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Yichen

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Ten years in a row, The Palace Food has been named best Chinese restaurant in Amsterdam. Situated in the Red Light District, it is popular with tourists as well as locals. It is run by the Wang family.

Apr. 24th, 2025

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Yichen Wang, nicknamed Chenchen by his family, "Little Yi" by his brother and just Yi by his gang friends, is an early twenties Dutch-Chinese university drop-out who works for the Amsterdam gang, the Pikes, as a part of their team of heavies. He's recruited by the leader of the gang, Baahir, to infiltrate the notorious crime king, Guifford's faction instead. Like this, he meets Marcel whom he'll eventually develop a close connection and understanding with.

Yichen is the youngest of three children to the Wang family who's lived in Amsterdam since his grandparents immigrated from Shunyi in China to the Netherlands in the 60's. His grandmother was an excellent cook and had the idea of opening their restaurant, The Palace Food, just known as Palace to most people, to introduce proper Chinese cooking to the city.

Her two children, Yichen's mother and uncle, took over the restaurant afterwards and it is now a family enterprise and the most popular, best-rated Chinese restaurant in all of Amsterdam. On a daily basis, it is now primarily Yichen's mother and sister who run the kitchen, while his father is in charge of the finances and his older brother is finishing his studies to become a doctor.

Yichen himself entered university at age 19 to study law, but dropped out a year later because he was bored with the heavy, technical law texts and couldn't concentrate on them. After this followed a period where he had a fall-out with his family, who was collectively disappointed in his failed attempt at an education and due to some untreated mental health issues as well as an increasingly stressful home environment, he started doing drugs, ending up at the periphery of the Pikes' gang. Realising this was a way to make quick, good money (as well as pay off the debt he'd amassed) that would shut his parents up, he started working for them.

Moving through the Amsterdam underground thrilled him much more than university ever had anyway.

To be of use to the Pikes, he has become an apprentice electrician and now works part time for one of Baahir's connections in that business.

His parents don't ask any questions, because every week he turns in a full salary to them, helping them make ends meet at the restaurant.

Yichen is bisexual with a slight male leaning, closeted and largely inexperienced with men, though he's had a few longer relationships (none longer than a year) to girls. When he encounters Marcel, he isn't yet fully aware of the extent of his attractions and it makes for a very confusing introduction to discover them while under the amount of pressure and stress that working undercover entails.

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