Xuan Wen

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Xuan Wen (宣雯)
Alias(es)	Psychopathic Serial Killer—her designation in the dating game 5
Gender	Female 5
Species/Race	Fictional character manifested as a supernatural being; seeks to become human 7 20 22
Affiliation	Nightlight Studio; Gao Ming’s supernatural and game-development partnership 17 24
Occupation/Role	Game designer; ninth-route heroine of To Our Love That Will Eventually Fade; entrusted with managing Nightlight’s Strange Tale game production 5 24
Residence	Room 2507, Building Two, Lijing Apartments—the former home of Zhao Xi 6 7
Status	Active; resisting the Shadow World’s attempts to return her to her scripted fate 22 47
First Appearance	Introduced as Gao Ming’s game character and as Nightlight Studio’s new employee 5

Power Progression

Xuan Wen’s development is shown through supernatural changes rather than named personal ranks; the Investigation Bureau’s numbered levels classify anomaly events, not her individual strength 15 34.

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Manifestation in reality	5 6	Appears as a new employee at Nightlight Studio and can move freely through the city in daylight.
Partial release from restraint	7	Reports killing the eight other dating-game heroines over three days. Her portrait’s wedding dress begins gaining color, which she interprets as evidence that the killings weaken a restraint on her.
Emotion-fed independence	19	After more than a thousand people try the game, their emotions reach her as voices. Her consciousness becomes more independent and complete, while their attention anchors her to reality.
Formation of a memory-and-obsession chain	20	As the demo exceeds fifteen thousand downloads, black, chainlike blood vessels develop within her and converge at her neck. Her stronger sense of self is accompanied by severe instability.
Early adaptation to absorbed emotions	22	Begins adjusting to the voices and extreme emotions of more than ten thousand people. She believes this accumulation enables her to participate in another supernatural game, although its shadows still reject her.
Controlled voices and emotion-tasting	34	Reports that she can manage the voices in her head and taste emotions. Her predicted transformation after collecting one hundred thousand different emotions remains unconfirmed.

Background / History

Gao Ming created Xuan Wen as the ninth heroine of Wei Dayou’s dating game, To Our Love That Will Eventually Fade. Her route introduced a highly intelligent serial killer whose sincere love became pathological obsession after betrayal. She constantly knew the protagonist’s whereabouts and watched him, turning the conventional dating simulation toward supernatural crime 5.

After awakening in reality, Xuan Wen found a black-and-white memorial portrait beside her. She says her compulsive attachment led her to locate Gao Ming in the tunnel on the night of the Ghost Festival and bring him home. According to her account, he had been walking deeper into a tunnel lined with corpses while speaking to an unknown presence. Gao Ming cannot independently confirm her account because his memories are missing 7.

Her attachment is not her only motivation. Gao Ming recognizes that the game’s design and the unknown world imposed a twisted love on someone with a strong will of her own. Her pursuit of power may therefore also be an attempt to free herself from him 17.

Appearance

• Human guise: Beautiful, poised, and easygoing, with a gentle voice that puts coworkers at ease. She first arrives wearing a white blouse and skirt, her shoulders wet from the rain 5.
• Predatory bearing: Gao Ming senses a hunter’s confidence and a predator’s grace beneath her approachable presentation 5.
• Wedding portrait: Depicted in an extravagant wedding dress beside Gao Ming. Initially, he alone appears in color; she and her dress are black and white 7.
• Signs of instability: Bloodshot eyes, facial distortion, bloody self-inflicted scratches, and an altered, chilling voice appear while she struggles with absorbed emotions 19.
• Supernatural body: Her skin is cold like a corpse’s, and black blood vessels can emerge across it while shadows surround her 20 22.
• Contrasting impressions: During the Sishui anomaly, she looks delicate and demure from behind, while her bloodshot eyes make her expression terrifying from the front 41.

Personality

Xuan Wen combines exceptional intelligence and emotional awareness with calculated brutality. She discusses killing rivals and imprisoning potential witnesses in a casually domestic tone, and her gentle manner can disappear entirely when Gao Ming is absent. Her plans are precise, decisive, and directed toward gaining freedom rather than merely satisfying an immediate impulse 5 7 17 47.

Her possessiveness appears in both threats and teasing. She calls Gao Ming her husband, questions why he video-calls Wei Dayou but only makes voice calls to her, and challenges his tendency to assume the worst of the character he created. Beneath that behavior, she wants freedom, dignity, and genuine love 6 22 37.

She also recognizes when she is dangerous. During her transformation, she asks Gao Ming to restrain her and record what happens so they can study it afterward. Her preference for gathering small amounts of emotion through a game offers an alternative to possessing living people and overwhelming them with terror 19.

Abilities & Skills

Sensing Gao Ming

Her original route gives her the ability to know the protagonist’s whereabouts. In reality, she uses a corresponding connection to Gao Ming 5 7.

• Claims that this ability led her to find him immediately after awakening and rescue him from the tunnel 7.
• Senses his approximate location inside Sishui Apartments, allowing her to identify a double pretending to be him 47.
• Does not describe the ability as unlimited precision; her stated perception in the apartment building is approximate 47.

Perception of Hearts and Emotions

Xuan Wen describes her supernatural ability as connected to people’s hearts: she can “see and hear” aspects of them, and later develops the ability to taste emotions 22 34.

• Detects a scream during the office-building game and helps Gao Ming trace the violence 22.
• Senses supernatural presences and warns Gao Ming about danger in Sishui Apartments 38 39.
• Cannot always identify what she senses. She admits she cannot confirm whether a ghost is hiding in the plush doll; Wan Qiu notices details she does not 39.

Emotion Consumption and Reality Anchoring

Players’ emotional responses strengthen her consciousness and connection to reality. She likens the game based on herself and Gao Ming to a shrine, with her wedding-dress portrait functioning as its sacred image 19.

• Receives players’ emotions as voices that make her consciousness more independent and complete 19.
• Uses their attention to resist shadows attempting to drag her back to her original world 19.
• Can gather small amounts of emotion and unease without subjecting players to an actual life-or-death anomaly 19.
• Excessive intake initially causes pain, irritability, bodily distortion, and fear of losing control 19 20.
• Hopes that widespread remembrance could let her survive physical death; neither this outcome nor her predicted hundred-thousand-emotion transformation is established 34.

Shadow-Affecting Combat

Xuan Wen demonstrates both physical fighting skill and an ability to interfere with a shadow creature’s body 15 47.

• Throws the disfigured investigator over her back and restrains his arm in a painful lock 15.
• Stabs the false Gao Ming with a shadow-wrapped knife 47.
• Places her hand against the double’s chest, after which its internal shadows attack themselves and it loses control of its body 47.
• Warns Yan Hua against reckless attacks after noticing curse-like writing appear on her hand 47.

Supernatural Strategy and Game Design

Xuan Wen develops practical methods for investigating supernatural games and using ordinary game production to support supernatural beings 7 17 24.

• Proposes triggering an unfinished haunting with three components: a recently deceased person’s haunted home, a memorial portrait as a ticket, and Gao Ming as the passage 7.
• Directs Gao Ming to reenact Zhao Xi’s habits and emotional state; the method successfully brings him into the overlapping worlds 8 9.
• Rapidly rewrites the dating-game proposal around herself and Gao Ming, removing rival routes or giving their heroines fatal endings 17.
• Evaluates Sishui Apartments strategically, suggesting either recruiting capable players or entering to obtain information and supernatural resources. Her initial estimate gives them only a thirty-percent chance of escaping alive 39.

Limitations

• The Shadow World opposes her independence: Shadows repeatedly attempt to force her back onto its intended path 19 22.
• Access to games is inconsistent: She is shut out of Zhao Xi’s game, rejected by the office-building game’s shadows, and later trapped as prey by the Sishui anomaly 15 22 41.
• She is not a registered living player: During the office-building game, she receives none of the player messages sent to Gao Ming 22.
• Public recognition creates exposure: Gao Ming warns that players with memorial portraits could recognize her through the game and target her 34.
• Her chain may be vulnerable: Gao Ming suspects that destroying it could banish or destabilize her, while connecting it to himself might let him steal her powers. He does neither, leaving those possibilities untested 20.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Personal memorial portrait — Appears beside her when she awakens in reality. Changes in its wedding dress provide the basis for her theory that she is escaping restraint 7.
• Large wedding photograph — Hangs in Room 2507 beneath a black cloth; depicts her beside Gao Ming, who has no memory of taking it 7.
• Eight blank memorial portraits — Carried in her handbag as potential tickets for entering supernatural games early. The one Gao Ming uses is consumed after a single entry 7 15.
• Sharp knife — Carried in her backpack and wrapped in shadows during her attack on the false Gao Ming 47.
• Red umbrella — Carried when she collects Gao Ming for work at five in the morning 17.

Relationships

• Gao Ming — Creator, colleague, and supernatural partner. She claims a marital connection and a forgotten promise in the tunnel, but he cannot remember either. He initially fears her, later refuses an opportunity to dominate her, and entrusts her with Nightlight’s operations; their romantic status remains unresolved 7 17 20 24 37.
• Wei Dayou — Coworker and designer of the dating game’s first eight heroines. She revises his project, while he misreads her dangerous transformation as a lovers’ quarrel with Gao Ming 5 17 19.
• Manager Gou — Nightlight Studio’s manager, who introduces her as a newcomer to game design and considers the horror-game proposal she prepares with Gao Ming 5 17.
• The other eight heroines — Romantic rivals whom she reports killing after they also manifest in reality. She links their elimination to changes in her portrait 7.
• Yan Hua — Combat partner after the Sishui anomaly separates the group. They destroy the impostors together, although Xuan Wen cannot persuade her to stop charging through the building 41 47.
• Zhu Miaomiao — Fellow member of the Sishui expedition. Xuan Wen says she will remain to keep an eye on both her and Gao Ming 40.
• Fortune — Nightlight Studio’s cat, which avoids her, plays dead, and repeatedly seeks safety near Gao Ming 5 6 17.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Arrival at Nightlight and the Room 2507 Experiment

Xuan Wen arrives just as Gao Ming tries to delete the ninth route and his other dangerous designs. Her knowledge of the tunnel and claim that she has killed his romantic rivals undermine his hope that deleting files will prevent the horrors from appearing 5.

She then brings him to Room 2507, reveals their wedding photograph, and proposes hunting immature supernatural games. Gao Ming tests her entry method successfully, but she herself is excluded. After his return, his bond with Zhao Xi inspires a safer proposal: helping supernatural beings through players’ emotional responses to their stories 7 8 9 15.

The Emotion-Fed Game

Xuan Wen and Gao Ming reshape the romance project into horror and test its effect on her. The growing audience strengthens her independence but initially overwhelms her with voices and bodily changes. Gao Ming refuses to exploit her vulnerable chain, and she gradually learns to manage the absorbed emotions 17 19 20 22 34.

During the office-building game, she helps investigate a massacre and concludes that a human killer ended the event by killing the ghost’s host. Gao Ming subsequently leaves her responsible for finding the hidden killer player and organizing production of games for Strange Tales 22 24.

Sishui Apartments

Xuan Wen joins Gao Ming’s expedition, senses the building’s danger, and suspects that someone with substantial influence is deliberately feeding its Strange Tale. She stays despite Gao Ming’s warning that the coming operation has a death risk exceeding ninety percent 37 38 39 40.

The expanded anomaly traps her and separates her from Gao Ming. Traveling with Yan Hua, she exposes the doubles of Gao Ming and Zhu Miaomiao and destroys the false Gao Ming. She then warns Yan Hua about the curse-like markings accumulating through combat as they continue searching for him 41 47.

Notable Quotes

“I only want to become a person like you.” 7

“Why are you so prejudiced against a character you designed yourself?” 22

“If everyone in the city knows our story, could we escape physical death and live forever in their hearts?” 34