In the sprawling, ruthless world of A Mortal's Journey (凡人修仙传), fans often find themselves scratching their heads over a peculiar plot point. Wang Chan (王婵), the spoiled and vengeful young master of the Ghost Spirit Sect, harbors a deep, murderous hatred for the protagonist Han Li (韩立). His desire to skin, disembowel, and grind Han Li’s bones to dust is palpable.
Yet, he never once resorts to what seems like the most obvious mortal tactic: going after Han Li’s mortal family. Why not hold them hostage? Why not raze his ancestral village to force the elusive rogue cultivator into a trap?
To a modern audience, it appears to be a glaring oversight, a failure of strategic thinking. However, this perceived plot hole is not a mistake in the narrative, but a deliberate feature of its meticulously crafted world. Wang Chan’s failure to attack Han Li’s family isn't born of stupidity or kindness; it’s a direct result of the immutable, cold logic of the cultivation world—a realm where the concerns of mortals are not just irrelevant, but often completely invisible.
Why Wang Chan Never Found Them
The most immediate hurdle for Wang Chan was not a lack of will, but a sheer impossibility of execution. Fans often imagine a simple investigative trail: trace the Immortal Ascension Token back to the Seven Mysteries Sect, find Li Feiyu (厉飞雨), and pinpoint Han Li’s hometown. This neat sequence is a fantasy built on a modern understanding of bureaucracy and record-keeping, not the chaotic reality of the cultivation world. The trail was cold from the very start. T
he Immortal Ascension Token Han Li used was essentially stolen from the Golden Light Bandit, a man who had already severed all ties to his own past. How could Wang Chan trace a token’s history when the token itself was anonymous and its originator was a ghost?
Furthermore, Han Li was paranoid from his very first step onto the path of cultivation. At the Seven Mysteries Sect, he instinctively understood the danger of exposure. He hid his origins and used Li Feiyu’s name as a smoke screen. When he joined Yellow Maple Valley, he falsely claimed to be from a "declining cultivator clan," completely erasing his mortal family from his official record. When the sect later fled its stronghold, all its personnel files were lost. The information was never centralized; it was deliberately scattered and destroyed.
To find the truth, Wang Chan would have had to scour the vast mortal nations of Tiannan, interrogating countless commoners on the off-chance one had heard of a boy who left for a martial arts sect decades ago. For a Qi Condensation or Foundation Establishment cultivator, whose lifespan is precious and whose focus is on breaking through to the next realm, such an endeavor was not just difficult—it was a monumental waste of a life.
A Futile and Costly Act of Vengeance
Even if, against all odds, Wang Chan had located the Han family, the act of slaughtering them would have been strategically meaningless. Mortals view revenge through the lens of emotional catharsis; cultivators view it through the lens of resource management and personal gain. What would Wang Chan have gained from such a massacre? A temporary feeling of satisfaction, perhaps, but no tangible benefit. Mortal possessions are worthless to him. More importantly, he would have had to dedicate significant time and manpower to monitor the village, waiting for a ghost who might never appear.
The unspoken rule of the cultivation world is non-interference in mortal affairs. For high-level cultivators, stooping to murder mortals is considered beneath their dignity. It invites ridicule from peers and provides political ammunition to rivals. But beyond social stigma, it's a flawed strategy against an opponent like Han Li. How would Wang Chan even deliver his ultimatum? "Come to your village or your family dies!" is a threat that requires a means of communication. Han Li was a wandering rogue cultivator with no fixed address. The threat would hang in the air, useless.
And knowing Han Li's cold, pragmatic nature, would he rush headlong into a trap? He understood that in the cultivation world, one's own strength is the only true shield. He would likely retreat, bide his time, and return for a colder, more calculated revenge later, leaving Wang Chan exactly where he started, but now with the logistical headache of managing a hostage he couldn't use.
In the end, the reason Wang Chan never went after Han Li's family is a perfect distillation of the novel’s core theme. It’s not a story about simple, earthly revenge. It’s a story about the cold, lonely, and calculating journey of a mortal in a world of immortals. Han Li’s family survived and even prospered not because he was lucky, but because he understood the rules of the game better than his enemies. He knew his true weakness was his own lack of power, not the existence of his relatives.
Wang Chan, blinded by his hatred and his aristocratic arrogance, never grasped this fundamental truth. He was too busy thinking like a man, which is why he could never beat a being who had learned to think like an immortal. Perhaps his time would have been better spent trying to steal Han Li’s little green bottle—that would have been a threat worth worrying about.
