Guo Mou
"Anyone who knows martial arts knows that as one side wanes the other waxes, and the outcome is already decided. This is nothing but a drawn-out death. If you still have a countermeasure, you had best use it now!"
A Disciple of the Kongtong Sect's Soul-Stealing Gate. His surname is Guo; the story never gives his full name. Huang Peihua calls him "Senior Brother Guo", and he calls himself "Guo Mou". During the Kongtong battle he is ordered by to come and go gathering word of the fighting.
In Early May Year 3, at the start of the Kongtong battle, storms all the way up to Needle-Grinding Temple, sweeping all before him (including, if Yan Jiang is still present, the matter of bringing Yan Jiang to heel). He and the other scouts take turns reporting the good news to Sect Leader Wei. Not long after, he rushes into the Great Smithy ashen-faced to report that Venerable Golden Crow's earlier fear of battle was all an act: he had long since seized the , the mountain-guarding Divine Skill passed down through the generations of Sect Leaders, and luring Danxiazi away from the group was precisely a trap to draw him in. Sect Leader Wei at first scolds him for nonsense and means to have him seized and questioned, and only believes him once he says both the news and the clue to the secret treasure came from Ju Dongyin.
Seeing that Sect Leader Wei still orders him to "scout again", he says outright that he is the only scout left, and that Danxiazi has been struck by a sneak attack, is wounded, and has fallen to the losing side, and urges Sect Leader Wei to use her countermeasure at once. But Sect Leader Wei, on the grounds that no outsider may interfere in a contest for Sect Leader, declines Huang Peihua's proposal to send him to support Banyu Terrace, and instead arranges a way out and the evacuation of the mountain folk. He bears no grudge against Sect Leader Wei's wisdom, but having waited years in bitter hope for the General's return, he cannot bear not to witness the ending with his own eyes, and so takes a solemn leave of Sect Leader Wei and decides to act as he sees fit.
Other Appearances
The following scenes use the same portrait, but the story never gives a name, so it cannot be confirmed whether it is Guo Mou himself.
Early in the study abroad (Kongtong Sect Study Abroad), if Zhao Huo draws the Soul-Stealing Gate, he and another Senior Brother come out to receive him, mentioning that if the General of Dao Techniques does not return, the Flying Heaven Gate's nominee for the next Sect Leader will surely be Venerable Golden Crow, and apologizing that with the Sect Leader absent they cannot take Zhao Huo to the Iron Fist Gate to have Iron Claws made to order. In Crane Hand's Outing, he joins Disciples of the Flying Heaven Gate and Iron Fist Gate to form the "Kongtong Battle Team" and corner Zhao Huo, who is traveling with ; afterward he falls out with his companions and the group breaks up, and he flatly refuses to give back the Spring Pictures drawn by his Iron Fist Gate companion. In the Kongtong robbery, he and an Iron Fist Gate Disciple tail Zhao Huo after he wins money at the Gambling Den and extort him, and if steps in to help, he is driven off along with her.
In the Great Smithy theft, if Zhao Huo catches the fleeing culprit in the middle, he arrives in answer to the Soul-Summoning Bell and takes Zhao Huo and Rui Sheng back to the Soul-Quelling Prison for questioning. The subsequent Soul-Quelling Prison Detention is presided over by him; once he establishes that it was his own Junior Brother who lied, he gives Zhao Huo a "Kongtong Good Citizen Certificate" and hands the Disciples' crimes to a joint trial by the Soul-Stealing and Iron Fist Gates. When Yan Jiang comes forward to vouch for them, he changes tack for the sake of both sects' face and asks Zhao Huo to stay in the prison as a "guest" for the time being; and after the masked Hero A'He spirits Zhao Huo away, he lets the matter drop out of Restraint toward Xiaomei's future standing as the Sect Leader's Wife.
In the Golden Crow Disturbance of Early May Year 3, if Xiahou Lan storms the mountain and slaughters all before her, he runs in panic to tell the Sect Leader. During the Kongtong battle he guards Xiaomei and Xiao Zhu in the Soul-Quelling Prison (if the dice roll is under 50, he lets Yu Baohua in to visit; at 50 or above, he takes Yan's wife's two hundred coins and lets her through, and keeps watch for her). After Venerable Golden Crow declares himself Sect Leader, he sighs that even their own Sect Leader has come out in support and everyone can only accept their fate, and during the interception at Banyu Terrace with Tong Dachong he shouts at Xiaomei not to interfere and calls on his fellow disciples to guard the Sect Leader.