cyn lynn : Mobius | Recap and Review

A time-looper races to stop a biotech CEO’s murder, while an unseen rival secretly hijacks every timeline.

Notable Actors/Actresses

Bai Jing Ting: Ding Qi

Janice Man: An Lan

Song Yang: Mo Yuan Zhi

Director

Lu Zhang Mu

Chinese Title

不眠日

Sleepless Day

Genres: Contemporary, Slight Romance, Action, Suspense

Network: iQIYI

Year: 2025
Episodes: 16

Recap Grade: B
First Impression: 3/5

Jump to Remarks | Recs | Comments

Recaps: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

Cast


Bai Jing Ting: Ding Qi	Janice Man: An Lan

Song Yang: Mo Yuan Zhi	Liu Yi Jun: Jiang Yu Wen

Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying: Maggie	Zhang Bo Jia: Yu Shi Ya

Han Li: Ye Kun	Song Jia Teng: Han Yu Fei

Tian Lei: Fu Jun	Caoyang Ming Zhu; Tang Xin

Ricky Chan: Duan Zheng

Mini Recaps

[Ep1] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Set in a fake city (華奧) that speaks Mando and Canto.

November 26, 2024. Ding Qi is stuck on this day. He says by the 5th round it’ll be over. He right. And we also learn that even if he dies in the loop, he still resets. But dying in the final 5th loop should really be game over.

This slowmo xD

This kid is going through the loops with him...? But Ding Qi did say that even if others don't have memory, they do develop a sense of déjà vu.

They’re setting up the Chief Duan Zheng (name sounds like "to be upright") to look not upright?

December 24, 2017 is when the loops started for Ding Qi. He thought he could beat up his bully, but that's when he learned he can only loop 5 times, lol. And they happen sporadically.

Ding Qi has discovered the joy of looping... In a livestream, he says he personally picked out these wigs.

Covering the ears does look slightly better xD

[Ep2] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Ding Qi and his team go “undercover” as bodyguards for Moma’s CEO, Mo Yuan Zhi. The company is tied to two recent homicides, suspected to be targeting their cutting-edge biotech called ~~RNA~~ RAN...X. Mo Yuan Zhi also has a loving relationship with his wife, Yu Shi Ya.

Ah look, Bai Jing Ting and Zhang Bo Jia again (Justifiable Defence)

Ding Qi’s ~~girlfriend~~ crush, An Lan, works at Moma too. Years back (2021), during a mission, Ding Qi made a call to block certain roads so a suspect couldn’t escape, except he switched routes and crashed into An Lan’s mother instead. She blames Ding Qi, but also understands that it was part of his job. And that was their first meeting. Since then, they’ve been circling around each other, and neither can get the I-love-you out.

Ends with ominous tentacles to remind us the serial killer, codename "Cuttlefish," is lurking. Insert unimpressed face:

Bonus. Bai Jing Ting and his elevator entrances:

Bonus 2. Bai Jing Ting and his elevator harassments:

BJT's face changed so much in a "year", hahahaha. I miss Sang Yan era already LOL.

Ding Qi's Canto: "You're stepping on my ~~foot~~ 🐷 la.
This was BJT's adlib. He said that line in mandarin first to the dude who wasn't supposed to step on his foot. But he didn't hear him. Hence the birth of 🐷. The director and everyone on set was laughing so hard.

[Ep3] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

An Lan’s actually on an undercover mission at Moma, searching through their database for these names: Feng Wan Qing, Zhen Liao Shi, and Kang Fu Wen. And turns up with nothing.

That's open ceiling, right.

Ding Qi thought he cleared the danger, but everyone on the team + CEO died on December 12, 2024 (except Ding Qi).

And of course: loop! So nobody dies. Yet.

[Ep4] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

December 12, 2024.

Loop #2.

Both Han Yu Fei and Tang Xin are Moma board members after their fathers were murdered. Han Yu Fei teams up with the wife, Yu Shi Ya, to vote Mo Yuan Zhi out of his CEO seat. Supposedly, the wife's move is meant to protect Mo Yuan Zhi from Cuttlefish. Now it all comes down to Tang Xin's vote, and she sides with Mo Yuan Zhi, keeping him in power. With his position secured, he wastes no time in promoting An Lan as the chief secretary at the research lab.

Ding Qi arrests You Yu Xiang (who’s obsessed with the study of time) before he can attack Mo Yuan Zhi.

But this change sets off a new ripple.

At the conference, Mo Yuan Zhi locks eyes with a suspicious woman he clearly recognizes. In the loop #1, this never happened because of the heavy police presence during the bouquet scenario.

[Ep5] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Prologue: Although Ding Qi’s Loopdidoos are game-breaking, no one knows what kind of toll they’ll take on him. Heart problems?

Haha

December 12, 2024.

Loop #2 cont.

An Lan wasn’t supposed to be at the wedding, the same wedding where, in Loop #1, the explosion killed everyone. So... what changed this time? Meanwhile, Fu Jun, a former Moma employee now working as a delivery guy, ends up dying ahead of schedule from sheer stress and pressure.

At the wedding, a man objects to the marriage. Han Yu Fei, Tang Xin and Yu Shi Ya are standing way in the back, far from the action. That does make them suspicious in Loop #1 if you know a bomb’s about to go off. But this time, there’s no explosion, and staying far is unnecessary. And then when you look at who's up close now that there's no bomb... it’s An Lan... But maybe that's too obvious. I dunno o.O.

December 12, 2024.

Loop #3.

The day just started, and Mo Yuan Zhi's schedule changed on its own. How? It's because An Lan contacted him at midnight hours (about her research findings?).

And that morning, cop buddy knows to say "again" o.o

"Status resets again"

"Why say 'again'?!"
o.o

Ep4 screenshot. He did not say 又

[Ep6] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

December 12, 2024.

Loop #3 cont.

Delivery guy Fu Jun doesn’t die this time. Someone tipped off Mo Yuan Zhi about the unfairness of his firing, and so Fu Jun actually gets his compensation. That should be Ding Qi's doing.

Meanwhile, An Lan locks down a meeting with Maggie from Volly. They’ve got two hours to convince her to invest in Moma. [Context: Mo Yuan Zhi's wife, Yu Shi Ya is the one with the funds, but also wants to oust him as CEO. If Maggie’s investment comes through, Mo Yuan Zhi will finally be financially independent of both his wife and Han Yu Fei]

With Ding Qi's sophisticated method (aka yelling at the driver, looool), An Lan and Maggie divert a highway accident before it happens.

Yu Shi Ya wants to convert Tang Xin to her side. Tang Xin says she takes no side though.

At the café meeting with Maggie, An Lan, and Mo Yuan Zhi, chaos breaks out when a celebrity sighting causes a fan stampede. Do these people just carry light sticks around 24/7? Amid the chaos, Ye Kun wants to murder Mo Yuan Zhi, but he's stopped by Ding Qi.

Ding Qi initially believes Ye Kun is the fellow Looper, but Ye Kun is terrified of death, which doesn’t fit a Looper’s mentality because if they can reset time, why fear dying? So if it’s not Ye Kun, then who is it?

That’s the real danger for Ding Qi. While he’s out in the open, scrambling to fix each timeline, his enemy is completely hidden. When Loop #5 comes around, anything could go wrong, and Ding Qi would have no idea how to stop it. Welcome back to the average person’s life, Ding Qi. This episode throws suspicion at Tang Xin, Maggie, An Lan...and uhhh, do we also have to wonder if Mo Yuan Zhi has some elaborate reason to… murder himself?

Afterwards Ding Qi has questions for Mo Yuan Zhi and An Lan. What spurred their change today? According to An Lan, it was Maggie who contacted her first, saying she was in ~~Hong Kong~~ Xing Kong, ~~Macau~~ Hua'au.

[Ep7] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Prologue: An Lan secretly gives her mother unauthorized medication to wake her from a coma.

December 12, 2024.

Loop #3 cont.

Tang Xin seems super helpful, leading Ding Qi straight to An Lan in the lab. (Or maybe she just wanted to linger nearby and snoop through the confiscated data)

Ding Qi greets An Lan in Cantonese. Ahahahaha. He's so cutely bad at it. And I swear I did not slow down the gif:

I see for every tragic Cantonese attempt, BJT's eyebrows are doing all the heavy lifting xD

Ding Qi checks An Lan's timeline: At midnight, An Lan’s lab rats return a positive result – Aha! The rat can loop (jking...) – showing promising progress in waking the brain-dead. At 2:15 AM, she leaves the lab because her mother shows signs of brain activity, though her body remains completely unresponsive. (Also, An Lan gets her account updated so she’s no longer restricted from accessing the company’s database.)

Ding Qi interrogates Ye Kun about who ordered him to murder Han Yu Fei and Tang Xin’s fathers. It seems like there is a mastermind, but he isn't cracking.

Han Yu Fei approaches Tang Xin too. He tells her to side with...Mo Yuan Zhi?? Huh. But Han Yu Fei has been encouraging Mo Yuan Zhi’s wife to oust him... Han Yu Fei also tells Tang Xin she doesn’t need to be on the frontlines of research. Having her all-access ID card is enough.

The seminar. Mo Yuan Zhi’s Q&A session goes off-script. Rong Zi Shan's cameo character hits him with tough questions: 1) The safety of RAN, Mo Yuan Zhi’s biotech project, whether “no death” automatically means it’s safe, 2) the “conflict” between Mo Yuan Zhi and his professor, 3) and finally, whether two homicides linked to RAN are a coincidence or something more sinister.

Suddenly! You Yu Xiang (ex-professor with a brain tumour) hijacks the seminar via livestream. He’s taken a student hostage, the same girl who gave Mo Yuan Zhi flowers earlier. The mad prof tells Mo Yuan Zhi he should know the location he’s streaming from: it’s the very lab where Mo Yuan Zhi killed his professor, Jiang Yu Wen. He demands Mo Yuan Zhi confess his crimes live. But Mo Yuan Zhi, the PR master, flips the situation. When mad prof clutches his head in pain, Mo Yuan Zhi plays it cool, subtly framing You Yu Xiang as unstable. When accused of murder, Mo Yuan Zhi acts distraught for the sake of the hostage girl and says, “Alright, I’m a murderer because you said so, okay?” Slick and shady!

Ding Qi tracks down You Yu Xiang’s location. All he wants is Ding Qi to investigate Jiang Yu Wen's disappearance from eight years ago. It wasn’t just a missing persons case, it was murder. And the killer, he claims, is Mo Yuan Zhi. But then a cop misreads mad prof's sudden movements and pulls the trigger at You Yu Xiang. Dead.

Loop #3 still isn't over yet. Long day!

[Ep8] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Prologue.

Nine Years Ago (2015).

Mo Yuan Zhi begged Professor Jiang Yu Wen (Liu Yi Jun) to take him as a research student. After multiple rejections, Jiang Yu Wen finally agreed, intrigued by Mo Yuan Zhi’s work on genome research.

Professor You Yu Xiang (not yet “mad”) lectures about how living organisms track time. For example, corals grow a thin layer of calcium carbonate each day, like tree rings. Counting these layers reveals how many days were in a year. Modern corals have 365 daily rings, but ancient corals had over 400, meaning Earth spun faster and years had more days (with shorter hours). Cool. Recently in the past few years, however, You Yu Xiang has seen modern corals with 400+ rings, which shouldn’t be possible. He doesn’t realize we have ~~leap years~~ loop days now lol.

December 12, 2024

Loop #3 cont.

"Mad" prof You Yu Xiang’s knife was fake. He never intended to hurt anyone, except Mo Yuan Zhi.

Chief Duan Zheng listens to Ding Qi’s interrogation of Ye Kun about time resets. But Ding Qi makes Duan second-guess his own sanity instead.

Deliver guy Fu Jun, despite Ding Qi’s efforts, still dies, this time in a truck accident. (Duuuuude. Fu Jun! Can you keep yourself alive so our ML doesn't have to worry about you on top of everything else lol) It’s starting to feel inevitable. The camera pans on a ominous sign reading: “All Destinations ↓↓↓”... leads to death?

An Lan's questioning:

She heard rumours that Jiang Yu Wen’s death was a suicide, with his body never found. The lab fire was self-set to destroy his own research
She had plans to attend Zhao's wedding only because all execs were to attend.
She's shown a photo of Ye Kun. She finds him familiar but can’t pinpoint from where other than seeing Ding Qi arrest him today.

Mo Yuan Zhi's questioning:

He denies killing Jiang Yu Wen. During his PhD, Jiang Yu Wen repeatedly rejected his research, saying he cut corners. He was convinced that Jiang Yu Wen was jealous of his talent, which, to him, meant that he must have succeeded. OK.
Before he could change advisors, the lab exploded in 2016 and the professor's body vanished.

A third party (a professor) questioning:

After the explosion, many students had to redo their research, but Mo Yuan Zhi changed his thesis and graduated smoothly.
Professor Jiang Yu Wen was rumoured to have depression.
The missing person's case was handled by Officer Huang Yuan, the same cop who recently misclassified the two Moma homicides as accidents. (On the topic of, Huang Yuan, he contacts Pei Shan, Ding Qi’s hacker ally, to check if Ding Qi is acting weird, but Pei Shan doesn’t reveal anything.)

Yu Shi Ya’s questioning:

[Private Investigator] The mysterious woman tailing Mo Yuan Zhi turns out to be Yu Shi Ya’s private investigator. She’s supposedly the one who sent Yu Shi Ya the cryptic message about the “wedding plans” being cancelled. (Mo Yuan Zhi also recognizes her because she’s the same woman he locked eyes with back in Ep4 during the seminar.)
[Power Struggle] Yu Shi Ya's PI is also investigating the two murdered executives. Those two, along with her husband, swallowed a huge portion of her company shares. She tolerated it because the three of them didn’t get along, maintaining a balance of power. But now, with two of them dead within a month, Mo Yuan Zhi holds too much power.
[Homicide/Affair Link] Yu Shi Ya also reveals her husband woke up at odd hours on the day the executives died: on 10/25 at 12:03am and 11/26 at 12:01am. Then today (Loop #3) at 12:02am, he did it again. She followed him this time, only to see him enter Moma’s laboratory, where she also spotted An Lan. To her, it looked like an affair.
[Confession?] And so yes, cops, she admits it straight to their faces. She wants to kill Mo Yuan Zhi. As the saying goes, countless couples have countless dark thoughts of each other. Now she seems the most trustworthy of them all lol. Definitely not Cuttlefish.

[Ep9] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

December 12, 2024

Loop #3 cont.

Jiang Yu Wen’s eight-year-old cold case. Back then, You Yu Xiang swore he saw Mo Yuan Zhi stab Jiang to death, but the investigation turned up no body, no weapon, no proof. Maybe You Yu Xiang was experiencing a déjà vu of a timeline that got erased before it could become reality. Lol, fates, I think it’s time to stop messing with this poor prof’s brain already, haha.

Mo Yuan Zhi sits eerily calm by the window with the view of… his parking lot??.He’s waiting for his wife, Yu Shi Ya, to return from questioning. When she finally does, she tells him she admitted to the police that he never truly loved her. And at this precise moment, the story cuts back to 2014: the year Mo Yuan Zhi met Feng Wan Qing. His true love?? Does this man love tho

In 2014, Feng Wan Qing was a doctor and Mo Yuan Zhi’s preceptor. Later, she was diagnosed with stage-four spinal cord cancer. Hospital protocols wouldn’t allow her fentanyl dosage to be increased, but Mo Yuan Zhi broke it to ease her pain.

Presently, An Lan digs up records from 2016, the year her friend Feng Wan Qing disappeared. She finally uncovers photos of her friend’s arm buried in Moma’s database, but there’s no full record of her anywhere else. Meanwhile, back with Mo Yuan Zhi, he isn’t whispering sweet nothings to Yu Shi Ya in bed, he’s issuing a threat: "Love fades, but benefits never will." Their marriage, he warns, will stay "perfect" as long as she stays useful.

Ding Qi heads to the lab that remained in the same burnt state for eight years. How convenient is that. He finds a large, industrial incubator, the kind that could definitely fit a person. Could this have been where Jiang Yu Wen(’s body) was hidden? Before Ding Qi can figure it out, he suddenly clutches his chest… and dies!!

December 12, 2024.

Loop #4.

Reset!

Everyone gasps back to life. Our Ding Qi!! And Professor You Yu Xiang – who, by the way, got shot in the head last round – wakes up with a splitting headache, haha. And the poor delivery guy jolts from bed like he got hit by a truck. Fu Jun ~~(why does his name have to sound like husband)~~, take a day off for all of us. Ok? And if he dies on a day off too, there's really no saving him

An Lan wakes up at 12:15 because of Maggie’s message. (And didn’t Mo Yuan Zhi wake up at 12:02 last round? He woke up before An Lan ever did. He has to be the other looper.) Ding Qi changes the rest of An Lan's timeline with an anonymous text, allowing her to visit her mother right when she wakes up. This perfectly avoids the misunderstanding that she’s a mistress since An Lan leaves the lab just as Mo Yuan Zhi enters.

Yu Shi Ya still secretly tails Mo Yuan Zhi. Oh but he knows! She eventually gets into his hidden lab using a passcode, possibly one he deliberately gave her, and sees something. It’s apparently shocking. Almost as shocking as the unflattering lighting hitting her lips in that moment, and I put effort in keeping the best one:

At the same time, Ding Qi sneaks into Ye Kun’s home. On the wall, he finds details about the three Moma executives. Two are already dead, and the last one is... Mo Yuan Zhi. So if Ye Kun is taking orders to kill these men, but Mo Yuan Zhi himself is on the hit list...either Mo Yuan Zhi's grand plan is that convoluted or we have a 3rd looper.

[Ep10] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

多謝 Daw-jeh for reading ;)

December 12, 2024.

Loop #4 cont.

Ding Qi cracks open Jiang Yu Wen’s cold case: six firefighters went into the lab fire... but seven came out. Turns out Jiang Yu Wen was hiding inside that incubator the whole time with a firefighter uniform he had prepped in advance, and walked right out. Could Jiang Yu Wen be Cuttlefish then. Oh. OH. OHH.

Delivery guy Fu Jun – to my dismay did not take a day off – writes a letter of his own? With déjà vu guiding him, I'm hoping with fingers crossed this man catches a break.

Han Yu Fei’s (murdered) father had planned to sell off his Moma stocks. Strange, considering the company is making huge profits. But his paranoia seems to stem from Mo Yuan Zhi’s secret lab.

An Lan gets a warning from her mother’s physician. The experimental, unauthorized medication she's using on her mother is dangerous. But the other option is brain death. There's really not much to lose if I were An Lan... He has seen a previous case in 2016: seven days of miraculous recovery... followed by total body failure. Yep. That case is Feng Wan Qing. Then An Lan remembers how her friend had mentioned being close to recovery and excited about them being each other's maid of honour. But she had a brain that can't even remember what day it is when An Lan just told her 2 minutes ago.

Two big melons, people! Jiang Yu Wen has a daughter! She's Tang Xin. After the wife passed away and Jiang Yu Wen was too consumed by his research to raise her, he gave her up for adoption to a wealthy family. Geez.

The second melon. Jiang Yu Wen has a second daughter! Dude LOL. She's Maggie! That explains how her mother got rich overnight one day in 2016. So Jiang Yu Wen was a looper before our Ding Qi was.

They know about each other!
And is this the only angle to get their heads at the same level? xD

[Ep11] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Prologue.

Ye Kun was arrested in 2008 for manslaughter, Fifteen years later (2023), he's released.

Mo Yuan Zhi does love! (This should be 2016, though).

December 12, 2024.

Loop #4 cont.

Ye Kun kidnaps An Lan! He didn't intend to. She stumbled into his operation to blow up the abandoned hospital because she was investigating Feng Wan Qing. In that split second, An Lan realizes why Ye Kun looks so familiar: he’s Feng Wan Qing’s brother, Feng Qi Ming.

(Ou, the hand combat to de-hand the gun between Ding Qi and Ye Kun was nicely choreographed.)

Girl cop – who's useless except her sharpshooting – takes down Ye Kun with one clean shot to his carotid. Girl, we need our precious intel! But fine, he was pointing what looked like a bomb at her boss. Thankfully, our hacker girl cop comes. She traces Ye Kun’s last phone call back to someone inside Moma. So he took orders to blow up the abandoned hospital? And he doesn't know his sister was treated here?

An Lan finds Feng Wan Qing's diary, which logs this peculiar message: "Time is looping. Pain is multiplied." Feng Wan Qing had been treated with RAN technology. Only two people had access to it: Mo Yuan Zhi and Jiang Yu Wen. And between them, the only one who cares about her is Mo Yuan Zhi.

Let's ramp it up!

Not this kind of anxiety-inducing ramp...

Ding Qi tells An Lan about the looping – and she believes it! Because she has a looping rat, RN356. LOL. I was joking, Show. You actually went there. An Lan takes Ding Qi to her super-secret hidden room – complete with a whiteboard full of chemistry formulas that look straight out of a high school, loool. She explains how she once brought her peculiar RN356 to her professor (Tang Xin’s adoptive father), but it didn't display the same ability anymore. She noted that some days it would, and some days it wouldn’t – no rhyme or reason. Then Ding Qi recites those exact dates to her. Those are the precise days when the Earth loops.

Bai Jing Ting does look best in bai.

[Ep12] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

December 12, 2024.

Loop #4 cont.

Ding Qi and An Lan enter Mo Yuan Zhi’s secret lab. Ding Qi got the passcode from Han Yu Fei, who got it from Yu Shi Ya, who only had it because Ding Qi manipulated An Lan’s AM schedule. Inside, three confirmations hit at once: 1) Mo Yuan Zhi is a looper (see his calendar? The exact loop dates are circled.), 2) Mo Yuan Zhi is Cuttlefish (see...he literally raises cuttlefish, lol, and his Mo even sounds like ink), and 3) Feng Wan Qing’s dead-alive body is here (see floating head, frozen in blue)

Mo Yuan Zhi watches them remotely, then detonates his lab. Amid the chaos, Ding Qi promises An Lan it’s not over yet. There’s still one final loop. They kiss as the flames engulf them. (It's so fake omg LOL. This director cannot do romance, haha).

December 12, 2024.

Loop #5.

I like that Ep12 is the real 12/12/24.

Midnight strikes. Ding Qi calls An Lan immediately. Mo Yuan Zhi wakes up sharp at 12:00 too. His plan: eliminate An Lan because she's Ding Qi’s weakness, and Ding Qi is his biggest obstacle. When An Lan finally picks up the call. Ding Qi doesn’t waste time explaining, just gives clear, rapid-fire instructions. And she delivers. An Lan stays calm and precise. She grabs her research data, saves it to a USB, and narrowly escapes Mo Yuan Zhi.

An Lan finally makes it to Ding Qi. They hug like it’s the end of the world. I can't with this romance LOL. And the backstreet boy era music.

[Ep13] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

December 12, 2024.

Loop #5 cont.

Ding Qi and Mo Yuan Zhi are done pretending. The two loopers circle each other, exchanging veiled barbs. Ding Qi accuses Mo Yuan Zhi of murdering two execs on loop days. Mo Yuan Zhi plays innocent. But Ding Qi’s got proof: fingerprints on the bomb. Aha! Mo Yuan Zhi's like But it was a timed-bomb. And Ding Qi's like "Did I say it was a timed-bomb?" Gotcha! Too bad “gotcha” moments don’t hold up in court. Bai Jing Ting's signature face LOL.

Mo Yuan Zhi tells him to watch the road, looool.

Our loopers' shared weakness: love. Ding Qi knows Mo Yuan Zhi has 28 days left to save Feng Wan Qing, and so he's desperate. Mo Yuan Zhi fires back by threatening his An Lan. Ding Qi’s response is... petty LOL: he floors the gas, then slams the brakes just to mess with Mo Yuan Zhi xD.

Mo Yuan Zhi tries to flex intellectual superiority, name-dropping mystery writer Edward D. Hoch to lecture Ding Qi on “real” plot twists. Ding Qi’s clapback: he quotes the author too and on top of that he has an iQIYI subscription where he can watch his favourite: Detective Conan. Detective Conan as a mic drop, haha, and a shameless iQIYI promo. Sounds like BJT, alright. And Ding Qi backs it up with action. Mo Yuan Zhi had ordered Ye Kun to kidnap An Lan’s mom, but Ding Qi outmaneuvered him completely. By the time Ye Kun got there, hi, it's Ding Qi. Clearly, he teleported to beat 2 guys to get to An Lan and the mom

Mo Yuan Zhi’s elaborate plan: he never wanted to kill himself. D'oh. He faked his own assassination to eliminate rival executives and gain control of the company. But at the wedding, someone really did try to kill him. By Loop #2, Mo Yuan Zhi figured there was another looper at play. He suspected Ding Qi or Maggie, so he used Ye Kun to test them during the fan stampede.

Mo Yuan Zhi wasn’t yet a looper when the mad professor witnessed him “kill” Jiang Yu Wen. But after discovering loop days exist, Mo Yuan Zhi reinterprets his actions that maybe he did kill Jiang Yu Wen in another version. Either way, he knew his murderous intent that day. It's because Jiang Yu Wen's unethical experiments killed Feng Wan Qing. Their research wasn’t at all ready for humans; they hadn’t even started animal testing. But Jiang Yu Wen was obsessed. And that's how the perfect specimen, Feng Wan Qing, ~~died~~ became brain-dead.

For censorship sake: There's science behind the looping. Loopers are loopers because they took RAN. (Feng Wan Qing was the first looper per her diary entry “Time is looping, and pain is multiplied.”), Ding Qi was contaminated when he almost drowned in the lake. His side effects: severe heart issues. Mo Yuan Zhi’s side effects: intense eye pain.

Maggie's here. But why? Didn't An Lan reject Maggie's proposal to invest? Her father, Jiang Yu Wen.

[Ep14] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

December 12, 2024.

Loop #5 cont.

Ye Kun confesses to the police that he’s Cuttlefish, all to protect his sister, Feng Wan Qing, who Mo Yuan Zhi is keeping alive.

Delivery guy Fu Jun lives! The HR lady gets déjà vu herself and promises to properly follow up on his compensation this time.

Mo Yuan Zhi gets a point: he files a complaint against Ding Qi for misusing police resources, and perfectly sets it up by forcing Ding Qi to save Maggie from a highway accident before it happens. Ding Qi also can’t explain why he knows everything to his higher-ups when nothing has happened yet. And so, Ding Qi's grounded.

But Ding Qi's team has his back. They "secretly" release him, risking their careers to support their boss.

With Ding Qi out of the way, Mo Yuan Zhi moves in on Jiang Yu Wen’s daughters. Tang Xin gets snatched first, shoved into the back of his van, and Maggie is next on the list. Unfortunately for him, Han Yu Fei just happens to witness the kidnapping. Now Mo Yuan Zhi has to silence him too. I can feel Mo Yuan Zhi's frustration looool. Everyone's such a pain in the neck for him, haha. And I can't believe he has to handle it all personally, considering how calculated and "above it all" he usually acts. Desperate.

[Ep15] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Prologue

February 8, 2016

Jiang Yu Wen injected himself with first-generation-RAN. Alright, so maybe Feng Wan Qing was 2nd to be injected then, which does explain Jiang Yu Wen’s fixation on perfecting RAN and his obsession with its potential. At first, the results seemed... nonexistent, and so he dumped the leftover batches down the sink. That waste water ended up contaminating the pond where Ding Qi later fell in, and that’s how Ding Qi accidentally became a looper. When Jiang Yu Wen finally realized a day had repeated, he injected himself again. Then he woke to see it's the same day. His reaction was strange. Instead of excitement, he looked almost...disappointed? Maybe he expected to rewind even further back? And this becomes a rejuvenating drug? His side effects were the worst amongst them: his entire body is shutting down, aging at a terrifying rate.

November / December 2024.

By now, Jiang Yu Wen is desperate. He needs Mo Yuan Zhi’s research, thinking it can reverse his rapid deterioration. He teams up with two key Moma executives, Han and Tang, plotting to oust Mo Yuan Zhi and take control of the company. But Mo Yuan Zhi strikes first. He eliminates both execs. Jiang Yu Wen retaliates by planting a bomb in the wedding cake, successfully killing Mo Yuan Zhi in that version of events. Too bad Earth was against him and it was a loop day.

December 12, 2024.

Loop #5 cont.

Mo Yuan Zhi lures Maggie straight into his secret lab. He knows she’s been hunting for data, specifically from eight years ago. Her belief: Mo Yuan Zhi must have developed some kind of antidote, because unlike her father, he isn’t showing accelerated aging. (Little does she know Mo Yuan Zhi does have a side effect: blinding, searing eye pain.) For three years, Maggie has been secretly investigating Moma to save her father. Compared to Jiang Yu Wen, Mo Yuan Zhi is the better man. At least Mo Yuan Zhi’s experiments came from wanting to save someone. Jiang Yu Wen was the one who began the unethical human trials in the first place. And now he wants to look like a saint? Please.

Ding Qi comes to Maggie's rescue using high school chemistry: Aqua regia = 3 parts HCl + 1 part HNO₃. It’s called royal water because it can dissolve the king of metals (gold and platinum). Ding Qi uses it to corrode the door and break Maggie out. (I'm a bit confused about Mo Yuan Zhi trapping Maggie in there and potentially allowing the place to be burned down. Isn't Feng Wan Qing in there? Did he move her?)

Jiang Yu Wen straps himself with bombs and heads to confront Mo Yuan Zhi, believing he has his daughters captive.

[Ep16] [Jump to: Top | Cast | Comments]

Prologue

November 6, 2016.

Mo Yuan Zhi did kill Jiang Yu Wen – except it happened on a loop day. During those repeated days, Jiang Yu Wen tried logic, persuasion, and ranting lol. And every single time, Mo Yuan Zhi just... stabbed him anyway. By the fifth loop, Jiang Yu Wen gave up on words and came up with a plan: burn down the lab, fake his death, and escape disguised as a firefighter. From that point on, he became a long-term missing person.

Meanwhile, poor You Yu Xiang, the unlucky bystander, probably got PTSD from seeing the same murder play out over and over. I swear the constant stress probably gave him brain cancer ^^".

December 12, 2024.

Loop #5 cont.

An Lan’s brain-dead mother wakes up. Her RAN research is showing miracles... of hard work

Jiang Yu Wen vs Mo Yuan Zhi. With his daughters held hostage, Jiang Yu Wen hands over the research data (the ones he stole eight years ago?). Mo Yuan Zhi also wants Jiang Yu Wen dead as revenge for Feng Wan Qing, but sly, old Jiang Yu Wen’s bomb is wired to his pulse. If he dies, it detonates, taking Mo Yuan Zhi with him. Mo Yuan Zhi is absolutely seething. Even now, he can’t kill this man.

Ding Qi defuses the bomb. Jiang Yu Wen calms down after Ding Qi convinces him his daughters are safe. Oh hey, our Reset reunion. But I don't like Liu Yi Jun's Jiang Yu Wen.. He was cooler when he didn't loop.

The helicopter scene, LOL. Mo Yuan Zhi flees to the rooftop for his grand helicopter escape. Ding Qi, being his dog-plaster, arrives too.

Mo Yuan Zhi waves his arms wildly at the pilot: Come here!
Ding Qi waves his gun: Go away!
Pilot waves too: Bye.
Hahaha.

Enraged, Mo Yuan Zhi phones Ye Kun (Feng Qi Ming), ordering him to come up and kill Ding Qi. And then... Ding Qi’s phone vibrates. The sound echoes right in front of Mo Yuan Zhi.

Mo Yuan Zhi: ...Hello?
Ding Qi: Aye.
......Silence.
Ding Qi: Speak.
LOOOL.

Realizing he can’t escape, Mo Yuan Zhi opens up. He injected himself with RAN out of desperation to save Feng Wan Qing. I saw 154 scrawled on his table, counting down how many days he could keep Feng Wan Qing’s body alive. Since today is 28 days, that means Mo Yuan Zhi gained his looping powers roughly 126 days ago. The first time he looped, he cried. Because for the first time, he understood what Feng Wan Qing endured: one day of excruciating pain for her was five days. Ow....

Mo Yuan Zhi lifts his hands to be cuffed. But he has one more trick up his sleeve. Literally, he has a knife up his sleeve. Too bad Ding Qi has been looping since 2017. More loops = more training. Mo Yuan Zhi may box every day, but Ding Qi had years to outbox him. Advantage: Ding Qi. Lool, so that's what this prologue was about:

Also, thank you, Mo Yuan Zhi, for making Ding Qi take off his jacket and show off his shoulder holster. Excellent service.

Bai Jing Ting is actually afraid of heights. Do check out the BTS of how he manages to climb up and down xD.

But just as Ding Qi is about to cuff him... his heart condition kicks in. Mo Yuan Zhi seizes the opportunity, but Ding Qi snaps the cuff onto both of them. Absolutely frustrated at this dog-plaster that is Ding Qi, Mo Yuan Zhi tries to cut off Ding Qi’s hand with his knife.

Our sharpshooting cop! She fires a precise shot, hitting Mo Yuan Zhi’s hand mid-swing. Third time’s the charm. Flawless aim.

Our hacker cop (looking so midget on the far right) sobs, blaming herself for opening the door when Ding Qi was grounded.

Our scientist to the rescue. An Lan uses her breakthrough RAN drug to save Ding Qi's life (that saved her mother's). For dramatic flair, everyone files in to see him one by one. Or in pairs:

Ending Mo Yuan Zhi and Jiang Yu Wen are punished for their crimes. Everyone is alive. An Lan also develops a reverse-RAN to stop the looping altogether.

Happily ever – but wait, the day resets. Ding Qi quits kissing (yes!) and non-blind Mo Yuan Zhi jailbreaks (no...). Was reverse-RAN just reversing side effects? But not looping?

The end.

Remarks

[First Impression (Ep1-6)]

A good balance: mysterious enough to keep me invested, but chill and funny enough that it doesn’t feel too heavy. Bai Jing Ting’s visuals, though... not really showing up here, LOL. (But I do believe this is his default mode, haha)

The story follows ML, a Looper, trying to save a biotech CEO from being murdered. By Ep6, the real crux of the problem surfaces: what if there’s another Looper out there, meddling with every timeline he resets? Someone who knows about him, and he doesn't know about them. This makes the reset much more interesting because nothing will stay the same.

[Cast&Crew]

Bai Jing Ting with another time loop drama but this one isn’t with the Reset team (with the exception of Liu Yi Jun and Song Jia Teng), but it does reunite him with Always Moving director Lu Zhang Mu. It's because these two trust in each other's craft that Bai Jing Ting accepted the role without getting the full script. (So he gets full scripts is what' he's saying? Interesting.)

For some reason, they really love their cop dramas with Canto. And with Janice Man, a HKer, expect plenty of Canto... plus Bai Jing Ting absolutely butchering every bit of it. As well as HKers mangling Mandarin.

Wrapped on March 6, 2025. (I didn’t think we'd be getting 3 Bai Jing Ting dramas this year. This one had a quick post-production turnaround, meanwhile Justifiable Defence sat on the shelf longer than average).

[Ending] Happy. Complete.

[A Highlight] Ep16 Helicopter scene 👋

[Review & Rating]