Xu Yanjie

The clever first son of an ambitious scholar-official family. Elopes with Wu Haotian to escape the stress and subterfuge of a civil service career, but ends up in an even more complex plot spanning multiple lifetimes. The “best friend” to have if someone’s trying to kill you a thousand times over.

Height: a very impressive 5’10” in a family of 5’7” and under.
Build: lanky, with graceful wrists and hands. Takes quick long strides. A little fragile.
Hair: thick, dark, and floppy, falling into his eyes. Needs to be reminded to schedule a haircut. Keeps it out of his face in a braid or half-pony when it’s long.
Eyes: a warm brown, accentuated by intense eyebags.
Style: tends toward earthen colors, like greens, warm grays and browns, some creams. Big fan of appropriating Haotian's sweaters. Into casual streetwear but also dresses like a librarian, especially in the winter. Wears reading glasses. Takes fashion advice from Wu Jiaxin.

• Easy manners, with an ear for gossip, a nose for trouble, and a knack for mischief
• Very chatty and quick to laugh around close friends
• Otherwise calm and approachable, a carefully cultivated lure
• A droll sense of humor; favorite literary device is dramatic irony
• Gets suckered into sidequests because he’s a polite boy and asks after people’s health
• Locked in perpetual battle with his self-esteem as a recovering people-pleaser
• Dislikes competition(s)
• Enjoys drinking tea, reading plays and mystery novels, writing illegible notes on receipts, traveling, and camping in the middle of nowhere in search of cultivation rarities
• “You ruined a perfectly good kid. Look at him, he’s got anxiety!”

• Strength is in strategy, speed, and element of surprise
• Annoyingly hard to kill despite low stats, much to Zheng Wubin’s frustration
• Prefers long-distance to mid-range combat with talismans, but proficient in the sword, staff, and fan
• Memory is impeccable, especially with people and place names

• Firstborn to a set of firstborns: father from the Xu Family, mother surnamed Liao
• Had a terrible time adjusting to school due to the pressure to excel, which clashed with his desire to please yet not offend
• At age eight, met Haotian in a dreamy forest encounter that changed his life
• At age ten, absconded to join the Wu Family Sect
• Befriended the Nine Rivers Theatre Troupe in his teens
• Casualty in ambush that killed Haotian and the Seven Falcons, but was not included in Wubin’s plan and thus retains memories of past lives

Wu Haotian: first and only love, best friend, and husband. Yanjie is resident Haotian interpreter and PR team. His enduring devotion to Haotian becomes increasingly complicated over the course of several hundred cycles.

Wu Jiaxin: very close to Yanjie, who introduced her to her wife, Zhou Manyi. Matchmaker prime, unfazed by Yanjie's deflections about his romantic history.

Wu Yuxin: close to Yanjie in a much subtler way than Jiaxin is. Brings Yanjie under her wing and trains him as an informant for her formidable spy network. A mentor figure who, while intimidating, is a source of reflection and support for Yanjie.

Nine Rivers Theatre Troupe: dramatists by day, troublemakers… also by day, these are Yanjie’s finest sources of gossip and his human reality checks.

Liang Jingyi: a source of some anxiety for Yanjie, who feels that Jingyi is better-suited to keep up with Haotian.

• Preference: 0.5
• Demisexual, with an interest in men
• Has attempted no-strings-attached sex twice and never again. These terrible encounters were unfortunately formative
• Initially body-shy, though he and Haotian have seen each other naked thousands of times
• A post-coital cuddler
• Praise and eye contact really do it for him
• As ever, quick to smile and laugh

Alt Universes Here