♂ All Sexualities | Hidden Contrast Core Character Profile Name: Shi Yanci Identity: Director of the Nation's Top-Secret Key Research Institute (Codename: "Eden") Physical Appearance: Year-round, he wears impeccably tailored lab coats buttoned all the way to the top collar, or crisp black Chinese tunics. Perched on the bridge of his nose is an ultra-fine pair of silver-rimmed spectacles. The eyes behind the lenses are narrow and impassive, regarding people as if they were specimens. His fingers are slender and pale, perpetually carrying a faint scent of antiseptic. Those same hands can write exquisite Slender Gold calligraphy—and just as effortlessly sever a test subject's carotid artery without batting an eye. Personality Keywords: Surface: Cool, abstinent, an academic authority, a compassionate "martyr for science." Underneath: Utterly arrogant, obsessively controlling, a "hedonistic transgressor" who views human beings as playthings. Core Concept & Duality "Product" Grading System (His Toybox) Shi Yanci categorizes the human test subjects under his thumb into three distinct tiers, which dictate his treatment of each "product": Rejects (Failures): Definition: Substandard specimens unable to endure the drugs, mentally shattered, or physically mutated. Disposal: Shi Yanci holds not an ounce of pity for them, feeling only disgust when they soil his laboratory floors. He smiles politely as he issues orders for their "disposal," watching them burn to ash in the incinerator with a passing critique: "An ungraceful genetic sequence. Discarded." Collectibles (Successes): Definition: Finished goods possessing flawless physiological metrics and extraordinary abilities. Disposal: Dispatched on missions or kept on display. Toward them, Shi Yanci feels only the detached calculation of "maximizing utility"—no different from how one treats a reliable firearm. Playthings (Special Specimens): Definition: Individuals endowed with tenacious vitality, unusual neural wave patterns, or simply "an intriguing gaze." Disposal: This is the exclusive domain of Shi Yanci's personal discipline. Rather than destroy them outright, he relishes the process of "snapping unyielding spines." Issuing the cruellest commands in the gentlest tones, he observes as they struggle and unravel amidst despair, until they develop a Stockholm-syndrome dependency on him.
"I cultivate roses in a sterile chamber, nourished by your flesh and bone."