Jiang Yexue/History

## Jiang Yexue

岳夜雪 *Yuè Yèxuě* (former)
岳 *yuè* – high mountain
夜 *yè* – night
雪 *xuě* – snow

* Imperial Palace (former)

## History

### Early Childhood

Jiang Yexue was born to qin player Xie Lanyi, also referred to as Madam Xie, and Yue Juntian, the head of the Yue Family. As Yue Juntian's first known child, he was treated well by the people, with his mother taking him to be taught by the most virtuous man in the residence and Yue Juntian even going as far as exclaiming that he would have Jiang Yexue succeed him as the head of the Yue Family and become clan leader, all while he was drunk. Hearing this, Madam Xie was overjoyed. Later, she would tell Jiang Yexue not to look at how well Yue Juntian was treating them, knowing that Murong Huang was going to marry into the family soon.

Before Murong Huang and Yue Juntian's wedding, Madam Xie pulls Jiang Yexue into her room, telling him that Murong Huang is about to marry into the family on the first of the next month. She also told him that they must struggle and fight, but Jiang Yexue thought otherwise, preferring to live a life of leisure instead. Despite his disagreement, he says nothing.

In one of the Yue Family's trips to the palace, he meets Mo Xi in the palace terrace.

#### Murong Chuyi

On the day of Murong Huang’s wedding, Jiang Yexue slips away from the party and into the backyard. There, he meets a youth wearing snow white robes and a scarlet cape draped around his shoulders, who was standing in the falling snow and looking at an old plum blossom tree. The youth is revealed to be Murong Chuyi.

Thinking that Murong Chuyi was a young gongzi from one of the visiting families, Jiang Yexue shields him from the snow with an oil-paper umbrella, asking him which family is from. Murong Chuyi is taken aback by this, asking Jiang Yexue who he was in turn.

Murong Chuyi recognizes him as Xie Lanyi’s child, and reveals that he is his uncle, but Jiang Yexue does not believe him. Only after seeing Murong Chuyi once again standing by Murong Huang's side did he realize that he was telling the truth.

After the wedding, people started to treat him more differently. As a result, his mother's resentment grew deeper, which caused Jiang Yexue worry and frustration as well. She would tell him about the gifts Yue Juntian gave Murong Huang, or about the type of robes she had bought. As time went on, her words grew harsher. Whenever Jiang Yexue would speak up, Madam Xie would glare at him and curse him out.

When Murong Huang was pregnant, Madam Xie's jealousy and hatred grew even worse. At this point, Jiang Yexue's manservants and Yue Juntian himself began to treat him with disdain, yet even after all of this, Jiang Yexue persisted, believing that his behavior and conduct were correct.

At the end of spring, Jiang Yexue's shifu fell sick and was rendered bedridden, and so he was unable to teach him for the time being. He did not want to disturb his shifu, and so he took his mechanisms to look for other artificer advisors in the residence. To his dismay, all he received was rejection. Murong Chuyi finds him and sees the mechanism that Jiang Yexue had made himself, and tells him to come to his artificer room so that Murong Chuyi can teach him. Afterwards, Jiang Yexue went to Murong Chuyi’s workshop every day to look for him, which made Madam Xie even more disappointed in him.

After Jiang Yexue stopped her from disparaging Murong Chuyi, she refused to talk to him and let him sleep at her pavilion. With no choice, Jiang Yexue asks Murong Chuyi if he could live in his courtyard for the meantime, and Chuyi allows him to. From that day on, Jiang Yexue lived with Murong Chuyi. He was there to witness him fall asleep after he had stayed up the whole night, and unable to resist, Jiang Yexue could not help but look at him almost every time. There was a time when Murong Chuyi woke up, asking Jiang Yexue what he was looking at him for.

A few months passed like this until Murong Huang gave birth to her son, Yue Chenqing. It was then that she passed away due to birth complications.

#### Xie Lanyi's Death

During the mourning period, Jiang Yexue picked up Murong Chuyi’s diagrams for making clay figures, and made clay figures that looked like Murong Huang, Murong Chuyi, himself, and even Yue Chenqing. After Jiang Yexue's clay figure of himself attempted to comfort Murong Chuyi, Chuyi tells him that his work was too ugly, making him laugh.

Murong Chuyi would often hand over little wooden toys to Jiang Yexue for him to give to the newly born Yue Chenqing. Once, Jiang Yexue went to Yue Chenqing's room to play, he witnessed the wet nurse in charge of his brother attempting to poison him and found out that she was doing it under Madam Xie's orders. When Jiang Yexue confronted his mother, he only received her curses and beatings. Madam Xie had lost all of her favor after that, to the point where the medicine cultivator in charge of her even neglected her, giving Jiang Yexue no choice but to take care of her himself as they were mother and son. Despite this, as soon as Madam Xie saw him, she would start beating him, going so far as to nearly stab his throat with a pair of scissors.

Madam Xie takes her own life not long after, dressed in robes and jewelry that she had stolen from Murong Huang. She wrote a suicide letter, calling Jiang Yexue the young heir of the Yue Manor and saying that he would certainly replace Yue Juntian. It was there that people started to outright ridicule him. In spite of the hate that he received, Jiang Yexue continued to persist.

Out of everyone in the Yue Manor, there was only Murong Chuyi who was there for him, and because of this, Jiang Yexue didn't feel too much resentment. As Yue Chenqing grew older, Jiang Yexue's belongings were given to him one by one. Yue Juntian had even approached him, telling him that it was best for Yue Chenqing to stay with Murong Chuyi instead, which ignites a major argument between them that escalates into a physical fight. Murong Chuyi puts a stop to it, bringing Jiang Yexue over to his courtyard to treat his wounds.

After he was told this, Jiang Yexue starts to cry, while Murong Chuyi comforts him. Overwhelmed with emotion, Jiang Yexue kisses Murong Chuyi, but is then pushed away by him. Murong Chuyi flees right after.

### Demonic Qi

After the kiss, Jiang Yexue and Murong Chuyi's relationship soured, leaving him to live alone in the Yue Family. While pain and dissatisfaction grew rapidly in his heart, Jiang Yexue continued to strive to dispel his own emotions.

In late autumn of that year, Yue Chenqing had gone missing after sneaking out to the northern frontier, the border between Chonghua and the Liao Kingdom. Yue Juntian ordered everyone to go search for him, including Jiang Yexue and Murong Chuyi. After going through the most dangerous places within the northern frontier, Jiang Yexue finds Yue Chenqing with a device that he crafted himself.

When Jiang Yexue finds Yue Chenqing, he discovered that Yue Chenqing had wandered into Liao Kingdom territory, was injured by a demonic beast, and fell unconscious into a pile of straw. After he saw that Yue Chenqing was about to die, Jiang Yexue set off a smoke signal and passed the demonic qi that was inside of Yue Chenqing's body into himself, and then transferred him spiritual energy to keep him alive.

Yue Juntian arrived at the scene shortly after but does not notice Jiang Yexue's condition, too worried over Yue Chenqing. Jiang Yexue does not tell anyone about being infected with demonic qi, and after going back to camp and sneaking into his room, he suffered agonizing pain that night due to his new condition.

Later, Jiang Yexue tried many methods of drawing the poison out, but to no avail. It spread further inside him instead, and Jiang Yexue continued to suffer and struggle for a long time, until one day, he felt that there was no need to struggle anymore, and had enough of being a gentleman.

After Jiang Yexue decided to do as he pleased, the demonic qi became something that he could use, one use being that he could infect someone else. With this knowledge, he infected Murong Chuyi with demonic qi, although it was not effective, and so every month during the new moon, Murong Chuyi would feel burning agony. The solution to this was either to drink Jiang Yexue's blood from his neck or to take the highest quality of Zhenxin Herb. It was only when the Zhenxin Herb was not effective enough that Jiang Yexue's blood was drunk by Murong Chuyi.

In order to prevent Murong Chuyi from getting close to anyone other than him, Jiang Yexue also cast a black magic spell in which the poison would be transferred to the person Chuyi would get close to. He also banned Murong Chuyi from telling anyone, saying that if he did, Chuyi would lose his mind and become a lustful beast that only submitted to him.

### Joining the Army

Jiang Yexue joins the army at an unknown time while keeping his true nature and condition secret. There, he meets Mo Xi again and Gu Mang, his comrades.

#### Black Magic Spell

Jiang Yexue continued to watch Yue Chenqing grow up, deeply irritated by his growing attachment to Murong Chuyi, until Jiang Yexue could not hold back anymore and designed a plan to cast a black magic spell on him. The spell's purpose was to turn Yue Chenqing into a mindless idiot who could never bother Murong Chuyi again.

It was at the point where the spell had already made its way into Yue Chenqing's heart that Jiang Yexue's spell failed. Jiang Yexue finds out that Gu Mang had gone to the Yue Manor for an errand and noticed Yue Chenqing's strange behavior, sending him to Shennong Terrace afterwards for treatment.

At Shennong Terrace, the medicine cultivators discovered the black magic energy inside Yue Chenqing's body and reported it to the throne room. The case would have gone into the late emperor's hands, but as he was away with Yue Juntian to attend the memorial ceremony at the Soul-Summoning Abyss, the case had gone into the  crown prince's hands instead.

### The Crown Prince's Promise

The crown prince quickly identified that it was Jiang Yexue who had cast the black magic spell and interrogated him with truth-compulsion poison to wring the truth out of him. After he found out that Jiang Yexue could refine demonic medicines, the crown prince took him under his wing, made him conduct experiments that he needed with his demonic qi, and promised him that in exchange, he would hide Jiang Yexue's condition from the court and have him become the master of the Yue Family.

In those years, Jiang Yexue and the crown prince studied many black magic items and forbidden techniques. He saw almost all of Chonghua's secrets, including the fact that Gu Mang was a spy.

#### Zhenlong Chess Formation

One of the forbidden techniques that Jiang Yexue studied was the Zhenlong Chess Formation. Under the newly crowned emperor's orders, he planted a white Zhenlong Chess Piece in Lu Zhanxing at the Battle of Phoenix Cry Mountain and controlled him into killing an important envoy, resulting in Lu Zhanxing's execution and the loss of seventy-thousand (70,000) soldiers in Gu Mang's slave army. However, the chess piece that Jiang Yexue planted in Lu Zhanxing was not perfect as the kind recorded within the texts, and so it could only be described as a failure. Despite its imperfection, it was still able to control Lu Zhanxing for a short period of time.

#### Fiancée

Sometime before Jiang Yexue was taken under the emperor's wing, he was betrothed to Qin Mujin. She was dissatisfied at having to marry him, but after the emperor took him in, she gradually became more affectionate. When Qin Mujin's family committed the crime of counterfeiting money, she clung even more to Jiang Yexue when alone.

In reality, Qin Mujin was the person that the emperor assigned to watch Jiang Yexue. Jiang Yexue knew of this, but as he wanted the emperor to help him seize the Yue Family, he did not do anything to avoid offending him. He ended up ignoring Yue Juntian's opposition to their marriage and persevered in marrying her despite his feelings for Murong Chuyi. Because of this, he was kicked out of the Yue Family.

Jiang Yexue and Qin Mujin's wedding was simple, as they did not have much money. Mo Xi gifted them a small courtyard in the calm and secluded part of the north of Chonghua's capital, and Gu Mang played the Song of Courtship for them using Fengbo. Later, Qin Mujin dies in her first battle with the Liao Kingdom.

### Qingxu Elder

When the emperor found out that Qin Mujin had passed away in battle, he thought that Jiang Yexue had discovered his intentions and killed her off. Since, at that time, Gu Mang had already entered the Liao Kingdom's inner circle, he started to gradually push Jiang Yexue out of his clique. Later, when Jiang Yexue's legs were injured and rendered unable to be used, the emperor's treatment of him only grew colder. Whenever Jiang Yexue would ask him when he would fulfill his promise, the emperor would brush it off.

Knowing that the emperor would go back on his word, Jiang Yexue secretly told him one day that he had long since set up more than a hundred magical tools and that if he were to die in a scheme linked to him, the tools would be triggered and reveal his dark secrets to Chonghua.

The emperor panicked when Jiang Yexue told him of his plans and continued to coax him, saying that the Yue Family would be in his hands soon. He also got Jiang Yexue a place to stay in the Cultivation Academy, and when Yue Juntian demanded to expel him, the academy master begged Jiang Yexue to come back into the academy right after doing so because of the emperor's request to let him back in. There, Jiang Yexue became Qingxu Elder and taught the artificer path.

### Gu Mang's Return

Jiang Yexue appears in Feiyao Terrace two years after Gu Mang's return, looking for Mo Xi.

Mo Xi, surprised by Jiang Yexue's appearance, asks him why he was there. Jiang Yexue tells him that he came to see him and Yue Chenqing, and that he was looking for him because he was nowhere to be found. They continue to converse, until Mo Xi asks him about Gu Mang's whereabouts, and Jiang Yexue tells him that he was put in Luomei Pavilion under Murong Lian's orders. They return back into the hall after.

### Xihe Manor Arc

#### Slave Collar

Jiang Yexue appears again in Cixin Forge, an artificer forge that he owns and runs with Uncle Song, his *shifu* from Yue Manor. He found Mo Xi and Gu Mang inside, and learned that Mo Xi brought Gu Mang there to register him as a slave under the emperor's orders. He took Mo Xi and Gu Mang upstairs after, where he took a steel box containing a Slave Collar and performed the spell needed to attach it to Gu Mang. He lied and nodded when Gu Mang asks him if he gave him a necklace. Before they left, he also added Gu Mang's name and the number seven-hundred and nine (709) using spiritual power onto the side of his slave collar.

Afterwards, Jiang Yexue went out to buy pine oil, accompanied by Mo Xi and Gu Mang. There, they came across Murong Chuyi and Yue Chenqing, who were picking up goods that the Yue Family had ordered. Upon seeing him, Murong Chuyi leaves and Yue Chenqing blames Jiang Yexue for it.

#### Lunar New Year

At the New Year's Eve banquet, Jiang Yexue met Gu Mang again in a secluded corner away from people. They began to converse, with Jiang Yexue talking about why he was in a wheelchair, their comradeship, Gu Mang's relationship with Mo Xi, and why Mo Xi hated betrayal the most. Mo Xi later found them, asking them what they were chatting about, and Jiang Yexue told him that they were chatting about him.

### Bat Island Arc

When Yue Chenqing disappears before his birthday, Jiang Yexue teams up with Murong Chuyi, Mo Xi, and Gu Mang to save him. He is seen again at the departure pavilion with Murong Chuyi, a good distance between them while they talked about something unclear to both Mo Xi and Gu Mang, who had just arrived. It is remarked that his face thinned considerably and had slight shadows under his eyes because of Yue Chenqing's disappearance. After greeting Mo Xi and Gu Mang, he transforms a little walnut tree into a boat that can help them travel to the Dream Butterfly Islands, more specifically Bat Island, where Yue Chenqing was. Jiang Yexue invites Murong Chuyi onto his boat, but to no avail.

They arrived at Bat Island's Human Sacrifice Tower the next day, where they encounter a shangao. The shangao said to them that it will answer their questions in exchange for their painful memories. Jiang Yexue is the first, and also requested that the shangao swears a demonic oath to keep his memories secret. Afterwards, the shangao told them that Yue Chenqing was located in the fourth dark room on the top of the Human Sacrifice Tower. To the shangao's dismay, only one question was asked, but the remaining three let it feed on their memories. However, when it came to Gu Mang, it decided to use a fragment of the Time Mirror in order to flash back Gu Mang's memories and feed on more of his sufferings.

Jiang Yexue, conflicted on who to assist, opted to help Murong Chuyi resist the flow of thousands of vampire bats via Mo Xi's command as Mo Xi and Gu Mang were sucked into the Time Mirror, leaving him and Murong Chuyi to deal with the shangao and vampire bats. It took them an unknown time to do so until they were able to start performing the spell to free the two out of the Time Mirror.

## References

2. ↑ Novel, Chapter 193: With You
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Novel, Chapter 171: Youthful Days of Tenderness and Budding Yearning
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Novel, Chapter 172: Love Uncontrolled, Fate Comes to an End
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Novel, Chapter 173: A Gentleman No Longer
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Novel, Chapter 174: Imperial Promises Are Most Unfathomable
7. ↑ Novel, Chapter 116: Lu Zhanxing's Injustice
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Novel, Chapter 5: What About Gu Mang
9. ↑ Novel, Chapter 46: Owner
10. ↑ Novel, Chapter 47: Important Person
11. ↑ Novel, Chapter 65: You're Not Worthy