[Karen]
Last episode, Fan Xian finally met with his fiance Wan’Er and it was a whole showdown with 3 couples as he and Wan’Er, the 1st prince and the princess from the Qi kingdom, the 2nd prince and Ye Ling’er were having a uhh tense meal. It ended with Fan Xian grabbing Wan’er to leave while threatening the 2nd prince with having poisoned him. So we’re left with the 2nd prince and Ling’er wondering if the 2nd prince is going to die while Fan xian needs to figure out if Wan’Er is mad at him for everything the princess said about his exploits in the Qi Kingdom.
The 2 are on a carriage and it’s complete silence. Fan Xian is huddled on the side wondering if he’s in the dog house with Wan’Er as they are on the way to Chen Ping Ping’s residence. Wan’Er finally asks him if he’s ever been to Chen Ping Ping’s place and when he hears her talking to him, he perks up. He tries to explain that he didn’t like his time in the Qi kingdom and that it was a really tough environment. However, Wan’Er recited the famous poem, 如梦令, that Fan Xian cited to Hai Tang Duo Duo and both Fan Xian and Wang Qi Nian are like ooooooh nooooo. She knows about Hai Tang and could be perceived in the wrong way. Fan XIan is deeply uncomfortable and i’m kinda like, Yes Wan’Er, make him squirm for how he behaves in the book at least hahaha. After some back and forth, she does say she’s just thinking or at least worried for Hai Tang. Someone of her status would likely not be ok being a concubine. The phrase Wan”er uses is Zuo Xiao, which directly translates to being small but in modern terminology, means being a concubine. I actually thought this was quite interesting because it shows she is rather confident in her own position that she won’t be usurped as the main wife so hell yea Wan’er. Ultimately, the 2 reconcile as they arrive at Chen Ping Ping’s manor.
[Cathy]
When they arrive, they are met with a vast property, complete with squawking peacocks wandering the residence. The 2 then see a large gaggle of young women, running around and directly call Chen Ping Ping by his first name when asked where he is. Wan’Er and Fan Xian head deeper into the residence and not only are there even more young women playing around, there is a dance troupe of women in red performing for Chen Ping Ping as well as another young man, Qin Heng, son of General Qin Ye. Chen Ping Ping is in a very relaxed state today. He is wearing purple robes with his hair down and motions for Wan’Er to join him as an older man comes to sing a song while performing the pi pa.
This visit provided two outcomes. 1) Qin Heng wanted to speak to Fan Xian to try to explain that his family wants to be as neutral as possible in the face of Fan Xian’s battle with the 2nd prince. Qin Heng thinks that Fan Xian’s effort to root out corruption through the Censorate is nothing more than a fight against the 2nd prince. Though their family gave gifts to the 2nd prince, they are not in league with him. Fan Xian reiterates that as long as the Qin family didnt engage in corruption, the Qin family should be fine. That appeases the young General Qin but it raises to Fan Xian that his effort to stop corruption is not being viewed as such. That comes to the 2) outcome. Chen Ping PIng offers himself up as a big fish to fry in this corruption case. His home and the various treasures within it means that he has been amassing immense wealth over the years. If Fan Xian offers him up, then no one will push back on Fan Xian’s true intentions over corruption. After reiterating that he is very focused on changing the narrative on how people see the value of life after this corruption case defeats the 2nd prince, Wan’Er and Fan Xian depart.
Before we move on, I’ll turn your attention to hints given about Chen Ping Ping in this scene. He once again is very protective of his wheelchair when Fan Xian wants to take it and even jokingly responds that his wheelchair may have treasures hidden inside. His dress today also betrays his true identity. It is rather feminine with the color scheme and hairstyle. We don’t have homosexuals in this universe so I’ll let you think about what that means Chen Ping Ping could be.
[Karen[
Now, the rest of the episode is a heated battle of tactics between Fan Xian and the 2nd prince. Fan Xian returns to the 1st bureau after learning that Deng Zi Yue and men caught those responsible for the deaths at Bao Yue Lou. However, when Fan Xian arrives, Deng Zi Yue is freaking out because the captured men adamantly say that the one who made the order was actually Fan Xian to protect Fan Si Zhe.
Fan Xian realizes that these men were sent as a suicide squad, meant to take him down. Soon after, the capital magistrate orders that these men be transferred under their jurisdiction. This looks really bad for him and we all know that this is all part of the 2nd prince’s plan.
At this point, Fan Xian heads to his future father-in-law, the Chancellor Lin Ruo Fu’s place, where they continue to discuss the events that transpired. Lin Ruo Fu easily sees through the fact that this was a trap set by the 2nd prince and suggests that he should give up Fan Si Zhe to save himself. Fan Xian adamantly refuses but, as Lin Ruo Fu states, there doesn’t seem to be any alternative to stop Fan Xian from being implicated in this matter.
[Cathy]
Fan Xian sheepishly disagrees. As the suicide squad of 3 men are being transported to the Ministry of Justice, a group of masked men, led by Gao Da, attack the convoy and kill all 3 of those men. But, as they depart, Gao Da and his men purposefully leave someone who is unconscious that is also wearing black and masked. When the men from the Ministry of Justice uncover siad person, it is none other than Fan Wu Jiu, one of the 2nd prince’s swordsmen.
The 2nd prince is utterly confused as to why or how he would send Fan Wu Jiu here but now, the story is completely flipped. Instead of Fan Xian being in the hot seat, it is the 2nd prince.
We’ll leave the episode recap at that. Next episode, we will discuss the aftermath of this back and forth. There was a whole side plot with Ling”er and the 2nd prince but it doesn’t really matter or at least I don’t care because it makes Ling’er seem quite unintelligent so we’re just gonna ignore all of it.
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[Karen]
That was the episode recap! Let’s move on to history. There’s quite a bit sprinkled in!
At the beginning of the episode, Fan Xian is pretty antsy in the carriage trying to explain to Wan Er that there’s nothing between him and Hai Tang Duo Duo. To which Wan’Er responds with the poem 如梦令· 昨夜雨疏风骤 written by 李清照 and the title of the Story of Ming Lan!
As a reminder the full poem is as such: 昨夜雨疏风骤, 浓睡不消残酒, 试问卷帘人，却道海棠依旧。知否，知否？应是绿肥红瘦. I won’t repeat the details of this poem as we talked about it at length in episode 36 of season 1 and our intro to the drama episode for the Story of Ming Lan.
[Cathy]
Next – let’s turn to the party at the Chen Manor. Chen Ping Ping is enjoying a performance by a gentleman while there are many other female dancers around.
Let’s discuss the gentleman and the instrument that he’s playing. The instrument is a Ruan 阮, which we only touched on in Chapter 3. The Ruan is a traditional Chinese plucked string instrument that is a descendent of the ancient Pipa. It can trace its history back over 2,000 years.
The name 阮 is derived from 阮咸琵琶. The instrument evolved from the Han Style Pipa and has a pretty distinct sound as we hear in the drama. It has only 4 strings and frets of 12 tones but modern day Ruan come in 5 types to span the different octaves. There’s the bass ruan, daruan (large ruan), zhongruan (tenor), xiaoruan (soprano), and gaoyin ruan (high-pitched)
The ruan dates back to the Qin and Han dynasties, over 2000 years ago, flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties over 1500 to 1000 years ago, and declined during the Ming and Qing or the last 600 years.
Legend has it, during the construction of the Great Wall during the Qin Dynasty, workers needed a way to signal mealtimes, so a drum with strings was devised for both communication and entertainment. From this, 2 instruments were invented, one was a 3 string instrument and the other, a wooden Qin style Pipa. During the reign of Emperor Han Wu Di, when envoy Zhang Qian arranged a marriage between the Wusun kingdom and the Han court the Emperor ordered the creation of a portable instrument that could be played on horseback. The resulting instrument is the Ruan but was called the Qin Pipa.
By the time of the Jin Dynasty, the famed musician 阮咸 refined the instrument and from then on this style of pipa was named after him the 阮咸琵琶 or simply 阮
The Ruan became commonplace during the Tang and Song Dynasties with many owned by aristocratic families. It is said that the Song Emperor Taizong could both play the ruan and compose for it. It was during the Song Dynasty that 阮咸 was shortened to 阮.
The instrument lost popularity during the Ming Dynasty and essentially disappeared during the Qing Dynasty. The traditional methods of creating a Ruan has been lost for nearly a century. In 1952, when the Central Song and Dance Ensemble formed China’s first professional national orchestra, the Chinese wanted to include the instrument. The ones that we see today are merely recreations from photographs of Ruan that were saved in Japan’s Shosoin Treasure House.
Now turning towards the ruan player in the episode, he set the poem 登高 or as my translation – Top of the Mountain written by Du Fu to song. This was featured in episode 7 of season 1 and was the poem that put Fan Xian on the map in the Qing Kingdom.
风急天高猿啸哀⑵， 渚清沙白鸟飞回⑶。
无边落木萧萧下⑷， 不尽长江滚滚来。
万里悲秋常作客⑸，百年多病独登台⑹。
艰难苦恨繁霜鬓⑺， 潦倒新停浊酒杯⑻。
The performer is called Feng Man Tian 冯满天. He is actually a national first-class performer and renowned Zhong Ruan virtuoso so he’s the real deal. He has spent his career performing in national orchestras and restoring Chinese traditional music. He has his own band that he performs with too. Director Sun Hao noted that Feng was a fan of the first season of Joy of Life. He’s a close friend of actor Wu Gang (Chen Pingping) and asked to guest-star in season 2. Feng composed his own pieces and sent demos to the production team for approval, bringing passion and authenticity to the role.
We’ll see him twice in the drama.
[Karen]
Up next is a series of idioms that Lin Wan Er’s father, the Chancellor Lin Ruo Fu recites when he analyzes Fan Xian’s current position with the supposed killers accusing Fan Xian of being the mastermind behind the murders of Old Man Jin and Miss Jin.
He persuades Fan Xian to give up his brother Fan Si Zhe to save his own skin and states these idioms 壁虎断尾, 壮士解腕 and that his position is 折戟沉沙.
The first one 壁虎断尾 – or gecko removes its tail is rather straightforward. The idiom is describing autotomy or self-amputation. It’s a self-defense mechanism whereby certain animals remove appendages in order to escape. Geckos do this and that’s what’s used for this idiom. The chancellor is referencing cutting off the tail – aka Fan Si Zhe in order to survive.
Next it’s 壮士解腕 zhuàng shì jiě wàn which translates to a brave man severs his wrist. This was first documented in 《三国志·魏志·陈泰传》Records of the Three Kingdoms · Wei Zhi · Biography of Chen Tai by Chen Shou of the Western Jin dynasty. Interestingly, the quote in the records actually refers to an even earlier anecdote. 古人有言：‘蝮蛇螫手 Fù shé shì shǒu，壮士解其腕. It starts with according to the ancients
It refers to a warrior whose wrist was bitten by a snake. In order to prevent the venom from spreading through his body and endangering his life, he decisively cut off his own wrist. It’s a metaphor to make decisive decisions without hesitation. I also like to add that this has a flavor of a sacrifice.
Again, the Chancellor is pushing Fan Xian to make a quick decision.
[Cathy]
The last idiom to discuss is 折戟沉沙 zhé jǐ chén shā or a broken Chinese polearm that’s been left in the dust. It’s used to describe a devastating loss. The idiom comes from the poem 赤壁 or Red Cliff by Du Mu during the Tang Dynasty 唐·杜牧.
Here’s the poem and I quite like it.
折戟沉沙铁未销，
自将磨洗认前朝。
东风不与周郎便，
铜雀春深锁二乔
Here’s my translation
A broken polearm from ages past is buried deep in the silt; but not completely rusted. I cleaned it and could still recognize it as a relic of the Battle of Red Cliffs from the previous dynasty. If it wasn’t for the helpful eastern wind that assisted Zhou Yu in burning Cao Cao’s fleet. The great beauties of the Wu Kingdom, Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao, might have been confined within Cao Cao’s Bronze Sparrow Terrace.
The poem talks about the battle of Red Cliff but the idiom is focusing on the devastating battle. Here the chancellor thinks Fan Xian has lost against the 2nd prince.
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Let us conclude with book differences!
Fan Xian does indeed take Wan Er to Chen Ping Ping’s manor but he also brings his sister Ruo Ruo along with him. This isn’t Fan Xian’s first time at Chen Ping Ping’s manor but it is Wan Er and Ruo Ruo’s first time. The person performing isn’t our Ruan master as we see in the drama but Sang Wen, the courtesan from Bao Yue Lou. In the drama she was played by Wang Chu Ran. Chen Ping Ping quickly ditches Fan Xian with Qin Heng and another visitor, the 1st Prince. This is the first time that Fan Xian really spends time with the 1st Prince and it’s quickly evident to Fan Xian why Wan Er really loves the 1st Prince. As for the 2nd Prince, he never gets poisoned so that’s not a plot line. The drama uses the conversation between Fan Xian and the Chancellor to explain to the audience the dire situation that Fan Xian is in. In the drama, he doesn’t have the conversation and just kills or spreads the rumors against the 2nd Prince and Li Hong Cheng. The drama needed to find a way to heighten the tension for Fan Xian. In the book, Fan Xian squashes the 2nd Prince’s faction with relative ease.
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