Prologue:
Wang Quan Sheng drives a young Huang Yu Xuan to the airport, but his car breaks down. Yu Xuan anxiously gets out of the car to call a cab, worried she’ll miss her flight. A police officer approaches, telling them they can’t park their car there, and Yu Xuan snaps at him saying that their car broke down and asking if he’s really going to write them a ticket. He hands her the ticket. It says “Yu Xuan, marry him!”
Her coworkers show up, singing and bearing bouquets. Quan Sheng goes down on one knee and presents her with the engagement ring, asking if she’ll marry him.
Real time:
Yu Xuan wakes up and studies her engagement ring. She suddenly notices an inscription in English along the inside: “only if you asked to see me.”
At work, Ah Tuo demos to his coworkers a new VR app that allows the player to experience the scene of their dreams with a number of attractive, real-life people who can be scanned into the app. Kun Bu lives out a dreamy scene with Wang Zi. (It’s a reference to Attention, Love!, a previous drama from this director-writer team.)
Yu Xuan asks Ah Tuo to find the origin of the photo of her doppelganger, Quan Sheng, and the unknown boy. She’s convinced that it’s actually Quan Sheng in the photo, but knows that there’s no way the girl is her. Not only does she not recognize the location or the second boy, she also would never wear a haircut like that.
They find out that the photo came from Wretch, a popular Taiwanese blogging platform that shut down in 2012. The photo is probably from 2010, before Yu Xuan had met Quan Sheng.
Chen Yun Ru wakes up to a 6 AM alarm to get not only herself ready for school but also take care of the rest of her family. Her mother is asleep in front of the TV, still drunk from the previous night. She carries her up to her bedroom. Then she wakes up her brother Chen Si Yuan for school, having already laundered his uniform and bought him breakfast, but he’s ungrateful. All of that makes her just miss the bus and she starts walking toward school.
Li Zi Wei and Mo Jun Jie ride up on their scooters. Zi Wei convinces her to accept a ride from Jun Jie. The two boys race on their way to school, forcing Yun Ru to grab onto Jun Jie’s shoulders.
They try to hide their motorcycles off campus, but get caught by a school officer anyway and all three are forced to write self-reflections. Some other students see them in the classroom and gossip that the three of them are in a love triangle. Yun Ru is a bit of a loner, and two of the girls gossip that she’s too busy with her two boyfriends to make friends. Zi Wei stands up to defend her.
Zi Wei and Jun Jie chase after Yun Ru on her way out of school. Zi Wei asks if she’s avoiding them because of the girls who were gossiping earlier. He says that she can dislike him all she wants, but she’s not allowed to dislike Jun Jie. He won’t let his best friend be disliked by the girl he likes. Then he says that she has to accept a ride home from Jun Jie to make up for getting the two of them in trouble. He runs off, leaving Jun Jie and Yun Ru alone.
Yun Ru asks Jun Jie why he’s friends with someone as odd as Zi Wei. Jun Jie responds that Zi Wei can be annoying, but once you get to know him better, he’s one of the best friends you could ever have.
Jun Jie “walks” Yun Ru home by trailing after her by a few feet. She finally turns around and tells him that he doesn’t have to go out of his way to walk her home. He responds that it’s on the way, then tells Yun Ru not to read too much into what Zi Wei said about him liking her. Zi Wei just likes to tease.
They walk side by side in silence for a while, each looking at the other when the other isn’t looking. Yun Ru breaks the silence by asking Jun Jie how he became friends with Zi Wei. She admits that she’s never really known how to talk to people and has never had any friends, and is envious of how easily both Jun Jie and Zi Wei call each other best friends.
Jun Jie suddenly stops and watches her pensively, then decides to share a secret of his own: he has a hearing aid for his right ear. Growing up, he resented his hearing aid and how it set him apart. He didn’t have friends either and was the recipient of bullying and pity, neither of which he wanted. But Zi Wei didn’t treat him any differently. He was curious about Jun Jie’s hearing aid and made it into something fun. He was the first person who was willing to play with Jun Jie and treat him like a friend, and since then, no one cared anymore that Jun Jie had a deaf ear. Since then, they’ve been best friends.
Jun Jie asks Yun Ru a question now that he’s answered one of hers: does she care that he can’t hear out of his right ear? She responds that she doesn’t care. He smiles and says that they can be best friends now, too. Yun Ru offers him a small smile without making eye contact and continues on toward home. Jun Jie whispers an excited, “Yes!” then follows her. What a cutie!
Chen Cai Yu shows up at Yu Xuan’s apartment, where Xiao Dai and Kun Bu are already hanging out, with a yearbook in hand. He tries to flirt with Xiao Dai, unable to truly abandon his playboy habits, but Yu Xuan warns her off. She pores through the yearbook, trying to find her doppelganger, while Xiao Dai and Kun Bu whisper with Cai Yu and bring him up to speed on the situation.
Yu Xuan doesn’t find anything and warns Cai Yu that she will reveal his playboy history to his wife if he’s hiding anything from her. He responds that he really doesn’t know anything about her doppelganger. Then didn’t nickname him “Chen Bu Tiao” (“Not Picky” Chen) for nothing — he knew every girl five years above and below him within a fifty kilometer radius of where he went to school, and he wouldn’t forget a pretty face like hers.
Xiao Dai and Kun Bu ask if Quan Sheng had ever shown classic signs of cheating or having liked her because of her doppelganger. For example, did he ever call her by the wrong name? Or when they first met, did he act like he already knew her?
Yu Xuan thinks back. He never called her by the wrong name, but when he first confessed to her, they had barely known each other, yet he had said that he already liked her long before she knew him. There was also a painting he made of a high school student running; he said she was the first girl he had ever liked. Yu Xuan wordlessly retreats in her bedroom, mystifying her friends.
Yun Ru returns home to find out that her parents are getting a divorce. It’s no surprise, because they’ve been living apart for years now. They ask Yun Ru who she wants to live with, but she asks why they aren’t asking her brother. That sets off her parents into an argument with each other over who her brother will live with. Yun Ru interrupts them, saying she knows that they only gave her a choice because neither of them want her. She runs out of the house.
Zi Wei finds Yun Ru wandering alone, upset, and offers to chat and trade secrets with her to make her feel better. She tells him about how her parents act like they’re giving her a choice when in reality they’ve already decided. She’s known since she was little, when her parents first started living apart and argued over who Si Yuan would live with, that neither of her parents wanted her. He shares his own secret, something Mo Jun Jie doesn’t even know: he and his family are emigrating to Canada after his high school graduation. His parents also acted like he had a choice when they had already decided what would happen.
Yun Ru asks him why he hasn’t told Jun Jie. Zi Wei responds that while he is popular and has many friends, Jun Jie only has one friend: him. He knows that Jun Jie would be devastated if he found out, and he doesn’t want to see him cry.
He catches Yun Ru looking at him and jokes, “What are you looking at? Don’t go falling in love with me just because I’m handsome.” She quickly looks away and scoffs that she would never like him. Silently, she tells herself that she isn’t falling in love with him, she just doesn’t want him to go because she hasn’t gotten to know him yet.
Kun Bu tells Yu Xuan that she found her doppelganger. Or more accurately, she found clues that could lead to the doppelganger. 32 Records Shop was in the background of the photo. While it doesn’t exist anymore, Kun Bu founds the man who used to own the store; he now owns a coffee shop called 32 Coffee Shop.
They go to the coffee shop to find the man, who looks like he’s seen a ghost when he sees Yu Xuan and calls her Yun Ru. They find out that Yun Ru was this man’s niece. He recognizes the two boys in the photo as classmates who were always hanging around the shop, but he doesn’t remember their names. Yu Xuan asks if she can have his niece’s contact info, but he tells her that it’s not possible: Yun Ru passed away twenty years ago in 1999.
If Yun Ru passed away in 1999, that means the photo must have been taken before 1999. There’s no way that Quan Sheng could be the person in the photo, because he would have only been five or six years old. Kun Bu finds it terribly romantic that Yu Xuan and Quan Sheng’s doppelgangers also knew each other, and thinks that Yu Xuan should be happy because now she knows that Quan Sheng didn’t fall in love with her just because she reminded him of someone else.
But Yu Xuan isn’t happy. Instead, she drinks alone at home, flipping through Quan Sheng’s Facebook profile again. An imaginary Quan Sheng stops her from drinking more and asks why she’ll only be satisfied if she can prove that he didn’t love her. Why is she afraid of acknowledging that the only person in his heart is her?
She sobs as she says that it’s all his fault. Why did he have to be so good to her and make her like him so much? The only way she can find it in herself to let him go is if she’s able to prove to herself that he didn’t really love her.
The album that Zi Wei requested arrives at the record shop: Wu Bai & China Blue’s The End of Love. Yun Ru goes to look for Zi Wei at his classroom, but he’s not there. Instead, another male student sees her and asks if she’s looking for someone. She shakes her head and walks past him. Eerie music plays as he watches her walk away. Huh?
Yun Ru finds Zi Wei and Jun Jie playing basketball with their classmates. She watches them from a distance with a smile, then slips the cassette into her pocket.
Later, Zi Wei and Jun Jie spot her in the hallway. They hurry to catch up with her and chat. Zi Wei asks if his cassette has arrived yet; she lies and says no. He and Jun Jie then convince her to wait for them after school, making some excuse up about how they want to buy more records at the store.
They suddenly hear Zi Wei and Yun Ru’s names being spoken in the boys’ bathrom. A classmate gossips about how he saw Zi Wei and Yun Ru hanging out at night. Jun Jie looks at Zi Wei, who seems uncomfortable. The classmate speculates that Zi Wei got Yun Ru pregnant and says that girls like Yun Ru seem quiet at school, but will actually sleep with anyone. Furious, Jun Jie barges in and starts punching the guy. Zi Wei and some other classmates hold him back, but the guy on the ground asks why Jun Jie is so mad. Is it because the chick he likes is in love with his best friend? Jun Jie tries to go for the guy again, but Zi Wei beats him to it.
Two teachers try to get Yun Ru to explain what happened with the fight, but she doesn’t say anything. Outside, Jun Jie and Zi Wei get punished by the school officer, refusing to admit that they were wrong in punching the other student. Yun Ru listens to them and winces.
At Quan Sheng’s funeral, everyone is sobbing, except for Yu Xuan, who doesn’t shed a tear. She had already cried herself dry earlier when she entered Ah Tuo’s VR app with Quan Sheng’s image.
Yun Ru closes up shop as she wonders where Zi Wei and Jun Jie are. They suddenly show up, surprising her with a birthday cake and song. They tell her to make her birthday wishes. Her first two wishes are that they are able to graduate on time and get into the universities that they want. Zi Wei laments how her wishes are so boring while Jun Jie tells him to shut up and let her make her wishes. For her third wish, Jun Jie reminds her to keep it a secret. She asks the same question that Yu Xuan asked on her 23rd birthday: why is the third wish always a secret? And Zi Wei responds with the same answer that Quan Sheng did.
Zi Wei and Jun Jie give Yun Ru a brand new Walkman cassette player with her birthday. Zi Wei tries to get Jun Jie to send Yun Ru home, but before he leaves, she says, “Wait.” She starts to say something, but can’t get the words out. Jun Jie sees her point at Zi Wei, then suggests that Zi Wei take Yun Ru home instead. He guesses that is what Yun Ru wants.
Zi Wei tries to ask Jun Jie what he thinks he’s doing, but Jun Jie just tosses him an extra helmet and rides off.
On the way home, Yun Ru tells Zi Wei what her third wish was. She wishes that one day she can be the kind of girl that Zi Wei likes. And that one day, he will like her the way she likes him. He doesn’t respond.
Before Yun Ru heads into her house, Zi Wei tells her that he only sees her as a friend and will never like her. He asks her to not like him, otherwise he can’t be friends with her anymore. She stops him before he rides off, asking if he’s only saying that because of Mo Jun Jie. He says it has nothing to do with Jun Jie, but struggles to come up with a different reason. She tells him that he doesn’t need to say anything and heads in. He watches her go with a sigh.
When Yun Ru gets home, her house is a mess and looks like it’s been ransacked. Or like someone left in a hurry. She checks her mother and brother’s rooms and finds that they’ve taken their belongings with them and she can’t reach them on the phone. She calls her uncle instead, sobbing that she thinks her mother ran away with her brother because she was afraid her father would try to take him away.
Yun Ru runs aimlessly out of the house, trying to find her family, but the streets are empty. A mother and child go flying by on a scooter, and Yun Ru turns to stare at them, thinking that it’s her own family. She doesn’t notice a car behind her accelerating toward her until it’s too late.
Quan Sheng’s mother thanks Yu Xuan for her help in finding photos for Quan Sheng’s memorial. She tells Yu Xuan how Quan Sheng never really smiled when he was younger and never really talked to anyone either. It wasn’t until he met Yu Xuan that he started smiling and seemed happy. This is news to Yu Xuan, because she always felt like Quan Sheng had the biggest and most genuine smile in the room.
Quan Sheng’s father tells Yu Xuan that an express delivered package had arrived for her at their house. The package doesn’t have a sender address. She opens it on the bus home and finds a Walkman cassette player and a copy of Wu Bai’s The End of Love. She starts playing the album and texts Quan Sheng her third birthday wish: to see him again.
As the bus goes through a tunnel and Yu Xuan closes her eyes to listen to the music, all of her texts to Quan Sheng suddenly show a read receipt. Time and sound glitch and her image merges with Yun Ru’s until…
Yu Xuan wakes up in a hospital bed, confused. “You’re finally awake?” a voice asks. She turns and sees Zi Wei, then exclaims, “Wang Quan Sheng!” before hugging him and sobbing. Zi Wei is very confused.
This show continues to have me hooked! I love the music and the great thing about short shows like this one is that the plot and pacing have to be tight. There’s no time or room for poor pacing or unnecessarily drawn out scenes.
Li Zi Wei is the charismatic kind of boy who is easy to like and fall in love with, but Mo Jun Jie is such a sweetheart. It’ll be tough to watch Jun Jie continually get his heart broken, which seems inevitable, because Yu Xuan/Yun Ru and Quan Sheng/Zi Wei are so very obviously fated to be together.
We’ve only ever seen the lovable, charming Quan Sheng of Yu Xuan’s memory, so I’m really curious to hear about his pre-Yu Xuan days. It seems to me like Yun Ru and Quan Sheng are turning out to be as similar as Yu Xuan and Yun Ru are opposites. I don’t know what this means, but it must mean something.
The Drama Llama 