I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I’M BEING SLOPPY

Before I get angry/annoyed comments that I’m being sloppy/lazy – yes I am, I acknowledge that I am, and you have no need to post a comment about it. I have got so much to do but I want to finish this drama before forgetting all the small details about it. I’m probably going to take a short hiatus and be more selective with my next drama choice for recap (probably one that doesn’t update so frequently, because it’s so draining to recap a drama that comes out with two episodes daily). Anyways I’m determined to finish recapping this drama with fourteen episodes in one post, even though it’s going to be stacked with tonnes of screencaps. This is going to be brief!

Xiao Han confronts Bao Bao with the amount of care and sacrifice that Xiang Hao was willing to do for her, and confirms Bao Bao and Xiang Hao’s relationship. She gets mad and annoyed that Bao Bao had not only stolen her identity, but her fiance as well.

Meanwhile, Du Feng and Shen Wen Yu are slowly falling in love. Yup. They’re pretty cute together.

I really hate Ou Yang Fei and the actor that plays him. He’s so bad at acting and he’s so very unattractive to me that I can’t seem to love his character or root for his side in his romantic endeavours.

Xiang Hao gets sad that Bao Bao had not visited, and Xiao Bai acts so damn cute. I think that out of all the characters, I’ll actually miss Xiao Bai the most – he’s the only one that I haven’t gotten kind of tired of. He pulls off the silly mischievous handsome character quite well.

Li Ji Zhou takes the time limit from the previous exam to kick Xiang Hao out of the Ji Yin cadets, because he went past the time limit (even though he was saving everyone else). This was to help Li Tian Han to become the leader of the Ji Yin cadets.

All the instructors were on Xiang Hao’s side, except for Li Ji Zhou and another military official – the deciding vote was cast on Instructor Liu, who voted against Xiang Hao.

Turns out Instructor Liu was blackmailed by Shen Wen Tao’s dad, General Shen, beause General Shen viewed Xiang Hao as competition for Shen Wen Tao for the leader of the Jin Yin cadets as well.

Bao Bao follows Instructor Liu and eavesdrop on his meeting with Instructor Liu’s brother.

Bao Bao goes to Shen Wen Tao and tells him about this connection about Instructor Liu and his brother, and Shen Wen Tao realizes that Instructor Liu’s brother, is a close associate of his father.

Shen Wen Tao and his crew go to confront the brother, only to find out that it General Shen was all behind this. 

Shen Wen Tao confronts his dad about the whole thing…

And outs his dad for his bribery and blackmailing and proves Instructor Liu’s vote as unreliable and biased.

Instructor Liu was about to get fired from this incident, until the whole faculty and Xiang Hao step up to ask Li Ji Zhou to forgive him.

Xiao Han is relentless and still super desperate to get Xiang Hao to love her, and obviously on one night where she looks for him she witnesses this:

Xiang Hao looking for Bao Bao in the backyard of the academy…

And they embraces bitterly. He confronts her about helping him with getting back into Ji Yin cadet group, and confirms that she still cares for him. They have so many of these corny dramatic moments that I’ve lost all feeling towards it. I skipped through some of these OTP moments because I was kind of sick of them at one point.

Xiao Han witnesses the whole thing and attempts to slap Bao Bao across the face for breaking her promise, since Bao Bao promised earlier to Xiao Han to stay away from Xiang Hao. Xiang Hao stops this and tells Xiao Han that he truly loves Bao Bao, and Xiao Han is broken hearted.

Ok as you can derive from these screencaps, some serious shit goes down but the main point of it is Xiao Han getting hurt and taking a bullet for Xiang Hao (it’s pretty much the main purpose of the series of events).

What happens is that the Ji Yin cadets get sent on their first mission to get information from this Japanese spy. The mission becomes a total failure, and there were many Japanese soldiers in disguise who attacked the cadets back. Xiao Han ends up taking a bullet for Xiang Hao – which was an incredibly ridiculous scene because she literally ran 50 feet in order to block that shot, in which… makes the gunsman possibly the dumbest/worse gunsman possible.

Xiao Han falls into coma. Xiang Hao feels guilty.

Stupid Ou Yang Fei tries to be all manly and stuff and stand up for Xiao Han by beating Xiang Hao up for ‘not protecting’ her. Well hello this girl ran 50 feet to do this, she had ample time to think about what she was about to do – cannot really blame anyone actually.

Now Bao Bao feels guilty. Great.

The other cadets figure that there must be a rat amongst them because of how the Japanese ambushed them during the mission.

Stupid STUPID Ou Yang Fei decide to snitch on Bao Bao because of his self-righteous ugly self (ok I really dislike him) and tells General Xiang the whole story about Bao Bao and Xiao Han. In anger, General Xiang lock Xiang Hao and Bao Bao up for a night.

In desperation, Xiang Hao makes a deal with General Xiang (in order to save Bao Bao’s life) – if he marries Xiao Han, then General Xiang will not pursue charges on Bao Bao, which could result in her death.

Finding out that Xiang Hao is marrying Xiao Han, Bao Bao decides to take on a dangerous mission in place of Xiang Hao.

Xie Tian Jiao – who originally assigned the mission to Xiang Hao, finds out at the same time as Gu Xiao Bai, that Bao Bao has went in place of Xiang Hao. They send troops as back up for Bao Bao, while Xiao Bai goes to find Xiang Hao.

Xiao Bai finds Xiang Hao at the alter, and tells him that Bao Bao had gone on a dangerous mission instead of him.

Xiang Hao leaves Xiao Han at the alter, and leaves with Xiao Bai to protect Bao Bao.

Blah blah blah fight scene. I always skim through these fight scenes because I really don’t enjoy them. Xiang Hao and Xiao Han make it out and they make up.

Ugly Ou Yang Fei throws a hissy fit and beats up Xiang Hao for leaving Xiao Han at the alter. HIS CHARACTER IS JUST SO DISLIKABLE.

Now you can’t blame Xiao Han for bloodthirsty – I mean, Bao Bao did ruin her whole life right? So Xiao Han decides to reveal Bao Bao’s true identity that night, but during that night, she overhears a conversation between Li Ji Zhou and Li Tian Han.

Except Xiao Han does a shitty job of eavesdropping, and she gets herself noticed by Li Tian Han. She gets captured, but not before Bao Bao also draws attention to herself as well as a witness to the whole thing and finds out the Li Tian Han is a spy for the Japanese, and so… they both get captured.

Li Tian Han forces Bao Bao to kill Xiao Han so she becomes a murderer, so that Li Tian Han would have dirt on her, and that he wouldn’t be afraid of her spilling her secret. Bao Bao kills Xiao Han through strangulation.

We had to sit through an excruciatingly long and uncomfortable scene of Ou Yang Fei or whoever this atrocious actor is trying to perform a scene of himself overdramatically mourning the death of his crush. He literally throws himself to the ground and screams in anguish – seriously… anyone else could have done this better or in a more… desirable manner, but this guy just made it so weird and unbearable.

THEREFORE, Xiao Han is announced dead, while Bao Bao interrogated the next day, conveniently ‘forgetting’ everything.

Papa Xiang confronts her and is about to kill her when…

The real Xiao Han shows up!!! Imagine if she was just a minute late… seriously all these characters have impeccable timing.

Turns out Bao Bao had thought of putting an apple underneath Xiao Han’s wrist to fake having no pulse (ok, very faulty, what if Li Tian Han decides to take the pulse from, er, anywhere else?? And how does this even work?!). Anyways, Bao Bao had anticipated that Li Tian Han would try to get Bao Bao to murder Xiao Han, and so she comes up with this magnificent plan, and saves Xiao Han.

This is officially where the angst and drama between Xiao Han, Xiang Hao, and Bao Bao end, and we focus on fighting Li Tian Han for the rest of the drama. Xiao Han accepts that Bao Bao is a good person, and that Xiang Hao isn’t for her, and goes to be with er, Ou Yang Fei. Ugh.

Xiang Hao and Shen Wen Tao both interrogate a captured Japanese spy. They confront him about the next meeting and this Japanese spy gives up everything. Unfortunately Li Tian Han was there to hear everything, and since he’s on the Japanese team, he warns the Japanese to set up traps there.

Li Tian Han fakes illness so that he doesn’t have to go (since he knows that it’s rigged with booby traps). Xiang Hao ends up stepping on a landmine and triggers it to activate, and if he were to lift his foot, he would die.

Shen Wen Tao bravely stays behind to deactivate it, even though it was a Japanese bomb and he wasn’t comfortable with deactivating those types of bombs, but he still bravely stayed behind to try to save his friend. It’s from this experience where Xiang Hao and Shen Wen Tao truly reconcile and get over their past with Xiao Hua.

Meanwhile, Xiao Qi starts suspecting Li Tian Han. Earlier on, Bao Bao had already told Xiao Qi that Li Tian Han is not to be trusted, and that he’s a bad guy. She tells Xiao Qi that Li Tian Han but Xiao Qi initially doesn’t believe her, until she notices that Li Tian Han really doesn’t have any illnesses, and seems to be intentionally avoiding the Japanese take-down (which conveniently ended in disaster and traps).

After that failure, Bao Bao (knowing that Li Tian Han is a Japanese spy), Shen Wen Tao, and Xiang Hao challenges Li Tian Han to get information out of the Japanese spy, knowing that Li Tian Han is a spy himself – purpose being to reveal Li Tian Han as a rat.

Xiao Qi starts piecing it together and realizes that the bombed scraps from the previous Japanese attacks were the same ones that killed her brother.

The whole plan was to have Li Tian Han fake his death to scare the Japanese spy in confessing and revealing Japanese secrets. His death could be feigned to the Japanese spy by getting Xiao Qi to inject a chemical which slows down his pulse to an undetectable rate. Since Bao Bao knew that Li Tian Han was a rat, she challenged Xiao Qi to inject just a normal saltine injection that wouldn’t do anything into Li Tian Han, and watch him still get the information all the same.

So, true to Bao Bao’s predictions, even though Xiao Qi had given him the useless injection, Li Tian Han manages to get information out of the Japanese spy (meaning that he’s on their team) and becomes the new leader of the Ji Yin cadets because of the success of the first mission.

Xiao Qi freaks out, knowing that Li Tian Han is on the Japanese team, AND also that he was the one responsible for her brother’s death.

Xiao Qi tries to kill Li Tian Han in the most ineffective way possible in the history of murders, which is hiding a knife in the couch and pretending to want to have sex, and attempting to stab him. Li Tian Han ends up stabbing Xiao Qi instead.

Before Xiao Qi died, she managed to call Bao Bao, who managed to overhear the whole thing. She finds out that Li Tian Han was responsible for Xiao Hua’s death, and that Xiao Qi was in danger. Li Tian Han figures that Bao Bao was heading his way and frames them for the murder of Xiao Qi.

During this time, Bao Bao, Shen Wen Tao, and Xiang Hao are all wanted criminals. All of their friends – Xiao Bai, Du Feng, etc.., are all locked up, and the other cadets are fooled into delivering weapons for the Japanese since Li Tian Han is the leader (and Li Ji Zhou is the principal).

Some guy sees Bao Bao, Shen Wen Tao, and Xiang Hao walking, and recognizes them from the posters and notifies the local police.

Li Tian Han brings the other cadets to arrest them, and they have a standoff. Things backfire on Li Tian Han and Xiang Hao ends up revealing Li Tian Han as a traitor and working for the Japanese. Xiao Han (whom everyone thought was dead) comes out to confirm this, and the cadets end up turning against him.

Li Tian Han runs away, and the cadets steal weapons to fight against the Japanese from Xiang Hao’s father.

Li Ji Zhou tries to back out of this full on fight between the Ji Yin cadets and the Japanese and Li Tian Han pulls a gun on him. Turns out that Li Tian Han isn’t really Li Ji Zhou’s son, but a Japanese spy that killed Li Ji Zhou’s real son while he was studying abroad in order to infiltrate the military.

There’s a lot fighting in between and a lot of plot that goes on in but again, this is a super filtered-down recap, so let’s just cut to the chase of what really mattered. Pretty much all the fighting lead to this showdown between Shen Wen Tao, Xiang Hao and Li TIan Han. Xiang Hao and Shen Wen Tao are both losing and get shot. Li Tian Han is about to finish Shen Wen Tao off while he has him in a headlock, when somehow Shen Wen Tao manages to maneuver Li Tian Han’s gun to shoot through himself and onto Li Tian Han.

Shen Wen Tao dies in this scene but at this point I don’t know why the cold-iron-heart inside of me couldn’t bring myself to feel anything – maybe at this point I was too detached. Or I was focusing too much on how both Xiang Hao and Shen Wen Tao had very suspiciously white teeth, considering there was blood all over their mouths and dripping down their chin. I mean… it is coming out of their mouths right?

Bao Bao’s mission was to bomb the Japanese military site, but she gets discovered after activating the bomb, and through the chaos, the bomb ends up activating while she’s still in the site. Xiang Hao witnesses the explosion and becomes devastated, thinking that she must have died in the accident.

Du Feng becomes the new Ji Yin captain after Shen Wen Tao, Bao Bao, and Li Tian Han’s death.

Xiang Hao decides to leave on a train to look for Bao Bao, and resources that improve the country, instead of military tactics (at this point, they’re so patriotic I really cannot relate – why does it seem that so many of Joe Chen’s c-dramas end up so patriotic and political??).

At this point… I already expected this reunion to happen because I’ve watched the trailer (and they spoil that this part will be at the end). I mean… it’s just so drama-esque for them to magically and conveniently be taking the same train. Like, where is she going? And… how did she sustain herself afterwards? Like… how did she manage to get medical attention outside of the academy? So many questions unanswered.

I mean… it explains that after the explosion, she managed to muster the strength to climb up the rope and escape from the bomb and burning, but if an explosion was strong enough to cause you to amnesia, it must be a f*cking devastating explosion. How do you wake up in a pile of metal (with no previous memory) and stay calm and think, “O. I should climb up that rope”. And afterwards – getting medical attention? How did she even get that new girly outfit? Where she going on the train? Seriously. I need to know.

The drama ends with Xiang Hao telling Bao Bao about their past (very vaguely, like, ‘I once met a girl… etc’) and Bao Bao being moved to tears. I don’t know about you but if a stranger sat me down and started talking to me about his life story I would be like this:

So my final verdict for this drama is that…. I actually wouldn’t watch it again.

I know, I know… I was swooning like crazy over it initially but damn, why did they have to drag it out so much with so much patriotic stuff and fighting? I just wanted a simple ‘happily ever after’ drama without all this complication. I think I just want a drama that’s free of any complication that’s just sweet and short, and not dragged out. I would give this… probably 7/10.

Thanks for reading this recap!!! I know it’s very lazy and very brief, but it’s the best I could have done with my time constraints.