The world of Mingchao seems to be a smoke of nothingness. Every character is shrouded in this smoke, as if living in it, wandering at the intersection of reality and virtuality. Zanni is just a chess piece in this world, a chess piece at the mercy of the designer. Her existence is like an image in the smoke, both clear and blurred, both real and illusory.
Zanni’s name may not be conspicuous, and even in the eyes of many people, she is just a programmed character with tasks. She has no intense emotional fluctuations, no ups and downs of fate. Her story is a plain growth, a lonely journey of continuous breakthroughs in cold numbers. And her breakthrough – from special weapons to resonance circuits, and then to the final all-round enhancement, seems to be just a mechanical advancement, as if there is no emotion worth exploring. Every time she strengthens, she is like a bored player, slowly grabbing some “rewards” from boring battles. These rewards are not to bring light to the soul, but just insignificant coins in the empty world.
Among these cold breakthrough materials, the sword calamus, the joy of the dark door, the low-frequency square sound core… these are just the tools she needs, but behind them, there is a lack of vitality and a lack of real concern. She does not feel any blood boiling, nor does she understand the fate hidden behind these numbers. She is just like a cat at a loss in this virtual world, wandering between different circuits and dilemmas, waiting for an unknown end.
However, her loneliness is obvious. When Zanni slowly evolved from an ordinary character to an awe-inspiring existence, the world did not seem to give her any real sense of belonging. All she has is the carefully designed skills and combat power, as if she is not a real individual, but an oppressed soul. In this world filled with cold numbers, her growth is like a woman’s countless put down and pick up sadness: although it seems to be a process, it actually does not have much meaning.
This is her world, an empty world, a virtual world, filled with numbers, battles and collections, full of repetitive tasks and breakthroughs that are no longer amazing. Like many people, she was trapped in an endless cycle and could not break free. Her tasks constantly gave her new challenges and goals, but these challenges and goals never brought any real breakthroughs. Behind every achievement, there was still the loneliness with no way out.
She seemed to have fallen into an inescapable siege. Outside the city was an empty virtual world, and inside the city were endless circuits and challenges. In this city, she could not find friends to rely on, nor had she met any feelings that could break her loneliness. Her heart was already full of confusion and confusion about human emotions. She kept moving forward, collecting those materials, hoping to piece together a complete self through these fragments. However, behind these fragments, there was no warmth, only endless coldness.
Her breakthroughs and growth were still those cold numbers, circuits, and skills, and these numbers kept reminding her that she was just a product of the virtual world and could not realize her own existence in a real sense. In this seemingly busy process, Zani gradually realized that her existence seemed to always be a role set for others. And this setting eventually made her more and more unreal. She knew that she could not escape from this game. She would continue to travel through this ruthless digital world, continue to meet those meaningless challenges, and continue to wander in the cold circuit until she was completely lost in the corner of this world at some point.
Her story was a tragedy in the virtual world, but the core of the tragedy was not her death, but that she had never really lived.