Xiao En tries to push Qing Feng and Chu Chu together, but her plan backfires and Ao Ran becomes more suspicious of her than ever. Thankfully, Qing Feng has her back and helps her out.
Recap
Xiao En gets lunch with Chu Chu and finds out that Chu Chu has a tragic backstory, of course. Her father is hospitalized after suffering a work injury. Her brother is embroiled in court proceedings after he made a fuss at their father’s workplace, trying to get reparations. Chu Chu is the kind of protagonist that everyone wants to root for and even Xiao En feels bad for her, but then Xiao En reminds herself that she has to focus on herself. Who is going to root for her?
She does the math: the likelihood of any entry-level employee eventually become a CEO’s wife is very low. She imagines pleading her case before Ao Ran, then realizes that her story is too ordinary compared to anything Chu Chu would say.
Qing Feng finds Xiao En lying on the ground, staring at a post-it on which she’s written three names: code names for Ao Ran and Chu Chu, and her own name. He tells her to focus on work while she’s at work. She glares at him, then realizes that she’s missing a name on her post-it. She writes down Qing Feng’s name and draws an arrow pointing to Chu Chu’s code name. Her eyes widen as she comes up with an idea.
Qing Feng rushes to catch an elevator. Chu Chu is already inside. They both move to press a button and accidentally touch. Qing Feng awkwardly makes small talk with Chu Chu while Chu Chu seems surprised that he’s even noticed her. Suddenly, the elevator jolts to a stop. The lights turn off and an alarm starts ringing.
Xiao En smiles to herself in the elevator control room, She applauds herself for her brilliant idea, not noticing the security camera on the ceiling.
Qing Feng tries calling security using the elevator button, but no one picks up the phone in the security office. The only security officer present gets distracted by Xiao En showing up with an offer of coffee.
Qing Feng and Chu Chu sit on the floor of the elevator and chat. He comments on the scented wax tablet on the lanyard around her neck. She’s surprised he recognizes what it is and he reminds her that they met a year ago, when she was interviewing at the company. She had dropped the wax tablet and he tried to return it to her, but she ended up spilling coffee on him. She says that she tried to find him later but forgot who he was. Now, she offers to pay him back for dry cleaning his suit, but he says that he’d like her to make him a scented wax tablet.
Qing Feng asks Chu Chu where she was planning on going before they got stuck in this elevator. She says that Xiao En asked her to grab a set of keys for her. Qing Feng looks suspicious. He’s only in the elevator because Xiao En told him that someone scraped his car. Looks like she pranked both of them.
But Chu Chu doesn’t look amused. Qing Feng asks if she gets made fun of a lot. Does the marketing department bully her? Chu Chu is quick to deny any bullying allegations, saying that if her seniors don’t like her, she must be lacking in some way. Once she proves herself, then it’ll be okay.
Qing Feng says that people who dislike others will always dislike them no matter what they do. He won’t let anything unfair happen. The elevator lights turn back on. They smile at each other.
Xiao En watches apprehensively as Ao Ran watches security footage of her messing with the elevator panel. She turns to see the security officer glaring at her, then looks back at Ao Ran to find him glaring at her as well. She tries to say it’s not what he thinks, but he says that he only thinks one thing: she’s fired.
Ao Ran watches her closely as she packs up her things. She turns to try and fake some tears, but he knows what she’s trying to do and calls her out on it.
Qing Feng shows up, asking what’s going on. He comes to Xiao En’s defense, trying to tell Ao Ran that the situation isn’t what it appeared to be. Xiao En wasn’t trying to harm Chu Chu. He tries to come up with an explanation, but Xiao En interrupts, saying that she’ll admit to everything if that makes Ao Ran happy. He’s stingy with her to the end, pointing out that the scissors and stapler in her box belong to the company.
Xiao En sits down on a bench outside, wondering what she’s going to do now. To her surprise, Qing Feng shows up. He wants to know why she didn’t let him explain things to Ao Ran, and what she plans on doing now. She explains to him that she’s read books like this millions of times. Nothing good can come of Ao Ran knowing that Qing Feng likes Chu Chu. As for what comes next? She’ll figure it out as she goes. She starts walking away, musing to herself that maybe she’ll open a fried chicken shop, since fried chicken doesn’t seem to exist in this world yet.
Qing Feng jogs to catch up with her and asks if she can fix toilets. She says of course she can: she grew up largely alone and independent. He smiles and writes down an address on a business card, saying he has a job for her. It’ll include room and board, too. He smiles, saying she doesn’t need to thank him too much.
A masked man follows Su Shan Na as she leaves the office and walks home. She senses something off, but when she looks behind her, no one is there. She’s about to unlock her front gate when the man grabs her from behind and steals her purse. She tries to chase him down and is surprised when the thief is stopped by Jie Sen. Jie Sen and the thief fight while Su Shan Na watches worriedly. Eventually, he’s able to chase the thief off and retrieve the purse for Su Shan Na.
But when Su Shan Na looks inside her purse, she realizes that something is missing. She knows who the thief was working for.
The thief hands the envelope with the will over to Ming Li. But her eyes widen as she sees what it is. It’s nothing but an advertisement flyer for a building. She angrily rips it to shreds.
Xiao En shows up at the address that Qing Feng gave her, beaming when she sees that the owner is clearly rich. She rings the doorbell and is talking to herself about what a nice guy Qing Feng is, unlike Ao Ran, when the door opens to reveal none other than Si Tu Ao Ran.
They look equally dismayed to see each other. He tries to close the door on her face, but she stops him. They bicker briefly, then she pretends to leave to take him off his guard, and then pushes past him into his courtyard.
Ao Ran calls Qing Feng, unhappy that the person he sent is Xiao En. Ao Ran fired Xiao En because he didn’t want to see her. Xiao En smiles innocently. Qing Feng seems unfazed, and points out that Ao Ran needs to use his toilet, and Xiao En can fix it.
Xiao En imagines herself as the heroine of a variety of “arrogant CEO”-type novels all centered around the current situation: CEO and housemaid, CEO and handywoman.
Meanwhile, Ao Ran continues to tell Qing Feng that he wants Xiao En out. Qing Feng says that he’s free to kick out Xiao En, but once he does, he has no power over her. Whatever she does to Chu Chu later, he can’t do anything about. It’s impossible for Ao Ran to watch over Chu Chu 24/7. Those seem to be the magic words to convince Ao Ran.
He stares at Xiao En, whose eyes widen innocently. He points at her and tells her to follow him, then shows her to the bathroom and tells her to fix the toilet. She glares at him but starts poking around, then tells him to get some tools for her. He balks at her casual tone, so she rephrases her words to be flowery and subservient.
Xiao En easily fixes the toilet and gives him some advice on parts that should be replaced. He doesn’t acknowledge her job well done and instead proceeds to lay down some house rules. She has something smart to say in response to each one of his rules. He expects his house to remain orderly and organized, dislikes strongly-scented herbs and vegetables (no garlic, scallions, or pickles), expects cleaning clothes to be rinsed daily with boiling water, bans her from his room and his study, and most importantly, he hates the dark so she’s forbidden from turning off any of the lights. Xiao En points out that she can’t sleep with any lights on; he says she’s allowed to turn off the lights in her bedroom only.
Xiao En wonders if this is his one weakness, and asks if he’s afraid of the dark. He stares at her and repeats through gritted teeth that he doesn’t like the dark. He adds one more house rule: mind her own business.
Ao Ran tells Xiao En that he’s not as easy-going as Qing Feng. She shouldn’t try any tricks with him. He’ll be watching her closely.
Ao Ran shows Xiao En to her room, which is larger and more luxurious than anywhere she’s ever stayed before. She leaps onto the bed and jumps around happily, then starts spouting words like she’s in a novel. He glares at her and tells her to stop messing around. Otherwise, he might do something drastic when the lights turn off, like kill her. But even that can’t ruin her good mood. Once he leaves, she continues to bounce around happily.
Qing Feng sends her a text, asking if she’s happy now that she can live with the person in her heart. She calls him in response, and tells him that thanks to this favor of his, his place in her heart has been elevated so that he’s on the same level as fried chicken. He’s not quite sure what that means, but can tell that she’s happy.
Qing Feng thinks that there must be some sort of misunderstanding between Ao Ran and Xiao En, and hopes that this will give them an opportunity to clear up that misunderstanding. She tells him that he deserves to find love. After they hang up, Xiao En asks herself why she feels this inexplicable desire to help and encourage Qing Feng.
But she decides to take a shower instead. She looks around for her suitcase and realizes that she left it outside Ao Ran’s bathroom, in his bedroom. She remembers that she’s forbidden from his room, but when she calls up to him, he doesn’t respond, so she decides to sneak in and poke around a little.
She’s about to grab her suitcase and go when she hears the sound of a shower inside his bedroom. The temptation is too much for her, and she opens the door a crack and spies on Ao Ran showering. But then he turns and sees her.
Ao Ran, wearing his bathrobe, lectures Xiao En in the living room. He demands to see her cell phone; she’s offended that he thought she was recording him and refuses. They struggle over her phone and she eventually throws it onto the couch and tells him to look for himself. Sure enough, there is no secret photo or recording of him showering.
She tells him that it’s true she’s not a normal woman; she’s an unlucky woman. Everything that has happened to her so far has been bad luck, but she also blames him for thinking about only himself. He had to have noticed her suitcase in his room, yet he didn’t think to give it to her, nor did he think about what she would do without her things. He tries to respond but she cuts him off.
When he finally gets an opportunity to speak, he calls her ill-mannered for spying on him and trying to come up with all these excuses for her behavior. She responds saying that she grew up without parents to teach her manners, then turns away and casually acts like she didn’t just admit to being an orphan.
She accepts that she was wrong to spy on him, but also says it’s his fault because he’s too good-looking. Who wouldn’t look at him? If he let himself get fat and stopped working out, she wouldn’t give him a second glance.
Ao Ran stares at her, wondering whether he’s supposed to be angry in this situation. He stands up, glaring at her. She stubbornly maintains eye contact. He abruptly turns and walks away, tossing her phone to her and saying that she can’t do this again.
Upstairs, Ao Ran remembers Xiao En telling him that it was his fault for being too good-looking. She had said that if it were him, he would probably want to look at himself too! He checks himself out in the mirror and smiles at what he sees.
Xiao En is confused by Ao Ran’s sudden change in demeanor, and is skeptical that someone as petty as he is would let her go so easily. But she decides that now that she’s here, she’s going to do her best to make him fall in love with her.
The next morning, Xiao En gets up early to buy groceries and cook breakfast for Ao Ran. She doesn’t know what he likes, though, and is worried that she’ll spend all this effort only to find out that he doesn’t even eat breakfast, so she decides to cook what she likes to eat instead. But when Ao Ran sees the breakfast laid out on the table, he sits down, demands she get him a bowl of rice and chopsticks, and cleans every plate. She watches, pained, as he eats the food in large bites, not even eating slowly to appreciate the nuances in the dishes she cooked.
Qing Feng notices that Ao Ran seems to be in a particularly good mood this morning as they walk into the office together. Ao Ran says that his idea of keeping his enemies close is brilliant. Qing Feng is worried that Ao Ran may have done something to Xiao En and that’s why he’s in such a good mood, but Ao Ran reassures him that he’s not that kind of person.
Chu Chu calls out to Ao Ran and comes running up. She trips at the last moment and goes flying into Ao Ran’s arms. When he helps her up, she hands him the cookies she promised to make him.
The commotion draws the attention of several female employees waiting for the elevator, including Su Shan and Qiu Tian. They glare, and Su Shan takes her frustration out by pinching Qiu Tian again. She wonders where Xiao En is. Xiao En is always ready to disrupt a moment like this.
Later, Su Shan and Qiu Tian make a scene in their office when they find out that Xiao En has been fired and it seems related to Chu Chu. Their coworkers stare at them, including Chu Chu. They quickly try to lower their voices and force smiles at Chu Chu, worried that they’ll be next.
Xiao En grumbles and sighs as she cleans up the kitchen after cooking for Ao Ran. She only made one portion and now has nothing to eat. She ends up cooking herself some instant ramen and is just about to dig in when her phone rings. She answers the phone, annoyed, but then her face suddenly lights up as she exclaims, “Dad!”
I continue to be so in love with this show! I love that it’s turning into a cohabitation drama and I can’t wait to see what kind of hijinks Xiao En gets into next episode. I really liked that Xiao En establishes herself as more of a capable character this episode. Before, we only knew that she was a bit of a dreamer who adored romance novels, with a boss who was never satisfied with her work, but we never really got to see her strengths until now (other than her charming personality.)
Every week after I watch one of these episodes, I regret watching this drama while it airs, because I always want the next episode now! But now that I’ve started I can’t stop.
I’ve found myself scouring YouTube for behind-the-scenes clips and actor interviews to hold me over until the next week’s episode comes out, and I think watching them just makes me adore this cast even more! Unfortunately I don’t know if there are any videos with English subs available, so it definitely helps to understand Mandarin, but I don’t think you need to understand Mandarin to get a sense of how adorable Vivian Sung, Simon Lian, and Marcus Chang are together! The NewShowBiz channel on YouTube uploads some videos weekly under the “Lost Romance” playlist, or just look up the Chinese title “浪漫輸給你”.
I’ve always thought Qing Feng was sweet, but I adore him even more after this episode (also after watching those behind the scenes videos!)
I feel like the real world must also be a story world. It’s just too ridiculous. The whole fighting sequence with Jie Sen and the thief?
The Drama Llama 