He has empathy, on occasion, to show concern in cases of self-endangerment, but he's adult enough (and, for that matter, CLAMP enough) to understand that Shit Happens and in the event that they are inevitable, the way is to accept them and to pay the appropriate respects at their funerals. He allows others the leeway to make their own decisions for the most part—perhaps as a tribute to a pretense, at the very least, of not being a hypocrite: he's done worse, after all. Only with his latest companions has he begun to refuse to allow others that much choice. For the most part, this renders him adaptable, mostly by removing him from the equation. By and large, Fai is more bystander than any other role, and this lends itself well to his apparent happiness: it's easy to be happy when you're not involved enough to show sorrow. His own grief's a weight, and certainly not one his companions need to have added to their backs. The facade is meant to preserve them as well as himself.

As a long-time practitioner in the fine art of never telling the truth, Fai's apt at spotting dissonances in others—though he'll rarely remark upon them. (That would be too much hypocrisy, even for Fai.) When it comes to it, he's also fond of the magician's final trick: the disappearance. He vanishes from personal confrontation, avoids personal attachment, and makes every effort, after his own passive fashion, to be no more than an innocent sideshow with the occasional convenient trick. But he contradicts his own terms: he's an easygoing man whose pleasures range all the way to the downright childish, all while knowing nevertheless that they must end, and sooner than most. Considered in that light, his passivity takes on something of an extreme: Fai travels world after world with the group, aware all throughout that he must cut them down if they derail from the mission of recovering the princess's memories. "I don't want anyone to get hurt because they were involved with me," he admits, and because this is a magician's confession, it must be taken on several levels. It's understood, for instance, that people uninvolved with him can and will be hurt. It's acknowledged that he'll save those in front of him but won't go out of his way to look for charity cases. It's implicit that his birth as a child of misfortune draws ill luck to befall those around him by his nature. It's all right for others to injure and to execute the magician Fai, if his living's likelier to hurt them than his death. It's an allowable possibility for Fai's companions, ultimately, to die in the course of Fei Wong's plans, so long as it wasn't his involvement which doomed them—though he lies to himself and puts it out of his mind all the while.

In this, Fai's a liar, but at least he's fair about his dishonesty: he lies to himself as much as to anybody else. In spite of a future he understands to be inevitable, he's too soft of heart to avoid attachment to his companions, and ultimately tries to ease their ways and intervene in their fates. His kindness is intrinsic, heavy and determined, layered with guilt for the brother whose life he believes he stole. He is, too, guarded around powerful magicians, for the curse laid on him which would drive him to murder any enchanter stronger than him—Fai has a finely-tuned horror for human murders by his own hands, favoring mercy as a kind of penitance. Driven by the horror of his twin's death, Fai understands his own existence largely as a weapon: carrying forward Fei Wong's malice into a bleak future. Understanding (or so he supposes) the weight of his own crimes, Fai doesn't impose. He makes as few admissions as he can.

Knowing all the mechanics of a trick only clarifies all its ugliness, you see. No one likes transparency in magic.

Fai's capable of both spell-magic as well as physical combat—despite a build like an undercooked noodle, he's quick and deft and pretty decent at hand-to-hand combat! He's shown as being able to keep up with multiple opponents simultaneously and has fought alongside a ninja, both with and without weapons.