Zanni’s name is like a piece of cooled iron, silvery white, silent, and sharp in the most remote corner of my mind. She is a character in the game “Mingchao”, a resonator wearing a suit and holding a briefcase. She has no fancy skill effects, nor eye-catching plot easter eggs. But when I saw her for the first time, I felt that she was very much like a woman I once knew, or, in other words, like hundreds of professional women who shuttled between office buildings every day.
I once interned in a government building. In the cashier’s office on the third floor sat a female clerk with neatly tied hair and a crease carved by the years at the corner of her eyes. Her movements every day were very restrained, like a pressure cooker repeatedly accumulating power. She didn’t speak, but her eyes were calm, and her fingers danced alternately between the abacus and the keyboard. I always felt that she was like a mute girl, with a hot heart, but could only communicate with the world in “silent mode”.
Zanni is the same.
She is a bank clerk in the game setting. She is set to have fire attributes, and most of her skills revolve around “counterattack” and “watch”. She is not like other characters who take the initiative to attack. Her fire is hidden, like the magma hidden under volcanic rocks. It does not burn others, but burns herself. Her normal attack is called “silent negotiation”, which I think is simply a portrayal of her daily life: she doesn’t say much, but she remembers everything in her heart; she doesn’t express emotions, but knows how to express her position in the most hard way.
Su Tong wrote this sentence in “My Imperial Career”: “A woman’s heart is like an old kettle in the cracks of the teahouse wall, quietly emitting steam, never making a sound, but can heat up the whole room.” Zanni is the silent kettle. Her skill “Sleepless Watch” sounds poetic, but it is actually a “sleepless life”. It’s not that she doesn’t want to rest, but she can’t. She has to keep an eye on the time, the battle, and the rules. Her defense mechanism is counterattack, which can only be activated after being hit. Isn’t it the same for women in reality? They don’t take the initiative to fight for anything, but are always forced to save themselves after being injured.
Zani’s characteristics are called “quick reaction defense” in the game. I prefer to call her “repressed resistance”. She doesn’t want to rush to the front, nor does she want to be the focus of everyone. Her existence is like air, faint, but you can’t ignore it. Her ultimate skill “The Moment of Final Judgment” sounds like legal terminology, but what I hear is a tone of grievance and determination: you can ignore me, but please listen to me say “enough” at the last moment.
Her transformation skill “Scorching Flame Form” is more like a metaphor for “emotional loss of control”. On the surface, she is rational and calm, but she has accumulated too much resentment in her heart. The woman who usually keeps a calm face and leaves on time after get off work finally presses the button at a certain moment, and her emotions pour out like a flood. This transformation is not accidental, but inevitable, and it is an extreme way of counterattack given to her by life.
Her other line: “The most urgent thing? Get off work!” It seems humorous, but it is an almost morbid persistence. She regards “getting off work” as a belief, not only because she is tired, but also because she knows that only when she leaves her post can she take a breath and break free from the order of the system to create a little space of her own. This little obsession is her fortress.
The women in Su Tong’s works often struggle in the oppressive family, patriarchal system, and lust. They may not cry loudly, but there is a long-polished road in their hearts, always moving towards self-salvation. Zanni is the same. She fights time every day, accumulates energy in silence every day, and then throws a fireball of judgment at the moment when she has no choice.
Her “Tomorrow’s Beacon” skill can enhance the defense of teammates. I understand that it is her way of protecting others. In reality, such women are very common: they are not heroes, but they always quietly stabilize the morale of the team at the edge; they are not the protagonists, but they stand up at critical moments to block the knife for others. They are sat on like chairs, but never fall.
I don’t think Zanni is a character suitable for all players. She has no visual impact and does not provide strong emotional stimulation. But she is like those women in our lives who wear professional clothes: silent, stubborn, living like an automated device, but knowing what she is doing and why better than anyone else.
She may not have a shocking background story, a tragic childhood, or a grand goal of being a savior. But her existence reminds me of all the women in the cracks of that era: they don’t cry or laugh, they are “mute women”, but they have the flame of language hidden in their bodies. That fire is not for destruction, but for warmth – for themselves and for others.
So I remember Zanni, just like I remember the woman sitting in the cashier’s office – she was silent for a whole ten years, and then suddenly resigned one afternoon, and no one knew where she went.
But I know that she finally “got off work”.