Zhao Huo

Tang Clan Underling

"I really am hideous to look at. Why does heaven hate me so?"

The protagonist of this work, the last outsider disciple of the Tang Clan.

Unremarkable in looks and monstrously ugly. Walk down the street and he either frightens people or gets pointed at and cursed as a demon or monster. Not one good day to his name.

He refuses to leave the Tang Clan no matter what, and after who knows how many years still cannot become an Inner Disciple. He can only keep doing chores and being ordered about like a servant.

He likes . One glance at her from afar is enough to satisfy him for a day.

Appearance

The whole Zhao family are unremarkable Commoners, yet his looks alone are especially exquisite.^[1]
He gets no new clothes for the New Year or festivals, because he is ugly and would only waste them.
They say that at birth his father threw him into a swill bucket for his looks and nearly drowned him.
- He was fished out and saved, but his family found him stinking and would not let him eat at the table.
Tang Buyi's assessment of his looks: Zhao Huo's face is really made for crosstalk.
The Man in Black's assessment of his looks: his face could serve as a Hidden Weapon.
Ye Yunshang's assessment of his looks: fish eyes, a beast's face and a beast's heart, a pig demon.
The saw him and took him for one of her own.
Hell Path saw him and took him for a real Ghost Soldier.
Everyone in the Qingcheng Sect took him for a monster beyond subduing.
Because was raised by Zhao Huo from childhood, her taste was warped, and she does not find him ugly.
He caused Yu Xiaomei to awaken a fetish for ugliness.

Childhood

Born to a farming family in Mianyang, ugly even to his own parents.
Country folk feared their children would draw the envy of ghosts and gods and not live to grow up, so they gave them lowly names, "Cat Egg" or "Dog Leftover". Zhao Huo's brothers and sisters were no exception, yet only he was called Zhao Huo.
He dreamed of being a Great Hero from childhood, but his looks were too sorry for it. When the village children played at heroes, he could only be a tree for them to run into.
One year the fields had a poor harvest and the family had to cut one pair of chopsticks to get by. Afraid of being thrown out, he spoke up first and said he wanted to go to the Tang Clan to take a master and learn martial arts.
His father prepared only four eggs as a gift for taking a master. Walking barefoot all the way from Mianyang to the Tang Clan, he was so faint with hunger that he ate one egg.
- Over the years he has regretted it now and then: if he had held out and not eaten that egg, perhaps the Tang Clan's teachers would not have looked down on him so, and he would have been made a proper Inner Disciple long ago.
Little did he know his father had been secretly protecting him the whole way. The night he reached the Tang Clan, his father came holding a chicken in each hand and kowtowed to the , saying he had failed in his duty as a father and could not bear to part with Zhao Huo until he left home.
- He sought no fame or fortune, no glorious homecoming, only that his son live without contention, without disaster or illness. He made the Sect Leader swear that the Tang Clan would never take Zhao Huo as a disciple for the rest of his life, nor teach him martial arts.

Years in the Tang Clan

From the Tang Clan's heyday to its decline he stayed more than ten years. Every outsider disciple left but him, and still he could not become an Inner Disciple.
He used to live in the room nearest the latrine in the Tang Clan's Outer Fort halfway up the mountain, but the Sect Size shrank so badly that after the Outer Fort was sold he got to move into the main courtyard.
As the only outsider disciple, and for his looks besides, he is constantly ordered about by the other disciples. Sweeping, cooking, hauling firewood, he does it all, every bit the servant.
At the 's request he looked after from childhood to adulthood, and whenever she got lost he was always the first to find her.
- Their bond is not exactly close, yet it goes somewhat beyond that of senior and junior martial siblings, which often earns him jealous looks from the other disciples. In a way he brought it on himself: who told Zhao Huo to keep hiding outside her window to "guard" her in secret?
Were he not an outsider, by seniority he might count as the Fifth Senior Brother.
He says he stays in the Tang Clan because of Junior Martial Sister, but born with that face and by his own reckoning driven from his family, he likely has nowhere else to go.
In truth the Sect Leader and his Senior Brothers have seen his effort and perseverance. Though his status keeps them from helping him openly, they still slip him some benefits in private.

Daily Routine

The schedule varies with circumstances. No firewood, he goes to chop wood; the floor is dirty, he scrubs it. As an outsider disciple, any place he falls short simply will not do.

Here is the diligent Zhao Huo's schedule:^[2]

Rise at dawn to prepare breakfast (around 4 AM)
Heat water for washing and wait on the teachers' washing
Attend morning class if there is time
After morning class, while everyone rests, Zhao Huo tidies up and washes the dishes
The day's official work, part 1 (chopping wood, bookkeeping, buying groceries, pickling food, and so on)
Prepare lunch
During the lunch break, while everyone rests, Zhao Huo tidies up and washes the dishes
The day's work, part 2
Prepare dinner
Zhao Huo tidies up and washes the dishes
Bath
Go to the Scripture Hall to help Third Senior Brother sort the files
Go coax Junior Martial Sister to sleep
Night watch: stand guard in the main courtyard for 1 hour
Return to his room to sleep (around 12 AM)

Age

Zhao Huo has no set birthday. He himself is unsure of his age, and even his parents do not know when he was born, wishing they could forget they ever had this person.
Zhao Huo cannot remember how old he was when he reached the Tang Clan. In an angry exchange with he said eleven or twelve, but to the he said about seven or eight.
In Sep Year 2, Zhao Huo says himself: "I've been an outsider disciple in the Tang Clan, ordered about by others, for over ten years."
In Dec Year 2, the tells : "Later, you came. One day the next year, in heavy snow, I picked up ; two years after that, I had . And after that, Zhao Huo came too, carrying eggs." So Zhao Huo entered the Tang Clan after Junior Martial Sister was born.
In Apr Year 2, at the Kongtong Sect's exchange-study Seasonal Trial, Xiahou Lan's Legend text reads: "Though Xiahou Lan and you are called master and disciple, she is only a few years older than you after all." Xiahou Lan is about 24 to 26 in year 2, so Zhao Huo is younger than her, but not by many years.
From the above: Zhao Huo has been in the Tang Clan 10 to 15 years. Counting from seven or eight, he is estimated at 18 to 23 in year 1, which fits Xiahou Lan being "only a few years older".

Martial Arts

As an outsider disciple of the Tang Clan he may not study the inner school's martial arts, but nothing forbids him from taking other masters.
Years ago went into seclusion and brooded for half a year, reasoning to the furthest extreme before he divined the highest principle of Martial Learning, "the form without form", yet could not put it into practice himself, bound by his preconceptions of Tang Clan martial arts. Only with Zhao Huo, a late bloomer with not a shred of preconception, solid Internal Skill, and a balanced physique, could it be made manifest.
He has the "Chapter on Forgetting Form" from the Hidden Weapon General Principles memorized cold, but the Clan Rules forbid guiding outsider disciples, so his martial arts remain those of a small fry to this day.
- Not until the gave him pointers did it all click. He practiced a little of every sect's martial arts, here and there, and blended them into a hodgepodge that at last gave him some fighting strength.
- So eclectic is his learning that even Wang Erzhuang, the Beggar Sect Gang Leader, marveled at it.
once peeked with at Zhao Huo's Training, and saw him practice one Move over and over until it looked passably like the real thing, whereupon he counted it learned.
- He has mastered no Move at all, yet the intent of the Moves has merged into him without a trace.

The Legend text's description of Zhao Huo's later martial Realm

"In Internal Skill and in physique he is not even second- or third-rate, yet his Moves are Countless Changes, a rare flower nearing the Realm of no fixed Moves. He deeply understands the way of attack and defense, advance and retreat; every Move and every form holds great mystery, encompassing the Martial Learning of all under heaven with Moves that strike where none expect."
"At times he is craggy as a mountain peak, all signs congealed; at times fierce as a thunderclap that startles the bowstring, boom and lightning flash. His Moves spent, he improvises new ones on the spot: the sword comes out swifter than a Meteor, the palm wind can part the clouds, a sweeping leg cracks like a whip, a breath becomes an arrow. Just like a master's brush writing wild cursive, seemingly free and easy, yet every stroke, every line, is the distilled essence of heart's blood! Had I not seen it with my own eyes, how could I believe such startling martial arts exist in this world?"

Though it does not appear in the game, by his setting Zhao Huo may be able to learn the Flying Swallow Meteor Feather, but it would surely differ from both Eldest Senior Brother's and the Sect Leader's. For the Flying Swallow Meteor Feather is itself a consummation of the Chapter on Forgetting Form.^[3]
Zhao Huo practices the Tang Clan's Internal Skill, yet precisely because he cannot become an Inner Disciple and be taught the chanted formula, he cannot use it to curb the poison of medicinal meals and grow his Internal Force, so he gets half the result for twice the effort. Others grow stronger just eating, sleeping, and idling, while Zhao Huo alone must bury his head in bitter Training to reach his present meager skill. Yet for that very reason he became the only one able to use the same clan's Internal Skill to gently guide 's disordered True Qi back to Return to Origin without being hurt by Qi Backflow, and to donate his own cultivation without being transformed by the Five-Colored Mud.

Mountain Song

Zhao Huo's mountain song, also called the Junior Martial Sister's Song, is a song he sang beneath her window when was small, and she loved to hear it.
But Zhao Huo's voice is tone-deaf, and to everyone but Junior Martial Sister it sounds like the wailing of ghosts, taken for a Sound Wave Skill.

They say Xiong once sang a verse, but Niao deleted it by force for the sake of world peace. A great pity.

Little sister, walk on the shore~ Big brother, swim in the water~
I'm a mischievous little tadpole~ Here to take you on an outing~
Quick, look, a cow by the river~ Cow-cow twists and turns~
Quick, look, a dog under the tree~ Doggy wags its tail~
Oh my, my little junior sister~ Why so long so sad~
How could big brother bear~ To let your tears flow free~
Cry again and I'll~ Take you for my wife~

Mega Zhao Huo

A joke DLC Niao Xiong revealed on their page on 2023/4/1.^[4]

Legend of Mortal DLC Vol. 1: Mega Zhao Huo skin

A siege tactical weapon developed.
It has the overwhelming power to kill the genuine Zhao Huo with a single punch, and at full sprint it can keep up with a horse.
A gunpowder Mechanism is hidden inside, able to fire its fist out to kill; when the mouth Mechanism opens, it breathes fire.
Its core is a trained Parrot, a Parrot full of hatred for humanity, sworn to exterminate the human race.
For now it only pretends to obey for the sake of feed. Once it controls the feed bowl, humanity is doomed.

*When this DLC skin is applied, the Story changes accordingly.
When Mood is overfilled, the Parrot seizes control and slaughters the Jianghu.

The "Mega" in Mega Zhao Huo is likely a nod to the English "MEGA MAN".
Mega Zhao Huo's Parrot is a tribute to the Mechanism Arts of Xuan-Yuan Sword. The Parrot was named Zhao Huo from birth; it hates humans because whenever everyone bullied Zhao Huo they called him by name, and the Parrot thought they were all coming for it, and so bore a grudge.
Mega Zhao Huo's power source is a clockwork spring, magnetism, and Getter rays.^[5]
Mega Zhao Huo appears in the game in Yu Zhu's Change of Heart dream and at Ye Yunshang's deathbed, summoned by Ye Yunshang, giving her Inner Demon a fright.

Notes

Niao Xiong's introduction on FB: Link
After years of chore work, Zhao Huo is in fact very capable and can get along anywhere, provided his heart is not set on the Jianghu.
By 's reckoning, what is more despicable than Zhao Huo's face is his mouth.
According to Ruixing's muttering to herself, Zhao Huo seems to have some connection to the imperial house.
Called "Wulin Scum" Ju Ba at "Digital Taipei 2021 Online Exhibition": Video Link
Meat Bun Monster by Niao Xiong
~~His zodiac sign is Sagittarius. Burn your cosmos!~~^[6]
An abandoned mysterious dance step, Link Link
On the no-exchange-study route, the passes down the Tang Clan Heirloom Small Sword. ~~This sword often appears in the writings of the Longyang Reading Studio~~
The Ghost Painting calligraphy was taken by the Gengyang Reading Studio as possibly Du Fu's hand, bought up for study.
Because older outsider disciples are advised to leave the Tang Clan, Zhao Huo does not want to look old and shaves regularly.^[5:1]
Though he sometimes loses his head cooking and adds a heap of Pepper Powder, he does not actually like Pepper Powder much.^[5:2]