Aarif is introduced and Li Zhi grows up!
So let’s just touch on the important things that happened within these next few episodes. This is going to be brief because I just want to move on. The plot just surrounds the main theme of “everyone is against Mei Niang but Emperor will not get rid of her”. It’s going to be like that for another good twenty episodes so brace yourself. The royals go outside the palace for a hunting tournament. Even though Mei Niang is not favoured anymore because of the prediction, but the Emperor decides to take her. Why? Well, being the d-bag that he is, it’s an opportunity for him to ditch Mei Niang in the woods, because he doesn’t want to take a risk with the prediction that she will be the downfall of his dynasty. The Crown Prince, Cheng Qian is not allowed to go because he’s been drinking a lot, but he went anyway, to protect Mei Niang, as directed by his teacher.
And oh my gosh. Aarif is Li Zhi now.
I would like to remind you that two episodes ago, he looked like this:
What the heck did they feed him? He grew six inches taller and look exponentially more handsome. Bottle it up and patent that.
#mcm
The Emperor commands a soldier to take Mei Niang away the night before. Except the soldier doesn’t just want to take Mei Niang away, he wants to kill her because of the prediction.
But the Emperor was the one that directed a soldier to take Mei Niang away and help her escape the royal palace right? Suddenly he stops and decides to turn back. Firstly how does he know that there’s something wrong? I mean he can’t hear them right? And if everything is going according to plan, he wouldn’t know, because the plan is for the soldier to let her escape, and he could only know that it was successful or not afterwards. Why does he turn back? #plothole If you were going to leave her anyways, why did you turn back? How did you know that your soldier was going to become an assassin?
Well the Emperor turns back. And he was conveniently right, Mei Niang was on the verge of being killed. Luckily, Cheng Qian came in time to save her. Mei Niang literally faints in every other episode. I could make a page of collages where she faints.
Faints after an arrow to the back
Xu Hui gets more and more jealous of Mei Niang.
Xiao Chang is pregnant, and is forced to stay at Wei Fei’s palace
And Xiao Chang, the antagonist, is pregnant. I hate her, and she’s horrible, but I would point out that her method of pregnancy is literally this:
1) Popping a pill before sex
2) Drinking lots of Chinese herbal medicine after sex
That’s actually all they do in the drama, after her and the Emperor had sex once. This is like magic.
Meanwhile, Pang Po Po dies. That is all. The only remarkable thing about it that, she wants Mei Niang to tell the Emperor how much she hates him. She makes Mei Niang promise her to do that, or else Mei Niang will suffer the fate of not being loved by the man she loves and being feared by her own son.
Pang Po Po passes away before Mei Niang could save her.
As Mei Niang was spreading Pang Po Po’s ashes into the wind, she bumps into the Emperor. Well she breaks her promise to Pang Po Po, and tells the Emperor that Pang Po Po has forgiven him.
Adding in this scene where the Crown Prince has a nightmare, and Chen Xing is there to comfort the Crown Prince…
With his own wife by his side. Sew awkward.
Awkward.
Meanwhile Xiao Chang is locked up
Xu Hui is approached by Li Tai to plan against Mei Niang
A shot of the Emperor’s office
Finally Xu Hui goes crazy – and decides that she needs to get rid of Mei Niang. After the Emperor rescues Mei Niang from the forest, he stops visiting and speaking to Xu Hui. To him, she’s only a tool for him to make Mei Niang broken hearted.
I would like to remind you all that at this point, Xu Hui and Mei Niang are still not twenty something year olds. They’re technically still teenagers. I guess it makes it more justified that they’re so obsessed about a guy, and technically a guy that’s their first love.
Talks into the mirror
Takes off Mei Niang’s gift
Her acting was so good in this episode. She decides to break off the jade bangle that Mei Niang had gifted her. She officially has turned evil. Just a collage of her angry expressions:
I called it. Either the best friend dies or becomes evil. These few episodes so uneventful, they’re just merely to ‘build up’ to something more. Since I’m already up to date with it, it just seems so boring, up until the point where the Emperor dies… but I’ll still summarize the rest.
Deer Drama 
I remember this episode when aarif appeared first time and think oh my gosh!
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i think you need to giver better recaps because you’re just recapping on one episode, not all 4 episodes that you mentioned. It’s just lazy of you to bunch it all together but not even recap the other episodes.
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I’m sorry you feel this way! Like I mentioned in the sidebar, I do this for fun just to give my commentaries on episodes and so my ‘recaps’ are more reviews than being detailed outlines… I’m sorry that u didn’t find what u need ):
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oh my … Aarif Rahman is soooo good looking – even in full custom – he (and FBB) brightens up the screen whenever he appears. Good acting from the young man. Hope he wins awards and to see him in more films & tv shows. Good for him!!
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Ok seriously AARIF is just too gorgeous, but can someone please explain how he grew up so fast like did I miss a time skip??? I love Fan bing bing, but you can’t have a 12 year old kid play a character, and then two episodes later he’s this gorgeous prince (I mean where is the logic in that). It just doesn’t make sense, as the producer fan bing bing poorly executed this.
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I can’t remember who said it, but there was a comment made a few episodes back when Mei Niang was going to Empress Wende’s palace every night to light the candles & wait for the Emperor (who had no plans of coming), that Xu Hui & Xiao Chang were being invited to spend evenings in the Emperor’s palace. Other than that comment, there wouldn’t have been any reason to believe that the Emperor had been in carnal relations with the young ladies. [I think it goes along with the “no cleavage” allowed. 😉 ]
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I just realized I am watching a different version (the cutted one) because I didn’t see the scene where Pang Po Po dies. Actually I just saw her wen Wu Meiniang was in the “laudry prision”.
Where can I find the version you are watching? ):
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The site that I used no longer exists!!! I used to link it but now it’s a broken link because I think it got shut down because of piracy
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I know this is not relevant but I noticed that out of all the consorts, Xu Hui gets the plainest attire. Why is that? I had never seen her in a pink robe. Even when she becomes a high ranking consort later, her robes are sort of cream or off white.
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I think it was a way for the producers to show her character/personality. I might be remembering this wrong (I watched the episode so long ago) but I think they all got to pick the fabric for their fancy robes to wear at the “Liu Li Yan” (the big party/banquet). Xu Hui chose the rather “plain” (or at least not eye-catching) blue & white fabric because it suited her the most (her personality is supposed to be “gently/demure/unassuming etc”).
I assume that’s why she kept wearing these “softer” colours later on in the drama as well (that blue & white robe in particular makes many appearances, so it’s clear that one is her favourite and the Emperor even remarked on it once). Basically it’s to reflect her personality (even after she turns “evil”, she maintains an outward appearance of being gentle & innocent, so her robes reflect this).
Personally I actually find her “plain” robes the prettiest, the colours are so soft and overall it just looks so “classic”.
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Colors like white, light blue, pastel pink match Xu’s personality. Every character has their own colors based on their characteristics. Cairen Xiao wears red, Mein Niang wears pink and yellow to show her gentle side but later she wears red and gold.
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Hey man you need to practice some more english words and need to learn how to spell them correctly. But all I have to say is you did a good job producing and making your recap of ” The Empress of China ”.
Good Job.
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I think the time skip was of 3-4 years. Li Zhi was 12 at the start now he’s 16-17. Please do your research
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