Despite her attempts to keep Fei Yang at a distance, Ai Sha finds herself warming up to him and they unexpectedly connect. But when Ai Sha realizes that partnering with Fei Yang might be the only way to help her company recover, she must decide whether she’s willing to swallow her pride.
Recap
Fei Yang warns Ai Sha that if Chic gets hacked again, they may lose users. The moment that happens, they’ll lose their foothold as the top commerce site and there are plenty of others waiting for a chance to overtake Chic. He offers to collaborate with Chic to bolster their user base, but Ai Sha responds that the word “collaborate” isn’t a part of her vocabulary.
Her brother Nan Cheng calls, reminding her about getting dinner with him and his business partner. She tries to beg out because she hasn’t slept in 30 hours, but he refuses to let her say no. Fei Yang overhears their conversation.
At the restaurant, Nan Cheng introduces Ai Sha to a Director Wu who is Nan Cheng’s main point of contact for the facial masks. Ai Sha doesn’t even both sitting down, and instead says that her only question is about the inspection certificate. Without it, she can’t list their product. Nan Cheng tries to convince her to list and advertise the product first; the inspection certificate is pending but they’ll make sure it comes through later, but Ai Sha is strict with her principles.
Both Director Wu and Nan Cheng are displeased, Nan Cheng most of all. It turns out that Nan Cheng had guaranteed Chic would be able to list the facial masks. That guarantee was part of the contract he signed when joining as an investor. If Chic doesn’t list the product, then his contract is broken and not only does he lose the money he invested, he’ll also have to pay a fee for breaking the contract.
Outside the restaurant, Nan Cheng blames Ai Sha for making him break his contract. He thinks it should have been easy for Ai Sha to just nod her head and let the facial masks be listed with Chic. He grabs Ai Sha and tells her that she either has to list the product on Chic, or pay him back the money he lost in the contract. If she doesn’t, he threatens to tell their mother.
Fei Yang suddenly shows up and wrestles Nan Cheng away from Ai Sha, then throws him to the ground. He wordlessly drags Ai Sha toward his car, refusing to let her check on her brother and ignoring her protests.
Once they’re inside his car, Fei Yang tells Ai Sha that she shouldn’t let Nan Cheng treat her like this. The fact that he’s her brother isn’t an excuse. Why didn’t she fight back? But Ai Sha doesn’t respond and Fei Yang just sighs. She flinches away when he leans in, but he’s only trying to put her seatbelt on for her and doesn’t have any other intentions.
Fei Yang plans on dropping off Ai Sha at the office so that she can drive her own car home, but she’s fallen asleep by the time they get there. Instead of waking her up, he covers her with his jacket and goes on a road trip, driving on a highway along the shore.
When Ai Sha wakes up, the car is parked at a scenic lookout and the sky is starting to get light. She spots Fei Yang looking out at the sea, and joins him to watch the sunrise. She starts to ask him a question, but he shushes her, pointing at the horizon, and they silently watch the sunrise together.
He smiles and turns to look at her as she closes her eyes and smiles blissfully. She finally catches him looking and asks why he’s looking at her like that. He responds that it’s the first time he’s seen her smile like this. For once, she doesn’t have anything to say in response, and just smiles and nods instead.
Fei Yang tells Ai Sha that she should drive on the way back to the city. She asks him how they came to be here. He claims that he was going to drop her off at home, but she was sleeping so soundly that he didn’t want to wake her and decided to drive instead. He kept driving… and they ended up here. She accepts his answer, but gives him a skeptical smile.
She believes him when he says that he knew she was getting dinner with her brother because he overheard her, but how did he know where she was? She doesn’t remember mentioning the restaurant on the phone. Instead of responding, he says, “Speaking of eating, let’s get breakfast.”
In the car, Ai Sha reminds Fei Yang to put on his seatbelt, but he seems to have already fallen asleep. She hesitantly leans over to put it on for him, but while she’s pulling the belt across his body, he suddenly grabs her hand. His eyes snap open and they stare at each other for a moment. Then he slides the buckle in and asks why she’s making such a big deal about putting on a seatbelt.
She tries to act casual, then thanks for him for taking her here. He doesn’t respond–it looks like he’s fallen asleep again. So Ai Sha keeps talking, admitting that she hasn’t seen the sea in a long time and that no one has ever taken her to see the sunrise before. She admits that once you’re alone for a while, there are a lot of things you get used to. You get used to being alone.
Fei Yang chuckles at that, saying that she hasn’t gotten used to being alone, she’s just being masochistic. Ai Sha is surprised he isn’t asleep; he says that he wanted to fall asleep but couldn’t because she kept chattering. Ai Sha rolls her eyes, but repeats her gratitude for what he did for her today. He just reminds her about safety first when driving. She rolls her eyes.
Xiao An helps her father out at his fishmongers stall in the market on weekends. On her way to deliver some fish to a customer, she spots Ye Xuan shopping in the market. She tries to turn away to avoid him, but ends up tripping and falling. He helps her gather her fish, and she tries to hide her face from him, but he recognizes her anyway.
She tries to run away, but he ends up inviting her back to his restaurant, giving her a clean change of clothes, and putting some ointment on her hand, which she scraped while falling.
Xiao An asks Ye Xuan to keep her connection to the market a secret. She’s afraid of what people at work will think if they know that she comes from a fishmonger family. Ye Xuan pats her on the head and tells her that there’s no shame in what her family does: it’s good, honest work, and people at work shouldn’t care. But, if she wants to keep it a secret, he’ll respect that.
Fei Yang compliments Ai Sha on her driving skills after she pulls up in front of their office building. He says it’s rare that he meets women who can drive well. Are they all smart, too? Ai Sha tells him that she doesn’t know if all women who can drive are smart, but she knows that men who think women can’t drive are not smart.
She gets out without a word and heads into the office. He chases after her onto the escalator and asks her if she’s forgiven him for the necklace. He’s never apologized to a woman before and he’d appreciate a hint as to what she’s thinking.
Ai Sha responds that she hasn’t thought about forgiving him yet, but if the conditions are right, like if Chic’s traffic surpasses Golden Man, or if she’s in a good mood, maybe she will consider forgiving him. But what if Chic never beats Golden Man? he asks.
At the top of the escalator, Fei Yang hurries to block Ai Sha’s way. He grabs her hand and writes his number on her palm, saying it’s her IOU for an apology. If she ever needs someone to drive her to the shore or if she just wants someone to chat with, she should call. With a charming smile and wave, he takes the escalator back down.
At night, Xiao An looks at her bandaged hands and giggles, almost ignoring a call from Ai Sha, who is working has work for Xiao An to do, even though it’s still the weekend.
Ai Sha accidentally knocks something off her cluttered table and crawls underneath to find the shark charm Fei Yang gave her. She smiles and murmurs that maybe Fei Yang isn’t as annoying as she thought.
She suddenly gets a notification from a dating app called Ocean’s Heart that she doesn’t remember downloading. It reminds her to formally register. Upon seeing that there are already over 100,000 people on the platform, Ai Sha decides to give it a go.
Fei Yang gets a notification that Ai Sha is signing up for Ocean’s Heart. He pulls the app up on his projector screen, where he has an admin view that allows him to see what Ai Sha is entering into her profile. There’s a section for what she’s looking for in another person.
Fei Yang watches carefully as Ai Sha enters her preferences: has style, likes to read, likes to exercise, can cook, reliable. He nods to himself and demonstrates that he has all these qualities: he changes into a suit, casually curls a (very light) dumbbell, opens up a book, and whips up a smoothie mocktail for himself. Ai Sha remembers Fei Yang looking at her as they watched the sunrise as adds out loud, “has a nice smile.” But then she realizes she missed the most important thing. She deletes all the text and replaces it with: “Can’t be too dumb.”
“Am I dumb?” Fei Yang asks himself, as he curls his weight while drinking his mocktail with a book open in his lap. “No, I’m pretty smart.”
May is pissed that Jing Jing and Ai Sha managed to lose $12 million NTD in the past day. Should she responsible for this loss or will they take care of it? Ai Sha remains silent while Jing Jing tries to make excuses and shift responsibility off of her department to the other departments. But May is unamused and tells them that they have a month to figure out how to make up for this loss.
Once May leaves, Jing Jing turns on Ai Sha, claiming it’s the marketing department’s fault that Chic isn’t bringing enough traffic, not the sales department’s fault for not raking in more revenue. But Ai Sha rightfully points out that the sales department’s inability to convert users into customers is her problem. Spamming people with marketing isn’t necessarily going to increase traffic. Jing Jing says that when the results come out next month, it’ll be obvious who is at fault and who is deserving enough to be a partner at Chic.
Ai Sha meets with the head of the IT department, Ah Ben, who tells her that an external IP address helped them defend against and resolve the hack. They weren’t able to trace that IP address, but they were able to trace a different one: they found the location of the hacker.
Ai Sha’s eyes narrow upon finding out who the hacker is. They can’t file a police report because they can’t let it leak that Chic was hacked, but Ai Sha has her own way of dealing with him. She stalks out of her office, on a mission, and everyone gets out of her way, watching fearfully as she leaves. The shark is on the hunt.
The hacker is the founder of My Way, the company that Ai Sha shut down in the first scene of the show. She casually grabs a golf club of his, confronts him about hacking, and proceeds to smash the most valuable things she sees in his classic tech bro startup office.
She warns him that if he dares provoke her again, he’ll be losing more than several thousands of dollars’ worth of antiques.
Ai Sha’s employees in the marketing department stare down the office clock and cheer when the hands hit noon. They can finally go on their lunch break. They want to try a new Korean BBQ restaurant, but none of them has the money to spare. But on their way out, they run into Jing Jing, who says that her friend owns the new restaurant and that they should eat there, her treat. They thank her effusively, saying that she’s the best.
Yuki thinks to invite Xiao An, who is still working at her desk, but Vicky quickly says that Xiao An probably won’t want to come, because it’s Jing Jing’s treat, and Xiao An is loyal to Ai Sha. She gets left behind.
Nan Cheng shows up at Chic’s office just as all the employees have left. He strolls around the empty office, then wanders back into the hallway, where Zhen Zhen aggressively mops at his feet and forcing him away. He doesn’t know her, but she definitely recognizes him as Ai Sha’s trash brother.
Ai Sha shows up and Nan Cheng drags her out to lunch. He tries to pitch a new product he’s invested in with a friend: a Vitamin B complex supplement. She’s furious that he’s leapt from one bad investment to another and warns him that this is the last time she’ll help him with his debt, and that he better not show his face around her office again or else she’ll call the police on him.
Nan Cheng casually insults Ai Sha for being over 30 and still single and attempts to blackmail her with Fei Yang’s attack on him the other day. If he tells their mom, he knows Ai Sha would be dead. Nan Cheng tries to set Ai Sha up with Director Wu.
Annoyed, Ai Sha tells Nan Cheng that the man he met the other day was her boyfriend. Except when she turns around, Fei Yang is standing right behind her with Jing Jing clinging to his arm. They both smirk at her. Nan Cheng gloats that Fei Yang must be cheating on her.
Afterward, Fei Yang sprints up to his office and tries to quickly arrange some of his programming books around his office. Then he poses casually on the couch, pretending to read one of the books. We soon see why: Ai Sha is here.
Fei Yang greets her with a cheesy smile, but it looks awkward and Ai Sha asks if his face is spasming, unamused. She notices that his book is upside down and asks if he’s reading. He tries to act casual and says reading is one of his hobbies. But she doesn’t seem to care and instead is here to make sure he didn’t misunderstand the situation earlier.
Misunderstand what? he asks, before quoting everything she said about him verbatim, including that he was her boyfriend. She tells him to forget any of it happened and erase it from his memory. She doesn’t want to have the kind of relationship with him that he has with Jing Jing, mixing business with pleasure.
Fei Yang says that he and Jing Jing are just old friends. Ai Sha says she doesn’t care, she just wants to make sure his memory has been cleared. She points out that his book is upside down and starts to leave.
But Fei Yang stops her by revealing that he and Jing Jing were talking business: Jing Jing is proposing a co-marketing agreement.
Ai Sha never thought that Jing Jing would use a co-marketing agreement as a way of partnering with Golden Man. Xiao An asks why Golden Man would agree to it. Ai Sha analyzes the situation: what Golden Man lacks is content. As part of the contract, Jing Jing is allowing Golden Man permission to republish the articles on Chic’s platform. Golden Man has the most to gain from an agreement, but Jing Jing will effectively have control of the combined marketing budget of the two companies. She’ll be able to cover the losses from the hack in the short term.
Fei Yang and his Golden Men are going over a similar analysis of the partnership from their own perspective. He reminds them that at Chic, Wen Jing Jing is the only person who can go head-to-head with Ai Sha.
Ai Sha flips back and forth between charts of Golden Man’s upward-trending traffic growth versus Chic’s downward-trending traffic growth, trying to figure out what to do about the situation, when she gets a phone call from Lan. He’s heard about the hacking rumors. She tries to convince him that Chic wasn’t hacked, but he hangs up on her.
As if her day couldn’t get any worse, Fei Yang is waiting at the elevators when she leaves the office. He casually shows off the Chic folder in his hand. Ai Sha comments that Jing Jing is acting quickly, but he responds that Chic has actually been slow to act. The Chic contract is the ninth contract proposal he’s received this week. Everyone wants to work with Golden Man, including Lan.
Ai Sha asks what his point is: he already has the winery contract with Lan in the bag, what else does he want? Fei Yang asks why she hasn’t asked to collaborate with him. Convincing him to sign a contract might be easier than trying to convince Lan.
Ai Sha finds it absurd that he’s saying she needs to convince him to collaborate. Wasn’t he the one offering to work with her before?
He leans in and says that right now, she’s the one who needs him. He doesn’t need her. He reminds her that the only way Chic can make up for its loss from the hack is by collaborating with Golden Man. If he were in her shoes, he would be doing everything he could to try and get this opportunity.
She knows he’s right. Instead of going home, Ai Sha goes back to her office and gets to work. Fei Yang, at home, turns on location tracking for Ai Sha’s phone and smiles when he sees that she’s still at the office.
The next morning, Vicky and Yuki wait outside the elevator bank for Steven to show up. The giggle like schoolgirls when he tosses them a smile. But their moment is ruined when Ni Mo comes running up at the last minute, two coffee cups in hand. He struggles to stop his momentum and nearly runs into Yuki and Vicky, who quickly try to back away. Yuki shoves Vicky toward Ni Mo. She somehow ends up spinning with him and catches him before he can fall, but she’s so disgusted by him that she drops him.
Ni Mo falls, but impressively keeps the two coffees aloft without spilling a drop.
Ai Sha goes to the Golden Man office, searching for Fei Yang, but Steven claims that he can’t tell her where he is. The three men all find it strange that she was able to get into the office when it’s protected by key card access.
Ai Sha enlists Zhen Zhen’s help in spying on the Golden Men and gets Fei Yang’s schedule. But Fei Yang just ends up leading Ai Sha on a scavenger hunt wild goose chase to prove how much he fits her criteria, taking her from a gym where he shows off his exercising, to the aquarium, to a suit shop where he shows off his style. He pretends he doesn’t see or hear her the whole time, but he’s always watching her out of the corner of his eye.
At the suit shop, Ai Sha decides that she won’t play Fei Yang’s game any longer. Fei Yang is disappointed to see her disappear; she’s given up earlier than he anticipated.
But Ai Sha hasn’t given up. She’s just decided to play the game her own way.
The last event on Fei Yang’s schedule is a watch gala event. Journalists rush to interview him when he arrives, but he quickly gets upstaged by Ai Sha’s arrival. She looks stunning in a long, shimmering black gown, and walks down the sweeping staircase to stop in front of him. She lifts her chin and looks him in the eye.
Eeee! I continue to love this show! There’s such a great balance of humor, cuteness, and serious business. But I’m just living for more Ai Sha-Fei Yang interactions.
I think Wes Lo is doing a great job as Fei Yang. I didn’t even realize he’s a former boy band member, although it seems like he’s had support roles in several dramas over the years. He’s convincingly charming and sharp, yet also playful and ever-so-slightly immature in a way that brings to life Fei Yang’s man-boy tech bro personality without being over-the-top.
I love every bit of Ai Sha and Fei Yang’s relationship so far. He’s caring but also adorably awkward at times. He challenges her but also seems desperate to prove himself to her, like how he uses the fake (or maybe it’s real but he created it) dating app on her phone just so he can spy on her, then tries to do everything that he thinks she finds attractive in a man.
For me, Ai Sha is goals. Maybe not the part where she makes work her life and expects the same of everyone else around her, but I appreciate her dedication, her shrewdness, and her spine of steel! The ending of this episode was so fabulous: Ai Sha wasn’t going to let Fei Yang drag her around anymore (though clearly, he was just trying to show off to her the whole time) and instead she decided to face him head-on and look glamorous while doing so.
Our second leads Xiao An and Ye Xuan continue to circle around the edges of this show so far. I’m a little afraid Xiao An is being set up for a sort of Cinderella moment where she decides that she’s had enough of being abused as an assistant and instead wants to take on Ai Sha and replace her and create some convoluted drama, but she also seems to idolize Ai Sha a lot, so maybe not?
The Drama Llama 