Pretty Li Hui Zhen’s spreading its focus on a number of arcs this episode: Han Xue’s worried about the lack of progress between her and Lin Hu Sheng this episode and lowers herself to a level that even embarrasses herself; Immortal is officially no longer just a magazine, but an online store as well; Xia Qiao decides she will break up with Bai Hao Yu, while Lin Yi Mu will try his best with Li Hui Zhen so long as she’s yet to be with Bai Hao Yu; and right at the end of the episode, the 20th Anniversary event makes its entrance which sees Bai Hao Yu missing from the event as his traumatic memories of his mother hits him yet again.
Pretty Li Hui Zhen Episode 26 Recap
Taking a short break from the main arc, Episode 26 opens with Han Xue running over to Editor in Chief for help with Lin Hu Sheng. There’s not been any more progress with him and wonders if the Editor in Chief could have a word with him. The Editor in Chief can’t. Her reason is that if she did, it’d only cause him to rebel. She knows this because how could she not know? He’s her nephew… or is he? Her words are spoken like that to deliberately confuse us viewers in the game of guess who the heir is.
The Editor in Chief tells Han Xue to be more proactive and look at why a romantic relationship failed to develop instead. Her thoughts is that it can be one of two things: he doesn’t like her that much or he might already have someone next to him.
Just so happens, right after the talk, there’s mention of a very popular fashion assistant who works in the company who’s interested in Lin Hu Sheng. No guy doesn’t know who she is because of how pretty she is it seems. Lin Hao knows exactly who she is, probably Lin Yi Mu, too, and Lin Hu Sheng definitely knows who she is.
The name of this fashion assistant? Wang Shina. To Han Xue’s displeasure, she’s seen chatting away with Lin Hu Sheng later in the evening which has Han Xue try seduce him. She invites him out to a restaurant under the guise of needing his opinions on styling. It has Lin Hu Sheng finding the location to discuss work odd, but that’s explained away with Han Xue saying a change in location could spark inspiration.
Han Xue then puts on her moves, trying three times to seduce Lin Hu Sheng with a view of her chest. The first time, she purposefully leans low so her chest is viewable by him. Lin Hu Sheng doesn’t notice. She tries a second time. This time she guides him by pointing to the images in her folder so his gaze is trained to follow her finger before drawing it across her chest. He notices, but he’s not a pervert and quickly takes the folder of styles away so he’s no longer looking down her chest. She tries a third time by physically going to his side and leaning her chest into his shoulder.
At this point, shame and embarrassment hit Han Xue. She screams and runs out of the restaurant. In order to get a guy, she stooped as low as using her body in such a way. Lin Hu Sheng catches up with her, after which she tells him she had suddenly remembered she has to go back to the office and that she no longer needs his help. Before she takes off, she tells him to go back to Wang Shina. That has him confused before he’s heard to saying how cute Han Xue was. It looks like he’s not interested in Wang Shina. Han Xue really didn’t have anything to worry about.
Immortal is engaging in a strategic partnership with Elleshop. From here on in, it is no longer just Immortal, but ‘Immortal Elleshop’. Immortal will become a medium for the online retailer to promote their products. When the Immortal team are informed of this business decision, they’re not too supportive of the sudden move. For one, there’s no connection between magazines and online. Secondly, they can’t understand the need for such a move.
Bai Hao Yu reveals their second placing in sales for their last issue. That doesn’t help clarify much more as second place is regarded as not a bad position to be in the magazine market. Resistance from the team continue as the team adds that working for an online store is completely foreign to them and it has them baffled why they would go this way and add more pressure onto what they’re already under.
The meeting was going nowhere. For the situation to be understood and things to be done a lot more easily, Lin Yi Mu spits out what Bai Hao Yu seems reluctant to reveal:
Lin Yi Mu:
“If the magazine isn’t able reach Number 1, our Editorial Department will have to shut down.”
He tells the team that Bai Hao Yu was sent to Immortal for this reason and Immortal only has three months to do it in. Team Leader Zhu Ying chimes in to say that they only have two months left with Bai Hao Yu having already been at Immortal for a month.
Lin Hao questions why such information wasn’t told earlier. He comes off completely unaware about Headquarter’s ultimatum. If he was the heir, he probably should know about this, but clearly, his questioning is meant to confuse: does he not know about it—or as an heir to the company, is Lin Hao suggesting it should’ve been revealed earlier?
Li Hui Zhen answers Lin Hao’s question for Bai Hao Yu and explains that he didn’t want to cause anxiety and have it affect performance. So, he kept it secret and bore the pressures on his own.
Bai Hao Yu then reveals the reason for why he’s been pushing them so hard: he wanted to bring out their potential (which he believed existed in them after reviewing each of their profiles before entering Immortal) and make the magazine better together. He then assures them that this partnerhip would not reduce Immortal to a catalogue for the online store as the online store pursues the same values as they do: quality and style; and with their help they’ll hopefully create a better user experience for their readers.
With this explanation, the team are on board. Immortal-Elleshop is made official with new signage which includes the online store’s name under the magazine’s, and an investment company and its executives are brought in to make it all happen.
The episode goes back to focusing on developing a bit more on the Bai Hao Yu-Li Hui Zhen relationship next. Ever since Li Hui Zhen’s return, there seems to be something Bai Hao Yu is wanting to say to Li Hui Zhen. In the previous episode, near the end where Bai Hao Yu and Li Hui Zhen was taking a coffee break together, he had started to say something only to be interrupted by Lin Yi Mu who arrived to intentionally break the two up.
In this episode, Bai Hao Yu tries again at the end of the work day. Li Hui Zhen had stayed behind to help her team leader finish off some proofreading, while Bai Hao Yu stayed behind to work on his speech for the 20th Anniversary event. The scene has Bai Hao Yu mention about doing overtime and wanting to have Immortal set the world on fire when Li Hui Zhen stops him midway in his walk to get coffee. He seems to worry about the possibility all their hard work will amount to nothing and asks Li Hui Zhen for her thoughts on it. She tells him that back then, she would’ve worried about such an outcome, but now, she’s okay with it as long as she tried her best and no regrets exist.
This is when Bai Hao Yu makes another attempt to say whatever it was he had started saying last episode:
Bai Hao Yu:
“Hui Zhen, actually… actually, I feel that—”
And that’s as far as Bai Hao Yu gets before a call from Lin Yi Mu interrupts, which is actually a bit further than where he got the last time he tried to say something. It doesn’t give any hint to what he might be trying to say. Bai Hao Yu leaves as Li Hui Zhen takes the call which has Lin Yi Mu ask her out to dinner and Li Hui Zhen decline in order to finish doing her work for her team leader.
Lin Yi Mu:
“If she and Bai Hao Yu really end up together, as long as she’s happy, I’ll be happy. But while they are still not together, I can still hope for some miracle, right?”
Lin Yi Mu may have said that Li Hui Zhen and Bai Hao Yu are predestined, but as long as they are still not together yet, he can still give it his best and hope that he might come out top with Li Hui Zhen.
In response to the fancily encased employee badge Bai Hao Yu gave Li Hui Zhen, Lin Yi Mu’s gone and gotten her an expensive handbag to give her after she finishes her overtime at work. Li Hui Zhen is reluctant to accept because it’s so expensive. Lin Yi Mu has to convince her take the bag, telling her how useful it is and how for the last three days he’s been going to the mall just to look for a bag to give her. Does she get that? No. She can’t accept such an expensive bag and wants him to go return it and exchange it for something useful which he can use.
Lin Yi Mu:
“Let me tell you. The store assistants already recognise me. They all said that if they were my girlfriend, they’d be so fortunate.”
Li Hui Zhen:
“You’re already giving gifts to your girlfriend. Girlfriend. This girlfriend hasn’t even appeared yet and you’ve already mentioned her. If I still don’t accept it…”
Lin Yi Mu tries to get her to accept it by saying how the ladies at the store said if they were his girlfriend, they’d be so fortune to receive such a gift. He seems to have told them that he was giving it to his girlfriend. Li Hui Zhen misunderstands him to mean that he was lying about having a girlfriend to buy for and can’t return it. This seems to be the only reason she ended up accepting the bag.
To Lin Yi Mu’s delight, Li Hui Zhen thanks him for the bag and tells him she will use it.
The fight for Li Hui Zhen continues on their way to the office the next morning. With Bai Hao Yu on her right, though, he’s losing that fight as her attention is focused on finding out whether Bai Hao Yu had a good night sleep, whether he had to stay back for very long and suggesting he shouldn’t stay back too long because it’s bad for his health. Lin Yi Mu tries to hurry Li Hui Zhen along to the elevator and separate the two, but with Li Hui Zhen not wanting to cooperate, there was no chance of things going his way. He’s forced to be like a third wheel as Bai Hao Yu suggests heading into the elevator together, to which Li Hui Zhen happily agrees. It’s a losing battle. (Poor Lin Yi Mu.)
Xia Qiao:
“Please forgive me for not having the courage to explain things to you face to face. I only dare to use a letter to tell you the truth.”
Xia Qiao’s starting to come to terms the fact that she and Bai Hao Yu don’t belong together and is planning to break up with him. A late-night meet-up with Lin Yi Mu has her shout out all her feelings for Bai Hao Yu while speeding down the road on the back of Lin Yi Mu’s motorbike before going home and revealing that she’s planning to break up with her boyfriend to Li Hui Zhen. “He belongs to someone else” she tell her best friend after a question is asked about why the sudden decision. She then goes into her room to start writing Bai Hao Yu a letter explaining the situation and asking his forgiveness.
The episode ends with the 20th Anniversary event which sees everyone waiting on Bai Hao Yu to show up to present to a room full of guests.
Where is Bai Hao Yu? He’s stuck on the side road. It’s raining heavily and the trauma from witnessing his mother being hit on a rainy night has paralysed him from making it to his destination again.
Zhu Ying has instructed the announcer to wait for their signal, but somehow he thought he had been given the signal and went to start the show before that signal was given. He’s gone and begun the video presentation, which means in a few minutes’ time, Immortal will have to have their speaker on stage.
Lin Yi Mu is picked to go up and speak in place of Bai Hao Yu. He has nothing prepared, so understandably he’s reluctant. Fortunately, though, just as he moves to take the stage, The Editor in Chief is heard and the spotlight goes over to her. She’s taken Bai Hao Yu’s place.
Comments
Wow, the drama has gone as far as changing the signage to include the online store in Immortal’s signage. That’s some significant product placement. The investment company Immortal brought in appears to be a real life investment company as well. It still irks us so much how all of this was written in just so these companies get promoted, but at least Li Hui Zhen’s idea is still the feature of the 20th Anniversary issue and the event, just that it’s not the sole saviour of Immortal magazine.
Subtle development: we not sure if anyone picked it up from one of Bai Hao Yu’s dialogue we put in the recap, but Bai Hao Yu’s started calling Li Hui Zhen by her first name, too. For some reason when Bai Hao Yu calls Li Hui Zhen by her first name, it doesn’t stand out as when Li Hui Zhen calls Bai Hao Yu by his first name.
Li Hui Zhen called Bao Hao Yu by his first name again in this episode, too. This time it was in front of everyone during the Immortal meeting. (No one at the meeting called her up on it, though.) The use of his first name like that works—since she does have a track record of speaking and rambling before she realises what she’s saying—but still feels so forced into the story.
But geez, what happened behind the scenes that got them to settle on calling each other by their first names? We can’t imagine it. They don’t seem close enough at this point to drop last names. But, it was nice to hear Bai Hao Yu call her that: he’s finally calling the right person Hui Zhen.
This episode was a better episode than the last one. It had some nice scenes which we remember to be more or less the same as the original e.g. the Lin Yi Mu and Xia Qiao scene and the Li Hui Zhen and Lin Yi Mu. We even thought the scene where Lin Yi Mu was a third wheel in the walk up to the office was pretty cool. Although we feel horrible for Lin Yi Mu for being ignored, at the same, it’s interesting seeing Bai Hao Yu enjoy obtaining Li Hui Zhen’s attention, because that just means he cares whether he gets her attention or not, which is like an indication of his feelings for her.
The Immortal-Elleshop merge, the signage change, we’re not pleased that it’s likely a huge product placement in the story, but take that part away, it’s actually an interesting move to see a magazine work with an online store.
Excitement and anticipation levels aren’t as high as three episodes ago, but we still have hope. We’ll see how things are handled for the rest of the story.
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