We start off episode 30 with Fan Xian in a furious battle with a mysterious swordsman dressed in white. This man was one of 3 assassins that suddenly attacked the Emperor when he and the rest of court were enjoying Chrysanthemums at the Hanging Temple. Fan Xian took it upon himself to chase this swordsman, whom we learn is the younger brother of Grandmaster Si Gu Jian. The two engage in an intense fight but in one burst, something went wrong with Fan Xian’s chi and the swordsman was able to to stab Fan Xian with a dagger, right in the chest.
The swordsman backs off but Fan Xian splurts out blood and falls to the ground.
Now it’s all hands on deck to try to save him.
Back in the palace, an imperial doctor informs the Emperor that Fan XIan not only has an external stab wound, but the dagger was laced with deadly poison. On top of that, Fan Xian’s qi is now completely gone. All of these individual components are enough to kill someone, let alone all three at once.
The primary solution? Have someone who studies the same qi technique as Fan Xian and transfer it to Fan Xian. It would impact the giver’s own qi flow but it will save Fan Xian’s life.
Hearing this news, the Emperor paces back and forth in deciding on what to do. After all, in this world, he says there is no one who studies the same Qi as Fan XIan. But he does walk over to Fan Xian who is currently lying down, unconscious in the palace. The music swells and the Emperor uses his hand to lightly touch Fan Xian’s hand. A burst of something happens and Fan Xian jolts awake. The Emperor swiftly retreats his hand as Fan Xian coughs up to find Ruo Ruo.
Ruo Ruo is here to save the day! Well her, plus the Imperial Doctor and one of Fan Xian’s brothers in the 3rd bureau who specializes in poison.
The three plus Wan’er are huddled around Fan Xian as they hear his instruction on how to save him because despite eating an antidote, the poison has moved to Fan Xian’s lungs and he needs surgery to remove it. The one person who can save him is Ruo Ruo, the person with exceptionally steady hands.
They are currently in Guang Xin Palace, aka the Princess Royal’s old palace that is empty. Fan Xian, in his delirious state, instructs them to prepare the space with proper lighting and disinfectant for his surgery. Once they do so, they prepare for this medical act that no one in the Qing kingdom has ever done in the past.
The Emperor arrives and swiftly uses the scalpel to slice open the first slice and the rest of the procedure begins.
I am not a doctor, anyone in the medical profession please let us know if this is even possible to do this type of surgery without a proper medical room. Regardless, because Fan Xian is the main character, of course it goes well. Well, well enough. He does start hallucinating after using chloroform for the procedure and thinks everyone looks like aliens which is fine. Ruo Ruo sews him up and he passes out.
Now that he is alive, we have to return back to the fact that there were 3 assassins attempting to kill the Emperor. Chen Ping Ping arrives to speak to Fan Xian when he wakes up. He gives the backstories for the 3 separate assassins and says that it was pure coincidence that the three attacked at the exact same time. This is a divine plot, one that cannot be recreated or foreseen. Fan Xian doesn’t believe Chen Ping Ping. Because at least for the white robed swordsman, Fan Xian immediately knew that yes, he might be Si Gu Jian’s younger brother, but he is also Shadow, the guy dressed in black and head of the Black Cavalry or Black Knights. That means this white robed assassin must have SOME connection to Chen Ping Ping.
Chen Ping Ping just smiles ruefully. He openly admits that he sent Shadow. The other two were completely outside of his planning. And he also denies that he is trying to actually kill the Emperor. Instead, he is there to help the Emperor achieve what he wants. And what does the Emperor actually want? The result of the assassinations and the mysterious fire that started in the hanging temple that was likely started by the Emperor himself was all done in order to place blame on Gong Dian, the head of the imperial guards, and more importantly, the Ye family who has close ties to Gong Dian. The Ye family is related to Ye Liu Yun, the grandmaster. There must be something the Emperor wants from this grandmaster because now, the Ye family except for Ye Ling’Er, has been exiled from the capital. We will learn more about what the Emperor’s plans are next episode. But yea – the shocking reveal! Shadow is the younger brother of Si GU Jian who apparently hates him? Interesting. The Emperor doesn’t know about this.
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Let’s move onto history and pop culture. There’s a lot of pop culture that was referenced in this episode because we essentially have a full fledged surgery!
Let’s talk about said surgery.
Fan Xian informs the imperial doctors that the poison he’s struck with is made of 硝石 Niter or in its industrialized form, saltpeter which is used to make gunpowder.
He then informs the doctors that he needs a 手术床 and 无影灯 or a surgery bed and Surgical Shadowless Lamp. Because Fan Xian is hallucinating, this is one of the few times in the drama we get flash backs or flash ins? of the real world.
消毒 or Disinfection and 细菌 or germs are also terms Fan Xian introduces. Surgery is broadly considered Western medicine in China but the Chinese did have a history of practicing different forms of surgery dating back thousands of years.
The legendary Chinese Tradition Medicine doctor Hua Tuo who lived from 145-208 is widely considered a pioneer in surgery. He developed an anesthetic, Ma Fei San, which is considered the world’s earliest anesthetic which allowed doctors to “open the patient”. Unfortunately, the formula for Ma Fei San was lost to time. Fast forward to the Sui Dynasty a few hundred years later, a famous medical text 诸病源候论 On the Origins and Symptoms of Various Diseases actually describes a surgical procedure in which a physician reconnects a patient’s severed intestines.
There have been surgical tools that have been unearthed from tombs dating back more than 2000 years. By the Song Dynasty, a relatively complete set of surgical tools including needles, scissors, knives, clamps, and chisels was recorded in medical texts.
One of the important chinese medicine inventions is 桑皮线 or Mulberry Bark thread to perform sutures. Fan Ruo Ruo introduces this to the imperial doctors as she’s about perform surgery. This methodology dates back over 1500 years as recorded in 删繁方 a method for treating traumatic wounds with intestinal prolapse. In a Song Dynasty text 睽车志, it states “⋯⋯以刀自裁，收之不死，医者以桑皮缝合其创，傅药” …He cut himself with a knife but did not die after being treated. The physician sutured the wound with mulberry bark thread and applied medicine. Overall, it’s super impressive that there’s written documentation of the 桑皮线 to perform sutures throughout history.
Right before the surgery begins, the imperial doctors asked if Fan Xian wants to be fully anesthetized. Fan Xian responds no to using 马钱子. He needs to stay awake. 马钱子 or Strychnos nux-vomica. It is a tree native to India, Southeast Asia, and parts of China. The seeds are flat and disc-shaped, grayish-yellow in color, and densely covered with silky silver hairs. The 16th century acupuncturist 李时珍 Li Shizhen noted that its shape resembles a horse’s coin-like tack which gives it its name.
Medicinally, Ma Qian Zi is used in traditional Chinese medicine to relieve pain and alleviate swelling. It has been used to treat traumatic injuries, fractures with swelling and pain, and throat inflammation. However, the seeds are highly toxic. In small, controlled doses, they have been used as digestive stimulants. Interestingly in history, a poison made from Ma Qian Zi called 牵机 Qianji was considered one of the three major imperial court poisons. According to historical accounts, Li Yu 李煜, the last ruler of the Southern Tang, was ordered by Emperor Taizong of Song to take the 牵机 Qianji poison.
For this drama, I guess the use of Ma Qian Zi is to help with some swelling for Fan Xian. My reaction is, it’s poisonous! What if he dies from the poison! Oh right, he is like immune to everything.
The doctors do use Chloroform though which we’ve talked about previously on the podcast.
Fan Xian starts hallucinating and the use of the filters are pretty funny. While he’s hallucinating, he says a few more modern day phrases including 图书馆 or Library and 冰激凌 or Ice Cream.
He shouts about his 班主任, which is a Class teacher for every “classroom” in schools in China.
Lastly, Fan Xian points to the Emperor and exclaims YYDS! Longtime listeners will know that YYDS means 永远的神 or always my god or goddess. This is a pretty modern internet slang phrase that essentially means you’re always the best! Luckily Fan Xian says this to the Emperor and not something offensive!
Well in the span of a short surgery, Fan Xian babbled a lot of new words to those in the world of Qing Yu Nian!
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Spoilers – These two episodes reveal quite a bit about what is the true power and motivations of both the Emperor and Chen Ping Ping.
This is MAJOR SPOILER TERRITORY SO SKIP IF YOU DON”T WANT THE END OF THE BOOK SPOILED.
Before we move onto spoilers, let’s discuss the book differences. The battle between Fan Xian and the assassin takes place in the city rather than in the fields. That’s right, the two of them flew / ran ALL the way back to the capital. As in the drama, something happened to Fan Xian’s powers which gave his opponent an opening. Fan Xian completely underestimated his opponent and was stabbed several times with a dagger. He was brought immediately to the palace to be treated. Fan Ruo Ruo had to do the honors and perform the surgery. Much of this is similar to the drama including the hallucinations, although Fan Xian didn’t call the Emperor YYDS because when the book was written, this phrase didn’t exist yet!
When Fan Xian awakes, he, Ruo Ruo, and Wan Er are the ones who deduce the Emperor’s true motive, namely that the Emperor wanted to target the Ye Family. The event that pushed the Emperor to act was actually Ye Zhong’s approval of his daughter’s wedding to the Second Prince. The Ye family has the only Grand master in the Qing Kingdom, agreeing to an alliance with the Second prince greatly angered the Emperor because to him, this meant that the Ye family are ok with giving that power to the 2nd prince.
In the book, Fan Xian calls the sequence of events at the Hanging temple a 神仙局 or an impossible event. There were just soo many coincidences that people couldn’t have foreseen the events. But hm maybe someone KNEW. The final conversation in the episode between Chen Ping Ping and Fan Xian actually occurs between Chen Ping Ping and Wu Zhu. Chen Ping Ping informs Wu Zhu that the assassin was Shadow. Chen Ping Ping has the conversation with WU Zhu that everything was within his grasp. If something WASN’T then the Emperor would be dead.
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[Karen]
In the last episode, and this episode you will notice that the emperor actually behaves rather peculiarly. What does that mean when the emperor was being targeted by three different assassins he was not moved or did not move in the face of multiple threats. however when the second assassin, which was the eunuch that had a dagger pointed to the emperor Fan Xian did not have time to save the emperor. Instead he only had time to push the third Prince out of the way because now we know that Shadow was pointing his sword at the emperor and also the third Prince.
But when we turn around next time we see the emperor the eunich is dead. the emperor hasn’t really moved anywhere and is actually very calm just sitting there and even calmly closes the eyes of the dead eunuch. That’s really weird. How did the eunuch die. There was also a scene when Fan Xian chases off for Shadow and the emperor kind of presses his palm down and then almost floats with a lot of energy over to the balcony. That also betrays that the emperor actually is very very powerful.
In this episode when the main male lead is unconscious and the imperial Dr. tells the emperor that someone with the same energy or Qi needs to transfer that qiover to Fan Xian in order to save him we see the emperor paced back and forth. We know that he’s thinking about this because he is related to the main male lead as his real birth father but did you notice that the emperor also kind of reached out his hand to grab the main male lead’s hand and there was some burst of energy that helped revive or bring the main mainly to consciousness. That again shows that the emperor is likely studying the same martial arts as the main male lead and has a lot more power than we see.
As for Chen Ping Ping, he even says at the end of the episode that no one knows what is truly the Emperor’s last cards. That makes him VERY dangerous. The Emperor that is.
Also, in this episode, Chen Ping Ping did his VERY best to protect Fan Xian. When the Emperor was skeptical and curious about Fan Xian’s knowledge of surgery and this amazing medical advancement, the Emperor was positing this as, how much more knowledge does Fan Xian know? If Fan Xian wasn’t this severely injured, he wouldn’t show his hand here. Notice how Chen Ping Ping immediately quipped that all of Fan Xian’s knowledge is there to serve the Emperor and Fan Xian will share all information with the Emperor. Only then, did the Emperor back off. This is because Chen Ping Ping knows that if he does not say those words of absolute loyalty from Fan Xian to the Emperor? The Emperor will think Fan Xian is a threat and may seek to get rid of him.
Which then brings me to the last point. Chen Ping Ping, in talking to Fan Xian, explains how vengeance can utterly consume a person such that it is the only thing driving a person forward. It is a powerful force that grows inside a person that becomes their only purpose.
Fan Xian makes the pointed observation that it sounds like he has personal experience with this.
Chen Ping Ping just says he’s trying to analyze the assassin’s thought process. Unbeknownst to Fan Xian. Chen Ping Ping is ALSO seeking vengeance. Vengeance that has consumed his entire life and is his life’s purpose.
If I TRULY want to spoil this, his target is the Emperor. The Emperor is actually the 4th mysterious grand master in the palace and responsible for Ye Qing Mei’s death. Chen Ping Ping adored Ye Qing Mei as a friend and wants to seek revenge for her death.