>>717112709During the game's beta, the game tried to appeal to general audiences by having male and female characters.
The playable guy planned for launch was named Ling Yi, who was a smug asshole. Basically Johan from Nikke, but if Johan never let up or tried to mentor you.
On top of that, he would also hit on the other girls (particularly Fenny), and the girls would flirt back. So any potential "waifu" looked dirty because of him.
Add in that he's just a boring character, and there was no positive reception to him, so the devs cut him from the game and promised to never make playable males aside from (you).
Ling Yi roughly translates to 01 in chinese, so people refer to him that way.