Han Shaogong said: “People have never been truly free, but have only changed to a form of constraint.” If we look at the character Zanni in “Mingchao” from this perspective, she is no longer just a fire output, no longer just a symbolic role of aloofness and workplace, but a deeper symbol: she is the light of self that has not been completely swallowed up in the cracks of the system, and the glimmer of will that refuses to sink completely in the institutional order. Her background setting is full of a kind of “paranoia under order”: calm, self-disciplined, suppressed emotions, and advocating rationality-a person who has been highly disciplined by the system. What can we think of? Office women? Elite civil servants? Managers who give up emotions in front of data and replace humanity with procedures? Yes, Zanni may be a collection of them. She symbolizes a “conquered free man” in the game world, a “half-man” left after being repeatedly cut in efficiency, execution and goal orientation. In Han Shaogong’s novels, such as “Maqiao Dictionary” and “Suggestion”, we often see a theme: people are swallowed up, and people fight again. However, this kind of struggle is not necessarily presented in the form of noise and rebellion. More often, it is carried out in “silence”. Han Shaogong said that silence does not mean recognition, but rather a dull and painful response after extreme repression. And Zanni’s silence is exactly like this.
Her most famous line in the game is: “The most urgent thing? Get off work.” If Han Shaogong saw it, he would probably laugh three times: “How can this be a joke? This is a tragic declaration compressed into the cracks of the system.” This desire to “get off work” actually reveals a complaint about the deprivation of individual time and autonomy. She did not shout “victory” or “mission must be accomplished”, she shouted “I want to get out of here” – how much like an old cadre or office worker who has been struggling in the system for many years, calm, restrained, not speaking out, not making trouble, but actually shouting loudly in her heart.
Let’s look at her skill names: “Judgment”, “Watching”, “Silent Negotiation” – do these words sound like high-frequency words in official documents and political documents? What is she “watching”? Who is she “negotiating” with in “silence”? She is struggling in a structure that is more difficult to deal with than the enemy, and surviving in an ecology without clear boundaries but with shackles everywhere. She is not fighting, but “adhering to”, “enduring”, and maintaining awe of order and residual respect for people after repeated self-consumption.
Han Shaogong created an individual who is unable to fight against the torrent of history in “Hint”; while Zanni is a character who still has a spark of personality after being subdued by “contemporary technocratic rationality”. What she represents is not only the difficult living situation of women, but also the common dilemma of contemporary people in a disciplinary society. Every Zanni may be facing the triple pressure of “job performance”, “organizational requirements” and “behavioral norms” – unable to break through, and unwilling to completely surrender, can only occasionally burst into flames in the “fiery form”.
Her anger came quietly and went away quickly. This fire is not a rage, but a protest that is constantly rising in her body and forcibly suppressed. It is what Han Shaogong calls “the right to insist on one’s ideas in silence.” She is a female middle-level manager who works overtime until late at night under the cold light of the company, a helpless person in the audit office who is told “you just understand” when facing false data, and a person who sees through everything in the system but still retains the last bit of professionalism.
You may not like Zanni. Because she is not as pure and kind as Lin Mo, and not as girlish as Yinlin. But you cannot deny: she is an indispensable gear in this system. She is not an ideal hero, but a real “survivor.” If Han Shaogong writes about her, he will probably call her “the firekeeper on the ruins of the system” – neither intending to subvert nor willing to degenerate, but just constantly maintaining a little temperature left on the edge of the rules.
In real life, Zanni’s prototype is everywhere: women who write PPTs until three in the morning but still have to clock in on time, department heads who pretend to be calm in meetings but are actually exhausted, and workplace people who know the process is absurd but can only sneer and say “Okay, leader, I know.” They don’t cry or make a fuss, don’t fight or compete, and only bury a little dignity of their own identity between “overtime”, “deadline” and “assessment indicators”.
Han Shaogong said: “No matter what restrictions a person is subject to, as long as he still has a certain self-judgment ability in his heart, he is free.” Zanni’s freedom is in the moment when she doesn’t say it out loud, in her eyes that are not submissive and non-flattering, and when her flame occasionally ignites.
She is not a heroine, nor a savior. But she is a real “institutional fire person” in our time – even in the vortex of discipline and indifference, she must keep the things in her heart that are not swallowed up. Her fire cannot illuminate others, but at least warms herself.