Fai Shi is a well-known master architect from Liyue that was born into a prominent merchant family. His designs are known to be solid, comfortable yet incredibly elegant with a unique flair. He was born with a twisted left leg that’s slightly shorter than his right, and because of the heavy limp this causes he must use a cane.

-Fai Shi comes across as someone who holds himself aloof and is very serious to strangers. He’s very deliberate with everything he does, and very dedicated. It gives him a bit of an aristocratic feeling at times, and sometimes this makes people think he’s arrogant. He relaxes around his close friends and the family he’s chosen, becoming a bit more sarcastic but much warmer at the same time. He’s much more obviously caring to those he is close to, even if he sometimes has a hard time expressing it.
At the same time he is very compassionate, though it’s hidden most of the time.
He has no patience with people who pretend to be better or more skilled than they really are, or with people who knowingly cause problems for others. He’s also incredibly sensitive about how people see him. He hates being underestimated or coddled because of his disability, and will call people out for treating him differently.

-He doesn't get along with his birth family at all, and generally avoid them if he can. He feels like he was made to prove his worth as a person before they even really acknowledge his existence, and even then they pretend they supported him the whole time.

-Fai Shi was born into the Xue family, a prominent gem-merchant family. His parent’s were dismayed to realize that their second son wasn’t the perfect little boy they had imagined - or so Fai Shi himself will bitterly say. Born with a twisted leg, his memories of his early years include a parade of various doctors, herbalists, various medical professionals, and someone he would swear was an exorcist coming by to offer new - often painful - treatments that they thought would help. Although they did offer a bit of relief , and some doctors would come by well into his teens, they were never able to completely correct his leg, which was slightly shorter than the other anyway. He did his best to adjust to using a cane and swiftly started to master it.

-His parents didn’t like to let him leave the house much. He’s never been sure if it was out of caution or because they didn’t want people to be reminded that one of their sons had a handicap. The latter option is the more cynical one he knows, but he can’t shake that it might be true. Still when he was around 12, his parents let him go out for Lantern Rite with his slightly older color Rufen. Although he was excited at first, when Rufen’s friends showed up he found himself struggling to keep up with teenagers that were clearly impatient with him. Although Rufen made them slow down for him at first, eventually she parked him at a food stall, told him to wait there until she got back, then left with her friends.
Fai Shi stayed only long enough to get something to eat before his boredom got the best of him. Realizing that he was going to be there for a long time, he decided to set out on his own. Prove to Rufen that he was fine on his own. He didn’t have a destination, he just wanted to walk around looking at everything. It was a bit overwhelming on his own at first, but he stubbornly continued on. Until he got distracted looking up at some of the lanterns, tripped at the top of a ramp and fell down it. His cane slipped out of his grasp and went clattering over the edge of the pier. He ended up at the bottom of the ramp, dazed and then embarrassed when he realized he had attracted a small crowd.
He was helped up by a boy near his own age called Delun. After some stumbling and being almost to embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t really done anything knew to his leg, he was just always like this, Delun found a place for him to sit. Rufen found them then, scolded both of them impartially, even though Fai Shi protested that Delun hadn’t had anything to do with it, and insisted she was taking him home. Delun found him a stick to use as crutch before he left.
At home, Fai Shi was given a brief scolding, and then taken off to see his scraps seen to while Rufen was taken to task for leaving him alone to get hurt.

-His parents were even more determined to keep him inside. Fai Shi was still shaky about what had happened, but in a strange way being nervous made him determined to get out there again, in order to deal with it and prove he wasn’t scared. Delun actually showed up around that time, finally having figured out who he was and had been curious about who the strange boy he’d met during the Lantern Rite had been doing. Fai Shi was curious about Delun too, and had been wanting to thank him anyway, since he’d been kind of out of it the night of his fall, and didn’t think he had really thanked him properly. Which was very rude. The two ended up walking a bit around Liyue together, and Fai Shi was embarrassed about how slow they ahd to go because of him, but grateful that Delun didn’t say anything.

-Fai Shi’s parents weren’t pleased with his new friend or that he was more insistent on going on. They also seemed to be displeased that Delun’s parents worked around the docks, but despite the occasionally lecture, the displeasure only seemed to make Fai Shi more determined to go out and meet Delun. He ended up spending more time around Delun’s house than his own during his teenage years.

-Fai Shi’s parents, and most of his family didn’t approve of his decision to become an architect either. It was something he wanted with all his heart, but he had go argue with hs family countless times about it. They had a job they already wanted him to take - a clerk with one of their businesses. It was a perfectly safe, steady job. One that anyone, even someone with a handicap like his could do. He always got the sense that they were trying to shove him away into a corner, out of sight, out of mind. Eventually though, he managed to pressure them into go into his chosen career track.

Fai shi quickly became well-know for his building designs. They were solid, comfortable and yet elegant at the same time. Suddenly his family, who had barely even given him the time of day were so proud of him. They constantly praised him, and seemed to treat him like his handicap was in someway made up for by his success. If you listened to them then it was like they had seen his potential from the start and always supported him. Fai Shi soon grew tired of it.

He first meet Bran after he put in a commission at the Adventure’s Guild because the construction site for a building he had designed was outside city limits, and had suddenly developed a plague of monsters. The Millelith weren’t taking it seriously enough for him so he turned to the Adventures for help. Bran was the one that was given the commission, and Fai Shi insisted on going with him to the construction site to see how much damage had actually been done to the half-finished building.
What followed is something Fai Shi would call ‘an adventure’ and Bran would call ‘the best laugh I had in years’. It involved Fai Shi getting into a one-sided argument with a hilichurl, accidently panic dropping a crate on samachurl, and Bran laughing so hard he nearly got cut in two. Bran also discovered the Ruin Guard that had driven the monsters into the construction site, and Fai Shi would admit that watching Bran take care of it was actually rather satisfying to watch.
Bran went back with Fai Shi to fully survey the buildings, staying around to make sure that nothing more was going to turn up, and asking Fai Shi a few intelligent questions. He also insisted on walking the architect back to his house in the end, something that irritated Fai Shi a little because he thought Bran was taking pity on him and thinking he couldn’t get home on his own.
Delun is the one who figure out that Bran had probably been doing it to spend just a little more time with Fai Shi.

It also took Fai Shi a bit more a year to figure out that Bran was stopping by so often to flirt with him, and that he was actually very concerned with what Bran thought of him.

His family did Not Approve of his relationship with Bran, or even Bran in general since he was just an Adventurer with a vague past. Fai Shi, very annoyed by this, decided to just ignore their displeasure and keep doing what he wanted - he was successful enough that it didn’t matter to him.
His family was still annoyed when he married Bran without their express approval. They had been dragging their feet about it, and he made it very clear that he was doing to do what he wanted anyway.

He eventually designed and had built a house on the outskirts of Liyue harbor, where he lived with Bran and occasionally a couple close friends. He eventually took on young apprentice who was like a daughter to him and Bran. She and her younger brother ended up living with them as well.

Fai Shi decided as he got older that he didn’t want to be buried with the rest of his family, since he felt no attachment to most of them, and didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of trying to claim they cared so much about him when they had made him prove himself worthy of even being considered normal around them. Plus, he knew the truth about his husband Bran and that Bran wouldn’t be buried with him. So he arranged for Wangshen Funeral Parlor to see him buried on a hill overlooking Liyue Harbor with a very nice view. He and Bran had been there often. Bran agreed to make sure that his last wishes were carried out.

-Fai Shi actually thinks he designed his house to be a little too big. He’s realized that subconsciously he might have been trying to impress his family and he really has no use for as much space as he has. That’s why he has no problems inviting people like his apprentices or Delun to move into it.
-If Fai Shi had a Vision it would be Geo
-In an AU where he gets a Vision, Fai Shi gets it later in life while protecting his children apprentice and her younger brother from some hilichurl they accidentally stumble upon while looking over a building site.