Li Hui Zhen is catching Bai Hao Yu’s attention quite a bit in Episode 13. The cut Li Hui Zhen got on her finger back in Episode 10 has Bai Hao Yu unable to let her be anymore. He also can’t stand seeing her carry on in her way, allowing her colleagues to offload tasks they should be doing onto her.
This stage of the She Was Pretty story is one of our favourites. It’s the first time we get to see Bai Hao Yu show concern for Li Hui Zhen. Pretty Li Hui Zhen does this part of the story pretty nicely, too. It’s very similar to the original, but Pretty Li Hui Zhen expands it to include a nice reaction from Bai Hao Yu after Li Hui Zhen suggests present and future interactions between them to be impossible. He didn’t like the sound of that view of hers.
Bai Hao Yu might be showing more care towards Li Hui Zhen, he also expresses that he can’t control his heart when it comes to Li Hui Zhen, but he’s far from acknowledging his feelings or even acknowledging them as he still shows reluctance to let go of the past. But his reluctance to let go of the past might have something to do with how Li Hui Zhen keeps doing things to bring up memories of the past, causing Bai Hao Yu to start wondering about Xia Qiao’s identity.
Okay, onto the recap! You might notice the change in recap style. The change should hopefully make the recap a faster read. Enjoy!
Pretty Li Hui Zhen Episode 13 Recap
Lin Hu Sheng:
“You know what? It looks our Deputy Editor in Chief has a girlfriend.”
Episode 13 starts off with an Immortal team meal. Bai Hao Yu becomes a topic of conversation after Lin Hu Sheng (who’s Kim Joon Woo’s counterpart in She Was Pretty) shares that he saw Bai Hao Yu with a woman—who Lin Hu Sheng thought had a nice figure. The office gossip has the team find it unbelievable that someone with his personality could have a girlfriend.
The subject has Li Hui Zhen disappointed to hear he’s taken, but it doesn’t stop her from worrying about Bai Hao Yu. Ever since her visit to his apartment the night she and Lin Yin Mu brought Bai Hao Yu back from the work function and she saw just how little he eats (his fridge was filled with bottled water!), she’s been concerned about how little he eats as well as how much he works.
So, girlfriend or no girlfriend, she was going to make sure he’s fed. She goes to the store to pick out breads for him after the team meal before returning to the office to set it on Bai Hao Yu’s desk.
Bai Hao Yu is quite surprised when he sits down and sees the small container of food. He had seen Li Hui Zhen scamper out of his office and had no idea that the reason she was in his office again was because she had brought him lunch.
Bai Hao Yu’s reaction to her being in is office is quite different from the last time he caught her in there. Back in Episode 11, she had gone into his office after finishing a late night request to get an email sent from Han Xue. With Bai Hao Yu temporarily out, she took it upon herself to try out his seat, imitate him with his hourglass and played with the electronic privacy screen. Bai Hao Yu had angrily asked her what she was doing in his office that time. This time round, though, it’s like he was already used to seeing her ducking in and out of there.
Bai Hao Yu:
“Why is it that every time I see that intern Li Hui Zhen, my heart always—”
Eric (Bai Hao Yu’s friend):
“Always can’t control yourself?”
Bai Hao Yu’s feelings seems to be developing. He’s at the stage where he can’t stop his heart from going towards her, but he doesn’t know why. But, as much as this seems to suggest that Bai Hao Yu is subconsciously developing feelings for Li Hui Zhen, he’s still reluctant to free himself from what comes off as an obligation to keep the promise he made to the childhood Li Hui Zhen to be her umbrella. Being Li Hui Zhen’s ‘umbrella’ is being there for her when she needs him the most, just like how she was his umbrella when he was a boy and lost his mother. This was his promise to her before he had to move away and leave her.
Eric:
“We shouldn’t reject the intern Li Hui Zhen because the childhood sweetheart Li Hui Zhen exists. My meaning is when one falls in love one should use the heart to feel and see the person, rather than using identity as the basis of who to love.”
His friend picks up his reluctance to let go of the past and tells Bai Hao Yu not to close himself off to Li Hui Zhen just because of his history with the one he believes is Li Hui Zhen. Love with your heart and not with your eyes he reminds him.
Bai Hao Yu:
“Aren’t you afraid it’d get infected? You’ve been here for over a month. How could you not have anything prepared. Even if you don’t prepare anything, you should at least ask your colleagues what’s in the company.”
Bai Hao Yu’s still scolding and criticising Li Hui Zhen out of disapproval, but behind the disapproval is really concern now. In Episode 10, Li Hui Zhen had cut her finger after trying to clean up the frame housing Bai Hao Yu’s puzzle shattered from being knocked over.
This cut has Bai Hao Yu drag her away from her work and over to a room to get the cut properly covered. The whole day Li Hui Zhen worked through a bleeding finger. She had a band-aid on it, but seemingly it wasn’t sticking well as by the end of the day, she had to use tissues to stem the bleeding.
When Bai Hao Yu drags her over to the room, he doesn’t tell her what had bothered him, so it takes two times of Bai Hao Yu holding Li Hui Zhen by the shoulders and sitting her down before she stays put. He then hands her a bandaid for her to put on the finger, finally showing her what his actions were all about.
Li Hui Zhen’s quite nervous and struggles to get the bandaid out of its protective wrapping for quite a while. After failing to open the band-aid, Bai Hao Yu ends up taking it off her and helps her not only open the bandaid, but put on antisceptic ointment, too, before wrapping her finger with the bandaid.
Bai Hao Yu:
“Do you think you’re especially kind-hearted and everyone should be grateful? Are you the kind who didn’t have friends growing up?”
The cut on her finger is not the only thing that’s been bothering him. The way she lets her colleagues boss her around and use her to finish their tasks also has him bothered. Earlier in the day, he’d caught Han Xue calling Li Hui Zhen a fool and gloating about how she was able to get Li Hui Zhen to do any random task just by telling her.
Hearing the conversation on the phone, it all becomes clear to Bai Hao Yu why he had found her in his office trying his seat aome nights ago. Li Hui Zhen’s willingness to take on other’s workload had her often stay around quite lates, often as late as him. The fact that she was here in the office with him is because she’d accepted work from a colleague again. (Need guesses who? It’s Han Xue.)
Wanting Li Hui Zhen to see her willingness to take on work is causing herself to be taken advantage of, he accuses her of being especially kind to score some points with people and make friends.
His words come off this way, but he probably doesn’t actually think this is what she’s doing. He just wants her to see that going to the extent she does for some of her colleagues not only isn’t going to win her any gratitude or friends from those she helps, but probably because he just doesn’t like seeing her being taken advantage of.
Han Xue calling Li Hui Zhen a fool and practically laughing about it is an example of that. Lin Hu Sheng makes use of Li Hui Zhen, too, but not nearly to the extent Han Xue makes use of her. The only colleague who doesn’t take advantage of Li Hui Zhen is Lin Hao. When everyone ended for the day and wanted her to finish some work for them, Lin Hao “troubled” Li Hui Zhen with the task of finishing his drawer-full of snacks! He doesn’t want her to starve whilst working through the night for others. How sweet is he?!
Li Hui Zhen:
“I had a very, very good friend. When we were children, we helped each other a lot. Later he moved away and we lost contact…
It’s because this kind-hearted he became friends with me. So, I don’t have to have other’s pity in order to make friends.”
Whether it was her intention to subconsciously hint to Bai Hao Yu about her friendship with him when they were children or not, Li Hui Zhen tells him about how she had a very good friend when she was growing up in response to his comments. She tells him that she and this friend of hers used to help each other other. But then this good friend of hers had to move away and they lost contact. She moves to deny her reason for willingly do other people’s work as wanting others to think of her as kindhearted and make friends. She then tells him that she doesn’t need someone’s pity in order to make friends.
Bai Hao Yu:
“Even if you can’t do anything or say anything right, can’t you take good care of yourself? Otherwise you will always be bossed around and made to do other people’s work. If you’re made to take the blame because of others, you deserve it.”
The story seems to have Bai Hao Yu thinking, but no questioning comes from it. He’s more focused on getting her to change her ways, to take better care of herself and not let others boss her around, but he can’t just say it in without a critical, scolding tone.
Li Hui Zhen:
“Maybe you don’t understand the thoughts of a supporting character like me. Maybe I am, as you say, someone who can’t do anything or say anything right; but, in this world there are definitely things I’m able to do. Even as I am, I will be needed by others. Whenever that happens, I will feel that this kind of feeling is great.”
It might be that people are taking advantage of her willingness to help, but Li Hui Zhen doesn’t see it that way. She does everything out of her own freewill. It’s not so she can have people recognise how kind she is or to make friends as he had casually suggested earlier. It’s because being able to offer her help simply makes her happy. Anytime anyone asks her to do something and it’s within her power to do it, she’ll willingly do it because this feeling she gets when she’s able to help them is not only a feeling she likes, but also cherishes. He may not understand it, being a lead character and all, but she tells him that she actually finds this life she leads as a supporting character very blissful.
Li Hui Zhen:
“In any case, a little supporting character like me won’t have too many interactions with a lead character like you. So, I just need to play my supporting role well. I’ll already be very happy to be able to make you lead characters flicker and shine.”
Bai Hao Yu:
“Why aren’t there any interactions? We work under the same roof everyday. How could there not be interactions?
Li Hui Zhen ends her explanation off with telling him that her willingness to take on other’s workload isn’t just because it makes her feel great. She does it because this is how she is able to support and help him, too. She explains that as a supporting character in a world where he’s a lead character, the number of times they will ever interact with each other are very few. So, from where she stands in the background, she wants to play her role as a supporting character well so that it might somehow indirectly help him.
Hearing Li Hui Zhen imply that their worlds are basically separate to each other’s has Bai Hao Yu in a hurry to reject it. Bai Hao Yu seems to have taken Li Hui Zhen’s view about them as saying that they could never develop a relationship close enough where their worlds would ever meet. He has no idea why he felt the need to say what he said, but he’s probably bothered by the idea that she’s rejected the possibility that the two could ever be close enough to be together.
Xia Qiao:
“I’d like to ask you to help me with something. I’d like you to act as my fiancé.”
Episode 12 left off with Xia Qiao calling Lin Yi Mu in for a favour. Her favour involves Lin Yi Mu posing as her fiancé so that everything can end cleanly with Bai Hao Yu and deny any chance of turning back. With the silver shoes already donated and Lin Yi Mu agreeing to play the role of her fiancé, all that is needed is for Bai Hao Yu to meet her and hear that she’s engaged. But, Bai Hao Yu never makes it.
On his way to the café where Xia Qiao and a handsomely-dressed Lin Yi Mu awaits, he has a close call at the pedestrian crossing where Bai Hao Yu almost hits a pedestrian. This close call sends Bai Hao Yu into a state of shock as it brings up the traumatic memory of seeing his mother killed before him.
Still just a boy, he had lost his mother on a happy night out with his mother. His mother had thought to get him dumpling ball soup from a stall which was set up on the other side of the pedestrian crossing. She gets this soup and was would be back with him at any moment, but as his mother made her return, a car crossed her path and hit her, killing her.
The traumatic memory has Bai Hao Yu forget all about making it to the café to meet Xia Qiao. He’s so traumatised by the memory, Bai Hao Yu only has enough sense to pull over on the side road to let traffic pass before he steps out of his car to sit dazed in the pouring rain at the front of his car.
Li Hui Zhen passes by on a bus then. Judging from the curiosity in her expression, she had no idea the distraught man sitting in the pouring rain was Bai Hao Yu. It was not long ago she was with him in the office, all fine. But there he sat before her, looking anguished and broken.
She immediately has the bus driver let her off to go to his side.
Li Hui Zhen:
“Get up, Bai Haoyu! Bai Haoyu!”
She calls out to him repeatedly, but no amount of calling him could bring Bai Hao Yu around, so Li Hui Zhen thinks to use the method which has worked to calm him in the past. She grabs her earphones, plugging one in his ear and one in hers. Without thinking how her choice of music might get her identity exposed again, she picks that classical piece which would surely have Bai Hao Yu connect her to the Li Hui Zhen from his childhood.
Bai Hao Yu:
“Li Hui Zhen, is it you?”
It wasn’t just the track that Bai Hao Yu had caught onto—though it is a huge part of it. The rain, the way she hovered over him with an umbrella and how she showed up right as he was distraught over the memory of his mother’s accident matched a similar time in his childhood. Back then, the childhood Li Hui Zhen also came for him, holding an umbrella and had him listen to the exact same track.
Maybe if Bai Hao Yu was in a better state and kept at his questioning, Li Hui Zhen might have had some trouble explaining how her actions and music matched his childhood best friend exactly. It’s fortunate he wasn’t, though; and the fact that they were situated pretty close to passing traffic helped Li Hui Zhen avoid answering the question.
Li Hui Zhen:
“Sit tight. I’ll drive you back.”
Bai Hao Yu:
“I can go back on my own.”
Li Hui Zhen:
“How can you? How can you drive in this state?”
Bai Hao Yu:
“Leave. I’m begging you.”
The incident at the roadside ends with Li Hui Zhen sending him home using a substitute driver service. Bai Hao Yu was in no mood to deal with anyone who wasn’t the real Li Hui Zhen. Li Hui Zhen had offered to drive him back to his apartment, but he wanted to be alone and begged she let him be.
Bai Hao Yu:
“Hui Zhen, the umbrella I gave you, have you used it?”
Xia Qiao:
“No. I was afraid I’d break it, so I couldn’t bear to use it… Why are you suddenly asking about this?”
Bai Hao Yu:
“It’s nothing. It just occurred to me that I’ve never seen you use it.”
Whether the one he thinks is Li Hui Zhen starts swirling around in his mind by the end of Episode 13. The incident on the roadside is not the only reason he started moving his focus from Li Hui Zhen to Xia Qiao.
Earlier in the night, just as he left his office to meet Xia Qiao, he’d caught sight of the umbrella he bought Xia Qiao in Li Hui Zhen’s hands. This umbrella has quite a unique design underneath: it has a print of the painting which is the same as the framed puzzle in Bai Hao Yu’s apartment. So, for Li Hui Zhen to have this unique umbrella gets him wondering why he’s never seen Xia Qiao use it.
He poses this question following his return to his apartment, after Xia Qiao provide him the opportunity by visiting him at his apartment. She had rushed over to take care of him after hearing from the substitute driver that Bai Hao Yu was unwell and couldn’t pick up her call. That was when she left Lin Yi Mu at the café to go take care of Bai Hao Yu who ended up developing a bit of a fever following the roadside incident.
Xia Qiao makes up an excuse that she didn’t want to break the umbrella. That’s why she hasn’t used it. Bai Hao Yu lets the answer stand before he falls asleep from having woken up briefly.
Lin Yi Mu:
“If you insist I go, I can go for you. However, you have to promise me three things.”
Episode 13 ends with Li Hui Zhen asking Lin Yi Mu a favour to bring over porridge she made for Bai Hao Yu. He had called her wanting to go out together for some hot pot, but Li Hui Zhen’s worried about Bai Hao Yu and had made him some porridge. She could bring it over herself, but she’s worried that he might recognise her (or ask her about questions she can’t answer to).
Lin Yi Mu’s not too interested in helping initially, but then changes his mind when Li Hui Zhen moves to use a guilt-inducing tone to get him to help her. She thanks him nicely for calling her to go out to have hot-pot, but won’t be joining him. This has Lin Yi Mu agree, but on the condition she grants him three wishes later—whatever they may be. Li Hui Zhen hesitates to agree to the condition, but she really wants the porridge delivered to Bai Hao Yu and reluctantly does. She swears an oath stating that is she dare lie to him then she would forever eat fish ball noodle soup without fish balls.
Is it really so bad to eat fish ball noodle soup without fish balls? Are we missing something? Maybe it’s just embarrassing to ask for fish ball noodle soup without fish balls. Fish ball noodle soup without fish balls is just a plain noodle soup. :oD :oD.
Comments
We really enjoyed Episode 13—particularly scene in the office between Li Hui Zhen and Bai Hao Yu where he drags Li Hui Zhen to get a band-aid on her finger. So much Bai Hao Yu and Li Hui Zhen goodness and we really love how it brought out more of Li Hui Zhen’s kindheartedness and hardworking nature in front of Bai Hao Yu. Hopefully, he saw how much she thinks of others when she told him about wanting to work hard from her end just so people on his end can shine.
This scene is a bit different from the one in She Was Pretty. Pretty Li Hui Zhen extended it to include the references to the past and that awesome conversation between Bai Hao Yu and Li Hui Zhen. In She Was Pretty, the scene stopped at Ji Sung Joon (Bai Hao Yu) criticising Kim Hye Jin’s inability to put on a band-aid before helping her wrap it around her finger.
Pretty Li Hui Zhen also made Li Hui Zhen’s inability to open a band-aid and put it around her finger as being less clumsy and uncoordinated. With the voicing of Li Hui Zhen’s nervousness, letting Bai Hao Yu know that she was nervous in front of his gaze made the scene somehow more interesting to watch, too.
Watching how Bai Hao Yu responded to Li Hui Zhen’s nervousness and comparing it to how Ji Sung Joon responded to Kim Hye Jin, Bai Hao Yu comes off as a Tsundere-like character (harsh on the outside, but really is really kind on the inside. Ji Sung Joon is a Tsundere, too, but he has a more noticeable condescending, patronising tone when he talks to Kim Hye Jin. Bai Hao Yu doesn’t have this condescending tone.
We think this episode is one we actually think turned out quite well, one that is comparable to She Was Pretty. It’s actually a bit better thanks to that nice scene in the office between Bai Hao Yu and Li Hui Zhen.
We had wondered whether Pretty Li Hui Zhen would somehow include the theme which revolves around shining light on background character that was in She Was Pretty. Judging by what was mentioned in Li Hui Zhen’s mentioning of supporting characters and playing her role well, it looks like that theme that was in She Was Pretty won’t be exactly that. Pretty Li Hui Zhen’s theme seem to be about seeing background characters and supporting characters as having their uses and importance, too. It’s quite a nice way to have a theme about background/supporting characters but not have it be exactly the same.
Onto the next episode. With Bai Hao Yu being clueless but showing signs of being conflicted with his feelings about Li Hui Zhen, who she is and all that, things should be getting more and more exciting!
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