Zhao Zhe

Zhao Zhe is a newcomer guest on 13 Days on the Island whose role is defined by the gap between media-friendly enthusiasm and the unforgiving conditions of the survival program. One of six guests assembled at the dock—four men and two women in addition to Shen Tang—he presents himself as a loyal admirer of Shen Tang, yet immediately fails the simplest test of that claim. His awkwardness makes him both a comic participant in the show’s publicity machinery and an ordinary member of the group whose safety becomes dependent on collective cooperation.

Identity and Introduction

Zhao Zhe is listed among the program’s six principal guests alongside Huo Yingying, Ao Ziping, He Yuan, and Zhou Hao. The cast members are described as newcomers, carrying the apparent innocence or foolishness associated with inexperienced entertainers. Shen Tang, despite her reputation for scandal, is actually the most popular member of the group when their public visibility is compared. That imbalance shapes Zhao Zhe’s first interaction with her: he is not merely meeting another contestant, but approaching the one participant whose notoriety and audience attention dominate the expedition.

The program is presented through multiple live streams, with each guest assigned a separate stream that viewers can choose to watch. Shen Tang’s channel draws the largest audience, although much of that audience is there to insult her rather than support her. Zhao Zhe therefore enters a setting where every gesture can become content and where personal friendliness is difficult to separate from performance. His presence helps establish the ensemble as a group of inexperienced public figures being observed under pressure rather than as a conventional cast of established stars.

The Self-Proclaimed Fan

On the boat to the island, Zhao Zhe approaches Shen Tang while she is feeling dizzy and asks whether he may call her “Sister Tangtang.” After she gives a noncommittal response, he introduces himself and declares that he is her loyal fan who has watched all of her television series. The approach is conspicuously intimate for a first meeting, using a familiar address to create instant closeness before the group has even reached the survival site.

Shen Tang tests the claim by asking him to name three of her roles within ten seconds. Zhao Zhe cannot do it. He hesitates and fails to produce the requested examples, turning his enthusiastic declaration into a small public embarrassment. The exchange establishes his characterization more effectively than the claim itself: he may be eager to appear supportive, but his knowledge does not match his performance. The scene also reflects the wider entertainment environment surrounding Shen Tang, where affiliation with a controversial celebrity can be useful even when genuine attention to her career is absent.

Participation in the Island Program

Zhao Zhe remains involved in the group’s early activities after the cast reaches the island. The island is enormous and contains virtually nothing useful for the contestants—not even proper facilities for eating, drinking, or basic bodily needs. The starkness of the environment strips away the conveniences that normally allow performers to maintain polished public identities. In that setting, Zhao Zhe’s role is no longer limited to presenting himself as a fan; he becomes one of the people required to endure the same deprivation as everyone else.

He also participates in the group’s bottle game. When the bottle is spun, Zhao Zhe glances toward Shen Tang before it points at her, and she reacts with an uneasy twitch of her eyelid. He then asks whether she will choose truth or dare. The moment is structurally simple, but it places Zhao Zhe in the position of instigator and observer: he helps create the show’s social pressure while Shen Tang becomes its immediate target. The game turns ordinary interaction into spectacle, reinforcing the program’s dependence on forced intimacy and public reaction.

The cast’s circumstances grow more serious as survival tasks replace playful introductions. After Shen Tang examines an injury and searches the area, she discovers a snake nest filled with small snakes moving densely together. The other guests recoil at the sight, and the discovery makes clear that the island’s dangers are not merely exaggerated promotional material. Although the available evidence does not assign Zhao Zhe a separate action during the discovery, he is part of the guest group exposed to the danger and to the fear it produces. His characterization consequently remains ensemble-based: his significance comes from how the program places a lightly sketched newcomer inside conditions that demand more than performative charm.

Group Dependence and Narrative Function

Zhao Zhe’s interactions with Shen Tang contrast with her developing usefulness to the entire group. Shen Tang is prepared to endure public abuse with a professional smile, understanding that the attention will still generate financial returns, while the island gradually requires practical cooperation rather than image management. The guests later eat the rice with such hunger that they abandon all pretense for the cameras, and they voluntarily discuss helping an elderly neighbor after the meal. The program’s publicity frame therefore gives way to a more reciprocal social structure in which food, labor, and safety matter more than celebrity ranking.

Agricultural work further grounds the group in material survival. The local cycle involves harvesting spring corn, then planting autumn corn, while southern rice will not be ready for harvest for several months. These details make the show’s claim of helping farmers concrete rather than purely promotional. Zhao Zhe is not individually credited with leading this work, but his place among the guests situates him within the collective movement from staged entertainment toward shared labor. The contrast also clarifies why his opening claim to fandom is memorable: it belongs to the artificial, camera-conscious world that the island repeatedly exposes as inadequate.

Characterization and Narrative Significance

Zhao Zhe is a lightly developed, largely flat supporting character built around a recognizable contradiction: he claims intense admiration but cannot identify three of Shen Tang’s roles. That contradiction is comic, but it also performs a broader critique of entertainment-industry attention. In a media system where companies pair Shen Tang with every male celebrity she has worked with in order to profit from her notoriety, public association can be manufactured without substantive knowledge or loyalty. Zhao Zhe’s failed fan test provides the interpersonal version of that mechanism.

At the same time, the character is not reduced entirely to ridicule. He is one of the newcomers placed in an environment with almost no resources, exposed to snakes, rain, physical discomfort, hunger, and the demands of collective living. The evidence does not provide a separate resolution for him, so his arc remains subordinate to the group’s survival and Shen Tang’s larger trajectory. His lasting narrative function is therefore representational: he embodies the inexperienced contestant who arrives with the language of fandom and entertainment, then becomes part of a group forced to discover whether such language has any value once the cameras cannot supply food, shelter, or safety.