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Ten Years of Devotion—and the Desire to Be Loved in Return
If you ask whether I enjoyed this drama, my first answer would be, “It frustrated me.” Yet I kept watching, and by the end, I could not say I disliked it. There is something quietly absorbing about this unequal, emotionally restrained relationship.
Lu Xiaofan enters the Bei family through a marriage arranged for other people’s convenience. His own family treats him as expendable, while his new household seems to regard him as little more than an extra servant. His wish is painfully small: he wants someone to need him.
That is what makes his attachment to Bei Lüqing understandable. Lüqing helps him study and deals with his family’s unreasonable demands. Xiaofan responds by learning to make his favourite nourishing soup and preparing it every day. Being allowed close to this man becomes his small happiness.
What frustrated me was that becoming physically intimate and living together did not seem to change the balance between them. Xiaofan continued to give, while Lüqing continued to receive. Neither revealed much of what was happening inside.
But Xiaofan’s restraint should not be mistaken for an absence of feeling. Whenever he is hurt, he takes a step back and contains it. At the beginning, he is still young, with little sense that he has the right to ask for more. Simply being wanted seems enough.
Lüqing, meanwhile, notices far more than he admits. He recognises Xiaofan’s small hurts and quietly takes care of them without letting him know. Even their separation turns out to have been his way of protecting Xiaofan from his formidable mother. The audience learns this much later; Xiaofan himself is never told.
That makes Lüqing’s care both moving and exasperating. Protection offered in secret cannot reassure someone who believes he has been rejected. Lüqing may understand Xiaofan, but Xiaofan is left trying to understand Lüqing with very little help.
The story spans ten years, beginning in 1980. I found that passage of time essential to my reading of Xiaofan. The young man who once asked for almost nothing gradually becomes someone capable of demanding a response.
I spent much of the drama waiting for this sad-looking young man—who kept reminding me of the Japanese actor Teppei Koike—to finally retaliate. When he deliberately causes Lüqing a major loss through stocks, I did not read it primarily as financial revenge.
To me, he wanted to show Lüqing that he, too, could scheme against him. He was not simply the innocent, endlessly accommodating person Lüqing had grown used to watching and protecting.
More than that, I saw it as a demand for reciprocal love. Xiaofan had given his affection without calculation for years. Now he wanted Lüqing to reach for him with the same longing. He wanted to feel that love himself, rather than remain dependent on gestures whose meaning was hidden from him.
This is my interpretation, but it made the ending more satisfying. His retaliation felt like the moment he finally insisted that his own desires mattered.
Twelve episodes were the right length for me. At twenty, I might have surrendered to the frustration. At twelve, I stayed long enough for that frustration to become part of the appeal.
Lüqing seems to want to spend forever watching Xiaofan’s smallest emotional reactions. I can see the affection in that—but honestly, what an infuriating man.
Lu Xiaofan enters the Bei family through a marriage arranged for other people’s convenience. His own family treats him as expendable, while his new household seems to regard him as little more than an extra servant. His wish is painfully small: he wants someone to need him.
That is what makes his attachment to Bei Lüqing understandable. Lüqing helps him study and deals with his family’s unreasonable demands. Xiaofan responds by learning to make his favourite nourishing soup and preparing it every day. Being allowed close to this man becomes his small happiness.
What frustrated me was that becoming physically intimate and living together did not seem to change the balance between them. Xiaofan continued to give, while Lüqing continued to receive. Neither revealed much of what was happening inside.
But Xiaofan’s restraint should not be mistaken for an absence of feeling. Whenever he is hurt, he takes a step back and contains it. At the beginning, he is still young, with little sense that he has the right to ask for more. Simply being wanted seems enough.
Lüqing, meanwhile, notices far more than he admits. He recognises Xiaofan’s small hurts and quietly takes care of them without letting him know. Even their separation turns out to have been his way of protecting Xiaofan from his formidable mother. The audience learns this much later; Xiaofan himself is never told.
That makes Lüqing’s care both moving and exasperating. Protection offered in secret cannot reassure someone who believes he has been rejected. Lüqing may understand Xiaofan, but Xiaofan is left trying to understand Lüqing with very little help.
The story spans ten years, beginning in 1980. I found that passage of time essential to my reading of Xiaofan. The young man who once asked for almost nothing gradually becomes someone capable of demanding a response.
I spent much of the drama waiting for this sad-looking young man—who kept reminding me of the Japanese actor Teppei Koike—to finally retaliate. When he deliberately causes Lüqing a major loss through stocks, I did not read it primarily as financial revenge.
To me, he wanted to show Lüqing that he, too, could scheme against him. He was not simply the innocent, endlessly accommodating person Lüqing had grown used to watching and protecting.
More than that, I saw it as a demand for reciprocal love. Xiaofan had given his affection without calculation for years. Now he wanted Lüqing to reach for him with the same longing. He wanted to feel that love himself, rather than remain dependent on gestures whose meaning was hidden from him.
This is my interpretation, but it made the ending more satisfying. His retaliation felt like the moment he finally insisted that his own desires mattered.
Twelve episodes were the right length for me. At twenty, I might have surrendered to the frustration. At twelve, I stayed long enough for that frustration to become part of the appeal.
Lüqing seems to want to spend forever watching Xiaofan’s smallest emotional reactions. I can see the affection in that—but honestly, what an infuriating man.
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