EPISODE 11
Erkang means business when he says he is going to talk to the Emperor about his marriage arrangement. This time, he leaves no doubt about it:
I don’t care if other nobles have multiple concubines, I am willing to be different from Ziwei. Plus, I don’t want to betray Qing’er, either. OKAY? Bye.
The Emperor then promises to reconsider the matter.
Now, the Emperor is not exactly a nice guy in this episode. He visits Hanxiang again, tries to be polite at first, but then practically throws himself on her.
But before he can actually do anything, Ziwei and Xiaoyanzi arrive. Thank god, their presence turns his pervert mode off and drags him back to being the respectable dad that he is.
Then, the three women put on a music show for the Emperor. It’s a song Ziwei wrote about love and freedom. That, combined with Erkang’s passionate speech about true love earlier on makes the emperor wonder out loud if he will ever have a true partner in life. I feel like if you don’t, it’s your own fault, given the kind of privileges you have compared to other emperors — being able to go out there and make friends and all.
Then, the emperor realizes that the most faithful friend/wife he’s ever had is Lady Ling, so he goes to visit her. When he tells her what’s on his mind, Lady Ling is like: erm… you’re trying to be a good husband? What’s with all this crap… you’re scaring me.
Anyway, they have a good talk that night.
Next problem. Cause we’ll never be out of problems with these kids.
The gang is starting to notice that Jinsuo indeed has a big crush on Erkang that’s only getting bigger. She’s making tea especially for him and everything.
And Ziwei and Erkang are like: eeekkk…
But for now, they decide to leave that aside to deal with the more pressing matter: reuniting Hanxiang with her alcoholic boyfriend.
Xiaoyanzi comes up with a plan: she’s going make some fragrances to see if they can have other people pose as Hanxiang so that when the real Hanxiang runs away, the hunting dogs will be confused and distracted by all kinds of fragrances in all directions and won’t find her so easily.
So, the next day, the gang goes out to gather flower petals to make some bathwater that smells like heaven and lets an eager volunteer try it out: Xiaoyanzi.
Side note: all the interactions between the servants and Jinsuo are pretty natural and fun to watch, it’s like they’re actually friends in real life.
But it doesn’t work as well as they expected. Oh, Xiaoyanzi ends up smelling great, all right, but instead of attracting butterflies, her fragrance becomes a bee magnet.
The bees find her and sting her and it becomes chaos in the garden. Everyone yells at her to run; Yongqi, being the perfect boyfriend that he is, takes off his tunic and covers Xiaoyanzi’s face with it. But the damage has already been done.
Vicky Zhao has so much control over her performance that even when Xiaoyanzi throws a tantrum over the failure of her own idea, she’s STILL likable.
But they all have a good laugh about it in the end, including the Emperor.
Xiaoyanzi’s positive energy must be contagious because after the bee incident, the Emperor lets Hanxiang know he will respect what she wants from now on. Hmm, he already promised that once, though.
THE GUYS’ EXPRESSIONS OF THE DAY
