Rules and Regulation Gu are a paired Gu from Ren Zu legend: spherical Rules and cubic Regulations. Anyone who knows their names can command them, and together they can catch Gu including Longevity Gu.
The name first appears in a popular Ren Zu story told in an inn on Qing Mao Mountain. Hope Gu points aged Ren Zu to a mountain cave that holds a round Gu and a square Gu. If he subdues them, no Gu in the world is beyond capture, including Longevity Gu. ch. 38
Appearance
One Gu is cubic and called Regulations. The other is spherical and called Rules. ch. 38 A later clan telling repeats the pair as one round and one square. ch. 58 When Ren Zu orders a world capture, Rules Gu becomes a giant circle and Regulation Gu a giant square. ch. 58
Form and names
In that telling the cave is dark until Ren Zu finally speaks the names. One Gu is cubic and called Regulations. The other is spherical and called Rules. Together they make up Rules and Regulations. ch. 38 A later clan telling repeats the same pair as Rules and Regulation Gu, one round and one square. ch. 58
They tell Ren Zu that anyone who knows their names can command them, and that he must not let others learn those names, because each new knower becomes someone they must obey. ch. 38
Capture ability
Working together they catch an eighty-year Longevity Gu for Ren Zu, and after he consumes it his body returns to that of a twenty year old. Before Rules is named, Regulations alone tells Ren Zu that only with its brother can it aid in capturing all Gu in the world; its ability alone is not enough. ch. 38
Gu Yue Bo later retells that after the first capture, each new command adds a rule and regulation. The first added limit is that they will not catch the same Gu for him again. Ren Zu then orders them to catch every Gu other than Longevity Gu. Rules Gu becomes a giant circle and Regulation Gu a giant square; as a net they enclose the world and bring back every Gu but Longevity Gu. ch. 58
When Ren Zu opens the net, most of the Gu escape. The pair explain that they can only capture Gu for him, and that subduing those Gu still depends on Ren Zu himself. A second new rule follows: from then on they can catch only one Gu for him at a time. ch. 58
Wisdom Gu’s escape
In the same clan telling, Strength Gu and Wisdom Gu remain among the few Gu still in the net. Ren Zu deals again with Strength Gu, then refuses Wisdom Gu’s matching middle-age bargain. Wisdom Gu tricks him into saying he used Rules and Regulation Gu to make the capture. Once Wisdom Gu knows those names, it laughs that Rules and Regulation can no longer capture it, and flees. ch. 58 A much later summary restates that Ren Zu once used rules and regulations Gu to capture Wisdom Gu, and that Wisdom Gu escaped in the end. ch. 591
Three Gu left in the net
Jia Fu continues the beat after Ren Zu has Strength but has lost Wisdom: the net still holds Attitude Gu, Belief Gu, and Suspicion Gu, and the three bet that whichever one Ren Zu catches when the net opens is the one that submits. Ren Zu captures Attitude Gu, because attitude means everything. ch. 59 Another telling names the three left behind as Suspicion, Trust, and Attitude. ch. 87 A further Attitude stretch still lists Rules and Regulation Gu among the Gu Ren Zu already holds. ch. 131
Path and rank
Early chapters treat Rules and Regulation Gu inside Ren Zu legend and clan analogy. No cited chapter assigns them a named cultivation path or a cultivation rank. No cited chapter shows a living Rules and Regulation Gu outside Ren Zu legend in the present story.
Ren Zu legend
During Ren Zu’s contest with strong Gu and Predicament, Rules and regulation Gu explain why the losses he must eat have shrunk after he ate a huge bitter head. ch. 2041 When weak Gu, betrayal Gu, and fear Gu flee under Tribulations, the pair urge Self Gu not to chase them. ch. 2052 After Predicament eats Ren Zu’s hearts and Ren Zu dies, Rules and regulation Gu say they have regained freedom and fly away. ch. 2053
Making truthful floating ice in the River of Time
A later telling recaps that rules and regulation Gu had left Ren Zu for dead after the Predicament ate his heart, and adds that since then they have been making truthful floating ice in the River of Time together with practice Gu. Finding Ren Zu alive on the ice, the pair are surprised, then point him to practice Gu for help finding self Gu. ch. 2294
Chronicle
Connections(19)
0 later connections are veiled.