Episode 12 Recap
The part which Ai Li Si had crossed out from her memory all return in Episode 12. He Hao Yi had decided to let Ai Li Si slowly recall, telling her to not put too much pressure on herself to do so during their overnight camping trip at the beach. He Hao Yi and Ai Li Si may be content to let that be, but CEO Wang isn’t. He has his new investor on his back threatening to stop funding if he were to continue showing no progress. CEO Wang can’t let that happen, and makes the decision to deal with Ai Li Si directly.
During Ai Li Si’s afternoon break, CEO Wang has his assistant deliver Ai Li Si to his car and taken to her apartment. CEO Wang’s desperation to locate the experiment logs has him demand her to recall where she put them. When Ai Li Si repeatedly tells him she can’t remember, CEO Wang moves to grip her by the shoulders, shouting for her to think else her days will be filled with difficulty.
The situation threatens to escalate, but luckily He Hao Yi arrives in time to stop CEO Wang from doing anything more serious to Ai Li Si. He Hao Yi’s ability to locate Ai Li Si comes from a camera which he had his assistant, Lin Jun Xiong, install during his visit to the apartment to lift up some fingerprints for testing (leading He Hao Yi to confirm the traitor was CEO Wang as seen in Episode 10). He Hao Yi by Ai Li Si’s side, he pretends he doesn’t know the reason Ai Li Si left the office without telling him. Not knowing this, Ai Li Si moves to tell him she was taken to her apartment by CEO Wang, but she is quickly stopped by He Hao Yi. He signals her with a look.
CEO Wang moves to explain that he was worried that the traitor would get to the experiment logs, which is why he took Ai Li Si to the apartment. He figures that taking her to her apartment might help her think of the place she hid the logs. This has He Hao Yi tell CEO Wang how very dangerous it is for Ai Li Si at the moment and that he must accompany her any time she goes anywhere.
Unable to do much else, CEO Wang is forced to leave the apartment without the logs. Ai Li Si is lead to the sofa and told about CEO Wang being the traitor, and how he’s been using dirty tricks to try get his hands on her experiment logs so he can abandon Capital for another investor. After a supportive hug and relieving Ai Li Si from her possibly being CEO Wang’s partner in crime—telling her she wasn’t—He Hao Yi suggests the action they must take now is to get to the experiment logs before CEO Wang does.
They split up to look for the logs. He Hao Yi takes the living room while Ai Li Si searches her bedroom. Neither finds the experiment logs, but they do each find items from the past. He Hao Yi finds the four-leaf clover bracelet that once hung around the bear that caused him to mistaken Ai Li Si as his twin sister; and Ai Li Si finds the items from the time capsule.
The find comes after Ai Li Si is brought to her knees by a headache which has her flash on fragments of the attacked in her apartment. It’s the first of a number of headaches that leads her to finding out everything about her past. But before that happens, He Hao Yi is made to feel more regret over what happened 13 years ago as he learns the whole story behind Ai Li Si’s decision to transfer schools.
The box containing Bai Shu Lei’s photo album, Liu Xiao Fen’s photos of her idols, Ai Li Si’s diary and He Hao Yi’s letter is brought out to He Hao Yi to see. Ai Li Si is excited to know that she kept the 10-year appointment as it means she didn’t turn out as distant and cold as she thought she had. The discovery of the items also reveal the feelings He Hao Yi had towards Ai Li Si. He talks about having liked her since he first met her and how he stood behind watching her whenever she was with Bai Shu Lei and Liu Xiao Fen, wondering if she’ll ever turn to look at him. He compares himself to a person who will forever has his sights on her, like the girl who later became a sunflower after she was turned into one by the sun god, Apollo. (The reference is to a Greek myth called The Sunflower.) He tells her he will forever protect her and it will never change.
As Ai Li Si sit on the sofa reading this letter of his, directing him grins as she reacted to his written words, He Hao Yi sits casually flicking through Ai Li Si’s diary on the couch next to her. He turns to the last page and is shocked to read a very contrasting response to his letter from the 30-year-old Ai Li Si. On the page, she writes: “The sunflower is a lie. Forever is a lie. You can’t protect and I can’t forget it either.”
They are words that come after Ai Li Si turned up at the place she, Bai Shu Lei, He Hao Yi and Liu Xiao Fen buried the time capsule. The drop in her expression showed that she had hoped she would see them there, but upon seeing empty grounds before her disappointment was quite visible. Not seeing her once best friends keep their agreement to meet 10 years later didn’t seem to affect her too much, but judging by the words in her diary, He Hao Yi’s claim that he’d be there forever to protect her had her respond with how much of a liar He Hao Yi was, how his promise to protect forever was a lie and she won’t ever be able to forget it.
The words refers to Ai Li Si having suffered bullying from all the girls in the school. They hid her textbooks, hid her lunch and threw her gym uniform into the rubbish bin. They used any method to mess with her. She also had Chen Qi Tai and his gang bully her, too. Her decision to help Song Han Ming from being bullied by Chen Qi Tai caused herself to be his target, too. Chen Qi Tai forced her and Song Han Ming to pose together in a photo, pushing them into each other so he could capture Ai Li Si share a kiss with Song Han Ming. One of Ai Li Si’s sleeves was torn off during the incident.
Bullying alongside being deserted and ostracised by everyone was the whole reason for Ai Li Si’s transfer and having disappeared from He Hao Yi, Bai Shu Lei and Liu Xiao Fen’s lives. The bullying was so bad, it almost broke Ai Li Si. Because of this she became cold and distant. It was her way of protecting herself.
He Hao Yi hears all of this after going to Song Han Ming with the page and asking him for an explanation. Whilst in Song Han Ming’s office, He Hao Yi is also told that he actually doesn’t approve He Hao Yi being together with Ai Li Si, because he knows he will hurt her. He Hao Yi understands Song Han Ming’s cause for disapproval, but it doesn’t matter, he tells him he will never give on Ai Li Si.
He Hao Yi goes about having his assistant locate Chen Qi Tai to give him a beating before heading off to the basketball courts to vent off his anger. He returns home with a knock and a scrape to the arm which, in his room, Ai Li Si helps him clean and bandage. Seeing her treat him so well has him worry about the time when she’ll realise she shouldn’t be. Right now though, Ai Li Si thinks of him as someone to be thankful for.
After she goes about learning a little about He Hao Yi—about how he became a Risk Management Advisor (he helped a classmate with a struggling family business and found out he was good with finding the main point amongst large amount of data), and how he likes his job and how it allowed him to meet her again—Ai Li Si thanks him for becoming her ideal person and for appearing in her life again.
Her gratitude has He Hao Yi lay awake during the night as Ai Li Si lay sleeping next to her. He doesn’t want to have to miss her or feel guilty and wondering what he should do to make it up to her. Tears in his eyes, he concludes that maybe returning to the way it was may be the best for Ai Li Si.
Ai Li Si’s headaches continue as she recalls more memories the next morning. At the same time Liu Xiao Fen finds out about Ai Li Si’s thoughts during the misunderstanding where Ai Li Si was framed by He Hao Yi because he though she was Liu Xiao Fen. Ai Li Si’s diary is left in the living room in a place easily notice by Liu Xiao Fen. On a page in the diary, Ai Li Si writes about how she found it fortunate it was her who got framed otherwise he and Liu Xiao Fen would have an awkward relationship. The thoughts seems to be important as it shows Liu Xiao Fen how Ai Li Si always thought about others ahead of herself.
Liu Xiao Fen continues through and notices the missing page which He Hao Yi tore out. Curious to find out what was written on the missing page, Liu Xiao Fen uses the same trick she used to reveal Peter’s class and year in high school. She takes a pencil and starts shading across it, revealing the words about the sunflower being a lie and how forever was a lie, how it couldn’t protect forever and she can’t ever forget it. This causes to Ai Li Si to suffer her second headache as she recalls fragmented memories and thoughts of her at the place they buried the time capsule, He Hao Yi and her sitting at her desk writing the words in her diary.
Wanting to know what her fragmented memories relate to, Ai Li Si goes to Song Han Ming to see if he would tell her about her past. Song Han Ming doesn’t want Ai Li Si to remember though and tells her nothing. He likes that she’s back to the way she used to be. He likes that she’s no longer cold and distant, and against making friends.
Another headache hits Ai Li Si. She also seems to have suffered a fainting spell, which leads Song Han Ming to bring her home to recover on the sofa. This has Liu Xiao Fen note the strange behaviour—strange in the sense that Song Han Ming should be seeing Bai Shu Lei (it’s not made clear that this is the case, but based on Bai Shu Lei referring to him as her boyfriend in a later scene, it’s safe to assume this would be what Liu Xiao Fen is thinking). She watches Song Han Ming place a damp towel over Ai Li Si’s forehead which he had asked Liu Xiao Fen get for him. Song Han Ming then announces his leave, but not before looking back at Ai Li Si one last time before doing so.
The scene has Liu Xiao Fen seek out He Hao Yi and Bai Shu Lei as it gets her thinking about a few things. The first relates to Ai Li Si’s past and how He Hao Yi seems to have deliberately left Ai Li Si’s diary in the living room for her to see. The next couple of things is unclear, but it looks to have to do with her finding out about Ai Li Si being bullied and Song Han Ming not liking Bai Shu Lei.
After Song Han Ming leaves, a text from He Hao Yi wondering whether Ai Li Si was off work yet has Liu Xiao Fen go to He Hao Yi first. They meet outside. There, He Hao Yi confirms he did purposely leave Ai Li Si’s diary out for his sister to find. He also reveals the suffering Ai Li Si went through after being misunderstood in the situation involving her and Chen Qi Tai. He tells her that Ai Li Si was ostracised and bullied.
This shocks Liu Xiao Fen. When He Hao Yi tells her that Ai Li Si became cold because her friends abandoned her, Liu Xiao Fen tries to explain that she and Bai Shu Lei never intended to ignore Ai Li Si forever. It was only meant to be temporarily. Liu Xiao Fen also mentions how Ai Li Si never came to them for help. They thought she was ignoring them. Liu Xiao Fen then points out that it was Chen Qi Tai who did the bullying, not her, so she doesn’t understand why the blame was on them. He Hao Yi answers that because they (He Hao Yi included) were Ai Li Si’s friends (and should have been there for her).
When Liu Xiao Fen begins again by mentioning her and Bai Shu Lei, He Hao Yi points out that Liu Xiao Fen is her own person before criticising her about whether she can makes her own decisions and not have them be based around Bai Shu Lei. He Hao Yi then takes his leave, suggesting her to think it over on her own.
Think over the situation, Liu Xiao Fen does. A situation involving Bai Shu Lei ignoring Liu Xiao Fen because of a date has Liu Xiao Fen finally tire of Bai Shu Lei’s self-absorbed ways. Seemingly after meeting He Hao Yi outside and witnessing the scene between Song Han Ming and Ai Li Si when he brought her home, Liu Xiao Fen had wanted to call Bai Shu Lei about it all, but as Bai Shu Lei was on a date with Song Han Ming, Liu Xiao Fen’s many calls were ignored the whole time. Not only was Liu Xiao Fen ignored, but Bai Shu Lei also cursed at Liu Xiao Fen over the phone for not understanding the situation: Bai Shu Lei was on a date and should not be interrupted.
This has Liu Xiao Fen call Bai Shu Lei out the next day to let her know her dissatisfaction with the way she treats her. She calls her up on caring more about her boyfriend than her friends. Bai Shu Lei, being her egocentric self, doesn’t see anything wrong with the way she treats Liu Xiao Fen. She tells Liu Xiao Fen that as her good friend, Liu Xiao Fen should get that she doesn’t like picking up phones when she’s dating. She also points out that taking her on overseas trips, introducing her to people and giving her gifts is her treating her very well.
Liu Xiao Fen doesn’t regard it as such. She sees it as giving charity to the poor, not a sign of what a good friend is. Their fight turns towards Liu Xiao Fen telling Bai Shu Lei the truth of the situation between Bai Shu Lei and Song Han Ming. Song Han Ming doesn’t like her. She tells Bai Shu Lei about Song Han Ming having brought Ai Li Si back to her place yesterday and how he showed a lot of care in him for her.
Instead of seeing Liu Xiao Fen as trying to save her from future regrets, Bai Shu Lei sees it as Liu Xiao Fen being childish. Bai Shu Lei thinks Liu Xiao Fen is acting the way she is because Liu Xiao Fen is afraid of losing her as a friend. Bai Shu Lei wonders aloud how she could have regarded Liu Xiao Fen as her best friend. This has Liu Xiao Fen suggest to stop being friends. She then points out that Ai Li Si will do anything for her friends (unlike Bai Shu Lei). Fed up and tear filled, Liu Xiao Fen leaves Bai Shu Lei shortly after, telling her that she must have been blind to have chosen Bai Shu Lei as her friend. She tells Bai Shu Lei that it’s probably a good thing that they no longer are friends as it would mean she won’t have to be a part of her dramas.
Over on Ai Li Si and He Hao Yi’s end, things prepare themselves to return to how it was originally and take whatever comes his way. He wants to help Ai Li Si heal her wounds. To do that, he’s decided it was best she learn about her past and meet the person who caused much of her pain, Chen Qi Tai.
After the talk He Hao Yi had with Liu Xiao Fen the previous night, He Hao Yi arrives home to hear about Ai Li Si her seeking Song Han Ming for answers about her past after recalling more memories, only to be disappointed by his refusal to say anything about it. Seeing Ai Li Si’s desire to know her past, he uses this opportunity to tell her about the meeting he already set up between her and Chen Qi Tai, which Ai Li Si accepts.
At a location outside, He Hao Yi prepares Ai Li Si to meet Chen Qi Tai. Moments before the meeting, He Hao Yi tells her that if he could, he would love to keep her in the dark about her past like Song Han Ming. However, he can’t do that because unlike Song Han Ming who is some who once stood by her side and chose to hide away her wounds and not let her see them. He on the other hand is someone she can’t forgive, so he must open up her wounds. Ai Li Si doesn’t know so she tells him he doesn’t done anything that she can’t forgive him for. He Hao Yi tells her to listen to everything first. Once she has, she can then decide whether there is anything she has to forgive him for. He Hao Yi prays in his thoughts that she will accept her wounds, truly heal them and that she will come to him again.
Chen Qi Tai arrives, just after Ai Li Si remarks about how He Hao Yi sounds like he’s planning to leave her. The meeting has Ai Li Si instantly in fear. She doesn’t remember anything, yet, but she does flash briefly on the time she was forced to pose for a kiss between her and Song Han Ming. He Hao Yi moves in front of her view and have her look at him to give her some strength to ask about the past. He tells her that he will be with her all the way no matter what happens this time.
Ai Li Si gathers the courage. Fear still visible, she faces Chen Qi Tai and asks him whether he knew about what happened 13 years ago. Chen Qi Tai nods.
It’s as far as it goes in terms of Ai Li Si finding out her past from Chen Qi Tai as Song Han Ming (who’s out with Bai Shu Lei) spots the meeting in front of him. Song Han Ming strides over to Chen Qi Tai and grabs him by his collar, shouting at him for being near Ai Li Si and whether he was out to bully her again. He Hao Yi intervenes, pushing Song Han Ming off of Chen Qi Tai. He tells him that it was he who asked Chen Qi Tai here. He tells him that he wants Ai Li Si to know the truth and that forgetting is not okay when Song Han Ming remind him of the pain Ai Li Si went through.
The two guys then get into a fight with Song Han Ming throwing all the punches until He Hao Yi is reduced to the ground taking all Song Han Ming’s beatings. Ai Li Si shouts at Song Han Ming to stop, surprising Chen Qi Tai to see what has become of Song Han Ming. Song Han Ming ignores Ai Li Si and continues beating He Hao Yi. It brings on all of Ai Li Si’s memories: the one where Chen Qi Tai tells her he will deal with her later, the one on the tent where she knocked Chen Qi Tai unconscious and being misunderstood by He Hao Yi, Bai Shu Lei not answering her call for help whilst being splashed with water in the toilet, Chen Qi Tai forcing her to kiss Song Han Ming, and having her friend stand her up at the place they buried the time capsule.
From here, everything is out in the open. After breaking Song Han Ming and He Hao Yi up from the fight, Bai Shu Lei learns that Song Han Ming is the same Peter who sent her the gifts she liked so much. She learns of Song Han Ming’s plans to break her and Liu Xiao Fen up so she could personally experience not having any friends, being abandoned and being lonely.
Ai Li Si’s memories of the past is finished off with the memory of He Hao Yi betraying her just before being brought to the hospital. He Hao Yi’s act of bring the car around for Ai Li Si brings on the memory of her discovering the text from Capital wanting an update on He Hao Yi’s progress in bringing AI over to them. The memory has Ai Li Si disappear down the road the same way as when she found out He Hao Yi’s text from Capital and He Hao Yi is left looking for her.
Thoughts
He Hao Yi should not have left her on the footpath like that, we think! He should have taken her to the car with him to avoid a repeat of the time she found out about the text message from Capital! But this is a drama. It has to happen this way so it’s in line with the ‘repeat of history’, ‘rewriting history’ theme that this drama seems to have going on throughout the episodes. We don’t mind it. We quite like the technique. It fits well with the whole second chances theme. It’s like going back in time and changing what went wrong, but using the present to do it. :oD :oD.
That look in Ai Li Si’s eyes when she found remembered everything, wow! Scary! It was like the nice Ai Li Si was drained from her and she was suddenly possessed by the cold one. The scene at the end where He Hao Yi is hugging Ai Li Si, who’s remembered everything, we would love to hear what her thoughts are. Does she remember her relationship with him before she recalled all the memories? She must be so conflicted!
He Hao Yi, too. What is he thinking? He knows that every time Ai Li Si has a headache, she’s remembered something. The whole time he’s been with her after leaving the meeting with Chen Qi Tai, she’s been so quiet. He must realise that her view of him has changed.
Anyway, we’re finally here! It’ll be interesting to see how Ai Li Si will handle the memories she’s regained and the new memories she’s created with He Hao Yi during this time. Will Ai Li Si still think He Hao Yi is after her experiment logs? It’s hard to see Ai Li Si holding that against He Hao Yi. He’s been protecting her the whole time and never once asked her where the experiment logs were. Only when CEO Wang approached Ai Li Si about it and threatened her did he make the decision to have them found. The fact that he wanted her to remember everything despite knowing it’d put He Hao Yi in a bad light should hopefully help her see that he really just want her to return to the 30-year-old and have her return to his side. It’s just a matter of connecting the bad memories of the past with the good memories of the present, which, between her and He Hao Yi, there are so many.
Song Han Ming’s plan, it’s good to see that he wasn’t too excessive with it. It was only to let Bai Shu Lei experience the feeling of being abandoned by her friends and being lonely. Thinking on it, we can’t see how Liu Xiao Fen and Bai Shu Lei breaking up to be the plans of Song Han Ming. It all happened because Ai Li Si fainted and Liu Xiao Fen happened to see Song Han Ming look at her with caring eyes, and because He Hao Yi left out Ai Li Si’s diary for her to read.
Song Han Ming’s plans or not, Liu Xiao Fen still left Bai Shu Lei. Bai Shu Lei is left with no one on her side; and it still achieves Song Han Ming’s goal.
Bai Shu Lei is not a good friend at all. She expects everyone to understand her, but seemingly spends no effort trying to understand her friends. The fact that Liu Xiao Fen called so many times suggest that she had important things to say. Bai Shu Lei had said that since she didn’t pick up the first time, Liu Xiao Fen should understand she obviously is too busy to pick up. Liu Xiao Fen should know she doesn’t pick up phones when she’s out dating someone. But then, it could be said that Bai Shu Lei should know that Liu Xiao Fen knows to not call when she’s on a date. So, the fact that Liu Xiao Fen called so many times, it means it must be important—something we think Bai Shu Lei should have realised, too.
She was like this with Ai Li Si helping Song Han Ming keep his identity a secret, and she’s the same now with Liu Xiao Fen. Experiencing Liu Xiao Fen leaving Bai Shu Lei might do Bai Shu Lei some good.
Bai Shu Lei and Song Han Ming, the kiss that Episode 11 left off with was sort of a significant development point, it’s a little surprising we didn’t get see the episode showwhat happened after that. We only hear Bai Shu Lei refer to Song Han Ming as her boyfriend and see the two going out together for a minute in the last scene before we see Song Han Ming let out that he’s been trying to let her experience the feeling of losing friends and being abandoned. It’s quite uncharacteristic of Love at Seventeen to mention a development than show it—even if briefly.
No matter, it was another great episode. Only Bai Shu Lei is left to learn about what Ai Li Si suffered in high school. That last scene where Ai Li Si was remembering all the memories and holding her head, Bai Shu Lei just walked right past her to go break the guys up! Wow! It’s another example of her caring more about Song Han Ming, her ‘boyfriend’, and how he’s fighting He Hao Yi because of Ai Li Si than Ai Li Si who’s clearly not doing so well. We can’t wait until she learns of Ai Li Si’s past and how it was her stubborness in making Ai Li Si tell her Peter’s identity that lead Ai Li Si to suffer under Chen Qi Tai and everyone at school.
He Hao Yi, jiāyóu! Can’t wait to see Ai Li Si and He Hao Yi get their happy ending in the coming episodes!
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