Hailing from the farmlands of Yanxia, Yún has grown in a family with a rich history, full of many crafts and tradespeople. However, their specialty?
Fireworks.
For many years, long before the Seventh Umbral Calamity, the Jīnhǎi family has been committed to creating beautiful fire flowers, using their works for every upcoming festivity. Birthdays, weddings, holidays, you name it—there was never an event that didn't employ the use of Jīnhǎi pyrotechnics.
When they were first made, their fireworks had been used as explosive ammunition for conflicts and wars, but they had later evolved into the awe-inducing art they are today. At least, until the occupation of the Garleans. During these years, many members of the Jīnhǎi family committed to the cause of the resistance, lending their aid and support through means of fashioning their once beautiful artistry into weapons of war once again.
The import, export, and creations of fireworks had been banned, as the Garleans knew it was very likely they could have been used as means of destruction, but that certainly never stopped the resistance. Since Yún was a child, he was told stories about their family's craft by his mother, the weathered history behind it, and why they have become the way they are now.
It was through his mother that Yún learned to craft explosives at an early age. Teaching her child survivalist skills along with combat readiness, she crafted him into a formidable weapon for the resistance, whereas his father remained steadfast in a misguided neutrality to keep his family safe. Careful to keep their name from the ire of the occupying Garlean forces, he constantly battled with fear as his wife and son continued to aid the rebels.
It was not long before a rift would form between husband and wife, stretching into a gaping chasm of different morals and stances regarding this conflict. This tension would ultimately spill over into unyielding arguments over what was best for the family and their child. While fùmǔ fought, Yún merely watched on, silent and observant.
Most children who witness the disagreements between their parents would become terribly distressed in one way or another—however, Yún merely seemed…detached as they grew more frequent. Apathetic. As though these arguments meant little, or nothing at all, to him. With every fight, a little bit of shine from his eyes would simply fade away.
Eventually, when the fires of passion burned a marriage to ash, Yún’s father left, unable to reconcile his wife’s choice to aid the resistance. Heartbroken but steadfast in her decision, Yún’s mother doubled her efforts to instruct her son in everything she knew. Working to expand his knowledge of pyrotechnics and war, mǔqīn pushed him in more ways than one. The intensity of his training doubled, and Yún quickly learned how to wield blades of all kinds, from daggers, to longswords, to guandao.
It was not long until he took his first life. Then two, then three, then dozens more; if it meant he would live another day, then each life was a worthy sacrifice.
While he grew familiar with the weight of death and the cost of spilling blood, his mother slowly turned into nothing more than a stranger. Her desire for a liberated Yanxia, and Doma as a whole, never waned—yet her own fire and passion all but began to sputter out. What used to be a warm, loving wife and nurturing, kind mother was now a husk of who she used to be.
It sickened him. To see a woman who was so proud and staunch in her convictions fizzle out into someone sad and pathetic filled him with rancor. In Yún’s eyes, what was the point of her wishing to fight for “what was right” if this belief would be reduced to nothing after losing just one person? If this was the result, why didn’t she simply put down her arms and become quiet and complacent, like fùqīn wanted? To him, it was clear that all of these years of training and dedication, of literal blood, sweat, and tears meant for the cause was nothing in the grand scheme of things, if every onze of one’s ambition would simply disappear with the loss of a single being in the end.
After a failed revolt, the sight of his war-torn homeland framing the figure of his mother as she placidly knelt upon the shores of the One River while a Garlean soldier held a blade to her neck did not make a single emotion stir within him. Rather, seeing her blood staining the land and water they’ve both grown up on revolted him instead, the light in his eyes long extinguished. He refused to remain in Yanxia any longer. With the use of an explosive he had held onto in case of an emergency, such as one where he could have saved his mother’s life—he used it to save his own instead.
After successfully escaping the detonation, he fled Othard towards Hingashi, where he then stowed away upon the ferry that traveled from Kugane to Eorzea.
In Limsa Lominsa, he was reborn into a new life.