Yu Bing tries to apply some of Teacher Deng’s “love lessons” during his weekend trip with Tang Xue, but the weekend doesn’t turn out quite the way he hoped.
Recap
Yu Bing and Tang Xue reminisce about the day they went “exploring the world” as children. They had lost their money and gotten lost, but chanced upon a jian bing stand. The auntie who ran the stand gave them some food for free and asked if they were family. When they said they weren’t, she said they would probably become family when they grew up. Yu Bing adamantly said, “No!” while Tang Xue said, “Yes!” He quickly changed his answer once she glared at him.
Now, they smile at each other at the memory. Tang Xue shivers, and Yu Bing is suddenly inspired by another one of Teacher Deng’s “love lessons,” using the “pratfall effect” (I had to Google what this was.) He borrows a blanket from the boat’s captain, but then covers himself with it instead of the three other freezing individuals on the boat. Tang Xue glares at him, but he blinks innocently back, hoping his “vulnerability” will make him more lovable.
It doesn’t work. Instead, Tang Xue distracts him with a fake whale sighting and steals the blanket from him. Yu Bing tries to grab it back, but misses and somehow flips overboard.
Yu Bing takes advantage of the situation, remembering another love lesson about intentionally showing weakness to lure in an opponent. He feigns illness, and enlists Zhen Yu’s help in dramatizing the situation so that Tang Xue eventually volunteers to care for him. She takes on the task out of a sense of duty, since she was the one responsible for Yu Bing’s falling overboard.
Huan Huan is angry at Zhen Yu and suspicious that he and Yu Bing colluded to feign an illness. She has a thermometer and fever medication in her bag, and gives it to Tang Xue. Zhen Yu slips in with a glass of hot water, then distracts Tang Xue, so that Yu Bing can fake a fever.
The ruse works and the thermometer registers a 38.8°C fever. Tang Xue takes her caretaker duties very seriously and forces Yu Bing to take some fever reducing medication.
Zhen Yu is pleased with his success and can’t stop smiling as he shuffles Huan Huan outside to give Tang Xue and Yu Bing some space. Huan Huan thinks that he’s smirking because od the jellyfish incident earlier, and warns him not to speak a word of it to anyone.
Zhen Yu tells Huan Huan that she got sick like Yu Bing, he would take care of her too, but he’d be gentler than Tang Xue. She asks him why he’s so good to her. He says that at first, he just thought she was pretty, but now he just wants her to be happy. His dream is still for her to be his girlfriend. He even wrote it on the contract they signed finalizing the terms of their bet.
Huan Huan surprises him by kissing him on the cheek and saying that from now on he will be her boyfriend.
Yu Yan broodily stares at a photo of him and Tang Xue from his birthday at the aquarium. He silently asks Tang Xue to not be angry with his mother and to not fall in love with someone else.
Yu Bing hops out of bed when Tang Xue is out of the room and decides to sit in the empty in-room tub to look at the stars. Tang Xue is alarmed when she first gets in, thinking he’s bathing, but when she realizes he’s fully clothed, she joins him.
They smile as they watch the stars. Yu Bing looks at Tang Xue and starts to say something, but she turns and sneezes into his face, ruining the moment.
She pops a piece of candy into her mouth to hide her awkwardness. Yu Bing is reminded of another incident from their childhood. He had some expired candy that he plotted to have Tang Xue eat. When she ate one, she started crying, and he started crying too, thinking he had poisoned her. But in reality, she had lost a tooth. He pulled the rest of the candy box away from her anyway, regretting trying to trick her.
The next morning, Tang Xue wakes up in Yu Bing’s bed. He’s sleeping on a chair. She goes to check on his fever, then studies his sleeping face, admitting that he is quite handsome.
When he wakes up, Tang Xue insists on checking his temperature again. He asks her for a glass of water to get her out of the room, then tries to heat the thermometer up under the faucet. Tang Xue hears him and catches him in the act of trying to trick her.
Tang Xue is still upset with Yu Bing when they get back to campus. Zhen Yu and Huan Huan, on the other hand, are as happy as they can be with their newly-minted relationship. Zhen Yu thanks Yu Bing for his help, but Yu Bing is unhappy that he ended up being the wingman for Zhen Yu instead of the other way around.
Tang Xue demands to know why Yu Bing tricked her. He claims it started out as a joke, but eventually he realized that he… he trails off. Zhen Yu suggests that maybe he wanted to feel a warmth that reminded him of his mother? That’s not exactly what Yu Bing was going for, but he’s stuck with it, and it doesn’t do anything to soothe Tang Xue’s anger.
Yu Bing is left alone when he gets another message from “Teacher Deng,” but he doesn’t want Deng’s advice anymore. He reports the user and stalks back to his dorm, still muttering to himself about how angry he is.
When he gets back to his dorm, Jian Guo immediately tries to seek comfort from him, lamenting that he just got scammed. But his story is familiar and Yu Bing realizes that Jian Guo is “Teacher Deng.” Yu Bing takes his frustration out on Jian Guo by treating him like a punching bag.
Yu Yan meticulously cleans his stuffed toys and wonders when Tang Xue will be back.
Tang Xue goes to find Yu Yan after Liu Ying tells her that he came looking for her. Yu Yan tells her not to take what his mother said to heart. Tang Xue seems pretty reasonable about it, saying that she wasn’t in a good mood either, but asks Yu Yan to clear up his mother’s misunderstanding about their relationship.
Yu Yan tells Tang Xue about the Canada opportunity and admits that he doesn’t want to go. She insists he should go and not lose this valuable opportunity. He’s disappointed with her answer.
Yu Yan asks Tang Xue where she went with Yu Bing. She starts recounting how fun the boat ride was. He half-listens while thinking that she may be back now, but she also seems farther away than ever.
Yu Bing smiles to himself as he swipes through photos of him and Tang Xue from the boat ride. Da Jiang returns with a pear for him. He takes a bite out of his own and winces when it tastes sour. The lady who sold it to him claimed that it was “sweeter than a first love.” Yu Bing recognizes that it’s a snow pear and that it tastes best when stewed with rock sugar. He’s suddenly inspired and creates a Weibo page called “Rock Sugar Stewed with Snow Pear” (bing tang dun xue li, the literal title of this show, which is a play on Tang Xue and Yu Bing’s names.)
He remembers his mother once telling him that he and Tang Xue are qing mei zhu ma, an idiom meaning childhood sweethearts. At the time, he thought that the phrase was a negative phrase, but now he writes his first post, saying that it’s the best phrase in the world.
He calls Tang Xue, asking to meet. She’s still a bit angry that he lied to her, but he apologizes and she forgives him. They both think the other has changed quite a bit from when they first met, and Tang Xue says that they should get to know each other again.
Yu Bing follows Tang Xue around campus while continuing to post little love notes on Weibo. He tries to orchestrate “coincidental” meetings and show other small signs of support: appearing with a towel while she’s training, wordlessly replacing her boring soy milk with a more interesting drink.
One day he notices a flyer advertising an upcoming festival where students traditionally confess to each other. The festival is the next day. Coach Xu finds Yu Bing lost in thought in the locker room. Yu Bing asks him how he started dating Coach Chu when they were younger. He tries to act nonchalant, but Xu guesses that he’s asking because of the upcoming festival, and says he can give him some advice.
I am loving these continued cute moments between Yu Bing and Tang Xue and the general lighthearted fluffiness of this show. I’m so glad that Yu Bing finally ditched those appalling “love lessons.” How did he not see through Deng Jian Guo from the start? The microblog love letters are cute and we finally get a reference to the actual title of the drama, which is always a nice touch.
Yu Yan is starting to take a sadboi turn, and I’m not sure I like it. I suppose he was always this way, and it’s only Tang Xue’s presence that is able to bring the smile and lightheartedness out of him. I’m trying to view him through a sympathetic light: he had just started to get a taste of independence and then his mother shows up and is upending his life all over again, and the girl he has a crush on seems to be falling in love with someone else. I would be a bit rebellious and sadboi too.
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