Season 1 – Ep 16 pt 2 + 17 pt 1

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Fan Xian and Wang QI Nian think they’re surrounded by spies from Northern Qi and Si Li Li is even cantering off with her horse but shortly after, the ground shakes and the black knight cavalry arrive. These soldiers are the personal protection army of the Director or President of the Overwatch Council, Chen Ping Ping himself, and are the most powerful branch of soldiers around. The black knight surrounds the spies from Northern Qi and very easily dispatch all of them, much to the shock of Wang Qi Nian and Fan Xian. As for Si Li Li, she is also captured.

Fan xIan is curious as to who is this mysterious Chen Ping Ping but another mysterious figure, the masked Ying Zi steps in. This masked figure’s name is Ying Zi or literally Shadow and the youtube translation has Shadow Master which I think is apt. He is another master fighter who is exceptionally powerful and stays beside the President. He tells Fan Xian that Chen Ping Ping is not here but he wants Fan Xian to do whatever he wants. He, Chen Ping Ping, will cover for Fan Xian. Fan Xian is perplexed since he’s never met Chen Ping Ping so why would he help Fan Xian but Ying Zi just walks away as that is all the President has shared.

By now, Si Li Li is surrounded and she is also shocked to hear that Fan Xian is close with Chen Ping Ping. Fan Xian, on the other hand, is rather honest in sharing that he has never met the President and even asks Wang Qi Nian what words are the Chen Ping Ping. This we will talk about at the end of the episode but for now, Si Li Li shares that it is one of the scariest names to all of Northern Qi which just shows how odd it is for Chen Ping Ping to be so nice to Fan Xian.

The group returns back to the capital. Instead of being secretive with their return, Fan Xian opts to publicly announce that he is returning to the capital with the Qi kingdom spy, Si Li Li. While riding on horseback back to the capital on crowded roads, the group carries a large sign announcing Si Li Li’s true identity. This actually helps protect their return trip because now, if anyone decides to come and kill Si Li Li or Fan Xian, it means that they are involved with the northern Qi kingdom.

And indeed, on the way back, multiple groups of people all want to take Si Li Li. Perhaps some want to assassinate her, others want to question her for more intel. As for the Princess Royal, she is finding this whole situation rather amusing. This actual crazy lady jokes that she should have Fan Xian killed in front of the Crown Prince who is like “uhhh…what kind of position does that put me”. She says it’s all in jest but to me just reaffirms her very crazy demeanor.

Returning back to Si Li Li and Fan Xian, it is now time for some interrogation tactics. Fan Xian questions Si Li Li on who exactly planned the assassination attempt and there is a back and forth between the two. He tries to reason with her that if he gives her to any of the parties, she will most likely be subject to the worst kinds of torture. If she gives him a name, he can try to protect her. He’s even willing to let her go if she gives him a name. She calls his bluff since there are too many eyes on both of them right now and now things are at a stalemate. He also refuses to use any torture tactics in private which comforts Wang Qi Nian as it means Fan Xian has a base level of decency as a human.

The group heads back to the capital and are stopped by different men from multiple different departments. Fortunately, Yan Ruo Hai of the Overwatch Council arrives to take Si Li Li into custody. However, he gets into an argument with Fan Xian because Fan Xian wants to question Si Li Li but Yan Ruo Hai refuses and takes Si Li Li back to the Overwatch council himself. There, she is locked into a prison cell. Oddly, Yan Ruo Hai doesn’t interrogate her. He just announces that someone else will arrive to interrogate her. He will wait for that person.

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As for Fan Xian, he is now once again annoyed that all his leads are gone. He spent all this time trying to retrieve Si Li Li only for the Overwatch council to step in. Annoyed, he tells Wang Qi Nian to head home and he himself, heads to see Wan’Er as a way to destress. They have a pleasant chat and Wan’Er suggests Fan xian speak to Ye Ling’er who may know something of that day’s attack. Just in time too because as soon as Wan’Er shares this information, her brother, Lin Gong comes thrashing into the room, ready to attack Fan Xian. I mean, it does make sense. Fan Xian is here visiting Wan’er during the day which is out of decorum. Fan Xian scampers off to avoid further conflict.

With this new lead, Fan Xian immediately heads to find Ling’Er. She clearly saw something that day when she went to Si Li Li’s boat but adamantly refuses to tell Fan Xian exactly who it is. She even gives Fan Xian a dire warning that if he continues to investigate, his entire family could be in danger.

Meeting yet another dead end, Fan Xian only has one option. He waits for Wang Qi Nian to arrive and requests that Wang Qi Nian draw a map of the dungeons of the Overwatch Council where Si Li Li is held. Evidently, he wants to sneak in. Wang Qi Nian advises that no one has ever come out of the dungeons alive but Fan Xian doesn’t mind. He just orders Wang Qi Nian to draw the map.

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At this point, Ruo Ruo arrives to speak to Fan Xian. When she heard that Fan Xian returned, she immediately headed over to meet the Crown Prince. She offers to help spy on Fan Xian for the Crown Prince and alert the crown prince of any action that Fan Xian takes. This confuses the Crown Prince, and us for that matter, since their relationship is very close. Ruo Ruo though, responds that this is her way of helping save her brother. Perhaps by informing the Crown Prince, Fan Xian may be spared of possible punishment in the future.

Ruo Ruo shares all of this with Fan Xian as it was also a way to test if the Crown Prince really did want Fan Xian killed. She couldn’t glean much from her conversation but saw a bunch of paintings of women without a face in the crown prince’s residence. She then came up with this whole plot in her head about how the Crown Prince may have affections for a certain female spy from the Northern Qi kingdom which, if found out, would mean he would lose the Crown Prince position. She even made up stories about how the crown prince perhaps was jealous of Fan Xian and Si Li Li’s connection. Haha – Fan Xian is like, what kind of plot did you imagine before dismissing it. Haha. None of this is really plot relevant other than the intriguing piece about the Crown Prince’s paintings without a face.

It’s night time and Fan Xian is resolved to break into the Overwatch council dungeon. He easily sneaks in, perhaps a little too easily and sees Si Li Li chained behind a cell. Interestingly though, he is not the only one there. Yan Ruo Hai is present as well. But instead of being there to capture Fan Xian, he is there to allow Fan Xian to interrogate Si Li Li. Yan Ruo Hai shares that there were many parties that wanted to kill Si Li Li when he entered the capital. Now, there is a better and safer opportunity for Fan Xian to get the answer he wants. This was all done by the overwatch council to protect Fan Xian.

Understandably, Si Li Li is confused. Who exactly is Fan Xian and why is he so connected to the Overwatch Council. But now, it is time for Fan Xian to get some answers. Si Li Li shares that she was ordered to act as spy in the Qing kingdom. She has the power to order other spies in the kingdom and takes orders directly from the Qi imperial family. Unfortunately, her identity was betrayed by someone in the upper echelons of the Qi kingdom and revealed to someone. She was forced to give up a spy token to order Cheng Ju Shu otherwise her true identity as a spy would be revealed more publicly. All of that was background information. The key question as to who was the Persian that ordered Fan Xian’s death? She is still not willing to reveal that information.

Now it’s time for Fan Xian to employ his psychological tricks on Si Li Li. He said he won’t torture her, only have people dig a hole in the deepest depths of this dungeon to house her. That doesn’t sound like fun does it? She states that she could just commit suicide to which Fan Xian just chuckles. He actually gives her a bottle of poison and pressures her to eat it. Her two choices are take the poison or end up in the dark prison cell. She takes the poison but ultimately is unable to take that final step. He calls her bluff that as someone who, despite being caged, still cares about her appearance, will not just want to end her life.

Finally, Si Li Li agrees to tell him the name on the condition that he promises she will not be sent to other departments, she will not be tortured and she will not be abused. He agrees. But when he leans over and she shares the name, his face hardens.

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Let’s now move to discussing a couple of characters in these episodes.

First – is the not seen 陈萍萍.

萍 – as mentioned by 王启年 in the drama – comes from 浮萍 or the common duckweed. It’s a freshwater aquatic plant that is native all throughout the world. As a Chinese word, it was first documented during the Eastern Han Dynasty, so around the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.

If we look at the composition of the word though – it has a radical of water on the right, a radical of grass on the top, and the word Ping or flat as the base. Put that altogether and we get 萍. Now in Chinese, words related to flowers and grass are typically given to women and this word Ping is one of them. For those of you familiar with the drama 情深深雨蒙蒙 or Romance in the Rain starring Zhao Wei and Lin Xin Ru, their characters are half-siblings but each have the word Ping in their name. For example, Zhao Wei’s character was called Lu Yi Ping. Li Xin Ru’s character was called Lu Ru Ping. Because this character is typically used for female names, Fan Xian commented that this name was rather 秀气 or elegant.

The name 陈萍萍 has a lot of significance in the drama. We haven’t seen him interact with Fan Xian yet, but he is a character who instills fear across the land. The name has special significance for 陈萍萍 the character but let’s not spoil it for now.

From a naming perspective, there was a historical Han Dynasty figure who lived during the 2nd century BCE and was a critical advisor and politician for the first Han Dynasty Emperor Liu Bang. His name was Chen Ping. This could be another inspiration from the author for the name Chen Ping Ping.

Let’s move onto the next character for discussion, the Crown Prince. When Fan Ruo Ruo returns to her home to inform Fan Xian of her learnings, she comments that the Crown Prince has main paintings of women in his study. What’s peculiar though is that none of these paintings have a woman’s face fully drawn out. Fan Ruo Ruo speculates that the Crown Prince might be having relationship woes, hence why there’s so many paintings of faceless women around him. This is solid foreshadowing as to the nature of at least one relationship that the Crown Prince has with a particular woman and a good hint that the Crown Prince is definitely more than he seems. I don’t want to spoil too much but the drama does an excellent job in already telling us who this woman is without explicitly telling us. This is also where having visuals really sell the story as I totally didn’t get who it was by reading the book until MUCH later when i was mind BLOWN.

Now onto some fun language history! When Fan Xian is about to interrogate Si Li Li the dungeons, it’s absolutely hilarious because Fan Xian begins to realize that this was all an elaborate scheme by Chen Ping Ping and the Overwatch Council to allow him to sneak into the dungeons SO that he can go interrogate Si Li Li. Fan Xian’s outraged at the stone faced Yan Ruo Hai, who literally pops up to give the orders.

Fan Xian’s reaction in Chinese is – so you’re here to 瓮中捉 but then cuts himself off and then says, no you’re here to 关门打 and cuts himself off again. It doesn’t look like Yan Ruo Hai understands these idioms but when Fan Xian starts saying these idioms but cuts himself off, it definitely garnered a chuckle or two from myself.

The first one is called – 瓮中捉鳖. This translates to catching a softshell turtle of 王八 in a large container. The meaning is, that whatever you are capturing is already in your grasp. It’s an easy target. Here’s the catch though – the 鳖 is the softshell turtle. That has another name, called 王八. In Chinese 王八 also means bastard, which is an insult, a pretty big insult at that. In the context of the drama – when Fna Xian says – 瓮中捉鳖 , he cuts himself off from saying the 鳖 or turtle because HE’s the turtle. He’s the easy prey while everyone else in the Overwatch Council is the Hunter. He didn’t want to insult himself by calling himself the bastard.

The hilarious part though is he then tries to state another idiom and ends up cutting himself off because of the same reason. The other idiom is 关门打狗 – or if you directly translate this, it means – close the door to hit the dog. I don’t condone any animal cruelty, but essentially the gist is, on my own terms, and in an enclosed space, mount an attack against an enemy.

Both of these idioms originate during the Northern Song Dynasty in the 10th and 11th centuries CE. But ever since then, these have been used to describe mounting a prepared attack against an enemy. Doesn’t have to be warfare, but there is someone or something that is about to be captured or ensnared.

Fan Xian stops himself saying the second idiom of 关门打狗 because he realized that he would be the DOG. Calling someone a dog is still an insult in Chinese so he stopped himself. Regardless – Fan Xian quickly comes to the realization that yep – he was played by everyone in the Overwatch Council but because of his desire for revenge for Teng Zi Jing, he nevertheless still went to interrogate Si Li Li.

Speaking of the interrogation, let’s move onto book differences and similarities.

There are a couple of big differences between the events in the book and the drama. In the book, it is Chen Ping Ping who captures Si Li Li and has her brought back to the Capital. All Fan Xian does is walk into the dungeon where she is held captive. The other major change is the fact that book Fan Xian has no qualms in torturing Si Li Li. He actually is the one who tortures her for a good hour or so, damaging her hands in the process. In the end though, he still promises to spare her life, resulting in Si Li Li agreeing to divulge a name. A name that is NOT Lin Gong but an advisor to Lin Gong. Fan Xian’s behavior is all reported back to Chen Ping Ping who judges whether or not Fan Xian is ready to take over the Overwatch Council. Chen Ping Ping’s judgment is that no, he’s not ready, because he is still too kind for sparing the woman. In the drama, Wang Qi Nian had that subtle test for Fan Xian to see if he would agree to torture against prisoners, which Fan Xian adamantly says no because everyone should have a line he or should does not cross and that was one of his. He passes Wang Qi Nian’s test. There is no such test because well, he’s the one torturing Si Li Li.

In the book, Ye Ling Er doesn’t know about Lin Gong’s involvement. There’s also not a lot of characterization of Lin Gong before the next series of events occurs. In just these two episodes, we already can tell that Lin Gong is a caring older brother to his younger sister. He doesn’t mind that she technically is a bastard child and wants the best for her. I mean – as an outsider, I can 100% see where he’s coming from. Fan Xian is sneaking into her quarters? That’s completely rakish behavior! Sure, Lin Gong might have other motives, but he really does care for his sister.