Zanni, the five-star diffraction resonator in the Mingchao world, is destined to become a legend. Her name seems to be a part of the interweaving of virtuality and reality, hanging behind those numbers, flickering gently, but disappearing in the endless abyss in an instant. Her story is a story about constant pursuit and constant attempts to break through, like the fantasy that many people can’t let go of. This virtual world has long shaped her into a shining star, but how can she escape the arrangement of fate?
Zanni did not appear different from the beginning. In fact, she is not much different from other virtual characters. In this extremely calm digital world, she must constantly improve herself and break through her limits, and all this is just to stop at that distant end. The materials she needs, low-frequency poly-square sound core, medium-frequency poly-square sound core, high-frequency poly-square sound core, full-frequency poly-square sound core, sword calamus, and the joy of the door of the underworld – these seemingly ordinary items carry her endless struggles and expectations.
She never really thought about why she wanted to be such a person – not for anyone, but for herself. Her growth and improvement seemed to have been arranged by this endless game. What she relied on was not her understanding of the world and her control of life, but those cold numbers, which coldly guided her to a certain node in the future, but she didn’t know whether she had lost herself in the process.
Every breakthrough of Zanni was like a silent transformation. She was no longer the ignorant character, but a stronger and stronger warrior. Her skills were improved, her special weapons were upgraded, and her circuits were unlocked – all of this was constantly pushing her forward, but she never stopped to think: Why did she pursue these things in this game? She never had any real feelings for these numbers, and sometimes she even felt tired of the cold calculations and mechanisms. She even began to doubt whether her growth in this virtual world was just a meaningless cycle?
And are these materials what she really needs? Can she find her true self behind these numbers, or is she just a pawn in this virtual world, a doll at the mercy of others? Every collection of low-frequency polysonic cores and every battle with the enemy is her process of becoming “stronger”, and this process seems to have no end. In the end, she is still that empty, soulless character, walking her destined path in a set world.
Every advancement and breakthrough in the game seems to force her to move forward. She is always accumulating more materials and more power, but in front of these numbers, she is still the woman who longs for freedom. She hopes that she can surpass all this and get rid of these boring goals and tasks, but in this virtual world, she can never escape.
Late one night, Zanni stopped. She stood alone before dawn, imagining her future self. There seemed to be no powerful character in her eyes, nor the goal of constant breakthrough. She just thought quietly: What did she do along the way? How many materials did she collect, how many skills did she unlock, how many enemies did she challenge, and what did she get in the end? She found that she didn’t need these things. She just wanted to find the lost self, the self that was gradually buried by this virtual world before the game started.
Perhaps, the breakthrough and improvement in the game are not the most important things at all. Perhaps, what is really important is how she can find the forgotten “self” behind these numbers. And this “self” may have been left behind by her as early as when she started collecting the first low-frequency polyphonic core.