Yinlin

Biodata

Background / History

Yinlin’s biological parents were Patrollers. After their deaths, the Puppet Master became her adoptive father. He had served and admired her parents, referring to them as his master and his wife. A worn childhood drawing depicts Yinlin with her uniformed parents and a younger, masked Puppet Master 24 25 26 27.

Yinlin became a core member of the Soul-Return Mutual Aid Society before becoming a Patroller. The Society’s ties to the Public Security Bureau made her useful as an informant, but its activities increasingly alienated her. The Puppet Master sought Fractsidus assistance to recreate her parents as puppets, harming ordinary people in the process. Yinlin ultimately chose to dismantle his organization rather than accept a reunion built on other people’s suffering 24 25 27.

Appearance

• Build: Tall and slender, with a youthful face and mature bearing 21.
• Hair: Vivid red, almost reaching the ground, secured behind her head with a sleek, austere hairpin 21.
• Clothing: An unusual outfit combining covered areas with translucent fabric; she wears high heels 21 23.
• Skin: Described under moonlight as pale as porcelain and jade 27.

Personality

Yinlin is confident, controlled, and adept at deception. She invents a convincing shopping story to evade questioning and maintains a hostile cover even while secretly directing allies against the Puppet Master. Jianxin independently describes her as assertive and visibly self-assured 21 24 49.

Her teasing manner conceals both vulnerability and a firm moral boundary. Although confronting her adoptive father causes her sorrow, she rejects the idea that recovering her parents could justify sacrificing strangers. She also refuses to equate justice with holding an official position, remaining committed to doing what is right even when her Patroller career is threatened 25.

Ling An frequently disrupts her composure. His shameless requests frustrate her, while his unexpected power provokes lasting curiosity. Their exchanges develop into affectionate teasing, a quiet embrace, and a secretly planted photograph at his expense 22 23 27 32 49.

Abilities & Skills

Suspended Strings

Yinlin controls fine threads that conduct lightning, allowing her to restrain and attack several targets simultaneously 23.

• Group restraint: Wraps threads around attacking Fractsidus members and brings them down with an electrical discharge 23.
• Capture: Binds the Puppet Master with a lightning thread before handing him over to the Patrollers 26.
• Precision control: Directs the threads from her fingertips and adjusts their tension with small movements 23.
• Limit against Ling An: An attack using at least seventy percent of her power merely tickles him. Even her full output leaves him conscious, with his fur standing on end 23.

Undercover Investigation

Yinlin has years of experience investigating criminal organizations, including the Exiles, Fractsidus, and Soul-Return Mutual Aid Society 25.

• Cover stories: Lies convincingly to approaching Patrollers while using Ling An’s official status to support her explanation 21 22.
• Covert coordination: Uses Puppet Marionette’s encrypted communicator to convey her real intentions while the Puppet Master monitors her spoken conversations 24.
• Intelligence gathering: Acquires photographs of black petals while tracking the Fractsidus, providing Ling An with a lead connected to the Black Shores 43.
• Operational planning: Prepares a coordinated infiltration of the Society’s defended production facility, though Ling An’s direct assault makes the plan unnecessary 24 25.

Equipment / Items

• Lightning-conducting threads — Her principal tools for restraint and electrical attacks 22 23.
• Puppet Marionette — Accompanies her during the infiltration and holds the encrypted communicator used for covert instructions 24.
• Patroller credentials — Presented to Chixia after the Puppet Master’s capture 26.
• Black Shores photographs — Intelligence traded to Ling An for one hundred thousand Shell Credits from the Flaming Sea bounty 33 43 49.

Relationships

• Biological parents — Deceased Patrollers whose example informs her sense of duty. She believes they would approve of her decision to stop the Puppet Master 25.
• Puppet Master — Adoptive father and former leader. She turns against his methods and captures him; despite threatening to expose her past, he remains silent when arrested 24 25 26.
• Ling An — Investigative partner, confidant, and subject of persistent curiosity. He protects her past identity from exposure, while she later supplies intelligence and tests his strength 25 27 32 33 43.
• Tide Sis / Rover — Ally in the operation against the Puppet Master. Yinlin secretly asks her and Ling An to cooperate while outwardly maintaining her Society allegiance 24.
• Chixia — Fellow Patroller whose forces raid the Society’s camp and take custody of the Puppet Master 24 26.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Soul-Return Mutual Aid Society

• First encounter: Stops the Overclocked Li Rong by warning that he could lose his chance to see his daughter again. She then bargains with Ling An for help avoiding two approaching Patrollers 21.
• Revealing the deception: Shows Ling An that Yuanyuan is a doll carrying memories of the dead, then identifies herself as an undercover Patroller investigating the Society’s mastermind 22.
• Apparent betrayal: Defeats the Fractsidus members, takes Ling An to a cave, and attempts to incapacitate him. When her lightning fails, she asks him to pretend to pass out; he subsequently reaches the Society’s main camp 23.
• Double-agent operation: Warns Ling An and Tide Sis that they have been poisoned, but allows them to investigate the camp. During the Patroller raid, she guides them underground and covertly explains her plan to capture the Puppet Master 24.
• Confrontation: Rejects her adoptive father’s promised resurrection of her parents. Ling An blocks his attempt to transmit records of her past, and Yinlin restrains him while Ling An destroys his Mechanical Construct 25 26.
• Aftermath: Following the Society’s dissolution, she meets Ling An at a moonlit pavilion. She expresses no regret, holds him as he falls asleep, and tells him she will remember him 27.

Black Shores Investigation

• Intelligence bargain: Initially asks Ling An to reveal his true identity in exchange for photographs. She dismisses both his joking Threnodian claim and his truthful admission that he is Crownless 32.
• Strength test: Offers the Flaming Sea bounty as an alternative payment arrangement. Her underlying purpose is to test his abilities 33 43.
• Exchange completed: Accepts his bounty money and a flower from the purified Flaming Sea, then supplies photographs obtained during her Fractsidus investigation 43.
• Lead to Camellya: A black petal matching her photographs helps Ling An follow the Black Shores trail toward Screen Court Mountain 44.
• Secret photograph: Jianxin later discovers that Yinlin slipped a picture of herself cuddling Ling An in cat form and nibbling his ear into the stack 49.

Notable Quotes

“I can't hurt others for the sake of my own happiness!” 25

“Justice has never been defined solely by a person's position. There is no shortage of heroes in the darkness, either.” 25

“I'll remember you, Ling An.” 27