Summary
Cindy Yao’s determination to win the competition and Han Jie has her make Han Jie cook a dish that has Fang Xiao Rou finally realise that Han Jie is that student she despises the most.
Episode 7 Recap
In the previous episode, with a tap on Fang Xiao Rou’s lips, Han Jie indicates to Fang Xiao Rou to use it to provide him the necessary acetylcholine to bring out his fighting spirit and drive to come up with a winning strategy for the competition. Fang Xiao Rou takes the gesture as Han Jie needing the one thing she could only come up with—a kiss. She takes Han Jie by his shoulders, brings herself to him and kisses him on the cheeks.
Han Jie is taken aback by Fang Xiao Rou’s unexpected actions. He is stunned for the entire time that Fang Xiao Rou’s lips remain on his cheek. He is only able to fully come around and back to his normal self when Fang Xiao Rou returns back to stand before him and asks if what she did was what he needed. He chuckles. It’s not what he had in mind. What he had in mind when he indicated to her lips was for her to sing a song for him. Fang Xiao Rou throws her arms out in embarrassment. Why didn’t you say so in the first place, she asks him. She hides her face behind her head. The winning strategy you’ll have to think up of it yourself because I want to go home, Fang Xiao Rou says to Han Jie.
Needing Han Jie to take her home, she has to endure her embarrassment a bit longer. “Quickly open the door,” she requests of Han Jie. He does so in a timely manner, but not without a chuckling towards the sight of Fang Xiao Rou’s embarrassed state. Fang Xiao Rou also needs to endure it a bit longer when they finally arrive at her home. Han Jie gets out of his car and halts her from heading into her place after she gets out and says goodbye to him. Han Jie is concerned about her current state of mind after the kiss. In the roundabout way that Han Jie says his concern, he causes Fang Xiao Rou to frantically bang her head against the metal surface of his car from embarrassment and has her going into a rambling of telling him to do the act of losing the memory. Such occurrences is so commonly seen in the world and seen happening to lead characters in idol dramas, she says before entering into another frantic state of embarrassment, turning to his car to go for another round of banging her head against the metal body of Han Jie’s car. Han Jie stops Fang Xiao Rou. With hands on either side of her head, he brings her to look directly into his eyes.
"I forgive you for your violation." Forgiving her also stops her prevents a possible repeat of broken side mirrors, Han Jie more or less says with his playful words. Fang Xiou Rou calms down at these words of his. She expresses disappointment in herself for being of no use to him in helping him come up with a winning strategy for the competition. She only managed to take advantage of him. But Han Jie rejects Fang Xiao Rou’s view of having not been useful. "You did help, actually. It’s strange, really. I’m not depressed anymore. If it’s not you who turned my mood around, I don’t know who else it would have been, otherwise."
Fang Xiao Rou seems to have gotten into Han Jie’s heart. The next day, outside the Universiade, Cindy Yao gives an indication that Han Jie has indeed taken a liking towards Fang Xiao Rou when Fang Xiao Rou tells Cindy Yao that she knows she isn’t Han Jie’s fiancée. Cindy Yao is surprised to hear that Oscar had actually bothered to correct the misunderstanding with Fang Xiao Rou because Oscar never bothers to correct the misunderstanding. Normally, he lets others misunderstand the fact that she wasn’t his fiancée until they find out themselves.
It’s very positive and sweet between Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou. But the positive and sweetness between Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou doesn’t last. Suddenly and unexpectedly, it changes in the second round of the Universiade when a storm rolls in between Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou as Fang Xiao Rou comes to find out that Han Jie is the student she despises.
The second round of the Universiade involves each side coming up with a dish for the other to cook. Going against the common strategy of choosing a tough dish to make it tough, Han Jie chooses a simple dish for Shi Wen: Pickled Radish Omelette and Braised Pork, shocking not only the Shi Wen students but also his own students and the Si Ping teachers at the spectator gallery. Cindy Yao, however, she is well aware of the fact that the simpler the dish is the harder they are to do well with. She knows Han Jie has indeed given Shi Wen a challenging dish. Cindy Yao accepts this dish. She has no intention to mirror Han Jie’s strategy of providing a simple dish to cook, though. She’s here to win the competition and win him. Cindy Yao chooses a difficult dish—Phoenix Eye. It is described as a traditional Taiwanese dish with a recipe that has been lost through the generations. Therefore, the dish is unfamiliar to many. However, Cindy Yao goes on to explain that someone has successfully recreated this dish, named Jadeite Phoenix Eye.
This dish with no recipe that has been recreated successfully by one person is not the reason why Cindy Yao sees it as difficult for Han Jie. Cindy Yao knows Han Jie well, after all. She knows Han Jie is equipped with the recipe to be able to make it. We find out that the challenge of this dish for Han Jie is in the fact it is the dish that brings about traumatic memories for him. The challenge of this dish for Han Jie is his inability to attack the dish at all because it is the dish that had brought about injury to his old cooking teacher’s arm which ended his cooking and teaching career.
Han Jie is not impressed with Cindy Yao’s ruthless strategy, eyes full of disappointment when he goes to meet up with Cindy Yao for their pre-cooking greeting. "So winning is this important to you, is it?" Han Jie asks her. "Of course. I gave everything up to come back here to compete with you," Cindy Yao responds. "I won’t go easy on you, then," Han Jie simply replies. Cindy Yao expects this: "Don’t be soft on me because my method of using all my effort to defeat you is the respect I have towards you."
Si Ping students throw around their thoughts on what the dish Shi Wen has given them to make is, having not heard of such a dish. They ask Han Jie if he knows. “I’ll guide you through it. Follow my instructions and don’t make a mistake,” he responds in a commanding and confident tone. Students comply in unison and follow him around the workstation and wait ready at their stations for the round to begin.
Han Jie’s commanding and confident tone is completely the opposite to the uneasiness he is feeling inside. His hands lie flat on the workstation supporting the heaviness of his body, displaying a terrified expression on his face. He doesn’t respond calmly to the hand Fang Xiao Rou places on his forehead. He waves it off and tells her that he’s fine with uncontrolled irritation in his tone. Fang Xiao Rou continues to try alleviate Han Jie’s worries. "I’ve seen my dad make it when I was little. I have a bit of an idea of how the dish is made," Fang Xiao Rou offers Han Jie, believing the reason for his terrified state is his concern about not knowing how to make the dish. With the mention of her father, Han Jie winces. Fang Xiao Rou goes to suggest giving her dad a call to guide them and motions to do so, but Han Jie abruptly stops Fang Xiao Rou from doing any calling. “I will make the dish,” he curtly tells her.
Han Jie pushes through his terrified state: he lifts himself off from the table and stands ready. The host of the Universiade starts the time. Han Jie gives one instruction after the another to his students, looking and sounding strong and determined. All students have a task except Liu Xuan and Fang Xiao Rou. "What should we do?" Liu Xuan asks Han Jie. "Just follow me," Han Jie replies. Han Jie goes to grab his cleaver to begin cutting, but this is as far as his strength goes. Han Jie’s hand shake and he struggles to lift his cleaver to begin cutting as the memories of the accident comes into his mind.
This memory of Han Jie’s that we get to see through a flashback shows his old cooking teacher providing him the list of ingredients for the Jadeite Phoenix Eye dish before moving onto a scene where Han Jie pours water on fire in a pan that we have seen throughout the past episodes.
Han Jie lets go off his cleaver, immobilised by the memories. Liu Xuan and the students are concerned. Fang Xiao Rou steps in. She grabs the cleaver that Han Jie still has a light grasp on. "Let me do it," Fang Xiao Rou says to him. Slowly, but willingly, Han Jie steps back from the workstation and allows Fang Xiao Rou to take over. "I’m sorry," Han Jie says. Fang Xiao Rou is kind and gentle: "I’ll be your hands. We’ll prepare this together. Shall we begin?"
Fang Xiao Rou’s kindness and gentleness towards Han Jie ends here. As Han Jie begins to instruct Fang Xiao Rou in making the dish, the peculiarity of how Han Jie’s recipe for the dish is resembling so much like her father’s slowly brings her to question Han Jie why that is: "The method of making this dish has been lost throughout the generations for a long time. My dad then succeeded in recreating it. However, he made modifications that are unique to his own way of making the dish." Fang Xiao Rou stops cutting and turns to Han Jie with a concerned look. "Why is your recipe of making the dish the same as his?" Han Jie is still. He pushes through Fang Xiao Rou’s stare that is expressing distress. He doesn’t answer Fang Xiao Rou’s question. He only goes to provide Fang Xiao Rou another instruction.
Fang Xiao Rou is becoming scared. She continues to talk to Han Jie as she carries out Han Jie’s instruction. "I know my dad taught someone. But that person is the student that caused injury to my dad’s arm." Again, Han Jie doesn’t reply when Fang Xiao Rou turns for his response. By now, Fang Xiao Rou is starting to suspect Han Jie as being that student she despises. Returning back to cutting once more, with unsteadiness and fear in her voice, she asks Han Jie yet more questions— "Tell me: your final step, after the phoenix eye, do you cut the dishrag gourd into slices? After that, do you carve two pieces of dishrag gourd…?"
Fang Xiao Rou isn’t able to complete her question when she cuts her finger from a loss of concentration in her emotional state. Han Jie immediately goes to her and tells her to put it under the tap. The students go to help Fang Xiao Rou with her cut, but she quickly tells them she is okay and keeps her attention on Han Jie who’s back in front of the chopping board, standing there mentally preparing himself to take over the task. “I will do the final step,” he tells her.
Where Han Jie was silent when Fang Xiao Rou asked why his recipe was the same as her dad’s, and where she asked Han Jie what the final step was for making the dish and doesn’t manage to finish the question to get an answer, with shaky hands taking hold of the cleaver and cutting into the dishrag gourd, Han Jie begins to show and tell Fang Xiao Rou what his final step of making the dish is. And then, with his own mouth, he confirms to her what she wanted to know: “That’s right, your dad taught me this recipe.”
Han Jie no longer troubled by the traumatic memories, the dish is completed. There is only one result that can come from this round: where Fang Xiao Rou and Han Jie are in conflict, a ‘non-conflict’ must be made elsewhere to balance and contrast and it’s the results for the second round of the competition: the winner for the second round is Si Ping High School.
This win, while the Si Ping High School staff and students are joyous, it is bittersweet for Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou. After the competition, Han Jie tries to talk to Fang Xiao Rou and asks her to allow him to explain. However, Fang Xiao Rou is not willing. Their colleagues interrupt the two, unaware of the tense situation between the two. It allows Fang Xiao Rou to be left alone without Han Jie troubling her. Wen Zhen Yu is the only one noticing the strange atmosphere between them. Acting like the second male lead character that he is, Wen Zhen Yu tells Han Jie that he will not sit still if she gets hurt or comes to have a hard time—a response arising from when Han Jie responded to his curiosity about the strange atmosphere between the two after Han Jie responds to Wen Zhen Yu that what is happening between them is between them.
Fang Xiao Rou has gone on a walk alone. Tearful, emotional and preoccupied, she knocks into a father and a daughter pair. The ice cream that the father held for her daughter falls to the ground and he apologises to his daughter before offering to get another one for her. “I won’t get angry because it’s my birthday,” the daughter replies.
The words from the daughter brings us to a sequence of flashbacks of Fang Xiao Rou’s memories of the days after the accident. We come to see why Fang Xiao Rou is unable to forgive Han Jie through these memories of Fang Xiao Rou’s.
The words the passerby’s daughter spoke of were the same words Fang Xiao Rou had spoken on a birthday of hers after her father’s accident. On this day, she had secretly witnessed her father’s struggle with tipping a cake out of its tin—a cake that was burnt at the bottom. We then come to her second memory that showed her father struggling to bring a pan of fried rice onto a plate which in the end saw her father making an excuse of going out to buy soy sauce after falling harshly to the floor and losing the pan of fried rice because his injured arm couldn’t support the simple action of transferring the fried rice in the pan onto a plate. We come to a third and final memory of hers where she hears her father on the phone with the Si Ping High School principal, resigning as a teacher.
Fang Xiao Rou’s father becomes acquainted with the knowledge of his daughter knowing Han Jie is the student she hates when Fang Xiao Rou’s walk takes her to his place. Again, he tries to convince Fang Xiao Rou in forgiving Han Jie with saying that Han Jie is keeping his promise to him of becoming a great chef and teacher. He’s lied to her—he lied to her until he got found out, Fang Xiao Rou argues. I told him to keep it a secret, he tells his daughter. "I didn’t want you to hold bias. Think about it, when you didn’t know about this, didn’t you also think that he was a great guy who’s rare and hard to come by? Don’t try to deny it. Dad can see,” he says, stopping his daughter from having any chance to interject and deny it. He continues in his cause. “Why would you give up such a great guy because of an unintended mistake?" Fang Xiao Rou is too reluctant to give into this sense her father was making her see sense in. "I cannot find a way to accept and like someone who I’ve resented for so many years for personally having a hand in destroying your cooking career."
Her father’s attempts to change her mind with reason and his own personal forgiveness therefore had no effect in changing Fang Xiao Rou’s view of Han Jie. She is still dead set on her hatred towards him. Coming out of her father’s place, meeting up with the unpleasant sight of Han Jie waiting by his car outside her father’s place has her scowling at the sight of him. "He was here a while ago. He was scared you’d be angry, so he didn’t dare to come in," Fang Xiao Rou’s dad explains to her. Han Jie leaves his car and walks up to stand before Fang Xiao Rou. "Can you give me a chance to explain?"
Fang Xiao Rou is too angry. She motions to head back into her dad’s place, but her dad stops her. “Go have a talk with Han Jie, will you?” Fang Xiao Rou protests. “Listen to your dad. Just this once,” he says to his daughter; then pushes her to go stand before Han Jie. Reluctantly, Fang Xiao Rou heads into Han Jie’s car and allow him to take her in his car. However, Han Jie doesn’t get far on the journey before Fang Xiao Rou asks to be let off. Han Jie stops the car and allows Fang Xiao Rou to get out. He watches her walk a few steps before he gets out of his car and calls her to stop. But Fang Xiao Rou continues to walk and he is forced to run up to her and stop her forcefully with a hand to her wrist.
"Fang Xiao Rou, I know you don’t want to see me right now, but can you let me explain?" Fang Xiao Rou snaps her hand away from his grasp and tells him there is nothing to explain. It is fact that you ruined my dad’s career, isn’t it? she says. She doesn’t want to hear reasons because what are reasons to him are just excuses to her. Han Jie understands this and offers to do anything for her to make her feel better. Fang Xiao Rou, she isn’t so full of hate that she isn’t able to welcome something to make her pain go away: "It’d be great if I knew. If I knew, then this wouldn’t be so difficult to take. I finally understand how painful it is having resentment towards someone that you like," Fang Xiao Rou tells him in tears. She then turns around to face away from Han Jie. "I really don’t want to see you anymore because the more I see you the more it hurts in my heart."
Han Jie believes the way for her pain to go away is for him to leave, but he can’t do that yet. He moves to stand before her again. "I understand your reasoning. But because the competition hasn’t concluded, I’m not able to leave yet. Also, I’ve come back to the school to fulfill a promise I made with him."
This only gets Fang Xiao Rou fired up as it brings up the thought of her father having been forced to resign because of the accident that he caused. "I’m not asking you to leave the school. I’m also not asking you to quit being a teacher—because, I really understand that kind of giving up and that kind of pain when dad had to stop teaching due to the injury he sustained to the arm."
Seeing Han Jie had no more words to come back at her words, Fang Xiao Rou leaves him.
However, Fang Xiao Rou’s high heels and sprained left ankle doesn’t allow her to walk properly and leave without trouble. She is frequently stopping because of the pain and she goes to the park cars left of her for support. Unknown to Fang Xiao Rou, Han Jie has been trailing her and watching her insisting on continuing to walk in such a state. Fang Xiao Rou finally sees him on the third time she seeks support from a parked car from the pain: through the side mirror of the car she used to support herself, she sees Han Jie a few metres behind her, looking worried and concerned.
Either referring to the pain in her ankle or the act of parting from Han Jie—or both—Fang Xiao Rou tells herself to be strong and keep walking no matter how much it hurts. However, as determined as she is in walking away, the pain is too much and she seeks support from another parked car.
Han Jie finally comes up and helps Fang Xiao Rou. He takes her by the shoulders and directs her to take a rest. Fang Xiao Rou tries to break away from his hold, but this time Han Jie’s insistence is too firm and Fang Xiao Rou gives in to his help. He takes her to some steps outside a store. He wants to go get Fang Xiao Rou an ice pack and asks her to wait for him. Coming back, he crouches down and begins preparing the ice pack. "Give me five minutes. Once your foot is a bit better, I’ll leave. If by that time you still see me as air—as a stranger, then do as you please."
Fang Xiao Rou will not accept Han Jie’s help. Fang Xiao Rou scuffles over the ice pack. Again, Han Jie is strong in his insistence to help her with the ice pack. He directs her a steady and firm gaze. He lets a small smile appear on his lips when Fang Xiao Rou surrenders and allows him to continue.
During this time, Fang Xiao Rou is conflicted as she recalls the good times between them: the time she took care of Han Jie after being headbutted by Li Zhi Chao; Han Jie teaching her how to handle a knife; and the time she thought the scary sound of footsteps was a ghost, but came to be Han Jie who saved her from falling to the ground and ended up clinging tightly onto from fear.
Han Jie also recalls moments between them during these five minutes of calm: he recalls the time he thought he needed to give Fang Xiao Rou CPR, but she ended up waking back up herself and sprayed his face with water. He smirks at this thought. He then recalls Fang Xiao Rou’s reaction to him telling her his secret of being the student she hated at the nightclub. This has him saddened and remorseful.
Five minutes is up and Fang Xiao Rou’s hate flows too deep in her veins to allow the good times she recalled break through the hatred. "Five minutes is up. Move aside, please." Promise is a promise. Han Jie stands up and allows her to leave.
A new day arrives. Before the day starts, Wang Mai Zhi is doing some cooking at his father’s elegant restaurant, Yechun Restaurant. This cooking he does is for Liu Xuan as we see him head to an apartment block to where we see Liu Xuan come through a large gate securing the apartment block. After she greets him, Wang Mai Zhi takes out a tray with a couple of jinhua ham and matsutake (pine mushroom) onigiri. These onigiri comes to be shared with Ma Chong Sheng when he also comes by Liu Xuan’s place and she offers him a bite. Ma Chong Sheng expresses how delicious they are when he believes Liu Xuan made it, but spits it out and expresses the bad sour taste in it when Liu Xuan tells him Wang Mai Zhi made it. Wang Mai Zhi had handled it well when Liu Xuan allowed his arch enemy eat his cooking that he especially made for Liu Xuan, but the criticism sees them argue in their typical fashion.
It is the final round of the competition. A night of crying with Jiang Pei Ying comforting her, Fang Xiao Rou takes the role of spectator to the competition as Jiang Pei Ying stands in for her for the final round of competition. After the topic of the final round of soup and dessert is announced, the customary pre-competition greeting between the two supervising teachers sees Cindy Yao informing Han Jie that she will be using her own strength to defeat him for the final round. Han Jie’s response is a simple "I look forward to it". Jiang Pei Ying’s, however, is much more challenging in nature: "Today, I will stand in for Fang Xiao Rou and punish you well.
The final round is about to begin.
Thoughts
We can’t believe the secret of Han Jie being the student that Fang Xiao Rou despises is finally out! It’s only episode 7! It’s quite a harsh way for Fang Xiao Rou to find out, but it was sure efficient and effective. It’s really progressed the plot along a lot and provided some great tension between the lead couple!
This is the second episode that we found difficult to recap. The other was Episode 5 when Cindy Yao appeared because we couldn’t stop ourselves from getting so frustrated at the sight of Han Jie and Cindy Yao together >:oX >:oX. Episode 7 was hard as we got to Fang Xiao Rou slowly realising Han Jie was the person she hated. We felt so bad for Han Jie because he had to reveal that fact in such a high-pressured way!
We really did wish Fang Xiao Rou could just go out of character and forgive Han Jie for his unintentional mistake because we just love when these two are playful and cute with each other. But just thinking about the reason Fang Xiao Rou had for continuing to resent Han Jie, even though we do see why Fang Xiao Rou just can’t forgive Han Jie because she had to witness her dad struggling after the accident and seeing him give up what he loved to do because of the accident, we couldn’t help wonder why she just couldn’t grant her dad his wish for her to forgive Han Jie. Fang Xiao Rou said that she’s not as forgiving as her father—but still, shouldn’t she grant that wish to her dad because he wishes for her to? Han Jie really didn’t do it on purpose. But of course, if Fang Xiao Rou forgave Han Jie just like that, there would be no drama if that happened. We much prefer good drama.
It does makes us wonder how long this hate will last, though. We can’t predict it. It’s only a third way through (we think the series has 21 episodes in total). Will Fang Xiao Rou’s hate towards Han Jie be the thing that carries the series through to the end or will it be resolved and dealt with? There’s Cindy Yao and there’s the fact that there’s the bet Han Jie has made with Su Ying Jun. The final round of the Universiade, we’re wondering if it will see a loss for Si Ping High School so to make use of Cindy Yao’s unconditional request she wants from Han Jie as well as make use of Han Jie’s promise to Su Ying Jun to leave Si Ping High School. We don’t know why these have been put into the plot if they aren’t going to be used otherwise. If they are used, then this is going to get very interesting for Fang Xiao Rou in the way that she will be forced to rethink her hatred towards Han Jie.
We don’t like watching previews for shows. We always make sure to stop watching when the preview comes on, so we don’t know if what we have said above has been answered in the previews, but if we had to choose what we want to happen, then we would like the story to actually use the two bets and have Han Jie fulfill them. It’s good drama that way! We’d also love to see Han Jie in a different environment as well. Hmm… but if this happens and Si Ping High School loses the competition then wouldn’t that mean he would have failed in fulfilling his father’s desire to win the Universiade; and if Han Jie leaves the school, then he would have not fulfilled his promise to Fang Xiao Rou’s father? Unless this is exactly the direction the story will head… Hmm…
Leaving that aside and thinking about the cuter scenes between Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou in the earlier parts of the episode—yeah, they were so cute! We loved when Han Jie said to Fang Xiao Rou that he wasn’t going to wash his face off of her kiss because he was too tired to do so! Yeah, right! He just wanted to keep it there for a bit longer! Haha! :oD :oD. Awesome and lovable!
Definitely looking forward to the next episode of Love Cuisine (料理高校生)!
Read our translations for Behind the Scenes of Love Cuisine, Episode 7!
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