Xiao Xi wakes up to find Jiang Chen cuddling her in the tiny twin cot. She gets up to go to the bathroom. He embraces her from behind and tells her to come back soon. She pats him gently on the head and says, “I will.”
Wu Bo Song leaves town for a month to film a show. Lu Yang is the only one to send him off.
Xiao Xi’s boss switches to being her self-proclaimed agent and leaves to go meet with her publishers. She takes the opportunity to call Jiang Chen and sneak out.
The two of them celebrate with Lin Jing Xiao and Lu Yang at night. Jing Xiao got into graduate school, Xiao Xi is publishing her first manga, and Lu Yang’s esports team got into some world championship final.
Xiao Xi gets super drunk so Jiang Chen has to carry her home. They cuddle on the sofa for a bit, then Jiang Chen asks her if she’d despise him for proposing to her when she’s drunk. She says no. He doesn’t say anything. She pats his face and drunkenly slurs, “Propose!” He agrees, then reminds her that she’s proposing to him right now.
The next morning, Jiang Chen says they should register for a marriage license that day. He knows she remembers proposing to him last night. But she says that she doesn’t want to get married like this, leaving him confused.
Jiang Chen asks Xiao Xi to meet him at the hospital, where he proposes to her in a hospital room. Su Mu had to tell him that Xiao Xi was upset because he didn’t formally propose to her. (Of course.)
The proposal is adorably cheesy and sweet. He thanks her for giving him a once-in-a-lifetime love, words that are oddly sentimental for him, but he says them because he heard that people say sentimental things when they propose. He has Xiao Xi open a large box he carries. Balloons fly out, including one tied to a paper scroll with her ring around it. But the paper is blank — he says that he only used it to weigh down the balloon and ring. Very practical. Then he slides the ring onto her finger.
Xiao Xi asks him about when and how he came up with the proposal. It was very spur-of-the-moment: the balloons are just rubber gloves filled with helium. There’s a small bit where she jokes that he’s trying to kill her, because helium or hai qi, sounds like “harmful gas,” and he teases her about sleeping through high school chemistry.
Jiang Chen sends Xiao Xi home. She suddenly gets shy and doesn’t want him to come in, but he goes in anyway and lies down with his head in her lap to take a nap. Xiao Xi gets a call from her mother while Jiang Chen naps. Her mother asks her when she’s going to bring a boyfriend home, then tries to set her up with a friend’s son. Jiang Chen overhears and grabs the phone, telling Xiao Xi’s mother that he and Xiao Xi are dating now and he’ll go home to see her sometime.
He proceeds to take a shower and gets ready to sleep on her couch. After she takes a shower, she finds him lost in thought and she asks what he’s thinking about. He says that he’s thinking about what he’d do without her. She says that he could find a taller, prettier, smarter woman. He responds, “You’re right!” which makes her upset. (lool.) She clings to him while he goes and brushes his teeth with her toothbrush (ewwwwww). Xiao Xi runs off to bed and continues to pout, but he makes her feel a bit better after he washes her face for her in bed.
At night, neither of them can sleep. Jiang Chen hears thumping from her bedroom and runs in to check on her, but it’s just the upstairs neighbor. He offers to stay with her until she falls asleep. She makes space for him on the bed and he gets in.
Xiao Xi spoons him and asks if he really wanted to propose to her or if he just felt bad. He says that he really meant it. She asks if he would really find a taller, prettier, smarter girl if she weren’t around, then suddenly remembers to brush her teeth. He tells her that it’s too late now and it’s probably not the first time she’s forgotten. But she remembers now! He asks why she always forgets that he really loves her. He says that it doesn’t matter if there are taller, prettier, smarter girls than her because she’s the one he loves. Aww. He kisses her deeply.
In the morning, Jiang Chen wakes up first and smiles at Xiao Xi’s sleeping face. He’s cooking breakfast when she wakes up. She hugs him with eyes still closed, then goes back to bed and falls back asleep. He brings her breakfast and tries to get her to wake up. She complains that she’s tired from last night. They suddenly look at each other awkwardly. Hmmm what did they get up to last night?
He feeds her breakfast and then she goes back to sleep. When she wakes up again, she gets him to carry her around the apartment.
They cook dinner together, but it’s a painful experience. Jiang Chen ends up cutting chicken and vegetables with a set of scalpels he carries around with him in his bag. Xiao Xi suggests that maybe they should just go out to eat but Jiang Chen is adamant about cooking. Neither of them really enjoy the end product of their cooking.
Later, Xiao Xi’s parents show up for a surprise visit. Xiao Xi’s mother takes her aside and warns her to hide any of Jiang Chen’s belongings. Xiao Xi remembers she has laundry drying on the balcony. Her mother suggests she throw it off the side of the building to hide it from her father. Ahahaha.
Xiao Xi’s father has brought a handle of baijiu and insists on challenging Jiang Chen to drinking to test his ability to be his son-in-law. An hour later, they’ve finished over half the bottle and both Xiao Xi’s father and Jiang Chen are wasted. Jiang Chen is so drunk that he starts telling Xiao Xi a story… then starts singing the theme song to Black Cat Detective, the cartoon he used to watch as a child.
Xiao Xi’s manga, titled A Love So Beautiful, is extremely successful and her publishing company holds a book signing event for her. She invites all her high school friends, but none of them are available.
The day of the event, Xiao Xi only has a handful of customers in the morning. She’s disappointed, but then her friends surprise her by showing up. She and Jiang Chen walk through their old campus holding hands.
Epilogue: Jiang Chen sighs as Xiao Xi breaks things and sets things on fire in the kitchen. He reflects on the journey of their relationship and we get his side of the story. Initially, he thought that he must have had bad karma to have fallen in with her. He found her a bit irritating, because she was always chasing him around with such speed despite her short legs and never understood what he was saying. She was always causing trouble, which he always had to clean up after. But he slowly started liking her and getting jealous. He couldn’t help but want to take care of her, but also couldn’t help but tease her sometimes. He admits that he was petty and immature sometimes, saying things that hurt her. But after he went to Beijing, he realized that he needed her and was always thinking of her. He would always tell people that he had a girlfriend, and vowed to get her back no matter what. There was no one else in the world who accepted him fully for who he was, eccentricity and all.
Super epilogue: Someone asks Su Mu who her favorite character is in A Love So Beautiful. She responds, “Wu Bo Song, of course! That diamond was so big.” Bo Song appears next to her. Hmm, will he find love after all?
It’s over! Well, there’s a final special episode, but it seems like that’s just a side story from their school days. I suppose the true conflict resolution of the relationship happened last episode. This finale exists to let us see Xiao Xi and Jiang Chen be happy and give us a peek at where their adult lives lead them. I don’t mind!
The Drama Llama 