Lee Huiyin

He who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. This article contains spoilers, meaning it has information and facts concerning Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple. If you do not want to know about these events, it is recommended to read on with caution, or not at all. This template should be removed from the article 24 January 2024.

Madam Lee (李夫人) was a powerful and wealthy Chinese merchant who owned a trading enterprise in Portuguese Macau in the 1720s. Through her trading network, she became aware of the existence of both the Assassins and the Templars and was willing to work with either group in order to safeguard and benefit her own business.

After acquiring the sea log of the Dutch navigator Hendrik, which contained information pertaining to the location of the ruins of Angkor, she was targeted by both the Assassin Edward Kenway and the Templar Shimazu Saito, who sought to find the ruins. Though Lee allied herself with Edward in order to weaken her business rivals, who were backed by the Templars, she ultimately betrayed the Assassin by attempting to steal an opium shipment against his orders, dissolving their partnership.

Biography

Sabotaged by the Templars

Unlike other merchants at the time who preferred to deal with luxuries, Madam Lee monopolized Macau's salt and sugar trading to become someone who had the city under her feet, as navigator John Young put it. Through her trade network, she eventually became aware of the existence of both the Assassins and the Templars and, while having little interest in their ongoing conflict, she was willing to work with either group as long as it benefited her business.

In 1725, Lee's company was framed for a number of ship attacks in the Straits of Malacca, causing her business to suffer. As a result, she began looking for new sources of profit and eventually took an interest in the largely unexplored region of Indochina.

Around this time, she was approached by Hendrik, a navigator for the Dutch East India Company, who had discovered the location of the ruins of the lost city of the Khmer Empire, which he claimed held many riches. Hendrik wanted Lee's company to sponsor an expedition to Angkor, but she rejected his offer, believing his story to be absurd. However, she still decided to keep an eye on the man.

After Hendrik was mysteriously murdered in February of that year, Lee used her wealth to purchase his sea log from the bank where he had been keeping it, intending to hold on to it as collateral. Not long after, she was approached by a man who claimed to speak on behalf of her rival trading companies and who demanded Hendrik's log in exchange for ceasing all interference against her business. Lee, suspecting the man to be a Templar and realizing that the log was more valuable than she had thought at first, refused and decided to wait for the Templars' next move.

After Zhang's village was hit by an outbreak of cholera, the Assassin Edward Kenway infiltrated Lee's main warehouse in Macau to steal some salt and sugar to create a remedy. While there, he was attacked by Shimazu clan ninja working for the Templars, who had come to burn down the warehouse on behalf of Lee's business rivals. Although managing to set the warehouse on fire, the ninja were swiftly killed by Edward, who then fled the scene. Discovering the aftermath of the battle, Lee was told that the attackers were pirates from Cipango and that they had been killed by a single hooded man. Intrigued, Lee ordered her workers to find out everything they could about him.

Attack on the Mandarin's House

Later, Lee moved into the Mandarin's House along with a number of guards and her most valuable belongings, Hendrik's log among them. Edward infiltrated the residence looking for the log, but Lee had anticipated his arrival and surprised him with two guards, who held him at gunpoint. Having discovered both his identity and his affiliation to the Assassins, she invited him to sit down for tea and talk, but their conversation was interrupted by an attack by the Templar Shimazu Saito and her ninja followers, who killed most of Lee's guards stationed outside.

Lee saved by Edward from an attacking ninja

Lee ordered her remaining guards to kill the intruders, and had one of them continue to hold Edward at gunpoint to prevent him from running away. Upon spotting a ninja running towards Lee, Edward grabbed the guard's pistol and used it to kill the attacker, saving Lee's life. Realizing they shared a common enemy, Lee reluctantly allowed Edward to help out, which he proceeded to do, assisting Lee's guards in driving the ninja away, though not before Saito had managed to steal Hendrik's log.

As her workers cleaned up in the aftermath of the attack, Lee and Edward sat down for tea and resumed their earlier conversation. After Edward pointed out that it was in their best interest to keep no secrets from each other, Lee agreed and told him of the Templars' interference in her business, her turning down Hendrik's offer to sponsor his expedition to Angkor, and the Templars approaching her to demand Hendrik's log, which she refused to give to them.

Lee forming an alliance with Edward

After revealing that it was the Templars who had killed Hendrik and that they were likely working with Lee's business rivals, Edward proposed an alliance and asked Lee to sponsor his future expedition to Angkor in exchange for dealing with the Templars, thus weakening her rivals, and recovering Hendrik's log. Lee agreed and, to celebrate their new partnership, she gifted Kenway two chests of treasure and other goods.

Before he left, Edward asked Lee if she had read Hendrik's log, to which she revealed that its contents seemed ordinary, meaning the information on Angkor was most likely encrypted. She then watched as Edward departed with her gift, unaware that the latter had retrieved a document from the log which was actually the cipher needed to decode it.

Alliance with Edward Kenway

After spying on a meeting between three of Lee's business rivals—Alan Jacob, Jan van Aert, and Master Sun—Edward returned to Lee to inform her that they were behind the attack on the Mandarin's House and were planning their next move against her. Lee suspected that they were preparing to simultaneously attack the market and her fleet, and thus instructed Edward to defend the former, as that was where her most important workers were located. After Lee claimed that her company could recover from the loss of several ships and sailors, Edward angrily called her out for treating her workers as expendable, which surprised her.

When one of Lee's workers arrived to confirm that the market and fleet were both under attack as anticipated, she asked Edward to choose where he would lend his aid. Lee tried to entice the Assassin to head to the market by claiming there was a chance he would find a lead regarding the whereabouts of Hendrik's sea log, but Edward ultimately stuck with his convictions and went to defend the fleet, which was being raided by pirates.

Due to Edward's choice to go and protect Lee's ships, the market was badly damaged in the attack, with many of Lee's workers being injured or killed. When Edward arrived at the market after having dealt with the pirates, Lee angrily confronted him, blaming him for the damage. However, the Assassin retorted that life rarely offered "fairytale endings" where no one was hurt and that he had made his share of poor choices in the past, bur rather than blame others, he had learned to take responsibility for them.

Lee was taken aback by Edward's eloquent words and her surprise only grew when she learned that the Assassin had uncovered who has behind the attacks on her ships: Master Sun. However, before they could discuss more, a worker arrived to inform Lee that one of her ships had been detained by the Dutch Navy. Going to the harbor to meet with the Dutch navymen, Lee learned that her ship was allegedly under investigation for transporting illegal narcotics. Though she quickly saw through the sailors' lie and pointed out that the Far East Company's ships remained untouched, she was forced to back down when the navymen claimed that any resistance would be met with deadly force.

Angry after her meeting with the navymen, Lee returned to Edward, who had been hiding nearby and had overheard the entire discussion. The Assassin then offered a solution to Lee's problem. After following one of Alan Jacob's convoys to a secret drug den, Edward returned to Lee with a package of opium, which the Far East Company had been secretly smuggling into Macau. Believing that the drug would allow her to dominate the market, Lee asked Edward to deliver her more opium so that she could sell it herself, but the Assassin explicitly forbid her from engaging in drug trading.

Though reluctant, Lee agreed to Edward's demand and listened to his plan to out the Far East Company by staging a public raid on one of their ships transporting opium. However, after Edward had successfully exposed the Far East Company's drug trafficking and their ship was detained by the Dutch Navy, Lee went back on their deal and ordered her workers to salvage any product they could from the ship.

Betraying Edward

Intent on taking the opium shipment for herself, Lee mobilized a large fighting force and went to the Far East Company's detained ship. Arriving in the midst of a raid conducted by ninja hired by Master Sun, who was eyeing the same prize, Lee took advantage of the ninja's fighting amongst themselves to quickly overwhelm them.

After the ninja's leader, Shimazu Saito, ordered a retreat, Lee had her men begin to take several crates of opium, but they were stopped by Edward, who was also on the ship. Lee told the Assassin that she could not turn a blind eye to such an opportunity for profit, and ordered him to step away or he would also be branded an enemy. In response, Edward set off a nearby firework and then leapt off the ship before it was hit by cannon fire. Lee watched in horror as the ship and its cargo were destroyed and cursed out Edward's name, bringing an end to their short-lived alliance.

Later, Lee sought to exact revenge on Edward by using her influence to blacklist his recently-established organization, the Zhang Wei Union, so that its members would not find any clients to hire them. Despite her efforts however, Edward was ultimately offered a job opportunity by one of Lee's own merchants, who owned the ship that had been attacked by pirates and subsequently defended by the Assassin.

Alliance with the Shimazu clan

Shortly after the opium incident, Lee was visited at the Mandarin's House by a Shimazu clan ninja, which surprised her given the clan's previous attacks against her company. After telling the man that he had some nerve to come see her, she asked him to state the purpose of his visit. As it turned out, the ninja was part of a splinter-faction of the clan who sought to secure an alliance with Lee against the main faction led by Shimazu Saito. Seeing an opportunity to destroy her enemies by turning them against each other, Lee agreed to the alliance.

Personality and traits

Madam Lee was an ambitious businesswoman who always put the interests of her company first. Despite being aware of the Assassins and Templars' ongoing war, she had little interest in either side's cause and was only willing to work with them as long as it benefited her business. Because she always prioritized profits, she did not value the lives of others very much, treating many of her workers as expendable, and being willing to engage in drug trading even if it meant ruining countless lives in the process.

An intelligent woman, Lee had built her empire by monopolizing Macau's salt and sugar trade and was willing to go to extreme lengths to protect it. Not one to be easily fooled, she always tried to anticipate her enemies' next move, and could see through most attempts to deceive or manipulate her. While usually maintaining a calm and graceful exterior, she was also prone to anger whenever things did not go according to her plans.

Because of her wealth and status, Lee was also quite arrogant and believed herself to be above the common people of Macau or Westerners like Edward Kenway, ^{[citation needed]} though she was still willing to work with him towards a common goal. In turn, Edward did not hesitate to voice his disagreements with Lee's views or otherwise confront her, which both infuriated and intrigued her. As a result, Lee came to begrudgingly respect the Assassin and would occasionally show him a nicer side of herself.

Gallery

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  Madam Lee
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  Lee having Edward held at gunpoint to prevent escaping

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple