Episode 13 Recap and Thoughts
Episode 13 follows on with the issues existing in the two relationships currently in the spotlight: Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou, and Wang Mai Zhi and Wei Qi Zhen.
An incident involving Chen Meng Chen offers Han Jie the chance to visit Fang Xiao Rou’s bedroom and allow him to figure out her thoughts and feelings she has for him. However, what he finds out is that he may not mean much to Fang Xiao Rou when Fang Xiao Rou shows indifference.
Chen Meng Chen was told in the previous episode that she transferred to Si Ping High School because she admired Han Jie’s culinary skills. However, we find out in this episode that her admiration for Han Jie is more than just for his culinary skills. Chen Meng Chen likes Han Jie. She likes Han Jie enough to be jealous and ruin a bento Han Jie made for Fang Xiao Rou for his lunch date with Fang Xiao Rou.
Chen Meng Chen overhears Han Jie talking on his phone to Fang Xiao Rou about the bento he made for her for their lunch date at the kitchen classroom. When Han Jie leaves the room due to bad reception, Chen Meng Chen enters into the room. She opens a container housing a handful of powders and spices placed on the countertop next to the bento. Chen Meng Chen’s goal is to ruin the flavours of each of the items in the bento with the powders and spices. This act of Chen Meng Chen has an unexpected outcome. One of the ingredients that Chen Meng Chen puts in is peanut powder and this has Fang Xiao Rou taken to the emergency department for the itchy and severe rash that she develops from it.
Fang Xiao Rou is itchy and blotchy, but she is fine. She recuperates at home and, upon Han Jie’s request, she gets taken care of by Jiang Pei Ying until Han Jie is free from teaching classes and is able to come over to take care of Fang Xiao Rou himself.
This scene where Han Jie comes over to take care of Fang Xiao Rou occurs in Fang Xiao Rou’s bedroom. Han Jie does and says some funny and sweet things. He waits on the side of Fang Xiao Rou’s bed and answers Fang Xiao Rou’s sleep talk that begins with her saying she sees a meteor and wishing to get better by the time the camp trip comes around; he offers to feed her the congee he cooked for her; and he reminds her that he likes the real Fang Xiao Rou even if she shows she is less than perfect when she tells him that she wants him to see her in a good light after Han Jie decides to go through her room and notices her lazy and messy habits in her room.
Han Jie also says and does things that are more dangerous for Fang Xiao Rou. Han Jie offers to help relieve itchy places for her with scratching them; he advances on her until he has her lying on her bed and traps her between him and the bed; and he asks her whether or not she wanted to kiss him at all before expressing that he wants to.
Sweet or dangerous for Fang Xiao Rou, Han Jie is wearing his heart on his sleeve while Fang Xiao Rou continues guarding her true desires even as she had revealed them.
Fang Xiao Rou had revealed her true desires to Jiang Pei Ying earlier in the day in the school library when she was provoked by Jiang Pei Ying who wondered if the reason nothing intimate happened between Han Jie and her on their night alone together in the wilderness was because she was interested in women and not men. Fang Xiao Rou goes to prove she is interested in men when she reveals that she has wild thoughts about Han Jie, that her heart beats uncontrollably every time Han Jie is near her and she has dreams where she kisses him.
Han Jie had said he heard none of what Fang Xiao Rou revealed when she asked after she finds him at the next shelves of books behind them. But, he admits he had lied, that he had in fact heard everything. Han Jie hovering over Fang Xiao Rou, trapping her underneath him on the bed, he asks Fang Xiao Rou whether or not she wanted to kiss him at all. Fang Xiao Rou isn’t willing to tell the truth. She take back what she had overhead with saying she didn’t mean any of it.
If we didn’t know that Fang Xiao Rou is a person who comes across as really inexperienced in love, she appears very much like she’s playing hard to get. But it’s Fang Xiao Rou still being troubled by the idea of Han Jie handling her. We get reminded of this when the time that Jiang Pei Ying had told Fang Xiao Rou to let Han Jie handle her or be handled shows to be flashing through Fang Xiao Rou’s mind at the time Han Jie feeds Fang Xiao Rou the congee he made for her.
Fang Xiao Rou does briefly break out of this unwillingness to submit to Han Jie, though. When Han Jie shows disappointment when he removed himself off of Fang Xiao Rou because he realised that she didn’t want to kiss him at all when she doesn’t respond, Fang Xiao Rou becomes indecisive and concerned by Han Jie’s disappointment. When Han Jie goes to grab his jacket draped over a chair seemingly going on his way, Fang Xiao Rou quickly takes hold of his wrist and pulls him back to her and down onto her bed. She slowly descends onto Han Jie who’s ready and waiting for her kiss.
But the kiss doesn’t eventuate. Jiang Pei Ying interrupts them.
It really is funny to have Jiang Pei Ying be the person that interrupts Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou. Since Han Jie’s arrival to the point of Fang Xiao Rou and Han Jie in the comprising position in Fang Xiao Rou’s bedroom, Jiang Pei Ying had been in the background working extremely hard to give them alone time and remove all unwanted guests that could get in the way of this chance for Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou to finally be intimate with each other. She had dragged Wen Zhen Yu away from their place to the park when he showed up to give Fang Xiao Rou a box of crème brûlée that he and the class made for Fang Xiao Rou; and she kept him busy with eating a dozen crème brûlée as well as making him push her swing on the playground swings. She also had managed to send Wen Zhen Yu on his way with falsely admitting liking him when Wen Zhen Yu asked her if the reason she was trying to stop him from getting to Fang Xiao Rou was because she liked him.
Then there was Li Zhi Chao. She also had managed to stop Li Zhi Chao from showing up at their place with—what appears to be—her being seen with Wen Zhen Yu. It seems Li Zhi Chao had come to give Fang Xiao Rou a flask of chicken soup, but he had gotten sidetracked when he spotted Jiang Pei Ying with Wen Zhen Yu. Li Zhi Chao was seen spying on Jiang Pei Ying together with Wen Zhen Yu by some steps at the park before he appeared before Jiang Pei Ying after Wen Zhen Yu left. We find out during this scene in the park that Li Zhi Chao no longer likes Fang Xiao Rou. He’s switched to Jiang Pei Ying and he reveals this to Jiang Pei Ying during this scene.
Jiang Pei Ying really has worked hard in the background, dealing with Wen Zhen Yu who bruised her ego when he rejected her false confession of like towards him and handling Li Zhi Chao who’s heart is now stuck on her. But Jiang Pei Ying’s hard work gets wasted when there is no one stopping Jiang Pei Ying, herself, and her bad timing to come back into the room and speak as Fang Xiao Rou’s lips almost makes it to Han Jie’s. Fang Xiao Rou springs back up, fixes herself and tries to look decent. Han Jie, on the other hand, gets back up and off the bed slowly and tries to appear fine about such a rare occurrence having been interrupted.
It’s progress. Fang Xiao Rou showed Han Jie that she did fancy him. But, Fang Xiao Rou regresses back to bad habits. A shopping excursion at night sees Fang Xiao Rou and Jiang Pei Ying and Han Jie and Chen Meng Chen meet. The four come together outside the coffee shop that Han Jie and Chen Meng Chen were having a chat together until Jiang Pei Ying gets their attention and rudely demands them to gather outside.
Han Jie finds the chance meet up perfect to have Chen Meng Chen own up and apologise to Fang Xiao Rou for her bad deed after he had discovered that she was the culprit who ruined his bento and caused Fang Xiao Rou to have an allergic reaction with finding flour on her shoe—flour that was on the kitchen classroom floor where he was making battered chicken for the bento. The apology coming from Chen Meng Chen brings Fang Xiao Rou to ask the reason for doing what she did. When Chen Meng Chen reveals the motive behind the act to be jealousy because Chen Meng Chen likes Han Jie, Han Jie uses this interest Chen Meng Chen has towards him to have Fang Xiao Rou show him how much he means to her. He asks Fang Xiao Rou if she was willing to give him to Chen Meng Chen. But, Han Jie doesn’t receive the answer he expects or hopes to hear. Han Jie doesn’t hear Fang Xiao Rou’s ‘no’. He hears indifference: "I don’t know. Don’t ask me."
With Han Jie’s tolerance towards Fang Xiao Rou’s poor handling of his feelings looking to have started thinning when they were in her bedroom when he asked her whether or not she wanted to kiss him at all and she couldn’t give him a response, this recent response looked to really have brought his tolerance level down a whole lot. The playful look that Han Jie supported when he asked Fang Xiao Rou that question changes to irritation. It doesn’t stop there. Fang Xiao Rou makes Han Jie’s tolerance level go in the red when she suggests for Han Jie to go after Chen Meng Chen and comfort her after Jiang Pei Ying makes Chen Meng Chen leave in anger with her suggestion for Chen Meng Chen to give up and go home and play with her toys. Han Jie sees red. He sternly warns Fang Xiao Rou to not allow someone to take him away again; otherwise, he will really become extremely angry. He storms off.
With such a warning and such an angry display, a person who cares would have immediately chased after the person who’d just walked off angry to go find out why they’re angry. But, Fang Xiao Rou, she simply stands in her place wondering why Han Jie was so angry, not understanding why he’d be angry when she didn’t get jealous. Jiang Pei Ying enlightens her: her lack of jealousy is the reason behind Han Jie’s anger. Fang Xiao Rou is still slow to act even after the enlightenment. It takes Jiang Pei Ying giving her a push that she does. She asks Han Jie if he was angry at her. When he shows her he was and expresses that she can see she’s tiring him out, she finally says words that Han Jie is pleased to hear: “Let’s be together, shall we?” With this, Han Jie brings Fang Xiao Rou in for a kiss—a kiss that Fang Xiao Rou is initially uncertain about, but becomes taken in by it.
Wang Mai Zhi and Wei Qi Zhen’s relationship continues with Wang Mai Zhi persisting with getting Wei Qi Zhen up to standard to gain Ma Chong Sheng’s attention with regular dance lessons. These dance lessons are somewhat useful to get Wang Mai Zhi to see Wei Qi Zhen as someone with the potential to meet up to Wang Mai Zhi’s (superficial) standards and not simply someone he can use to take Ma Chong Sheng away from Liu Xuan.
A dance lesson on school grounds has Wang Mai Zhi discover some attributes about Wei Qi Zhen that is to his liking. When Wei Qi Zhen trips over her misstep and looses her glasses from falling onto Wang Mai Zhi on the side, sitting and eating the bun Wei Qi Zhen gave him to eat, Wang Mai Zhi calls Wei Qi Zhen over to him and cups her face in his hands. There, Wang Mai Zhi notices and comments how pretty her eyes are. The sight brings Wang Mai Zhi to take out his phone and begin a digital makeover on Wei Qi Zhen. Cutting out Wei Qi Zhen’s hair and replacing it with a hairstyle that resembles the one Liu Xuan sports, Wang Mai Zhi is amazed. He puts it down to the app’s extraordinary capability, but the image is still Wei Qi Zhen. He’s so impressed with the image that he continues to look at the image as he gets up and walks.
This moment of Wang Mai Zhi admiring Wei Qi Zhen’s image on his phone unfortunately gets interrupted by Ma Chong Sheng and Liu Xuan passing by the area. His attention immediately goes onto Ma Chong Sheng walking and talking with Liu Xuan and becomes angry at the sight. He starts towards them, but Wei Qi Zhen stops him and tells him to not start a fight with Ma Chong Sheng. Wei Qi Zhen holding him back annoys him. He asks whether or not she’s holding him back is because she didn’t want to see Ma Chong Sheng hurt. When Wei Qi Zhen asks Wang Mai Zhi if he liked Liu Xuan that much that he is so angry at the sight of Ma Chong Sheng and Liu Xuan together, Wei Qi Zhen finds out how little of a chance she has with Wang Mai Zhi when Wang Mai Zhi’s tells her that of course he likes the school goddess to whom matches his superior status and not a person like her.
This response from Wang Mai Zhi has Wei Qi Zhen lose heart. Wei Qi Zhen stops the dance lessons and decides to give up; but Han Jie changes her mind. After leaving Wang Mai Zhi, she bumps into Han Jie who enlightens her. Han Jie tells Wei Qi Zhen that not trying represents a like that wasn’t strong to begin with. Wei Qi Zhen worries about wasting effort on someone with little chance to which Han Jie responds with saying that even if the chances of succeeding in winning over Wang Mai Zhi is minute, an accumulation of minute chances of succeeding will eventually build up to definite success. These words from Han Jie has Wei Qi Zhen energised again and it has her continue persisting in her like towards Wang Mai Zhi.
Final Thoughts
Han Jie ended up kissing Fang Xiao Rou first! Han Jie said they will be apart until Fang Xiao Rou willingly kisses him. But it looks like Fang Xiao Rou is just too resilient for Han Jie! :oP :oP.
That end scene leading up to the kiss was good. We like that Fang Xiao Rou realised how tiring it was for Han Jie to put up with her ways. Just watching Fang Xiao Rou constantly denying her feelings for Han Jie is tiring. It was actually getting to a point of being as tedious as Han Jie’s playfulness of the earlier episodes. And so, we’re extremely glad that Han Jie got angry with Fang Xiao Rou and got Fang Xiao Rou to finally agree to be with Han Jie.
The whole thing with Chen Meng Chen and getting Fang Xiao Rou to show a bit of jealousy through Chen Meng Chen’s interest in Han Jie—Han Jie using Chen Meng Chen to fish out Fang Xiao Rou’s feelings with him asking if Fang Xiao Rou was willing to give him to Chen Meng Chen, the response that Fang Xiao Rou gave— “I don’t know. Don’t ask me”—was a snappy and defensive answer, but we didn’t expect Fang Xiao Rou to come out with anything that showed jealousy. Chen Meng Chen is pretty and intelligent, but she is a student. She’s not a threat. If Han Jie wanted to fish out Fang Xiao Rou’s feelings for him and have jealousy come out of Fang Xiao Rou, he should get someone like Cindy Yao. That would really show him whether or not Fang Xiao Rou would let another person take him away from her. We have enough belief in Fang Xiao Rou’s feelings for him that she would show jealousy if it was someone like Cindy Yao and not be indifferent like she was with Chen Meng Chen! If not jealousy then gloomy! After all, she was extremely gloomy when she thought Cindy Yao was his fiancée!
Wang Mai Zhi and Wei Qi Zhen, this is going along very well. We really love this geek and chic pairing. We really do love the pairing of Wang Mai Zhi and Wei Qi Zhen! It’s what we look forward the most in the series. We are waiting to see how Wei Qi Zhen will affect Wang Mai Zhi in terms of his feelings as well as his character development!
So, we are definitely rooting for Wang Mai Zhi and Wei Qi Zhen to end up together. It feels like it’s heading this way, too. Ma Chong Sheng feels like the person Liu Xuan likes. There’s nothing so far suggesting otherwise. There’s nothing suggesting Liu Xuan liking Wang Mai Zhi. Also, Han Jie talking to Wei Qi Zhen and saying that trying and trying until the tiny chances become certainty is giving the idea that Wei Qi Zhen will succeed!
The scene where Han Jie counsels Wei Qi Zhen was really too cute. We don’t think there has been a scene where Han Jie individually talks to his students that’s not about cooking. So, this was really refreshing. We like that Han Jie was talking to Wei Qi Zhen about relationships and giving his advice on it to such an innocent and cute person like Wei Qi Zhen. We would love to see more of these two interacting.
The scene where Fang Xiao Rou and Jiang Pei Ying are in the library where they talk about her night alone out in the wildness with Han Jie, how Fang Xiao Rou is affected by Han Jie a lot and how she dreams about kissing him—it’s an interesting scene. This scene is played twice. The first one is shown in the early parts of the episode and the second one is near the end of the episode where it’s shown as a flashback of Fang Xiao Rou’s (or was it Han Jie’s… Think it was Fang Xiao Rou’s). In both scenes, Han Jie is in the next shelves of books except in the earlier one, Han Jie is very, very hard to notice. It’s so easy to miss him because the only thing that shows he’s actually in the area is if you knew what he was wearing for the day: the off-yellow jacket and green shirt amongst the books—it’s Han Jie! The second play of this scene happens towards the end of the episode during the scene where Han Jie is with Fang Xiao Rou in Fang Xiao Rou’s bedroom. Here, you actually get to see Han Jie pass by. But still, he passes by the scene like a normal extra passing by. It’s ‘Spot Han Jie‘ game in these two scenes. The first one is definitely harder than the second. Haha :oD :oD.
We enjoyed Episode 13. We hope things will continue to progress for Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou and we hope to see more of Wang Mai Zhi and Wei Qi Zhen build as a pairing! And with five more episodes left in the series (we think the series has 18 episodes in total now), we also hope for the remaining episodes to bring back some cooking and maybe a replay of the Universiade, but this time with Si Ping High School winning! It will be interesting to see Chen Meng Chen go up against her old school. Also, we hope Wen Zhen Yu will make an appearance and be more than just a person who comes in to temporarily threaten the relationship between Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou.
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