Name: Mai Mei
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Appearance: Mai is taller than average, standing at five feet and eight inches. She is about 125 pounds, giving her a rather slender figure. Mai has thick, wavy, midnight-black hair that goes down to her waist and relatively pale skin. Her eyes are a chocolate brown color, and Mai has naturally long eyelashes. She has a heart-shaped face and long, thin fingers. Mai has rosebud lips that are usually painted a deep red color. She has a sort of delicate and dainty look to her, despite the fact that she is tall and willowy. Mai likes dressing up and takes great pride in her appearance.
Mai typically sports some sort of dress (she likes them because there is plenty of space to hide something under the skirts, plus they are just so goddamn
pretty) and does almost everything in a pair of high heels. Her preferred color scheme is red and black, although she does like to experiment every now and then and tries to mix it up a bit in order to draw less attention to herself. Mai loves traditional Oriental-themed fans and parasols. In terms of cosmetics, Mai is an avid fan of eyeliner, mascara, and even kohl on the occasion. She also absolutely adores lipsticks, though she wouldn't be caught dead in public wearing something as outrageously garish as neon green lipstick. Mai tends to go rather heavy on the make-up, but she makes sure not to overdo it.
Of course, if the occasion calls for it, Mai is more than willing to 'dress down' a bit. She recognizes that sometimes, a pair of blue jeans paired with a baggy t-shirt and a messy bun would be much more practical than a gown of crimson silk and black stilettos and red lipstick, in terms of completing an assignment.
Personality: Mai has always been a people person. There is something about her that seems to draw others to her-whether it's her carefree laugh, her twinkling eyes, or her bright smiles, no one can say. She enjoys a good conversation about anything and everything and is always willing to talk to others. Mai thinks with her heart when she needs to, but uses her brain at the same time. Behind the eyes sparkling with mirth and the delicate lips curved up in a sultry smile is a woman made of steel who is keenly aware of her surroundings. Mai can process a lot of information at one time, taking in peoples' actions, words, and emotions all at once and forming a conclusion based on what she sees and what she knows. She's always been especially good at figuring out people. Mai is constantly listening even if she doesn't tell the world what she's thinking. Mai is particularly good at detecting when others or lying and lying herself. However, if you are someone Mai believes she can trust, she will shed the half-dazzling and half-seductive smile for a more natural grin and pour her heart out to you with no attempts to manipulate or deceive.
Mai is not "smart" in the usual traditional of the word-complicated mathematics and things like astrophysics and literary analyses all go straight over her head. But Mai has always been a people person, and she knows what makes people tick. She is able to work out what others might think and how they might act based on what she sees and knows about them. Years of being around people with more suspicious motives has led to Mai being initially distrustful wary of strangers. Of course, on the outside, Mai is demure and charming and polite; using a perfect combination of sugary sweetness and sharp wit to detract attention from her real intentions-she has learned to play her part well during the years she spent with her uncle in the inner circle of the Chinese Communist Party. Charismatic, sly, and perceptive, Mai will pick apart and analyze every single word you say and noting what people on the other side of the room are doing while wearing a sheer black dress and appearing as if she is giving you her full attention.
Biography: Mai was born to a wealthy Chinese family. Her father, Jing-xi Mei, was a prominent businessman with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. His brother, Ming Mei, was the second-in-command of a top-secret special division of the Chinese military that specialized in espionage, and his wife's father was a senior member of the Party.
The first two years of Mai's life were rather uneventful, marked only by her father's growing concern over his business. When Mai was two years and three months old, he committed suicide. Upon further investigation, it was found that his business had gone bankrupt. Fortunately, there was enough money after selling the house and furniture to repay the debts, and Mai and her mother were sent to live with Ming.
Mai spent the next ten years of her life having absolutely no idea what her uncle did for a living. She went to one of the top schools in the country and spent her time doing homework and gossiping and all the things that young girls do. Mai was not a star student, but she was not failing any classes, either. She was...average.
Then, one day while she was in school, one of the many terrorist groups in the world set off an explosive in the cafeteria for whatever reason. Fortunately, Mai escaped unscathed, but while she was outside, she spotted her uncle speaking with some important-looking men. Mai knew better than to interrupt, but that night, she confronted him about his unexpected appearance with military personnel at her school. Ming explained everything to her in a calm, almost monotone manner. Mai was intrigued, but she let the matter drop. It was not good to ask too many questions.
A couple of years later, one of Mai's classmates was caught in the act of changing grades in the computer system. She admitted that Mai had set her up to do it. At home that night, instead of shouting at her or punishing her, Ming seemed keenly interested in what Mai had done to convince her classmate to hack into the school system. Mai nervously related how she'd manipulated her into doing so by revealing that she knew that her classmate's brother was a journalist in America who heavily criticized the Chinese government from abroad. Ming had chuckled softly and left it at that. Mai didn't think much of it at the time, and she was relieved that she wasn't in trouble. However, come her eighteenth birthday, Ming approached her privately and asked if she would be interested in working in the special division of the Chinese military that he helped to lead. Mai was quite popular with her classmates, but she was also quite good at getting them to do what she wanted. Ming had picked up on her knack for discerning information based on obscure clues and slight body language. Mai accepted.
While her former classmates attended prestigious universities all across China, Mai was trained to become part an operative in one of China's most secretive organizations. She learned how to shoot a gun and how to incapacitate a man in two dozen different ways with nothing but her bare hands and/or minimal equipment. Mai was also given classes in political science and the like, since her uncle recognized that Mai would be most useful as, first and foremost, a spy and negotiator. Though Mai was already nimble and flexible from years of taking lessons in traditional Chinese dance, she found the training exhausting. Nevertheless, she enjoyed it (to some degree, depending on the day) and recognized that she and her uncle were apart of something as big as the entire world.
Mai completed her training and was soon working in the field. Her first assignment was to track down and arrange for the disappearance of a Chinese-American journalist who published scathingly critical articles of the Chinese government in prominent western newspaper. Mai was on a team led by a middle-aged man. The rest of the team consisted of three younger men and a middle-aged woman, who was in charge of their intelligence. The journalist was quite young; he was in his thirties. The leader of the team decided that the best course of action was to have Mai, who was then in her early twenties, to, well,
woo the man, then drug him before bringing him back into China for a secret trial that would inevitably end in his death.
Everything went smoothly, which was extremely unusual for those sorts of covert operations. Mai came away from the experience with a fervent appreciation of drugged lipstick and high heels. Over the next few years, Mai quietly and efficiently completed any tasks given to her by the top leadership, and she began rising in the ranks of the organization.
When the International Peacekeeping Task Force was formed, the Chinese Communist Party scrambled to find agents of their own to serve on the task force. Eventually, Mai was given a position, mostly for her ability to appear perfectly harmless. Although the IPTF was supposed to be impartial, Mai was under special instructions to do everything in her power to advance Chinese interests, a task that was much easier said than done in the international organization. Years passed, and Mai could tell that top Party leaders were growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of results on Mai's part.
With IPTF, Mai served as part-negotiator, part-undercover agent. The fact of the matter was that Mai was better with politics than she was with sub-machine guns, and so she was a key player in many deals and treaties and less so when it came to actual armed conflict.
Equipment: Due to the nature of Mai's role in the IPTF, she obviously can't carry a gun on her person at all times. As such, Mai has been forced to compromise, though she can't say that she has a problem with it. Mai's hairpins and nail files have wickedly-sharp ends, and they are capable of putting a man's eyes out. She has several tubes of drugged lipstick and various antidotes for the drugs and poisons disguised as perfume. Mai also finds that six-inch designer stilettos are both stylish shoes and efficient weapons. She is especially fond of her 'poison fingernails' (tiny needles underneath the nail that contain poison and can be extended with a flick of the finger. They are almost impossible to detect, and when someone is pricked, the prick is near invisible and causes only a light, pinprick sensation), a weapon borrowed from the KGB of the former Soviet Union.