Season 1 – Ep 41
In ep 40, Fan Xian helped Shang Shan Hu devise a plan to rescue Xiao En. It’s a rather tough mission because Shen Zhong was basically ready for Shang Shan Hu and his men which resulted in many of Shang Shan Hu’s men sacrificing themselves. Fan Xian had hid in the shadows and saw Xiao En escape as a dead body. Unfortunately, Shen Zhong also had a contingency plan. He had 2 9th ranked fighters, He Dao Ren and Lang Tao waiting in the wings to ensure that Xiao En dies. Sure enough, the two men seriously injure Xiao En. Last thing we see of him is Fan Xian, dressed in black and masked, jump off a cliff with Xiao En.
But before we go back to see what Fan XIan and Xiao En are up to, let’s go all the way over to the Qing kingdom. There are 2 men who are quite worried about Fan Xian’s wellbeing. They are Fan Jian, Fan Xian’s father, and Fei Jie, Fan Xian’s teacher. News about Fan Xian’s activities in the Qi kingdom have been sparse and they are quite worried about his safety. Who isn’t worried about his safety? The Emperor and Chen Ping Ping. Chen Ping Ping had removed the Black Knight protection detail from Fan Xian on orders of the Emperor all in order to finally tease out that secret Xiao En has been hiding all these years. See? The Emperor cares more about this secret while Fan Jian and Fei Jie care about Fan Xian as a person.
So what is this secret? Back in a cave where Fan Xian has brought Xiao En, Xiao En is actually ready to tell him this secret on his deathbed. His injuries are so severe that there really isn’t any way to come back from it so Xiao En is willing to speak. This confuses Fan XIan. Why on earth would Xiao En share this secret with him? He doesn’t buy any of the excuses Xiao En gave. They’re too simplistic. But then Xiao En starts asking Fan Xian a bunch of questions about his upbringing. Where he was born? Who is is father? Who is his mother? Only for Xiao En to come out and say that his son is actually Fan Xian’s father, not Fan Jian.
Fan Xian is like…what the heck? Where did this come from? He doesn’t believe Xiao En one bit. Here’s where we see Chen Ping Ping in the Qing kingdom splice in. He explains to Fan JIan that XIao En’s son had another woman outside of his wife. A courtesan from a brothel that he bought and kept in a separate property. She became pregnant. Xiao En could not allow this woman to marry into the XIao family so he forced his son to marry another woman as his wife and stopped all communication between his son and this woman. This woman gave birth to a son, who Xiao En claims is Fan XIan.
It was this last lineage that gave Xiao En hope of staying alive and it is this last lineage or child, because his son and daughter in law were both killed, that Chen Ping Ping discovered and is using as bait. As the Emperor says, hope is the most torturous thing in the world. The hope of seeing the child again. So, Chen Ping Ping, under the Emperor’s orders, enacts a vile plan. He captures the child and tells Xiao En that he will raise the child to be a Qing kingdom citizen, one that hates the Qi kingdom. Throughout the years, Chen Ping Ping lets slip just a little bit of information to Xiao EN about the kid to dangle him alive. It is a masterful game of chess. XIao En thinks he is winning the game but he has yet to realize that every clue was given to him purposefully by Chen Ping Ping. He thinks Fan Xian’s appearance is all a ploy to get him to kill his own blood. That’s why Chen Ping Ping removed all trace of the Black Knight from protecting Fan Xian and why Chen Ping Ping didn’t remove Xiao En’s ability to fight. Xiao En believes CHen Ping Ping wants the two of them to fight to the death. Regardless of who lives or dies, the other will have to live knowing he killed his family. Little does Xiao En know, all of this was a plot put together by the Emperor and Chen Ping Ping.
But there is one line that Xiao En got exceptionally correctly of Chen Ping Ping. Once Chen Ping Ping has hatred in his heart, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 years or 100, he will always enact his revenge. That is a key line that we will see likely play out in season 3. With this entire plot explained, Fan Jian is extremely upset that Fan Xian has been used as a pawn since his birth. He is angry about Fan XIan’s treatment which then in turn upsets the Emperor who storms away. He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. It’s all for the secret of the sacred temple.
Here is where we learn about this sacred or noble temple. Many years ago, Xiao En and Ku He, the current grand master, were tasked with a thousand soldiers to head up north to find a secret to living forever. It was a treacherous journey where the group slowly went from a thousand strong to a hundred and those numbers kept falling. People died, left or went crazy. There was no food, or water, nothing but endless snow. It was an intensely desparate time where in the end, the only 2 people left were XIao En and Ku He.
But finally, after the 2 continued to trek north, they saw bright lights in the sky. Fan Xian knows it’s polar lights or aurora borealis but Xiao En didn’t know that. There was also some type of grass they were able to eat to survive. After months, the darkness finally subsided and sunlight came out. When the 2 walked out of their tent, the noble temple appeared. Xiao En didn’t know how it appeared but it did. The 2 climbed up the stairs and saw a grand brown door. Oddly, they couldn’t touch the door to open the temple. They tried numerous times but they still couldn’t open it. Fan Xian thinks it’s maybe a hologram or a space distortion but given it’s so long ago, we have no idea what really happened.
After quite some time of thinking of ideas to open the door to no avail, the door opened of its own accord. The person who opened the door? Someone who Xiao En calls a fairy. That person? Ye Qing Mei.
Fan Xian’s entire demeanor changes. Ye QIng Mei? His mother.
Xiao En goes on to explain that it is the first time he sees her. In the show, we see Ye Qing Mei walk out with 2 cases. One, is the case with the sniper rifle that we saw opened back in episode 28 and another smaller modern case. Her appearance shocks Xiao En and Ku He who immediately kneels at her feet and starts kowtowing to her. He does so many times which worries her and she decides to give him a book to help. This book helped Ku He become a grand master. THe 3 of them leave the entrance of the sacred temple as Ye Qing Mei says it’s dangerous and “they” might chase after them. Xiao En tries one last time to touch the door but it disappears forever.
Shortly after, Ye Qing Mei decides to leave. She says there are bad things chasing her friend and she needs to go rescue him. As Fan XIan deduces, this friend is likely Wu Zhu. Ku He and XIao En cannot join because their chance of survival is very slim. Before she leaves, she also asks that the 2 not reveal any information about the sacred temple or that they met her. She warns them that if more people learn about the sacred temple, bad things may happen to this world. Whatever is inside the temple may escape and harm the world. So, for the protection of this world, they need to keep the temple and her origins a secret. That is the last time he saw Ye Qing Mei.
It is because of this secret that Ku He wants to kill XIao En. He thinks Xiao En may use this secret to exchange for a chance to regroup and resurge back to power. But Xiao En is giving this secret to Fan XIan as a way for him to protect himself from Chen Ping Ping if needed. Xiao En does not know that Fan Xian is Ye Qing Mei’s son.
Xiao En continues to explain that Ye QIng Mei went on to meet 2 other grand masters in her travels and became the wealthiest woman in all the land. She was able to create the worlds most interesting things. He wasn’t surprised. She came from the sacred temple after all. What did surprise him was the fact that she fell in love and married into the Qing kingdom royalty. Not only that, she had a child with the eventual Qing Emperor.
This information shocks FAn Xian to his core. He is not Fan Jian’s son. He is the Emperor’s son. He, is a prince. Everything starts to line up now. Why he was raised in Dan Zhou, why the Emperor has been relatively easy on him, why that one time the Emperor let slip the 3 brothers should finish the meal. Evidently, the EMperor knew that Fan Xian is his son.
Fan XIan is still taking this time to digest, but XIao En’s time is coming to an end. He requests to not lie in the darkness of the cave so Fan Xian moves him to the cave entrance. There, XIao En dies looking out into the open air. His last words to FAn Xian are to live his life and whether or not he will see them again. Fan Xian answers yes, but Xiao En never heard the answer.
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The drama is really focused on the plot this episode but it nevertheless snuck in some pop culture references.
The first one is 玉芗, the name of Xiao En’s daughter in law who was a courtesan. Fan Xian didn’t take kindly to Xiao En pushing a whole new set of parents for him so when he heard the name Yu Xian, he responded with 鱼香肉丝 Yuxiang shredded pork.
This is a very popular Chinese dish that you can find in almost any Szechuan restaurant. If you translate it directly it’s Fish Fragrant Shredded Meat but funnily enough there’s no fish! The ingredients include chili, ginger, garlic, scallions, vinegar, and shredded pork tenderloin. The dish was only invented during the Republic of China era, so less than a century ago. I couldn’t find exactly who invented it but it was a Szechuan style chef who invented the dish and since then has become extremely popular in Chinese Szechuan cuisine. The fish fragrant is simply using those ingredients that I listed to create a fish smell. When I was small, I was always SO confused as to why there was no fish in the dish.
脑震荡 – when Ye Qing Mei first meets Ku He, he’s kowtowing to her. She immediately tells him to stop slamming his head on the ground or else he’ll get a concussion. In Chinese, the phrase she uses is 脑震荡 which is the accurate medical term. This definitely wasn’t used during ancient Chinese times and that’s why Ku He had a funny reaction to the term.
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Book differences
So one of the biggest book differences is that there isn’t the whole subplot of Xiao En believing Fan Xian is his grandson. There’s no grand plot that was concocted by Chen Ping Ping to have Xian En “come” to his own conclusion that Fan Xian is his own grandson, hence prompting Xiao En to divulge his secret. The reason why Xiao En divulges the secret in the book is because Xiao En believes that Fan Xiao will also die so there was no danger in informing a dead person. That’s where Xiao En made the wrong assumption. It’s not very clear in the drama, but in the book, Fan Xian made the calculated decision to jump off the cliff with Xiao En because Fan Xian had been practicing the cliff jump for years in Dan Zhou. Fan Xian always knew that he would survive so he had no problem continuing the ruse for Xiao En to believe that both of them were going to die in the cave. Now, since there’s no misdirection from Chen Ping Ping on Xiao En having a grandson, there isn’t that whole conversation with the Qing Emperor, Fan Jian and Chen Ping Ping.
In the book, Fan Xian’s true parentage is not revealed by Xiao En. That’s because when Xiao En recounts the story, he talks about a young child, only 4 years old, who emerges from the Sacred Temple. The young girl leaves the temple with Ku He and Xiao En but returns back to the sacred temple after a few days on the road, leaving only the martial arts master book to Ku He. Please note that Fan Xian is surprised that Ye Qing Mei didn’t bring anything else with her, including a box. In the drama, she IS carrying a box. Xiao En doesn’t know that the young girl becomes Ye Qing Mei until Fan Xian tells him in that cave. Fan Xian also divulges that he is Ye Qing Mei’s son, which Xiao En accepts.