A VR game allows a man to restart his life and save a girl he perhaps loves.
Notable Actors/ActressesZhao Yi Qin: Xia Shi
Li Hao Fei: Ye Sang Yu
Director:
Chinese Title
拾光的秘密
Network: MangoTV
Recap Grade: B/C
First Impression: 2/5
First Impression: 2/5
Mini Recaps
[Ep2] We rewind to ten years ago when they’re all eighteen and in the last year of high school. Lin Shan He, the new kid, makes a move on Ye Sang Yu which makes the entire class stir. Ye Sang Yu has a crush on Xia Shi though, the smartest kid in their year. Xia Shi happens to overhear Ye Sang Yu talking about his crush on him with her bestie, Xu Ran Ran.
When we arrive to a scene of Xia Shi’s father giving an interview on television, Xia Shi stops the VR. In the other room, everyone, especially Lin Shan He, is disappointed. Cui Zhen Yan convinces him to try entering the VR again.
[Ep3] Xia Shi is back in the VR. Why is he just reliving his past and not doing anything to change stuff?
Ye Sang Yu is pushed to the ground and the bandaid Xia Shi gave her fell off. She’s more upset about that than being involved in a fight that was not hers to participate in. There are other pressing matters she really should care about though like being last in her year.
[Ep4] Xia Shi is Ye Sang Yu’s tutor. The class’s top student is tutoring the class’s last student. There’s also an ongoing murder case going on. The police suspect a female student killed her mother and then committed suicide. The teacher is in denial that such a good student could do that. While Xia Shi is injured by an accident on stage.
[Ep5] Ye Sang Yu has a fever and doesn’t show up at school. Xia Shi is looking for her. He thinks she stole something of his. It’s important to him. She doesn’t like him accusing her but she finds his item in her bag. She accidentally took it when she was at his home last time. In her feverish state, she runs after him to return the item. He apologizes for accusing her and piggybacks her home.
[Ep6] A haunted house night turns deadly. Lin Shan He and Cui Zhen Yan testify that they heard a girl cry, “Don’t push me” before they found the dead corpse. This is the second murder in the neighbourhood. The first one (which was a suspected suicide) had a bloody S in the crime scene. This murder has the word “dismantle” with M written over it. There’s a serial murderer on the loose.
[Ep7] There’s a new intern teacher and a new young snack bar owner in the block. Everyone new is now very suspicious. Speaking of suspicious, a dubious man trails Ye Sang Yu. Xia Shi runs off the bus to protect her but it turns out it's her uncle who lives in the neighbourhood.
[Ep9] Zhao Hui Zhen cheats to improve his marks so that he can leave Class 7 but somehow Ye Sang Yu gets accused of cheating instead. Ye Sang Yu cries alone at being accused. She's comforted by Xia Shi who believes her unconditionally.
[Ep10] Xia Shi finds proof that Zhao Hui Zhen cheated thus proving Ye Sang Yu's innocence. Lin San He is also constantly revolving around Ye Sang Yu. The lonely Cai Zhen Yan doesn't have her crush (Xia Shi) or even her father to accompany her. She found this extremely creepy picture.
There are a total of three suspicious candidates: the snack bar mask dude, the intern teacher and the cheating student, but the teacher is the most suspicious this episode. He's alone in the washroom with Ye Sang Yu.
[Ep15] Ye Sang Yu is late for her firework date with Xia Shi but he’s still there waiting for her. He writes math equations on a chalkboard for her to plot. She whimpers but when she finishes the four grids, it makes the letters L, O, V, and E. The unromantic Xia Shi confesses to her with math equations. Every time he does something romantic he tells her to shut up, ha.
[Ep18] Xia Shi's father takes on the case. Everyone's talking behind his back because his father is defending a criminal. This "criminal" confesses that he's just a penniless painter. The buyer made him go to each scene.
Lin Shan He stands up for Xia Shi and so does Ye Sang Yu. Xia Shi decides to stay in the VR this time to stop his father from taking on the case. He changes all the time in the house to prevent his father from attending court. But his plan fails. Dad figured it out.
[Ep11] Su Teacher (Su Zhe) plays with an x-acto knife to scare us audience but he’s not doing anything suspicious. Xia Shi shows a tiny bit of jealousy when he sees Ye Sang Yu with Su Zhe. Xia Shi asks her if she likes everyone. She does. But she assures him she likes him the best.
After receiving a horrifying painting, Cui Zhen Yan seems to be the serial murderer’s new target.
Xia Shi and Ye Sang Yu accidentally separate at night when they promised to star gaze together. They don’t have each other’s numbers but she still waits for him indefinitely. On her tenth mini firework, he appears. He’s been looking for her too. He smiles at her and quickly blurts out his number. She doesn’t quite catch it and he teases her that he won’t repeat it. She begs him until he does. He also piggybacks her home. While she’s on his back, she wraps her scarf around him to keep him warm.
[Ep12] The entire grade is going on a trip. Although Ye Sang Yu is sitting next to Lin Shan He (after he forced Xu Ran Ran out of her seat), she’s constantly texting Xia Shi who’s on the other bus.
The police have confirmed the serial murderer is targeting Cui Zhen Yan and Lin Shan He because they’re the two witnesses who testified against the murderer for the second case.
[Ep13] The “murderer” almost captures Cui Zhen Yan if not for Su Zhe. But Su Zhe is suspected by the police. He explains that he was chasing someone suspicious which is what led him to Cui Zhen Yan. Meanwhile Ye Sang Yu is in danger herself. Zhao Hui Zhen (the student who cheated) attacks her. He accuses her for not taking the cheating blame for him (what now?) when she’s already last in class. Now his chance at university is ruined because of her. Fortunately, Xia Shi saves her. Lin Shan He also beats him up.
The murderer makes his appearance. He’s Zhong Fan Xing, a CEO’s son. He’s determined to kill Cui Zhen Yan even in the hospital. His plan is interrupted when her dad walks in. He’s killing her because she’s not loved by her father and he overheard her complaining that she should have just died when her mother committed suicide. Zhong Fan Xing had a similar experience. His mother wanted to die with him in the car but he survived. Thus a cold blooded murder was born. He thinks he’s god though. He’s saving the failures from living in this world. He has his sickly father confined to a bed at home. He’s angry at him for abusing his mother thus he’s keeping him barely alive to witness all his murdering, to witness the son he's given birth to. He sneers at his father that he can't expose him because that would bring shame to their family. Evil music starts playing. Ahhh so this is Wang Yi Zhe’s role. I’ve been waiting for him! Such a good looking guy is still good looking as a psychopathic murderer.
[Ep14] It’s the holidays. Xia Shi and Ye Sang Yu’s hometown are the same. They meet up. It’s busy on the streets so he holds onto her sleeve to take her around.
Xia Shi is waiting for Ye Sang Yu at night to watch the fireworks but she’s late because she’s trying to get Lin Sen He un-grounded by his parents. This gives Cui Zhen Yan a chance to confess to Xia Shi. Xia Shi rejects her though. He likes Ye Sang Yu. Although she's rejected, she feels relieved she got the confession off her shoulders.
Lin Shan He was grounded for beating up Zhao Hui Zhen. He visits him with his father to apologize. The parents don’t want money as compensation. They’re just sad that their son, who has depression, is now beaten up. Lin Shan He feels guilty. Zhao Hui Zhen moves and transfers schools. Su Zhe is also leaving.
[Ep16] Xia Shi doesn't want his father to be a serial murderer's lawyer. His father disagrees. He's a lawyer; this is his job. At this moment, Xia Shi refuses to continue the VR experience. His father probably died because of this case...? Xia Shi leaves the VR room. Cui Zhen Yan follows him to tell him that everything's real, including Ye Sang Yu. Cui Zhen Yan also reveals that Ye Sang Yu died because of her. He doesn't believe her because he has no memory of Ye Sang Yu at all. It turns out he's forgotten about her. Everyone in the other room (the rest of the high school friends) are once again disappointed in Xia Shi for giving up the VR. Cui Zhen Yan texts someone for help to get Xia Shi involved again. This girl assures she can change his mind. She fixes the VR experience so that Xia Shi won't be able to see certain scenes of his father. She's Ye Sang Yu, isn't she? She majored in computer science? That's so unexpected. And so he re-enters the VR to see his Ye Sang Yu who's starting to feel more real by the second.
[Ep17] Ye Sang Yu's father is in an unimaginable amount of debt. He has to divorce his wife in order to keep his family debt free. Ye Sang Yu doesn't know the details but she knows her family is in trouble.
The snack bar dude (Zhong Fan Xing) picks up Ye Sang Yu’s keychain. A mysterious dude eavesdrops near her home; she’s having an argument with her mother about what happened to her father. It seems like Ye Sang Yu is now the murderer's new target.
[Ep18] Xia Shi's father takes on the case. Everyone's talking behind his back because his father is defending a criminal. This "criminal" confesses that he's just a penniless painter. The buyer made him go to each scene.
[Ep19] Xia Shi wants to change his father’s fate. Elsewhere there’s another murder. Xia Shi’s mother also ends up hospitalized because his father helped free a supposed serial murderer resulting in another death. The real murderer, Zhong Fan Xin is tailing the dad.
[Ep20] Ye Sang Yu finds out about Xia Shi’s mother through TV. She tries to comfort him by telling him how she fell in love with him when they took their entrance exam. Her eraser of truth fell near him and the teacher thought he cheated. He never exposed to the teacher that the eraser was hers. And that’s how she fell in love with him. He tells her that he knows she’s saying all this to make him happy. He also tells her it’s simple to make him smile. He just needs her to smile.
The police informs Dad that he ruined the murderer’s plan. Thus if dad looks like he can’t handle societal’s pressure on him, he would fit into the criteria of his victims. That gets dad thinking.
Lin Shan He gets Ye Sang Yu to go to an amusement park with him. He’s going to be studying overseas. It’s his goodbye to her.
[Ep21] Xia Shi thinks his father is in danger and runs to him. There’s police protecting dad. Xia Shi learns that he’s working with the police to capture the murderer. This is when Xia Shi realizes his dad probably never committed suicide. He was killed but the murderer made it look like a suicide.
The snack bar owner takes off his mask for Ran Ran to see. It's confirmed, he is Zhong Fan Xing. The police is onto him but the officer dies in a deadly car crash.
[Ep22] Xia Shi tells Ye Sang Yu he definitely won’t write her a love letter. Heh. He’s trying to protect her because he remembers Cui Zhen Yan telling him Ye Sang Yu died because she gave her a letter in which she thought was from Xia Shi. When Ye Sang Yu receives the letter, she doesn't listen to his warnings and thinks it's from Xia Shi. It's not. It’s from the murderer, Zhong Fan Xing.
Zhong Fan Xing captures Ye Sang Yu. He tells her that his father abused his mother and from then his loving mother has changed forever. His mother almost took his life too when she wanted to commit suicide together. Thus his purpose in life is to save people from their sufferings. He's killing pitiful people to give them a chance to reborn. He's on a mission to kill 12 people. Why 12? Because 12 is a special number. 12 is in the Bible, it's the number of cosmic order; there's twelve months in a year, twelve hours in a day. This is his "Consummation" Project. See, the drama did use consummation to mean "completion" lol. They had to use this word probably because it was the only synonym they could find that had 12 letters. Each person he kills, will be given a letter from that word. Ye Sang Yu will be his tenth victim and therefore the letter "I". He tells her that she will lure his two other victims.
Xia Shi and the police find the place Zhong Fan Xing kidnapped Ye Sang Yu but Zhong Fan Xing has bomb-ified the area. He wants Xia Shi to enter alone. Xia Shi does and offers himself to exchange his life with Ye Sang Yu's.
It's a real case. Zhong Fan Xing existed. He committed suicide ten years ago. The case was recently closed though (ten years later). He was the last of his twelfth victim. Xia Shi learns that his father never committed suicide. He was the "I" in Zhong Fan Xing's Consummation project, the tenth victim. Ye Sang Yu was the eleventh victim (she went to the park as indicated by the letter she thought Xia Shi gave her). She was running away from Zhong Fan Xing and a car crashes into her. Because of these incidents (his father’s and Ye Sang Yu's), Xia Shi lost his memory.
This VR experience was for the purpose of helping Xia Shi recuperate from his PTSD. He asks Cui Zhen Yan whether Ye Sang Yu is alive. She says she died. But Xia Shi doesn't believe it. The VR experience was just too real. He's right. Ye Sang Yu is alive. She's in a wheelchair though. Ye Sang Yu doesn't want to show up in front of him like that. She wrote the contents of the VR experience to motivate him to live his life with hope. Xia Shi is starting his life anew.
[Ep24] Lin Shan He is the one who's the angriest at Xia Shi for not being with Ye Sang Yu when she needed him the most but he's also the only one who's willing to take Xia Shi to visit her. Xia Shi and Ye Sang Yu finally meet. She tells him how she went through these ten years. Her legs have no hope of standing. But she had to keep living for her parents. She did visit Xia Shi once but he didn't remember her. She majored in psychology for Xia Shi. After graduation she worked together with Cui Zhen Yan and the rest of their highschool friends to help Xia Shi overcome his PTSD.
It's ten years late, but Xia Shi confesses to Ye Sang Yu. She's in tears as she accepts his confession. Their friends are happy for them even Lin Shan He and Cui Zhen Yan. It seems like the latter two will eventually be a pair.
Xia Shi and Ye Sang Yu kiss.
The end.
Remarks
[First Impression (Ep1-4)] It’s a typical story where a girl with poor grades is in love with the boy who has the top grades. A rowdy second male lead loves her for no apparent reason. There’s also a second female lead, who’s not yet too annoying, hovering around the male lead. The element that makes this different is the male lead gets to use VR to rewind back to ten years when the female lead was still alive. This is also the confusing part to me. I was expecting a Wu Jing Hao type of guy who’ll go back and save the girl he loves but Xia Shi is completely indifferent. The way it’s portrayed it looks like he’s in a flashback instead, almost as if he has no active role in this VR experience. I guess this VR is more like watching a movie a before your eyes than being an active participant. That must change later on or else I don’t see the point of him living the same experience all over again if he can't change anything. It’s also unclear what the purpose of this VR experience is and why the friends are forcing this on him. The mystery is intriguing especially with the murder case but I don't find the romance engaging yet. With so, so, so many other dramas currently airing and almost airing, I don't know if I'll be keeping this on my watching list.
P.S. I assume the drama is using “consummation” as a synonym for “completion” or “accomplishment” rather than it’s actual definition...
[Actors/Actresses] Zhao Yi Qin's fourth back to back drama. I do prefer him in school outfit way more. He pretty much has one expression on the entire time so I can't really judge his acting here. Li Hao Fei, the female lead, is a long time host from Happy Camp. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting the best from her but she’s not half bad. Dong Is Yi is in this too and she’s still as cute as ever. Wang Yi Zhe is supposed to be in this. He has yet to show up in the four episodes I've watched, unless I missed him, but I doubt I can overlook him.
[Dropped] This drama doesn't catch my interest. It's not light enough to be a fluffy drama.
[Episode 6/7 Update] I stand corrected, this does have a bit of content. The mystery murder element kicks in. I'll keep this on my watch list because I want to know who the murderer is. The chemistry between the leads still don't intrigue me so don't expect detailed recaps on their romance. I am more intrigued by how many good looking actors are in this that aren't the leading men. I'm still confused where Wang Yi Zhe is. I don't recognize him... There's also Zheng Hao (Love in Between's Yin Chang Ge) and Merxat playing smaller roles.
[Episode 13 Update] Wang Yi Zhe appears and I'm low-key excited about his performance.
[Ending] Mystery/Murder element. Wang Yi Zhe plays the psychopathic murderer. He’s psycho because he thinks he’s saving people by killing them. He calls it the Consummation Project. Based on that title, he is not a sexual predator. The drama needed another word for “completion” that was twelve letters long and only “consummation” fit the bill. It’s an unfortunate title. Anyways. Twelve is the magic number. Twelve is a sacred number; it also represents time and order. And thus, for his Consummation Project, he needs to kill twelve people, the last one being himself.
The VR game was to help Xia Shi recover from his PTSD. He witnessed Ye Sang Yu’s car accident (because she was running away from the murderer) and this was after his father had supposedly committed suicide. He developed selective amnesia and wiped out all his memories of Ye Sang Yu. Ye Sang Yu is still alive but she has to use a wheelchair. Because of Xia Shi’s PTSD, she became a psychologist. She started working with Cui Zhen Ran to create this healing VR game for Xia Shi to tell him the truth about his father (who did not commit suicide) and also to allow him to “beat” the murderer in the game. In reality, the murderer had committed suicide ten years ago thinking he was the twelfth to die (not knowing Ye Sang Yu was still alive). Through this video game, Xia Shi is able to recover.
Romance. Ye Sang Yu and Xia Shi are together. Cui Zhen Ran and Lin Shan He might be together.
[Review] This is a mystery, a thriller, and a romance. It’s about how a VR game can be healing. Our male lead suffers from a traumatic experience caused by a serial murderer. He wasn’t the murderer’s target, but he’s certainly the murderer’s living victim.
Only the mystery part and the cast (who are not the leads) kept my interest. Like I mentioned in my post for Love Story of Court Enemies, Zhao Yi Qin has exhausted any bit of love I had for him since "In Youth". The romance he had with Li Hao Fei were parts I skipped. I should have went with my instincts and just dropped this but then I’d be curious about the mystery so in a sense I’m glad I finished the drama.
In the beginning there were two other actors that made convincing suspects and up until the reveal of who the real murderer is, it was pretty suspenseful. Then the drama just plummeted. The murderer barely shows up after that. It was pretty anticlimactic how his Consummation Project ended. I’m even more disappointed at how the drama wasted such good actors to be the suspects/murderer. I like them each individually and they were the only ones who made the drama worthwhile for me.
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