Marriages are set in stone but you know things ain’t going
to be that way for long. Another thing I just noticed is that Ri Xuan has never
made his presence known to Ran Ran, at least not deliberately, will that change
soon?
Episode 9
Biu-Jie has agreed to the marriage. Wait, why?
She only updates Ran Ran’s parents (her uncle and aunt) leaving everyone
else in the dark. Meanwhile Ran Ran is too busy worrying about her own pending
marriage.
She confides in Biu-Jie her reasons against the marriage: there’s a
man in her dreams. This man has been calling out to her every night for the
past three years reminding her to never forget him. Well, she’s forgotten the
person. But there’s no way she can forget his voice. There’s an indescribable
pain gnawing at her heart whenever she hears that voice. She’s in love but she doesn’t know
it yet.
The man of her dreams – I mean – the man in her dreams (because there’s a difference there) is standing
right on the roof of her manor. It’s Ri Xuan, the masked man. Biu-Jie comes
across him (because he’s literally waiting to be found) and demands for his
identity. Ri Xuan tells her he’s a forgotten man. He assures her he won’t harm
Ran Ran. And swoosh he disappears.
His swooshing isn’t very honed; he’s caught immediately by
Qin Lang who demands for his identity too. Let’s say Ri Xuan is being caught on
purpose. He pretty much declares war with Qin Lang, hinting to him that he’s
guarding Ran Ran.
Ri Xuan also gives Qin Lang a helpful hint on catching the
vampire (btw
the drama doesn’t actually call the culprit a vampire): follow the
sounds of bells. With that, this time Ri Xuan swooshes away for good.
The next day Ran Ran’s parents call up the entire family for
a meeting to update the current marriage standings: Biu-Jie has agreed to the
marriage and Ran Ran’s marriage is in 20 days. Ran Ran, our nonchalant heroine,
is too devastated at the news of Biu-Jie’s marriage to even pay attention to
her own. Ran Ran gets on her knees and begs her parents to retract the decision
on Biu-Jie’s marriage but it isn’t their decision to retract. Biu-Jie was the
one who decided. And that’s that.
It takes another reminding from her brothers until Ran Ran
realizes her own woes: twenty days until doomsday. 5th Bro and 7th
Bro are trying to come up with a plan to escape this tragedy. Le plan: one
shall be a priestess if forced to marry.
And so Ran Ran enters priesthood – at least she pretends to
in front of Mom. The plan fails bitterly and Ran Ran is forced to continue the
act of starving and isolating oneself. Er, because those are the necessary
steps to enter Taoism?
It’s not long until Ran Ran decides to sneak out without her
Mom knowing again and somehow she falls atop 9th-Shi-Xiong
(who was trying to find Ran Ran anyways). And so they might as well go
shopping. I find it funny that 9th-Shi-Xiong’s role is to provide
all the money. Poor guy, but he loves paying for everything. She pays back the
scammer (with 9th-Shi-Xiong’s money) from her last outing hoping to retrieve her jade but
he tells her some tall man “took” it from him. I guess the jade isn’t important
to her (like
most dramas make them to be) because she forgets about it and then buys
another batch of wishing knots.
When Ran Ran suddenly hears Qin Lang’s voice in the
background she pulls 9th-Shi-Xiong to dodge in some alleyway.
Although she successfully escapes from her fiancée, she walks right into a
group of thugs kidnapping a girl. This girl is the one Qin Lang caught the
other day but has recently freed. She’s Jin Ying. Here's a picture to recognize her:
Episode 10
It’s almost Shi-Jie’s (btw her name is Yao Bing) mother’s Memorial
Day and she tells Qing Tian all about her family history: her older sister was
kidnapped, her mother has died searching for her sister, and her father has
secluded himself somewhere for who knows why. Shi-Jie thinks her father doesn’t
want to see her to not be reminded of the pain. How she grew up to be this optimistic
beats me. She still believes her sister is alive out there somewhere. She’s a little saddened that she’s forgotten her sister’s
face though.
Er-Shi-Xiong doesn’t have it easy either. To harvest the magical
flower, he needs to master “Qi Jue.” How do I describe this abstract thing…
it’s this form of martial art (where are all you do is sit from what I see) that
requires you to be absolutely emotionless otherwise you’ll lose your entire
self and become an insane being. Great way to explain why Er-Shi-Xiong is so dead looking. However,
it’s impossible for a human being to be emotionless so Er-Shi-Xiong is
essentially sacrificing his life to harvest this flower. In other words, he’s
sacrificing his life to save Ran Ran’s life.
Third person with the worst life of all is Ran Ran who is
currently kidnapped (along with 9th-Shi-Xiong) by an illegal brothel
organization. Ran Ran apparently isn’t good enough to be a prostitute so she is
to be auctioned off at night. Meanwhile 9th-Shi-Xiong is to be
beaten up (and possibly killed).
Back at home, Biu-Jie and the brothers realize Ran Ran is
missing which is odd because being a good girl she is she would have returned home by night
hours. To not let their parents worry, all nine brothers head out to search for
their dear sister. (They are essentially useless.) It’s funny how one of the brothers has to be in the back
because the screen isn’t wide enough to fit him
Meanwhile Biu-Jie heads back to Ran Ran’s room, and her
intuitions were correct: Ri Xuan is there. After learning about Ran Ran’s
disappearance from Biu-Jie, Ri Xuan flies out the window.
Ri Xuan somehow immediately knew Ran Ran was kidnapped by
the illegal brothel organization. (Maybe he’s subscribed to their weekly feeds about new
girls to be auctioned since he’s a “customer” there. He’s not really there to
buy the girls but more for establishing connections with the shady men participating
in this business.) Anyways, he’s a little too slow to “buy” Ran Ran;
some other creep took her. Ri Xuan proceeds to killing the lady in charge of
the brothel and then he takes the horse in pursuit of Ran Ran who was taken out
of the city by her new master.
9th-Shi-Xiong escapes to safety with the help of Qin
Lang. When Qin Lang discovers Ran Ran was kidnapped, he remains cool and calm (because
he doesn’t know Ran Ran is the girl he loves). With Qin Lang’s investigation of
the brothel and Ran Ran’s disappearance, they (including the brothers) soon
discover that Ri Xuan is somehow involved in this.
- - - Comments - - -
So Ran Ran was told to never forget Ri Xuan, but she does.
Then she says she won’t forget his voice, but she does. Oh Ran Ran. At least
your masked man doesn’t mind and will do anything so save you.
As much as I don’t want Qin Lang to be a threat to Ran Ran
and Ri Xuan’s romance, I kind of want him to realize he actually loves Ran Ran
(and not Biu-Jie). Qin Lang's a good guy. It's just he'll never get the girl. Sorry good guys.
There was one thing I glossed over in recapping Episode 10.
When Ran Ran and 9th-Shi-Xiong were kidnapped, to prevent tarnishing
Ran Ran’s reputation as a maiden, they used a fake identity for Ran Ran.
Instinctively, she chose the name “Yue Ying” which you may recall is Ri Xuan’s
lover (which really is just Ran Ran).
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