Recap
Thirteen and his lackey show up at the drama club auditions and tries to silently heckle Xu Lian Qiao because she replaced Gu Yi Xin. But Xu Lian Qiao ignores them and uses her own sign language, interpreted by her vice president, to tell them to leave.
Lin Luo Xue goes to find Liu Wen Shu, the guy Ren Yi Fan challenged her to seduce. She soon finds out that she’s been tricked — Liu Wen Shu doesn’t hate Ren Yi Fan; he’s in love with him, and pretends to hate him in order to get his attention. Realizing that trying to get Liu Wen Shu’s attention is a failed endeavor, she instead encourages him to pursue Ren Yi Fan.
Ren Yi Fan auditions at the drama club in an attempt to woo Xu Lian Qiao, who is clearly uninterested, although some of the other girls onstage seem enamored with him. She calls in Xiao Fang, a member of the drama club who also happens to be the girl that Ren Yi Fan attempted to woo the first day of school. Xiao Fang recognizes him and reacts dramatically. Xu Lian Qiao gives her a hug and tells her no bad men will ever hurt her again. Watching their closeness, Ren Yi Fan assumes they’re dating and awkwardly makes his exit. They don’t say anything to correct him.
Ren Yi Fan and Lin Luo Xue meet up. Ren Yi Fan tries to suggest going for another round of the challenge, but Lin Luo Xue says she’ll accept the loss. She’s tired of playing games with other people’s feelings. Ren Yi Fan says that he’s tried to change, but thinks it might be in his nature to be a flirt. Before he can say more, Liu Wen Shu shows up, and he runs off to avoid him.
Lin Luo Xue laughs and starts to get up, but is forced back down by Xu Lian Qiao. Lian Qiao accuses Lin Luo Xue of thinking she’s gay. Lin Luo Xue says she doesn’t, but clearly seems uncomfortable when Xu Lian Qiao grabs her by the hand to take her somewhere, then pauses to say that her hand is “so comfortable to hold” (perhaps just to mess with her?)
Xu Lian Qiao takes Luo Xue to the theater, where she shows her a painting of a tree with multiple faces. They debate the meaning of the painting for a bit. Xu Lian Qiao shows Luo Xue the back of the picture frame, where there’s a sketch of a sapling. Her ultimate interpretation of the painting is that no matter how terrible one’s life direction seems, there’s always the option of starting anew. It turns out that Xu Lian Qiao always teaches this lesson to women who she thinks have potential. She doesn’t bother with men because they lack depth and only care about one thing until they’re thirty.
Afterward, Luo Xue runs into Ren Yi Fan trying to hide from Liu Wen Shu. She makes a new bet with him — to have a relationship with only one person for the next year, without distractions. He seems skeptical, but agrees.
Li Shu Ci finds Xiao Hai Yang and tells him about joining drama club, then leaves him with some notes for the upcoming semester. She tells him not to feel bad about her — she’s decided to give herself a new start and he should too.
Yu Hao and Lin Luo Xue prank Hai Yang to try to get a reaction out of him. She lectures him about not acting himself and how that has negatively affected the rest of the club. Noticing Shu Ci’s notebook, she reminds Hai Yang that he’s already more fortunate that most people: even though he can’t have the person he loves, he at least has someone who loves him. Yu Hao takes advantage of this opportunity to slap Hai Yang.
Whatever they did, it seems to work, because Hai Yang agrees to a new recruitment method that Luo Xue comes up with. With Yu Hao carrying a speaker, they strut glamorously down the main college walk while playing music and wearing a recruitment slogan for the club on their backs. In a voice over, Luo Xue tells us that when relationships change it’s easy to feel lost and freak out, but she made a bet today to not let herself have a “distracted heart” and she’s ready to start anew.
Thoughts
This episode is all about moving on and about how sometimes we just need a little push to motivate ourselves to change for the better. Xu Lian Qiao (who is hilarious, by the way, in her strange and deadpan way) pushes Luo Xue to move in a new direction, and that creates a ripple effect as she takes this new, empowering sense of self and encourages those around her — Ren Yi Fan and Xiao Hai Yang — to move on as well. At the same time, it’s clear that some of our characters, like Thirteen, are still struggling to move on.
The Drama Llama 