Shenlong Lihua

Duanmu Yin (Lover and supervisee) †

Shenlong Xiren (Brother)

Shenlong Zhangxuan (Brother)

**Shenlong Lihua** was the former head of the Shenlong family and the elder sister of Shenlong Xiren and Shenlong Zhangxuan. She was, also, the supervisor of the 61st Yangming Master, Duanmu Yin, with whom she had a son, Duanmu Xi, that later became the 63rd Yangming Master.

After Lihua's parents passed away due to old age, she became the head of the Shenlong household and raised her brothers, who were still very young. When Duanmu Yin became a Yangming Master, she became his supervisor, as the Shenlong family had taken the task, since ancient times, of guarding and monitoring the Yangming priests in order to prevent them from neglecting their duties or becoming evil like the first priest, Duanmu Luoyue.

During this time, Duanmu Yin fell in love with her and eventually convinced her to spend a night with him. The following day he proposed that they get married, but because of her supervision duties, that Yin was unaware of, she had to refuse, as something like that wasn't allowed. Later, however, she found out she was pregnant, due to her mistaking her diet pills for the contraceptive ones. She immediately arranged to have an abortion at a clinic, but after hearing the patients' conversations there and meeting a young Yang Jinghua, she decided to keep the baby. Because it was a taboo child, she had to give up her position as head of the Shenlong family and supervisor of Duanmu Yin to raise the child secretly from the Duanmu household and not bring shame to her own family. After discussing that with her teenage brother Xiren, she passed the Shenlong family's power of hypnosis to him, knocking him unconscious. She then told her baby brother Zhangxuan that she finally understood her mother's decision to give birth to him despite her old age and Lihua being against it, as it was now time for her to make a similar difficult decision. She, also, asked him to treat her son well if he meets him in the future. After that she disappeared from their lives, along with Quan, a little orphan girl that had been serving her for years and chose to follow her and whom she adopted and treated as her family.

Meanwhile, Yin's grandmother had arranged a marriage between him and Situ Lan, which he tried to refuse by telling her that he liked someone else. His grandmother, however, told him that if she truly loved him, she should come to her and convinced her that she's worthy of being in the Duanmu family, otherwise he had to fulfill his duties as the head of the family by marrying and producing an offspring, as he did not have much time left alive. But despite Yin messaging and calling her, Lihua never responded to him, except for a congratulatory message on their wedding day.

While Lihua and Quan were on their way to a different town, they nearly got into an accident that caused Lihua to go into labor prematurely. The only doctor around the area happened to be Yang Jinghua's grandfather, who helped her deliver safely. Because she didn't have anything to repay him with, Lihua asked him to name her son and he chose the name Xi, getting the idea from Jinghua's earlier recitation during their phone call. After that, she went with Quan to buy baby supplies from the nearby town, leaving Duanmu Xi with Jinghua's grandfather. During that time, Jinghua visited him with his parents, who had brought him some stuff to help him settle down, since he had only recently moved there. When Jinghua's grandfather went outside to help them, Jinghua noticed there was a beautiful doll-like baby on the bed and started playing with it. When his grandfather saw him holding the baby up, he panicked and told him to put it down. Τhat was the first time Xi and Jinghua met each other.

Duanmu Xi was born with immense spiritual power that he could not control, causing damages, even as a baby. Because of that, Lihua had to bring him to Duanmu Yin to help suppress his powers. Duanmu Yin, however, refused to take them in and his attempt to suppress Xi's powers didn't work. Due to that Lihua had to move quite often with Xi and Quan. Unfortunately, Xi, also, had a special body type that made him allergic to many food ingredients, and was always weak and suffering from fever. Lihua was often overwhelmed by this situation to the point of saying hurtful things to Duanmu Xi, like that she shouldn't have given birth to him. At some point, they moved to Yang Jinghua's neighborhood, where Xi used to make sandcastles at a construction site. Yang Jinghua noticed him and decided to destroy his castles every time until he got tired of it and joined him instead. One day, Jinghua saw some kids bully Duanmu Xi and stood up for him, saying he would be under his care from now on. When Xi went back home he told Lihua he had made a friend and she seemed quite happy about it. However, the parents of those kids found Lihua that night and complained about the children's earlier fight, with one of the kids throwing a stone at Duanmu Xi's head, that sent him to the hospital. While being there, even though he didn't have anything serious, he got a blood transfusion that caused him to have a severe allergic reaction. In her desperation, she contacted her brother Xiren and begged him for Zhangxuan's blood, which was special and could help Xi recover. Xiren, however, refused adamantly, as he was still hurt that she abandoned them for this taboo child and didn't want her to use Zhangxuan for him. This whole situation angered and exhausted Lihua so much that she went to Jinghua's parents that same night and furiously asked them to keep their son away from hers. After Xi recovered, they immediately moved to another place.

When Duanmu Xi was about 9 years old he was taken hostage by a random criminal, who held a knife to his throat. Xi, who thought that was causing trouble with his existence again, used that knife to commit suicide, a heavy sin that would send him to hell. In order to save him from this terrible fate, Lihua used a special ritual of the Shenlong family to exchange her soul for Duanmu Xi's, while Yinzhe, Duanmu Yin's spirit shadow who was tasked with protecting Xi after Yin's death, used his 1000-year-old cultivation to restore his body, which left Xi pure white and gave him the ability to heal with impressive speed. Because he came back from hell, Xi, also, got the mirror of yellow springs or mirror of Huang Quan, with which he can see a soul's past using the left hand and reproduce it with the right hand. Before Lihua's soul departed, she had the chance to speak to little Duanmu Xi. She explained that she only regretted giving birth to him because of the suffering he was experiencing. To her his birth brought nothing but happiness and wished for him to use this second chance at life to experience the world and find people worthy of his love.

After that, Duanmu Xi was brought to the Duanmu household by his great-grandmother. Duanmu Xi kept asking her about his mother and Quan, but she avoided responding. Instead, she showed him a pear tree she had planted in memory of his mother, since Lihua means pear blossom, and told him he could come and take care of it whenever he missed her. About ten years later, the tree is shown fully grown and in bloom.

In the genealogical records of the Shenlong family, above her name it is written: ''Shenlong Lihua, God gave us a family member that was strong and full of pride, like a flower''.