When Pan’er attempts to leave, Qianfan asks her for a few more minutes, he has some explanations to give. Well, yes, dude, it’s about time, don’t you think?
He tells her all about his mission and his injuries and why he couldn’t make it back on time. That’s it? Pan’er is unimpressed. She is angry with him for not communicating, not because of his bad time management. Which is true, it shouldn’t have been that hard for Qianfan to send someone to give her the money or tell her he was wounded in action.
Desperate to make Pan’er stay, Qianfan pulls a page out of Yehua’s book and puts on an “I’m hurt” act, he tells Pan’er her mousetrap really injured his foot. Sorry, Qianfan, Pan’er is neither Bai Qian nor Lingxi. She has no time to tend to men with low self-regard; don’t become one of those. Pan’er points out right away that she just SAW him sprinting up a bridge, nothing is wrong with his foot.
Chi Pan appears and snatches Pan’er away. She doesn’t object, even when Qianfan runs after her. We really can’t blame her for scoffing at Qianfan’s half-hearted explanations, can we.
Pan’er spends the rest of the evening with Chi Pan, who tells her a bit about Qianfan’s family history. Lots of drama there. Long story short, his childhood was tragic, what with his mother disgracing the family and his father leaving them and all that.
Next, Chi Pan suggests that he and Pan’er should be a couple — in a way that makes sense to him. They are excellent business partners, and he finds her pretty, so why not? But of course, Pan’er refuses. Don’t worry about Chi Pan’s feelings, he’s way too goofy and kiddie to ever have a real heartbreak.
When Pan’er goes home that day, she finds some yellow flowers hung among the bush at her gates. It’s one of her and Qianfan’s things, each color is a code for what they want to say to each other at the time. Yellow can mean “miss you, wanna talk?”, or maybe “mousetraps are on sale and I’m willing to suffer more”, could be either.
But this just makes Pan’er angrier, she rips the flowers from the bush and throws them away.
San-niang’s son Zifang finds his way to the restaurant and tries to steal some food. He hasn’t been doing so well on his own ever since he and his dad shunned San-niang, it seems. San-niang is so overjoyed when she recognizes him that she drops a bowl of hot rice soup on Chi Pan.
Ouyang tries to blackmail Gao Hui again. He wants her to arrange a meeting for him and the Emperor so he can plead his case since the Emperor is ignoring him now. I don’t know, Ouyang, what more can you do besides hitting your head with rocks and eating from a bonsai vase?