Age23, 167, or 399, depending on frame of reference.
GenderMale
Race/SpeciesJiangshi
ProfessionI.D.P.D, Detective
The centuries have been kind to him, and he is gifted with the same body he had three days after his sudden death, unlike many other less-aware undead whose bodies and minds have rotten away. This is not to say, however, that he doesn't look dead. His face is masked by a deathly palor as is expected of the undead, and the blood pooled beneath his eyes makes him appear as though he hasn't slept in years (which he hasn't).
At 6'2", he is a fairly tall man of Han Chinese heritage, with the typical short and straight black hair. His irises are a deep chestnut, surrounded by scleras of red and yellow. Sunken cheeks highlight sharp and high cheekbones, and his chin appears so sharp that one might imagine they could impale a man upon it, were it not for the thin full beard standing in the way. He appears to be very thin for his height, and generally weighs approximately 165 pounds, though this fluctuates somewhat depending on his vitality at that moment.
He has only very rarely changed his outfits throughout the century and a half since his reanimation, as he has a significant attachment to the garments that he grew up with and died in. As a Ming police captain, he wears a dark grey yuanlingshan, trimmed in yellow and emblazoned with a Mandarin Square prominently featuring a bear upon a field of flowers. Sitting atop his head is a very, very old wushamao, with yellow lace bordering the very bottom of the hat.
One might note that his body doesn't move much, which he publicly blamed on severe early-onset arthritis before moving to the Imaginary District. One might also note that when in a hurry, his body still doesn't move much despite him bouncing from place to place like a man riding a rather uncooperative pogo stick. The truth of the matter is that he was merely unlucky enough to have stopped decomposing in the middle of the onset of rigor mortis.
His fingertips are tipped in short yet extremely sharp and clawlike nails.
Yongzheng is a relatively kind man with an unquenchable thirst for
justice. His skills of observation and tracking have served him well throughout the years, and he can be counted on to remember any details that he has observed, smelled, or heard. He is an extremely reliable man, and very rarely forgets a promise - though he is realistic and avoids making promises that he cannot keep. He values his friends, family, and the government greatly, as he was raised in an era in which rulers were considered to have been placed there by the gods themselves. He is respectful toward those he believes to have a rightfully earned position above him, and does not actively seek to improve his own stature. He refuses to talk down to those he believes to be below himself, as they deserve his respect and support just as much as he deserves theirs.
That said, when speaking to those he considers his equals, he tends to be much more gruff and rough around the edges, as he allows his real personality to shine through. He is somewhat grumpy because of his inability to move as well as others and the constant pain of death, but beyond that, he is very well adjusted.
As a walking corpse, he is effectively incapable of feeling fear, save for the fears of failure and of collateral damage in the line of duty. He is calm and collected most of the time, but is easily irritated and almost as quick to anger.
He utterly despises thieves, muggers, burglars, bankers, brigands, and all other manners of violent criminals. He dislikes delinquents, but feels that it is his duty to set them straight.
His favorite food is
justice the Italian style calzone, with crab legs coming in a close second. It makes him feel full like it would were he still entirely human, but it doesn't satisfy his hunger for sustenance of a more ethereal variety.
He dislikes being asked about his past and his experiences as a Jiangshi, and works himself to the bone to try to make up for his own crimes as a leech and abomination.
Immortality and Regeneration:He's already died once. He's not about to do it again. What would be mortal wounds for those of lesser fortitudes are but mere annoyances for him, though it is very possible to cripple him for some time before his body returns to its unnatural (and whole) state.
That being said, he may be permanently returned to death by having a stake made of the wood of a peach tree driven to his heart, being forced to ingest the blood of a black dog, having his breath stolen by another, or being burnt to ashes.
Objects of Chinese superstitious significance make him extraordinarily uncomfortable, as do mirrors (which he attributes to the shock of seeing his own corpse). Direct sunlight halts his regeneration and permits him to decay.
Undead Strength:His muscles might be degraded, but they are imbued with the energy of both an excess of life and unlife. Under ordinary circumstances, his strength is merely slightly elevated by his status as an undead being, but immediately after gorging himself upon a massive feast of life energy, his strength is such that he may rip light posts, telephone poles, and some less well grounded trees out of the ground.
When he fails to feed, his strength slowly dwindles. As he found during his wandering after his reanimation, he is almost weaker than a common housecat when outside the presence of living humans for too long.
Undead Speed:He may have a lot of time on his hands (claws?), but that doesn't mean he doesn't have places to be, sights to see, and
criminal scum to catch. While his muscles are slow to act and generally very stiff, he leaps from point to point with the ease provided by a century and a half's worth of practice. Each bounce sends his planklike body flying a few meters, and after heavy feeding, this increases dramatically.
Energy Leeching:His own vitality has a baseline - that of undeath, which alone isn't terribly great. That said, he is hungry constantly, and when well nourished, he feels almost as good as he did in life.
He does not need to touch his victims to steal their energy, but it very much helps. Much of his nourishment that brings him to his usual daily levels comes from passively draining miniscule amounts of energy from every person in the area - which, in this case, is the entirety of the Imaginary District. He prides himself on being one of the many driving forces behind the town's thriving coffee industry because of this.
Touching a living humanlike victim permits him to very rapidly drain their life energy for his own needs, but there are some limits in place. It is much easier to actively drain energy from a willing participant, and only as much as they are willing to give. Likewise, unwilling victims cannot easily be actively drained without genuine malicious intent on his part.
He cannot leech energy from creatures that did not originate from the material plane, such as angels, demons, and the like, as their life energy is incompatible with his own - and, as it should go without saying, he cannot leech life from the undead.
Undead Senses:His body is coarsely tuned to hunt down the living for the purposes of draining their energy.
He is drawn towards the heat of living creatures, and can smell the species, age, health, and characteristics of most creatures simply by being in their immediate vicinity, assuming they're breathing. Lingering breath in the air helps him track others, and scents upon clothing and skin may draw him in as well, but not quite as well as active breathing. His vision is much less keen than it was during life, however, largely thanks to three days of low grade decay having blurred his eyes. His hearing is average.
Investigation: A police captain in the Ministry of Justice under the Ming Dynasty in life, and a police officer in many cities and countries in death, his investigative skills are polished to a fine sheen. Solving mysteries is one of the greatest pleasures he can experience as a dead man, eclipsed only by the satisfaction of bringing
criminal scum to justice.
Paperwork: Oh god, the paperwork. Every day was a nightmare of fine penmanship and report filing in life, and as such, he can concisely fill out reports that are easily understood by almost any employer. The invention of the Personal Computer only made this easier, and these days, he carries a laptop with him for the sole purpose of efficiently filing police reports. His immortal (and thus untrimmable) fingernails make using a touchscreen tablet impossible, unfortunately.
Art: Though extremely slow from the muscular degradation, his hand is steady. Working as a sketch artist has refined his hand somewhat, and he draws portraits and landscapes with ease, provided he has seen them or heard their description. Sadly, he isn't creative enough to draw purely from imagination.
Laundry: He is the king of keeping his clothing clean. It is extremely difficult for him to change outfits, and as such, it is important for every outfit to be kept immaculate. Stains, wrinkles, and the like disappear from him every time he enters a bathroom, and his methods for doing this are a very closely kept secret - even more secret than his status as a walking corpse had been previously.
Steady Aim: One of the few positives of living with rigor mortis - his aim is incredibly stable, and provided enough time to draw his pistol, he cannot miss his target unless the weapon itself or the wind throws the shot off course. Combined with his strength as an undead abomination, recoil doesn't seem to have any effect on him whatsoever, so long as he wields a reasonable weapon (and not, say, a .500 revolver).
Trilingual: He grew up speaking Mandarin Chinese in the early 17th century, and learned to fluently speak the English and Italian of the time during his regular encounters with foreigners. His accent is understandable, if unusual and clearly very old.
One 8-inch Colt Python in blued steel - the weapon of choice for an undead detective.
One Blackjack - head of powdered lead coated in soft and durable leather, mounted on a spring.
One Extendable Baton.
Four pairs of Handcuffs.
Ziptie cuffs. Lots of them.
One police interceptor.
A badge.
A laptop.
Yongzheng was born in Nanjing in 1617 to a relatively well-off merchant family. His parents were as wealthy as could be expected, and often traded what they considered worthless baubles to foreign visitors for hefty prices, garnering a reputation as shrewd salesmen in the process. Their wealth permitted them to hire a tutor for Yongzheng during much of his childhood, and though he wasn't the best student, he certainly wasn't the worst. He paid attention, unlike some other boys his age and status - particularly to philosophy, politics, and history, much to his parents' chagrin. Each successive year showed them more that he was not cut out to be a trader like they were, and they considered giving up on his education. His tutor, however, suggested to them that he might be cut out for a position as a public official, and they grumpily accepted that he would have a respectable future in that area.
Long lessons on mathematics, history, the known sciences, art, literature, and Confucius's Four Books and Five Classics filled his days until he turned seventeen, when he took the Imperial Exam, which he passed with flying colors. Dull flying colors, that is - his scores were good, but not good enough for a particularly high office, and he was put in the employ of the Ministry of Justice.
For six years, his work as a member of the police force gained him a reputation as a very good man to know, and as a very bad man to cross. Not because he was a particularly violent or angry person, but because he could be counted on to know everybody's business whether they had told him or not, which made it very, very easy for him to arrest most people in the community should he feel that he had been given just cause.
Sadly, he perished in the line of duty at the age of Twenty-Three in 1640, shortly before the fall of the Ming Dynasty. During an investigation of a series of murders, a great storm struck, and the serial murderer who had been regularly sending him death threats (which he ignored as a matter of policy) came to him as he walked his beat. His body was never found.
In 1849, his heart started beating again, and he found himself buried beneath several feet of mud and gravel beneath the Yangtze River. Thinking he had just been stabbed and buried alive, he panicked, and found himself miraculously able to swim through the dirt and water to the riverbanks - where he eventually learned of how much time had passed since his untimely death. He knew not why he had returned, but assumed it to have something to do with his unquenched thirst for
justice. In reality, though, it was caused by an excess of good will toward him from his community in conjunction with a violent death and unfinished business - much more complicated and difficult to replicate.
After spending years as a hobo and traveler, he eventually learned the new order of the world and what had happened to his beloved country. Forging an identity permitted him to retake the Imperial Exam, which he passed with similar results to his first attempt over two hundred years prior, allowing him back into the police force to fight against the growing threat of the Opium trade.
Since his awakening, he has traveled throughout much of Europe, China, and the Americas, periodically moving from country to country every time his peers began to question his lack of aging. During his travels, he encountered others like himself, as well as a number of other abnormal creatures - and, indeed, he was misidentified as a vampire no fewer than three times, which resulted in him taking a wooden stake through the heart twice, and a bullet to the head once. Thankfully, the stakes were made of oak and birch respectively - and with each 'death', he arose once more several days later, albeit with a splitting headache and a maddening hunger that nearly drove him to kill the first person who came across him and tried to help.
More recently, he has moved to the Imaginary District, where he immediately joined the Police Department. His reasoning was that with a great number of supernatural beings in the city, the life energy present would be so great that he would never find himself hungry again - and, thus, he could continue his work without the greatest drawback of being a walking corpse - the tendency to go mad with hunger and lose control when deprived of energy.
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