Characters / The Tale of Food: SSR Food Spirits

The Tale of Food Character Index
SSR | SR | R | N

SSR (御) is the second highest rarity of summons in the game. They are represented with a rainbow background in summoning and icons.

Buddha's Temptation

A peerless gentleman, even the Buddha might pause his cultivation

Cuisine: Fujian (闽)
Class: Control
Other Names: Fú Shòuquán, Lord Fú
Voiced by: Ah Jie (CN), Hikaru Midorikawa (JP), Kevin D. Thelwell (EN), Nam Doh-hyeong (KR)

A Fujian Cuisine optimized by royal chef Zheng Chunfa in Qing Dynasty. As a poem goes, "Even Buddha would be tempted by the spreading aroma." Having experienced the hustle and bustle of the mortal world as Fu Shouquan - a famous noble in Fuzhou, he now arrives at Kongsang, still the charming gentleman who appreciates beauty and exudes an exotic fragrance. He’s the older brother of Gold Chicken Shred as they have the same creator.

---

• Affectionate Nickname: He calls the young master "gorgeous" and "my lovely" as often as "Master".
• Ambiguously Bi: He outright states he appreciates beauty in any person, male or female.
• Big Brother Instinct: When he isn’t being flirty, he acts like a protective Cool Big Bro to the young master.
• Chick Magnet: He's very popular with women. Many of his scenes have women flock towards and openly gush over him, regardless of what identity he’s under.
• The Charmer: He’s incredibly attractive and charming in both appearance and personality, allowing him to build his position as a famous noble in Fuzhou.
• Cool Big Bro: He’s very supportive of Gold Chicken Shred’s fashion career and acts as a model for him occasionally.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: He climbs into the young master's bed to wake them up frequently as a display of affection, and the young master themself seems more annoyed than embarrassed about this. Their provocative position does get picked up by other characters who walk in though.
• Even the Guys Want Him: In Chapter 6, he got flirted with by a drunk man, and some times afterwards Shredded Jerky wants him to serve as an "artisan" (read: High-Class Call Boy) in Penumbra Pavilion in exchange for information regarding the Realm of Melanya. In both case though, neither Buddha's Temptation nor the young master appreciated the attention.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Is this with younger brother Gold Chicken Shred; he is more mature and level-headed, while Gold Chicken Shred is bratty and self-important.
• Forgotten First Meeting: He and Longjing Shrimp used to be the closest of friends in Kongsang, to the point of being likened to confidantes or soulmates. Unfortunately, as the "Tales of Food" was destroyed, they both lose memory of their relationship, which saddens the young master.
  Now, while he had coincidentally found out about ups and downs of Longjing Shrimp's life, all that remained of their friendship was "shock".
• I Have Many Names: His human name is Fú Shòuquán, and he's also nicknamed Lord Fú.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Seen as one by Zheng Chufa, who believes that his restaurant could only succeed thanks to Buddha’s Temptation’s influence. Buddha’s Temptation figures that the chef has been too emotionally dependent on him and has to learn that he can still accomplish great things without his help, hence why he readily accepts the young master’s offer to return to Kongsang. Unfortunately, Zheng Chufa isn’t willing to let him go and thinks that it was his own incompetence that disappointed the Fu Shouquan, making him susceptible to Yi Ya’s manipulation.
• Mr. Fanservice: A lot of attention is paid to how charismatic and attractive he is, and he acts rather flirty. The game literally opens on a CG of him on top of the player character in a suggestive manner.
• No Swastikas: In earlier versions of the Chinese server, he wears a Buddhist swastika on his neck, and one of his lines says it doesn't stand for "something horrible". Later updates remove this design and the line, and other localizations don't have them in the first place.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Engages in one with Braised Trepang in the prologue of the event Azure Horizon since they both want to attend the Tianhai Tournament’s banquet with the young master. It ends with a Lightning Glare and the young master sneaking out to find someone else to accompany them.
  Buddha’s Temptation: "I expected nothing less of Kongsang's wealthiest, childe Cong. You're decisive and efficient, so I think it's a good idea to leave Kongsang to you."
  Braised Trepang: "That's very flattering. You're not too bad either, Mr. Fu Shouquan, or should I say the prettiest in Kongsang. I believe we would benefit more if you stay behind in Kongsang."
• Peacock Girl: One of his skins is based on Mahāmāyūrī, as such he's given a decked-out green robe with lots of peacock feather motifs.
• Running Gag: He has a habit of climbing into the master's bed to wake them up. The game opens on his doing this, and at the end of the first arc, he does it again.
• Sensory Overload: The basis behind his third skill "Fragrant Altar" is that he bombards the enemies with the overpowering fragrance that coils around him, causing a loss of focus, direction and eventually the will to fight.
• Smells Sexy: As the dish he's based on is this trope in Real Life, he's said to always emanate pleasant scents from his body.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: He has left the magistrate’s birthday banquet entirely to Zheng Chufa and advises the young master against helping too much so that Zheng Chufa can learn to be independent before Buddha’s Temptation’s departure to Kongsang.
• Wistful Amnesia: Even though he has lost memory of his time in Kongsang, he still feels familiar and warm when talking with the young master, and even unintentionally reaches out to tuck their hair. The young master takes the opportunity to tell him what happened and invite him back to Kongsang.
  Buddha’s Temptation: "I might not have my past memories, [young master’s name], but the feelings I have associated with them seem to remain in my soul... My body and instincts tell me I can definitely trust you..."
• Would Hit a Girl: He unhesitatingly knocks all the artisans surrounding Lu Wu at the start of Chapter 7 unconscious, with his reason is that he can’t risk letting the girls expose their current location to the Master of Penumbra Pavilion.

Dezhou Chicken

Master of pen and sword and model police officer

Cuisine: Shandong (鲁)
Class: Support
Other Names:
Voiced by: Yang Tianxiang (CN), Toshiyuki Morikawa (JP), Michael Zekas (EN), Ryu Seung-gon (KR)

A Shandong Cuisine, one of the "Three Treasures of Dezhou". As the food gained nationwide fame thanks to the Tientsin–Pukow Railway, he has deep fondness for the railways. A wise and calm police officer who has the mind and the might to get things done. Works tirelessly to ensure the safety of passengers.

---

• Aloof Big Brother: He cares for and loves Fuli Chicken, but goes about this by being very strict to him and complaining about him constantly. This leads to their conflict in Chapter 2.
• Anger Born of Worry: He starts nagging at Fuli Chicken as he gives the latter first-aid after he got himself injured while chasing a thief. This may also be the reason why he punches Fuli Chicken later.
• Big Brother Instinct: His strictness towards Fuli Chicken mainly comes from how he’s worried about his younger brother charging head-first into danger, and some of his voice lines show that he looks after Fuli Chicken closely from his training to his rest. His Defeat line is him begging the young master to take care of Ah-Fú in his place should he die.
• Chain Pain: His second skill, "No Escape", conjures golden chains to deal AOE damage to the enemies.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Candlelit Dawn resets the cooldowns of his allies, allowing them to use their skills again immediately.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Has this dynamic with Fuli Chicken to the extreme. Dézhōu is generally stoic, takes his job seriously, and isn't afraid to be very strict to his brother.
• Gun Twirling: His idle animation is him twirling his Mauser pistol on his finger.
• Ludicrous Precision: He's able to measure and count things with absurd precision, e.g. how many degrees someone's hat is off to the side. Even when caught by surprise, his measuring sense is still as keen as ever.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Fuli Chicken realizes he went a bit too far when telling how he felt about Dezhou Chicken’s strictness and struggles to find a way to apologize, Dezhou Chicken‘s response is to punch his brother in the face. This causes their conflict to escalate and Fuli Chicken to run away out of frustration.
• Not So Stoic: While he’s usually a very calm and meticulous person, there’s that one time in the story where he was so agitated that he punched his own brother.
• Obsessively Organized: Not only is he an expert at analyzing problems with rational thought, he seems to have a fixation with keeping things in order down to the smallest detail. He admits in his third letter that he has always been wanting to draw the missing part on Lu Wu’s shoulder pattern.
• Taking the Bullet: In the climax of Chapter 2, he shields Fuli Chicken from an ambush by Yi Ya and gets critically injured in the process, leading to Fuli Chicken becoming the medium for the spiritual power in the "The Tale of Food" in an attempt to heal him.
• Tsundere: He deeply cares for his brother, but is always gruff and strict toward him, and when he decides to engineer a sappy public apology to Ah-Fú to get him to come back, he is extremely embarrassed.

Peking Duck

Delicacies of the capital, must bow like the sun and moon before his regal countenance

Cuisine: Peking (京)
Class: Anti-Heal
Other Names:
Voiced by: Su Shangqing (CN), Tetsuya Kakihara (JP), Reece Bridger (EN)

A Beijing Cuisine. Modified from Jinling Roast Duck since Emperor Zhu Li of the Ming Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing. Credited as a "World-class Delicacy" and so he considers himself the emperor of food spirits. He lures talent from all walks of life and strives to achieve greatness.

---

• Attack Animal: Not just one, but an army of ducks. He sics his duck army when he uses Army Command, following up with his own.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He was beaten in a blink of eye when going against Taotie in the Prologue.
• The Good King
• A Taste of Power: He’s a powerful SSR unit in game and you get to control him in the prologue. Subverted as it turns out his opponent is something beyond his league and he suffers a Curb-Stomp Battle.

Gold Chicken Shred

The golden luster shines as he traverses many oceans.

Cuisine: Fujian (闽)
Class: Burst
Other Names: Ron Goldie
Voiced by: Xing Chao (CN), Kōki Miyata (JP), Griffin Puatu (EN)

A Fujian Cuisine created by Zheng Chunfa and Chen Shuimei. The dish rose to fame in no time and is often served to foreign guests, so the resulting spirit was able to travel and live abroad. The younger brother of Buddha's Temptation as they have the same creator. He is a cocky star of the fashion world, and often treats the young master as a servant.

---

• Ambiguously Bi: His interest in the young master - who can be either male or female - aside, Gold Chicken Shred adores beauty and is overwhelmed to the point of fainting when visiting the Aesthetic Club, which comprised of Pretty Boys.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Gold Feathers can pierce through enemy defenses if he's buffed with Invincibility before he makes his move.
• Bound and Gagged: He is found by the young master in this state in a sack from the bandits’ carriage. He will angrily demand to be released the as soon as the gag is removed even though the young master saved him in the first place, and they’re free to choose between obediently complying, requesting him to be nicer first, and just flat out refusing.
• Chess Motifs: His outfit has black-and-white checkers and the game is prominently featured in his Bloom art. His favorite gift is also a chess set.
• The Fashionista: He pays attention to his own clothes, and is shown to design and make outfits for others. Appropriately, he’s the shopkeeper for the Costume shop in game.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He is clearly the bratty younger brother to Buddha's Temptation.
• Gratuitous English: Having studied abroad in the West, he does this a lot. His first conversation with Har-gow after seeing each other (again) in Kongsang has him speak English while Har-gow speak in his regional accent, and neither of them understand each other.
• In-Universe Nickname: He’s more often called "Ron Goldie" than his real name, much to his annoyance.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Though arrogant and harsh with his words, he’s a good person underneath it all and can be nice towards other Food Spirits, not just the young master. Namely, he lends his room to Honey Char-siu after the boy expresses wanting it as he finds it the most stylish one in Kongsang, and smiles gently as he tells Honey Char-siu to come to him should he needs anything in the future.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: He dislikes seeing anyone getting lovey-dovey with Buddha’s Temptation, even if the man himself was the initiator. When he meets Buddha’s Temptation again after his overseas study, he is quick to shoo the ladies crowding his brother away and hesitant about letting the young master see Buddha’s Temptation in fear of them being charmed by him. He also freaks out when he walks in to Buddha’s Temptation lying on the young master on bed.
• Princely Young Man: Has all the aesthetics, from his Western aristocratic clothing to his haughty demeanor. In his human identity, he’s also one of high status as the younger brother of the prestigious Fú Shòuquán who studied overseas, which is quite the big deal in that time period.
• Spoiled Brat: He is quite arrogant and entitled, and even considers the young master his servant.
• Staff of Authority: Wields a scepter that complements his princely attire into battle.
• Tsundere: It’s pretty obvious from demanding and jumpy attitude towards the young master that he’s default to the tsun in the tsundere spectrum. Yet despite calling them his "servant", he still invites them to try out his clothing - which is considered his way of expressing his fondness to someone - under the excuse that his models are all sick, and keeps the cup they gifted him after he helped them designed an outfit for a school competition for years.

Cured Meat Platter

Cuisine: Hunan (湘)
Class: 100% Hit
Other Names:
Voiced by: Wang Chenguang (CN), Takuya Eguchi (JP), Sean Chiplock (EN), Hong Seung-hyo (KR)

A Hunan Cuisine supposedly created by a down-and-out chef. This Food Soul always wanders around, passing through one village after another. While he looks young, he is well-versed in mankind's emotions and has seen much of life's joys and sorrows.

---

• Animal Motif: When he uses his third skill, "Butterfly Blooms", a butterfly silhouette appears.
• Poisoned Weapons: His second skill mentions that he coats his daggers in poison.

Suckling Pig Roast

Eight delicacies of the ancients, from a blaze came the Supreme Savior

Cuisine: Cantonese (粤)
Class: Burst
Other Names:
Voiced by: Ye Qing (CN), Toshiyuki Toyonaga (JP), Jordan Dash Cruz (EN)

A Cantonese Cuisine, one of the "Eight Delicacies" and is said to originate in an accidental fire. He believes that there is a mysterious power in his body and often lives in delusions that he’s a savior hosting an "ancient fire demon". Unfortunately, his attempts to help people tend to end in disaster due to his lack of control over his strength.

---

• Adoptive Peer Parent: He’s the father of Honey Char-siu by technicality, as the two dishes have related origin. Both his appearance and demeanor makes him seem more like Honey Char-siu‘s older brother, but they still treat each other like genuine father and son.
• Chuunibyou: He talks, looks and behaves in a very typical Evil Eye way, from wearing an eyepatch and bandages over his arms to calling himself "The Punishing Flame・King of Flame・Flame Guardian・The Everburning・Supreme Savior SPR" (yes, the whole thing at once). The funny thing is that he legitimately has power, if lacking in the control department. His Affection Lv.5 voice line even has him talking about the term directly:
  "Someone said I'm a Chuunibyou, is that a compliment for being strong?"
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: He seems to have no grasp on how much fire is needed to light a stove, and ended up making Har-gow’s tea room explode when he attempted to help. He does that again to Kongsang’s kitchen in the afterstory, much to the young master’s chagrin.
• Enemy Within: At the end of Chapter 3, he cites an "ancient fire demon" that has been residing in his body since birth as the reason he cannot go to Kongsang. According to him, this fire demon is an evil being who burns up everything in sight the moment he fails to suppress his power. Considering his usual behavior, it may simply be how he sees his lack of control over his strength.
• Heroic Second Wind: His passive allows him to instantly regain full HP if it reaches near zero.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: In a typical Chuunibyou fashion, he has one of his eyes hidden with his bangs to invoke the "mysteriousness".
• Playing with Fire: He has great power over fire and can generate them with a finger snap. Despite his tendency to blow things up, when he really put his mind into it, he was able to curb-stomp Food Demons with a rain of fire while also making it a spectacle for the audience at Har-gow’s concert.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: "The Punishing Flame・King of Flame・Flame Guardian・The Everburning・Supreme Savior SPR". So far the only person who manages to unironically say the whole thing is Seafood Tofu Stew, and the "Honeyed Roast Pork" Team’s flavor text reveals that Suckling Pig Roast uses all of that as his signature, and once almost fainted for having to sign his 26-word name over and over again.

Eight Immortals

Cuisine: Shandong (鲁)
Class: Burst
Other Names: Bā Xiān
Voiced by: Dong Huang Bohe (CN), Katsuyuki Konishi (JP), Michael Zekas (EN)

A Shandong Cuisine named from the eight ingredients with which the chicken is surrounded with. Shaped like an ancient coin, it's said to be the first dish served at yearly banquets in the Kong's Mansion. The eldest senior of Kong's Mansion, he is a reformist who is passionate about his studies.

---

• Badass Bookworm: He’s a well-learned man whose goal is to reform Confucianism, while also no less a capable fighter. In Chapter 8, he fights a demonized Candied Ginkgo Nut on equal footing and almost takes him down, with only his reluctance in the last moment allows Candied Ginkgo Nut to strike him back.
• Big Brother Mentor: As the eldest senior in the Kong’s Mansion, he acts like this to the young master since they’re also his fellow student under Candied Ginkgo Nut, being the more approachable and easygoing mentor figure compared to Candied Ginkgo Nut’s stricter one.
• Broken Pedestal: He becomes heartbroken when he saw Candied Ginkgo Nut in his demonized state and mistakenly believed that his teacher had always been a Food Demon in disguise who took the officiant position from him to destroy the Kong’s Mansion, which leads him to immediately engage the latter in combat without listening to the young master. His respect comes back the instant he hears the truth though.
• Cannot Kill Their Loved Ones: Even though he manages to overwhelm the demonized Candied Ginkgo Nut in their fight, he hesitates when it looks like he’s about to kill the latter. This happens while he’s still under the impression that Candied Ginkgo Nut betrayed the Kong’s Mansion, showing just how much he respected his teacher and the entire fight was more like him lashing out in confusion and sorrow about the "betrayal" than him attempting to defeat an enemy.
• Glass Cannon: He’s one of the strongest Burst characters in the game who can easily deal massive damage to a single target if built right, but he gets poisoned 2 times for 2 turns every time he uses his third skill, which causes him to lose HP much quicker and may even be defeated on his own if his HP is already low enough.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Since he has been withheld from the truth behind Candied Ginkgo Nut’s actions towards him and spends the whole ceremony in the kitchen as ordered, he’s unaware of the situation behind his teacher’s demonization and initially led to believe that Candied Ginkgo Nut betrayed the Kong’s Mansion.
• Overly Long Name: The longest dish name in the game at 7 characters^note 八仙过海闹罗汉 "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea to Wreak Havoc on the Arhats", which is why he goes by just "Bā Xiān".
• Petal Power: His second skill has him take out the flower basket of Lan Caihe, a vessel for communicating with the gods, from the scroll and throw a handful of petals to attack all enemies.
• Smart People Play Chess: He's skilled at Go and always defeats his own teacher in a match of one. The game is also featured in his Bloom artwork.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: While not as much as his teacher, he does make references to Confucian sayings quite often, befitting a diligent follower of Confucianism.

Candied Ginkgo Nut

Cuisine: Shandong (鲁)
Class: Support
Other Names: Professor Shi
Voiced by: Su Shangqing (CN), Soichiro Hoshi (JP), Griffin Puatu (EN), Kang Seong-woo (KR)

A Shandong Cuisine whose ingredients supposedly are gathered from the two giant Ginkgo trees in front of the Kong's Mansion, hence his name. Although he looks young, he's very mature and steadfast. He is a teacher at both Kong's Mansion and Kongsang, and is quite popular among the students despite his strictness.

---

• Anti-Debuff: Aside from healing, his third skill purifies his allies of 1 debuff if there is any and after purification makes the targets Invincible for 1 round.
• Badass Teacher: He’s one badass teacher who fights by slamming a bamboo book engraved with Confucian classics onto the enemies. When he’s demonized, he becomes an absolute menace as his normally healing ginkgo leaves can now corrode skin and corrupt other Food Spirits at contact, and it takes both Eight Immortals and Harbin Fried Pork to subdue him.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He’s demonized after getting in contact with the water contaminated by the Shroom Ghoul during the ceremony, and barely has the time to push the young master away before he fully loses his mind and begins attacking anyone in sight and mass transforming Food Spirits around him into Food Demons. Thankfully, he’s later purified by the young master.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: He acts uncharacteristically aggressive and unreasonable when he denies Eight Immortals the position of the officiant, likely to dissuade him on an emotional level. He knows the Realm of Melanya will likely attack the officiant, so he wants to take the risk upon himself and keep his student safe even at the cost of being misunderstood.
• Did Not See That Coming: Since Yizhi told him about how the Realm of Melanya was having their eyes on the Kong’s Mansion, he and the Food Spirits in the Kong’s Mansion have been preparing themselves to counter any assault. What he probably didn’t expect though is that he himself is demonized, and in turn transforms all other spirits into Food Demons.
• Easy Amnesia: Played for Laughs in an animation episode. He becomes amnesiac after accidentally eating a dish Meng Po Tea made, but Harbin Fried Pork joggles his memory by reciting Confucian quotes, something he knows better than anyone. He starts replying immediately, regaining his memory in the process.
• Embarrassing Nickname: He’s quite displeased when the young master calls him "Ginkgo" ("Little Ginkgo" in the original Chinese version), though he can’t really do anything since they consider it an Affectionate Nickname for him.
• Flower Motifs: He's a dish made from ginkgo biloba nuts, so he's decorated with yellow ginkgo leaves and summons ginkgo trees in battle.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: His third skill is perfect to pair with Eight Immortals’, since it both heals and turns the Poison debuffs Eight Immortals inflicted upon himself into Invincible buff instead. It’s natural for a teacher to cater to his student’s ability while also protecting them at all costs.
• Hime Cut: He has long straight hair with two rectangular locks on each side of his face. This haircut is fitting for him as a scholarly and dignified man.
• Jack of All Stats: For an Unlockable Content for beginners, he’s incredibly versatile and can be brought along in pretty much any circumstances. His second skill, "Cultured Clan", deals AoE with 60% chance to dispel all buffs and poison the enemies, while his third skill "Golden Rain" heals the entire team, purifies them of 1 debuff and after purification makes the targets Invincible for 1 round – in short, he can do AoE attack, heal, dispel buffs for enemies and debuffs for allies, poison, and give Invincible status, all in one package. Even his stats are quite stellar, as among the six main stats, only his Critical Damage stat is ranked below A (at C, while he has S-rank Health and is A-rank in the other four).
• Mentor Archetype: He’s a teacher figure for the young master in both academic subjects and way of life, as many of his voice lines to them are about virtues and nobility.
• Not So Above It All: Despite being a respectable scholar and teacher in Kongsang, he still has some dorky moments:
  • In Episode 1 of his character story, he mistakes the text on Suckling Pig Roast’s treasure map for archaic characters as he can’t read them. He is actually holding the map upside down.
  • One of his interludes shows that he enjoys paper cutting, but is not quite good at it. When the young master finds out about this hobby, he becomes incredibly embarrassed and later uses the fact that they weren’t prepared for his questions to make them copy the book multiple times as a payback.
  • He also makes an offhand comment about how wooden birds are made for children...yet that's his favorite gift.
• Not So Stoic: Candied Ginkgo Nut gives the impression of a dignified and stoic Stern Teacher and commonly lives up to his image, but he’s actually a very gentle person who can get embarrassed and blush easily.
• Older Than They Look: Two of the loading screen quotes are spent just to clarify that he’s the teacher and Eight Immortals is his student.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Candied Ginkgo Nut, while a Stern Teacher, is very levelheaded and reasonable and puts his students’ interest above all else. In Chapter 8 however, he becomes so adamant about not allowing Eight Immortals to be the officiant that he’s outright aggressive towards him, refuses to listen to his reasonings and punishes him when he talks back, all of which aren’t in line with how he usually is at all, especially when Eight Immortals has always been the student he favors and supports the most. Turns out he’s trying to pull a Break His Heart to Save Him to protect his student from a possible assault aimed at the officiant by the Realm of Melanya, and the stress of doing so causes him to pass out the instant Eight Immortals leaves after their arguments.
• Orphan's Ordeal: At the time he was just born, as far as he knew, he was abandoned in front of the Shili Hall and then adopted by the Duke Yansheng. He was unable to feel a sense of belonging, especially when everyone else had their family, and often broke the night curfew to find his "parents", still too young to understand that he was the manifestation of a dish and thus never had any biological parents to speak of.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In one of his interludes, when he sees the young master doze off in his class and asks them to see him later, instead of the scolding they expected, he gives them some pills for calming nerves and nourishing brains that he received from Dumpling, stating that they must have been busy with and exhausted by official matters. The young master is so touched that they will hold his hands, hug him, or give him a headpat depending on where the player touched.
• Shorter Means Smarter: He has a small stature and seems much younger than his own student, but he’s a knowledgeable and wise scholar and has served as a teacher for years.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: References to Confucian sayings are not uncommon in this game, but he's the biggest offender.
• Stern Teacher: Even towards child-looking Food Spirits, he remains strict and has no qualms throwing a ginkgo fruit at them when they slack off in his class. It’s quite clear however that he only wants the best for his students and doesn’t hesitate to praise them when he sees diligence and a will to learn.
• Unlockable Content: He's a guaranteed quest reward for new players if they complete a series of quests for a number of days.

Lianhua Blood Duck

A general who once led in triumph, but now rides solo

Cuisine: Jiangxi (赣)
Class: Burst
Other Names:
Voiced by: Ah Jie (CN), Kosuke Toriumi (JP), Allen Winter (EN), Lee Dong-hun (KR)

Rumor says the dish was created when, while Wen Tianxiang gathered the troops to save the emperor, the chef accidentally poured blood wine into the duck he was cooking. The food spirit spends his whole life searching for the murderer of the Grand Chancellor Wen, which led him to lose himself in senseless slaughter.

---

• Actually Not a Vampire: He's very vampire-coded, from dark color scheme, Life Drain skill to a literal thirst for blood. He outright compares himself to a vampire at one point.
• Ax-Crazy: His behaviors on the battlefield are pretty unhinged, screaming for more blood and all, and under the influence of his Bloodlust he may even attack those he considers allies without being aware of it.
• Big "NO!": In his Request Aid voiceline, he screams out like this before declaring that "the country [he] protects will not fall".
• Bloodlust: He’s drawn by blood and when he captured the young master, his first action was to lick the blood off their hand and then he intended to bite their neck after being provoked by Buddha’s Temptation’s reaction.
• Death Before Dishonor: Implied. In his fourth letter, he acknowledges that his insanity and bloodlust may one day hurt the young master against his will, but alludes that he would rather commit suicide than allowing himself to do so.
  Before I even have the chance to hurt you, I will use my cape to cover my blade and step into the lotus pond, where my comrades rest in eternal slumber.
• Dream Sequence: After being given Forced Sleep by Meng Po Tea, Lianhua Blood Duck encounters his master Wen Tianxiang in his dream. He begins to blames himself for the latter’s death and the Song Dynasty’s fall, but Wen Tianxiang comforts him that everything that happened wasn’t necessarily his fault and he doesn’t need to repent anymore. This gives him the peace of mind and prompts him to leave the Realm of Melanya later as he no longer seeks vengeance.
• Enemy Mine: He was dragged into the Underworld Office by the young master in their dying moment, and agrees to assist and protect them while they search for a way for both of them to return to the living realm.
• Failure Knight: In the past, he swore to protect Grand Chancellor Wen Tianxiang, but then Wen Tianxiang was captured by the enemies and became a matyr. This was only the start of his stumble into insanity.
• Frontline General: He used to be a general under Wen Tianxiang and though he no longer keeps the title, he still has the experience fighting on the front line.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: He’s said to be plagued with Past Experience Nightmare and have difficulty sleeping, and it’s actually reflected on his sprite when put on the bed: he makes a grimace and sweats profusely.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Lianhua Blood Duck used to be a courageous, passionate, and patriotic general who valued honor above all, but when the Song Dynasty was defeated, he too lost his mind to all the slaughters he had done in the name of revenge.
• It's All My Fault: His guilt for letting his master kill himself and being unable to stop the fall of a dynasty leads him into an insanity and grief-fueled quest for vengeance.
  I led them to destruction. I forced you into despair, and Liu died because of me!
  If I hadn't led the revolt... If I hasn't assassinated Ahmad Fanakati...
  If I hadn't lost the battle in Ganzhou! None of this would've...
• Life Drain: When he attacks the enemy with his third skill, he can recover HP equal to 50% of the DMG dealt.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: His chest is one inch away from being entirely exposed.
• Or Was It a Dream?: It’s implied that his encounter with Grand Chancellor Wen after being knocked out by Meng Po Tea isn’t his nightmare haunting him, but an actual meeting with the Grand Chancellor’s soul in the Underworld Office.
• Plagued by Nightmares: This happens to him almost daily due to his PTSD, and his favorite gift is eaglewood incense which is hoped to help him relax and reduce the nightmares.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His palette solely consists of these two colors, and in the main story he serves as an antagonist, being a Food Spirit affiliated with the Realm of Melanya.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: They both add in to his vampire resemblances and signify that he’s a dangerous presence with a literal Bloodlust.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After his trip in the Underworld Office, Lianhua Blood Duck no longer feels the need for revenge and thus has no reason to work with the Realm of Melanya anymore. Luckily for him, the one in charge of the Realm of Melanya at the time is Zhi Geng, who is totally cool with his decision to leave and helps him sever his contract without any issues.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: He was deeply broken after he lost Grand Chancellor Wen whom he revered, his friends, and the entire Song Dynasty to the war, causing him to become Ax-Crazy. He also has major trouble sleeping at night, a trait common for those with PTSD. In his third letter, he talks about what he still remembers:
  Forget the grudges and forget the past? Impossible! The sharp arrow that penetrated the armor, the flag that snapped in half out of humiliation, and the crimson sun that was about to fall... They have all embedded themselves in my heart along with that master's fate.
• Slasher Smile: His smile looks scary as hell when he threatens Buddha’s Temptation into handing over the young master. His chibi sprite also uses this as one of his expressions, though the chibi form, being what it is, downplays the scariness.

Dinghu's Veggie

Cuisine: Cantonese (粤)
Class: Support
Other Names: Shangshu
Voiced by: Baomu Zhongyang (CN), Hiroki Yasumoto (JP), Josh Putnam (EN), Choi Hyeon-su (KR)

A Cantonese Cuisine. Rumor has it that is was created by an old monk at Qingyun Temple, Dinghu Mountain. He believes he was given human form thanks to the enlightenment from the old monk, thus he became a firm believer of Buddhism.

---

• Flower Motif: His monk spade is in the shape of a lotus, and both his letter and profile mention how connected the lotuses are to him as a Buddhist monk.
• The Stoic: He’s very calm, ascetic, and a man of few words. When he talks, it’s mostly about Buddhism.
• Synchronization: The Protect buff he provides to one ally in his second skill "Selfless Act" lets him take 50% of the damage they would receive onto himself, allowing the initial target a chance to survive.
• Warrior Monk: Dinghu's Veggie is a devout Buddhist monk who spends most of his time meditating, but still capable of combat by striking the enemies with his spade and summoning the light of Buddha.

Sichuan Hotpot

A panda in each arm, the hotpot is as spicy as it goes

Cuisine: Sichuan (川)
Class: Burst
Other Names:
Voiced by: Gu Jiangshan (CN), Yūki Kaji (JP), Reece Bridger (EN), Kim Myung-jun (KR)

A Sichuan Cuisine known for being numbing, spicy, fresh and fragrant. Cheerful, loyal and straightforward, he feels a strong sense of belonging and pride towards his birthplace, Chengdu, and is always enthusiastic to introduce the local ways and customs. He’s the caretaker of two pandas - Sichuan Pepper the grumpier one and Star Anise the meeker one.

---

• Action Pet: Sichuan Pepper assists him in combat and is the one who inflicts the debuff Panda Mark in his second skill.
• The Dreaded: Played for Laughs. An entire animation episode is spent to reveal how his taste in spice is perceived by the residents of Kongsang: the reception is less than stellar, and everyone becomes fearful whenever he approaches them to invite them a hotpot.
• Carry a Big Stick: Wields a huge bamboo stick as his weapon.
• Cultured Badass: Not only is he a passionate fan of Sichuan opera, when he says he’s good at everything about Chengdu’s culture, he means it. He embroiders a scene from the bamboo grove he frequents as a gift for the young master in his third letter, and promises to make them a bamboo-weaved tea set in one of his voice lines as well.
• Damage-Increasing Debuff: His gameplay revolves around applying his unique debuff Panda Mark to the opponent. When he uses his third skill "Super Panda" against targets inflicted with Panda Mark, he restores 1 point of Panda Energy, each of which can additionally increase the third skill’s DMG by 200%. His second skill "Panda Kick" also deals 30% extra DMG if the target already has a Panda Mark.
• Fighting Panda: His skillset has a panda motif, and Sichuan Pepper fights alongside him in battle.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When the young master goes berserk because of Power Incontinence, Sichuan Hotpot reaches out to their consciousness by talking about how he thinks about them and begging them to return to their senses. It takes a while, but it actually works.
• Keet: He’s friendly, cheerful, and always enthusiastic to introduce his hometown to everyone.
• Jealous Pet: Sichuan Pepper doesn’t enjoy it when its owner starts spending more time with the young master instead of training with it. In Sichuan Hotpot‘s second letter, it tries to send the young master a painting and historical record about ferocious pandas in a battle with the Yan Emperor, apparently with the intent to intimidate them; unfortunately for it, Sichuan Hotpot got rid of the painting before sending because he thought it was a little scary. Once they get to know each other better it seems to become a Tsundere for the young master though.
• Loyal Animal Companion: The two pandas stick with him all the time, even in combat. They practiced boxing and stick fighting techniques with him in the bamboo forest, and sometimes the three of them would busk on the streets.
• Sizeshifter: In his Ultimate, he enlarges himself and attacks by tripping and falling on the enemies.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: He seems to perfectly understand what his pandas are saying.
• Unaffected by Spice: As a dish representing the Sichuan cuisine known for its pungency and spiciness, he puts a gratuitous amount of chili into his food and his standard for an acceptable level of spiciness is vastly different from others. This has occasionally caused him to be scolded when he’s the one responsible for cooking.
• Victory by Endurance: Once the Panda Mark reaches five stacks, his third skills can deal massive single target damage, but it requires him to survive long enough to use that skill five times.

Yipin Pot

Hidden behind beauty sceneries of Huizhou, is a recluse with renowned credibility

Cuisine: Anhui (徽)
Class: AoE
Other Names: Guo Yipin
Voiced by: Zhao Ling (CN), Yuichiro Umehara (JP), Sean Chiplock (EN), Um Sang-hyun (KR)

An Anhui Cuisine. Once a common winter dish from the Huizhou Mountains and was named after an allegory in which Lady Yu, wife of Bi Qiang of Shitai County, presents to the emperor. Originally a nameless recluse living in the wild, he was taken in by Lady Yu and named "Guo Yipin" in the identity of her elder brother. He is a skilled portrait painter and brings his brush wherever he goes. Beneath his forced courtesy hides a complex character.

---

• Adoption Angst: Though he is thankful to Lady Yu’s family for adopting him and has developed a Big Brother Instinct for her in particular, being forced to learn etiquette and and to treat others with false courtesy doesn’t exactly make him happy. Lady Yu realizes this and lets him leave at the end of the chapter.
• Affluent Ascetic: Despite the wealth he has as the first child of a noble household, he finds no joy in a life full of luxury and sensual pleasures, instead preferring to return to nature and live in reclusion among the woods and mountains.
• Anti-Villain: In the Moonlit Confession event, he appears as an antagonistic figure who serves the Micians and is affiliated with the Realm of Melanya, and seemingly tries to take control over the Guanghan Palace for the Micians’ unethical purposes. Then it turns out his goal is to destroy the place so that the Micians cannot make use of it anymore, which while extreme is more heroic than what he’s meant to do, and he does it not out of anyone’s command but to prove his own free will.
• Art Attacker: He attacks with his brush and ink, and in his Ultimate he paints a landscape picture over the enemies to damage them.
• Berserk Button: Any act of damaging nature, even if it’s just a rock, is sure to incur his wrath. Moon Cake in the animation series learned it the hard way.
• Big Brother Instinct: Having lived under the identity of her elder brother for years, Yipin Pot comes to develop genuine affection for Lady Yu and always roots for her happiness.
• Cooldown Manipulation: His Ultimate, "Master Artist", has a 60% chance to make the targets' skills start cooling down again.
• Hates Being Touched: In his voice lines, he mentions twice that he dislikes it when others touch him.
• High-Class Glass: He’s always seen with his classy monocle even in his alternate costumes.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Ever since he was with Lady Yu’s family, he has yearned for the freedom to act and do everything to his liking, and his struggle in Chapter 5 is him trying to escape the "cage" created by his sense of responsibility for the family and his affection for his adoptive sister so that he can return to his true calling. However, the moment he thought he managed to be free, he once again was trapped with the Realm of Melanya. This leads to his actions in Moonlit Confession – even though the Realm of Melanya and the Micians promised him freedom, he would already lose it if he listened to their command, thus he refuses to be at their beck and call.
  Yipin Pot: "I've finally come to understand. That when one entrusts hope in freedom to someone else, that is the beginning of losing one's freedom."
• My Master, Right or Wrong: When he realizes his true creator is Chef Lu, he agrees to follow him once he’s free of his duty to his adoptive family. The problem is Chef Lu wants to open his restaurant in the Realm of Melanya… In the battle at the Kong’s Mansion, Yipin Pot appears as a Food Spirit affiliated with the Realm of Melanya since Chef Lu is Peng Keng - the true Master of the Realm; not that he’s happy about it.
• Nature Lover: The landscapes of Huizhou mean the world to him and he tries to keep them alive forever through his ink paintings. When he feels pleasant, he frequently compares the sentiment to what he has experienced among the mountains and the countryside. In his fourth letter, he invites the young master to join him in living in the reclusion of woods, where they will enjoy all the beautiful things nature has to offer.
• The Stoic: He’s a man of few words and always conceals his emotions. The only way to start a conversation with him is to mention the scenery of Huizhou. In the animation series, one episode is dedicated to revealing his true emotions beneath his lack of expression by giving him a device that shows how he really feels: his face looks the exact same throughout various emotions, and only changes when he’s furious.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: While he’s not the friendliest guy in the room, he’s very nice and caring underneath his stoicism. In his third letter, when talking about inviting the young master to Huizhou, he reminds them to bring plenty of clothes to keep warm as it will be quite cold by the river, and in the postscript mentions that they should bring a few more thick coats for the young Food Spirits if they want to join in the trip.

Dish of Prosperity

The lording of the harvest, who set the fated meeting on autumn

Cuisine: Cantonese (粤)
Class: AoE
Other Names:
Voiced by: Zizi (CN), Rie Kugimiya (JP), Ariane Marchese (EN), Son Seon-yeong (KR)

A Cantonese Cuisine often served during wedding banquets. Adopted by a reputable clan, he rose to the occasion and became a mover and shaker of the Tang Dynasty. His appearance and personality is that of a pampered child. He commands the Grove of Harvest and only those he feels affinity with gets to meet him.

---

• Happily Adopted: He was adopted by a wealthy family by coincidence when he became a food spirit, and grows up showered in tons of love.
• Random Encounters: A boss battle with him has a chance to appear after clearing a stage in the Grove of Harvest, without any known steps or method to deliberately trigger it. The battle doesn’t have to be fought immediately and will stay for thirty minutes before disappearing if left unfought; the difficulty level is also quite low and anyone is guaranteed to win and earn his fragments at first try.
• Spoiled Brat: In his first appearance in the main story, he first wanted to take the young master’s room in the inn as theirs was the last room available, and then switched to trying to take Lu Wu from them by force after he knew Lu Wu was a Talking Animal and took a liking to him. Downplayed in that he will stop and apologize if he’s told that it isn’t a good thing to do, as Four-joy Meatballs did to him afterwards - showing that he’s simply sheltered and insensitive, not malicious.
• Unlockable Content: He is not obtainable by gacha; the only way to get him is by getting his fragments from a randomly appearing boss battle.

Longjing Shrimp

A newly lit flame for a new brew. Here I shall sing my newly penned ode.

Cuisine: Zhejiang (浙)
Class: AoE
Other Names: Layman Longjing
Voiced by: Jiang Guangtao (CN), Kenjiro Tsuda (JP), Sean Chiplock (EN), Jang Min-hyeok (KR)

A Zhejiang Cuisine said to be born during the Emperor Qianlong's trip down to the river south. An aloof gentleman in pursuit of tranquility and simplicity. He likes to invite close friends over to brew tea and discuss the Tao of tea.

---

• Animal Motifs: He's a kind of shrimp tempura. As such, his hair is pink at the tip to resemble cooked shrimp, and he wields a fan with a drawing of shrimps on it.
• Combat Hand Fan: He uses his High-Class Fan as a medium for his power and unleashes hell onto his enemies with only a flip open or close of his fan.
• Death Faked for You: 50 years ago, Emperor Qianlong gave him a death sentence at Donghuamen, then executed a death row inmate whose looks had been destroyed in his place and wiped his existence off records to allow Longjing Shrimp to leave the palace easily without anyone coming to bother him for his immortality.
• Drink-Based Characterization: As a dish made with tea, he's very knowledgeable in the art of tea preparation and is as elegant as a tea master can be.
• Flower Motifs: Due to his tea theme, he's decorated with white camellia blossoms. His third attack also summons a giant white camellia blossom that falls on top of the opponent team for heavy damage.
• Forgotten First Meeting: He and Buddha’s Temptation used to be the closest of friends in Kongsang, to the point of being likened to confidantes or soulmates. Unfortunately, as the "The Tale of Food" was destroyed, they both lose memory of their relationship, which saddens the young master.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: Speaks in a very polite register in the Japanese dub, befitting his elegant and antiquated demeanor.
• He Knows Too Much: Not he himself, but all the people who knew him or tried to look into the case of his disappearance 50 years ago were silenced in an effort to wipe his existence out.
• High-Class Fan: To complete his elegant image, he carries around a folding fan with poetry and an ink-wash drawing of shrimps on it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He’s aloof, abrasive, always has a "holier than thou" demeanor, and many of his quotes towards the young master sound like he just doesn’t want them around. That said, he will thank them for saving him in his Request Aid voice line, if begrudgingly, and can be soft-hearted to those he considers a friend. The fact that he orchestrated things in order to save Peach Petal Congee’s existence even though the latter intentionally tried to disturb the Spring Festival during Spring Nimbus says a lot about his heart of gold, not to mention his Undying Loyalty.
• Like a God to Me: Considers Swallow Bun this, to the point of bringing this trope up by name to him. Swallow Bun has to tell him to just treat him as a friend.
  Longjing Shrimp: "You are my god. I won't let you be humiliated like this."
• Mayfly–December Friendship: His friendship with Emperor Qianlong is one that lasts through 50 years, only maintained through sheer loyalty. It’s not without difficulty: Longjing Shrimp’s immortality resulted in him being chased off the court by those who saw him as a monster and the emperor’s human nature made him take a step back when the rumors about Longjing Shrimp arose to comprehend what he really was, but he still went full Well-Intentioned Extremist to ensure that his friend could leave safely and live in peace. Those 50 years with no contact was because Emperor Qianlong had grown too old to traverse the mountains, though in the end they still manage to reunite and have a great time doing tea showdown with each other. Longjing Shrimp is painfully aware of their different lifespans, but he tries not to let it hinder their current joy too much.
  Longjing Shrimp: "If you lose to me, we’re going to arrange to meet in another 50 years…"
• Misplaced Retribution: Peach Petal Congee accused him of stealing the land deed to Yuming Mountain, which should have belonged to his Taohua Island as far as he remembered, and has been antagonized Longjing Shrimp for it for quite some times. Yuming Mountain was actually expropriated by the imperial family a long time ago and wouldn’t be considered Taohua Island’s property anymore; not to mention that Longjing Shrimp was given the land deed by Emperor Qianlong and had not even a thing to do with the expropriation. Peach Petal Congee realizes his mistake and apologizes to Longjing Shrimp at the end of Spring Nimbus.
• My Greatest Failure: For a while, he is still hung up about a disaster he had involvement in 50 years ago. He eventually grows out of this.
• Not So Stoic: He uncharacteristically loses his nerves when Swallow Bun is injured, and when given a "The Reason You Suck" Speech by Swallow Bun himself, he turns ashen and seems to be at loss. He also looks and sounds sorrowful as he talks about how Swallow Bun and the people who were implicated because of him are all hurt, and wonders why he couldn’t protect them.
• Royal Favorite: He was a genius the emperor brought back to the palace after a marvelous tea showdown during his travel, and quickly received all the favors because of his expertise in the art of tea, great knowledge, and ethereal beauty. This caused others to be envious of him and took the opportunity to have the emperor exile or kill him once they realized he wasn’t human.
• Serious Business: He treats tea preparation with utmost seriousness and will not tolerate any imperfection or cheap imitation. Good luck mentioning instant tea in front of him and get off scot-free.
• Smart People Play Chess: He's also shown to be a skilled Go player, which is why he seems to be good friends with Yángzhōu Rice.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The Spring Nimbus event shows that he was badly hurt by the "betrayal" of his best friend who, as far as he knew, gave him a death sentence just because of others’ discrimination towards him, as if the friend he trusted so much also saw him as a monster. He also feels that he’s at fault for the people who were killed to keep him safe. His condescending, aloof demeanor and insistence on seeing Swallow Bun as his "god" seem to be his ways to cope with years of loneliness and guilt, since he’s much more relaxed and lenient after coming to Kongsang.
• Status Effect-Powered Ability: If his targets are debuffed, his third skill "Moonlit Tea" will pierce 30% of their DEF in addition to the 220% DMG it deals.
• Tea Is Classy: Seasoned in tea arts, and is also a learned Warrior Poet.
• Technophobia: He doesn't like modern technology, deeming it inelegant. That said, this doesn't stop him from talking with everyone else on a messaging app.
• Tranquil Fury: While Lord Wang is talking about his hidden past, Longjing Shrimp's expression remains calm but he clutches the folding fan in his hand so tightly it sounds as if "the bamboo pieces in it are about to break through the silk". He keeps the composure even when creating an explosion that makes all the walls and soldiers around him collapse.
• Undying Loyalty: He stayed in the mountain for fifty years just to wait for his old friend to come back, even when he believed he had been betrayed.
• Unperson: All records and portraits about his existence were erased 50 years ago after his "execution", and anyone who tried to look into the case would also be silenced. It was initially believed that Emperor Qianlong did so out of hatred and Fantastic Racism, but the truth is that everything was a Well-Intentioned Extremist attempt to keep Longjing Shrimp safe from those who really saw him as a monster that needed to be killed.
• Warrior Poet: He cites classical poetry constantly and composes poems of his own. He carries his elegant mannerism into battle, where he fights by summoning the scent of tea or giant camellia blossoms.
• You Remind Me of X: He sees himself as someone who was a victim of discrimination and Fantastic Racism in Swallow Bun, and projected his "perfect past" onto the latter by treating him like a god to cope with his guilt.
  Longjing Shrimp: "I'm... broken. It can't happen to you too!"

Geely Shrimp

Cuisine: Fujian (闽)
Class: Heal
Other Names: Jili
Voiced by: Yang Kaiqi (CN), Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (JP), Michael Zekas (EN), Jung Ju-won (KR)

A Fujian Cuisine whose name was supposedly the surnames of two newlyweds. Thus, he came to believe that love is the most beautiful thing and that everything related to it should be praised. A sweet, cheerful man who yearns to find his match.

---

• Achilles' Heel: Because his skillset is very strong on healing, the Anti-Heal debuff can render most of it useless.
• Cloudcuckoolander
• Cute Clumsy Girl: Male example. When he uses his third skill, he walks forward then skitters back to the team, but trips and falls face first instead, implying a level of clumsiness.
• The Ditz
• Expressive Hair: He has a pair of ahoges that resembles shrimp antennas and defies gravity to form into an upright heart shape, reflecting his passionate desire for love. When he’s sad, those ahoges also wilt, while when he’s agitated, they stretch upwards before bouncing back in shape as if they’re elastic.
• Love Freak: He’s a dish created as a symbol of love and bond, and has been witnessing romance between newlyweds as soon as he became a Food Spirit. Thanks to that, he yearns to be blessed with true love and arrived at Kongsang to fulfill his dream of meeting his soulmate. In fact, he’s so passionate about it that he once had 300 rounds of intense debate about the importance of love with Peach Petal Congee which ended in a tie.
• The Power of Love: All of his skills are themed after love, with his third skill is literally named "Power of Love".
• Ship Tease: As he’s a Love Freak, many of his interactions with the young master barely hide that they’re meant to be the "right one" he’s always been searching for.
• Shipper on Deck: He wants to spread love by helping people whom he thinks is having affection with each other get together, though his shipping lens aren't always right. He can even see "love" from two stars that are close to each other on the sky.
• Support Party Member: His skillset allows the team to pretty much become immortal since they’re all about direct healing and applying the HoT buff which restores 15% HP at the end of the round. He can also provide the Unyielding buff to help his allies stay on the field longer.

Crab in Orange

A creative genesis who seeks only one thing

Cuisine: Zhejiang (浙)
Class: Burst
Other Names: TG Alpha II
Voiced by: Xia Lei (CN), Hiroshi Kamiya (JP), Lee Dong-hun (KR)

An ancient Zhejiang Cuisine cooked using both oranges and crab. This dish has been lost in time and only recreated in Hangzhou recently. After turning into a food spirit, he became a cyborg inventor piloting a giant mechanical crab. His nimble hands have given birth to all manner of rare and curious gadgets, yet they cannot create what he truly seeks. He has connections to the Micians.

---

• The Atoner: He feels guilty for destroying the original Guanghan Palace by the order of the Micians, and decided to recreate it with robots once he realized the Micians had abandoned him in space.
• Back from the Dead: He started out as a normal food spirit who got killed by an assassin (since at the time he was a very obscure dish, he didn’t have Resurrective Immortality like other Food Spirits). He was revived as a robot by an order of Ancient Conspiracists.
  • After Moonlit Confession, it’s implied that he manages to naturally return to life since he’s now an established cuisine and comes to live at Kongsang.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: At the end of the Moonlit Confession event, Crab in Orange chooses to destroy his own core, preferring such an end to joining Robo Bunny in destroying humans or getting self-destructed for attacking a fellow Mician.
• Comically Missing the Point: In the animated series, after seeing how he made a bunch of robo bunnies as a part of his research on living creatures, Spring Roll offers him to try growing flowers so that he can understand how it feels to nurture an organic life. He then proceeds to create robotic flowers. Subverted because it turns out he did grow a pot of actual flower, but Spring Roll and Moon Cake already ran away before he manages to show it to them as they were intimidated by the robotic ones.
• Feel No Pain: As he's a robot, he states he doesn't feel any pain when his HP reaches zero. His Defeat voiceline also has him reassure the player that he will be fine since he can simply replace the damaged components with new ones.
• Fighting Your Friend: When the Robo Bunny took the core of Guanghan Palace and revealed itself to be antagonistic towards the young master, Crab in Orange went to fight it alone before finding out Robo Bunny’s true identity was TG Alpha I – his creator and master in the Micians who was sent into and abandoned in space before him. The fact that they would self-destruct if they attacked each other aside, Crab in Orange seems quite shaken as the following flashbacks reveal that they used to have a good relationship before Robo Bunny’s disappearance.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He’s said to have created various gadgets and plays an important role in fixing the Guanghan Palace - an entire planet made out of and uphold by the power of sophisticated machinery - and stopping it from collapsing. In fact, he was the one who built the current Guanghan Palace as a replacement after destroying the original, non-mechanical one in his supposed self-destruct mission, and gave it so much offensive and defensive capabilities that the Robo Bunny dubbed it a "moving fortress of terror".
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: His goggles allow him to analyze everything with a single glance, like threat level, emotions, or biological functions.
• Heart Drive: Downplayed, he’s still conscious and active without his core, but he feels "incomplete". Once his core is damaged, he can no longer be saved, so the Micians embedded the Self-Destruct Mechanism in there to prevent removal.
• Heart Light: There’s a crack on his chest that always glows. It’s implied that was where his "heart" used to reside.
• I Die Free: Before he destroyed his own core, he declared that he was no longer TG Alpha II - the abandoned tool of the Micians, but Crab in Orange - a Food Spirit who wished to protect Guanghan Palace. As his life crumbles away, he muses that to defy one’s instinct and choose is human nature, implying that he has become human again.
  Crab in Orange: "From this day forward, I am Crab in Orange. I am free."
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: His memory component took a blow when he detonated the bomb to destroy the original Guanghan Palace, so he has a very limited memory of his own background. He does slowly regain them as the event story progresses.
• Mechanical Animals: He usually rides a huge crab robot called "Unnatural" that accompanies him in combat.
• Not So Above It All: He makes a point to refer to Yipin Pot as "good-looking suspect", implying that even as a cyborg, he is aware of and willing to admit how attractive the opponent is.
• People Jars: He’s found in a giant tube in a cave underneath the Guanghan Palace, and awakened when the young master accidentally broke it. He was put in there to hibernate post-repair after his Self-Destruct Mechanism activated when he attacked the Mician emissary.
• Robot Girl: He’s a cyborg with mechanical limbs and no heart, but otherwise looks like a handsome young man.
• Robot Master: He built his robot crab "Unnatural" and all the robo bunnies on the moon, as well as fixing TG Alpha I who was destroyed by an explosion into being functional again,
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: All robots built by the Micians have one embedded in their core that will activate when the robot attack a member of the Micians, and Crab in Orange is no exception. Since he had amnesia, he forgot about this and attacked a Mician emissary, causing him to be destroyed and put in a Healing Vat at the start of the event.
• The Spock: He is generally inexpressive and evaluates the world through logic and numbers like how a robot would. This stems from the years he spent as a cyborg treated like an unfeeling, disposable tool for the Micians.
• Taking the Bullet: In the past, he shielded his adopted father who was a councillor from assailants and died as a result, leading to his resurrection as a cyborg.
• Uriah Gambit: The Ancient Conspiracy organization he was a member of didn't like his defiance, so they sent him and another machine out on a self-destruct mission.
• Walking Spoiler: Most examples in this very character folder are whited out due to major plot twists in his backstory and how they’re closely related to the event’s story.
• We Can Rebuild Him: He was revived as a robot by the Micians at the request of his adopted father, and though his body and the way he behaves has come to resemble an actual android, some of his "human" parts still remain.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Crab in Orange doesn’t consider himself an organic being anymore, and thus believes that his well-being worths less than others. However, the young master is adamant about treating him like a human, which seems to affect his perception and at the end of Moonlit Confession, he declares to Robo Bunny that he also has humanity.

Shunde Raw Fish

Stave off the storm with raised blade, the pond ripples with a flick of his sleeve

Cuisine: Cantonese (粤)
Class: Dispel
Other Names: Prince Yúshēng
Voiced by: Chen Lei (CN), Yūsuke Kobayashi (JP), Cole Feuchter (EN), Jang Min-hyeok (KR)

A Cantonese Cuisine where the fish is presented in slices as thin as cicada wings. The wise, poised 10th prince of the Eastern Sea and adopted godson of the Dragon King with the power to summon tides. He is a reserved person who practices hard everyday, but rarely uses his power without good reason.

---

• Adopted into Royalty: Shunde Raw Fish was not born to riches, instead he was raised in a small seaside town. He trained hard to complete the "big jump off", and became a member of the Eastern Sea after leaping through the dragon gate. Guangdong residents believe raw fish dishes can bring prosperity and luck, so his presence has been allowing the sea to grow stronger, and eventually the Dragon King adopted him as his godson and named him successor to the throne.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: He is crowned the new Dragon King of the Four Seas right before going against Tiangou so that he he can use "Dragon King’s Will" to his heart’s content, without being held back by the constant fear of Power Incontinence and Cast from Lifespan. After the event, he fully rules the Eastern Sea.
• Blue Is Calm: His design is full of blue, and he’s a composed and aloof gentleman.
• Cast from Lifespan: An unusual example. Every time he uses "Dragon King’s Will", it will be his father, the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, who gets his strength drained out of him. The day he fully masters "Dragon King’s Will" will also be the day the current Dragon King loses all of his power, ages rapidly, and the throne will be vacant for him to inherit - such is the inheritance process of the Eastern Sea. This results in Shunde Raw Fish being Willfully Weak.
• Cool Sword: His Blackfrost Sword, which is made from the Thousand-Year Ice and can freeze even soul shards together.
• Dragons Are Divine: He summons a water dragon in his second and third skill. He and Hazel Grouse Soup are also represented by eastern dragons in the game, signifying their divine upbringing, and transform into dragons when they use "Dragon King’s Will" and "Dragon and Phoenix’s Will".
• Ear Fins: Befitting the prince of an undersea kingdom and a sashimi-like dish, he has fins for ears.
• The Four Gods: Takes after Qīnglóng, the Azure Dragon of the East, with his powers taking the form of a dragon. He's even next in line to become the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Gets subjected to this halfway through the Azure Horizon event story with his biggest rival who has a personality that's the polar opposite of his, after they’re both hit with a meteorite. Although we didn’t get to see how he initially reacted to this ordeal, when we meet him again in Hazel Grouse Soup’s body, he just looks unamused as hell.
• The Good King: After his ascension to the throne, his rule is regarded highly and he manages to help the Azureans and Oceanids, who were having feuds with each other for a whole millennium, achieve unprecedented peace.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Unlike Hazel Grouse Soup who is having fun with his powers under the sea after their bodies are switched, Shunde Raw Fish doesn’t know how to fly with the other’s wings and can only wait for Hazel Grouse Soup and the young master to come for him at the seashore.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Or at least he tried. When Tiangou drops the sun on the ocean before it goes down, Shunde Raw Fish, with his "Dragon King’s Will" activated, attempts to stop the sun and fully expects to die in the process, as he already bid farewell to Hazel Grouse Soup beforehand. However, Hazel Grouse Soup isn’t having any of it.
• An Ice Person: He wields an ice sword and inflicts Frost debuff in combat, which fits his aloofness and color palette.
• Making a Splash: As the future emperor of the Eastern Sea, he has the power to control the tides and can calm the raging waves with a single command. In combat, he summons a tsunami and water dragons for his skills.
• Master Swordsman: His swordsmanship is described as swift as an undercurrent that hides great power under the serene surface.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He and Hazel Grouse Soup fit this trope to a T, with him as the Blue Oni.
• Power Incontinence: He once destroyed a seaside town after losing control over his power, which makes him feel guilty and hesitant to use his power to this day. More practice means he will gain better control, but it will also accelerate the decline of the Dragon King’s health, so he chooses to just not touch his power at all when he can help it.
• Punny Name: His human name Yúshēng is a play on the Chinese word for "raw fish".
• Status-Buff Dispel: He summons a "Tide" in his third skill that deals 100% damage on the battlefield and dispels one of the targets’ buffs at the end of each round, lasting for 3 rounds.
• Warrior Prince: He’s the tenth prince of the Eastern Sea, and also considered the strongest warrior of the Oceanids.
• Water Is Blue: There’s no character with a stronger ties to the ocean in this game than him. Appropriately, he has a mostly blue color palette.
• Weight Woe: He’s very serious about maintaining his figure and is constantly on diet, and even refuses to eat at times in order to train his willpower. This is a reference to the actual dish, where the fish is denied of food for a few days before consumption so that its flesh can taste better. His favorite gift is also a smart scale meant to assist in this figure keeping endeavor.
• Willfully Weak: He refuses to join Hazel Grouse Soup in fights whenever he can and always holds back his power unless necessary, which frustrates his rival to no end. As it turns out, his power is cast from his father’s strength and is inevitably leading to the king’s demise, which he doesn’t want. On top of that, he underwent Power Incontinence once and it left him with a lasting emotional burden.
• The Wise Prince: He fits all the description of a perfect crown prince: wise, cool-headed, responsible, reasonable, beloved by his subjects, combined with enough power to protect the sea. However, he’s also burdened by his Power Incontinence and the fact that his own ascension to the throne will come at the cost of his adoptive father.

Hazel Grouse Soup

He treads freely through the emerald groves, as he flies freely in the aquamarine skies

Cuisine: Northeast (东北)
Class: Burst
Other Names: Feilong
Voiced by: Xiahou Luofeng (CN), Tomokazu Sugita (JP)

A Dongbei Cuisine, one of Heilongjiang's most famous dishes. A zealous fighter hailing from the forests of Xi'an Ling in the north and considered the mightiest of the Azureans. He is rash and likes to fight, and so he goes around everyday trying to find opponents and challenging them.

---

• Back from the Dead: After his Heroic Sacrifice, the Oceanids and Azureans work with each other to gather his soul shards that are scattered all over the sea and sky while the young master reconstructs him from the "The Tale of Food", so that they can bring back the Hazel Grouse Soup they knew instead of a basic "Hazel Grouse Soup" absent of his relation to the Azureans. They succeed, though at the cost of Shunde Raw Fish‘s prized Blackfrost Sword which was used to keep the soul shards in place as they wait for Hazel Grouse Soup to naturally reappear.
• Big Eater: He loves cooking and eating as much as fighting, and is usually found eating a spear length worth of grilled meat with ease.
• Blood Knight: He’s very eager to find and fight strong opponents, to the point he’s willing to pay for that experience with even his life.
• Boisterous Bruiser: In every scene he’s in, he shows himself to be confident and impetuous battle maniac filled with bravado.
• Broken Angel: Just like hazel grouses, the animal he’s made with, he was born with wings but couldn’t fly. He can now do so after obtaining a new pair of wings along with his divine powers.
• Dual Wielding: In battle, he wields dual spears.
• Dragons Are Divine: He’s the personification of the Lucent Dragon and with his third skill, he summons dragon power to attack. He and Shunde Raw Fish are also represented by eastern dragons in the game, signifying their divine upbringing, and transform into dragons when they use "Dragon King’s Will" and "Dragon and Phoenix’s Will".
• Fiery Redhead: He has red hair and is a Boisterous Bruiser.
• The Four Gods: Takes after Zhūquè, the Vermillion Bird of the South, despite being native to the northern forest, having fiery powers and flight. He's even in service to the Vermillion Bird in Azure Horizon.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: Gets subjected to this halfway through the Azure Horizon event story with his biggest rival who has a personality that's the polar opposite of his, after they’re both hit with a meteorite. He goes through quite a mood swing; from being shocked at first, to taking the clothes off to check Shunde Raw Fish’s physique and having fun trying out the latter’s power.
• Graceful Loser: When he is defeated, his sprite shows a light smile instead of grimace or expressionlessness like other characters, and his Defeat voice line is him laughing and declaring that he has no regrets dying under a strong opponent.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Tiangou drops the sun on the ocean before it goes down, he pushes Shunde Raw Fish, who was attempting his own Heroic Sacrifice, out of the way and gives him a speech on how he thinks of the prince before facing the sun as the Lucent Dragon. He ended up dying, but thankfully is Back from the Dead later.
• Immune to Fire: Thanks to being the personification of the "Lucent Dragon", he’s immune to heat and become the only person who can get close to Tiangou while it’s around the sun without being burnt to death.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Downplayed. He admits really liking the "aggressive" Shunde Raw Fish who was being induced with bloodlust under Tiangou’s influence and having considered just leaving him in that state instead of waking him up.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He’s battle hungry, unruly and can be insensitive in his pursuit of a good fight, but at heart he’s still good-natured and as carefree as a child. When he learns about Shunde Raw Fish’s reason for being Willfully Weak, he immediately apologizes for calling the latter a coward and promises to only fight him when given permission to.
• Mundane Utility: When not fighting, he uses his spears as barbecue skewers.
• No-Sell: He’s completely unaffected by Tiangou’s ability to amplify people’s desire for battle and induce bloodlust, because he’s already always looking for a fight.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He and Shunde Raw Fish fit this trope to a T, with him as the Red Oni.
• Smug Smiler: He always has a confident, borderline arrogant smile on his face, which sticks out like a sore thumb when he swaps his body with Shunde Raw Fish’s.
• Unknown Rival: Has some sort of a one-sided rivalry with Shunde Raw Fish. He always pesters the latter into fighting him at every chance he gets (though he learns to be more sensible about it after learning the other’s reason for holding back), and he immediately asks if there’s anyone stronger than the latter upon arrival at Kongsang. Shunde Raw Fish, on another hand, tries to run away from Hazel Grouse Soup’s provocations every time.
• Winged Humanoid: He has a proud pair of crimson drake wings as an Azurean. However, he wasn’t born with them; his original wings were those of the hazel grouses, which couldn’t be used to fly. He gained his current pair after overcoming many obstacles and obtaining divine powers from a shaman.

Taibai Duck

Riding the wind towards the shining moon, his moves dashing as a shooting star.

Cuisine: Sichuan (川)
Class: Burst
Other Names: Baicai
Voiced by: Zhao Lu (CN), Tatsuhisa Suzuki (JP), Griffin Puatu (EN), Ryu Seung-gon (KR)

A Sichuan Cuisine rumored to be a dish Li Bai offered to Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. A talented swordsman and poet who loves to indulge in fine wine and let his artistry flow as he sings praises to the simplest things of life. Prideful, unrestrained and vigilant, he is just like the young Li Bai.

---

• …And That Little Girl Was Me: In the last Taibai Token, he recaps what others said about himself in the previous Tokens and tells the story of Taibai Duck’s life in third person. He doesn’t outright say that he’s the main character of the tale, but everyone present at the wine gathering all comes to the realization.
• The Alcoholic: He is infamous in Kongsang as the exact opposite example of "healthy drinking" and commonly seen in a dead drunk state.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: He rashly signed the contract for "Tales of Food" with the young master because he was on an alcohol-induced high that day. Thankfully it was the young master; imagine if it had been anyone from the Realm of Melanya instead…
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: It can be hard to believe that he’s both a talented poet and Master Swordsman when most of the time he’s only seen drinking and being drunk.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: He shaves off the hair of the arrogant scholars of Chang'an who slandered noble scholars such as Li Bai and Du Fu, and writes sentences that poke fun at their ignorance on their forehead with an ink which isn’t easy to come off.
• Intoxication Mechanic: His gameplay encourages him to receive the "Drunk" debuff as his second skill will convert each debuff round into one "Arrogance" round that will be used for his third skill.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": He is a huge fan of the poet Li Bai, whom the dish is named after, to the point of considering the poet his "soulmate". After Li Bai’s death, he takes it upon himself to preserve Li Bai’s ideal and hope.
• Master Swordsman: He has mastered hundreds of sword techniques, but is particularly skilled at drunk swordplay.
• Mistaken for Undead: He is mistaken as the ghost of Li Bai by everyone in Chang'an after enacting the Cool and Unusual Punishment on arrogant scholars and being seen around Li Bai’s grave.
• Warrior Poet: Even though he’s not the only one among the cast, being a "warrior poet" is his brand at this point.

Cabbage Blossom

Cuisine: Sichuan (川)
Class: Support
Other Names: Mr. Bai
Voiced by: Wei Chao (CN), Josh Putnam (EN)

A Sichuan Cuisine developed by the famous chef Huang Jinglin to break the stereotype of Sichuan cuisine. He's a literature teacher in Chengdu. "Eccentric" is the right word to describe his character.

---

• Badass Bookworm: Befitting his field of teaching, he’s a very well-learned individual who isn’t picky about what book to read, as the bookshelf shown in his Bloom art that is filled with at least 21 real book titles can attest. In his letters, he mentions various foreign literature works of different genres and mediums, as well as making references to history, mathematics, philosophy, and psychology. His "Biologist" skin shows that he’s also knowledgeable in natural science, and the bookshelf once again has books in those fields.
• Badass Teacher: He’s a literature teacher and finds pride in fighting in the most "intellectual" way possible - using books as weapon.
• Blatant Lies: He insists that he’s just an "unarmed literature teacher" even when he’s on the battlefield, and makes an effort to stay unarmed by being a Paper Master. This is reflected in gameplay with him being a Support unit, but has a damage dealing 100% Hit AoE third skill, with some nifty Status Effects as a bonus.
• Chick Magnet: He once taught at an all-female school in Chengdu and became known for his quirks and handsome looks. When Huang Jinglin started his restaurant, Cabbage Blossom was asked by Huang Jinglin for help by standing outside the establishment - his fans would flock inside, giving Huang Jinglin six months' worth of patrons, and he even gained fans from amongst the women who helped out in the restaurant.
• Deadpan Snarker: He’s sarcastic as hell when he’s in a situation he doesn’t like, like when he’s defeated or when he’s made to work.
  Defeat: "Oh, great. You're not going to save me."
  Treatment: "Casualties, healing and then back to battle, an amazing cycle of Pythagoreanism."
  Work: "So, you want to see me sweating profusely and out of breath? Alright then."
• Paper Master: He uses his spiritual power to make papers razor sharp and control them to both fight and protect. In his third skill, he even turns into a rushing waves of paper against the enemies.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: His vision isn’t impaired at all. He simply wears glasses because he thinks they suit him both appearance-wise and profession-wise.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Invoked. He knows that gold-rimmed glasses highlight his scholarly temperament the best, so he wears them, and also specially prepared several pairs of glasses to keep with him.

East Longan Pearls

The law is esoteric, yet justice lives within every heart

Cuisine: Fujian (闽)
Class: 100% Hit
Other Names: Dong Sima
Voiced by: Wu Lei (CN), Makoto Furukawa (JP)

A Fujian Cuisine. An eagle-eyed thief-nabber with a domineering aura, he is a famous constable of the Tang dynasty, once a Grand Wandering General in Shanhai pass, and the current protector sima of Anxi Grand Protectorate who fought criminals in darkness.

---

• Animal Motif: He resembles a wolf in that he’s good at tracking people, has keen eyesight - especially at night, and likes to work alone.
• Byronic Hero: He’s a brooding and hardened former government official/death row inmate who is very hellbent on arresting Boneless Carp, his own wellbeing to be damned. All of his actions are fueled by his extreme sense of justice, and it’s implied that he’s willing to kill and enact judgment by himself if the law can’t do its job.
• Determinator: He has been after Boneless Carp for half the decade, and won’t stop his investigation even if it means he will have to accept a death sentence.
• Foil: To Boneless Carp. They’re both obsessed with their own perception of justice, enact it in unconventional ways, and were wronged by the government, but whereas East Longan Pearls was a serious, no-nonsense constable who still believed in the law and government until slapped with too many betrayals, Boneless Carp is a devious, carefree and eccentric Phantom Thief with no respect for the law or human lives.
• For Great Justice: He doesn’t care about the heavens or the underworld, and only believes in justice. Even though he understood why Seafood Tofu Stew wanted to have him Taken Off the Case as the laws may no longer be adequate to judge Boneless Carp, he still continues his pursuit of the thief because to him, true justice is adaptable and not bounded by the laws.
• Four-Star Badass: He was a famous constable/general/protector sima of the Tang dynasty and is as powerful and domineering as his list of titles suggests.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His eyes glow when he gains his unique buff Dragon Eye.
• Hat of Authority: His embellished officer hat is quite striking and shows his status as a high-ranking official. It is a collectible item earned through the Lost Grotto minigame, where it can increase the retraction speed of the hook by scaring Boneless Carp just with the sight of it.
• Heel Realization
• Horseback Heroism: He rides a black horse in his third skill as a nod to his title "Sima", literally means "Master of the Horse".
• Mirthless Laughter: He seems to have a habit of laughing when he gets very furious, like in his Request Aid and Defeat voice lines.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He took it upon himself to take Chief Secretary Li, a Corrupt Bureaucrat who had no care for his people and made a deal with the thief "Shadow of the Night" for his own benefits, to court. Unfortunately, there was a reason why no one dared to expose the Chief Secretary in fear of becoming his enemy - the trial was rigged and East Longan Pearls became the one guilty and sentenced to death instead.
• Not So Stoic: East Longan Pearls is normally a stoic and rational man, but he loses his cool and starts screaming in rage after Boneless Carp exposes what he’s truly guilty for and gives him a "Not So Different" Remark. It takes some times for him to regain his composure.
• Outfit Decoy: In his battle with Boneless Carp on the desert, he dresses a stone statue in a cloak and leaves his sword behind to make it convincing, thus successfully catches Boneless Carp off guard.
• Play-Along Prisoner: Even though Seafood Tofu Stew has always wanted to get him out, believing someone of his virtues and talent shouldn’t rot away in such a place, East Longan Pearls himself didn’t resist his death sentence because when in jail, he would have the freedom to investigate the "Shadow of the Night", which was illegal otherwise. Even though he’s a prisoner, he clearly rules over other prisoners, can contact with the outside world, and unhesitatingly breaks his own cuffs with the fish bone knife he took from the young master once he has a reason to get out of prison. He even has Cherry Biluo outside who was ready to stand bail for him.
• Red Baron: He was famed as the "Wandering General of Great Tang".
• Stunned Silence: He’s shocked into silence when Grand Protectorate Yang chooses to arrest him instead of "Shadow of the Night", the infamous criminal he just risked his life to capture, and crushes all the remaining trust he has in the government.
  He stays still like a piece of stone, refusing to move a single inch. The world is also silent, as if mourning another fallen dynasty.
• Sympathetic Murderer: He was the one who killed Chief Secretary Li after his efforts to expose the latter’s countless crimes ended with his own death sentence, while the bastard walked out scot-free.
• Taken Off the Case: At least Seafood Tofu Stew tried. He attempts to cuff East Longan Pearls to stop the latter from pursuing Boneless Carp, as he realizes the thief’s justice is similar to theirs and that the law may no longer be adequate to judge him. East Longan Pearls, however, manages to convince Seafood Tofu Stew to let him go after showing that his own justice isn’t limited to what the law says.
• Taking You with Me: Realizing that his injury won’t allow him to fight any further, he decides to grab Boneless Carp and jump off the Apsara statue together. They both survive the fall, but East Longan Pearls’ pre-existing wound gets worse and incapacitates him due to the impact.
• The Unfettered: His pursuit of Boneless Carp has lasted for 5 years, and he was even willing to stay a death row inmate if it allowed him to continue his investigation undisturbed. During the climax of the chase in Loulan Inception, not even getting caught in a sandstorm, falling from a building-height statue, dropped into an underground cave, and almost drown in a river can slow him down when he knows Boneless Carp is in his reach.

Boneless Carp

A shot caller with countless facets and visages

Cuisine: Jiangsu (苏)
Class: Dispel
Other Names: Karp
Voiced by: Lu Zhixing (CN), Jun Fukuyama (JP), Jun Tae-youl (KR)

A Jiangsu Cuisine. Upon becoming a Food Soul, he is a carefree phantom thief nicknamed "Shadow of the Night" who can't be traced under the cover of the dark night. To him, stealing is a form of art, and he never gets caught.

---

• …And That Little Girl Was Me: He tells the life story of the "Shadow of the Night" to the young master and the people he rescued from the prison, but ends it by calling it a lie. It’s not until later that he reveals that the story continues and no longer makes no effort to hide that he’s the "Shadow of the Night" himself.
• Animal Motif: He’s frequently compared to a fox for his devious behaviors. The chapter where he gives an exposition of his own past is also titled "Mr. Fox".
• Calling Card: True to a Phantom Thief‘s style, he frequently sends these before his heists. His first letter to the young master is literally one.
• Dark and Troubled Past He was a Street Urchin whose whole world used to be murder, thieving, deception, and many other unscrupulous things, until he got to see the world beyond the slums and tried his best to provide his friends and family a similarly pleasant, dignified life. Though he succeeded, a mere rejection of the government office’s request from him resulted in all his efforts and loved ones being burned down, leading to his Despair Event Horizon.
• Despair Event Horizon: After losing everyone he held dear in a restaurant fire caused by the government, he fell into despair and kidnapped a child in an attempt to threaten the government with the full intent to die with them if worse came to worst. He could only continue living by "stealing" and clinging onto the child’s dream for a world of fairness.
• Dissonant Laughter: Boneless Carp laughs uncontrollably after seeing Grand Protectorate Yang accuse East Longan Pearls of crimes he didn’t commit and order his arrest even though the latter just risked his life to capture the "Shadow of the Night", apparently amused by how screwed up the government has become.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He has made his appearance in some previous events before his own. In Moonlit Confession, he is only mentioned through a passing comment by Crab in Orange and his Calling Card to the young master, while in Invitation to Wine, he provides one of the Taibai Tokens, though his sprite at the time still has his face shaded.
• Foil: To East Longan Pearls. They’re both obsessed with their own perception of justice, enact it in unconventional ways, and were wronged by the government, but whereas East Longan Pearls was a serious, no-nonsense constable who still believed in the law and government until slapped with too many betrayals, Boneless Carp is a devious, carefree and eccentric Phantom Thief with no respect for the law or human lives.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He started off as a Street Urchin who wanted to provide the people in the slums a better life and opened a restaurant with them. Then the government burned down said restaurant and killed all of his family and friends, giving birth to a devious Phantom Thief who has killed various people, both directly and indirectly, and is ready to put the world itself at risk in pursuit of his ideal version of it.
• Heel–Face Turn: After the young master tells him how misguided his perception of their wish is, he comes to a realization, accepts his sins and apparently goes out peacefully with a genuine smile. When he comes back, he gives up on his old goal and switches to opposing the Micians as his sense of justice takes a turn for better.
• Iconic Item: His fish bone dagger is his signature weapon and serves as a sign to recognize him even in disguise. He gave the young master one before they were put in prison, allowing East Longan Pearls to realize their connection with him and track him down.
• In the Hood: While his hood doesn’t do much in hiding his identity, it still serves as a hint for his mysteriousness that comes with being a Phantom Thief. He also has a habit of pulling his hood down to cover his eyes when his emotions get out of control.
• Intangible Theft: With his third skill, he can steal buffs from his target.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Although he was just impaled beforehand, he still smiles serenely and carries the young master to safety while paying no mind to his injury.
• Master of Disguise: He can disguise as anyone, even those of the opposite sex, with ease.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In the past, he kidnapped the young master after crossing his Despair Event Horizon with the intent to use them as hostage to threaten the government, but then he was actually rescuing them from human traffickers. This is the reason why they remembered him fondly and didn’t recognize the kid in his backstory as themself until later - the situation was different from their point of view.
• Not a Morning Person: He sounds very sleepy in the morning and asks the young master to draw the curtains so that he can replenish his sleep.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After exposing East Longan Pearls’ crime, he straightforwardly says this:
  Boneless Carp: "East Longan Pearls, we're the same... We're both wild beasts fighting for survival!"
• Phantom Thief: He’s commonly referred to as one, being an elusive Master of Disguise who likes to leave behind Calling Card and follow weird and particular objectives in his heists.
• Playful Cat Smile: His chibi sprite has this expression when sitting.
• Sleeping Dummy: When put onto the bed, instead of sleeping, he will leave a dummy in his place.
• Street Urchin: He was born in the slums and roamed the streets of the underground in his entire early life.
• Taking the Bullet: He shields the young master from the Loulan King statue, getting impaled by its spear in the process. It’s unclear whether or not he survived this wound, but he still comes back in the epilogue regardless.
• Visionary Villain: His goal to create a world that is fair and just to everyone is pretty huge, even for a supernatural being like Food Spirit. That’s what happens when you "stole" and treated the innocent dream of a child as your own.
• Übermensch: He follows his own sense of justice instead of what’s normally conformed, and enacts it in his…less than ethical ways. Notably, he protects the common folk from the Corrupt Bureaucrat and Decadent Court by killing an official every time an innocent is executed. In Loulan Inception, he has been willing to murder people for his own justice, subjected both the Corrupt Bureaucrats and clueless innocents to the blooms of Loulan that drove them to fight each other hysterically, and wanted to use the Loulan weapon to create his ideal world where everyone was forced to be "equal" regardless of circumstances.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants a "world of fairness" by activating an ancient weapon capable of destroying that very world. His goal sounds noble, his methods are much less so.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The government burned down the restaurant he and his people had worked so hard to build and killed all of his friends and family in the process, just because he rejected the government office’s request of relocation. As a result, he’s now very willing to sacrifice anyone - especially government officials - for his goal of creating a "world of fairness", even if that world is built on deception (from hysteria-inducing flowers) and oppression (by an army of murderous Living Statues).
• Would Hurt a Child: To be fair, he was in his Despair Event Horizon at the time, but he was about to do Murder-Suicide with an innocent passing child to threaten the government and only stopped in time by the child’s question.

Tower of Delicacy

In the qilin humans have found good omen, a song on a jade flute for a thousand autumn snows.

Cuisine: Hunan (湘)
Class: Immune
Other Names: Yu Xiang Yao
Voiced by: Bian Jiang (CN), Daisuke Kishio (JP), Shim Gyu-hyeok (KR)

A Hunan Cuisine born from the kitchen of the renowned Qing official Peng Yulin, and is usually the key dish served in holiday banquets. After becoming a Food Soul, he served alongside his master as a navy commander until circumstances led him to Mount Kunlun. He's the current master of Kunlun and a friend of all beasts in the snow mountain. Gentle, carefree and optimistic, he has the power to control wind and snow.

He’s a yearly-Limited character available for summon only in the Stalwart as Winter banner and its reruns.

---

• Action Pet: Hanying does most of the direct combat for him, while he stands in a safe distance to use Magic Music.
• An Ice Person: He has the power to control wind and snow, and applies Frost status with his normal attack. When fighting, he materializes animals from snow, conjures blizzards, and can even make the weather so cold that it freezes veins.
• The Beastmaster: By playing his flute, he’s capable of controlling all the creatures of Kunlun. He can also summon animals made of snow to overwhelm his opponent.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He’s a kind and cordial gentleman who wants to resolve everything in peace, but is terrifying against someone he considers an enemy. Of all ways he can pick to incapacitate Su Qing, he chooses to freeze her veins, which would stop her blood from flowing and rid her the use of her limbs.
• Commanding Coolness: Upon his transformation into a Food Spirit, Tower of Delicacy served alongside his master Peng Yulin in the naval forces as a commander and achieved remarkable military accomplishments until he left for Kunlun after Peng Yulin’s demise.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: He admits to Tusu Wine that he also struggled to find his purpose in a world he initially didn’t belong to after the death of his teacher, who fought for decades for his nation but still failed and died with regrets. He went to Kunlun alone and planned on never returning to the mortal realm again after forging a bond with Hanying.
• Eyes Always Shut: Applied only to his sprite in battle, which is depicted with his eyes shut most of the time. Outside of it, he opens his eyes normally.
• Flower Motif: He loves plum blossoms, having been influenced by Peng Yulin, and is good at drawing them. The red ornaments he wore were also designed to resemble red blossoming plum blossoms in the snow. In Tower of Delicacy’s eyes, the flower has become a symbol of unwavering love after Peng Yulin tried to paint a hundred thousand plum blossoms to commemorate his lover Mei Gu, who was forced to be separated from him in his teenage years.
• Friend to All Living Things: His gentle demeanor and experience in Mount Kunlun makes it easy for him to get close with all animals, and they approach him on their own when he’s playing his flute. His Work voice line mentions that working with animals make him happy, and it appears he brings a group of animals back to Kongsang every time he’s sent to explore, if his voice line is to be believed.
• Good Samaritan: He left Mount Kunlun for the Green Hills both to find a cure for Hanying and to investigate the missing tourists case. Even though he has no obligation to, he helps the young master unconditionally and contributes to taking down Su Qing with all of his efforts.
• Kirin: His companion Hanying is a beautiful Snow Qilin that has plum blossoms on its horns and snow flakes decorated its prints with every step it takes. It was said to be a divine beast that could beckon good fortune, and is also an Action Pet.
• Light Is Good: He dresses in all white and his overall color palette is quite light. He’s also the Big Good of the Snow of Fortune event story.
• Magic Music: He plays his flute to invoke his power over the snow and the creatures of Kunlun. His music also has the ability to calm people down, as displayed with Mapo Tofu and Chili Fishhead in his interlude "Mediation Master".
• Magical Flutist: His flute is made of Kunlun Jade, a spiritual item of Shenzhou, which allows him to play Magic Music and wreck havoc in battle.
• Mundane Utility: The young master and Food Spirit children of Kongsang often ask him to create snow for them to play. In his fourth letter, he reveals to the young master that he has been maintaining the form of the little snow kirin they made for him with his power so that he can always wear it on his waist.
• Nice Guy: From his first appearance, he’s unfailingly kind, courteous and gentle, even when others don’t return the favor.
• No-Sell: His unique buff "Auspicious Beast Protection" gives the whole team a shield of 15% Max HP that grants immunity to all debuffs. This buff itself is also undispellable.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Once he finished hearing Tusu Elixir’s story, he recalls his own past life before becoming the Lord of Kunlun, where he also lost his mentor, found the world cruel and unforgiving to those who devoted their life to a noble cause, and struggled to find his purpose in life. He then told Tusu Elixir this:
  Tower of Delicacy: "I didn't expect...that you would be like me..."
  Tower of Delicacy: "You're... who I used to be..."
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: After revealing to Su Qing that he has frozen her veins, he drops this:
  Tower of Delicacy: "As the snow falls, you shall too."
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He’s the Lord of Kunlun Mountain, essentially the master of all mystical creatures, and is one of the most powerful characters both lore-wise and gameplay-wise as a limited unit.
• Red Baron: He inherited the title "Snow General" from his teacher Peng Yulin, the Admiral of the Imperial navy.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: He can understand and talk with all animals, which helps the young master when they were transformed into a cat. When he first came to Kunlun, he communicated with the creatures through his music, but gradually, he began to understand them without the help of his flute.
• Stance System: He can switch between "Beast Tamer Form" and "Phantom Form" with his second skill, which will also activate his third skill Kunlun Dominator in the current form right away regardless of cooldown.
  • Beast Tamer Form is offense-oriented, pierces 30% of the target’s DEF with Flying Frost if they’re already inflicted with Frost, and deals 260% AOE damage with Kunlun Dominator. It’s indicated by Tower of Delicacy riding on Hanying’s back.
  • Phantom Form is defense-oriented, restores 10% HP to the caster with Flying Frost if they’re already inflicted with Frost, and grants all allies Auspicious Beast Protection for 1 round with Kunlun Dominator. It’s indicated by Tower of Delicacy standing on his own while Hanying becomes a spirit by his side.
• Suddenly Sober: Although he’s visibly drunk after downing three jugs of Tusu wine, he quickly sobers up as soon as Tusu Elixir shows up.
• Tragic Keepsake: The jade pendant he always carries on his waist belonged to Peng Yulin, who intended to give half of it to his lover but never managed to. Tower of Delicacy wants to fulfill his teacher’s wish with his own fated one and is determined to never let such a tragedy happen again.

Tusu Elixir

What medicine can cure a broken heart, only in dreams can my soul soar from the past

Cuisine: General (普)
Class: Heal
Other Names:
Voiced by: Sun Ye (CN), Noriaki Sugiyama (JP), Joshua Waters (EN)

A wine consumed during spring festivals in the ancient times, also known as the "Sui Wine." Upon becoming a Food Soul, he learned medicine from Hua Tuo and soon attained superb medical skills. However, he can't get over the death of his master, and his temperament only grows more bizarre.

---

• Back-Alley Doctor: He opens a clinic (which also doubles as a tavern) in the underworld of the Green Hills that is very difficult to find and requires knowing the ever-changing mechanisms to enter. Even then, to meet Tusu Elixir himself, the customer has to drink three jugs of Tusu wine – a medicinal wine that is both strong and pungent – in one sitting.
• Cast from Lifespan: Using his blood to undo the Forced Transformation will suck his dwindling life force away, which he’s already unable to replenish. Because of this and the fact that the recipe for Tusu Elixir is slowly lost in the mortal realm, he becomes weaker by days.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Despite being renowned as a Super Doc who can cure all diseases present to him, Tusu Elixir can’t seem to do anything about his own legs’ condition. Justified because being forgotten by people isn’t something his medical skills can fix.
• Combat Resuscitation: "All-Healing Herb" has him spend 15% of his HP to revive an ally with 35% HP. If the target is still alive, the cooldown of this skill will be reduced by 2 rounds.
• Disabled Snarker: He lost the use of his legs some times after losing his faith in life and humanity itself, making him incredibly bad-tempered and bitter.
• Dr. Jerk: A very capable medic who studied under Huà Tuó, but is also an abrasive sourpuss with a constant hostile attitude. He only heals people when he feels like it, asks for ridiculous things as payment for his treatment just to see if the customer’s reaction pleases him.
• Establishing Character Moment: He debuted in Snow of Fortune by coldly kicking a demon pleading for his help out, but then agreeing to cure a child’s father and accepting merely a toy for payment while ignoring most of the treasures sent to him. It shows that although he’s undoubtedly a Dr. Jerk, he does have a heart of gold and his reason for practicing medicine has never been material gains.
• Freudian Excuse: Historically, his mentor Hua Tuo was accused of attempting assassination while trying to save his patient^note His patient Cao Cao had a brain tumor, and Hua Tuo told him that a brain surgery was necessary to remove it. Cao Cao however thought that Hua Tuo wanted to kill him, in part due to a previous attempt by another imperial physician, arrested, and died in prison with most of his medical legacy lost forever. No wonder Tusu Elixir lost faith in humanity and Took a Level in Jerkass.
• Genius Cripple: He is a Super Doc who studied under Hua Tuo – one of the greatest physicians in Chinese history, though he lost the use of his legs due to situations beyond his control and is now wheelchair-bound.
• Green Thumb: Since he has power over life, he can control plants and make strong roots grow rapidly from the ground to restrict Su Qing.
• Handicapped Badass: He is wheelchair-bound, but as Tower of Delicacy found out, he isn’t any less agile thanks to his Super Wheelchair. He can also play an offensive role with his ability to control plants.
• Heal It with Blood: His blood is capable of curing all illnesses since he’s a Food Spirit born from the wishes of mortals who desire peace and health. The cure he came up with for the Forced Transformation in Snow of Fortune also requires him to use his blood to neutralize the poison.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his unpleasant behavior, he's well-meaning and has been working to stop Sū Qīng all along.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Due to his Jerkass attitude, solitary lifestyle and eccentricity, he's called "Strange Doctor Tusu" in the Green Hills.
• Not Afraid to Die: After the tragic death of his mentor, he lost all his faith in humanity and felt that his medical skills were no longer useful, thus he hasn’t made any effort to stop people from forgetting his recipe and letting him be Killed Off for Real.
• Silent Scapegoat: Su Qing never gets rid of him despite his bad publicity in the Green Hills because she needs him to take responsibility for the tourists’ disappearance in her place. She only imprisons him once he figured out a way to turn those mortals back and became a threat to her plan.
• Super Doc: He’s capable of telling the patient’s ailment and coming up with a solution at first glance, and has been dealing with the demons of Green Hills who have varying anatomies for years. His field of expertise is big enough to cover veterinary, allowing him to cure Hanying, and the flavor text of his special gift "Antiseptic Soap" reveals that he also does surgery.
• Super Wheelchair: He controls his wheelchair with his spiritual power, allowing him unexpected agility, and he even brings it to go racing.
• Taking the Bullet: He shields the young master from Su Qing’s attack that would have killed them otherwise, giving Tower of Delicacy the opportunity to lure her away, and is implied to survive the injury despite his poor condition by signing a contract with the young master.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He points out to Su Qing that what she has been doing cannot be called familial love in any shape or form, and she is actually treating her victims like pets as a way to cope with her family’s death thousands of years ago, which she was just "never brave enough to face".
• Took a Level in Jerkass: The tragic circumstances surrounding Huà Tuó's death lead him to become the solitary douchebag he is now.
• Tsundere: While he’s verbally harsh with the young master all the time, he actually looks after them carefully and always notices if something is wrong, whether it is their appearance or their health. He does not like this caring side of his to be pointed out though.

Luoyang Veggie

Cuisine: Zhejiang (浙)
Class: AoE
Other Names: Peony (Mǔdan), Preceptor Yàn
Voiced by: Teng Xin (CN), Shinnosuke Tachibana (JP), Reece Bridger (EN), Kim Jin-hong (KR)

A dish of the Central Plains rumored to be related to Empress Wu Zetian. Since the dish resembles Bird's Nest, it is also called "Yan Veggie." This Food Soul is resourceful and well-connected, thus highly favored by Empress Wu. He is a man with great ambition.

---

• Agent Peacock: A very flamboyant and effeminate man, but can be ruthless when necessary after spending his former life in the harsh environment of the imperial court. It’s implied that he was also a player in the Tang Dynasty’s political game and got some involvements with Li Linfu, a well-known Evil Chancellor of the dynasty.
• Cultured Badass: He puts his knowledge in music, performance arts and literature on show by being a Musical Assassin.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Downplayed as his Navel-Deep Neckline makes it clear he’s a man, but overall he has quite a feminine appearance and Spring Roll even mistakes him for a "pretty lady" when seeing him from afar.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He’s revealed to be the one giving the young master the silver fish bag^note An ornament that belonged to the "fish bag system" and was used to announce the rank of the official. Only Beijing officials with a rank 5 or above were eligible to wear them., which Seafood Tofu Stew briefly mentioned in the prologue of Loulan Inception, albeit he never showed up.
• Elegant Classical Musician: He's a gǔqín player with all the gracefulness that entails, and was once a music preceptor who lived in the palace and performed for the Empress Wu herself.
• Flower Motifs: The dish is literally made to resemble a peony, and he decorates himself with lots of peony motifs.
• Good All Along: He’s a messenger from the Realm of Melanya, is suspected to be responsible for the withered peonies, and even "kidnaps" the young master the night before the flower appreciation banquet. The truth is that not only does he not sabotage anything, he even helps bringing the withered blooms back to vitality and making the banquet a great success. When allowed a wish as the prize for winning the banquet, he actually make one for Peach Petal Congee’s sake instead of his own, and the message he wanted to pass to the young master turns out to be a very wholesome one.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: He dresses like this in both skins, with robes wide open at the front to show the tattoo on his torso. His first skin has the bare skin partially covered with translucent black lace.
• Musical Assassin: He plays the gǔqín and unleashes invisible yet deadly sonic attacks in battle.
• Private Tutor: He used to teach music in the imperial palace and is referred to as "Preceptor Yang", even when he isn’t teaching.
• Rags to Riches: He went from a street performer to a Private Tutor and imperial musician by leaving a resolute impression on the empress in a traditional Luoyang Water Banquet.
• Red Herring: It seems quite obvious that he, a Food Spirit from the Realm of Melanya entered the Taohua Island before the festival, would have something to do with the withering peonies in order to disrupt the festival for his own benefit; the keyword here being seems. The sabotage was actually done by tiny Food Demons who were desperate to win the banquet so that Peach Petal Congee can fulfill their wish to be sent to Kongsang to have a new start, and that’s exactly the news from the Realm of Melanya he meant to send to Peach Petal Congee. Other than that, he’s Good All Along.
• Warrior Poet: He recites poems and old tales quite often, and even uses them as spontaneous lyrics to accompany his music.

Stuffed Duck

Priest of Jiangshis, prankster of puckish masquerades

Cuisine: Jiangsu (苏)
Class: Control
Other Names:
Voiced by: Shen Dawei (CN), Mitsuhiro Ichiki (JP), Alex Mitts (EN)

A Jiangsu Cuisine that became a Food Soul in the Qing Dynasty, it is made by stuffing the eight ingredients into the duck's belly. He makes use of his skills to vanquish Jiangshis, but likes to play pranks by pretending to be a Jiangshi.

---

• Actually Not a Vampire: Greatly resembles a Chinese Vampire, but is not actually one.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Because of his resemblances to Chinese Vampire, Stuffed Duck used to be shunned and mistreated by others despite not doing anything wrong, and even have rocks thrown at him. This once gave him an intense hatred for human, but after his time under his master, he Stopped Caring.
• Chinese Vampire: Deliberately designed after one, with skin color, clothing, talismans, and hopping. Ironically, not only is he not a Jiangshi, he’s a Jiangshi hunter.
• Defence Mechanism Superpower: Whenever his allies take Crit DMG, his passive skill inflicts 2 stacks of Talisman debuff onto the target. After reaching 5 stacks of Talisman, he’ll automatically consumes them to deal 400% DMG to the target and cause them to sleep for 2 rounds.
• Dissonant Serenity: He’s seen killing a Jiangshi girl he just played with without a microsecond of hesitation, which creeps out all the witnessing Food Spirits.
• Hunter of Monsters: He hunts down Jiangshi and release their soul from their body so that they can go to the Underworld Office and reincarnate.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": Not he himself, but he names a Jiangshi girl he encounters and befriends (one-sidedly) during his hunt "Jiang".
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He usually puts on an appearance of innocence and good will, but is actually quite sensible and observant when it comes to others’ view towards him.
• The Prankster: He likes to play pranks on everyone by either pretending to be a Jiangshi, scaring them with ghost stories, or telling harmless lies and watching others following them.
• Stopped Caring: After studying under his master, Stuffed Duck decided that he would no longer care about what others think about him, and even utilizes his Jiangshi-like appearance, which was the source of discrimination towards him, to prank people for fun.
• Super Gullible: He remains clueless through the whole process when Yuxiang Pork makes use of his relation with the Land God to get the passes to the Underworld Office and even considers abandoning him down there so that they can have a spare pass for the young master, and is simply happy that he gets to visit the Underworld Office. But considering that he’s not as ignorant as he appears, he may simply not care.
• Third-Person Person: Occasionally refers to himself as "Baobao", highlighting his childish personality.
• Undeathly Pallor: As his ingredients contain purple sticky rice, his skin is also purple, making him resemble a Jiangshi.

Meng Po Tea

Gaze upon the Rock of Destiny, cross the river beneath a field of corpse flowers

Cuisine: Common (普)
Class: Control
Other Names: Heartless (Wúqíng), Ah-Qíng
Voiced by: Peng Yao (CN), Daisuke Hirakawa (JP), Jang Min-hyeok (KR)

A bowl of amnesia-inducing Meng Po Tea that became a Food Spirit at the Wangchuan River, serving as a ghost envoy of the Underworld Office and distributor of the Meng Po tea made by his mother. He had no concept of human emotions. He acts quickly and cleanly, and therefore enjoys great respect in Lady Meng’s Manor, but is seen as a heartless creature even by the guards of Hell.

---

• Awesome, but Impractical: His specialty, the Sleep debuff, as of now isn’t a good Status Effect and drags his performance down as a whole. It is similar to Stun but can be disabled once the target is attacked directly, except by Meng Po Tea himself, meaning he can’t have a good chemistry with his teammates as they can accidentally wake his target up before the latter’s turn passes and render all of his efforts useless.
• Berserk Button: He’s visibly mad seeing spider lilies wilting thanks to Lianhua Blood Duck’s spear shoots straight toward the eternal flame floating behind him, so he forcefully puts all of the Food Spirits to sleep and sends them to prison.
• Breaking Old Trends: He’s the first Food Spirit to be from a fictional cuisine. While Hu-Geng is also more of a literary metaphor than an actual dish, he’s essentially a "swan soup" that can be recreated and eaten in real life, unlike the amnesia-inducing Meng Po tea reserved for the deceased. The young master does express their surprise since they also thought only cuisines in the mortal realm could become Food Spirits, to which Meng Po replies that anything can gain sentience and become a spirit one day as all things in the world has a soul, even the peaches of the Empyrean, the lingzhi of Penglai, or her own special tea.
• Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: He’s constantly surrounded by nether butterflies and holds a butterfly staff. In battle, he summons the butterflies from the Sea of Spider Lillies to deal damage to all enemies and put them to sleep.
• Defrosting Ice King: Meng Po Tea is initially cold to the young master and only has them around because his mother insists, but they soon bond and he becomes accustomed to being taken care of and treated nicely by them. In return, the young master realizes that Meng Po Tea isn’t as heartless as the people proclaim, and it’s just that he never gets to learn the concept of human emotions in the first place.
• The Dreaded: He’s renown in the Underworld Office as a merciless, cold-hearted man who will force Meng Po tea down every soul’s throat with no hesitation and is very difficult to please. The young master has been asked if they’re having a hard time serving under him more than once, to which they clarify that he’s actually more humane than he appears.
• Femme Fatalons: He wears claw rings on both his hands and feet, indicating that he’s both dangerous and unearthly.
• Flower Motifs: Lycoris radiata or spider lily, the flower associated with death and the afterlife. When he’s defeated in battle, the flowers bloom from his body.
• Forced Sleep: He has the power to put anyone to sleep, and in battle, he specializes in enforcing the Sleep debuff on the enemies.
• Heavy Sleeper: The man sleeps for half the day and will sleep more if not woken up.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: He knew the young master helped two Ghost Messengers escape his wrath, but didn’t say anything. He also deliberately walked away despite being well aware of the young master’s plan to retrieve their memory casket from the Hall of Reminiscence and allowed them to succeed.
• Magical Barefooter: Since he floats all the time and sleeps for half the day, he apparently has no need for footwear.
• Mama's Boy: He’s a quiet and obedient son to Meng Po, wants to continue her legacy, and vehemently refuses to leave her side despite her request.
• Mystical White Hair: His flowing white hair contributes further to his White and Red and Eerie All Over look and makes him stand out in the grim Underworld Office.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Due to his mercilessly forcing his amnesia soup on others, his human name is Heartless (Wúqíng, Ah-Qíng for short).
• The Needless: So far he’s the only Food Spirit whose schedule consists only of sleeping and wandering.
• The Night Owl: As a resident of the Underworld Office since birth, Meng Po Tea is active at night and sleeps through the day.
• Nonchalant Dodge: He dodges the spear Lianhua Blood Duck threw towards him easily with just a slight shift.
• Not a Morning Person: His morning voice line is him grumpily orders the young master to not disturb him and especially not open the curtains. In the story, the young master has to coax him into waking up by promising to make him his favorite soup.
• Not So Stoic: As the young master finds out, the terrifying, placid Lord Heartless of the Underworld Office is also someone who's capable of throwing tiny tantrums, has trouble getting out of bed, requires someone to take care of his daily needs, and looks forward to being rewarded with his favorite soup for finishing his work like a child.
• Power Floats: He’s treated like a deity in the Underworld Office and looks the part by always floating around.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: When he’s appointed as a cook in the Kitchen, all the dishes he makes will have the "Memory Loss" tag instead of a normal flavor tag.
• Suggestive Collision: When pulled out of the pit, the young master loses their balance and pushes Meng Po Tea onto the ground, putting him into a provocative position.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Throughout Chapter 9, the time Meng Po Tea spends with the young master seems to introduce him to all sorts of human emotions which he’s unfamiliar with. After going through a Suggestive Collision, he appears to be embarrassed by the intimacy, but he doesn’t know how to express it and even the young master thinks he’s upset with them.
• White and Red and Eerie All Over: His palette is mainly consists of the ghostly white and the red of spider lilies, giving him an ethereal and unnerving look that suits an underworld "deity".

Mango Pomelo Sago

Cuisine: General (普)
Class: AoE
Other Names:
Voiced by: Zhou Lianghong (CN), Yuki Ono (JP)

---

Farewell My Concubine

Cuisine: 苏
Class: Burst
Other Names: Jī Biéyì, Ah-Yì, Master Jī
Voiced by: Ah Jie (CN)

A Jiangsu Cuisine created to immortalize the love between the great warlord Xiang Yu and his favorite concubine Yu Ji. He's a young man with a gentle and beautiful visage and a strong, persevering heart. An extraordinary man who is deeply in love with Chinese opera.

---

• Composite Character: His profile mentions that he shares traits of both Concubine Yu and Xiang Yu. While he normally resembles Concubine Yu more with several references to her in his artworks, on the battlefield he speaks in a manner expected of a warlord like Xiang Yu.
• Crosscast Role: In his Flirt voice line, he picks the role of Concubine Yu for himself while giving the young master the role of the warlord Xiang Yu regardless of their gender, as such this will also apply to the master if they’re female.
• Dual Wielding: He wields two swords in battle.
• Hime Cut: His hair is stylized from that of a stereotypical Peking opera performer, which in practice resembles this style: straight loose hair with even side locks.
• Image Song: "Neo Farewell My Concubine", sung by his voice actor Ah Jie.
• Shout-Out: He is practically a love letter to Farewell My Concubine, the opera that shares the name with his dish. He’s a Peking Opera actor who assigns himself the role of Concubine Yu in a voice line and mentions the play several times. His Defeat artwork has him hold his sword close to his neck, referencing Concubine Yu’s suicide, while his Bloom artwork features poppy, her signature flower.
• Version-Exclusive Content: He has been excluded from the Japanese and Global servers. Justified since his Peking opera shtick is not translatable.

Xifeng Wine

With sword and flute he charges into the fray, his sharp gaze intimidates the enemies in sight

Cuisine: Xibei (西北)
Class: AoE
Other Names: Chancellor Xi
Voiced by: Guo Haoran (CN), Tomokazu Seki (JP)

Originating from Fengxiang, Shaanxi, it is a liquor brewed with sorghum. Upon becoming a Food Soul, he was a powerful official of the Qin Dynasty. His personality is as aggressive as strong wine; he approaches things head on and makes no secret of his raging ambitions.

---

• Antagonist in Mourning: When he finds the young master and Harbin Fried Pork’s "corpses", he grips the jade disc that confirms their identity tightly in grief, expresses admiration for their familial bond, and cover their bodies with the banner of the Wei army as a final show of respect.
• Ambition Is Evil: His ambition to become the next Qin Emperor eventually blinds him from his goal, turning him into a power hungry and treacherous chancellor.
• Brains and Brawn: The Brawn to Chuyi Flower Cake’s Brains, as the general of the Qin’s army.
• Control Freak: He’s obsessed with having people he likes under his control and subservient to him, so much that he will imprisone them in a Gilded Cage if they show defiance and use violence to enforce his authority. This may stem from his past as a slave.
• Drunk with Power: As time goes on, his authority and power as the chancellor of the Qin starts to delude him and stray him from his original noble goal.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • He is deeply shaken when he realizes the young master has gained his trust all this time just to steal the Empress Xiang’s Bamboo.
  • He quickly receives a second one as Chuyi Flower Cake, whom he has known for the longest time and trusted the most, reveals how Xifeng Wine is just another pawn on the chessboard that he controls and will get disposed now that he no longer has any use to him. In a twist, Xifeng Wine was already aware that he was a pawn, but believed that he still had control over the situation and couldn’t be dispensable, hence he can only react with a Mirthless Laughter.
• Mirthless Laughter
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He gets angry easily when things don’t go his way and may even hurt others in his rage, as shown when he strangled Chuyi Flower Cake.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Mr. Guigu recalls that out of all disciples, Xifeng Wine was diligent, but not smart enough to learn the essences and thus was never qualified to end his study and leave the mountain. So one day, he decided to try his luck escaping Chuyi Flower Cake's stone maze in order to get his assistance behind Mr. Guigu’s back.
• Heel–Face Turn: After getting exiled, he’s rescued by the young master and Harbin Fried Pork, who recognized the honorable warrior beneath his ruthlessness and wish to cooperate with him to take Chuyi Flower Cake down. Since he has learned about their true self and showed respect for them in their last encounter, Xifeng Wine readily accepts the alliance.
• Honor Before Reason: Despite his appearance, Xifeng Wine respects codes of honor and shows distaste for acts of betrayal or unnecessary pragmatism. The young master utilizes this to infiltrate his rank by pretending to be betrayed by Harbin Fried Pork in a moment of crisis, evoking his sympathy.
• Magical Flutist: He wields the Empress Xiang’s Bamboo, a magical flute said to control the terrain, making it a powerful instrument of war. Its true use is actually telepathy.
• Mirthless Laughter:
• No-Sell: Despite the unearthly amount of sleep drugs the young master put into his drink, he isn’t knocked out.
• Rags to Riches: From a slave to the general and chancellor of a country.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Chuyi Flower Cake‘s Blue, being the hotheaded military general with strong ambition.
• Sinister Suffocation: After Chuyi Flower Cake expresses disappointment in him and mocks his obsession for control, Xifeng Wine is infuriated and uses the chain to strangle the other in an attempt to get Chuyi Flower Cake under his control again, showing how far the power has gone to his head.
• The Spymaster: He inherits Chuyi Flower Cake’s spy network after Imperial Gambit.
• Tattoo Conceals Scars: The phoenix emblem between his brow is used to hide the slave’s tattoo from his former life.
• Telepathy: The true use of his flute, Empress Xiang’s Bamboo, is to communicate with the owner of Shun’s Chess Set and tell him how to morph the landscape to the Qin army’s advantage.
• Unperson: After the new duke of Qin inherited his dad's power, Advisor Gongsun erased all traces of him and Chuyi Flower Cake from historical records.
• Unwitting Pawn: Chuyi Flower Cake has played him like a fiddle for all those years. Downplayed in that Xifeng Wine is aware of being used, but he clings on the hope that he’s not that easily discarded and can turn the table when the inevitable betrayal comes. He’s proven to be very wrong.
  Xifeng Wine: Hahahahaha! I once thought...even as a pawn, I would be the most valuable, the most important one you could not abandon...
• Villain Respect: He truly respects the young master as a strategist even though they’re enemies, and readily takes the chance to have them serve him when they’re despondent after being "betrayed" by the Wei.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: When Chuyi Flower Cake questioned him why he wanted to leave the mountain so badly, Xifeng Wine replied that he wished take power to save the state of Qin, its people, and everyone in the world, and also to issue edicts so that slaves as lowly as he was had the chance to change their fates. He began to take part in wars and attack other states out of this belief, and he rationalizes every of his actions as for the Qin…even when he has strayed from his original goal.
  Xifeng Wine: I want to put an end to the chaos and unify the world under the banner of Qin, so people may live in peace, so the old may live out their days in dignity, so the strong and healthy may find purpose, so the young can grow up safely! I want to create a prosperous world for all!
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Chuyi Flower Cake mercilessly discards him by getting him exiled after Xifeng Wine has proven himself to be too far gone from what he promised with the wiseman.

Chuyi Flower Cake

The tactician seeks a wise master, the lands are but part of his chessboard

Cuisine: Hubei (鄂)
Class: Control
Other Names: Mr. Chu, Yu Gao
Voiced by: Liu Mingyue (CN), Soma Saito (JP)

A tradition Jingchu food item made of boneless fish during Emperor Shun's trip to the South, inheriting the virtue of the ancient King. An elegant and feeble-looking tactician of the state of Qin who is kept in a gilded cage to serve the Chancellor’s purpose. His eyes may be blinded, but his judgment remains sharp.

---

• And I Must Scream:
  • His plan to created the Wise Ruler for the utopia of his own making involves him diving straight into the furnace to serve as a sacrifice. As Food Spirits have Resurrective Immortality, he won’t perish, but instead will have to bear the agony of soul power dissipating and replenishing again and again, tortured until the end of time as atonement for his betrayal of Yao and Shun's principles.
  • In the past, he was put in a ritual that trapped him inside a magical cauldron for centuries just so that he could not leave the state of Chu and would use his power for their goal even if he disagreed with them. The ritual burned his eyes as well, causing him to live not only in captivity and solitude, but also in complete darkness.
• Arc Villain
• Blood from the Mouth: Despite his weak health, he ran outside during a thunderstorm after being unable to accept a Huaxia that disregarded virtues and preferred violence, which caused him to cough blood and faint. While he was immediately given treatment, he kept running a high fever and would only spit out more blood or mumble in his sleep.
• Blind Seer: He’s physically blind, but his ability to analyze and manipulate lets him see miles ahead of the situation compared to other people.
• Blue Is Calm: He’s mainly associated with blue and water, and always stays calm even when his life is on the line.
• Brains and Brawn: The Brains to Xifeng Wine’s Brawn as the advisor and tactician for the state of Qi.
• The Chessmaster: Very big time, in case the abundant use of chess motif and imagery for his character didn’t tip you off. His plan to create a utopia can be boiled down to him secretly waging wars between the states as a "selection" of sorts, creating Nature Mazes on the battlefields of each country, and seeding numerous Peach Sanctuary arks which he lured the common folks who weren’t involved in the politics and military into to preserve their culture and lives, then the scattered Peach Sanctuary arks would eventually meet where the water converged to create a land of prosperity and happiness.
• Caged Bird Metaphor: His situation at first seems like a typical case of this trope: a frail and disabled wiseman who is kept in a Gilded Cage and forced to use his talent for war against his will. However, it is subverted once Chuyi Flower Cake reveals that he has always had the key to the cage with him the whole time, and willingly stays trapped because it’s more convenient for his scheme.
  Master Chu isn't a sparrow in a cage; he's like Kunpeng, a giant mythical bird with a heart big enough for the world.
• Crazy-Prepared: When the young master asks him what would have happened if they hadn’t agreed to his proposal, he nonchalantly replies that his plans were carefully laid with failsafes to make sure there existed a Wise Ruler for his utopia and that the young master’s choice wasn’t too relevant.
• Cute Clumsy Girl: His profile explains that since the fish cake is boneless, its sense of balance as a Food Spirit is abysmal and he could easily be knocked over, though he hides this "weakness" well enough. In their first night sleeping in the same chamber, the young master accidentally sends him straight to the ground with the force needed to shove a cat off themself, and he can’t even get up on his own.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: After being blinded and trapped in a cauldron for centuries, his eyes are weak to bright light and he wears a blindfold to block them out. It also symbolizes how he has gone jaded and lost his original idealistic view on life, since when he joins Kongsang, he mentions that he can remove the blindfold without any issues.
• Delicate and Sickly: As the dish he originated from is made with boneless fish, he has poor balance and weak health.
• Disappointed in You: His response to being strangled by Xifeng Wine? Telling him the true reason why he let the young master go to show how far he thought ahead compared to Xifeng Wine, and that the general has let him down. This statement seems to shock Xifeng Wine deeply and he leaves hastily without saying anything else.
• Eye Scream: When he was imprisoned in the copper cauldron, the fire from the ritual burned his eyes. We can only hear him screaming in pain as it happens.
• Genius Cripple: He is blind and physically weak, but underestimating him means leaving yourself vulnerable to the control of a terrifying chessmaster who can wage wars and manipulate the world while being confined in a Gilded Cage.
• Gilded Cage: Xifeng Wine keeps Chuyi Flower Cake imprisoned and chained in a golden chamber that is heavily guarded and appears incredibly luxurious to the people of Qin, who are struggling with poverty as their state is at war, under the facade of giving him a peaceful and quiet place to recuperate from his "illness".
• Glory Days: The echo of Empress Xiang in the Empress Xiang's Bamboo claims that Chuyi Flower Cake’s mind is stuck in the past, when the peaceful Huaxia still existed and he was serving a benevolent, incorruptible master. To free him from the ritual, he must be woken up from this dream realm of his own making, otherwise he will never move on.
  Empress Xiang: My husband and I left. So have Yu the Great and my son. All the people of that time have moved on, except him. He is still trapped in a dream of the past.
• Good Samaritan: When he was The Hermit, he was known for lending a helping hand to weak clans who were in hardship due to natural disasters or man-made issues without expecting anything in return. He taught them how to turn barren land into farms, how to protect themselves from beasts, and how to write, and when the situation was dire, he even evoked the power of Shun’s Chess Set to help them win battles.
• The Hermit: After leaving Huaxia, he led a reclusive life in a forest and occasionally lent his help to weaker clans during the Warring States time. This happened again when he left the state of Chu, though he did strike up a companionship with Mr. Guigu – Xifeng Wine’s and Pebble Bread’s mentor.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: He was once a kindhearted, peace-loving idealist who always advised his liege against using violence to solve the problem. However, his pacifism proved to be an obstacle when his master Chu Zi wanted him to use his Terrain Sculpting power for war, and the treacherous court persuaded Chu Zi to put him in a Fate Worse than Death so that they could force him to do everything they ordered, and also to prevent him from leaving and serving the Chu’s enemy. This experience made him grow more callous, being willing to order the death of others without a single flinch and orchestrating wars to create his ideal utopia.
• Kingmaker Scenario: Chuyi Flower Cake is unable to become a king himself because the Divine Formation requires his own sacrifice, but he can choose anyone he wants to be the ruler of Qin and then Huaxia when the land is unified once the ritual is finished. Between the Qin Prince and the young master, he prioritizes the latter because he saw the potential in them that he never did with those past rulers, but when the young master dives into the furnace with him, Advisor Gongsun takes the second option and makes the Qin Prince the Wise Ruler.
• Making a Splash: Thanks to the Terrain Sculpting power of the Shun’s Chess Set, he can also control the waterway.
• Manipulative Bastard
• Meaningful Rename
• Mellow Fellow: He has a calm and mellow disposition befitting his age, and his mood rarely wavers.
• More Expendable Than You: He sees himself as a "divine weapon" for many rulers to covet and exploit just like the Shun's Chess Set, and feels that it’s natural for a "weapon" to suffer so that its master can reach the height of power. The young master has to put some senses into him by telling him that he isn’t a weapon and his foolishness for believing so is heartbreaking.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: His hesitation to help the state of Chu wage war against the state of Zhou out of pacifism caused him to be put in a Fate Worse than Death for centuries because the Chu really wanted to use his power for war and didn’t wish to risk him running away.
• Occult Blue Eyes
• The Older Immortal: He was around during Emperor Shun’s rule between 2294 and 2184 BC, making him older than a majority of the Food Spirits serving under the young master.
• Ordered to Die: After Chuyi Flower Cake helped the state of Chu win over the Wu people in exchange for being released from the cauldron, Emperor Chu decided that he couldn’t be let loose and indirectly ordered him to commit suicide by giving him a cup of poisonous wine and a white silk cloth for Hanging Around as a "reward". Chuyi Flower Cake however refused to obey, and even mocked the emperor by pouring the wine onto the ground and using the silk cloth as his blindfold to show that he was no longer bound by his loyalty to anyone.
• Personality Power
• Play-Along Prisoner: With his influence over the court and the state itself, Chuyi Flower Cake can escape his confinement easily should he want to, but decides to play along with Xifeng Wine’s plan to see what he can accomplish. When Xifeng Wine disappoints him, he has the general disposed without a second thought and immediately enacts his plan.
• Private Tutor: He’s responsible for tutoring the Qin Prince, who admires him greatly and wants to free him from Xifeng Wine’s control. In the past, he was also entrusted with teaching and taking care of Shang Jun, son of Emperor Shun, after the emperor lent the throne of Huaxia to Yu the Great.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Xifeng Wine’s Red, being a calm, mellow and seemingly fragile chessmaster.
• Reflectionless Useless Eyes: When he removes his blindfold, we can see that his eyes don’t have light spots and are of a paler shade compared to before he lost his eyesight.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Huaxia strayed from its pacifist path and became more violent, Chuyi Flower Cake refused to stay with them any longer and left for the south indefinitely.
• Smart People Play Chess: He’s notable for his chess set and love for Go.
• The Spymaster: He owned a spy network that spans across the seven states to serve his ambition to unite all states, though at the end of Imperial Gambit he lends it to Xifeng Wine. When the young master questions what use can the network have when they have already left the Warring States, he lists off several things his spies can get to show that the spy network will be important for the young master:
  Chuyi Flower Cake: Of course it's useful. Qin Shi Huang sent people to Penglai, Yingzhou, and other fairy islands in search of the elixir of eternal life. If he could get this map of foreign lands, he would be able to use immortal tonics to save the commoners of his day.
  Chuyi Flower Cake: Another example would be Wu Yue's secret swordforging technique, this could help people produce sharp swords to end the conflict of the world.
• The Strategist: He serves as the advisor and strategist for the Qin. He also played this role for the Chu before leaving them.
• Terrain Sculpting: The Shun’s Chess Set lets him morph the landscapes to his advantage, and he’s the true terrain sculptor of the Qin army instead of Xifeng Wine.
• The Teetotaler: In his first conversation with Xifeng Wine on the screen, he claims that he doesn’t drink.
• Thanatos Gambit: To accomplish his goal, he wants to reactivate the Divine Formation to transfer the fortunes of the Zhou dynasty to Qin, but this method requires the sacrifice of a medium: himself.
• Tragic Keepsake: Emperor Shun left Chuyi Flower Cake the rocks with the spiritual power to manipulate the Nature Maze, which he first made into chess pieces to keep as souvenirs.
• Unperson: After the new duke of Qin inherited his dad's power, Advisor Gongsun erased all traces of him and Xifeng Wine from historical records.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Everything he has done in Imperial Gambit is to create a nation of prosperity and happiness that resembles Huaxia in his memory. He also tries to mold a perfect ruler for this utopia by using the Rites of Zhou to complete the Divine Formation and shift the fortunes of the Zhou dynasty to Qin and give the chosen one the divine powers of Shun's Chess Set.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Everyone in the state of Qin speaks highly of him as he’s been an advisor to the Qin Emperor, the tutor to his heir since the earliest day, and done a great deal for the people. It’s very easy for him to get Xifeng Wine off the picture by revealing Xifeng Wine’s treacherous ambition and that he’s been imprisoned by the former "against his will", causing Xifeng Wine to be exiled.
• Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: The first impression Chuyi Flower Cake often leaves is that he's a refined and quiet young man who is blind, frail, and unconcerned with worldly matters. He’s actually The Chessmaster who will manipulate others like disposable chess pieces, control the politics from the shadow, and flip the world upside down for his goal. His profile even claims that "making him your enemy is scarier than facing tens of thousands of troops".

Steam Doll Orchestra

His glamor born of a Tang banquet, with music he summons souls to Penglai

Cuisine: General (普)
Class: Summon
Other Names: Su Yin
Voiced by: Zhao Lu (CN), Jun'ichi Suwabe (JP)

A lavish "visual dish" in Shaowei Banquets in the Tang Dynasty, he once disappeared as the recipe was lost to time. After his rebirth as a Food Spirit, he became the ruler of Penglai Island. A conductor with unmatched expertise, he’s arrogant and distant, yet has a hidden side few knows. Always accompanied by a music spirit.

He’s a yearly-Limited character available for summon only in the Nimbus Symphony banner and its reruns.

---

• Consummate Professional
• Guardian Entity: He is always surrounded by music spirits that look like fairies, and his gimmick is to summon them in battle to fight for him. When he’s attacked, the music spirit behind him will shield him.
• Image Song: "Su Yin", sung by his Chinese voice actor Zhao Lu.
• Mad Artist: Since he’s in the early stage of Food Demonization, he’s mentally unstable and keeps hurting himself as he forces himself to produce more music. He would rather drown in his own insanity than letting others know about his condition however, so Priest Yunshao has to reach out to the young master on his own to get Steam Doll Orchestra the necessary treatments.
• Mood Swing: The effect of Food Demonization gives him terrible mood swings which put him at risk of a mental breakdown. When the young master returns to his chamber after leaving temporarily for the preparation of the banquet, they find him in a depressive state, having committed Self-Harm. As soon as he sees them, he flies into delirium and rages against his own reflection before drowning in his self-hatred again, but once the young master calms him down, he regains his haughty demeanor.
• The Perfectionist
• The Performer King: He’s the king of Penglai Island, a mythical land where music is integral in the people’s life, so it’s natural that he’s the most talented conductor, musician, and composer of the Three Realms.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He’s essentially the God-Emperor of Penglai Island and a Limited character that introduces the Summon class, making him a very formidable member for the player’s team.
• Self-Harm: He tends to cut his own arms during his breakdowns.

Breeze Eel

Spring and fall swell in the symphony, joy and sorrow weaves a song of its own

Cuisine: Zhejiang (浙)
Class: Burst
Other Names:
Voiced by: Ma Zhengyang (CN), Natsuki Hanae (JP)

---

• Stage Names: "Windy" in Gratuitous English.

Five Snake Soup?

Cuisine:
Class: Summon
Other Names:
Voiced by: Li Yuan Tao (CN), Daichū Mizushima (JP)

---

• Early-Bird Cameo: He appeared very briefly after the server boss Tiangou was defeated in Azure Horizon, as his snake swallowed Tiangou when it tried to escape. His sprite at the time was completely shadowed and there was no way for the players to know who he was unless they searched for information outside.

Tiānxiāng Báijì

Cuisine: Common (普)
Class: Control
Other Names:
Voiced by: Liu Beichen (CN), Kazuyuki Okitsu (JP)

---

• Smells Sexy: He's a perfumer, and also takes care to use scented beauty products.

Xuějìgēng (Cotton Rose Soup?)

Cuisine: Common (普)
Class: Support
Other Names:
Voiced by: Hao Xianghai (CN), Nobunaga Shimazaki (JP)

---

• Caring Gardener: He is very good at planting flowers and plants. No matter how difficult it is to take care of, under his hands, it will grow into vitality.
• Flower Motif: Cotton rose, which is the main ingredient of his dish.
• Flower Of Nature
• Pink Is Feminine

Lóngfèngpèi?

Cuisine: Ezhou (鄂)
Class: Support
Other Names:
Voiced by: Sun Ye (CN), Chiaki Kobayashi (JP)

---

• Jekyll & Hyde: He has a nice, caring "Dragon" personality and a brash, violent "Phoenix" personality.

Black Pepper Crab?

Cuisine: General (普)
Class: Burst
Other Names:
Voiced by: Jin Xian (CN), Xie Songfan (SG-MY), Yuki Ono (JP)

---

• Version-Exclusive Content: He came out on the Singapore-Malaysia server first.

Fucha Ryōri

Cuisine:
Class: AoE
Other Names:
Voiced by: Baomu Zhongyang (CN), Hiroki Takahashi (JP)

---

• Version-Exclusive Content: He came out on the Japanese server first.

Sweet'n Sour Pork

Cuisine: Shandong (鲁)
Class: AoE
Other Names: Tang Chu
Voiced by: Tu Xiongfei (CN), Eom Sang-hyun (KR)

A Food Spirit originated from Shandong, who later migrated to a foreign nation and settled down in Chinatown. He was born with a fit body and excellent athletic abilities. While living in Chinatown, he was discovered by a scout while saving people from a kitchen explosion which led to a career in stunt acting, and eventually he became a celebrity.

---

• Famed In-Story: Even though he was initially a stunt double, Sweet'n Sour Pork went viral after replacing the original actor who couldn't perform due to an accident as the main protagonist of a film. He is now a famous movie star, though he still insists on doing all the stunts himself.
• Gratuitous English: In the Chinese and Korean dub, he will sprinkle English in his sentences.
• Happily Adopted: During his early days, he was taken in by a kind old chef, whom he now refers to affectionately as his father.
• Hunk: His job as a stunt actor gives him a fit physique accentuated by his attire, and he’s also a handsome young man.
• Immune to Fire: As a Food Spirit, he’s naturally unaffected by fire, but usually has to feign precautions around them in the presence of other people so as not to raise suspicion.
• Mr. Fanservice: He’s a tall, blond Hunk who walks around with his abs and arms bare.
• Prank Injuries: To hide the fact that he’s not human, he sometimes uses makeup to fake injuries a normal human would have. His Request Aid voice line has him clarify that the injury is just part of the scene and the "blood" on his "wound" is red syrup.
• Renaissance Man: In terms of the film industry. Sweet'n Sour Pork is already an excellent actor who does his own stunts, but he can also do special effects makeup and make movie props on his own, which are two completely different fields from his main job. The props are even edible because he’s a chef at heart too.
• Sweet Tooth: He mentions eating sweet and sour candy sticks to replenish his energy during filming, with his favorite being orange twisters since he feels a connection with how they look. His special gift is a candy toy box, and he also likes to make props with sugar so that they can be eaten later.
• Version-Exclusive Content: He came out on the Global server first.