EPISODE 1 RECAP
Qin Shi (Yang Mi) is a successful lawyer at a famous firm. This firm, however, has an unspoken rule that women must be married in order to qualify for any promotion. I doubt there’s any noble reason behind this; so I can only deduce that they mean a woman needs to “belong” to someone to be trusted. They can’t have women who engage in shameful behaviors like… actually going out and meeting men represent the firm, I guess.
To deal with this requirement, Qin Shi’s sister finds her a picture of some random guy off of the internet and they fake a wedding photo for Qin Shi to put on her desk. Not a great plan, but I suppose you can only fight a nutty demand with an equally nutty solution.
Things go smoothly for Qin Shi from that point on since she herself is a capable lawyer. And it doesn’t hurt that she looks like a gorgeous model 24/7.
Yang Hua (Xu Kai) — the male lead — on the other hand, is in a career limbo, looks as cute as a… squishy toy in a turtle neck, and not exactly happy right now.
His parents are pressuring him to get married and have children. Because, hey, if you’re unsure about your future then at least go out there and make babies. That should tell society who’s boss.
Yang Hua is the quiet type who likes to work with computers and raise turtles and… that kind of thing. But he often gets bombarded by his mom with pictures of “eligible women”. One day, for the sake of some peace and quiet, he agrees to go on a blind date with one of those women.
On that day, he happens upon the same restaurant as Qin Shi’s company, and while he is still looking around to see where he should go, Qin Shi’s colleague and boss recognize him right away from the photo on her desk. He is known to them by the name “James Yang” apparently.
Qin Shi is dumbfounded for a second, but she quickly collects herself and goes to resolve the situation like a boss – grabbing this guy and kissing him in front of everyone. Yeah… uh, what are you thinking here, Qin Shi?
She is not just kissing him like a wife greeting a husband, she’s kissing him like he has just swum through a river with alligators, walked through coals barefooted, and killed a dragon to propose to her.
Unsurprisingly, Qin Shi’s boss tells her to go get a room, which she does.
Yang Hua asks Qin Shi to explain herself. She honestly explains the situation and asks him to give her some time to resolve it. Yang Hua decides to give her three days to tell everyone they are getting a divorce or her secret is no longer safe with him.
Qin Shi reluctantly agrees to this, the pressure is on her because she has previously promised her sister to live and work well. And she can’t work well if her imaginary husband suddenly wants a divorce!
When Yang Hua goes home that night, he finds that his mother has locked him out. Probably has to do with how he stood up the girl she arranged him with. No doubt, Yang Hua will have to cooperate with Qin Shi to save himself, because who’s going to feed his pet turtle if he is not allowed in his room?
Love will blossom, so and so. If you’ve seen Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal, you get the jig.
COMMENTS
This is not a bad start if you can overlook some very unrealistic elements in the setup of the lead couple.
In terms of acting, Yang Mi is still Yang Mi. But for the most part, her nonchalant front works for this type of career-focused female lead. Kind of like Bai Qian, but with an actual job. If you can ignore that shy, stumbling school-girl mannerism she employs in response to every single drama love interest regardless of the period of time or her own character’s background, you should have no problem.
Most of the senior actors are entertaining in their roles. And Xu Kai? Let’s just say that he nails the look of a stray kitten who begs you to take it home with the power of its eyes.
Other than that, there isn’t much to say about his character yet. The later episodes will tell us how his acting is.
So far, I cannot say that I look forward to the romance. Though I do look forward to the crazy situations the two main characters will subject each other to. Each successful female character introduced here also has a unique background story (I hope), and their relationships with the female lead seem to be off to an interesting start.
Xu Kai is pretty indeed😅
Fingers crossed that we get some action initiated by Qin Shi.
Looks like we will XD
It’s a good drama and while I was very disturbed by Xu Kai acting in the beginning I eventually got into it.
Yang Hua is my favourite male character 2022. I absolutely adored him. Like absolutely adored him and I am not a Xu Kai fan at all.
I enjoyed Yang Mi Qin Shi as well.
Thanks for stopping by! And great to hear the lead couple’s acting is good, I’m looking forward to seeing them ride this romance out 😀
I gave up this drama half way because I still couldn’t see the chemistry between the two. None. The mil and yang mi dispute was getting annoying for a while instead of entertaining in the beginning and I didn’t care about the work politics etc either.
Jumped over to Hi Venus and not looking back. Go watch that one, it’s beautifully made with chemistry oozing if you don’t mind the over gone bgm.
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll definitely take a look 😀