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-Yifan and Ying Fei’s father, Wu Ri, is known as the Silver Dragon in the world of Chinese underground societies. The clan that he leads, one of the biggest and most powerful in China, is called the Dragonlords (because I am bursting with original ideas, that’s why).The Dragon is one of the most powerful mythical creatures in Chinese lore, ‘symbolizing power, strength, and good luck to people who are worthy of it’. The color silver symbolizes income and/or wealth.

-Yifan as the Black Dragon. Ok it actually started out as a joke between me and my sisters, about his scorpion (?) tattoo. I was telling them about the prompt that one of my aff friends, eunmi_18 had given me and so I decided that ok, Black Dragon it is. At first I just chose black because hey, badass right? I looked up significance of colors in the Chinese culture and apparently, black is a color for young boys “who will continue the family/ancestor lineages.” So that worked out.

Yifan is an insomniac and is an avid stamp collector. He is fond of pets but since Sehun’s asthma is triggered by animal fur, he cannot keep one. He refuses to have anything to do with drugs and ion, but since his options are quite limited because he was not able to finish his schooling, he opted for businesses that he had an inkling about. Their group is involved in the counterfeit fashion industry, falsification of documents and internet fraud.

He had a backpack stuffed with enough money to let a family of four live comfortably for a year when he left his home in Guangzhou, where the base of the Dragonlords is located.

-Ying Fei as the Black Pearl. Her tattoo is significant, because it says a lot about her relationship with her father and her standing in the Dragonlords clan.

The pearl can mean a number of things, I chose perfection and enlightenment for my story. Dragons are often depicted chasing a pearl in Chinese artwork. If you guys remember, the dragon on her back has five claws instead of the usual four. This kind of dragon is the symbol of the emperor, which I guess their father is, in his own right.

The dragon and the pearl together, symbolizes the endless cycle of transformation; so since Yifan ran away before he was old enough to learn the ropes of his father’s business, Ying Fei was chosen as next in line for family leadership even if she was a girl (patriarchs almost always prefer boys for the obvious ist reasons).

She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, English, Japanese and a little bit of American Sign Language. Ying Fei is an accomplished musician, trained in classical piano and the violin. She can also pick locks with ease and hotwire a car in under a minute.

-The Golden Phoenix leads another one of the most powerful families in the Chinese underground societies, identity and intentions for being willing to pay so much money to get to the Silver Dragon’s children will be revealed in the sequel.

-Baekhyun and Chanyeol met in an orphanage in Korea. Baekhyun has separation anxiety. This is why I couldn’t group Sehun and Ying Fei together on their way out of the country. The 1 teenager: 2 adults ratio just made more sense in my head. Yi Fan and Ying Fei can’t be together, at least if one gets caught one can escape.

-Kyungsoo didn’t get to finish his residency because he was too heartbroken over his relationship with Kim Jongin, then an up and coming danseur in the Korea National Ballet. Their story may or may not be continued in the sequel. He wanted to be a pediatrician.

He met Yifan in an underground club in Hongdae, where the latter got caught in a drug deal gone wrong. A brawl had ensued and Yifan was stabbed on his side. Kyungsoo found him by the dumpsters, his medical experience kicked into gear and he saved Yifan’s life.

Kyungsoo had been toying with the idea of suicide for a while before then, and that night he was supposed to meet a drug dealer. He still insists up to this day that it was Yifan who saved his life, not the other way around.

-Sehun was the chosen heir of a big and very successful hotel chain in Korea. He was handpicked by his grandmother to be the face of the company, which his older, greedy half-brothers of course resented. There were already several attempts on his life before he turned twelve, and his father was too busy sleeping around to care. His mother died giving birth to him, a beautiful and smart woman with an extremely poor background that his then married father had an affair with, hence the animosity from his other siblings.

He is the group’s resident hacker, in charge of going through databases, bank accounts and scouring the internet for information, maintenance of their security systems and the likes. He was sickly as a child, so he spent a lot of time indoors, getting himself immersed in gadgets and electronics. He also likes to read and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English. At sixteen, he met Kyungsoo and Yifan, who found him messing around with an ATM machine and a handheld device in Garosu-gil. He withdrew 50M won from one of his half-brother's bank accounts just because he could.

-Zhang Yixing is Yifan and Ying Fei’s cousin from their mother’s side of the family. He works for the Dragonlords, which is quite unusual with the way triads work (in this AU at least). He is one of the people in charge of brothels and agencies in Dongguan, China’s sin city, and major cities like Beijing and Guangzhou. He is always privy to Yifan’s location and business deals. He will never say how, because if he did, he would have to kill you.

This fic consumed the last two weeks of my life. And also, don’t take me too seriously and all the stuff I cooked up in here haha. I hope you enjoyed it!