Mei-Li Shen

**Mei-Li Shen** is the mother of Nicky Shen. She and her husband, Jin, are restaurateurs whose secrets threaten to destroy their lives just as they deal with the return of their estranged daughter.

## Biography

### Pilot

When Nicky returns to San Francisco, she and Ryan are both less than thrilled to see her back home, with Mei-Ling feeling especially resentful that Nicky chose to run away rather than to express her reservations about being set up for an arranged marriage.

As Nicky and her siblings begin asking local businesses for more information about their father's attackers, they are accosted by armed goons who are easily dispatched by Nicky.

In the aftermath, Nicky and Mei-Li finally have it out, with Nicky revealing that it was Mei-Li that pressured her to break up with Evan and micro-managed her life until she traveled to China.

Later with the mob now off their backs, the Shens happily celebrate Althea's marriage and Nicky and Mei-Li formally reconcile.

### Silence

Althea, Ryan, Mei-Li, and Jin cook Nicky a welcome home breakfast and surprise Nicky with their cheerfulness. All four immediately demand Nicky’s time, with Mei-Li already suggesting both an eligible bachelor and a law internship. Nicky tells her she’s not going to law school as she notices the smell of smoke in the kitchen as the chicken burns. She’s transported to the night Pei-Ling died, and she awakens terrified in her own bed. As it turns out, it was all a dream, including the nice breakfast.

At the restaurant, Jin and Mei-Li argue over Nicky. Mei-Li is worried she’ll leave them again while Jin is hopeful she’s home for good.

Later, when Nicky goes to the family restaurant, she finds Evan is eating his lunch there. As it turns out, he’s been a regular there since Nicky left, telling her he actually had a better relationship with Mei-Li once they broke up.

At home that night, Nicky realizes she missed her game with her dad. He’s asleep on the couch, and her mom watches as Nicky puts a blanket over him. Mei-Li chastises her, saying Jin waited up for her. She also says he waited for her after she left, never losing hope she’d be back one day. Mei-Li then confronts her daughter by saying how she thinks Nicky doesn’t really want to be back. In the end, she just had nowhere else to go. Nicky can’t deny this, but then Ronda calls and the mother and daughter conversation abruptly ends. Derek drained their bank accounts before Carmen could revoke his power of attorney. Mei-Li tells Nicky to just go, and she reluctantly leaves.

The next morning, Nicky surprises Jin with a game. Mei-Li comes down the stairs to hear Nicky say she’s not going anywhere.

### Hand

Mei Li and the rest of the Shen family prepare for Althea's next marriage marital event ahead of her impending nuptials to Dennis Soong.

While the meeting between the Shen family and Soong family over dinner goes well initially, Dennis' father reveals he wants Althea to sign a prenuptial agreement. This coincides with an investigative reporter alerting Althea that her source dropped out in a sexual misconduct case linked to one of Althea's former employers. Snapping at the request, Althea vents about being objectified and storms out of the dinner.

When she and Jin finally talk, the two parets discuss how proud they are of how Althea stood up to her future in-laws.

### Sanctuary

As Jin and Mei-Li buy groceries for the family restaurant somewhere in San Francisco, they observe that hate crimes targeting Asian Americans are on the rise. Nicky and Henry run into their own troubling incident in Chinatown, with an unarmed Black teenager named Andre shot by the police after being mistaken for a robber, dying the next day from his wounds. In the wake of protests against police brutality across the neighborhood, Mei-Li is horrified when the restaurant's storefront is vandalized. While Nicky and Jin initially give activists passing by bottled water, the protests turn chaotic when riot police are deployed, employing tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The Shen family then decide to open up their restaurant to allow activists a place to shelter from the police's unrelenting response, internal pressures between the family begin to form.Eventually, Ryan's boyfriend Joe Harper is then identified as a person of interest by the police for allegedly inciting the crowd, but Nicky's ex-boyfriend and assistant district attorney Evan Hartley gives her the heads up that the police intend to search the restaurant for him.

While Joe prepares to willingly surrender to the police, Nicky leads her family, which surprisingly includes Mei-Li in standing up and being volunteered to be arrested instead. However, as the police prepare to call for reinforcements to bring everyone in, Althea shows video evidence disproving police reports that Joe incited the crowd. Realizing their case won't hold up in court, the police depart empty-handed.

Later, Mei-Li confesses that her hardened response to the protests was that the shooting and vandalism of the restaurant triggered traumatic memories of the family being harassed by some racists when the Shen children were young years earlier.

Eventually, Mei-Li visits the street-side memorial to Andre alone, sharing a quiet moment with Andre's mother.

### Rage

At the Shen’s restaurant, Nicki gets texts from Henry saying he’s set up a meeting between them and Randall for noon at the apothecary. Mei-Li then walks in and proceeds to comment on how Nicky’s been happy before not-so-subtly inquiring about Henry. Nicky deflects and leaves. Jin walks in and tells Mei-Li he wants to surprise her with a date night.

Unfortunately, Nicky bumps into Evan, who expresses surprise at seeing her at an event like the gala. Not long after that awkward encounter, the gang runs into Jin and Mei-Li, who the Soongs gave their extra tickets to. Ryan tries to distract them with an art exhibit, but they all get roped in. Mei-Li starts questioning Henry about his plans after graduate school.

Jin asks Mei-Li why she was interrogating Henry. Mei-Li says she’s heard things around town about Henry’s past and his family. Jin reminds her that whatever happened in the past, Henry’s pulled himself up by his bootstraps and turned his behavior around. Jin then mentions how Henry reminds him of himself.

### Guidance

When Nicky returns home, she learns that her mother Mei-Li secretly watched her daughter battle Drake and saw firsthand that she has claimed her martial arts destiny. Mei-Li then reveals that Nicky is fated to reclaim the jade sword, as she is evidently linked to Pei-Ling Zhang and Zhilan Zhang as a long-lost family member, stemming all the way back to Liang Daiyu.

### Destiny

At home, Jin tells Mei-Li that she betrayed his trust and made him a worse parent due to his lack of understanding of Nicky.

When Nicky comes home, she ignores Mei-Li. She then tells Ryan what’s been going on as she accuses Mei-Li of “nuking” her marriage to their dad. They all choose not to tell Althea as tonight is her bachelorette party. Ryan and Nicky leave to find Jin, with Mei-Li staying back.

Eventually, Mei-Li and Nicky talk. Nicky lets her know Jin is coming home, and she asks how Mei-Li knew it was her. Mei-Li tells her that at one year old, Nicky was carrying around Mei-Xue’s earring. Mei-Li knew she was destined to follow her path, and she didn’t want to lose Nicky too. Nicky says now she’s choosing this path to reclaim The Sword of Liang Daiyu, and choosing to forgive Mei-Li. But she needs the whole truth. Mei-Li agrees and opens a desk to reveal a box with everything Mei-Li knows about Mei-Xue. She gives it to Nicky.

### Isolation

At the restaurant, Mei-Li and Jin awkwardly reunite. Mei-Li asks if they should talk, and Jin says he needs time as he preps for the lunch rush.

Later, Mei-Li admits she is worried about Nicky going to Canada, but Nicky tells her if this is her path, she needs to know what happened to Mei-Xue.

When Duke wants proof she is really Mei-Xue’s niece, and Nicky calls Mei-Li. She asks Mei-Li to tell her about Mei-Xue and what she was really like. It convinces Duke as Mei-Li calls Mei-Xue her hero. She cries, and Jin comforts her.

Sometime later, Nicky follows the blossoms to a deserted cabin. Inside, Nicky sees a picture of Mei-Xue and Mei-Li.

Eventually, Jin and Mei-Li make up. Nicky then tells Mei-Li what happened to Mei-Xue as they hug.

### Choice

While Mei-Li listen to Mei-Xue’s tapes, Althea, Nicky, and Ryan wait in another room. While they wait, Althea bothers her siblings about who they’re going to bring as their plus ones to her wedding. Ryan claims Joe hasn’t even met their parents. Althea and Ryan then tease Nicky about being stuck between Evan and Henry now that Evan broke up with Sabine. Eventually, Mei-Li returns the tapes to Nicky, thanking her for giving her closure and warning her to be careful in pursuing the secrets of “Biange.”

Mei-Li is in the kitchen cooking her mother’s plum sauce when Jin comes in. Mei-Li wants to add it to the menu as a tribute to Mei-Xue because it was her favorite. Jin suggests Mei-Li takes over the cooking and they revamp the menu while he moves to work the front of the restaurant, as it will make her happy. She agrees.

Joe and Ryan arrive at Harmony Dumplings. Jin greets them and brings them back to meet Mei-Li in the kitchen. Jin tells them about their new plans to change things up and Joe offers to help Jin with the restaurant’s new logo in exchange for dumplings. Mei-Li teasingly berates Ryan for dressing so casually on a date with Joe. It seems Joe has won their approval.

Later, Mei-Li expresses her approval of Joe and invites him to the wedding; much to Ryan’s chagrin, as he hasn’t asked him yet.