We all joked about Pantalone's smoking addiction and the comically big amounts of cigs he consumed to fuck up his lungs like that, but also that is, ironically, one of the most human and realistic traits they could give to a character with his story, like its depressingly realistic once you think about it.
We always had characters with traumatic backstories that lead to them developing unhealthy copying mechanisms and addictions (clearest example its Mondstadt, half of its cast are chronic drinkers with depressing pasts or lives where drinking is sometimes the only thing that can drown the sorrows), and also had non humans creatures having to deal with traumatizing stuff for centuries, yet Pantalone is such an interesting case because he is a whole human, not a god or a fantasy creature but a person like you and me that had his life span artificially extended while also dealing with a lot of trauma no human being should experience.
When you think about it his tragedies are a mix of unfortunate common human experiences that anybody could potentially suffer (poverty, human trafficking, abuse etc), wich he probably assumed he was gonna die from, and once he got involved with the powerful people of Teyvat, it shifted to a much more privileged position yet still dealing with the daily strugles that comes with becoming a figure with high status, having your body modified for research purposes and honestly anything that comes with allying yourself with Dottore (His medical notes that we get from Datattore's boss talked about how terribly stressed he was all the time and how often he got hurt, his ass was NOT having fun with that live style).
Thinking about it, of all we have confirmed to the moment its there anything about his current life we can point as nice or positive for him and not just for the people he benefits? Aside from all the political power and wealth he holds, and having the most loyal and capable colleague thats also his dearest friend, everything else about his life sounds so... misserable. Adding to that whe can assume that in all those years of existence he didn't have any other close connection to another being that isn't that one friend who had died in his presence, multiple times.
What I'm saying its that it is a big miracle the only self destructive behaviour he got is something as common as smoking comically massive amounts of cigs because, damn imagine being a simple human having your whole life being that? If I were him at one point I would have told Dottore to unplug whatever device he is using to keep me conscious.
Reading through his medical reports at first gave me the impression that he gotta be terribly unlucky to get so deeply hurt so often, but also what I got from that kinda sounded as if he was starting to genuinelly lose interest to take care of his own health. Maybe its because he knows he got a blue haired guardian angel that can deal with any injury, or maybe because his situation is so unbelievably misserable that even his own psique is failing on keeping the self perservation instincts, wich makes his addiction to getting lung cancer make so much sense.
Feofan has the potential to be one of the most realistic and human characters written in this game, I really hope this messy side of his person gets properly explored in future quests, or they could just reduce it all to unfunny repetitive jokes like they had done to others (or the secret third option: all this gets watered down or erased when he becomes playable because "we can't let a character that isa bad example to the kids being playable!!1" or something), lets hope thats not the case because I'm interested in seeing what they can do with this dude if they decide to be brave.
