I hate Ye Xin/Du Xiao Han

Watch this online on MapleStage. So we’re going to play this game at this point in the drama- ‘Get everyone to hate the antagonist’. I mean it’s not like we don’t hate her enough, but she does even more despicable things that make us hate her, and it’s unforgivable.

I saw in the opening song, and the ending song section that she ends up kissing Jie Wen. I hope they don’t end up together because she’s horrible. Also again, I really hope it’s a happy ending, especially between Bai Lang and Jiang Xin.

The episode starts out with Ye Xin returning back to Shanghai. She offers to get out of the car to get some delicious alley foods for her grandpa and mother.

And she gets spotted by Papa Jiang 😥 You know what happens next. We’re playing ‘Let’s get everyone to hate the antagonist game’, so in order to be effective, Papa Jiang dies. She lies to him and says that Jiang Xin was coming later with her grandpa. She asked to meet up with him later in the night because Grandpa ye wanted to meet him, and she wanted to prep him what to say and what not to say.

Papa Jiang asks him to confirm facts that aren’t true about Jiang Xin, and Ye Xin falsely confirmed them – so he knows that she’s lying. At least Papa Jiang finds out that that Jiang Xin hasn’t forgotten him, but he was so sad and devastated when he found out his kind, good-hearted daughter had died. She gives him a bowl of water that’s been spiked.

 

He passes out from the spiked water, and Ye Xin burns the house down. I cried during this scene. A helpless elderly man who never did anything wrong, except raise a kind hearted filial daughter. He was such a kind and generous man. Before he died, with his last strength they threw up the monkey and threw out the magical box.

Jie Wen returns from the UK and his eyes are fixed by his surgery. He hasn’t never seen Jiang Xin in his life. He returns to look for her but now her old house has burned down, and Papa Jiang was *sob* murdered. He finds out that Jiang Xin left to Tian Jin on a train, and he heads there to look for her.

Meanwhile, Jiang Xin and the Bai Lang finally arrive at Shanghai. She didn’t know that he was so rich and powerful and is starting to doubt if she is good enough for him. I’m enjoying the romantic and cute moments as we’re still in the honeymoon stage. He looks at her with such love – I melt. I especially love his clean-cut style and his hair.

I haven’t fanned over an actor for so long. I always thought Hawick was good looking, even from his Kindred Spirit days. I can’t believe he’s actually 40 years old this year. He even looks younger than the female lead in some shots. That’s what happens when you have a natural baby face. He has no wrinkles and his skin looks so good, even in the HD close-up shots. Sigh #mcm.

Bai Lang introduces Jiang Xin for the first time to everyone in a high-profile event to welcome both the rich Ye family and for socialites alike to gather and play polo. Yes, we are in an extremely classy era. You’ll know when you see Bai Lang’s vintage tie and Jiang Xin’s Great Gatsby-esque headress. They look so good together.

Ye Xin sees Jiang Xin and acts like she’s seen a ghost and runs off. I found that she rather regrouped quite quickly and changed her demeanour very fast considering the circumstances. She just returned to her manipulative self and asked around about Jiang Xin, finding out that Jiang Xin is suffering from amnesia.

 

I couldn’t help but intensely roll my eyes at this scene. What? She climbed a huge tree because of her curiosity for… grasshoppers? Really? Ok Chen Yu Shan, must you make all female leads naive and incapable of adhering to normal social norms? First, Jiang Xin’s wearing a dress, secondly they’re apparently at a party with judgemental socialites, and thirdly, really, she really needed to know that badly about some grasshoppers so she climbed a tree?

Ok ok writers, I forgive you. I understand we are trying to make the female lead seem special and innocent. I guess we can’t have a female lead as cynical as me.

As a result of climbing the tree and drawing attention to herself, she meets Grandpa Ye.

From a bet, Bai Lang personally leads the polo team against Lei Ba Tian’s son. Obviously our handsome male lead wins, despite falling off his horse.

This is probably my favourite moment so far in the drama (I’ve watched up to episode 22 at this point). He picks up Jiang Xin onto his horse and waves to everyone from the horse. It’s such a cute moment, and it’s so sweet for him to show her off and have everyone clap for her. Sigh. I can only tell you that the drama goes downhill soon.

Well sh*t. I called it. We go downhill from here. Understanding that Jiang Xin doesn’t remember anything, Ye Xin takes this opportunity to do some petty bullying on Jiang Xin. Ye Xin graciously offers to be her friend in front of everyone and they go for a walk.

$#%#$ Ye Xin asks Jiang Xin to hold her bag for a moment while she went to the washroom, putting her expensive necklace inside the bag. Ye Xin pickpockets it out of her bag while Jiang Xin wasn’t watching, and throws a fit in front of everyone back inside the banquet hall. Now, Jiang Xin had revealed to everyone at the party that she wasn’t from a rich family, so it looked even more incriminating. This exacerbated Jiang Xin’s poor roots in front of the elders and they disapproved of her as Mrs. Bai.

Ye Xin suggests that Jiang Xin make up for her mistake and unpopularity by making meals for the workers at the Ye-family owned factory. Sigh and it’s yet another trap. And Jiang Xin walks right into it. I must warn you, this ‘walking-into-traps’ deal continues well beyond episode 20 – brace yourselves for this. I feel like Jiang Xin should pick up that every time something bad happens, Ye Xin is involved and should have her guard up by now.

Jiang Xin cooks a meal for the workers of the Ye factory, and Ye Xin adds in diarrhea-inducing powder into the sweet soup, causing factory workers unable to work, and a great amount of progress and profit lost for the Ye family. Jiang Xin is blamed, and one elder, the uncle of Bai Lang, is so angry that he goes to the Bai mansion and throws cups at her.

Jiang Xin tries to do damage control by hiring temporary workers from this unemployed village. Nobody dared to hire these workers because they once had a conflict with Lei Ba Tian, so these workers lived in poverty. Lei Ba Tien, finding out, rounded them out and threatened them.

Uncle Bai, the elder that disapproved of Jiang Xin and literally threw cups at her, makes a 180 change and acts so impressed with Jiang Xin for her courage and decisiveness. Additionally, Grandpa Ye thought it was a good idea too, and it was his factory anyways, so Lei Ba Tian had nothing to say.

Look at Bai Lang’s proud and affectionate look for Jiang Xin. I can’t even – too cute.

Uncle Bai offers jobs to the unemployed workers, and so does Lei Ba Tian afterwards (he does a 180 degree switch too… but for difference reasons). The unemployed workers develop gratitude and respect for Jiang Xin.

We end with this incredibly cute scene between Bai Lang and Jiang Xin. He asks her to marry him again because he knows that she loves him now, after everything that she’s done.

And she finally reciprocates his love (for the first time!) by kissing him. It’s the first obvious time that she has done so it’s super cute for Bai Lang’s reaction too. He looks obviously very happy of course. She puts off the marriage, saying that she wants to take care of the workers for a bit first and fix the situation she caused in the first place.

I really like Jiang Xin’s hair – I can never get my curls to stay like that. I think her and Bai Lang’s 1930’s style is so dashing and put together. They’re so cute together that I really wish that they would marry and just have a family and that’s it. UGH WHY MUST THEY HAVE TO FACE SO MANY OBSTACLES.