Mei Niang becomes pregnant again?!
The trailer for Episode 74 has made me so excited with this drama. I know that they have a sad ending together, but at least they have some couple-y moments. So two things with this episode – the producers did throw in a couple-y scene between Li Zhi and Mei Niang, which was so cute (but semi-cringeworthy too, they should take note from the taiwanese dramas). But my gosh, again, they didn’t address the scandalous dancing scene between Li Ke and Mei Niang. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!
The episode starts off with Empress Wang inviting Zhong Er to her palace, to get to know him, because she wants to adopt him.
She looks on in admiration, and at one point even calls him ‘cute’.
Seriously? This little brat that’s eating everything?
As expected, he’s not willing to leave his mother to live with Empress Wang, so Empress Wang decides ask his mother directly.
After all those gifts, the mother of Zhong Er still refuses… so obviously Empress Wang will have to kill the mother now.
Mei Niang predicted this. But instead of protecting the mother, she wants the mother to be attacked by Empress Wang first, and then save her – so the Emperor can see how evil the Empress is, killing one’s mother to steal her son to protect her title.
Li Ke hears this and he’s astounded and sees how much Mei Niang’s changed for revenge – how’s it different to take away one’s mother (if the plan fails) from when someone took away your son? He tells her that they should never meet up again (good).
Wanting to get out of all of this planning and plotting revenge, Li Ke asks to be removed as the teacher of the princes. The Emperor agrees, but invites him to a sword competition (just for good fun). But the Emperor already knows that him and Mei Niang have been seeing each other frequently, and he’s pissed. And when you engage into a competition with an Emperor it’s always a lose-lose. If you win, you win the Emperor, who’s supposed to be godly and good at everything – and you piss him off and you’re not favoured anymore. If you lose, well, you lose.
So in this lose-lose situation, the Emperor goes full out on Li Ke, and they’re real swords, so Li Ke can’t help but actually fight back. The Emperor was intending to hurt Li Ke (from his jealousy), so Li Ke actually knocked the sword out of the Emperor’s hands. Li Ke says, out of kindness, that perhaps this sword isn’t good for the Emperor, perhaps it’s too heavy.
The Emperor on the other hand, takes this as an opportunity to create a monologue alluding to himself, Mei Niang and Li Ke. He said, when he loves something, he loves it for a very long time, and he’s going to keep it by his side. If someone’s going to be with it for a long time, to the end, it is not his father, especially not Li Ke, but himself, Li Zhi.
(note that ‘it’ and ‘she’ sound the same in Chinese, so it makes his monologue more obvious).
Li Ke, who doesn’t have feelings for Mei Niang, is pretty much like “Aight” and doesn’t bother clearing up his name or explaining. I guess that’s all he can do because there are things that become more muddled the more you try to explain.
*screams* Such a cute scene. Mei Niang can’t sleep, and Li Zhi wakes up to try to get her to sleep.
… with PUPPETS?! Cringed so much in this scene. The puppets weren’t cute or entertaining at all, and BingBing’s acting for once was kind of fake with her fake giggling with the damn puppets. I mean I don’t blame her – the puppets if not creepy, are not even mildly enjoyable. If you hear Li Zhi’s improv conversation created for the puppets, they’re just chasing each other. What’s there to giggle about? If my other half did that for me, I would laugh awkwardly and ask him to put them away. But no we dedicate at least two minutes of screen time to this awkward interaction with puppets.
Oh ha, puppets. So entertaining.
At least we got a couple-y scene. No complaints here but seriously Chinese drama producers need to take a page out of Taiwanese dramas to create sweet couple-y scenes because this was so awkward.
When Mei Niang wakes up, she comes to her senses and doesn’t carry out the plan where she just wait for Empress Wang to attack the mother of Zhong Er. She gets her servants to clear out a room and decides that the child and mother will move in with her. But by the time Mei Niang gets there, the mother is already poisoned by Empress Wang. Luckily, she’s saved.
74 TRAILER
OMG MEI NIANG GIVES BIRTH TO A BABY BOY! I would like to note that one episode can possibly transcend 9 months time. But I’m so happy! Means they get over that Li Ke thing soon, and we’ll have some sweet family moments.
Meanwhile though, the prediction still holds – the chancellors and the Empress are still looking to get rid of Mei Niang, and we see a scene where the chancellors pressure the Emperor again.
Empress of China ends next week!!! I don’t know what to watch anymore ):
Deer Drama 