Coming from a different China where the North was Communist and the South was Capitalist, Zhou had difficult times living in one of the many walled cities in Guangzhou that were emerging in face of rural exodus and industrialization, with both her parents working two jobs in order to sustain their 8 kids, it fell to her and the 2 other older siblings to actually raise the younger ones while keeping up with school and eventually having to get jobs to help out as a seemingly never ending stream of people came to work in the cities and depress wages.

Despite all the hardships, Zhou had many fond memories of her child and teen years, being able to explore the walled city, of treating herself to street noodles whenever she had managed to scrounge enough pennies, to knowing and meeting up with each of her neighbors above and bellow and on the sides of her home, to going to the roofs and seeing her city in the wee hours of the morning or the sun dipping in the horizon and her favorite one, of joining up with her fellow teens in petty gangs and having street brawls with other teens from different neighborhoods .

Of course another reason she's fond of the time was due to her own experiences with her first job and her boss, Mr Thao Liu, where she worked on his Antiques shop and first learned not only some kung fu but also about the history of China and beliefs of her people.

Her "Happy Times" however would soon come to a end as the depressing of wages and further poverty in the cities made the rise of Triads all but possible as they recruited from the desperate, the needy and the greedy, the amicable street fighting from before turned ugly quick as the Triads starting using those same petty gangs as enforcers and unofficial grunts, recruiting the most promising ones while leaving the rest to do their dirty work, for good pay of course. It was something like that made first start returning home with broken noses, swollen eyes and just general pain everywhere as the fights now were about brutalizing and making your opponent unconscious and bleeding, only her experience and increasingly intense training with Mr Liu saved her from being the one on the floor bleeding.

That was until one rainy day late in the afternoon, coming back from work and training that left her exhausted that Zhou was cornered by some guys she had beaten up a few weeks earlier ganged up on her and despite putting a hell of a fight, she could not overcome so many and was down on the floor eventually.

She did not know what it was, maybe it was the will to live, her pride not wanting to lose, her desire to keep going and protecting her family or just the feeling of one of her attackers feeling up her thighs and panties... Whatever it was, she was back up again and throwing herself in the fray.

Unlike what happened, before the pain didn't register to her, she just punched, kicked and headbutted despite all the blood clouding her vision, when she was done, many of her limbs were in weird angles and her head was caked in blood that was mix of hers and the others, panting heavily and wildly as she returned to normalcy.

She hadn't be able to notice the Triad member watching the whole thing and who was very much impressed, to the point he payed the doctor a full treatment for her and as she recovered, slowly eased her into the idea of joining with his gang.

Initially, she was skeptic but the reality of her situation and the condition of her family spoke louder than any loyalty to a government that hadn't done anything in her eyes to help them, like many others, Zhou accepted and her training began.

Given her martial skills, she was sent over to multiple masters throughout the country who were astounded by her progress which eventually lead all her accumulated experience in making her own style, the "Gold Lotus Style" an mixture of relentless attacking who can switch from heavy defenses quickly, also has some other...
Miscellaneous abilities.

With her capacity of combat as well as keen administrative eye, Zhou earned enough trust and cash to start her own Triad affiliated with her original one, calling it the "Jade Sea" she took off with her cronies to Macau and through a mixture of alliances, deals and plain old turf war, Zhou had destroyed or absorbed all the major gangs and Triads in town, as well as having the police and bureaucracy in her pockets through bribes. She used her money to start a Luxury Hotel/Cassino/Restaurant/Resort/Spa/Club/Opium Den/ Whore House/Her house called "The Temptations of The Mara" who quickly became THE hotspot of the city as one of it's main attractions to people in and outside of China as well as the stronghold her Triad would be using, soon Tawain and Guangzhou were under her control and giving her massive amounts of cash in smuggling and laundering, expanding business and "business" overseas into the Americas, Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Zhou was really the queen of Macau and of the Triads.

Of course, while an amount of her money was used on herself on whenever whim she desired, Zhou made sure to always send her siblings and parents a fat load of cash so they would never have to dream about working again, even if they didn't agree with her methods and in some cases, stopped talking with her over it, but no matter how much it hurt, she kept her family fed like a good daughter and sister oughta do.

While she was a criminal, Zhou still had a passion for China from her young days that never went away, to the point she saw the state of both Chinas and decided the only way of truly making China THE Middle Kingdom again was a return to the Emperors of old, so she joined "The Sleeping Dragon" a secret society made up of those who wanted to destroy the North and change the South into a proper empire with the Mandate of Heaven, little did she know, Zhou had the blood of the Song Dynasty in her veins and is being prepared by the leadership to one day truly become a empress...

Zhou's Gold Lotus gives her many abilities learned from incorporating different styles into stuff that worked, so with her regulating her breathing correctly, she can make her body invincible to bullets and swords and spears, she can touch someone's pressure points and make them explode, she can levitate and mind trick others, etc. Her most valuable power however is the "Toad Stance" that not only gives her a massive tongue that allows her to swallow her opponents whole, it also makes her absorb their Chi(and thus allow her to use more and more of her special powers as well as making them more potent) as well as any powers they might have, she is slowly building up a arsenal of skills and powers that will surprise any opponents who just expect her to punch them. This also extends to physical, mental and even personality traits, meaning Zhou can be a surprisingly good spy if she needs to be by simply "becoming" that person for a while after they finish digesting in her gut, she has a womb tattoo that glows with the spirits of the people she eats, she normally releases them to go into the afterlife but a particular few she hates get to be with her, forever.

For inspirations, I based on her Pai Mei, Hong Meiling from Touhou, Anabel from Pokemon, Tao Pai Pai from Dragon Ball, Jolyne Cujoh from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Lin Siniang, Souther from Fist of the North Star, Beidou from Genshin Impact and Chen I Sao.


So hey y'all, college been kicking my ass but I'll be writing again so expect a story in a week or three. Anyways, Zhou has been a character I made last year and who I had a lot of fun making, hopefully you'll enjoy her as much as I do her.

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