Gu Xiulan

Gu Xiulan is a member of the Gu family, a viscount level clan in the Golden Fields.

Ling Qi describes her as pretty, with pale skin, long straight black hair, and delicate features that are carefully accentuated with makeup. A striking girl who refuses to not be noticed, her primary element is fire and this shows in her personality. Gu Xiulan can be extremely prideful and arrogant and will be abrasive and aggressive towards those she dislikes.

Style
However, Gu Xiulan is able to back up her pride and arrogance with powerful offensive arts that seem to melt through armor to deal devastating damage that is difficult to mitigate. She is the clear source of firepower, in a literal sense, in the Golden Fields group.

Her Gu family arts are all Fire oriented and very Yang aspected. Effects include the ever reliable fireball, to calling down bolts of lightning from the heavens.

After her Tribulation, Xiulan's abilities have become even more powerful, at the cost of being harder to control. Her weapons have been gauntlets or gloves on her right hand, starting with a red formation marked glove and then upgrading to a golden formation carved gauntlet in her tournament match versus Wen Ai.

Story
Originally skeptical and suspicious of Ling Qi's motivations for joining in the training of the Golden Fields Group, her tune changed after an impromptu spar convinced her that Ling Qi was a diamond in the rough that could be an asset to the team.

The friendship developed even further after Elder Zhou's trial when she invited Ling Qi to join the hot springs with her. Ling Qi did so, and Gu Xiulan began to discuss some of her favorite topics, such as fashion and gossip. Eventually convincing Ling Qi to go to the market to buy some basic cosmetics and style her hair, Gu Xiulan has been a continuous source of encouragement to Ling Qi to get more fashionable clothes and style herself appropriately.

Despite her favorite topics, however, Gu Xiulan has an insatiable thirst for power and recognition. Recognition from her clan, from Han Jian (whom she had a significant crush on) and from the world at large. Such was her thirst for power, that after her personal failure in Elder Jiao's trial she resolved to go to a tribulation site and risk her life for the power she sought.

She survived the tribulation and received tremendous power from it. However, the cost was also greater than Gu Xiulan could have imagined. Black thin burns spread across her face creating what look like scales and her right arm has the appearance of a charred corpse with blue flames and lightning dancing within all the way to the elbow. Painful at the best of times, Gu Xiulan sacrificed her beauty for the power she so dearly desired.

This radical increase in power has also affected her personality. With powerful lightning coursing through her veins, Xiulan is even more aggressive and abrasive than before. She has begun training compulsively, to the exclusion of even basic self-care. The tribulation seems to have caused her to have difficulty in controlling her emotions and desires.

The physical effects of the tribulation will fade when she reaches Steel, the 5th realm of physical cultivation. This is an indication that Xiulan's gift is something akin to a Cyan's in power, and will keep growing with her as she becomes strong enough to utilize it more fully.

Even now though, her flames have taken on a blue hue and burn even hotter than before. Her training habitually destroys the field she practices on, slagging boulders, glassing sand, and causing fires that exist where no fuel is present. Ling Qi has agreed to assist her in her training, mostly by being a difficult target to hit and being tough enough to avoid serious damage when Gu Xiulan is trying to control her flames.

Bound Spirits
Gu Xiulan has acquired a spirit named Linhou, a fairy-like fire spirit born from a great forest fire on Sect Lands. Adorable, but not particularly combat capable at the moment, it was also changed by the tribulation and where wings of flame used to exist now there are wings of lightning. It loves to eat the flames that remain after Xiulan's training and serves as a means of damage control to prevent the damage to the training field from spreading.

During her tournament battle with Wen Ai, Linhou demonstrated some combat ability, and the ability to enhance Xiulan's own fire abilities.

Relationship with Ling Qi
Ling Qi is one of Xiulan's best, and only, friends. While their initial relationship was rocky, and took time to get past Xiulan's first impression, Ling Qi has managed to work her way into being one of Xiulan's most supportive friends. This has both anchored and mellowed the firey girl, but has also had consequences due to Ling Qi's advancement outshining Xiulan's own.

In someways the Tribulation Xiulan underwent was to keep up with Ling Qi's own explosive growth. How much Xiulan sees Ling Qi as a friend to surpass, being a naturally competitive person, is uncertain.

Relationships with Family
Xiulan seems to have a somewhat happy relationship with her family. Directly witnessed interaction has been limited to her mother Ai Xiaoli, which has been generally positive.

There is some implied strain with her father, due to him wanting a son. Xiulan also has multiple older sisters, one of which, Yanmei, has directly assisted her in the Argent Peak Sect.

Relationships with Others
Unfortunately, due to Gu Xiulan's position in her clan, and her clan's overall position in the Golden Fields, Gu Xiulan is in an engagement with Fan Yu, which displeases her. Seeing Fan Yu as weak and unable to stand up for himself in the face of aggression, Gu Xiulan can be abrasive towards him, much to the other members of the Golden Field Group's dismay.

The only close friend that Gu Xiulan has besides Ling Qi, is Linhou and she derives much of her support from both of them. Han Jian broke her heart after he rejected her advances, and she does not consider Fan Yu worth her time. She seems to get along amicably with Han Fang but does not speak to him much, and Han Fang returns the favor (being mute). Gu Xiulan has difficulty forming connections with other people, especially other girls, and as such does not seek to make friends with many people. It is also hinted at that Gu Xiulan's personality drove away her roommate, and so she currently lives alone in her house.

Trivia

 * Described as an Azula expy by the player-base.