not be extracted fully until he had Fang Yuan open the jade for the interrogation. ^{ch. 57}

Jia Fu’s interrogation of Fang Yuan

Fang Yuan opens the jade, takes the Gu into his aperture, and answers three questions: whether he harmed Jia Jin Sheng, whether he has other information about him, and whether anything he said earlier was dishonest. He answers no to each. When the Gu comes back out it is still emerald green with no change, which clears him in the hall. ^{ch. 57}

That clearance is false. Fang Yuan wakes the Spring Autumn Cicada and lets out a trace of its aura. The aura suppresses the Bamboo Gentleman, which shrinks, curls up, and trembles, and cannot detect lies. Under that aura the Gu becomes Fang Yuan’s strongest evidence instead of a threat. ^{ch. 57 ch. 59}

After the test the opened Bamboo Gentleman is extremely weak, has no honesty to restore itself, and after the harsh treatment its death is set in stone. Jia Fu still keeps it and feels no pity. ^{ch. 57} A year later he tells Fang Yuan that the Bamboo Gentleman already removed his earlier suspicions. ^{ch. 113}

Jia Fu later sends Tie Ruo Nan a letter that records how the bamboo gentleman was used to interrogate Fang Yuan. She treats the unchanged colour as the puzzle: if Fang Yuan were the killer, how did the bamboo gentleman show no change? ^{ch. 176} She later floats the guess that Fang Yuan may have deceived the bamboo gentleman because of a ten extreme physique. ^{ch. 181}

Qin Bai Sheng interrogation