Su Qin

As Jin Guangyao fears further delays in their marriage, they consummate their relationship prior to their wedding, which occurs roughly a year after the death of Wei Wuxian. Qin Su is, therefore, already pregnant by the time her mother approaches Jin Guangyao to confess that Qin Su had been conceived when Jin Guangshan raped her, and thus, they are actually half-siblings. Though disturbed by the revelation, Jin Guangyao continues with the wedding, afraid to cause a political falling-out between Jin Guangshan and Qin Cangye. Additionally, by the time he knew of their relationship, Qin Su is already pregnant – and, due to his childhood, Jin Guangyao is extremely familiar with the way the cultivation world scorns women and children for the sins of their fathers. Although he never touches her again, he respects her very much and does not have any affairs or concubines. By all accounts including their own, they have a happy relationship until Qin Su learns the truth. Shortly before Madam Qin died, she had confessed the truth about her daughter's paternity to her maid Bicao. Nie Huaisang eventually bribes Bicao to approach Qin Su on the eve of a Discussion Conference to give her a letter detailing the truth about her origins and marriage. Upon reading the letter, Qin Su collapses in her bedroom. When Jin Guangyao enters, she demands the truth from him and refuses to believe his initial denial. She tells him that he scares her, because if he was capable of this, he is capable of anything. Unbeknownst to them, Wei Wuxian is also watching in his paperman form. Qin Su refuses to allow Jin Guangyao to touch her, even to help her up. He pleads that he has sincerely loved her, and even says that if she thinks he is disgusting now, they should act normal lest society judge them. He promises to send her away to travel with Qin Cangye so that she can be away from him as soon as the conference is over. Qin Su, however, demands to know if he had killed Jin Rusong. Jin Guangyao denies it, but when he adds that Jin Rusong would have had to die even if he had not been murdered, Qin Su slaps him. As her hysteria grows, Jin Guangyao seals most of her meridians and takes her to rest inside their treasure room. He begs her once again to tell him who wrote the letter, but Qin Su does not respond. After the paperman is discovered, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji lead many cultivators into the treasure room, as Wei Wuxian has also discovered that Jin Guangyao keeps the severed head of Nie Mingjue inside. Qin Su says nothing as the cultivators enter, but when Jin Guangyao pulls out an Assassin's Dagger of unusually strong resentful energy, she suddenly snatches it from his hands and plunges the blade into her stomach. The dagger's energy is so strong that Qin Su dies almost immediately. Jin Guangyao then draws his sword Hensheng on the person he believes to be Mo Xuanyu. When Wei Wuxian unsheathes Suibian to defend himself, Jin Guangyao exposes him as the Yiling Patriarch. Bicao later approaches many prominent members of the cultivation world at Lotus Pier to share her story. She admits to giving Qin Su the letter at Golden Carp Tower and claims Jin Guangyao must have killed Qin Su to silence her. Although he had initially thought the same, Wei Wuxian counters that Qin Su had killed herself because she could not bear what Bicao told her and silently reckoned that she had decided death was preferable to the cruel gossip of the cultivation world. When Jin Guangyao is mortally wounded, he lists Qin Su among the people he had killed, indicating that he views himself responsible for her suicide.