Tian Yan

Tian Yan is the daughter of Tian Meng, the elder sister of Tian Ci, the niece of Tian Hu. After her father's untimely death, she becomes the leader of Lieshan Hall and tries to direct her efforts into stopping the civil war and uncover her father's murderer.

Known as the "female Guan Zhong," Tian Yan has keen intellect and is hailed as the genius of the Peasant School. Unlike her uncle, she takes little interest in the Shennong Order and the rush for title of Xia Kui, instead placing her priorities on uncovering her father's murderer. However, due to the situation at hand, she finds that she cannot distance herself or her brother from the conflict.

In the finale of Season 5, it is revealed that Tian Yan has been Net Trap's assassin, Jing Ni, the whole time and has been manipulating the events n the Peasant School all along.

Appearance
Tian Yan is a young woman who is dressed quite modestly, covered from neck to feet in long, warm clothing. As she is frail of health, it is likely to prevent herself from getting ill. She typically carries a neutral expression or a slight frown, as if in thought (which she usually is).

When she steps out of Lieshan Hall, she wears a long blue cloak over her white robes.

After she sheds her disguise once the truth about her association with Net Trap is revealed, she is shown to be wearing a skin-tight dress underneath her robes.

Personality
Known for her intellect, Tian Yan is a highly reasoning person who can quickly deduce and uncover other people's plans, as well as holes in people's logic. Her reasoning is even capable of convincing her hot-tempered uncle that her father's murderer came from outside of the Peasant School. However, she finds that she can do nothing to curb his ambition to become Xia Kui.

Because she deduced that the entire civil war within the Peasant School was the machinations of an outside force, she does not desire the war, and seeks a way to end it peacefully. As a result of this position, she slowly garners Tian Hu's ire, while Han Xin calls her "the only sober person left in the Peasant School."

Though she is a woman in the male-dominated Peasant School, she is unafraid to speak her mind even when she knows it will anger those she speaks to. She is also a determined woman who is willing to seek out her supposed enemies in order to make a truce to further her own goals.

The true depth of her cunning is revealed in the finale of Season 5: all of the Peasant School's events, including the death of her own father and the resulting conflicts, were all her machinations. Some time before the start of the civil war, she joined the Net Trap in order to destroy the Peasant School, for unknown reasons.

Synopsis
Tian Yan makes her first appearance mourning the death of her father. However, as the person who prepared his body for burial, she notices something amiss with Tian Hu and Tian Zhong's belief that Wei Zhuang and Ge Nie assassinated her father at Zhu Jia's orders.

Skills and Abilities
Weighing Words, Observing Expressions (察言观色)

This ability allows Tian Yan to view a person's inner meridians and observe their internal forces. With it, Tian Yan is capable of tracking down Zhu Jia's true body among his thousands of clones. Later, she uses it to observe Tian Mi's heart when she exposes Tian Mi's treachery to Tian Hu. While using this ability, her eyes turn a gold color.

Skilled Swordsmanship

As Jing Ni, she showed incredible swordsmanship and control over her internal forces.

Tian Hu
Tian Yan has a somewhat rocky relationship with her uncle due to their clashing personalities and priorities. While he values her intellect and foresight, and cares for her as family, it is clear that it is at least partially motivated by his own ambition to become Xia Kui. Although her reasoning that Wei Zhuang, Ge Nie, and Zhu Jia are not the perpetrators of Tian Meng's death is enough to convince him, it does nothing to deter his plan to become Xia Kui and annihilate Zhu Jia. However, she and Tian Zhong are the only two people known to be able to curb his wrath, at least for a while.

Eventually, due to the different perspectives of the two, Tian Yan decides to rescind her agreement to help Tian Hu become Xia Kui once he involves Tian Ci in the power struggle, in violation their previous agreement. When she finds that she is unable to convince her uncle to stop, she decides to seek out her own allies to become Xia Kui herself.

Tian Ci
It is clear that Tian Yan cares deeply for her brother, and he in turn obeys her above all others. In a flashback, Tian Yan watches in worry as her father beat Tian Ci for not training well with his swords. Later on, she looks on in shock as Tian Ci, who was too caught up in his sword's killing passion, ends up unintentionally slicing Tian Hu's right eye. After that, their father had Tian Ci locked away, never to be involved in the Peasant School's affairs as long as he was alive.

With Tian Meng's death, Tian Yan had Tian Hu agree not to involve Tian Ci in the power bid for Xia Kui. However, Tian Ci ended up wandering over to the battle between Gao Jianli, Da Tie Chui, and the Tian Hu's forces on his own. Afterwards, Tian Hu pretends that he is aiding Tian Yan (when in actually, he had her under home arrest) and convinces Tian Ci to assist him.

When she arrives on the battlefield, she temporarily does Tian Hu's bidding while Tian Ci protects her; however, when Tian Hu orders Tian Ci to attack Shengqi, she gives no such order and thus Tian Ci does nothing. Afterwards, she voices her opposition to sending Tian Ci on the battlefield and getting blood on his hands, but her decision is overruled by the majority and she has no choice to acquiesce.

Tian Mi
It is clear from the start that Tian Yan and Tian Mi do not trust each other. While few within the Peasant School actually believe the airs she puts on, Tian Yan's distrust runs even deeper than that, while Tian Mi belittles Tian Yan by telling her to watch over her frail health. When Tian Mi speaks to Tian Hu at the onset of the Shennong Order, Tian Yan is seen to be diligently watching her with a glare.

Though the two interact little after that, it comes to a head when Tian Yan makes her second bid to wrestle the title of Xia Kui from her uncle. Having deduced the truth behind Tian Mi, she does not hesitate to expose Tian Mi's treachery to her uncle, and already made preparations to counter any of Tian Mi's attempts to kill her.

Trivia

 * Tian Yan won the 13th place in the character popularity vote with 316,037 votes, making her one of the 17 characters ranked higher than Jing Tianming, who won the 18th place with 30,645 votes.
 * The early disguise of Jing Ni is based on a reused model of Qin Empire's soldier, albeit with claws added.
 * Tian Yan is a character exclusive to the animated series and is not originated from the novel series.
 * The name of Tian Mi (田蜜) and Tian Yan (田言) are both derived from Chinese idiom "甜言蜜语", figuratively meaning flattering, which forshadowing their status as traitors.
 * Tian Yan was named after the phrase "誓言" (pinyin: Shi Yan), meaning oath and vow.
 * Tian Yan's costume switch into her Jing Ni outfit once revealing her true nature is one of the most memorable and fan-favorite scenes in the entire series.
 * Tian Yan's agriculrist outfit is a combination of two early concepts, one with the deep blue cloak (to establish her loft) and the other with furry cape (to mirror her faked sickness). Her coat was in darker hue in early design but was changed to white, presumably to fit her debut within her adoptive father's funeral (since the color white symbolizes death in Chinese culture).
 * Tian Yan is a foil to her rival Tian Mi. While both of them are working for Zhao Gao as spies within the agriculrists, Tian Mi only tries to use her alliance as a step for her own glory and acts dramatic and flitarious. Tian Yan, on the other hand, acts more composed and more focused upon vengence, while taking her work under Net Trap and subsquently Qin Empire more seriously.