Gu Mang

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* Novel (CN)
* Novel (KR)
* Novel (ENG)

Qingguang Elder
清光长老 *Qīngguāng Zhǎnglǎo*

	+ Wangba Army (commander, former)
* Liao Kingdom (former)
* Xihe Manor (former)
* Wangshu Academy

**Gu Mang** (顾茫, *Gù Máng*) is the former general-in-chief of the Northern Frontier Army, back when it was still named Wangba Army.

He is widely known as the **Beast of the Altar** (神坛猛兽, *Shéntán Měngshòu*), a title that he earned during his youth because he had the most military achievements in Chonghua. He later turns traitor and defects over to the Liao Kingdom, and returns to Chonghua five years later.

## Appearance

### Youth

His face is gentle and handsome with an air of childish naivety. He has glowing honey skin, black hair and black eyes along with a pair of soft lips. His body is strong and muscular from years of cultivating in the Cultivation Academy and serving in the army, and has a few scars on his chest and abdomen.

### Defection

When Gu Mang is seen at Dongting Lake after leaving Chonghua and defecting, his skin is more tan and his physique is more toned and sturdy. He wears a black cape over his shoulders and many loops of bandages on his waist, while the rest of his upper body is bare. A bloodstained blue and gold-edged merit ribbon is tied on his head, which he pulled off an imperial soldier of Chonghua.

### Return to Chonghua

After Gu Mang returns to Chonghua and imprisoned in Luomei Pavilion, his face is thinner and pale and his hair is loose. The color of his eyes changed to sky-blue, like those of a snow wolf, due to the Liao Kingdom tampering with his body. He is barefoot, wearing only a white robe and a magical shackle on his neck. Under his robe, his entire back is covered in green and purple whip marks, knife marks, and burn wounds from spells and scars all given by clients and the brothel's manager.

## Personality

### Youth

Gu Mang uses his sense of humor and smile to hide his sorrows. He is kind in nature and righteous. He never resents or criticizes anything, despite often being treated badly because of his low status. He doesn't keep grudges and forgives everything with a smile. He is unable to watch people suffer, even willing to be punished and lose his ability to cultivate, only to help save people.

His sincere heart overflowing with kindness and compassion restored Mo Xi's faith in humanity after his father died and the rest of his family failed him. As Mo Xi's shixiong, he liked being Mo Xi's gege and liked taking care of him. He presented himself as a shameless womanizer who often went to brothels, however this was only an excuse to slip away to the closest city and wash dishes for a run down restaurant. He froze his hands in cold water and exhausted himself, but he did this for money so that he could buy Mo Xi decent meals as they were only low-ranked soldiers.

He deeply cares about his comrades and remembers all their birthdays. Between battles, he would often take them to enjoy themselves in nearby villages and exchange anything he had to fill their stomachs and please them with wine, sometimes shamelessly using his charms to get them more beef if he ran out of things to pawn off. Gu Mang made a promise to his army that he will bring them home, dead or alive. For that reason, he begged the emperor to identify the bodies of his dead soldiers, instead of putting them in a mass grave. Despite his efforts, the emperor didn't agree because of the soldier's low status. He wished slaves could live as an equal to the nobles of Chonghua, with dignity, despite the strictly drawn lines of hierarchy among them. He hoped that in the future more countries will allow lowly born people to cultivate and succeed.

His personality becomes a lot colder when this idealism shatters, leading to his disillusionment and his defection. He is much more ruthless and seemingly emotionless, not hesitating to push the right buttons to hurt Mo Xi's feelings and stabbing him. He showed no remorse for his actions, and told Mo Xi that he had already moved on from him by the time he recovered most of his memories. He even asked Mo Xi, *"Have you ever thought, no matter what sacrifices you made, or how much you changed, your shixiong... never really liked you."* while pointing at where he had once stabbed him on the chest.

***This section contains spoilers!***
As a spy, he felt deep remorse for his crimes and hated his traitor status. Regardless, he continued to put up his "traitor act" despite having recovered most of his memories, even letting Zhou He perform black magic experiments on him. He was confident that Mo Xi's love and passion for him was temporary, that Mo Xi would *"soon come to know that his feelings for Gu Mang was nothing but the impulse of his youth,"* and so he never dared to fully voice his feelings towards Mo Xi. For this reason, he tried to set Mo Xi up with Murong Mengze, one of the most politically advantageous women in Chonghua, in hopes that Mo Xi could receive her protection and live the life Gu Mang wanted for him. He was also afraid of his heart being broken by the one he loved, as it *"was all he had, the only thing he had to his name in this life."*

### Memory Loss

When Gu Mang lost his memories and had his spiritual core shattered, he also lost two souls which affects his memory and mind. He doesn't remember who he is, and according to the healers' diagnosis, he sees himself as a strong and mighty wolf. Following his return to Chonghua, he didn't know how to speak, and even after working with a trainer for two years, he still can't understand many complex words.

After Gu Mang arrives at Xihe Manor, [[ ]] notes that his personality was akin to a cats; He is wary of unfamiliar things, tries to hide himself when faced with danger, and forages for food in the cover of darkness. Eventually as he gets more familiar with Mo Xi and Li Wei, thanks to their patience, Gu Mang learns to speak more fluently and learns how to do household chores.

Gu Mang is calm, and indifferent to other's anger even if they inflict pain to him. This is typically because he does not understand why he is on the receiving end of their emotions and would only try to obey their commands to alleviate their anger. His personality could be described as childlike and somewhat wolflike, unable to grasp complex emotions. Compared to the Gu Mang from the past, Mo Xi constantly notes that there isn't a single familiar thing in him.

## Background

He was a slave by birth and worked as Murong Lian's personal slave. He eventually started cultivating in the Cultivation Academy due to the previous emperor allowing slaves to do so. Later on, he led his own slave army known as the Wangba Army into battles and won a glorious thirty-eight (38) battles, thus becoming crowned with the titles "Beast of the Altar" and "God of War" respectively.

## Trivia

* He is bad at giving names, take Wangba Army and Fandou as an example. As he was admired during his time as a general, many people decided to follow his example and gave their children "shitty names", believing that it will bring them good luck.
* When he was young, he had a lisp.
* He has a habit of curling up into a ball while sleeping.
* He is a very good cook and likes to eat. A notable dish of his is his roast goose, which he also taught Mo Xi to make. On another note, he hates green onions.
* It has been stressed multiple times that Gu Mang, prior to his defection to the Liao Kingdom, had notably beautiful, bright, black eyes resembling the ones of a wolf that changed color to a sky blue due to the demonic faewolf blood injected into him during his time in the Liao Kingdom.
* His title in Wangshu Academy, Qingguang (清光, *Qīngguāng*), can translate to "moon", and is also a variation of Wangshu (望舒, *Wàngshū*).
* Near the end of the novel, Gu Mang and Murong Lian often argue about who's the older brother. Gu Mang argues that he's the older brother because he was conceived first, but Murong Lian argues that he's the older brother instead because he was born first.
* Chinese fans refer to Mo Xi and Gu Mang's shipname, 熄茫 (*Xīmáng*) as 西芒 (*Xīmáng*), which literally translates to "watermelon mango." This is because the characters for "watermelon" and "mango" are homonyms for Mo Xi and Gu Mang's given names respectively.
* In the original draft, Gu Mang was an undercover cop masquerading as a criminal. Rather than having a poor upbringing, he was the son of a wealthy family. He also had a knack for writing stories, and wrote *Remnants of Filth* under the title 《禁/书》 (*Jìnshū*, lit. Forbidden Book).
	+ He had two pen names: "Sword Drawn, Lost in the Face of the World" in his youth, and "Pulling Bird" in his adulthood.
		1. **Sword Drawn, Lost in the Face of the World** (*Bá Jiàn Sì **Gù Máng**rán,* 拔剑四**顾茫**然) is a play on Gu Mang's name (see the characters in bold).
		2. **Pulling Bird,** also known in full as **Pulling Arrows and Shooting Down Birds** (*Bá Jiàn Dā Gōng Shè Fēiniǎo,* 拔箭搭弓射飞鸟) which was shortened to Pulling Bird due to JJWXC's username character limit. Pulling Bird doubles as a dick joke, "pulling dick."

## References

2. ↑ Novel, Chapter 12: Murong Lian
3. ↑ Novel, Chapter 3: Old Hatred
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Novel, Chapter 8: Gu Mang Has It Rough
5. ↑ Novel, Prologue
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Novel, Chapter 16: Suspicion
7. ↑ Novel, Chapter 48: The Truth Behind Flirtations
8. ↑ Novel, Chapter 15: A Little Test
9. ↑ Novel, Chapter 97: Do You Hate Me
10. ↑ Novel, Chapter 101: Naivete
11. ↑ Novel, Chapter 136: Dragon Boat Festival
12. ↑ Novel, Chapter 128: No Other Choice
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Novel, Chapter 63: Heart's Pain
14. ↑ Novel, Chapter 193: With You
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Novel, Chapter 11: Slave Collar
16. ↑ Novel, Chapter 42: Catch Me If You Can
17. ↑ Novel, Chapter: Fourteen Years of First Love
18. ↑ Novel, Chapter 143: Sharing a Bed
19. ↑ Novel, Chapter 44: Crispy Roast Goose