L13

Love when a drama actually shows real grown-up humans struggling to figure out complex existential/relationship issues without sugarcoating them and a bunch of misogynistic trolls crawl out of the woodwork to call the FL a slut and a blood-sucking temptress.

I love both leads and totally sympathize with their situations. They know they like each other, but they don't know yet how far they can take their relationship, or what they're willing to trade off for it. This is something people need to figure out before they can commit to another person for good, and there's no way to figure it out without risking your heart and making yourself vulnerable in the process. That's what this show is about and I think it's beautifully done.

The babies who don't get it and only watch cdramas to drool over their favorite geges should sit this one out.

Holy mother of God, that’s a lot of projection and misogyny in one place. It’s totally misplaced too, as the FL in this story has liked the ML since school and clearly rejected the other guy? While it’s the ML who’s been going on blind dates since the beginning of the drama? (Which I don’t blame him for, BTW; he doesn’t owe Zhuang Jie anything when they’re not in a relationship, the dates clearly range from completely meaningless to deliberate distractions from Zhuang Jie for him, and they’re both grownups and dating is normal—that's why they both have exes—but it’s just absurd that you’re going on this crazy rant about Zhuang Jie’s promiscuity when it’s Chen Maidong who’s been shown with other people more and Zhuang Jie has been the one doing the pursuing until now.)

It’s fine to like an ugly man! Ugly people of all genders deserve love too, and if you find someone attractive, other people’s opinions shouldn’t matter. It’s when you’re crushing on an asshole that you need to take a step back and reevaluate.

Gotta say, I'm super impressed by how tasteful and understated this drama is in every aspect, including of course the portrayal of Zhuang Jie and Chen Maidong's complex relationship, which has so far avoided even the subtle cliches that other melancholic romantic dramas get away with under the pretext of portraying characters with 'mature' problems. No, every scene here is meaningful, natural and infused with authentic feeling (instead of overdoing it).

Just as an example of what I mean, sometimes in dramas like this you'll see the main characters refuse to acknowledge their feelings, or not communicate properly, for no good reason other than to generate angst and extend the plot, and that's supposed to be because they're grown-ups who have too much to lose/have been hurt before and are afraid of starting a new relationship. I often roll my eyes at this scenario because the execution is usually half-assed and unconvincing, but here, I can really tell exactly what Chen Maidong is feeling and I understand perfectly why he keeps pushing Zhuang Jie away, even if he never explains it in words. His eyes speak for him. I don't agree with him, but I totally get it and the drama made me sympathise with him. As for Zhuang Jie, well, unlike other female leads (but like a lot of women in real life), she just went for it when she finally met a man worthy of her, even if she didn't think it could go anywhere. Again, that's what people do sometimes when they're attracted to someone. I love how human both our leads are, and how they don't lie to themselves about their feelings despite not knowing what to do with them.

But one theme it's even rarer to see explored with so much depth and understanding that the drama nails for me is disability. I just love how Zhuang Jie's disability has been incorporated into the story so far. Most of the time we don't notice it or think about it, but we always know it's there. It's not a surprise when it comes up, or something that needs tons of preachy exposition. We know Zhuang Jie is a strong person, we know losing her leg was and continues to be very tough, and we suspect it may be even tougher on her than she lets on because we can already sense she suppresses her true feelings a lot. All of these things are central to who she is as a person, so it's impossible to imagine her without her disability (unlike a lot of other dramas that treat this subject, which tend to portray disability as something sad that happens *to* the main character, who still has their "real" personality buried somewhere deep within and just needs to stop being sad and reconnect with their old self, rather than as something that's been with them for so long it's made them the person they are today). But it's also just one part of her and not something that needs to be milked for shock value or moral instruction by the narrative. At the end of the day, she's a person just like everybody else.

I’m kinda into the friend’s interactions with the embarrassing local gangster… He seems to have hidden depths beneath the “most eligible village bachelor” cringe… I’m not sure yet if he’s good enough for our godly bestie, but I’m willing to listen.

The main story continues to be amazing. It’s finally time for CMD to suffer sexily after he made ZJ feel insecure. The previews show we’re in for some fun angsty shenanigans before they get together.

Women crush on ugly men all the time.

Some of us like art that shows the true depth of human emotion and reassures us that other people have had thoughts and experiences that we’ve had but never shared with anyone. Appreciating something other than cheap escapism doesn’t mean we’ve never encountered death lmao, that’s a wild thing to say.

The yearning is OFF THE CHARTS! This drama is perfect.

OMG, the ending of today's episode had me screamING!!!!!

The medium only said a domineering woman would get in between the two, not that it would be a mistress. That was the grandma's interpretation. I think that card was referring to Zhuang Jie's mother.

OMG, finally some real food! I loved the first 3 episodes. So far this is exactly what I was hoping it would be—thoughtful, subtle, melancholic, grown up, a little funny, smart—and I can't wait to see our main leads' relationship develop and to find out more about their backstories.

Wei Daiqing is a delightful weasel. I like this character a lot.

But does anyone know what Deng Mingyuan was talking about when he revealed he knew WDQ's other identity? I didn't quite understand what he was implying, but he was basically trying to scare WDQ by revealing he knew his secret, and it involved a secret identity.

Oh, thank you! That sounds better, I'll check it out.

Mango TV uploads one episode per day to YouTube and the subtitles are so-so. They're up to episode 7 right now and I'll wait for episode 8 tomorrow instead of watching ahead on other platforms, because the subtitles available elsewhere are unreadable.

I think they still use machine translation for the subtitles on YouTube, but they have a human go over them and edit them so they make more sense.

(Illegal streaming platforms like Dramacool upload the first subtitles they can find so they can get them out as early as possible, so they only have the really bad, machine-translated ones.)

So, based on the summary, I'm guessing Guan Xue won't know there are two brothers? And they'll both appear in front of her at different times while pretending to be the same person? And I'm guessing there will be some messed up romance based on that premise?

I'm on episode 5 and I'm kind of amazed by the timeline here.

This guy came to Shanghai with one month left before he had to report back to the Navy, witnessed a murder, acquired a child, acquired a fake identity, rented an apartment, passed the police entrance exam, became a police officer, solved a case, got suspended, investigated the original murder, was identified as suspicious and interrogated by secret police after his whole family was investigated, etc. etc. etc. and HE STILL HAS ONE MONTH LEFT BEFORE HE HAS TO GO BACK TO NANJING???

How many days did a month last in Republican-era China? 300?

Your opinion is what’s stupid here.

That’s s much clearer summary of what we know so far, thank you for laying it all out! I hope we’ll finally focus on YZM soon because his storyline also seems quite dramatic.

But don't forget that's just how all Chinese mothers are and actually she loves them both equally but just doesn't know how to express it 🙄

I'm also wondering the same thing. The way YZM and Ms Zhang sound when they're scheming, you'd think Xing'anli was some kind of super valuable property that could make or break a large company's real estate portfolio. Yet it seems to be just an old-fashioned hotel with a lot of debts attached to it? I get that the brand must be valuable and the location great, but so far Botticelli seems much more impressive.

I also don't quite remember what YZM's connection to Botticelli's parent company was. Why was he parachuted in from HQ? Like, is Yueda related to his grandmother at all, or did he decide to work for an unrelated company when he started his career? And now he's trying to leverage his personal connection to take over Xing'anli and add it to Yueda's portfolio so he could beat out his business rivals for a promotion? But of course ultimately he'll fall in love with MCH and decide to stay in Shanghai and run Xing'anli as a family business with her? I'm trying to connect the dots here.