I thought it was a pretty realistic episode, and the past few episodes have been building up to this, but that doesn’t make me any less annoyed.

Just a very quick rundown of what happened in this week’s episode: Bing Bing faces pressure from multiple sources: Wang Min, herself due to the womb thing, her impending departure for Japan and knowing that Zhen is going to propose to her. She finally cracks and decides to break up with Zhen, which completely throws our male lead off because there he is, preparing to surprise her. The episode ends with him having guessed why Bing Bing left him, and he decides to go Japan and find her. It’s a pity that I’m not doing a full recap of this episode, just because Lego Lee and Cindy Lien did a really good job with their respective break-up scenes. (Maybe next time!)

Now let’s talk about the episode. I think a lot of the viewers were pretty put off by Bing Bing at the airport, when she said that his true lover is the one in the photo with him and not her. At that moment in time, I felt pretty annoyed too – what is this nonsense? Is the drama seriously thinking about breaking our couple up just based on the fate/destiny belief??? But Zhen’s “That just sounds like you’re breaking up for the sake of breaking up” and her staying silent + looking at the entire issue as a whole, makes me think that that was just her excuse. If you look behind that, her reasons are actually thought-provoking. Imagine a situation where your boyfriend is way more outstanding than you + you aren’t sure if you can even give birth and you know that he likes kids + most importantly, you are unsure if you love him as much as he does to you + the whole notion of “do I want to spend my entire life with him? If yes, in what capacity? As someone who only relies on him?”, that is pretty overwhelming and intense. Each reason is pretty legitimate, not far-fetched and at some point or another, I think we will know someone who feels that way. Perhaps some viewers out there can actually even empathise, whether from the perspective of the one who gave and loved too much or the one who crumbled under pressure. This whole thing can’t be ‘blamed’ on Bing Bing alone (if you have to talk in the language of ‘fault’) because I think Zhen’s love is too intense and mismatched with Bing Bing’s type of love. She’s a bit slow and naive, and he is too engrossed with loving her that he gets blinded to the issue. She can’t breath and she can’t focus on herself. But what I have a problem is with how Bing Bing can confide in the whole world (including her ex) but Zhen. If only she brought herself to reveal to him just how confused and overwhelmed she is, I’m sure Zhen would have respected her and gave her space. That being said, not having the courage to face up to one’s emotions and continuing life on the pretext of “I don’t want to hurt the other person” is a very, very common thing – so that’s another aspect in which King of Romance once again reflects real life.

Understanding why she broke up with him is one thing, but that doesn’t make me less annoyed about the fact that they broke up haha. I just hope the next episode (and our finale) will be a good ending! I hope Bing Bing truly grows into a better, confident and happy woman and at that time, I’m sure they will match each other better.

Also, a little sidenote (credits to a comment I saw) – in the back story, Zhen’s past life (Bing Cheng) told Bing Bing’s past life (Li Xue) to wait for her and he disappeared for two years. This is somewhat like the current life, where he would have to wait for her for two years to return from Japan! I’m not sure if it’s intentional. Nonetheless, I thought that was pretty cool – the whole cause-and-effect + fate theme.

<3thoughtsramble