Shopping for a Killer in the Character Maker
I had every intention of jumping straight into drafting Exhibit 74 today, but I realized I hadn't locked down the actual details for Zaza, the Chinese assassin. What does he look like? What weapons does he actually fight with?
To figure it out, I turned to my custom character maker. I think of using this app like going shopping— you start with a base (Chinese, active field assassin, roughly 25 to 35 years old) and then you start adding things. With over 5,500 parameters in the database, I can just grab traits that fit the vibe Im going for. The result was a highly specific profile: a 27-year-old Northern Chinese aircraft mechanic with a Mongolian heritage.
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Steppe Culture and Social Media Clout
That Mongolian connection immediately clicked for me. I traveled to Mongolia a couple of years ago, and of all the places I've been around the world, that culture resonated with me the most. There's something about the open spaces and the hearty, resilient people surviving in a harsh environment that just stuck with me.
I wanted to contrast that traditional grit with something hyper-modern. My wife and I have been watching a Chinese lifestyle YouTuber lately who frequently sings in his videos. I loved the idea of mashing up a rugged assassin with an influencer aesthetic.
I’ve also been reading up on the steroid epidemic among Gen Z clout-chasers— people literally killing themselves for social media views. I decided to fold that vanity into Zaza's character, which ended up tying perfectly into the supernatural abilities I'd already planned for him.
The Mechanics of Wound Exchange
In Cereus & Limnic: Escape From Okinawa Type B, Zaza has a mechanic called "Wound Exchange." Through direct physical contact, and his crown, he can trade the condition of one injured body region with the corresponding region of a target— swapping a bleeding shoulder for a healthy one, for example.
Because he's actively destroying his own body with steroids to maintain his influencer physique, he constantly needs to outsource his physical deterioration. The visual for this is incredibly dark: he keeps birds, like egrets, around him as consumable meat shields to absorb his damage. Perfect for the horror aesthetic of the novel.
This physical transaction mirrors his psychological obsession with debts. Zaza is deeply offended by unpaid obligations. To him, true independence begins when nobody can collect from you, and he treats every fight like an accounting problem to clear his final ledger with Legion.
Nailing the Voice: Curses and Folk Songs
To make his dialogue authentic to a short-tempered diesel mechanic, I restricted his voice to plainspoken, exact nouns. I also gave him a bilingual swearing habit. When a calculation is wrong, he snaps Mandarin curses like Fàngpì (bullshit). When equipment fails, he uses guttural Mongolian plosives like Zolig (damn it).
Because of that YouTuber inspiration, I also mapped out three specific songs Zaza sings during his arc. He hums the expansive folk ballad Swan Geese while calmly rigging his traps. He switches to the high-energy pop track The Lasso Pole to hype himself up on camera before a fight. Finally, his defeat is scored by the fatalistic Ulaanbaatar Night.
Once I generated a concept image that captured his signature smirk, the character finally felt real. It took about an hour and a half to flesh him out, but I’m ready to hit the ground running. Tomorrow, Zaza springs his trap on Sharla, Rose and Ryu. All for the the likes of strangers he'll never meet.