Wang Laowu

"Ha! Junior Sister Xiao Zhu! You can't escape today! I, Soul-Stealing Wang Laowu, will bring you to heel with one move, Twin Dragons Seizing the Pearl!"

A Disciple of the Kongtong Sect's Soul-Stealing Gate who calls himself "Soul-Stealing Wang Laowu"; calls him "Laowu" or "Wang Wu". He boasts of being a regular at the Great Smithy, forever saying that if not for him patronizing the business, Xiao Zhu would have closed up shop long ago, yet he loves to belittle her as a Direct Disciple who only makes up the numbers and is doomed to finish last.

During The First Step into Iron Fist Alley, he comes to have Xiao Zhu grind his weapon, but since he and Zhao Huo are both dressed in blue, Xiao Zhu mistakes Zhao Huo for him and takes Zhao Huo's weapon first. He flies into a rage on the spot, and if Zhao Huo steps in, he comes to blows (losing gets you killed by him, Book of Life and Death 16: Killed by a Love Rival); if you wait for the two to finish arguing, he snatches Xiao Zhu's breakfast as a refund of his deposit and mocks her dream of becoming a master smith like Ou Yezi as a fool's fancy.

In Late Mar Year 2, during the theft at the Great Smithy, while Xiao Zhu is out and Zhao Huo is minding the shop, he overturns Xiao Zhu's stall of wooden toys; if Zhao Huo chases down the fugitive in between, he fights him first (losing is likewise Book of Life and Death 16), and once beaten he rings the soul-summoning bell to call his Senior Brother and turns the accusation back on Zhao Huo. The subsequent detention in the Soul-Stealing Prison establishes that it was he who lied and made trouble, and his Senior Brother locks him up along with the others. From the talk in the cell, he had meant to make peace with Xiao Zhu, and he also feared the Great Smithy closing would void the ten-year repair guarantee that came with the Iron Claws he bought; but he saw Rui Sheng loitering outside the shop and took it for Xiao Zhu turning to do business with an outsider, which made him panic and rage. When Xiao Zhu comes to bail Zhao Huo out, he uses the old story of Xiao Zhu getting lost in the Soul-Stealing Forest and asking him for help to threaten her into bailing him out as well; refused, he flies into a fury and declares their friendship over, and gets a dressing-down from his Senior Brother on the spot.

On Yu Zhu's route, in Early Feb Year 3, a man in blue calling himself Wang Wu has a passerby deliver the Yu family's letter to Xiao Zhu without showing himself; after reading it, Xiao Zhu hurries off in the direction he left.

On the night of the Kongtong struggle, if Zhao Huo does not take Xiao Zhu and flee but lets her go down the mountain alone, he appears and says that having guided Zhao Huo and reopened the tunnel, he can no longer stay in Kongtong; he puts on an air of charity, offers to make peace with Xiao Zhu and take her down the mountain to live, and is flatly refused on the grounds that they long ago ceased to be friends.

On the route where Zhao Huo becomes Kongtong Sect Leader and marries the four ladies (Annals 59), he conspires with Yu Baohua to drug Zhao Huo and then geld him, resentful that Zhao Huo took Xiao Zhu and does not treat her well, and determined that Zhao Huo should end up as he did; Baohua calls him "fresh out of the palace."