Character · Wiki
Fang Zheng
方源之弟
Gu Yue Clan · Younger Brother
Fang Yuan's younger brother, a quiet, overlooked boy whose habit of looking at his own feet tells you everything about how he has been treated.
Standing in the world
Chapter 2
A mark, not a portrait — the figure carries only what the text states, and what it does not is not drawn. See them standing in the world →
Cultivation, as statedevery figure cites the line it came from
- In Fang Yuan’s memory of his first lifetested Grade A and was heavily nurtured by the clanch. 2 ¶43
In the textevery mark is a paragraph; click one to read the line
Written into 11 of 346 published paragraphs (3%) — first at chapter 2, ¶30, most recently at chapter 3, ¶33.
Who he is
Fang Zheng is Fang Yuan's younger brother, raised in the same house under the same name, and living in the shadow of a boy everyone had already written off.
The novel gives him one physical habit that does the work of a page of description.
Fang Zheng lowered his head, looking down at his toes out of long habit.
Chapter 2, paragraph 30
Over the years the habit deepened rather than faded.
Over the years, Fang Zheng’s head had hung lower and lower, and he had grown increasingly silent.
Chapter 2, paragraph 35
The first thing that changes
When his brother returns from death altered, calmer, colder, and watchful, Fang Zheng is the first to feel it, before anyone has proof of anything.
Fang Zheng felt a sudden tremor in his heart, feeling that his brother’s gaze was as sharp as an icy blade, seeming to pierce into the deepest part of his heart.
Chapter 2, paragraph 59
Why he matters
Every reader enters this novel through Fang Yuan, and Fang Yuan is a monster. Fang Zheng is the counterweight: the ordinary boy in the same house, who has done nothing wrong and inherited nothing, watching the world rearrange itself around his brother.
He is also the reason Shen Cui matters, for when he sees her fussing over Fang Yuan, the envy is unmistakable.
When Fang Zheng came in, he saw Shen Cui smoothing the creases in Fang Yuan’s clothes over his chest, and a glint of envy and jealousy involuntarily flickered in his eyes.
Chapter 3, paragraph 14