# Zhuang Fangyi Lore: Her Sad Backstory > Zhuang Fangyi lost her family twice: her mother when she was a child, then the Science Station seniors who raised her. Why the Viceroy never stops working. Source: https://endfieldhub.org/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore-sad-backstory-wuling-endfield Published: 2026-10-01 Updated: 2026-10-03 **Zhuang Fangyi has lost her family twice.** The first time, she was a child, missing from her mother’s funeral. The second time, she was the youngest member of the Wuling Science Station, and the one left standing at the front to give the eulogy. Most players know her as the Viceroy of Wuling: composed, brilliant, a little too fond of Chubby Lung blind boxes. Her coworkers know her better than that, and they say the same thing. They like her, but they don’t really know her. She never talks about herself. Her profile files do. This is her story, told in order from the in-game English text. _Endfield Hub is a fan-made resource and is not affiliated with Hypergryph or Yostar._ --- **Short version first:** the Zhuang Fangyi backstory in under two minutes, from our YouTube channel. The full story with every source follows below. More backstories are on the [Endfield lore hub](https://endfieldhub.org/lore). ## TL;DR - Key Points * **She’s the Viceroy of Wuling** and the Tianshi in charge of the Novel Xiranite-based Materials Project, a Kylin from the Hongshan Academy of Sciences. * **Her mother died when she was a child.** Surgeon Zhuang Hanqing died of illness at 42\. Fangyi went missing from the mourning hall and stopped speaking. * **Her uncle and aunt raised her**, with care, but never had enough time to stay by her side. * **She skipped so many school years** that she was always the youngest in the room and lost the chance to have friends her own age. * **The Science Station became her family.** They threw her a welcome party, and she was so young she drank juice. * **Then the Science Station incident took them.** The youngest member gave the eulogy and promised to carry their hopes on her shoulders. * **She never stopped working after that.** She ran the shelters and the rebuild, and once wished she were a machine that never needed rest. * **One spring, she missed the pear blossoms.** Remembering her promise that Wuling would be a home for everyone, she threw open the windows and let the petals in. --- ## Who Is Zhuang Fangyi? Zhuang Fangyi is a 6-star Electric operator in Arknights: Endfield. Her file lists her as a Kylin, born August 7, authenticated by the Hongshan Academy of Sciences, and Oripathy negative. Her exam reads Physiological Strength: Standard, Combat Skill: Standard, Tactical Acumen: Excellent, Originium Arts Assimilation: Outstanding. Her titles are long. She’s the Viceroy of the Wuling Scientific Developmental District and the Tianshi in charge of the Novel Xiranite-based Materials Project, and she joined Endfield Industries on the Academy’s recommendation to research the rifts. Endfield’s HR assistant came away from her contract signing slightly unsettled: > “She reviewed the cooperation agreements quickly, raised no questions or objections, and signed without hesitation, as though she were simply confirming a next-day onboarding notification, not committing to a partnership that would shape the next ten years and beyond. Where does such unconditional trust come from? Perhaps the Endmin has the answer.” Martin Marvin Malen, Assistant, HR Division Her official history is easy to find. Any tour guide in Wuling City can recite it, and the Tianshi Bureau Academy archives hold her publications. Her second profile file says that’s exactly the problem: > “‘I really like Tianshi Zhuang, but I don’t seem to know her well.’ Every operator who worked with her feels this way.” Coworkers meet her as a March breeze, gentle and refreshing. When an experiment stalls, a storm breaks: her speech turns “quick and relentless, like a sudden downpour,” reports flutter off the tables as she strides past, and the problem is gone. Then, as you catch your breath, “it hits you: she never talks about herself. Not to you, not to anyone. You had stepped into the eye of the storm, and found nothing but stillness.” The same file explains why, in two documents placed right after that line. --- ## The Obituary ![An obituary clipping from the Hongshan Evening News, with the name and age circled in red](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-obituary.webp) The first document is a newspaper notice from the _Hongshan Evening News_, Vol. 8: > “Surgeon Zhuang Hanqing, a distinguished scholar at Hongshan Academy of Sciences, passed away due to illness last Sunday at 6:23 AM at Hongshan First Hospital, aged 42\. A family memorial and farewell service will be held this Thursday in the main hall of Hongshan Funeral Home.” The contacts at the bottom are “Her brother Zhuang Changqing; sister Zhuang Daiqing.” Hanqing was a woman, a surgeon and an Academy scholar, and her siblings are the two adults in the next document. --- ## The Mourning Hall ![A line drawing of a funeral hall at night, with a small child sitting alone outside the door](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-mourning-hall.webp) The second document is a communication log from the day of the funeral: > **Zhuang Changqing:** Has anyone seen Fangyi? I’ve been busy all day. Just realized she’s not in the mourning hall. **Zhuang Daiqing:** Don’t worry. I’m with her now. **Zhuang Changqing:** That’s a relief to hear… I’m glad you’re here. She’s just a child, and this is such a heavy loss. **Zhuang Changqing:** Ever since Hanqing passed … she hasn’t said a word. You know the girl better than me. Has she said anything to you? **Zhuang Daiqing:** No… She won’t speak to me either. The game never prints the word “mother” next to Hanqing’s name. One of Fangyi’s own voice lines fills the gap. The Endministrator is reading an old paper about her family, and she says: > “You could have just asked me directly. After my parents passed, my uncle and aunt raised me with great care. But they each had their own responsibilities and couldn’t always be by my side. So, from a young age, I longed for more companionship. And yet, when I finally found friends, I started missing the quiet and peace of solitude.” So both of her parents died, the uncle and aunt in the log took her in, and the girl who wouldn’t speak grew up wanting company and never quite settling into it. --- ## The Youngest in Every Room She buried herself in study. Her fourth profile file keeps her graduation speech, and it opens with an apology for her age: > “I’m the youngest amongst you. Even fellow students who just enrolled are two years ahead of me.” She thanks her classmates for “helping me reach the top shelves when I couldn’t” and for saving her a front-row seat, and then says the sad part plainly: > “I skipped many years in school and lost the chance to befriend peers of my age. But in return, I gained invaluable friendships with those older than me. I missed out on one kind of companionship, but received guidance, mentorship, and trust from another.” Another voice line remembers a teacher from those years: “When I was a child, I loved accompanying my master to the observatory. She would count the stars and point out one as Dijiang.” She used to wonder how far away it was. Now Dijiang is right in front of her, she says, “it is the memories that feel distant.” --- ## A Welcome Party With Juice ![A row of wine glasses on a table, with one small glass of orange juice in the middle](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-welcome-party.webp) From the Academy she went to the Wuling Science Station, and the older researchers there became the family she’d been missing. The same file holds a recording from much later, at a new operator welcome party aboard Dijiang, where she has clearly had more than one drink: > “Is this the ninth? Hmm … maybe it’s a bit too much. You know, the last time I felt this happy was when I first arrived at the Science Station. They threw me a welcome party too. I was very young back then so I only had juice. But I felt tipsy just the same, watching them toast cup after cup and laugh without worry. The mood was perfect.” It’s the happiest memory in her files. It’s also the last one with all of them in it. --- ## The Eulogy ![A lectern on a dark stage, with candle lights rising toward it](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-eulogy.webp) The files never describe the Wuling Science Station incident directly. They only show what it left behind. During the main story, the Endministrator watches a memory inside a scroll and sees “a young Zhuang Fangyi grieving with despair after the Wuling Science Station disaster.” Then there’s the eulogy, which she gave in front of the families of the dead: > “I am keenly aware that many among you are far more suited than I to stand here today and deliver this eulogy for those we have lost. In the presence of parents, sons and daughters, lifelong companions, and loved ones … I am but a mere youth. I was the youngest member at the Science Station.” She remembers asking her seniors how she could repay their trust. “They would always smile and tell me that doing my work and honoring the expectations placed upon me were the best means of repayment.” So she made them a promise: > “Though they are no longer with us, the trust they invested in me has not waned, nor has their faith in the Xiranite project. I understand that this is the moment to repay them in full… And faithfully I shall bear those hopes and expectations upon my shoulders.” She took it literally. --- ## The Machine That Never Rests ![A split drawing: a bare, spotless room labelled HOME beside a cluttered desk labelled LAB](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-home-and-lab.webp) Her third file picks up right after the disaster. She managed the temporary shelters, built the line of defense between the disaster site and the safe zone, and handled deployment, remediation and supplies. The leadership of the Hongshan Academy of Sciences (HAS) was impressed enough that, “despite many other qualified candidates,” they gave her the rebuilding of the Science Station. > “At times, she even caught herself wishing she were a machine that never needed rest. In a sense, she already was one. The lab’s countdown clock for Blight rupture simulations governed her every move, each tick tightening her focus.” She buzzed between the lab and the Monitoring Center “like a fully wound-up clockwork doll.” The file sums the period up in one line: “It was a period when she sacrificed much … and missed even more.” It never really ended. Her first file says that since she came aboard Dijiang, her home in Wuling City “stays spotless, so clean it feels as though no one has ever lived there,” while her lab “is cluttered with personal items, as if that’s where life actually happens.” A voice line gives her schedule: up at four, exercise done by five, at her desk by half past five, “this rhythm has carried me through more than a decade.” Once, HAS ordered her to take a break. On the first day she gave “an illusion of rest.” Then she paced up and down the beach, worrying about the lab. Each day her mood grew heavier, and by the end: > “Tianshi Zhuang who could barely get out of bed kept murmuring these words: ‘The lab … I need to get back to the lab. The results could come in any moment. I cannot waste any more time.’” She came back smiling so brightly that people assumed she’d had a lovely vacation. “In truth, she was only glad that the ordeal by vacation was over.” Even Perlica, the ship’s other famous workaholic, was astonished. The file is clear about the reason: > “Her time is no longer hers alone, but generously sacrificed for those who have lost homes and lives to the rifts. She dare not, and she cannot allow even a second to go to waste.” --- ## The Legacy She Can’t Put Down Her voice lines keep circling back to the seniors she lost. She can’t bring herself to leave the Xiranite research, even knowing her colleagues would carry it on: “this project may be the sole legacy of my seniors; how could I possibly walk away from it?” She doesn’t see the research as the thing that was lost, though: > “My predecessors placed the preservation of their scientific achievements above their own lives. Yet to me, it is their passing that feels like the greater loss. While Xiranite can be reproduced, the departed cannot return.” On the anniversary of their deaths she asks the Endministrator to walk with her to the Serenity Garden. “I still regret that I could not gather their remains and return them to their homelands,” she says. No monument can bring them back, but if the memorials keep their memory alive “even for a moment longer, then their efforts were not in vain.” She had tried to bring them home once. When the senior Tianshi voted to stop the search at the Very Large Rift, she was one of only two who objected, alongside a young Ursus named Pan Yuan, who resigned over it (his side is in our [Da Pan lore post](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/da-pan-lore-sad-backstory-hongshan-endfield)). And she wasn’t as calm through the rebuilding as her titles suggest. In the early days of Wuling City, she says, she often slipped away to the mountains “to find peace.” “Don’t laugh, but ‘finding peace’ was just an excuse. In truth, I was quietly wiping away my tears.” Back then Mi Fu still belonged to Qingbo Stockade and usually came at her swinging. “Except that one night, she said nothing and simply sat beside me until dawn, keeping me company.” (Mi Fu’s side of Wuling is in our [Mi Fu lore deep dive](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/mi-fu-fistful-of-reflections-lore-deep-dive).) --- ## The Pear Blossoms ![An ink pear branch with white blossoms above a hand-drafted city plan](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-pear-blossoms.webp) The turn in her third file comes from something small. During the rebuild she looked up from her desk and overheard a new Tianshi, “acne still dotting his youthful face,” say he was starving and wanted hot pot. Another told him to stop thinking about food. He patted his cheeks and muttered, “Right. This isn’t home. I should keep my mind on the mission.” It hit her “as though struck by a fierce bolt of Tianshi Lei Fa (Thunder Arts).” She saw the food tins, the stale air, the colleagues asleep in corners. She ran outside looking for something green. > “The pear trees along the path were close to shedding their wilted flowers. The daily routine of work kept her so trapped that she never noticed them in full bloom.” Then she remembered something she had said long before, when everyone gathered around her as she “drew straight lines and gentle curves to draft a city upon a sheet of paper.” She had said Wuling City would be a home for everyone. “So why had she forgotten? She had no answer for that.” That evening she ran through every department of the Academy calling for everyone to leave the labs and see the falling blossoms. When people didn’t move, she went door to door. When even that failed, “she threw open the windows and let the petals drift into the offices.” Some said later that she had worked herself out of her mind. “She would only smile and say that she had worked herself to clarity.” The pear trees carry more weight than that one file. Walking through the city in the main story, she tells the Endministrator that the very first pear tree in Wuling City was their gift. Years later she turns up on Dijiang “not for work this time”: “The pear trees in Wuling have fruited, so I thought I’d bring some to share with everyone.” And she learned what the trees meant for everyone else, too: > “Many of the plants in Wuling were gifts from Tianshi brought from their homelands… Only later did I realize that it wasn’t just the seeds that had taken root. They had as well. To them, Wuling was no longer a stranger, but a home.” --- ## The Viceroy Today Wuling City now stands where the Science Station did, right beside the rift. “Of course building Wuling City right next to the rift is extremely dangerous,” she says. “I knew that better than anyone else. But nobody wanted to relocate the city when we rebuilt it. Wuling inherited the duty of the Science Station, and the Tianshi will never falter. Nor will this city.” The children of the dead come to study there. Her orientation speech to new Tianshi admits that many of them chose Wuling “because your parents and elders who sacrificed everything for the Science Station…” and that seeing them brings back her own first day, when she sat in their seats and listened to those same people. She ends it: “Thank you for choosing to walk this path with me.” ![A dithered black and white profile of Zhuang Fangyi, turned away](https://endfieldhub.org/images/blog/zhuang-fangyi-lore/zhuang-fangyi-turned-away.webp) She has a warmer side, and the voice lines show it: braised meat noodles on Fangxing Avenue, a botched attempt at cooking because Mi Fu scolded her for living on takeout, a three-legged race she won last year. For her own answers on the Endministrator, Chubby Lung and the weight of the job, see the [Zhuang Fangyi AMA recap](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/zhuang-fangyi-ama-wuling-viceroy-recap). But the profile files close the same way they open. Her coworkers like her. They don’t really know her. She never talks about herself, not to anyone, and the girl who went silent outside her mother’s mourning hall is still in there somewhere. --- ## Zhuang Fangyi’s Story in Order | When | What happened | Source | | --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | | Childhood | Surgeon Zhuang Hanqing dies of illness at 42; Fangyi goes missing from the mourning hall and stops speaking | File 2 | | Childhood | Her uncle and aunt raise her after her parents pass | Voice lines | | School | She skips many years, graduates youngest, and loses the chance at friends her own age | File 4 | | Science Station | The seniors throw her a welcome party; she drinks juice | File 4 | | The incident | The Wuling Science Station disaster; the youngest member gives the eulogy | File 4, main story | | The rebuild | She runs the shelters and is chosen to rebuild the station; “a machine that never needed rest” | File 3 | | The rebuild | She misses the pear blossoms and throws open the windows | File 3 | | Wuling City | Viceroy for a decade; she welcomes the children of the station’s dead | File 2, File 4 | | Endfield | She signs the ten-year agreement without a question; HAS forces her on vacation | HR Summary, File 1 | The files give no calendar dates, so this table keeps to the order the text gives. --- ## Sources and Method Every quote in this post comes from Zhuang Fangyi’s in-game English text: her profile records (Basic Info, HR Summary and Files 1 to 4), her voice lines, and the main story mission summaries for the scroll memory and the pear tree walk. We’ve lightly punctuated a few quotes where the original used a dash. One point is our reading rather than the game’s wording: the game never calls Zhuang Hanqing her mother. We base it on the obituary (Hanqing was a woman, and her siblings are the two adults who look after Fangyi in the log) and on Fangyi’s own line that her uncle and aunt raised her after her parents passed. For her kit, materials and damage numbers, see [Zhuang Fangyi’s operator page](https://endfieldhub.org/characters/zhuang-fangyi). For the wider history of Wuling and the rifts, read the [Version 1.2 Wuling lore deep dive](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/arknights-endfield-version-1-2-wuling-lore-deep-dive). For more operators whose files hide a hard past, read [Last Rite’s backstory](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/last-rite-lore-sad-backstory-nachzehrer-endfield) and [Estella’s backstory](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/estella-lore-sad-backstory-landbreaker-camp-endfield). --- ## Frequently Asked Questions **Who is Zhuang Fangyi in Arknights Endfield?** Zhuang Fangyi is the Viceroy of the Wuling Scientific Developmental District and the Tianshi in charge of the Novel Xiranite-based Materials Project. She’s a Kylin from the Hongshan Academy of Sciences, born August 7, who joined Endfield Industries on the Academy’s recommendation to research the rifts. In combat she’s a 6-star Electric operator. **What happened to Zhuang Fangyi’s parents?** Both died when she was young. Her profile includes the Hongshan Evening News obituary for Surgeon Zhuang Hanqing, a scholar at the Hongshan Academy of Sciences who died of illness aged 42, and a message log in which the family can’t find Fangyi in the mourning hall. In a voice line she says that after her parents passed, her uncle and aunt raised her. **Why did Zhuang Fangyi stop talking as a child?** After Zhuang Hanqing died, Fangyi didn’t say a word to anyone. In the communication log her uncle Zhuang Changqing says she hasn’t spoken since Hanqing passed, and her aunt Zhuang Daiqing, who found her outside the mourning hall, says she won’t speak to her either. **What was the Wuling Science Station incident?** A disaster at the Wuling Science Station, the research post that came before Wuling City, which killed many of the senior researchers working on Xiranite. Zhuang Fangyi was the youngest member of the station. She delivered the eulogy, then ran the temporary shelters and was chosen by the Hongshan Academy of Sciences to rebuild the station. **Why is Zhuang Fangyi a workaholic?** Her files tie it to the dead. She promised in her eulogy to carry her seniors’ hopes on her shoulders, she calls the Xiranite project possibly their sole legacy, and her profile says her time is no longer her own but given to those who lost homes and lives to the rifts. When HAS forced her to take a vacation, she could barely get out of bed by the end of it. **What is the pear blossom story about?** During the rebuild, she looked up from her work one day and realized she had missed the pear trees blooming. She remembered drafting Wuling City on paper and promising it would be a home for everyone. That evening she ran through the Academy calling everyone out to see the falling blossoms, and threw open the windows to let the petals in. **Why does Zhuang Fangyi trust the Endministrator?** The game doesn’t say outright. Endfield’s HR assistant notes that she signed a ten-year cooperation agreement without a single question and asks where such unconditional trust comes from, adding “Perhaps the Endmin has the answer.” The main story adds that the very first pear tree in Wuling City was the Endministrator’s gift. --- ## Related Reading * [Arknights Endfield Lore and Backstories](https://endfieldhub.org/lore): every operator backstory Short next to its write-up, plus all world and faction lore * [Zhuang Fangyi AMA: Wuling Viceroy Recap](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/zhuang-fangyi-ama-wuling-viceroy-recap): the Viceroy answering fan questions in her own voice * [Version 1.2 Wuling Lore Deep Dive](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/arknights-endfield-version-1-2-wuling-lore-deep-dive): Wuling, Xiranite and the rifts beneath the city * [Mi Fu: A Fistful of Reflections](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/mi-fu-fistful-of-reflections-lore-deep-dive): the Qingbo fighter who sat with her until dawn * [Last Rite Lore: Her Sad Backstory Explained](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/last-rite-lore-sad-backstory-nachzehrer-endfield): the undertaker who refuses to feed on the dead * [Estella Lore: Her Sad Backstory Explained](https://endfieldhub.org/blog/estella-lore-sad-backstory-landbreaker-camp-endfield): the “lazy” Z7 scout who was a Landbreaker captive