Characters / Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi - Jiang Clan of Yunmeng

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi - Character Index
Main Characters: Wei Wuxian | Lan Wangji
Five Great Clans: Lan Clan of Gusu | Jiang Clan of Yunmeng (Jiang Cheng) | Jin Clan of Lanling (Jin Guangyao) | Nie Clan of Qinghe | Wen Clan of Qishan
Other Characters: Other Clans | Yi City Group | Miscellaneous Characters

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Jiang Clan of Yunmeng | 云梦江氏

^{Click here to see the the Jiang Clan's sigil in the Japanese audio drama art} 

^{Click here to see the Jiang Clan's sigil in The Untamed} 

Leader: Jiang Cheng (current), Jiang Fengmian (past)
Residence: Lotus Pier | 莲花坞
Region: Yunmeng | 云梦 (based on modern Hubei)

Another of the top four families of the cultivation world, the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng was founded by a wandering swordsman-turned-cultivator Jiang Chi.

Their motto is "know it to be impossible but do it anyway", and their Motif is a nine-petal lotus. All disciples wear purple, and the direct disciples carry a silver bell inscribed with the clan symbol.

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General Tropes

• Back from the Brink: The Jiang Clan was nearly wiped out during the burning of Lotus Pier, but Jiang Cheng was able to rebuild it during the Sunshot Campaign.
• Flower Motifs: Lotuses are one of the most significant flowers in Chinese culture, and are known for blooming beautifully from muddy ground. They symbolize purity and clarity, which fits the Jiang Clan as 江 translates to "clear", and the entire body of the lotus (fruit, flower and stalk) represent the past, present, and future, respectively — a concept that describes a good portion of the novel's overall narrative. Lotuses also represent honor, a reference to the Jiang Clan's motto.
• Honor Before Reason: Their motto is "know it to be impossible but do it anyway", an idiom referring to the persistence in pursuing what one believes is right against all odds.
• Purple Is Powerful: Purple is their Color Motif, and they're one of the Four Great Clans.

Jiang Cheng (江澄) - Wanyin (晚吟) - Sandu Shengshou (三毒圣手)

The current leader of the Jiang Clan, succeeding his father Jiang Fengmian prior to the Time Skip. For more information, refer to his character page.

Jiang Yanli (江厌离)

Voiced by (Mandarin): Li Shimeng (animation), Qiao Shiyu (audio drama), Bai Xuecen (web series)
Voiced by (Japanese): Saori Hayami (animation, web series), Ayana Taketatsu (audio drama)
Voiced by (Korean): Gang Eun-ae (animation)
Played by: Xuan Lu (web series - adult), Ye Xuantong (web series - child)

"A-Xian is a disciple of the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng. He grew up with my brother and I, and so he's as close as a brother is to me. Calling him the 'son of a servant'— I'm sorry, but I won't accept this."

Jiang Cheng's sister, Wei Wuxian's martial sister, and Jin Ling's mother. She wasn't particularly powerful or beautiful but had a graceful and gentle personality. In her childhood, her mother arranged her engagement to Jin Zixuan, the young master of the Jin Clan of Lanling.

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Tropes that apply to Jiang Yanli in general

^{Click here to see Jiang Yanli as a teenager} 

• Animal Motifs: In the animal-themed series of artworks from the donghua team, Jiang Yanli is shown holding a lamb. Sheep are known to be docile and were commonly used as wedding gifts in ancient Chinese culture. Fittingly, Jiang Yanli was gentle and sweet, and a huge part of her story involved her Arranged Marriage with Jin Zixuan. Sheep are also regarded in China as symbols of luck and gratitude, which mirrors how she was the heart of her family. Lastly, they symbolize justice — likely a twisted allusion to her death, which led Jiang Cheng to finally hate Wei Wuxian and seek revenge on him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: She was the kindest person you'll ever meet, but if you crossed her family she was more than capable of decimating you with words alone.
• Big Sister Instinct: While she lacked physical strength and cultivation skills, she provided her younger brothers emotional support and was a caring sister figure to them. It was also not a wise idea to mock either of her brothers while she was within earshot.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: From the brief scenes or descriptions of her with Jin Ling, Jiang Yanli was very affectionate to her infant son and vocally supportive of his future prospects, way more than her parents ever were to her and especially her brother.
• Cool Big Sis: Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng greatly admired her, as she was proven to be a kind and supportive figure to them when their parents couldn't act as that.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In the donghua and manhua, she switched from her two buns to pulling her bangs back after marrying Jin Zixuan. This symbolised her official switch in affiliation from the Jiang Clan to the Jin Clan since it was tradition in ancient China for women to change their hair after they got married.
• Happily Married: She eventually had a happy (even if brief) marriage with Jin Zixuan, although it took some Character Development on his part.
• Hidden Depths: Despite lacking any skill in cultivation, the way she handled Wei Wuxian and Jin Zixun's altercation at Phoenix Mountain hinted at some superb diplomatic skills.
• Informed Deformity: She was supposed to be rather plain, which was the biggest reason why Jin Zixuan initially didn't want to marry her. Every depiction we see of her is lovely and beautiful, with her live-action actress being no eye-sore and her visual depictions in other adaptations undergoing Generic Cuteness.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Jiang Yanli already liked Jin Zixuan since they were young, despite the fact that he disliked her. That being said, she never once forced her (ex-)fiance to reciprocate her feelings; in the donghua she was willing to move on after their engagement was annulled so they could both find other people to be happy with, and she felt uncomfortable with him at the Phoenix Mountain Hunt since she assumed he was only accompanying her out of obligation.
• Meaningful Name: Yanli means "to detest separation", foreshadowing the significance of her role in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's friendship.
• Morality Chain:
  • Downplayed with Wei Wuxian, who was always good but had become more erratic after becoming the Yiling Patriarch. Although his patience with the cultivation world for their injustices towards the Wen survivors and belittlement of himself was wearing thin, Jiang Yanli's presence kept him in check. It her death that caused him to lose his sanity and unleash a bloodbath during the raid at the Nightless City.
  • Jiang Cheng was always easily irritable and a bit cold for a heir-turned-leader of their clan, but his sister was the main person to bring out his redeeming traits. After her death, Jiang Cheng became deadset on killing his former martial brother and was turned into the bitter and cruel man he is in the present.
  • Downplayed with Yu Ziyuan. Jiang Yanli was the family member with the most success in keeping her mother's insensitive and abusive side from doing worse damage than it could. However, while Yu Ziyuan never completely lost her honourable traits, her daughter's presence wasn't enough to stop her from dealing life-long damage to both her children and Wei Wuxian.
• Nice Girl: Her core trait and what made her endearing to her brothers was her kindness, which she inherited from her father. She was so nice that she had feelings for Jin Zixuan even after he insulted her and humiliated her, although he too was won over by her gentle side and worked things out with her.
• Only Sane Man: She was the only well-adjusted member of the otherwise dysfunctional and fractured Jiang family as she never suffered from self-esteem and communication issues.
• Parental Substitute: At times, she was more like a mother figure to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng than their actual mother, who had several shortcomings in terms of parenting.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: She wasn't capable of physically beating you up, but she could give the most polite tongue-lashing of the century, point out every single fault in your logic, and still look elegant doing it. Jin Zixun found this out the hard way when he dared to insult Wei Wuxian in her presence.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Zigzagged. She and Jin Zixuan were engaged as children by their mothers; while she liked the Jin heir, not only did he not reciprocate but he also had low opinion of her. Not wanting their children to be unhappy, their fathers agreed to dissolve the engagement during their teenhood. However, Jin Zixuan later began to see her good traits and fell for her after making his Jerkass Realization, and he eventually confessed to her. This led to them marrying out of their own will, and they had a brief happy family life together along with their son until their tragic deaths.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: While Jiang Yanli took after their kind and gentle father more, Jiang Cheng is basically a gender-flipped clone of their cold and spiteful mother. They were also both close to Wei Wuxian, but Jiang Yanli never held any ill will towards the latter and always believed in him to the bitter and tragic end. By contrast, Jiang Cheng's genuine love for Wei Wuxian clashed with his anger issues and his Inferiority Superiority Complex, causing his trust in his martial brother to become easier to exploit, which led to their brotherhood suffering irreversible damage.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Downplayed. She was kind and lady-like, and didn't participate in combat due to lacking cultivation skills. However, she was good with her words and would firmly stand her ground if her family was mocked or threatened in any way, and she had more backbone than her brother when it came to confronting the other clans over Wei Wuxian.
• Supreme Chef: She was one of the best cooks in her clan, and Wei Wuxian always looked forward to eating her meals.
• Sweet Tooth: The donghua implied that she had a sweet tooth. When eating frozen dessert in Gusu, Wei Wuxian suggested to Jiang Cheng that they bring her with them the next time they visit the area so she'd be able to try them. After he was kicked out of the Cloud Recesses and sent home, he gifted her a basket full of sweets which he managed to snag from Gusu.
• Through His Stomach: During the Sunshot Campaign, she secretly made lotus root and pork soup for Jin Zixuan (who she still held feelings for but was her ex-fiance at the time). It caught his attention, but since he assumed it was made by a servant he never realized the significance of it until a misunderstanding broke out.
• Tranquil Fury: When she called out Jin Zixun, there were hints that she did her best not to outwardly show that she was angry about Wei Wuxian being slighted.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her action of carelessly charging into the Nightless City to look for Wei Wuxian is what led to not just her death but also the massacre triggered by Wei Wuxian's grief. This was also the final nail in the coffin for Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's friendship, with the latter now being bitter and ruthless towards his former martial brother in the present.
• What Does She See in Him?: Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng couldn't understand Jiang Yanli's fondess for Jin Zixuan both while and after she had her arranged engagement to him by their mothers, as they found him to be pompous and were unpleased with his initial disdain of her. Even when he did regret his past actions and returned her feelings, the two still didn't warm up to him but grudgingly let the couple be since they didn't want to upset Jiang Yanli.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: During the flashback when Wei Wuxian was first adopted into the Jiang family, Jiang Yanli acted a lot more mature than the average 11-year-old. She also had more maturity than her parents despite being younger.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: She was gentle, traditionally feminine, a great cook, a caring familial figure to both her biological and martial brother, and showed more emotional wisdom than the adults around her. She was also firm when standing up for her beliefs, not hesitating to defend her family when they were being badmouthed.

Tropes that apply to Jiang Yanli in The Untamed only

^{Click here to see Jiang Yanli as a child} 

• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • In the novel, she was in Meishan when Lotus Pier was burnt down and her parents were killed, and she only found out about their demise later on. The series changes this by having her at her father's side until he trapped her alongside her siblings with Zidian and left them to help his wife. Later on, one of her charms breaks, signaling her parents' deaths. When Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng showed her the little remains they could get of their parents, she openly wept in grief and tried to deny that they were gone.
  • She was shown to be distressed about Wei Wuxian leaving the Jiang Clan, something that was never mentioned nor hinted at in the novel:
    • After Wei Wuxian was publicly decried for rescuing the Wen refugees, Jiang Yanli had a nightmare where Wei Wuxian was drifting away on a boat and didn't respond to any of her calls. The entire dream left her waking up in tears.
    • When she and Jiang Cheng visited Wei Wuxian to show her in her wedding robes, she was a lot more distraught when the latter chose to stay with the Wens in the Burial Mounds rather than leave with her and Jiang Cheng.
• Adaptational Badass: Zigzagged. In the novel's canon, her cultivation ability was said to be below average, and she was never seen with a sword. In the live-action series, she was proficient enough to join Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng in their apprenticeship in the Cloud Recesses, but she was never shown fighting onscreen.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Unlike in the novel, where she was Locked Out of the Loop of what happened between Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and the Wen siblings, the drama had her accompany both boys after Lotus Pier was taken over by the Wen Clan. This meant that she witnessed Wen Ning rescuing her brother after he was tortured, and she was also around when Wen Qing provided shelter and safety for the three of them. This painted her distress at Wei Wuxian's departure from the Jiang Clan to protect the Wen survivors from the other clans in a more insensitive and selfish light, and the drama never once showed her trying to defend the Wen siblings to anyone (let alone her husband and her own brother), even though she personally knew all they had done to protect them.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Downplayed. Her core personality remained the same, but she exhibited a greater deal of vulnerability and sadness at the idea of Wei Wuxian leaving her and Jiang Cheng in any way.
• Ascended Extra: While she still played an important role in the novel, the amount of appearances she made was very minimal. Her role was greatly expanded in the series, thanks to her also studying at the Cloud Recesses and thus having her dynamics with her brothers and her fiance explored further.
• Catchphrase: A lot of her sentences, particularly when she was addressing both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, tended to start with, "Okay, you two."
• Hates Being Alone: In the series, she was implied to share the same abandonment issues as her younger brother whenever Wei Wuxian was involved. Her insistence that the trio "must always be together and never be parted" leaned more heavily towards the belief that they must always be physically together, rather than that they'd always be family even after they would live separate lives. This is supported by another instance when she insisted that "[she, Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Cheng] are the closest three in the entire world".
• Innocently Insensitive: Downplayed. When a depressed Wei Wuxian stated that what happened at Lotus Pier was his fault, Jiang Yanli broke down and said that blaming anyone won't change or help anything. She had good intentions in saying this and wasn't in good condition to say much else, but the lack of assurance that Wei Wuxian wasn't to blame worsened his guilt over the incident.
• Tragic Dream: Jiang Yanli assured Wei Wuxian a few times that no matter what, the three of them would always be together. It's a Foregone Conclusion that this didn't happen.

Jiang Fengmian (江枫眠)

Voiced by (Mandarin): Tang Shuiyu (animation, web series), Zhang Zhen (audio drama)
Voiced by (Japanese): Kenji Hamada (animation, web series), Kenyū Horiuchi (audio drama)
Voiced by (Korean): Seoh Won-seok (animation)
Played by: Lu Jianmin (web series)

^{Click here to see Jiang Fengmian in The Untamed} 

"The disciples of the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng aren't as weak as to crack under just one of the outside world's waves."

Jiang Cheng's father and the previous head of the Jiang Clan. He was friends with Wei Wuxian's parents and took him into his clan after their deaths.

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• Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed. While he was never actually seen battling the Wens during his last stand against them, the novel didn't mention him going down so easily like he did in The Untamed.
• Arranged Marriage: His marriage to Yu Ziyuan was arranged, but didn't work out all that well. This arrangement came about when the two studied in the same cultivation school and the Yu Clan proposed an alliance between clans via their marriage. While he politely declined since he knew they were too different to get along, he was continuously pressured until he was left with no choice but to agree to the arrangement.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: He was constantly in conflict with his wife, to the point she accused him of not actually loving her. He rushed back to Lotus Pier to find her even when he knew that it meant certain death, suggesting that wasn't at all true.
• Battle Couple: He and Yu Ziyuan were powerful cultivators. Despite their strained marriage, his final moments in the audio drama showed the two wouldn't hesitate to fight alongside each other.
• Beneath the Mask:
  • While he was known as a Reasonable Authority Figure, he still appeared to be a traditionalist due to how highly he regarded his clan's values and traditions. However, there were hints that Jiang Fengmian actually had progressive views given the way he handled Jiang Yanli's engagement, since in ancient China you'd be hard-pressed to find a parent — especially one from a prestigious family — who would act the way he did when they realize that their child and/or the betrothed doesn't want to be in an Arranged Marriage.
    Jiang Fengmian: Although we can set the engagement for them, we can't carry out the marriage in place of them. After all, they are the ones who will be spending the rest of their lives together.
  • There were hints that Jiang Fengmian did love his wife despite their clashes and tried to reach out and improve their relationship. Unfortunately, irreconcilable differences in personality and their untimely deaths prevented them from coming to an accord.
• Childhood Friends: He was good friends with both of Wei Wuxian's parents ever since his youth, with Wei Changze being his right-hand man at the time and the two of them studying with the mother in the same cultivation school.
• Extreme Doormat: Downplayed. He'd let his wife know when he was losing his patience with her haranguing, but he would walk away with almost nothing to say instead of properly confronting her. In the moments when she would berate any of her children, Jiang Fengmian also didn't make much effort to stop her even when he was displeased. This implied he wasn't very willing to stand up to her all that much and let her have her way, even if she was in the wrong. This was deconstructed, as he at one point snapped at her after finally having enough of her slander, and his passive approach to her issues had a negative influence on both Wei Wuxian and the Jiang children.
• Giver of Lame Names: He's the one who named Wei Wuxian's sword Suibian (Mandarin for "whatever"); when the latter was unable to think of a suitable name and shrugged, "Whatever," Jiang Fengmian suggested they could use that as the name.
• Good Parents: Zigzagged. He was a kind paternal figure to Wei Wuxian, and there's nothing to indicate he didn't raise Jiang Yanli well. However, it becomes more complicated where Jiang Cheng is concerned, especially since they have trouble finding common ground.
• Honor Before Reason: Downplayed. He strongly believed in the motto of his clan, and one of his conversations with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng implied that he didn't favor pragmatism over morality. That being said, he was capable of seeing the reality of a situation.
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • He was overall a decent man, but he can often be left wanting as a parent. While he didn't mean to cause conflict in the family, it didn't change the fact that he wasn't the best when it came to how he approached them. Both he and his wife would always run around in circles around one another, and he has a hard time providing Jiang Cheng with the affection that the younger boy needed.
  • While he always treated Wei Wuxian well, his final words to him were not for him to take care of himself, but to watch over Jiang Cheng — which had the same sentiment as Yu Ziyuan's final words to the teen in question. This affected Wei Wuxian for the worse and would cause him to take actions out of what he saw as repayment of his debt to the Jiang Clan. However, those same actions also unintentionally worsened his relationship with Jiang Cheng until tensions between them reached the breaking point.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Rumours said he had a crush on Cangse-sanren but didn't object to her marriage with his close friend Wei Changze, suggesting he valued their happiness with each other over his own and bore no ill will. It's never verified if his rumoured crush was true, but he's at least implied to have had no problem with them leaving his clan and becoming rogue cultivators.
• The Leader: He was the previous leader of the Jiang Clan and appeared to be well-respected and competent at his job.
• Nice Guy: His kind and gentle personality was his core trait.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He took Wei Wuxian off the streets and gave him a home and education to honor his old friends. This was instead twisted into an ugly rumor that he was unfaithful to Yu Ziyuan and was in love with Wei Wuxian's mother Cangse-sanren. This caused his wife to resent both him and Wei Wuxian, even trying to pit her own children against the two. However, his gentler treatment of Wei Wuxian compared to that of his actual children didn't help diffuse the rumors as he never properly addressed the claims.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The one time his wife made a spiteful mark about his alleged feelings for Cangse-sanren had him raising his voice at her. This was the first and only time he did so, emphasising how uncharacteristically mad he was.
• Parental Favoritism: He took Wei Wuxian into the clan after the latter's parents died and and acted as something of a father figure to him. Due to this, Yu Ziyuan often accused him of preferring Wei Wuxian over their actual son Jiang Cheng. Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one, as many characters also brought it up and even his own son believes it.
• Parental Neglect: Downplayed. He wasn't absent in his children's lives, but he was strongly hinted to be emotionally distant from them, especially his son.
• Parents as People: He meant well and loved both his children and Wei Wuxian (who saw him as a parental figure). However, he had difficulty extending the same affection for the latter to his own biological son, who he cared for but was clearly more distant with because of their difference of beliefs and values. He had trouble addressing this issue even as his wife continuously confronted him about it.
• Papa Wolf: Despite the tension between him and his family, Jiang Fengmian wouldn't hesitate to protect them even if he knew he'd die doing it.
• Pining After Protagonist's Parent: Jiang Fengmian was rumored to be in love with Wei Wuxian's mother Cangse-sanren, but she married his best friend instead. The way he favored their son over his own and his strained relationship with Yu Ziyuan made people question if he still had feelings for the woman in question. The more mean-spirited gossips claimed that Jiang Fengmian cheated on his wife with her and Wei Wuxian was his illegitimate son. While he got angry whenever those rumors were brought up, he never clarified them.
• Poor Communication Kills: His greatest flaw was that he communicated differently from everyone else in his family, and insufficiently too. Jiang Fengmian was a quiet man who prefer to let his actions speak for themselves while the rest of his family (including Jiang Yanli to an extent) were much more vocal about their wishes and feelings. It left everyone involved frustrated because they couldn't understand each other, and it would have a negative effect on some relationships within the group.
• Properly Paranoid: Jiang Fengmian was opposed to the idea of marrying Yu Ziyuan since he knew that their opposing personalities and beliefs would make them as irreconcilable as oil and water. The Yu Clan was implied to not agree with him and eventually pressured him to go ahead with the marriage. Their Awful Wedded Life proved that his reservations weren't unfounded.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Unlike other clan leaders, he was never seen abusing his power and was known for being level-headed and kind. During his rule, Lotus Pier was described to be a place anyone can freely visit unlike the Lotus Pier of today, which still thrives economically but is now a place many people dread to approach.
• The Stoic: Downplayed. Jiang Fengmian usually wore a calm expression which was often accompanied by a small and gentle smile, but didn't emote much else. This was deconstructed, as huge part of his friction with his wife and family was that they had vastly different communication styles and so didn't understand each other.
• Tough Love: While everyone believed that Jiang Fengmian was distant with Jiang Cheng due to allegedly holding a torch for Wei Wuxian's mother and was forced in an Arranged Marriage with Jiang Cheng's mother, Wei Wuxian believed that he did love Jiang Cheng and only treated him with a firmer hand because he was his heir.
• Tranquil Fury: Even when he was enraged, he repressed his anger as much as possible.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His Tough Love approach towards Jiang Cheng and warmer attitude towards Wei Wuxian played a role in plaguing their friendship over time, leading to their falling out years after his death and their distant relationship in the present.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Implied with Jiang Cheng. The latter believed that his father didn't like him because he took more after his mother, whose personality and beliefs Jiang Fengmian didn't agree with. Jiang Cheng's hinted to not be wrong about Jiang Fengmian's disapproval towards his character, as the narration states that Jiang Fengmian tried to instill certain teachings in him and guide him to being a good person following the right morals after seeing how his son had his wife's traits. However, his efforts always ended in failure, and eventually he and his son became more distant than they already were.

Yu Ziyuan (虞紫鸢) - Zi Zhizhu (紫蜘蛛)

Voiced by (Mandarin): Ji Guanlin (animation), Zhang Kai (audio drama), Li Jinyan (web series)
Voiced by (Japanese): Takako Honda (animation, web series), Atsuko Tanaka (audio drama)
Voiced by (Korean): Jeon Suk-gyeong (animation)
Played by: Zhang Jingtong (web series)

Weapon: Zidian | 紫电 (whip)

^{Click here to see Yu Ziyuan in The Untamed} 

"I've told you long ago that you’ll never in your whole life be able to surpass the one sitting beside you. Not over cultivation, not over night-hunting, even over shooting kites, you can't surpass him!"

Jiang Cheng's mother and Jiang Fengmian's wife. She was a powerful and forceful cultivator, and the original owner of Zidian. Due to old rumors surrounding the relationship between Jiang Fengmian and Cangse-sanren, she did not like the latter's son, Wei Wuxian.

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• Abusive Parents: Whenever she showed up, she would verbally and emotionally harangue her family for no particular reason other than to express her own spite and bitterness. Even if she did care for them, that doesn't excuse the scars her mistreatment left on them. It's even worse in Wei Wuxian's case as he got the worst brunt of it all. One of the extras even states that she would whip him with Zidian over the smallest "offences" (such as her catching him shirtless despite all the other disciples in a similar state, including her son) and this was before the events of the main novel.
• Action Mom: She was not only the mother to the Jiang children but also a high-ranking cultivation master in the clan with the ability and experience to back up her position. However, while her love for her children was genuine, she was extremely flawed as both a parent and as a person.
• Adaptational Personality Change: The donghua, while it keeps her personality intact, does show a bit more of her human side. The Untamed even gives her a Pet the Dog moment where she does show some concern over her daughter and husband's health before they departed.
• Animal Motifs: Yu Ziyuan was known as the Purple Spider. In some forms of symbolism, spiders symbolize unhappiness and the feeling of being unloved or rejected, which perfectly applied to her character and her relationship with her family. There are also some species in the spider family that are poisonous, and Yu Ziyuan had a personality that perfectly aligned with the concept of the "three poisons".
• Arranged Marriage: Her marriage with Jiang Fengmian was arranged, and it wasn't the happiest of arrangements. This marriage came about when the two studied in the same cultivation school and the Yu Clan proposed an alliance between clans via their marriage.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: She secretly made Jiang Fengmian the second master of Zidian, showing that she did trust and respect her husband even underneath all the resentment. And despite her overly harsh parenting, her concern for the Jiang children's safety and her final moments with her son indicate that she still loved her children nevertheless.
• Battle Couple: Both she and Jiang Fengmian were competent cultivators. Despite their differences, the final moments in the audio drama showed that they were still capable of fighting side by side.
• Beneath the Mask: Her marriage with Jiang Fengmian was arranged for political reasons, and thus neither were expected to love the other. Even then, there were hints that Yu Ziyuan desired for them to be more like a truly loving couple.
• Benevolent Boss: Downplayed. Although an extremely strict and terrifying teacher and mother, she did seem to treat her personal handmaids well, given how loyal they were to her. Nevertheless, there were not-so-subtle implications that she did not think highly of servants in general and believed that they should know their place as the inferiors of society, and her handmaidens simply got a free pass because they were her servants and had been raised to act as such since childhood.
• Bitch Alert: The novel and all of its adaptations quickly established her to be anything but a cordial, let alone reasonable, person in her very first appearance. All of her introductions showed her either being a Drill Sergeant Nasty to her disciples or slandering her family.
• Cool Crown: She wore a gold tiara in the donghua, signifying her well-respected status as the Purple Spider and the Jiang clan leader's wife.
• The Dreaded: A defining trait of hers was her family and Wei Wuxian's uneasiness towards her. Due to her short temper and emotionally abusive ways, they usually tried to avoid angering her when possible. Wei Wuxian especially feared her, and she seemed to be one of the few people (if not the only person) who could make him instantly try to make himself as small as possible as well keep his mouth shut whenever she was near. This is played up The Untamed, where her family enjoyed a peaceful dinner but immediately become somber as soon as she appeared, with everyone trying to not directly look at her.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: She was ruthless with the Jiang disciples in the donghua, making sure they didn't try and shirk off during training.
• Education Mama: Yu Ziyuan had all of the notorious traits of the archetypal Asian tiger mom taken to the extreme, as she was strict on everyone when it came to teaching cultivation, including her own son. However, her animosity towards Wei Wuxian drove her to keep on pitting Jiang Cheng against him and pushed her son to surpass him, which only served to worsen her son's Inferiority Superiority Complex.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: While Wei Wuxian doesn't hold any grudges against Yu Ziyuan for how she treated him, he holds no illusions about her transparent hatred of him. There are also hints that he's aware of how her abuse has scarred him deep down, but is downplaying the gravity of her abuse both to himself and to other people as a way to cope.
• Gaslighting: One of her worst traits was forcing her beliefs onto others and making them view themselves the way she viewed them, with both Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian being her frequent victims. Her rants about her son being unloved by his father and having inferior cultivation to Wei Wuxian led to him taking this to heart combined with his inferiority complex; and her tendency to remind Wei Wuxian he was a servant and blame him for everything wrong with her life is what made him feel indebted to her family and act on it to unhealthy extremes.
• Green-Eyed Monster: There are heavy implications that she hated Wei Wuxian not just for being better than her own son, but for also being the son of the woman Jiang Fengmian was rumored to have feelings for. She was also hinted to harbor the same resentment towards Wei Wuxian's parents for having what she didn't — a mutual, joyful, and loving marriage.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Very few things didn't set her off. More than often, it was her anger towards the many issues surrounding her family that did the talking for her.
• Hypocrite:
  • Despite marrying into the Jiang Clan, she was still referred to as Madam Yu instead of the more culturally accurate "Madam Jiang", hinting that she didn't fully accept her marriage and actively chose to keep her distance from her new family. The narration even stated that she lived in her own quarters and spent more time going on night-hunts than residing in Lotus Pier. Yet she criticised her husband for not truly loving her, and she often acted as if she had always been trying to keep the family together and look out for them.
  • She often called out her husband for not being nurturing enough towards Jiang Cheng, but she herself was the opposite of nurturing towards the latter.
  • While Wang Lingjiao deserved a beating, Yu Ziyuan's admonishment of her threatening a "member of her family" rang completely hollow given how she never treated Wei Wuxian like such.
• Improbable Weapon User: She was the original owner of Zidian, a ring that can transform into a whip.
• It's All About Me: It was extremely rare to see her acting in the best interests of anyone who wasn't herself. In most of her screentime, she would speak or act purely out of personal grudges and biases, and she treated almost everything and everyone as a personal attack on her pride.
• Jerkass: She was a difficult and unpleasant person to deal with as she was never shown to be kind, let alone civil, with anyone. Even in the few moments she showed emotional vulnerability, it was either preceded or followed by her being abrasive and verbally abusive.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She criticised Wei Wuxian for his Chronic Hero Syndrome and said that such selfless tendencies would invite trouble. Although she was lashing out and belitting him here as usual, the multiple times he hurts both himself and others (even if unintentionally) for his heroic intentions throughout the story show that she wasn't entirely off the mark, even if her words were said for the wrong reasons.
• Karma Houdini: Downplayed. While she eventually died at the Wens' hands, she never got anything close to a recompense in her life for all the times she left emotional scars on both Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, especially with the latter. Even in her final moments, she decided to destroy any chance she had of redeeming herself by giving Wei Wuxian a Dying Declaration of Hate. Even though she did give Jiang Cheng a Dying Declaration of Love and her trusted weapon, the damage had already been done and her poisonous influence on their relationship remained all the way up to the present.
• Kick the Dog: She was often unnecessarily cruel, such as verbally abusing Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian unprompted when it did nothing to help her cause.
• Lady of War: She was a beautiful woman who was a recognized cultivation master and also known as an extremely tough mentor among the Jiang Clan, and the visual adaptations showed she was a graceful fighter.
• Lightning Lash: Her whip Zidian releases purple lightning, which she uses to great effect.
• Mama Bear: Her final moments showed that she would do everything to protect Jiang Cheng and Yanli, even going up against the overwhelming Wen forces at the burning Lotus Pier and dying at their hands.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Downplayed. She was an unpleasant woman who also happened to be skilled on the battlefield, and she was known as the "Purple Spider".
• Never My Fault: Even when she was at least partly responsible for a problem (especially a family-related one), she would push all of the blame to someone else, with Wei Wuxian being a frequent target. A shining example is when Lotus Pier went under attack and she lashed out at him while blaming him for what happened. While his actions in the Xuanwu Cave did catch the Wen Clan's attention, not only had they already planned on warring with the Jiang Clan long beforehand, but she was actually the one who landed the final nail on the coffin by beating up Wang Lingjiao even after Wei Wuxian tolerated his punishment in hopes of saving the clan.
• Parents as People: She genuinely loved her children, but her way of showing her regard for their well-being was questionable at the very least, especially when it came to Jiang Cheng, and downright abusive at worst. While some of her quarrels with Jiang Fengmian involving her son were partially born out of concern for the young boy, she still tended to drag the latter into the middle of said quarrels, which didn't help his issues with his Inferiority Superiority Complex. Her resentment of Wei Wuxian also caused her to keep comparing Jiang Cheng to him and driving her son to surpass him, rather than helping him develop and overcome his own strengths and weaknesses, respectively.
• Perpetual Frowner: She was almost always scowling or sneering, or even both at the same time.
• Pride: For someone who tended to find fault in everybody, she never stopped to find even a single fault with herself and valued her self-worth over everything else.
• Pride Before a Fall: When Wang Lingjiao pushed her luck in mocking her, Yu Ziyuan decided to forgo what little diplomacy she had left and proceeded to beat the other up before telling her to know her place. However, her choice to assert her authority to sate her wounded pride gave the other woman enough time to call for reinforcements, which sealed the fate of Lotus Pier.
• Prim and Proper Bun: In The Untamed, her hair was tied in a ladylike bun, befitting her regal and tough personality.
• Resentful Guardian: The Jiang family took in the orphaned Wei Wuxian when he was a child, and everyone was welcoming to him (even if took a while on Jiang Cheng's part) except Yu Ziyuan. She was so resentful towards Wei Wuxian that there are few scenes of her not dismissing or haranguing him in some way.
• Shipper with an Agenda: Deconstructed. Because she and Madam Jin were such close friends, they made an arrangement to have their eldest chidren married if they were the opposite sex (the other options were making them sworn brothers or close sister figures). In the donghua, she made it clear that she was rooting for Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan's marriage not because she personally believed that the two were meant to be together, but because the engagement would make way to a political alliance of extremely high benefit. This arranged engagement initially had a negative effect on their two children, with Jin Zixuan in particular expressing his dissatisfaction in his fiancee. Their mothers did not appear to care, however, with Yu Ziyuan even arguing in the donghua (following their daughter's dissolved engagement) that it was only a matter of time until the Jin heir would grow to like her.
• Strong Family Resemblance: One can tell Jiang Cheng gets his scowls and deadly smirks from his mother.
• The Tell: People knew that if she was fidgeting with Zidian, it meant she was really mad. Jiang Cheng inherited this trait after the weapon was passed down to him.
• Unreliable Expositor: She was the one to explain to the audience Jiang Fengmian's alleged feelings for Cangse-sanren and that it's the reason why he favoured Wei Wuxian over their own son. It's ambiguous how true this was, and it didn't help that she was speaking out of resentment rather than objective suspicion.
• Unwanted Spouse: Downplayed. While they at very least cared for each other, her marriage with Jiang Fengmian was still merely arranged rather than voluntary, and the latter was repeatedly railroaded into it until he finally relented. In the audio drama, Yu Ziyuan even expressed frustration that he would never have married her had Cangse-sanren not married someone else. However, it's strongly implied that even if the latter and Wei Changze weren't in the picture, Jiang Fengmian still would have balked at the prospect of marrying his wife.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Just because her husband took in Wei Wuxian and gave him food and a home, Yu Ziyuan thought that the least the latter could do in return was devote himself entirely to the Jiang family and not object to any order or mistreatment they dished out at him. She didn't care if her actions were outright harming him, and she even went so far as to believe that Wei Wuxian deserved any misfortune that came his way simply because he had the audacity to exist.
• Whip of Dominance: A whip is her primary weapon, fitting with her status as an extremely stern and ruthless master cultivator and Education Mama. In particular, Wei Wuxian would often get personally whipped by her even for the slightest offense, since she was a Resentful Guardian to him.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: One of her many favorite arguments to bring up to Jiang Fengmian was about how Jiang Cheng's cultivation was horrible compared to Wei Wuxian's and how he wouldn't be fit to lead the Jiang Clan in his current state. Whether she cared or not, her words had a great negative effect on the two aforementioned characters.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Jiang Fengmian usually called her "my lady" or "Third Lady", but he'd switch to using her name if he was furious with her.

Jinzhu (金姝) and Yinzhu (银姝)

Jinzhu voiced by (Mandarin): Yi Xing (animation)
Yinzhu voiced by (Mandarin): Xu Xu (animation)

Jinzhu voiced by (Japanese): Yukako Kiuchi (animation)
Yinzhu voiced by (Japanese): Yukako Kiuchi (animation)

Jinzhu played by: Zhang Jing (web series)
Yinzhu played by: Liu Xiaobin (web series)

^{Click here to see Jinzhu and Yinzhu in The Untamed} 

"Jinzhu and Yinzhu aren't your usual servants. They've been staying with me ever since I was young. They've never served anyone aside from me, and there hasn't been anyone who can strike them. They can't, and they don't dare to."

— Yu Ziyuan

Yu Ziyuan's trusted maids.

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• Adaptational Wimp: In the donghua and the manhua, they didn't get the chance to fight off the Wens accompanying Wang Lingjiao since Yu Ziyuan ended up doing that instead, and they were never seen engaging in combat.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: They barely spoke onscreen no matter the adaptation, but that didn't negate how deadly they are.
• Bit Character: They play no relevance to the plot, and not much is known about them besides the fact that they served Yu Ziyuan since childhood.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: They're implied to be twins in the donghua and the manhua, and they looked almost exactly the same. The color of their sashes and hairpins, which are gold and silver, is what differentiated them.
• Lightning Lash: Like Yu Ziyuan, they also used electrical whips as weapons.
• Meaningful Name: Their names mean "golden pearl" and "silver pearl", respectively. Pearls are universally known as accessories of wealth, and their role as handmaidens essentially made them the "accessories" of their mistress.
• Ninja Maid: They usually just accompanied Yu Ziyuan wherever she went, but they were more than capable of defending themselves if needed.
• The Quiet One: Besides a few choice lines, the two barely spoke and usually just stood in the background.
• Servile Snarker: The few times they spoke was usually snarky, although this wasn't directed towards their mistress but to the people she didn't like.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Implied. While the novel never explicitly stated if they were sisters, let alone twins, their similar names give off the impression that they were indeed related, and they looked completely alike in the donghua and the manhua.
• Super-Speed: The novel details them decimating Wang Lingjiao's entourage in only a few seconds, suggesting they had superb speed. The Untamed was more explicit with it, as their attacks literally happened in a flash while they moved in a quick and blurred motion.
• Undying Loyalty: They served no one else but their mistress and defered only to her authority.

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