Love's Ambition Episode 13

Murky dealings and a murder attempt. High heels failing at the sand castle.

This episode is full business drama with crime elements and family struggle around Haoming and his ambition for power in the company. It was not totally easy to understand why the ruler of the Jinda empire Shen Jinsong (played by Xu Yajun, a movie and drama actor seasoned in drama acting since 1993) was so mistrustful of his son and alleged heir.

Xu Yan's vague feelings that the sand castle of her marriage was crumbling started to become a reality.
High heels failing to support became a repeated symbolic motif of the quashed hopes both for her and for her enemy Sun Siwei, while Fang Lei stripped off the mask of appearances although she could only get malevolent pleasure from the harm she did.

Detailed synopsis below includes spoilers:
-----

A disgruntled member of the board first tried to make Haoming help him in his dire straits, but Haoming remained cold and unforgiving. Haoming was saved by his wife from a knifing from Wu Deliang (played by Ding Zhiyong, support actor who also was among cast list of 2022 "Who Rules The World" starred by Zhao Lusi and Yang Yang).

Haoming next forced a bank card into Xu Yan's hand but lied about the business he rushed to next, which was in fact a meeting with Mr Fang (played by Guo Qiucheng), a powerful businessman and long time acquaintance whom he had promised to look out for and help Fang Lei, the legal advisor team member of Jinda group. He also carelessly ignored his wife's phone calls and his promise to be home for dinner, going instead to collect Haochen at school and spend the evening with the boy until he fell asleep.

Xu Yan was struggling to balance her job as news anchor and host of the cooking show, but Sun Siwei was still in the media company and in her team as a subordinate, disrespectful to her and slothful about her job, bullying an assistant.
At Jinda, Fang Lei was fishing for Haoming's attention. She brought a well made report to his office, only in view of playing the role of weak hypoglycemia sufferer to let herself be driven home by her boss.
A few days later, Fang Lei joined Haoming at the golf (barely acknowledging Xu Yan), and readily accepted to join him for a business dinner with the Jiang people.
Xu Yan declined the off hand invitation by Haoming and went instead to dine and have a talk with Qiao Lin. Her sister could not believe Haoming was cheating despite Xu Yan 's feeling that "a glass wall was separating her" from her husband lately.

Meanwhile, Fang Lei was all over Haoming who had brought her home in a half drunk state. He ignored Xu Yan's phone call but answered his assistant Chen Li and once the news he was waiting for arrived as a document on his phone, let the mask fall off, turned icy cold and promised Fang Lei a bonus for her performance with his business partners, informing Fang Lei that he only had been "keeping her stable from outbursts".
Waiting at the door, now revealed to be the private attorney of Haoming, was Han Weiping (played by Hei Ze, playing support roles in many dramas since 2019). Han had evidence recorded on his pen spy camera of Fang Lei's maneuvers to wreck Haoming's marriage and left Fang Lei thoroughly defeated and in tears...

Back home, Haoming deflected his wife's attempt to confess, telling her that if she was going to say something that "might upset him" she'd better stay silent, next striding upstairs to go to bed, leaving Xu Yan standing like a convenient coat rack.

When Xu Yan went to collect Haochen from school, Fang Lei confronted her and revealed she was the boy's biological aunt, and Haoming was in fact the boy's father, adding that Haoming had from the start only been looking for "a name to put on a marriage certificate" but never been in love with Xu Yan, only using her for his ambition.
As Haochen rushed to Xu Yan, and Fang Lei looked at her with mock pity, Xu Yan suddenly felt teetering at the edge of an abyss, her high heels almost giving out supporting her weight at the realization of how much she had been misled.

Read More