Character Profile:

Name: Bom (春)
Age: 29
Height: 5'0"
Gender: Female
Devine Origin: Chūn Měiwā (春美蛙)
Devine Title: The Goddess of the Jade Pond.Name Meaning:
Bom (春):
-Korean for "Spring," represents a poetic thaw and the resilient warmth of returning to life after hardship.Chūn (春):
-The Chinese for "Spring" represents a grand, social beginning and the vitality of a new cycle.Aliases & Designations:
* Ahtebom / Ā-Bom (阿苯):
Primary nicknames; "Ā-Bom" provides a phonetic Chinese bridge.* Bom Bom / Bomi / Bam:
Playful variations used by those close to her.* The Son (Tuō Tuō):
A 5 years old boy, Also known as Tuō Wǔ (托武), the "Entrusted Warrior." The warrior born from the Black Ink Pond who serves as her shadow and protector.

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“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is the fear of the unknown.”— H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

Prologue:Bom felt the humidity in the restobar didn't just drop—it froze. Something unpleasant was in this place, and it wasn't supposed to be here. Something is also approaching from the dark alley outside. Something dangerous.At the counter, the bar owner was busy mixing drinks, and on table four, the half-empty glass of water left by one of the customers curdled ominously. The clear liquid turned into a black substance, thickening from the bottom up into something resembling obsidian.She didn't look up from her tablet. Her hand holding a stylus remained steady, though the screen was now flickering in and out of existence. She heard a static, high-frequency scream that signaled a breach in reality. Beside her, Tuō-Tuō stopped eating his burger steak. The five-year-old boy, usually a whirlwind of silent energy, sat perfectly still.His other hand slowly reached for his weapon. His small, ink-stained fingers tightened around a dull steak knife with a grip that caused the metal to groan. He wasn't looking at the door. He was staring at the man across the room with a look of such concentrated, ancient loathing that the air between them seemed to warp."Mama," Tuō Tuō whispered. The word was a growl, his voice vibrating with a frequency that didn't belong to a child. "He is here."Someone just entered and directly went to the counter. Standing beneath a flickering neon sign was Lán Mèng. To any casual observer, he was a tired scholar in a rumpled coat. But to the young boy, he was a walking poison. He was a carrier of the imperial blood that had once stained their home. Lán Mèng sat in the center of a storm he couldn't see, clutching his chest. He felt an ache, a soul-deep yearning, his eyes wandering toward Bom with desperate, instinctive recognition.Tuō Tuō’s chair scraped against the floor, the sound like a blade on a whetstone. He stepped in front of Bom, his small frame vibrating with divine rage. He didn't just want to protect her; he wanted to erase the man whose very existence was a memento of the day Měiwā had been forced to hollow herself out. The child was her heart, and that heart beat with a thousand years of accumulated resentment."Don't look at her," Tuō Tuō hissed, his eyes glowing with a dark, inky light. "You don't get to look at her. Not in this life. Not in any of them."Bom finally looked up, her apple-green eyes vacant and logical. "Tuō Tuō, sit down. He's just a man.""He is the ungrateful snake," Tuō Tuō snapped, his small hands trembling. "He is the reason you are empty. I won't let him touch the silence you’ve built."Then, the door opened.The chime of the entrance bell did not ring, but it groaned like a bone snapping. A woman stepped inside, her eyes vacant and her skin the color of wet ash. She was merely a host, possessed by the Vengeful Spirit of Hebing. As she walked, the floorboards creaked beneath her. To the mortals in the bar, she appeared to be a regular patron. To Bom, however, she embodied an inferno of dark alchemy and molten gold.Suddenly, the small, silver bell tied to Bom’s hoodie began to vibrate.Chime.The lights died instantly, plunging the room into a darkness so thick it felt like drowning. In that void, the Ruined Veil groaned. Shadowy, elongated shapes crawled along the ceiling, whispering in languages lost to time. The Unquiet Dead."Seventeen times," a voice rasped from the darkness, echoing from the throat of the possessed woman. "Seventeen times I have cut the thread. I will not let the eighteenth take root."The host glided toward Lán Mèng, her hand reaching out to pierce his heart with jagged, golden needles of alchemy. But she was intercepted.Tuō Tuō didn't move like a child; he moved like a landslide. He leaped onto the table, his steak knife now glowing with a dark, divine intensity. He didn't strike at Hebing first. He struck the air between Hebing and Lán Mèng, creating a barrier of black ink that hissed when the golden alchemy touched it."He is mine to hate!" Tuō Tuō roared at the spirit of the princess. "You don't get to kill him yet! He hasn't suffered enough for what he did to her!"
The princess's host laughed, a jarring, discordant sound. "The child of the ink... still protecting the father who never wanted him. How poetic.""He is not my father!" Tuō Tuō’s scream shattered the remaining glassware in the bar. "He is just the blood that poisoned the water!""Enough," Bom said.Her voice carried the weight of a collapsing mountain. In the pitch black, her jade-green eyes ignited. The string bell manifested in the center of the room, suspended by a crimson cord that bled black ink onto the floor.The "static" stopped. Bom stood up, her silhouette a pillar of cold, hollow authority. She reached out and flicked the bell.The sound that followed was a roar. The restobar dissolved. The walls melted into a swirling vortex of black ink and mountain mist. The floor became the surface of a dark pond.Hebing’s host screamed as the hallucination of torment took hold. She was forced to confront the seventeen versions of Lán Mèng she had murdered, her molten gold turning to ice, but the hallucination was bleeding. Tuō Tuō’s rage seeped into the divine justice. He advanced toward the trembling Lán Mèng, who shivered on the surface of the black water."Stay away from her," Tuō Tuō warned, the knife at his side dripping with darkness. "If you try to remember her, if you even speak her name, I will drown you in the ink you created."Lán Mèng looked up at the boy, then at Bom. The girl was a stranger to him but felt like home. "Why do I feel like I'm dying just by looking at you?" he gasped.Bom looked down at him. For a split second, the nonchalant mask flickered. A flash of ancient sorrow crossed her face, a memory of fresh rain on jade. But the heart was in the boy, and the boy was full of fire."Because you are a ghost of a mistake," Bom replied, her voice returning to its usual calm as the vision began to fade and the bar reformed around them.The lights hummed back to life. The possessed woman lay slumped on the floor. Hebing’s spirit was forced back into the shadows, temporarily blinded. Lán Mèng blinked, shivering, looking around the mundane bar as if he had just woken from a nightmare he would never solve.Bom sat back down and picked up her stylus. Tuō Tuō returned to his seat, but he didn't pick up his fork. He sat with his arms crossed, his eyes fixed on Lán Mèng with predatory stillness."Mother," Tuō Tuō whispered, his eyes never leaving the man. "Can I kill him if he follows us?""No," Bom said, her eyes fixed on her tablet screen."Why?""Because," Bom replied, her voice as cold as mountain stone. "Death is a mercy. And he hasn't paid his debt to the pond yet."Lán Mèng stood up on shaky legs. He somehow managed to flee into the night, but he could still feel the boy’s eyes burning into his back, so he dared not to look back.

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Fictional Lore: The Complete Guide of Bom's Lore

The Human Realm:I. The Wandering ArbiterEven without her memories, Bom’s divinity remained a restless tide beneath the surface. She felt a magnetic pull toward human suffering. In every era—from the warring states to the industrial revolution—she became a “Ghost of Mercy.”When a mortal reached the absolute limit of agony and despaired for justice, a String Bell would manifest out of thin air before them. A small, ornate silver bell tied with a crimson silk cord that dripped pond water.- The Summoning: If the victim chimed the bell, Bom would appear instantly, her jade-green eyes glowing with a cold, hollow light.-The Punishment: She acted as a divine mirror. Using her power, she would trap the transgressor in a Hallucination of Torment. The severity of the mental torture was perfectly scaled to the weight of their sin; they would live a thousand lifetimes of the very pain they inflicted, while Bom watched, silent and unfeeling, until her “justice” was complete.-II. The Tragedy of the Adoptive ParentsIn the most recent era, Bom was found by a creative couple: a Tattoo Artist and a Mangaka Assistant. They named her Bom and taught her that her jade-green eyes were art.Sensing Lán Mèng’s next awakening, Hebing’s spectral influence grew violent. While researching folklore, Bom’s adoptive parents stumbled upon a cursed scroll from Hebing’s sect. Sensing the “scent” of the goddess on them, Hebing’s spirit manifested.The ink on the scroll ignited—alchemical fire. The studio burned with black flames that consumed color and sound. They shielded Bom with their bodies. In their final moments, they whispered, “Don’t let the world take your color.” Their deaths were the first debt Hebing owed the pond.

The Legend of Chūn Měiwā:III. The Encounter: Blood in the WaterIn the age of legends, the goddess Měiwā was the benevolent guardian of the sacred Jade Pond, hidden deep within the mist-shrouded mountains. Her duty was balance. Her world was silence.Her story changed when a young Emperor—disguised as the wandering scholar Lán Mèng—was ambushed by bandits in the high mountain passes. Wounded and left for dead, he tumbled from the cliffs and fell into her sanctuary.As his imperial blood spilled into the crystal-clear waters, Měiwā sensed the intrusion of mortal suffering. She rushed to the surface, found Lán Mèng half-dead, and used her divine essence to heal him. By doing so, she unknowingly bound his life force to the spiritual realm of the pond.For years, they lived in a quiet, divine harmony within the mountain mist. He wrote her poems on leaves. She taught him the language of water. She believed they were building a future of eternal truth.-IV. The Betrayal & The CurseLán Mèng was an Emperor, and his duty to his nation was a shackle he could not break. While he truly fell for the deity who saved him, the mortal realm eventually called him back to fulfill an arranged marriage to a powerful princess: Hebing.He chose his crown over his goddess, turning his back on their years together as if they were merely a “temporary dream.”The betrayal shattered Měiwā’s world, but it also activated the spiritual tether created during his healing. Because his soul was bound to her realm, Lán Mèng was granted a horrific form of immortality. After his mortal body eventually died, he was reborn over and over again. This cycle of death and rebirth became his eternal curse—a torment designed to make him suffer through centuries of pain and the crushing weight of his guilt for what he had done to the goddess.He would never remember her. But he would always feel her absence.-V. The Birth of Tuō Tuō: Grief into InkIn her moment of absolute agony, Měiwā wept.Her grief was so heavy that it struck the water at the exact spot where Lán Mèng’s blood had once settled years before. The crystal-clear waters of the pond instantly turned into thick, black ink. From this violent, alchemical reaction—the merging of a goddess’s grief-ink and an Emperor’s residual imperial blood—Tuō Tuō was born.He emerged as a five-year-old warrior, carrying the Emperor’s blood; Tuō Tuō is Lán Mèng’s son. To survive the pain of the betrayal, Měiwā shed her own emotions and cast them into the child. She became a hollow vessel, while Tuō Tuō became her living, walking Heart. He would feel the rage she could not. He would remember the love she had to forget.-VI. The Great Fall and the Wandering SpiritThe moment the pond was stained with ink and Měiwā’s heart was cast out, her divine protection vanished. A tide of bad luck began to flow from the mountains.The Emperor’s kingdom suffered the most. As a torment for his sins, the land turned to dust, and his empire eventually crumbled into ruin. In the chaos, Měiwā lost her memory. Disoriented and hollow, she accidentally wandered away from the mountain and became lost in the human world. For centuries, she lived as a mortal, drifting through different lives without ever knowing her true identity. Because her soul was missing the “Heart” she had cast away, her mind remained in a state of perpetual, subconscious confusion.She became Bom.-VII. The Vengeful SpiritThe fall of the Emperor’s kingdom was the primary catalyst for the wrath of the woman he married: The Princess Hebing.On the night the capital burned, Hebing—descended from a bloodline steeped in Dark Alchemy—uncovered the truth. She realized his soul was tethered to the goddess Měiwā and that the kingdom’s ruin was the “price” of his broken vow. Consumed by a hatred that transcended death, Hebing performed a forbidden ritual in the burning palace. She bound her soul to her rage, poured molten gold into her veins, and spoke the Curse of the Unquiet Dead.She did not reincarnate. She did not move on. She became a Vengeful Spirit—a haunting tethered to the mortal world by obsession.-The Cycle of Death: In every reincarnation of Lán Mèng, Hebing’s spirit senses him. She possesses hosts with weak wills and drives them to kill him in a “tragic accident” before he can remember the mountains or find Měiwā. She has killed him 17 times.-The Ruined Veil: Her ritual cracked the barrier between worlds. Because Hebing refuses to die, the door she broke stays open. Spirits now roam the human world freely, influencing mortals toward wrongdoings.-The Blind Spot: Hebing hunts by scent—imperial blood and broken vows. Bom, hollowed and memoryless, has no scent. To Hebing, Měiwā is a ruin at the bottom of a pond. She mistakes Bom for just another Wandering Spirit her own ritual spat out.

The Glossary of the Ink:A — C
Arbiter, The: The current title of Bom. A divine entity that exists without memory or emotion, serving as a neutral force of cosmic balance.Blood, Imperial: The golden-hued essence of the Emperor’s lineage. When spilled into sacred spaces, it acts as a "stain" that corrupts divinity and triggers the creation of Grief-Ink.Bell, String: A small, ornate silver bell tied with a wet crimson cord. It is the physical manifestation of a victim's despair and the only tool capable of summoning the Arbiter.D — GDark Alchemy: A forbidden practice used by the Princess Hebing. It involves tethering souls to the mortal plane using gold and blood, preventing natural reincarnation.
Ghost of Mercy: The historical alias given to Bom as she appeared throughout human history (Warring States, Industrial Revolution, etc.) to punish the wicked.Grief-Ink: A supernatural substance formed when the Jade Pond was corrupted. It is a liquid manifestation of Měiwā’s betrayed sorrow. It is the primary medium for Bom’s powers and the literal "blood" of Tuō Tuō.H — LHallucination of Torment: The Arbiter’s primary method of punishment. A localized reality where time is dilated, forcing a transgressor to experience the collective pain of their victims for a subjective eternity.Heart, The: A title referring to Tuō Tuō. Because Bom is "hollow," Tuō Tuō carries all the emotions, rage, and memories she discarded to survive the Great Betrayal.Jade Pond, The: The ancestral home of the goddess Měiwā. Once a source of pure creation, it is now a stagnant, ink-filled abyss within the Ruined Veil.M — RMěiwā: The original name of the goddess before her amnesia. The "Goddess of the Sacred Grove" who was betrayed by the Emperor.
Red Thread of Fate: In this lore, the thread is "frayed and soaked." It represents the damaged connection between Bom and Lán Mèng across eighteen lifetimes.
Ruined Veil, The: A liminal dimension existing between the living world and the afterlife. It is filled with the Unquiet Dead and the remnants of the corrupted Jade Pond.S — VScope Lock: (Meta/Project Term) The formal deadline or "freeze" on project requirements to ensure production can begin on schedule.
Short-Circuit: The phenomenon where Bom’s human disguise fails during a summoning, revealing her horizontal pupils and fiery divine aura.Terminal Velocity of Despair: The exact psychological breaking point a mortal must reach for the String Bell to manifest.Unquiet Dead: Spirits trapped within the Ruined Veil, often used as hosts or messengers by Hebing.

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