Lan Sizhui

Name

Originally named Wen Yuan, which was later changed to Lan Yuan when Lan Wangji adopted him. During adolescence, he got the courtesy name Lan Sizhui. Now, only close friends and family call him Lan Yuan. They may also call him A-Yuan as a more affectionate nickname. Everyone else calls him Lan Sizhui or just Sizhui.

Appearance

Sizhui has long, dark hair pulled into a high ponytail and dark eyes. He possesses a fair and refined appearance, with a dignified manner and a faint smile. He wears many layers of light blue and white hanfu with a cloud motif, as is standard for the Gusu Lan sect. He also carries a jade pendant which grants him access to enter the Cloud Recesses.

Personality

As a child, he was very clingy. Grown up, he is both well-mannered and organized. He acts as the leader of the junior disciples in the Gusu Lan sect and treats everyone with respect and kindness regardless of status. He has a kindhearted, observant and intuitive nature. Furthermore, Lan Sizhui is quick to see beyond the black-and-white morality of the cultivation world. To those he knows, he is deeply loyal, and for those he is dedicated to protect (from dear friends to innocent civilians), he is remarkably brave. Despite his general maturity, Lan Sizhui is not above occasionally losing his temper and joining in fights or telling a lie to lessen embarrassment. He has a playful side which comes out quite often around friends and family as he teases them and makes subtle jokes. In addition, he is hesitant to admit to fear due to his belief that he shouldn’t let down the people who expect him to consistently be confident and competent. However, he has not come face-to-face with significant horrors, and expresses extreme apprehension at the thought of hurting people or being in a life-threatening situation.

Motivation

Lan Sizhui strives to uphold the righteous ideals of his sect and protect those who have good intentions. He also seeks to make his parents and his deceased sect, the Qishan Wen, proud by making the world a safer and fairer place.

Lan Wangji

Lan Sizhui’s adoptive dad, Lan Wangji has long, dark hair and amber eyes. He typically wears the standard white and blue Gusu Lan hanfu with cloud motifs. He is perceptive and intelligent. He has a strong moral compass and does not care to gain fame and glory from night-hunting; he goes wherever people need help. He can be incredibly stubborn, especially when matters involve his morals. On the surface, Lan Wangji has a taciturn demeanor, but internally, Lan Wangji is a passionate person who feels deeply. This is expressed as extraordinary selflessness and patience. While raising Sizhui, Lan Wangji always tried to understand his perspective and offer comfort while also disciplining him fairly when need be, and Lan Sizhui loves and respects him as a result. Lan Sizhui often calls Lan Wangji “A-die,” an affectionate term for one’s father.

Wei Wuxian

Lan Sizhui’s adoptive dad, Wei Wuxian has messy, dark hair usually worn in a ponytail and grey eyes. He typically wears black and red robes. He possesses an energetic and mischievous personality, caring little for rules and decorum. He enjoys teasing others and engaging in banter. Beneath his carefree attitude, Wei Wuxian cares deeply for those he loves. He possesses a self-sacrificing spirit. Intelligent and inventive, Wei Wuxian created a new school of cultivation called demonic cultivation, centered around manipulating the resentful energy of corpses and unhappy spirits. Wei Wuxian has a strong sense of justice. He is bold in protecting the innocent no matter their name or societal prejudice. As a result, he is capable of ruthlessness against those he perceives to have committed wrongs. Nevertheless, Wei Wuxian often expresses regret and admits his faults. As a result of his experiences as both a hero and a pariah to the cultivation world, Wei Wuxian sees nuance where many do not. As a child, he was orphaned and had to fight with stray dogs for food, so he has a severe fear of dogs. When he was adopted, he spent a long time feeling like he owed his adoptive family a life debt and not wanting to be a burden. He also adores spicy food and is a talented artist. Lan Sizhui loves and feels safe around Wei Wuxian, often calling him “baba,” a word meaning father.

Gusu Lan

The Gusu Lan is a sect of cultivators who study the same method of cultivation, which is based on propriety/rule-following, swordsmanship, and music. They are based in the Cloud Recesses, a housing and training complex located on a mountain next to the city of Gusu. They are highly righteous and strict, enforcing over four thousand rules inside the Cloud Recesses. These prohibit, among other things, drinking alcohol, gossiping, running when matters are not urgent, and speaking during mealtime. Sect members also have a curfew of 9 PM. The rules are all carved on a rock at the base of the mountain known as the Wall of Discipline. Sect members who break the rules may face punishment from doing handstands to writing copies of the rules to being whipped severely. The forehead ribbon is a white ribbon with a cloud motif given to Lan disciples of the direct Lan bloodline. It symbolizes self regulation, and nobody except close family members and cultivation partners (significant others) may touch it. Gusu Lan cuisine is notoriously bland.

Qishan Wen

Lan Sizhui was born into the Qishan Wen clan. The main branch of the Qishan Wen was power-hungry and cruel, and they eventually went to war with the other sects in an attempt to conquer them all. However, Lan Sizhui was part of a side branch of the sect which specialized in healing. They only helped the main sect under threats to their lives, and some branch members even helped the other sects fight the main Qishan Wen sect. However, when the Qishan Wen were eventually defeated, all Wen sect members were persecuted equally. They were wiped out, and Lan Sizhui is believed to be the last surviving member of the sect.

Backstory

Lan Sizhui was orphaned when he was very young, so the rest of the side branch of the Qishan Wen sect took care of him as if he were their own. When the Wen sect members were being persecuted, they were all taken to work as slaves to the other sects. Soon, however, Wei Wuxian arrived and freed them, leading them to the Burial Mounds, where they set up a small farming village. They lived for a short time there, making do with what little they had. Unfortunately, Wei Wuxian was involved in an altercation with the other sects, and they besieged the Burial Mounds. As the Qishan Wen we’re grateful for Wei Wuxian’s help, and they knew they would not be welcomed anywhere else, they opted to stay at the Burial Mounds and hep defend it. As a result, they were all slaughtered. Lan Sizhui, however, was hidden in a tree stump and therefore survived the attack. He fell very ill. Soon afterwards, Lan Wangji came to the Burial Mounds and found Lan Sizhui, recognizing him as someone Wei Wuxian had wanted to protect, and adopted Lan Sizhui. His illness caused him to lose all his memories prior to his adoption into the Gusu Lan sect. He was raised and trained as Lan Wangji’s own.

Wen Ning

Wen Ning was one of the side branch Qishan Wen sect members who specialized in healing. He and his sister, Wen Qing, cared for and deeply loved Lan Sizhui, acting as an uncle and aunt. When the Wen sect members were forced to work as slaves for the other sects, Wen Ning was brutalized and killed. However, Wei Wuxian was able to revive him in an undead yet conscious and sentient state. Later on, just before the siege of the Burial Mounds, Wen Ning and Wen Qing sacrificed themselves to protect Wei Wuxian. Wen Qing was killed, but Wen Ning was taken by another sect and studied. The other sect wanted to use him for their own power-hungry purposes. However, Wei Wuxian was the only one who could control Wen Ning, so the other sect was only able to subdue him and keep him in a fugue-like state. When Wei Wuxian returned, he reawakened Wen Ning, restoring his personality and self-agency. He is shy and somewhat timid but also kind, loyal, and honorable. Over time, he learned to stand up for those he cares about and follow his own path. As a man, he had long dark hair, black eyes, and delicate features, and as an undead, he is pale, with cracked black lines across his neck and face. Wen Ning is also known as Wen Qionglin and the Ghost General.

Lan Jingyi

Lan Jingyi, along with Lan Sizhui, is a junior disciple of the Gusu Lan sect. He wears white and blue robes with a cloud motif as well as a white forehead ribbon. He has long, dark hair, dark eyes, and bold features. He has a distinctly loud voice and boisterous personality. Lan Jingyi tends to be careless and straightforward, open and honest about his opinions. Lan Jingyi is hot-tempered and often disobeys the Gusu Lan Clan's rules with activities such as talking behind others' backs and sneaking alcohol. Still, he has a sense of honor and good intentions. He also demonstrates high emotional intelligence. Lan Jingyi is the type of person who becomes completely enraptured in stories, a perfect audience member. He is also scared of ghosts. Lan Sizhui usually restrains Lan Jingyi’s temper and/or recklessness, but the two are close friends, often partnering for night hunts.

Jin Ling

Jin Ling, also known as Jin Rulan, is the heir to the Lanling Jin sect. His features are delicate yet sharp, and he has the vermillion mark between his brows that is a signature of the Jin sect. His robes are gold and patterned with peonies. He is prideful and short-tempered, and acutely sensitive to being an orphan. He is also observant of other peoples’ thoughts and motivations. Although he initially has a strong, sometimes reckless, desire to prove himself, once he ascends to the position of sect leader, he displays maturity and selflessness. He is also somewhat innocent, with a large capacity for forgiveness. He has a close friendship with Lan Sizhui, admiring his patience and politeness, bravely vowing to protect him.

Other Family

Lan Xichen is Lan Wangji’s brother, a friendly but polite man with welcoming features. He acts as an uncle for Lan Sizhui. Lan Qiren is Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s uncle and the former Gusu Lan sect leader. He seems to be like a grandfather to Lan Sizhui, although Lan Sizhui may treat him with more respect and politeness than one would typically employ around close family members. Jiang Cheng, also know as Jiang Wanyin, is Jin Ling’s uncle by blood and Wei Wuxian’s brother, making him Lan Sizhui’s uncle by adoption. He is a hot-tempered and stubborn but fiercely loyal towards and protective of his family. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian have a complicated relationship as brothers, so Lan Sizhui did not know him closely growing up, but as Wei Wuxian is making steps to heal his relationship with Jiang Cheng, Lan Sizhui is getting to know him more.

Cultivation

People draw energy from the world to strengthen themselves. They can do this through meditation, fighting, playing music, and practically any activity that requires concentration and disciple, although the methods listed are the most common. The cultivated energy, also called qi or spiritual energy, forms a golden core within the person’s chest as well as a vein-like network called qi meridians. Qi can be channeled into weapon strikes and sound waves or directly from a person’s body. Cultivators can also write on yellow sheets of paper with red ink to create talismans, which carry out precise and unique functions such as attracting evil spirits, warding off ghosts, and generating heat. Furthermore, cultivators are generally resistant to disease and heal quicker than non-cultivators. The end goal of cultivation is to become so powerful as to become immortal or even to ascend to godhood. Cultivation can go wrong when somebody’s qi is accidentally (through absorbing conflicting types of qi or due to conflicting and persistent strong emotions) or intentionally, causing a qi deviation. The victim becomes wildly violent and unable to determine what is real, and they may suffer mild injury to permanently weakened cultivation to amnesia and even death, depending on the severity and duration of the qi deviation. Qi deviations can be stopped through outside intervention, although the process is difficult and dangerous.

Night Hunt

A night hunt is the term for when a group of cultivators goes outside of their sect’s main base to exorcise and subdue monsters that are terrorizing the ordinary civilians. They are often shows of power, both to the civilians and to other sects. When multiple sects attend one night hunt, it can become a competition as well as a collaborative effort. Night hunts are often exciting excursions for junior disciples who have not had the chance to encounter many real-world dangers.

Monsters

Jiangshi, sometimes called fierce corpses, are dead bodies with resentful energy accumulated within them, usually due to their unfortunate circumstances of death (such as murder) or the disruption of their burial site. They have blueish-tinted skin and are generally not sentient. They steal and feed off of peoples’ qi and can be controlled through demonic cultivation. Yaoguai are inhuman, often animal-like monsters. There are several notable ones, such as the Xuanwu of Slaughter, a turtle-like beast with a near impenetrable hide. Yaoguai are aggressive towards humans and will kill if not stopped. A waterborne abyss resembles a large, dark whirlpool and can destroy and consume entire boats. They are created when a multitude of drownings occur in the same body of water. They are notoriously difficult to exorcise as they must be entirely dried up. There are also ghosts, some of which harm people, but most of which are harmless and can be contacted through a musical cultivation song called Inquiry.

Likes

Potatoes, carrots, rabbits (as pets)

Dislikes

Being on a boat (he is prone to seasickness), radishes