"Charlie" Yeong Wu Qian

## **Early Life**

Yeong Wu Qian was born in San Francisco, the Third Son of the Sixth Generation of the Yeong Li Trading Company, LTD based in Chinatown. Though his family had been in the United States for hundreds of years, Tradition still held strong sway over family practices and Charlie was raised with high expectations. Thus he was given his Chinese name to be used in all formal functions while his English name was treated more as a nickname so that Americans could address him without mangling his true name. Nonetheless it was his English name, the name that all his friends called out when they saw him, that Charlie considered his true name. His Chinese name became associated with the strictness of his family's upbringing, the high expectations that he would at least equal his brothers in all things if not surpass them, and the realization that the Third Son was the back up for the understudy in running his family's business.

Though his first and second elder brothers were already groomed for taking over the family business, Charlie was also expected to have some hand in contributing to and growing his family's legacy. From a young age Charlie sought to escape from under the thumb of his family's hierarchy, headed by the eldest living member of the family, Grandmother Shu. He first found true escape in the films of Martial Artist and film star Bruce Lee. The popularity of martial arts movies skyrocketed and Charlie watched Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Tony Leung, and many others star in films from Hong Kong.

This love of martial arts films also lead Charlie to the classic Samurai films out of Japan: The Seven Samurai, Zatoichi, Yojimbo, The Forty-Seven Samurai, Lone Wolf and Cub, Harakiri. Each of these films glorified or dissected the feudal system of ancient Japan and the samurai who were the warriors of highest renown. While the martial arts movies out of Hong Kong provided entertainment and action, the samurai movies from Japan provided a code of beliefs that instilled in young Charlie a desire to follow Bushido and he became enamored with what he envisioned was the Way of the Samurai. He also unabashedly loves the movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai starring Forest Whitaker.

## **Twilight Years**

While initially supporting Charlie's desire to learn martial arts, it eventually became apparent to his family that his obsession with fighting was interfering with his studies. His brashness and impatience was not tempered by martial arts as they had hoped, but instead lead him to arrogance and self-importance. Charlie's high school days were filled with fights and brawls, both on campus and in the streets of San Francisco. After several years his family finally stepped in and threatened to take him out of martial arts entirely unless he shaped up. By this time though, Charlie had already made plans to get beyond the easy reach of the Yeong clan and found himself a scholarship to an international school in Japan.

Seeing the scholarship to a Japanese University as a sign of Charlie finally maturing, Grandmother Shu and his parents gladly allowed him to attend and sent him off to the Land of the Rising Sun. Little did they know that he was finally taking his first step onto the Path of the Samurai. Embracing all of Japanese culture as his new adopted home, Charlie came to Japan full of imagery from Anime, Manga, Samurai movies, and internationally recognized Japanese classics: Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, The Ring, Battle Royale. Charlie enrolled in his University and then quickly found his way to the Kendo Club and joined before the school year even started. He soon became the star of his school's Kendo Club and began winning regional tournaments. It wasn't long though before Charlie got sick of fake wooden swords and began looking for a school to teach him real swordsmanship. He found The White Lotus.

After a short audition consisting of a sparring session with the Dojo's newest member, Charlie was accepted into The White Lotus as their youngest and newest member. There he was taught to examine the world around him and appreciate its beauty, both through the written word and the forms of the blade. The White Lotus' strict lessons put a short leash on Charlie's temper, he saw the skill with which his teachers wielded the blade and he knew that he would get no where without their guidance. He learned quickly and soon became one of the Dojo's most promising students. This would gain him the attention of a certain individual named Shinichiro Kazuma.

## **Death and Rebirth**

Shinichiro Kazuma was one of the teachers at The White Lotus, though he only taught the night classes. He recognized immediately the talent that young Charlie from America possessed and approached him about attending the Dojo's advanced courses. This of course would require a larger monthly fee and the advanced courses were only taught late at night, after the normal courses were all done for the day. Charlie leapt at the chance and signed on immediately. Charlie had already been struggling to keep up with his University's work load but, upon devoting his nights to studying with his new teacher, he gave up even the pretense of trying and gave himself over to mastering the sword.

It eventually came to his family's attention that Charlie had forsaken schooling for the pursuit of his silly little dream of becoming a Samurai. Grandmother Shu had few options left to her to reign in this errant child so she chose to freeze all of Charlie's financial assets and demand that he return home at once to San Francisco. Panicked and frightened, Charlie had very few avenues available to him. Without his family's money he could not afford to live in Japan on his own. When he told Shinichiro Kazuma that he had to quit the Dojo and return to America, his generous teacher offered him a deal that would solve all his problems and more.

Shinichiro Kazuma told Charlie that to lose such a gifted student would be a waste of good talent and offered to house the young man at a private dormitory that the Dojo owned. All Charlie would have to do was sign a contract and he could continue living in Japan and learning the sword; he could continue pursuing his personal dream. The documents presented seemed to indicate some kind of bodyguard role and Charlie's teacher assured him that it was mostly ceremonial and Charlie would be required to dress up once in a while and look intimidating. Shinichiro Kazuma did warn Charlie that the contract had to be signed in blood, but this only sparked Charlie's desire even more. A contract signed in blood? This spoke of ancient customs where a man's honor was in his word and in his blood and Charlie excitedly pierced his finger with a knife and signed the contract without a second thought. Finally, he was being accepted as a Samurai. This was the last act of Charlie's short life.

## **Genesis and Exodus**

After the initial shock, Charlie quickly grew to appreciate the advantages of unlife. Lactic acid no longer built up in his muscles, slowing him down with pain. Weariness no longer creeped into his arms as he practiced his swings and forms. Sweat no longer stained his clothes or stung his eyes as he devoted hours to his craft. He did miss eating and sex, but he couldn't do anything about it so he tried to ignore all the little things that he couldn't control. Having to drink human blood was a bit weird at first, but it was made easier by drinking first from medical blood bags and then from beautiful women. All the while learning the sword from his new master, Shinichiro Kazuma.

Charlie was one of a handful of students, and undoubtedly the best among them. The other students were his seniors though and in Japanese culture, and especially in the White Lotus Dojo, seniority was important. So even as he bested them with the blade, he had to bow to them and remain humble. It was, understandably, quite difficult to master humility but somehow he managed. Charlie did earn respect while holding the sword and the others kept any negative thoughts, if there were any, to themselves in his presence. Speaking only when spoken to meant that he had to listen to his peers, and they tended to do a lot of talking.

Things were said that piqued Charlie's interest: Shinichiro-sensei wanted Charlie because he was gaijin and therefore couldn't have ties to the court; they were being trained as the new elites and would be high officers in the new court; half the Yakuza were controlled by the various courts of Nihon and the other half were controlled by vampires clever enough to hide it; there were ways you could actually taste food and have sex again though they were forbidden for one reason or another; Nobunaga Oda was still alive and a vampire of vast influence and reach; Ieyasu Tokugawa was the childer of Nobunaga and both were rulers in the shadows; Anime was a conspiracy to spread the cultural influence of Nihon across the world.

A few of these rumors turned out to be true and it was Charlie's unfortunate luck to learn it during a raid on his teacher's training compound. Shinichiro Kazuma was an ambitious man and was training warriors in secret so that he could seize power in his court. The plot was discovered however through divinations and the ruler of the court brought down the full force of his vassals upon the would-be usurper. It was Shinichiro Kazuma's focus on martial training that was his undoing as his students had little to no protection from the mind altering abilities or the weird magicks levered against them. They did however have highly honed sword skills and unnatural speed born through countless hours of training.

Shinichiro Kazuma was attending a regularly scheduled court function that night and everyone else in the Dojo was either teaching or training. The night grew late and the lessons drew to a close when alarms sounded and multiple breaches were reported by the Dojo's security system. Charlie's initial flight from the secret underground White Lotus training hall was lead by his most senior teacher, second-in-command behind Shinichiro Kazuma. Though they weren't actually running away but towards one of the breach points. They were intercepted by vampires who appeared as if from thin air, shadows suddenly given form. The first shadow nearly took off Charlie's head but was quickly beheaded by Charlie's own counter attack. And then the world got fuzzy, shadows stretched across the floor and wrapped themselves around his ankles, the sword in his hand started melting.

The world snapped back to normal as his teacher's sword erupted from the chest of a second shadow who had snuck up behind them. Charlie barely had time to turn his head before a third shadow appeared, a mouth full of razors sank into the back of his teacher's neck and ripped out the spine. The tip of Charlie's sword pierced the top of this one's skull as he rammed the full length of his katana into that nightmarish maw and swiftly retracted it. Charlie beheaded the vampire who still had his teacher's sword in its chest and as the ashes covered the floor he took stock of the situation. Less than three seconds had passed and four vampires were dead. He would have been dead too if his teacher hadn't been there. His master was nowhere to be found, possibly already a captive of their attackers if not already dead.

As soon as Charlie decided that he had to escape the underground tomb his master had invited him to, searing fire burned across his chest and he nearly fell to his knees at the pain. Looking down at himself there was nothing there, but the pain persisted, digging furrows in his flesh with no apparent source. He ran as fast as he could to the nearest entrance and fled from the besieged White Lotus Dojo. He managed to get to one of the emergency blood stashes his master kept in the city and fled towards the docks. The attack happened less than an hour before sunrise and Charlie barely had time to get himself onto a cargo container headed for the Port of Oakland before the sun spread its deadly light across the still sleeping city.