APPEARANCE

Up until his recent breakthrough in his martial training, Yuzheng had kept his head down & away from the public aspect of his clan, never really speaking out besides to those who had a part in raising him & focusing on his own growth above all else, as he tended to tunnel vision in his training, viewing anything else as a distraction. He was so withdrawn that it wasn't until recently that peers he'd studied with for so many years became aware of his existence; for a while, the few fellow cultists he's since become acquainted with thought he was a late transfer, despite having been born into the clan.

His young mother was a devoted cultist, dedicating her life to her people. His mother was only a minor member & without many friends, so when his mother died giving birth in the company of her only friend, a fellow cultist, the situation of the surviving child became precarious. This friend would mourn over the body of her friend, conflicted as he held the only breathing thing that remained of her. As this friend was only a girl then too, the friend saw only one thing when he gazed upon this child: her dearest's friend's murderer. Out of obligation to Yuzheng's mother, the friend set aside her training to raise the baby, but only to the day that Yuzheng's gait didn't totter. When Yuzheng could barely pour tea without spilling, his then-guardian effectively walked out of his life & put him to work as a servant within the The Heavenly Demonic Cult under the pretense of socializing the boy.

It wasn't until he fostered an interest in cultivating his body did he see his guardian again. By this time, Yuzheng had spent his entire childhood a servant, within a demonic cult no less. One fateful week, Yuzheng stole a moment away from his duties to informally apply in front of one of the most important-seeming elders he knew at the time.

When he could, he'd sneak off to listen to the elder's teachings & watch in awe as he led his disciples in practices. Thinking back now, Yuzheng's rejection was understandable but hindsight couldn't help him then. The frustration of having been surrendered to such a fate, doomed to watch others cultivate themselves while he could only wait on them, pushed him over the edge. Barely a teen at time, he committed to running away, as the worst thing his young mind could fathom.

It must've been only a week that he was on his own, but his form was worn as though it'd been a year. In his attempt to cultivate, the process backfired severely as a result of his lack of instruction. Most of that week he spent trying to recover, but his best efforts only made his condition worse.
As though a higher power were looking over the boy, rescue came in the form of a familiarly disgruntled woman, drenched from a spring shower that fell upon the mountain the last day of that miserable week. The memory of watching this figure drudge up to little Yuzheng, hair stuck to the figure's face, was traumatic enough to instill within Yuzheng a fear of ghosts.

With a strike & a scolding, Yuzheng returned home with the woman who once abandoned him long ago; he didn't forget. Yuzheng was in no shape to return to his old duties as a manservant, so the woman begrudgingly took it upon herself to teach the little boy how to repair his body. His guardian's teachings would stagnant as his condition improved, so Yuzheng would take it upon himself to get into another scrap & compel his guardian to further develop him in order to repair himself.

As his guardian's teachings progressed to the point of redundancy, Yuzheng was formally introduced to the cult as an aspiring disciple & reluctantly taken in as a result of the guardian's credence. With this began his journey under a formal master & has now led him to where he is now.

It was only recently that Yuzheng made his first major breakthrough in the way of his cultivation. With this newfound strength & freedom from being a young adult, he's now taken to using it to enact his personal means of justice. Though he dared not admit it at the time, he truly hated his brief time as a servant as it showed him the petty side of men; he'd be called for the most menial or impossible things & expected to carry out the task with a smile.

When he walked through cities, it was no different; servants waited on petty men without shame & it angered him to see. As a means to enact personal amends, he would rob these nobles at night & spend it on the poor or working in the following afternoon. What was left over, he would spend on himself, buying himself little jewels to embed into his clothes.