Wang Yong

Biodata

Power Progression

Background / History

Wang Yong grew up in a refugee family. During a famine when he was five, his mother, Wu Xiuxiu, stole a steamed bun and suffered a broken rib in the resulting beating, yet brought him scraps of its filling. The family later fled to Night Spirit City; during the journey, she saved him from a severe blockage caused by eating grass seeds 35.

His father, a construction worker, was beaten to death after demanding unpaid wages at a site owned by the Zhang Group. Wu Xiuxiu subsequently supported Wang Yong through sex work. His school covered more than half his educational costs, but the remaining tuition and living expenses still strained the household, and he worked during summer to help pay his fees 23 33 37.

Education became both his hoped-for escape and a source of pressure. Wu Xiuxiu demanded academic success and once beat him badly enough over his grades to require hospitalization. Despite his poor results, Wang Yong hoped to enter the Qingbei Research Institute and give her a better life 25 33 49.

Appearance

• Build and face: Initially described as scrawny, with an otherwise ordinary face 23 49.
• Early demeanor: Lowered head, evasive gaze, trembling body, and a soft, hoarse voice 23.
• After his mother’s death: Haggard complexion, reddened eyes, and enough weight loss to appear gaunt 48.
• During the school confrontation: His features become grotesquely contorted, but He Li confirms that he is not an Aberrant 34 35.

Personality

Initially withdrawn and frightened, Wang Yong rarely challenges others openly. Nevertheless, he insists that studying is his only way out and rejects Xu Ye’s suggestion that he give up. He believes bad people will receive punishment and that successive generations can improve their harsh society 23 25.

His devotion to his mother survives her abuse and transformation. He tries to take responsibility for her killings, offers his own life, and begs to leave with her for the Wasteland. After losing her and recovering his erased memories, his outlook turns fatalistic: he comes to believe equality exists only before disaster, suffering, and death 35 40.

As an Eternal Church member, he becomes more confident, secretive, and willing to use violence. Xu Ye suspects that his changed personality reflects the influence of his second personality. Even then, Wang Yong briefly considers pleading for Xu Ye when he mistakes his escape maneuver for a courageous last stand 49 50.

Abilities & Skills

Selective Amnesia

Sequence Talent 9-954 [Selective Amnesia] causes people to selectively forget important details rather than lose all their memories 49.

• Almost makes Xu Ye overlook how far Wang Yong lives from the site of their supposedly chance encounter 49.
• Helps conceal inconsistencies surrounding Wang Yong’s involvement in the Zhang Jian incident 48 49.
• Is newly awakened and not fully developed when Xu Ye identifies it 49.
• Is not suited to direct combat; Wang Yong relies on a Forbidden Object when attacking 49.

Deception and Concealment

• Pretends to be the school’s Pollution Source to divert attention from his mother 35.
• Cuts his arm to stay awake during Lu Mingwang’s [Bard] chanting, then performs a violent outburst to appear monstrous 34 35.
• Maintains the appearance of a grieving classmate with a part-time job after secretly engineering another pollution incident 48.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Carving knife — Used to resist the Bard’s sleep-inducing chanting, attack He Li, and attempt to cut his own throat while taking the blame for his mother. Xu Ye disarms him 34 35.
• Purplish-black gauntlet — An F-Class Forbidden Object bestowed by an Eternal Church bishop. Wang Yong uses it to strike at Xu Ye’s ribs, but Xu Ye catches his wrist and throws him into a wall 49.

Relationships

• Wu Xiuxiu — His mother and the center of his efforts to protect his family. He refuses to accept that her transformation makes her beyond saving and later mourns while holding her ruined body 35 37.
• Father — An unnamed construction worker killed over unpaid wages. His death leaves Wang Yong and Wu Xiuxiu without their previous support 33.
• Xu Ye — Classmate who initially helps him after a beating and later prevents his mistaken execution. Their relationship becomes adversarial after Xu Ye uncovers his Eternal Church activities 23 35 49.
• Zhang Xuliang — Wealthy bully whose family owns the construction site where Wang Yong’s father was killed. He assaults Wang Yong and publicly humiliates him about his poverty and mother 23 33.
• Qin Yingying — Class president and Wang Yong’s crush; he admires her beauty, grades, and apparent kindness. She is later revealed to have recruited his mother into the Eternal Church 25 37.
• Eternal Church bishop — Restores his erased memories, offers power in exchange for devotion, and supplies his gauntlet. Wang Yong addresses the bishop as “Your Grace” 40 49 50.
• Lord Darkfall — The deity Wang Yong worships after joining the church. He claims to have offered his soul to Darkfall and believes the god’s descent will destroy class barriers 49.

Story Role / Major Arcs

School Pollution Incident

After witnessing Zhang Xuliang’s abuse, Xu Ye deliberately provokes Wang Yong to test whether he is an Aberrant. Wang Yong shows no unusual energy fluctuations, despite discussing injustice and insisting that bad people will be punished 23 25.

Li Yunyao later identifies him as the likely Pollution Source, attributing Lin Aiqiao’s contamination, the deaths of Zhang Xuliang and Qian Bing, and the school’s compulsive studying to him. This assessment is overturned: Xu Ye stops He Li from killing Wang Yong and reveals that Wu Xiuxiu is the actual source 33 34 35.

Wang Yong’s memories of his mother briefly awaken humanity in her, but she then fires a venomous dart at him. Xu Ye blocks it. After the battle, Wang Yong cradles her remains; authorities subsequently alter his memories of the incident 35 37 40.

Memory Restoration and Recruitment

Under the reconstructed memories, Wang Yong believes his mother drowned and the school was damaged by fire. He receives a living allowance from Sky City but experiences headaches and the persistent feeling that something is missing 40.

An Eternal Church bishop visits him in a dream beneath the Crimson Moon and restores the truth. Wang Yong asks what he must do; the bishop demands his life, soul, and flesh in exchange for power. By his next confrontation with Xu Ye, he has joined the church and awakened his Sequence Talent 40 49.

Zhang Jian Incident and Alley Confrontation

Wang Yong secretly drives the events surrounding Zhang Jian’s pollution incident, then returns to the area after the Aberrant is eliminated. Xu Ye recognizes inconsistencies in their encounter and confronts him at gunpoint. Xu Ye suspects that a church drug accelerated Zhang Jian’s transformation, but this mechanism is not confirmed 48 49.

Wang Yong explains that the church creates pollution incidents to guide Darkfall’s descent and invites Xu Ye to join. When persuasion fails, he attacks with his gauntlet and is easily defeated. A bishop’s shadow intervenes, but Xu Ye escapes by drawing public attention to the alley; the bishop then orders Wang Yong to leave with him 49 50.

Notable Quotes

“This is a terrible era, but as long as our generation works to change it, and each generation keeps at it, things will definitely get better.” 25

“Xu Ye, is there really no other way?” 35

“In this world, people are born unequal. Only before disaster, suffering, and death are people equal...” 40