Season 1 – Ep 27 pt 2 + Ep 28
[Karen]
In the first part of episode 27, Fan Xian goes off and recites a ton of poems from our world that dumbfounds the entire audience. Originally, Guo Bao Kun, the Princess Royal and Zhuang Mo Han were all looking to ruin Fan Xian’s reputation by accusing him of plagiarism. But now, the fact that he was able to produce SO many, over 100 poems that are all impressive classis, there is no way he plagiarized. Instead, it looks like it was Zhuang mo han who was here to frame Fan xian. Well, Fan Xian passes out drunk and the Emperor walks off as Zhuang Mo Han also spits out blood. The Emperor is quite amused by this turn of events and even chuckles when he leaves.
Fan Xian is carried home to help him recover from his night of drinking. However, this is nothing but the perfect cover. His original plan of sneaking into the palace remains in tact. Who will suspect that it was he, Fan Xian, the drunk, that snuck into the palace? He takes medicine to throw up all the alcohol, changes and heads out. Ruo Ruo, his sister, is there to help his cover. No one is allowed in his room.
[Cathy]
Fan Xian and Wu Zhu create a diversion. Wu Zhu pretends to be Yun Zhi Lan from Dong Yi, as one of the 9th rank fighters. His job is to lure the powerful eunuch, Hong Si Xiang, the supposed grand master in the palace. Fan Xian then must sneak into the palace and he must avoid detection from the master archer, Yan Xiao Yi,
The plan ultimately goes off without a hitch. Fan Xian successfully sneaks into the Empress Dowager’s chambers and procures the weird key from a compartment on her bed. He hurriedly sneaks home and asks a locksmith to quickly create a copy.
However, when Fan Xian tries to return the fake key back to the palace, that’s where he gets distracted. He follows a figure to the Princess Royal’s residence and finds out that she and Zhuang Mo Han were working together to bring down Fan Xian. While certainly a big secret, one of the Princess Royal’s maids discovers Fan Xian and alerts Yan xiao yi that there’s an assassin. He immediately arrives to find the threat and shoots an arrow at Fan Xian’s figure just as he scales the palace walls to escape.
[Karen]
In episode 28, we see Yan xiao yi heading over to the Fan manor. He has a hunch that the assassin was none other than Fan xian and wants to confirm this .Ruo Rujo had been waiting outside Fan xian’s room all night to ensure no one sees he escaped but is now severely pressured by Yan Xiao Yi to open up the room. It is a tense moment where Ruo Ruo is doing everfything she can to protect her brother but is buckling under the pressure.
Luckily, Fan xian responds and it sounds like he made it home no problem. More interestingly is the fact that Fan Xian sported no visible injuries despite indeed being shot by Yan Xiao Yi. He was shot exactly where his mother key was being held and the arrow did no damage to the key or Fan Xian.
[Cathy]
Because Yan Xiao Yi has no evidence now of injury, he has no option but to leave. But not before kneeling and kowtowing to Ruo RUo to apologize for his rudeness earlier.
Fan Xian can now spend the rest of the day figuring out what the heck the key opens. At long last, with uncle Wu Zhu, the 2 finally use Fan Xian’s mothers key to open up her suitcase.
Aaaand we find out, it’s a completely modern day device. This shocks Fan Xian who cannot comprehend how something with voice activation can exist here. When they get through the voice activation piece, he’s even more stunned.
IMPORTANT. The drama cut the visuals out, i’m not sure why. But, what’s in the case is none other than a modern day sniper rifle.
[Karen]
Questions!!!!
Fortunately, there are letters in the suitcase. One for Wu Zhu and one for Fan Xian. From Wu Zhu’s letter, we learn that Fan Xian’s mother Ye Qing Mei had an exceptionally close relationship with Wu Zhu. It is a touching letter that starts off light hearted with trying to set Wu zhu up with a bride but then becomes much sadder. In the letter, Ye Qing Mei expresses her loneliness in the world despite having achieved what seemed like everything. Even more touching is how Wu Zhu seems to imagine she was talking to him and responds to her letter as if they were having a conversation. And when Fan Xian asks if he misses her, this stoic and robotic man actually lights up with a beautiful smile as he reminisces about his time with Ye Qing Mei.
As for the letter to Fan Xian, this is the one that blows everyone’s mind. Somehow she know he was going to be called Fan Xian before his birth and addresses the letter to him explicitly.
[Cathy]
The letter makes clear that she and Fan Xian are the same. She confirms that there is no time travel or no parallel world. Instead, the world froze over in an ice age and civilization was frozen. Ye Qing Mei is one of those people who woke up from this slumber with memories of the past. Humanity started a new and already underwent hunter gather society and tribal society. They are now in the current era of a feudal society.
But she was not the only one who woke up. There were others who woke up before her and passed on their knowledge to help improve civilization. As for Fan Xian? He is unique. Instead of someone who froze and woke up, he is actually an experiment, the only one to succeed. His memories became stored as data.
The letter concludes with an option. Ye Qing Mei has more answers in Tai Ping Yard that if Fan Xian wanted to learn about his past and everything she just said, he can find it there. But, it’ll change the course of his life for the worse. Or he can ignore it. It is up to him to decide how he lives his life.
–
[Karen]
Outside of this bombshell of learning about his true identity and past, The Princess Royal is freaking out about who tried to “assassinate” her and overheard her talking with Zhuang Mo Han. Yes yes that’s important but not nearly as important as what’s happening with Fan Xian so we’re gonna gloss over that until next episode.
–
[Cathy]
These two episodes were extremely plot heavy and didn’t feature any history or pop culture. I mean, apart from how colloquial Ye Qing Mei’s letter was, BUT that’s it. We spent a whole episode talking about 15 poems in the last podcast episode so I think can have a bit of a break!
Book differences
Episodes 27 and 28 follow the book surprisingly closely. Here’s a couple of the key main differences. Fan Xian kills one of the palace maids rather than injuring her, which is how guards were alerted later in the night. When Yan Xiao Yi confronts Fan Xian and shoots his arrow, Fan Xian actually knocks down the arrow but spits out blood right then and there. Yan Xiao Yi does not suspect Fan Xian because they haven’t met at this point. This means that there isn’t a whole confrontation between Yan Xiao Yi and Fan Xian at the Fan Manor.
The Emperor, Hong Si Xiang, and Yan Xiao Yi do not believe that it was the swordsmen from Si Gu Jian due to the clothing that Wu Zhu wore. This is slightly different from the drama.
Now – as for the mysterious box. In the drama, Fan Xian was able to open the box with a voice code. In the book, it was actually a key code which was “gg ttgh”. This is the spelling of Wu Zhu in the Wubi Input Method. This is a Chinese character input method primarily for inputting simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese text on a computer and one that Karen and I never learned. We learned Pin Yin.
As for Ye Qing Mei’s letters, she doesn’t know at this point if her child is going to be a son or daughter. It’s quite funny because in the book, she refers to a daughter lovingly but calls her son a rascal. She also reveals, much to Fan Xian’s shock, that she uh 借种 or stole the seed to have her child. She doesn’t reveal who the father is but uh…quite shocking for Fan Xian.
The book also doesn’t dive into the origins of Ye Qing Mei. Her mystery only becomes revealed way later in the book. But, let’s just say that the author didn’t round out her story as much as the screenwriters did in this episode where they essentially gave an answer to why Ye Qing Mei had modern day technology with Fan Xian also having this type of knowledge. In the book, Fan Xian is purely a 灵魂穿越 or a dimension traveling soul who died in the 21st century and his soul landed in the body of Fan Xian.