Annie

Annie is a prominent dissenter in the Imperial Group Public Relations Department, introduced through the office rumor surrounding Su Xiangcheng’s appointment as acting supervisor. Her importance lies less in personal history than in her function within the department: she gives collective suspicion a voice, converts gossip into a formal complaint, and tests whether Su Xiangcheng’s authority is real or merely borrowed from the executive who placed her there.

Identity and Introduction

The company’s tea-room gossip presents Su Xiangcheng as a young, beautiful substitute supervisor whose appointment appears inexplicable because even a highly qualified deputy supervisor was considered unfit for the post. Annie participates in the rumor-filled atmosphere in which colleagues speculate that Su Xiangcheng must be having an affair with an executive, perhaps even Lu Xun. The accusation is framed as common sense rather than evidence, showing how quickly a woman’s professional advancement is recoded as sexual access to male power.

Annie becomes the visible representative of that suspicion when she finally stands up and confronts Su Xiangcheng. Her age and position are emphasized in the exchange: she warns the younger woman not to be arrogant and likens her confidence to that of an inexperienced calf confronting a tiger. Annie therefore treats Su Xiangcheng’s youth not as a neutral fact but as proof that the new supervisor lacks the maturity and legitimacy to command the department.

Conflict with Su Xiangcheng

Su Xiangcheng answers the insinuation with deliberate provocation. Rather than deny the rumor defensively, she sarcastically claims that she became acting supervisor through an executive’s bed and challenges the others to repeat the feat if they believe that is the route to authority. Annie, as the leading objector, responds that Su Xiangcheng is too young to be so arrogant. Su Xiangcheng then calmly states that the executive himself sent her to the company that morning, refusing to let the gossipers control the meaning of her appointment.

The conflict escalates when Su Xiangcheng uses her authority to impose a severe disciplinary measure: three months’ salary is to be deducted from the employees who have challenged her, while those capable of meeting her standards may receive bonuses. Annie immediately disputes not only the punishment but the office hierarchy that permits it. She declares that a mere acting supervisor has no right to record such penalties and asks, in effect, who Su Xiangcheng thinks she is. Her objection is practical on the surface, but it also reveals a struggle over institutional recognition: Annie refuses to accept temporary status as sufficient authority.

Challenge to Lu Xun’s Authority

After leaving the tea room, Annie goes directly to Lu Xun’s office, followed by other Public Relations Department employees who want to watch whether she can remove the inexperienced supervisor. She presents the complaint as an issue of management and fairness, arguing that Su Xiangcheng cannot convince the department and has abused her authority by punishing staff. Annie demands that the acting supervisor begin from the lowest level instead of immediately occupying a supervisory post.

Lu Xun does not respond as an impartial adjudicator. While continuing to annotate a document, he asks what Annie wants done, then pretends to consider her demand. His amusement indicates that he understands Su Xiangcheng’s provocative style and is not prepared to let the department’s protest strip her of power. When Annie urges him to uphold justice, describes Su Xiangcheng as someone who might think the company belongs to her and a senior executive, and calls for the person behind her to be removed as a corporate defect, Lu Xun rejects the proposal. Annie’s appeal to the company’s highest authority thus becomes an indirect confrontation with Lu Xun’s protection of Su Xiangcheng.

Narrative Function and Significance

Annie is a relatively limited, functional character, but her brief appearance concentrates several of the novel’s recurring pressures. She occupies the position of an employee challenging a superior, yet her challenge is shaped by gendered suspicion, age hierarchy, and uncertainty about marital and sexual legitimacy. Su Xiangcheng’s authority is not evaluated solely through her decisions; it is filtered through the rumor that a woman could only have reached the post through an executive’s favor. Annie helps make that social mechanism visible.

Her conduct also shows how workplace resistance can reproduce the very language that disadvantages women. By repeating the allegation of an affair and treating Su Xiangcheng’s youth and beauty as evidence against her competence, Annie turns reputational stigma into an argument about management. At the same time, Annie’s directness prevents the department’s hostility from remaining anonymous. She speaks for the group, carries its complaint into Lu Xun’s office, and forces the question of whether Su Xiangcheng’s appointment will be recognized through formal authority or reduced to private protection.

The episode ends without Annie overthrowing Su Xiangcheng. Lu Xun’s refusal to remove the acting supervisor leaves Annie’s challenge suspended, while his concealed amusement suggests that the apparent rebellion has only confirmed the power arrangement already in place. Annie therefore functions as the department’s skeptical threshold: she tests the new order, exposes its humiliating rumors, and demonstrates that Su Xiangcheng’s most immediate obstacle is not simply lack of experience but the social demand that a powerful woman explain her power in terms of a man.