Pei Xiu

* Manhua
* Donghua

**Pei Xiu** (裴宿, *Péi Xiù*) is a Heavenly Official of the Middle Court and subordinate of Pei Ming.

## Appearance

*"Void of any killing intent, and full of undisturbed calmness."*

Pei Xiu is a young, tall man with a fair, handsome appearance and a countenance that is *"peaceful like a cold jade"*.

## Personality

Pei Xiu is a proud and composed young man. He takes his tasks as a Martial God seriously and is not very emotional. As the story progresses his facade drops a little, however, and his more silly side emerges, especially after he is poisoned by Xie Lian's food. He is determined, insisting on fighting despite barely being able to speak due to the aforementioned food poisoning.

He holds deep respect and admiration for Pei Ming and is friendly towards Ban Yue and Xie Lian.

## History

### Slaughter of Banyue's Fortress City

Pei Xiu was born to Yong'an parents and lived at the border of their nation and the Banyue Kingdom. When he was little, he met and befriended a girl around his age at the border: Ban Yue. As she was bullied and an orphan, he became her only friend.

When he was still human, he played a major role in the massacre of the people of Banyue Kingdom, which helped him to rise up in rank. As a Heavenly Official, with his every move watched, he could not directly kill the remaining ghosts of the soldiers in the Sinner's Pit. Instead, he descended as a traveling guide called A-Zhao and worked to cover up the massacre. For 150 years before the start of the novel, he lured people into the Banyue Kingdom to be fed to the ghosts of the soldiers as a way to calm their resentment.

### Yu Jun Mountain

Xie Lian first meets Pei Xiu during his mission on Yu Jun Mountain. He appears alongside other soldiers as reinforcements after being notified by Ling Wen of the escalating situation. They arrest Xuan Ji, and Pei Xiu thanks Xie Lian for putting up with all the trouble so far, giving him more insight on the history and relationship between Xuan Ji and Pei Ming before taking his leave.

### Banyue Kingdom

When Xie Lian, Hua Cheng, Nan Feng and Fu Yao visit the Banyue Kingdom to investigate the abundance of people going missing, they end up meeting a group of merchants traveling through the kingdom with A-Zhao as their guide, Pei Xiu's alter ego. Disguised, he accompanies Xie Lian and the others to the royal palace to find the Kindred Moon Herbs. Later, he is also brought to the Sinner's Pit and the first one to fall into it,, but he survives and Xie Lian soon uncovers his real identity as Pei Xiu, along with the history of his mortal life.

During the trial regarding his offenses in Banyue, he willingly confesses to his wrongdoings. He gets sentenced to exile for 200 years, a temporary banishment to the mortal realm without his spiritual power.

### Exile

Xie Lian encounters Pei Xiu for the first time after the latter's exile back at Puqi Shrine. Pei Xiu has come to steal the pot with Ban Yue inside, although he just wants to protect her from Pei Ming, who plans to take Ban Yue back himself and appeal for a new trial to get Pei Xiu out of exile. After Pei Ming is tricked by Shi Qingxuan and withdraws from the situation, Pei Xiu leaves as well.

Wandering in the mortal realm with nothing to do, he knocks over Qi Rong's lair over a few times. In response to this, Qi Rong sends subordinates of his to kill Pei Xiu, who gets seriously injured and is struggling to fight them off due to his lack of spiritual power. At the time, Yushi Huang passes and helps him out of the situation. After she gets to know his identity and everything that has happened, she takes him to Yushi Country, so he can recover. There he reunites with Ban Yue, who is hidden in Yushi Country as well.

### Reopening of Tonglu Mountain

While the ghosts all make their way to Tonglu Mountain after it reopens, they pass Yushi Country and kidnap multiple farmers as rations. Yushi Huang and her ox are not present at the time, so they decide to pursue the ghosts and enter Tonglu Mountain along with Pei Xiu and Ban Yue to save the abducted farmers. At first, they are together, but they split after Ban Yue and Pei Xiu heard Xie Lian call for them.

## Abilities

* **Heavenly Official:** As a Heavenly Official, he doesn't age and has no need for necessities like food or sleep. He also possesses other advantages over mortals, like immunity to temperature and the ability to deal with heavy injuries. Like all other gods, he can utilize spiritual powers.
* **Martial God:** As a martial god he has exceptional strength and overall physical abilities.
* **Swordsmanship Skills:** Pei Xiu seems to have considerable skill in wielding the sword, shown as he was able to put up a fight against Hua Cheng's scimitar when controlling it with his mind.
* **Scorpion Snake:** He learned the method to control the Scorpion Snakes by himself.
* **Intelligence:** Pei Xiu proved to be quite quick-witted. Not only was he able to learn dark cultivation techniques alone, but he was able to orchestrate people going missing in Banyue by creating a clone called A-Zhao, keeping these crimes hidden for over a century. Even when Xie Lian was investigating, he adapted to the situation quickly and pursued attempts to keep suspicion low, such as faking his clone's death.

## Relationships

### Ban Yue

Pei Xiu and Ban Yue are childhood friends who met at the border of Yong'an and Banyue, where they both grew up. He is the only person who showed her kindness and the only one who befriended her. Thereafter, Ban Yue was extremely loyal to him and secretly worked as a subordinate of his. She opened the gates which allowed the slaughter of the Banyue Kingdom but claimed that it was her own decision, motivated not by her loyalty to Pei Xiu but by her own will to end the war and save the common people.

Pei Xiu cares deeply for her and is also protective of her, trying to flee with her from the Sinner's Pit and taking all the blame for the Banyue Pass case to shield Ban Yue from punishment. After they reunite, they stay by each other's side, and they are comfortable around each other. He eats Ban Yue's terrible cooking and falls ill. The novel does not officially explore but hints at Pei Xiu's feelings for Ban Yue, so they just stay close friends.

### Xie Lian

Pei Xiu met Xie Lian when Ban Yue introduced Pei to Xie Lian when they were kids.Xie Lian taught them music and Dance to perform in public for earning money. Pie Xiu has deep respect for Xie Lian.
200 years later Pei Xiu still has equal respect and admiration for Xie Lian as before.

### Pei Ming

Not much shown about the relationship between Pei Ming and Pei Xiu in the novel nor donghua but they both potrait a positive and neutral relationship. Pei Xiu deeply admires and respects Pei Ming.

Pei Ming had appeared trying to help Pei Xiu at the Martial Hall meeting about the Banyue case but he was eventually neutral at the same time.
Later on Autumn Festival night when Shi Qingxuan asked Pei Ming about Xiu's condition after exile, he said he had given up on him due to Xiu only cares about his heart and Pei Ming declares he does not care about Xiu anymore because he doesn't support it.

## Trivia

* The manhua romanizes the character 宿 as *Sù* (fate). The character may also be pronounced *Xiǔ* (measure term for a night). The donghua uses the *Xiù* (constellation) pronunciation. The official subtitles also romanized his name as Pei Su in earlier episodes but corrected it to Pei Xiu in the season one finale.
* As a deputy general, his statues are positioned behind those of Pei Ming.
* Despite only being part of the Middle Court, his martial power is still said to be above even Lang Qianqiu.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Novel, Book 1, Chapter 11: Mountain-Locked Ancient Temple, Forest of Hanging Corpses
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Novel, Book 1, Chapter 29: Wind Master in White; Bellowing Sandstorms from Nothing
3. ↑ Novel, Book 1, Chapter 21: A Thousand Miles in a Step, Lost Within a Sandstorm
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Novel, Book 1, Chapter 24: Obscure Hua Lian Fall Into the Sinners’ Pit at Night
5. ↑ Novel, Book 1, Chapter 33: In the Great Martial Hall; Crown Prince Meets Crown Prince II
6. ↑ Novel, Book 3, Chapter 89: The Mid-Autumn Festival; Battling Lanterns on Moon Watch Eve
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Novel, Book 3, Chapter 148: Ambivalent Regrets; General Ming Snaps the Hateful Sword III
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Novel, Book 1, Chapter 30: Poking the Ghost King; Crown Prince Seeks Truth
9. ↑ Donghua, Episode 10: Bànyuè Wǎngshì
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Donghua, Episode 11: Right and Wrong, Buried in the Sand
11. ↑ Donghua, Episode 3: Confidant's Past Grudge
12. ↑ Novel, Book 3, Chapter 50: Adroit Dice for the Safety of Only One III