Another baby! She’s one of my faves so far! (Mostly because she’s a writer so obviously I fucking love her). Her name is Minzhe. She's a literary genius who is apprenticed under Ningguang at the Jade Palace. As a kid, her home life was chaotic, her parents both in trouble constantly for a variety of unethical actions. Fearing she would rat them out, they made sure she never would --- by sewing a talisman into her skin, forcing her to eat a second one. One barred her from speaking of evil, the other set in place a punishment were the first to be broken - the talismans marks would cover her skin.
Minzhe's only escape was her writing. She was good at that. Her head was always full of too many thoughts, too many words, too many images and memories. But her hand was steady when she wrote, so she wrote until she passed out, wrote until her hands hurt, wrote until things would finally make sense.
She made the mistake of writing too much --- revealing the crimes her parents were committing in one of her journals. Her teacher read it, and brought it to Ningguang.
Her parents were arrested and taken into custody, where she was found left in the house when the Milleth swept through it. She was taken in and questioned. While she originally refused to speak, the guards handling her began to threaten violence, which is when she broke down and confirmed what she wrote was true. In that same instant, her skin was covered by swirling black marks.
Confused and horrified at what had happen, the guards had Ningguang brought in to inspect her. Ningguang recognised Minzhe's incredible mind, and ruled she could stay at the Jade Palace while they figured out how to break the curse, working as one of Ningguang's advisors. She isn't much of a fighter yet, but her incredible mind makes her the perfect candidate for an eventual successor. She's scatter-brained, bad at thinking on the spot, and still prone to writing over speaking her thoughts, but one day, she's going to take on the world.
