The black-haired Donghua is looking at some magic bubbles which show himself and Princess Aranya. He looks depressed.
In the Princess’ palace, the servants bring Aranya (aka Fengjiu) a surprise in a cage. A snake. This is supposed to be Aranya’s pet, who is expecting a good-morning kiss from her. Don’t snakes eat birds and bird eggs?
Fengjiu, on the other hand, does what anyone would do. She gets up, screams and runs. The servants have no idea what’s going on and do nothing to stop the snake from chasing her. Jokes aside, this must be HORRIFYING for Fengjiu. The idea of being chased by a snake horrifies most people, let alone Fengjiu, who is said to especially fear snakes.
Bear, tiger, large birds – those are a different kind of scary. But snakes! Humans are hardwired to fear them.
Those servants standing nearby should have done something is all I’m saying.
In another wing of this palace, another princess is ill. Her mother (or nanny) sends for a healer, who turns out to be white-haired Donghua. And now we know that the black-haired one is not him.
Donghua goes in, takes her pulse and takes in a new information: Fengjiu’s immortal spirit is inside the princess. Hmm…
Outside the Dream Realm, Liansong decides to do what only minor characters do in these dramas: go and get help. The candidate for help is a Sea Prince, who agrees right away and enters the Dream Bubble.
In the Dream Realm, he plays the role of Aranya’s mentor. He initially doesn’t know who Fengjiu is playing, of course. But, again, as a minor character, it only takes him a few minutes to identify her.
Fengjiu is very muddled right now. Her confused face is as cute as her drunk face.
They have a talk and the Sea Prince explains the situation they are in to Fengjiu. Yes, about time someone did.
First of all, we are told that Aranya fell into a snake pit when she was young. Shenye (black-haired Donghua) found her there but it was “Shifu” (Sea Prince’s character) who got her out after Shenye failed to do so. The idea that those snakes let a little bird live for so long is baffling. Not only that, Aranya seemed to be able to make some clothes out of those snakes’ skin. A Flintstone look.
Then, Ararya and Shenye fell in love but they couldn’t be together. After she died, he created this Dream, hoping that maybe they will have a chance in here. Tough luck, I hear she’s still marrying another dude.
But it seems Shenye has made some mistakes with his work. The Dream causes eternal winter in the Bird Kingdom and it’s a little messy inside the Dream regarding who’s supposed to do what. So this Aryana now is only a part of Fengjiu’s soul (shadow?). And we can safely assume that Shenye is a part of Donghua, and their fates are about to intertwine again soon.
To make it brief, the Sea Prince tells Fengjiu to go with the flow for now, play out this role, and find out how Aranya dies. In time, they might come up with a plan to escape.
Fengjiu says she is still confused. So are the rest of us, girl.
COMMENTS
What a journey for Fengjiu so far. The girl just wanted to pay a debt (and possibly be petted by Donghua), but look what she’s landed herself. A mortal trial, imprisonment in an arctic land, bullying, an alternative universe she might be stuck in forever, and a pet snake.
Fengjiu is pretty cool-headed about it though. Anyone else would have had a nervous breakdown, I can tell you that.
In terms of flaws, there have been several. But the one thing that stands out so far is: Fengjiu doesn’t seem to think about her family at all; before she lost her memory, that is. You would think that after a few near-death experiences, she would start to miss her comfortable home and doting grandparents/uncles a little. Her head is a bit too full of white and purple.
Lastly, I have heard from many Pillow Book fans that this Aranya Dream is one of the most complicated things ever introduced in the romance fantasy dramas’ world. And now that I’ve reached this point… yes, it is exactly as people say. We now have two Donghua-s and two Fengjiu-s to deal with.
So my apologies if any information in this recap is inaccurate.
The basics, however, are simple. They’re all trying to escape this Dream because nothing that happens here is real.
Unless it involves General Ye.
The thing that is different between the book and the series is that in the book you don’t know Shenye and Aranya are part of anybody souls’ shadow… they’re just playing a part in the dream to get out of there and the soul part is neverrr mention. Shenye is just a random guy that was in love, and put a curse on the Bird kindom. For me when they choose to use Vengo Gao as Shenye character was a terrible spoiler, because later to know thar Aranya and Shenye are part of Feng and Dong souls is super dramatic, and decisive for some results.