She was the kind of person who remained calm. She stood there quietly, like an unfinished line on a sketch paper, always ignored, but always indispensable. She was not beautiful, at least not the kind of beauty that everyone envied. Her beauty was like a gray mirror, which could reflect the shadows in people’s hearts after looking at it for a long time.
Her name was Xiadie. This name sounded like the title of a concubine in the Qing Dynasty, who was sealed in an embroidery building, with fragrant clothes and hair all year round, and tears falling into the tea. But she was not such a person. She was the most inconspicuous one in the game, the one who was most likely to die and the least afraid of death.
In this era, most people are willing to be traffic, the center of applause, and the subject of the “too handsome” in the cheers of the audience when they swing their swords to cut the enemy. But she only wants to be a supporting role, the woman who dies for you behind you.
She is not glamorous, but people can’t look away
Speaking of it, she is a female character, but her design does not have the slightest deliberate tenderness, no charm, no pink. She is not like other female heroes – thin waist and long legs, windy moves, everything is like a Hua Dan on the stage, even death must be beautiful.
Xia Die is not. There is no publicity in her posture, her clothes are dark, and her skills do not have explosive special effects. If you glance at her, you may even think that she is not worthy of appearing on the battlefield. But when she stands there, the enemy will die and you will live. She is the most underestimated fuse in the battle, twisted tightly, but burning slowly, and finally exploded in a place you can’t see.
She is like the white rose in Zhang Ailing’s “Red Rose and White Rose”, not because she is weak, but because she is too calm and restrained, like a piece of ice – you can’t see the cracks, but it will break if you step on it.
She doesn’t take the initiative to ask for anything, and has never cared about “presence”. But she is the kind of person who makes the whole team look empty once she is absent. She is not beautiful, but people don’t want her to die.
All her skills are used to save people, not to beat people
What a weird setting. In a game that takes pride in killing, almost all of her mechanisms are “for others”. If you have less blood, she will make up for you; if you are dying, she will help you fight back; if you die, she will avenge you; if she dies, she can still leave a flame of anger.
This is a very old model, so old that it is like the third concubine in the novels of the Republic of China – she is not good-looking and has no backing, but she is always the first to take care of the widow of someone else’s husband who died, or the maid who took the blame for the wife’s mistake. She doesn’t ask “whether it is worth it” and never resists, as if she came to the world just to suffer grievances and to be a “good person”.
But does she really want to be a “good person”? Not necessarily. Maybe she just knows that if she can’t become the worthy redeemer, she will not even be qualified to be “remembered”. She is the one who contributes to the existence of others, but she never has her own walls.
This is like those “good colleagues” in real life who run errands for you, take the blame for you, and clean up your ass all day long. They are not kind, they are just afraid – afraid that no one needs them anymore.
She treats others as human beings, but few people treat her as human beings
The setting of Xiadie is sad – all her sources of power are based on the pain of others. The more miserable others are, the stronger she is. Only when others are dying, she has the opportunity to save people or take revenge. This is not a kind of “reciprocity”, but an extremely distorted dependent relationship.
It’s not that she doesn’t want to be strong, she just doesn’t have the opportunity to take the initiative to become a strong person. She is trapped by the system in a position where she can only “react” and cannot “take the initiative”. How much this is like a certain type of woman we are familiar with – always a caregiver, a sacrifice, and someone who is expected to understand other people’s emotions.
You can treat her as a tool, but when she fails, no one will remember that it was she who pulled you back from the brink of death again and again. Just like a broken teapot, after brewing good tea a thousand times, it finally cracked and was lost.
Zhang Ailing said: “For a woman, the most proud thing in life is to be remembered by others.”
But Xiadie lived like a shadow, and she was never remembered by others.
She was the one in the crowd who quietly waited for you to turn around but never dared to speak.
She didn’t have many lines, and her voice was low, with a kind of “I’m used to it” sadness. She never gave orders to the battle, nor did she shout how useful she was. She was like a woman sitting at the edge of the dining table – she didn’t take the initiative to pick up the dishes when they arrived, and she didn’t interrupt when the topic came, but just smiled slightly, her eyes wandering.
She knew that she didn’t belong to this excitement. She wasn’t even a “foil”, she just came to “fill” the vacancies of others. When the team lacked a life-saving person, she came; when the team didn’t explode, she didn’t fight.
This silence reminded people of some women in old Shanghai – smart, gentle, not fighting for the limelight, and not leaving any traces. They knew they were just extras from the beginning, but they still tried their best in every appearance, not for anyone, just to prove “I have been here”.
Would Eileen Chang like her? Maybe not. Eileen Chang likes ambitious and emotional women. But she would also feel sad for Xiadie. Because she understands that such a woman will be misunderstood as “taken for granted” all her life.
Conclusion
She is Xiadie. She lives and dies for others, and never fights for herself. She is a character whose name is forgotten, a leaf that does not shine or make a sound in the war.
But because of her, many people did not die. Because she has always been there, others have never been alone.
But when everything is settled, no one will look at her.
She no longer looks at anyone.
She just walked away gently.