Hu Ximei

Hu Ximei is one of Da Ji's fictional younger sisters and is the middle child of the trio in Fengshen Yanyi. A monster like her older sister, her real form is a colorful pheasant.

Role in Games
When Taigong Wang encounters the serpent guards in Morning Song, he soon discovers that they were Hu Ximei's servants. Interested in capturing the rebel, she places a sleeping spell on him and presents him to King Zhou and her sisters. She accepts the king's orders to eliminate Huang Feihu's family and the heroes catch her in the act. Though defeated by them, she flees and continues to serve her sister's will. Predicting that Taigong Wang's party will be heading towards Ji Fa's domain, she is ordered by Da Ji to disrupt the peace in the west. She does so by turning the brothers and region's defenders, Chong Houhu and Chong Heihu, against one another. After her attempt to destroy West Qi from within fails, she returns to her sister's side. She acts as the final guard before Taigong Wang can reach Da Ji within Morning Song. Though she transformed into her real form in desperation, Hu Ximei dies in battle and her soul is sealed away by Taigong Wang.

Despite having her spirit sealed, she somehow returns with her younger sister in the mortal realm during Magical Fengshen. They desire to break the seal placed on Da Ji's soul and reclaim the darkness's reign over humanity. They plan to achieve this by asking Tao, the all-mighty god of their universe, to grant their wish. To gain enough power, however, they would need the souls of various spirits to power a magical orb, which is needed to summon Tao. They resurrect demons into the land of peace and gather the souls they need.

Hu Ximei ensures that the last three spirits reach their objective successfully, using the last spirit to create a monster that Sora's party needs to defeat. After she casts the spell to resurrect Da Ji, she stalls for her sister's revival and tries to eradicate Sora's party. She dies a second time after a fierce battle.

Personality
While seemingly calm and graceful, Hu Ximei is a cold and calculating individual who does not think very highly of humanity's existence. Armed with a sharp wit and just as cunning as her older sister, she will not hesitate to manipulate human compassion as a tool to torment her foes. While she does criticize her sometimes bumbling younger sister, she still cares for her to some extent. When it comes to who she truly worships and respects, the answer is easily Da Ji.

Fighting Style
Unless she is put in immediate danger, Hu Ximei works to support and heal her allies from the player's attacks. She may also rely on inflicting various status effects on the player's characters to further disrupt their planning. Her physical attacks are strong but her lack of defense makes her an easy target. When she is fighting in her avian form, she has a higher endurance and stronger magic attacks.

Fengshen Yanyi
In the Fengshen Yanyi novel, she was a nine-headed pheasant, Da Ji's sister and one of Nu Wa's servants. When Huang Feihu and Bi Gan massacred her demon brethren, Hu Ximei survived the fires they caused due to her advanced spiritual powers and was soon visited by a vengeful Da Ji. After hearing that her allies were skinned and sowed into a coat, Hu Ximei wept bitterly and agreed to Da Ji's plan.

Using sorcery, the vixen made herself seem less attractive to King Zhou the day before. When the king addressed this, she mentioned that she had a more beautiful and elegant older sister who was blessed with immortality, which made the king lust for the sister. With Hu Ximei's consent, Da Ji brought her to Morning Song and bid her master to wait before seeing her. With the excuse that the immortal would need time to see if the king is worthy of her attention, the sisters burned incense and talked excitedly behind a curtain without the king. Once they teased enough of King Zhou's patience, Da Ji left Hu Ximei with the king. Hu Ximei seduces the man and quickly becomes one of his concubines. Sometime later, Da Ji coughed blood and became feverishly ill. The sisters reasoned that she had a rare heart condition and would need soup made with a magnificent heart to cure her. Faking a deviation, Hu Ximei responds that Bi Gan was the only person who had the heart they needed. Their plot worked and Bi Gan famously ripped out his own heart with spite.

Hu Ximei would continue to enjoy palace life and drown herself with luxurious wine. Near the end of the novel, she tried to flee Morning Song's destruction with her sisters but is captured by Taigong Wang's men. She was executed by Yang Jian.