Hanxiang and the emperor have their first real conversation.
Hanxiang says that if the emperor wants to have her around as a fellow human being then he must treat her as such. He must respect her and give her the right to say no, otherwise, don’t complain when she continues to ignore him. That was daring on her part.
The emperor finds this entertaining and agrees to give it a chance. Note that Hanxiang is only safe for as long as she interests the emperor because his promise to leave her alone is not out of respect at all, but because he sees it as a necessary step to win her.
Our gang, on the other hand, goes out to visit the restaurant and Meng Dan.
Meng Dan bows to them and they become friends.
Next, per Hanxiang’s instruction, Meng Dan tells the gang the complete love story between him and Hanxiang. He begins from when they were children and the whole thing takes an entire 12 minutes, which I really think is unnecessary. But we get to see the adorable mini version of Hanxiang dancing around with butterflies who were attracted to her scent.
Point is, they tried to escape many times together already and never succeeded. Well, obviously they failed, if they didn’t even bother to change into more convenient clothes for their escape attempts.
Who wears those outfits and heavy accessories to travel through a scorching desert?
The one important thing to take away is: they can’t ever hide from the people who want to find them because of Hanxiang’s fragrance. All Hanxiang’s father had to do every time is release his hunting dogs and they would lead him to Hanxing easily.
After hearing the story, the gang agrees to help Meng Dan and Hanxiang. They’re like: we probably will have to betray our father, it’s gonna be dangerous, we’ll be in more trouble than we already are; yep, count us in, we love being heroes.
And you can guess what happens at home while these kids are happily chatting, the Dowager pays them a visit. Again. Does she just have nothing important to do?
The gang comes home, still in their commoners’ and boys’ clothes.
The Dowager decides she needs to flog someone, and Jinsuo is her first candidate.
As a result, Ziwei and jumps in to shield Jinsuo. Then it’s the maids. And in goes Xiaoyanzi. Next, the boy servants. But not Erkang and Yongqi, you see. No no, they can do no wrong. *eye-roll*
It’s good to see Xiaoyanzi and Jinsuo bond while being hit together during this scene, though, instead of just fighting over who cares about Ziwei more like usual.
Also, I know this is supposed to be a serious scene but the two guys’ expressions just kill me every time.
Yongqi tries to sneak out to fetch the emperor but gets busted before he can make it out of the door. Miraculously, the emperor shows up anyway, and Xiaoyanzi crawls to him like a baby.
The emperor reminds his hypocritical mom that a royal baby has just been born, so don’t be eager to inflict pain on people lest it brings the baby bad luck.
At this, the Dowager tells them all to stop. The emperor pretends to scold Xiaoyanzi and Ziwei for a bit and walks his mom back to her place.
Erkang and Yongqi want to go back and make sure the two girls are okay, but Qing’er appears and stops them. Turns out, it was not a coincidence that the emperor showed up to help at all, it was Qing’er who alerted him. Qing’er also tells the boys to go home and stay put, otherwise, they would just get Xiaoyanzi and Ziwei into more trouble since there are obviously spies around the girls’ place. Qing’er is so smart, how could you miss the point about spies, Erkang!?