- “Who are you? You speak up! Speak up! Can't hear you over all these machines! Very loud!”
- ― Chen Lin[src]
Chen Lin (commonly written as Chen-Lin) is a citizen of Columbia. He makes a living as a gunsmith and machinist in Finkton.
History[]
Chen Lin came to Columbia and set up his gunsmith shop in the Plaza of Zeal in 1905, where he met and married his wife May. Through his hard work, he made a name for himself as an excellent gunsmith manufacturing weapons for Fink Manufacturing. As a Chinese man living in Columbia, he felt the prejudice of Columbia's upper class citizens. Consequently, he began supporting the Vox Populi, secretly supplying them with the weapons he created.
BioShock Infinite[]
- Main article: BioShock Infinite
Booker and Elizabeth are forced by Daisy Fitzroy to collect weapons from Chen Lin in exchange for The First Lady Airship, which Fitzroy has taken in the name of the Vox Populi. After making their way to Fink Manufacturing, they find posters of Chen Lin around the area, showing that he is a wanted man for his connection with the Vox. Continuing to his workshop, they find that Chen Lin isn't there. Chen Lin's Chinese wife May tells them that her husband has been arrested and is imprisoned at the Good Time Club. Booker and Elizabeth head out, but arrive too late and find that Chen was beaten to death during interrogation for supporting the Vox. Elizabeth notices a Tear over Chen Lin's body and, upon opening it, she sees that Chen's body is no longer visible, and that he could possibly be alive in the alternate world, and so the two travel through it.
Booker and Elizabeth return to Chen's workshop, where the Buddhist shrine they had seen earlier has changed to a shrine to Comstock, Mrs. Lin is now Caucasian, and the equipment from the workshop is missing. Chen Lin himself is alive, but is apparently affected by his "resurrection" and cannot hear Booker or Elizabeth, complaining that the missing equipment is "too loud" and "very dangerous". This version of Mrs. Lin has connections to the Founders, her brother Scofield Sansmark is Fink's Head of Security, which explains why Chen Lin hasn't been arrested but merely deprived of his tools. When Booker and Elizabeth locate the tools and realize they have no way of transporting them, they open a tear to a new reality where they believe the tools are back at Lin's shop, allowing him to successfully provide the Vox with their weapons.
Upon visiting Chen's workshop for the final time, they find both Chen Lin and his wife murdered together at the entrance of their workshop. It seems that in this reality the Vox Populi had already obtained weapons from Chen Lin, and were unable to protect him from the authorities.
Gallery[]
Behind the Scenes[]
- He has a wife named Mrs. Lin. Depending on the universe, Mrs. Lin's appearance changed from an Asian woman named May Lin, to a Caucasian woman named Sarah Lin.
- This would leave them as the second interracial couple seen in Columbia and BioShock Infinite. At the time, interracial marriage was illegal in most U.S. states (mainly in the southern and western United States). Laws against interracial marriage were made unconstitutional in 1967 after the ruling of Loving v. Virginia - 388 U.S. 1.
- Equipped with the DLC-obtained Bull Rush Gear, Booker can launch Chen Lin into the air (or furnace) per one's caprice via the melee strike mechanics undergirding Bull Rush. The abused man suffers only aesthetic damage consequently, this particularity of Chen Lin's character is notable only as a trivial uniqueness of design compared to all the other in-game models of non-playable narrative characters.
- Both Chen Lin and his wife's bodies are affected by Electric Punch.