I really enjoyed this episode! I think the crying scenes were GREAT, the patching up between Mum and Daughter is gradual and logical, the conflict between the couple is slowly dissolving, You Qian and Yong Qing finally become the friends that they originally should have been, Yan Ze steps up on his game, a hint of a new relationship between Yong Qing and Ya Lu, and a very cool Jiang today. What an awesome episode that ties in so many storylines into 60 minutes! If the entire show had been this tight, relatively fast-paced and diverse, it would have been a great show. But it’s okay! I did love watching the pleasant couple-only scenes in the first 8 episodes hahaha. BECAUSE I AM MISSING THE COUPLE SCENES SO MUCH NOW. GIVE THEM BACK TO ME.

(Notice that I don’t really care about Yan Ze and Ya En. Ahem.)

Yan Ze looks at the chess pieces on his table and admires how great the current situation is. Yong Qing walks into his office, bewildered that You Qian has been chased out of Ocean and that Yan Ze didn’t help him put in a good word. An angry You Qian pops up too, wanting to know what on earth Yan Ze is up to – he has already done what Yan Ze wanted him to do, but Yan Ze broke his promise.

Yan Ze is amused that You Qian immediately puts the blame of Director wanting to reunite with her daughter on him, but You Qian knows that if not for the fact that someone is trying to fan the flames behind the scenes, Ms B would never have wanted to reunite with An Xi.

But You Qian realises almost instantaneously that it’s because Director fell sick, that’s why Yan Ze changed his plans. As long as Yan Ze isolates Ms B and controls An Xi, he would be in a position of trust and power. However, to Yan Ze, it doesn’t matter now that You Qian knows his plan because Ms B already doesn’t trust You Qian. “Do you know what’s your biggest flaw? You place too much trust in logic.” Just because he stuck around doesn’t mean Director will trust him eventually.

But for You Qian, Yan Ze’s problem is something else. “Your problem…is that you undermine humanity. You think that you can control relationships, but something which is accumulated over time, won’t be destroyed easily. It’s you who started this competition. Don’t forget – I know your weakness too. That ultimate contract…you don’t have to think about it.”

Yong Qing quickly realises from this conversation that she has been manipulated.

“You are too scary. I only knew you are thinking like this, when I take a second look at you.” Nice allude to the show’s title! She is taken aback that her brother can do something like this to her, but he retorts that she lacks empathy because she has never lost before.

Dude, you are irritating me to the max. Stop talking about losing this and losing that and behaving like a sore loser that you ‘lost’ because you got forced into studying law instead of business, or that the Director liked You Qian more than you.

Yong Qing walks aimlessly and it starts raining. As a matter of coincidence, Ya Lu happens to be out with his kids on a drawing excursion and he spots her.

He realises that she’s not moving and lends her his canvas so that she has a shelter. Awww, this is actually a beautiful scene.

He hides with his kids under the pavilion and they ask him who that pretty lady is. Yong Qing looks at him with a different expression.

In the behind the scenes, Liu Shu Hong (actor of Yan Ze) was joking that he’s going to tell Yan Ze, “Since you got my sister, I shall get your sister too, now we can be even closer.” Hahahaha. Oh my I forgot this is a cross-siblings pairing. But I can’t imagine how Zhi Lin will feel if Ya Lu really goes for Yong Qing!

You Qian calls An Xi repeatedly and takes photos of his past Unibrow days items, like his glasses, his notebook and the clownfish earrings he bought for her. An Xi reads the messages and switches her phone off. He sees the ‘Read’ sign next to his messages and is heartbroken.

You Qian is one of those characters that you really feel bad for. He is now forced into many different corners and none is even his fault. He just happens to be working for a director with psychotic trust issues (and who stupidly decides to trust Yan Ze, what a great choice!), and to have a weird friend like Yan Ze who one-sidedly initiates some form of competition that makes no sense to me.

In the morning, An Xi dashes out of the house to find the Director. The Director isn’t feeling well and doesn’t want to risk fainting in the office again so she tells An Xi to follow her out.

An Xi is pissed – so instead of calling the security guards on her like the previous time, she’s just going to walk off this time? On the streets, An Xi unleashes one of her rare tantrums on her mother. The Director thinks that An Xi still has no idea what benefits she will get from having a mother like her. An Xi scoffs, “Benefits?” She points to a mum feeding her son ice-cream, “The kind of benefit I want is just that simple!”

How about her father? Her father loves freedom so much but because her mother gave birth to her and left her alone, her father could never live the life he wanted. He had always wanted to visit California or Mexico to ride the waves. “Let me tell you, unless you can rewind the time, don’t think that I will recognise you as my mother in this lifetime!!”

An Xi turns around (while I cheer her on) and Director tries to hold her back. Yan Ze turns up in time just to catch the Director before she faints.

At the hospital, Yan Ze confesses to knowing long time ago that the Director is her mother. But he so deviously pushes the blame to You Qian, because well, the truth is that You Qian did tell him not to tell An Xi the truth. Omg, him and his half-truths!!

Anyway, he explains to An Xi that to some people, terms like ‘mother’ are just titles you affix to people. If you don’t tie the title to that person, she is an independent entity that has freedom to do what she wants. But An Xi protests, then why give birth to her?

Yan Ze notices the Director standing outside of the room and tries to persuade An Xi, “You still have a chance to understand the Director. Don’t you want to call her ‘Mother’ at least once?”

I think I’m going to give him the Best Half-Truth, Best Liar, and Best Persuader award.

The Director gives a small, consoled smile.

Mei Wen waits for some phone call but cannot take it any longer. She dashes out of Lunar Maria so that she can slap the Director and make herself feel better. Violent, but thanks, that will make me feel better too! She locks up the place and disregards Zhi Lin’s and Ya En’s pleas for her not to be rash.

An Xi returns to the village and You Qian tags behind her to make sure that she’s alright. The funniest thing is that when the camera turns to You Qian, we see Jiang and sidekicks following him too.

An Xi walks past the Braised Pork stall and You Qian quickly asks the boss for a favour. The boss nods and runs to An Xi, inviting her in for a meal.

An Xi sits down and starts crying-laughing about the current situation. “It’s so funny…she threw me away the moment I was born and yet she finds me now, and tells me that she’s sick. What should I do?”

She cries and wonders out loud if You Qian intentionally didn’t tell her the truth precisely because he knew she would not be able to make a choice.

You Qian’s heart is broken and the boss looks at him with the what am I supposed to do face.

You Qian quickly motions to his eye, and the boss offers An Xi some tissue. It’s a very sweet gesture – watch this scene, I guarantee that you will find it sweet too. But I just find it funny that You Qian kinda looks like he’s scratching his face here hehe.

You Qian turns around and realises that Jiang + Sidekicks are right behind him. He doesn’t say a word and simply walks off. While sidekicks cheer for Jiang since it seems like the couple’s relationship is awful now and Jiang can intervene, Jiang watches quietly and turns around.

Zhi Lin arrives at the stall and hurriedly tells An Xi the bad news – Mei Wen has already dashed off to find the Director.

Mei Wen arrives at the hospital room and unleashes her rant on this woman. She tells the Director that when there’s no one in the hostel, there’s countless times when An Xi will sit at the roof and watches the main road. We are shown a flashback of An Xi in the first few episodes, when she cried and told Mei Wen that sometimes she thought the ‘person’ couldn’t find her because ‘the person’ was poor or that maybe one day the ‘person’ would come pick her up in a posh car.

Back then for this scene, I’m quite sure they intentionally skew it to look like she was talking about You Qian because she was waiting for You Qian (in Mandarin, you can’t really tell what is the gender of ‘the person’ unless there is some context). But anyway, it’s cool that even all the way in the first two episodes, they already showed An Xi’s desire to reunite with her mother.

In all her imaginations, her mother is the best. “But in reality, you aren’t even up to par with 10% of her imagination!” An Xi dashes into the room and stops her. She notices her mum’s sickly expression and tries to drag Mei Wen away. Mei Wen realises something is wrong, “Don’t tell me your heart has softened?”

Even though An Xi denies repeatedly, Mei Wen understands with dread that An Xi might just reunite with her mother. “I want you to use your brain – when your dad died and you had to quit school, where was she? When you had to take on 3 part time jobs to pay off the debt, where was she? When you had a nightmare and you woke up crying for Mummy, where was she??”

Mei Wen turns and hypothesises the kind of problems the Director herself faced – “Should I get a diamond watch or diamond ring? How do I let my company earn more money?”

An Xi stops her and tries to shrug the problem off. But Mei Wen is so frustrated on her behalf. Because of this woman, she waited so many years waiting at the hostel. She finally gets to meet Xia You Qian, who loves her so much and dotes on her, “But because of this woman, you guys became like this!”

At the mention of this, An Xi finally cannot control herself.

It’s true that her mother despises her and looks down on her, “But she’s my mother…she’s the mother that I’ve been waiting for…and I know…she doesn’t really want me…it’s only because she’s sick.” An Xi turns and leaves. Zhi Lin cannot help but leaves a few words for the Director, “If you had been with her as she grew up, you would have known that you missed a chance at having a great daughter! Too bad you don’t have that luck.”

“Don’t you have a lot of money? Take that money and buy people you like. Don’t find An Xi at this juncture.”

Yayyy way to go Zhi Lin!

Mei Wen and Zhi Lin catch up with An Xi and Mei Wen wipes An Xi’s tears off. She goes into this mini-quote-a-movie rant but tl;dr, “Both humans and demons are born form mothers, but the difference is that we can choose how we want to live our lives.” As long as they have a kind heart, that’s what sets them apart.

The two girls poke fun at how short Mei Wen is, and the scene ends in laughter and a joking tone.

Even though An Xi pretends to be all okay, she cannot help but sneak a look at the hospital. Da Yu enters the house and sees the clownfish video being screened.

Okay, why does this small little gesture make me feel so bad for You Qian! He must have been pining for An Xi.

Thanks to Yan Ze’s own little trick of trying to shift the blame to You Qian, You Qian now saves himself the trouble of having to find each and every owner of the land pieces. Da Yu emphasises how much effort he spent in getting the information sheets from the Director’s assistant, and You Qian praises him, “You are great.”

Look at his beaming smile hahahaha.

Now, the only problem is Jiang. But oh wait, Jiang calls You Qian first.

Jiang’s sidekicks caution Jiang in meeting You Qian. What if Jiang helps You Qian this time and You Qian is the one that looks cool? And You Qian will become the hero? And An Xi will return to You Qian?

But to Jiang, he has no choice, because he saw An Xi crying. You Qian turns up and Jiang reminds him – if he makes An Xi cry again, Jiang wouldn’t mind letting people build 10 cremation sites in the village. You Qian promises that he will try his best and Jiang cool-ly asks, “What do you want me to do?”

Hahaha his sidekicks approve.

Jiang and sidekicks arrive at the courts on You Qian’s instructions. His plan is to force Ocean into negotiations with him, so that he can stop the contract with the Russian fund. Don’t really understand this plan, but okay.

An Xi visits her mum and cries. So this is how a mother looks like.

She is taken aback by her own tears and in her hurry to stand up, she kicks the chair which wakes her mother up. You can tell that the Director is happy to see her here, but An Xi quickly leaves without a word.

 

The next day, An Xi comes by again and runs into her mother. The nurse intentionally passes her mum’s hand to her so she has no choice but to help her mum to her bed.

I like this scene! It’s like a gradual acceptance over time. Although that’s not to say that I like the Director just yet. An Xi tucks her mum into bed and the Director looks like she wants to say something.

Yet another day, the Director watches as An Xi reads up on treatment for breast cancer. An alarm rings and she dutifully feeds her mum medicine. This time round, she leaves with a, “I will be back tomorrow.”

Turns out You Qian has been following An Xi these few days. He’s so worried for her but he doesn’t disturb her and simply drives away.

Yan Ze returns to his office and finds letters from the court. These letters aren’t addressed to anyone in the company but the address is that of the company, so the secretary left them on his desk. Turns out You Qian’s plan is for Jiang to sue each and every of these land piece owners on the basis of fraud.

Yan Ze realises that You Qian has managed to find out all the names of these people precisely he himself gave the information to the Director. Hah! The guy on the Russian fund side calls and this makes Yan Ze worried.

You Qian hopes that since none of these owners will turn up in court to defend themselves against Jiang, Yan Ze has no choice but to appear. The Director will probably also have to do some explaining to the villagers.

While he ponders over this, An Xi leaves the hospital and gets knocked over by a father who is in a hurry to get his daughter to the hospital.

You Qian leaves the car immediately, but someone has already helped An Xi up. An Xi looks up and the couple gazes at each other.

She apologises mentally. Sorry You Qian. My mind is still in a mess. I can’t think of you and my mum at the same time. 

She walks off, breaking You Qian and my heart. I realise from doing this recap that there’s loads of walking off in this episode hahaha.

You Qian looks to his side and spots Yong Qing. The Director gets notified of her surgery date and tells Yan Ze to lie to the office that she has gone overseas.

The two of them return to the cafe where they first met each other. You Qian asks about Yong Qing and she comments sadly, “This shows that we can never be together. When you are with me, you will never actively care for others.” A caring You Qian will never exist because of her.

You Qian quotes Einstein, that the Maker only throws the dice when the person is born – who you are fated to meet, what kind of family you are born into, but the rest of your life is up to you.

Yong Qing has been so betrayed by her first love that she never sees the goodness in those whom she dated.

“Yong Qing, the one you need is not me, what you need is the courage to forget the past and open your heart to love bravely when you have the ability to love.”

Yong Qing asks what happens if she gets hurt again. You Qian chides gently – she’s a grown up, she should know how to protect herself when she gets hurt.

Yong Qing smiles and remarks that it’s true that you end your relationship where you started it (indicating that she’s letting go of You Qian) but You Qian reminds her that her relationship with the Director cannot be ended so quickly.

Yong Qing musters up the courage to visit her god-mother and runs into the siblings.

Ya En sneaks off while Ya Lu is in the Gents and claims that she just wants to take a stroll…in that circle in front of her. Later, Ya Lu observes that drawing a person is the best way to understand someone and get closer to that person because the two of you have no choice but to look at each other.

“Why do you have eye wrinkles?” “Because I smile often.” “Why is your face red?” “Because I’m shy.” “Why are you so cute?” “Because I’m your sister ah!”

The two of them really have great sibling chemistry HAHA. Yong Qing watches this enviously and wishes she has such a brother.

Later that night, Ya En sneaks out of the  hospital with her brother’s drawing pad and meets Yan Ze. She insists that she wants to draw him and makes sure he doesn’t frown. If not he won’t be cute anymore.

Yan Ze watches her laugh innocently and can’t help but laugh too. Well I have no doubts that Yan Ze’s feelings for Ya En is genuine and it is quite nice to watch how he willingly meets her now and stuff….but not my favourite couple, shall I say.

The next day, You Qian gets a call to meet the Director.  He is excited about it and thinks that his plan has worked…but alas, it is Yan Ze who turns around at the roof top.

 

Turns out that the Director has trusted Yan Ze so much, that she decided to give Yan Ze a letter of Authority to show that she has delegated legal authority to him to take charge of the project. She did it because she would not be able to make it for the signing of the contract and needed Yan Ze to meet the Russian guy on her behalf.

But what this means is that You Qian will not be able to talk to the Director directly. You Qian questions if Yan Ze really knows what he’s doing – does the Director know that the actual contract is actually to build chemical processing sites?

 

Yan Ze hesitates and You Qian notices that with suspicion, but Yan Ze quickly laughs it off, “Of course she does! And tomorrow, I will be signing the contract on her behalf.” He passes the King back to You Qian, “Game over. I win. You lose.”

Sore loser. You Qian replies, “We stand on the opposite sides of a scale. In order to maintain that balance, when one person moves, the other one can’t be expected to stay still, isn’t it?”

 

I think You Qian always makes the best exits HAHA.

Yong Qing runs into You Qian and passes him back the title deed to Grandpa’s old house. She has decided to live her own life and wants him to convey her apologies to Grandpa.

You Qian thanks her and she notices that something is up. He asks her if she knew that her god-mother delegated authority to Yan Ze. After his question, Yong Qing suddenly recalls that when she wanted to visit her god-mother the day before, she saw Yan Ze flagging out certain parts of the contract to the Director because she couldn’t go through the entire contract without getting a headache.

You Qian returns home with good news for Grandpa, “She says sorry and she’s sincere about it.”

Grandpa comments that this means Yong Qing has really let go of You Qian, “This means you and An Xi…” You Qian looks away sadly and quickly goes upstairs. Grandpa hilariously grumbles that one Small Tilted Chin left and another Big Tilted Chin (Director) came into the scene.

An Xi looks at the watch that You Qian tries to seduce her with the other time, showing that she does miss him. Grandpa thinks up of an idea and calls An Xi – she must make the small rolls for him and he will be waiting for her at his old house the next morning.

You Qian thinks very hard in his study room and zeros in very quickly on the fact that the Director has no idea about the chemical processing sites. This is why Yan Ze intentionally flags out certain parts of the contract while he hides the rest.

The next morning, he dashes out of the house and Grandpa is disappointed that his plan failed (he initially wanted to bring You Qian along so that the couple can finally meet. YES. We are being deprived of couple time!).

Da Yu informs him that Yan Ze has changed the location of contract suddenly but You Qian is determined to track him down. An Xi tries to ignore the fact that Grandpa is probably waiting for her, and Mei Wen asks, “Are you thinking of….” An Xi mutters, “I’m not thinking of You Qian.” “I didn’t even mention his name.” HAHA.

In the end, An Xi cannot take it and rushes to the house but she paces up and down outside because she has no idea what she should say to Grandpa.

Grandpa smirks and feigns a heartache so that An Xi will quickly rush over and take care of him. The moment he sits down on the bench, he’s like, “I feel better now that I see you.” Hahahaha. An Xi looks around for You Qian awww. Grandpa demands for his rolls but An Xi didn’t even prepare them because she wasn’t planning on coming.

In a more somber tone, he tells An Xi to blame him for You Qian’s silence as to her mother’s identity. But An Xi explains that she’s no longer angry with You Qian; sometimes she just wonders if she could have presented herself better if she had known Director was her mother. An Xi is confused about the outside world who only thinks of itself, “Mother’s love is not pure, friendship isn’t pure, even love…”

Grandpa immediately jumps in, “Are you doubting You Qian’s love for you?” An Xi is doubting of her own love for You Qian – what if she’s just relying on him because he’s so good to her? But Grandpa gives Love Advice 101, that real love will stay even as the superficial fades away. As time goes by, she will know who she truly cares for.

Grandpa has another bout of heartache and this time is for real.

Just as Russian dude is going to sign on the contract, You Qian appears like the hero he is and demands to see the contract. Does it say purification sites, or does it really say trash-processing grounds?

Yan Ze tries to maintain his cool but You Qian confidently snatches the contract.

While Russian dude stares at them in confusion, the two look at each other, “Let go.” At this point in time, You Qian’s phone rings.

-the end-

I love it! I hope that you guys had fun watching it and reading my recap too!! Sorry that this recap came a bit later than usual, but better late than never right?:D

I think there’s nothing in this episode which I didn’t like. I mean I can go on and on about how I don’t like Yan Ze as a person or how I think Director is still awful – don’t forget that she lied to Yong Qing about her first love and not even tell her for 10 years that her first love had died. That’s just downright evil and I don’t know what justification you can come up for her which will make me feel better about it.

However, I do like the mother-daughter arc, much as I disapprove of the Director. She isn’t so bad to look at now that she has softened considerably. Although what I really learnt at the end of this episode is that I am in 100% harmony with Mei Wen. What I do like too is that the truth is – both You Qian and Yan Ze are wrong. You Qian thinks that An Xi not knowing the truth is the best for her, and Yan Ze thinks that An Xi has the ability to change into someone whom the Director always wanted. But what’s really happening right now is that An Xi manages to soften her mother by being who she is. She’s not changing for anyone, but I think it’s cool how You Qian misjudges An Xi’s ability to transform the Director.

This drama is weird in the sense that it gets better at the end hahaha. I feel like the past episodes have been improving so much that my recaps always end up being very long. It’s also one of those dramas where the Couple Conflict (as a must-have ingredient in every drama) isn’t forced or unnatural. This conflict is foreshadowed, hits suddenly and is slowly ebbing away. You don’t even realise it until you see the next week’s preview and realise that hey, you have not seen good You Qian-An Xi times in ages! AGES!

Can’t wait for next week’s episode!

<3thoughtsramble

P.S I’m not sure if some of you guys know, but I’ve recently released phone cases on TeeChip and I really hope you can check them out to give me some support! You can read this post for more details:D THANKS!