Lakan

Lakan is a middle-aged man with dark hair and blue eyes, a trait he passed on his daughter. He wears the typical clothes of a court official, though he shows little care for his appearance and seems scruffy, along with a monocle over his right eye.

Lakan, a member of the La Clan, is infamously eccentric — a genius tactician specialising in Go and Shogi, yet incapable in most other areas. He relies on highly capable subordinates, spending his time lazing and gossiping. Labeled a “henjin” (weird person), he’s unsettling to many. Nearly 40, unmarried, with no public romantic interests, he adopted his half‑nephew as heir. He often speaks in riddles, appearing jovial yet provocative.

Politically known as the “sly fox”, Lakan is obnoxious, meddling, and calculatingly vengeful. The Imperial Court prefers to avoid him. Due to congenital face‑blindness, he views people as Go/Shogi pieces to manipulate, categorising them by worth and actions — a strategy advised by his uncle Luomen, who taught him to recognise others by voice and traits. This makes him an exceptional tactician, though Fengxian and Maomao are the only ones he perceives as fully human. His intelligence and condition have left him isolated; he struggles with genuine connections, unintentionally harming those he cares about through scheming or inaction.

Despite his unsettling demeanour, Lakan becomes an overprotective, hapless “teddy bear” around Maomao. He constantly dotes on her (calling himself “papa”), growing hysterical at the thought of her in danger or marrying Jinshi — he desperately wants to be a loving father. Maomao resists this, resenting his past abandonment and insensitivity. Lihaku once joked that if Maomao called Lakan “papa”, he’d do anything — a comment he quickly retracted when it angered her.

Intelligence: Lakan is extremely perceptive and is able to identify people who are talented and what they are talented at just by looking at them. It is because of this that he is able to hire capable people to be his subordinates. Rather than gathering evidence and drawing logical conclusions like Maomao, he is excellent at intuiting when things are wrong or not and taking action from there.

Strategy: As a tactician, Lakan is highly skilled in both military strategy and board games. His specialties are Go and Shogi (or Xiangqi); it is said that the only man who can defeat him at Go is the Emperor's Go instructor, though he stated that Fengxian was better than him at Go.

Strength: Lakan is deceptively strong despite what his lanky build would suggest. Upon hearing Maomao was kidnapped, he crushed a solid bamboo cup with his bare hands and proceeded to throw a massive log into the heavy wooden gates of the palace.

Conditions: Prosopagnosia: Lakan can only perceive the faces of Fengxian and Maomao; those familiar to him take the form of Shogi pieces (or Xiangqi pieces in the manga and anime), while strangers look like Go stones. For instance, he sees Luomen as a promoted rook, Jinshi as an advisor piece, and Gaoshun as an elephant/bishop piece ("the gold general with the promoted silver").

Lakan's monocle does not serve any real purpose, and is just an affectation as it does not aid his vision. Lakan is an extremely lightweight drinker. Maomao and Jinshi use this to their advantage a few times throughout the story.