Tang Xue and Yu Bing both return home to their families for winter break, but still manage to find time for each other. Meanwhile, Bian Cheng tries to use this time in his and Tang Xue’s shared hometown to get closer to her.
Recap
Yu Bing’s mother brings up the time when Tang Xue scarred Yu Bing’s face and Tang Xue’s mother offered her up as a daughter-in-law. At the time, Yu Bing had asked to please not have to marry Tang Xue. Now, Yu Bing’s mother asks him whether Tang Xue has a boyfriend now and to update her on what’s happened at university. Yu Bing tries to get his father to intervene, but he’s powerless to stop her.
When Tang Xue gets home, her mother spins her around and criticizes her thick legs, then notes how she seems pretty muscular for a veterinary science major. It almost looks like she’s an athletics major. She’s only teasing, but Tang Xue freezes, wondering how she’ll respond when she finds out that Tang Xue has switched majors.
While they eat, Tang Xue’s mother asks who she came home with. She also remembers Yu Bing from the scarring incident. Tang Xue’s father casually asks Tang Xue if Yu Bing is pursuing her. She casually responds that he should ask Yu Bing. Her father warns her to stay away from Yu Bing, but when she asks why, he just says because he’s her father and he told her so.
Tang Xue arranges to skate with Yu Bing the next day. At night, she thinks about how her heart pounded when they were pushed together on the bus.
Bian Cheng meets with Zhou Ran, who hands over a folio of news clippings. They’re all articles written by her uncle, Tang Xue’s father. She guesses that Bian Cheng is trying to get closer to Tang Xue by cozying up to her father.
As he’s heading out, he gets a text from a classmate, saying that one of their high school teachers just gave birth. He calls Tang Xue with the news, asking if she wants to go see her, but Tang Xue says she’s skating. Bian Cheng looks up the location of the nearest ice rink. There’s only one nearby.
Tang Xue and Yu Bing pass by a flower stand on their way into the rink. He offers to buy her some flowers, but she fixates on the newspaper being used to wrap the bouquets. It’s the local paper, where her father works. It saddens her to see that it’s only being used as wrapping paper now.
When Bian Cheng gets to the rink, he sees Tang Xue and Yu Bing on the ice and having a good time. He rents some skates and gets on the ice, but isn’t an experienced skater and clings to the boards. When Tang Xue skates by, he calls out to her. She greets him with a smile. Yu Bing spots them from across the rink and gets jealous. He speeds toward them and deliberately sprays Bian Cheng with a shower of ice as he skids to an abrupt stop.
Bian Cheng asks Tang Xue to teach him how to skate, but Yu Bing offers to teach him instead, and Tang Xue skates off. Instead of skating, Bian Cheng reminds Yu Bing that Tang Xue liked him for the past three years. Yu Bing responds that he’s forgiven her for that. Bian Cheng points out that he’s not Tang Xue’s boyfriend, but Yu Bing says that it’s just a matter of time. Besides, Tang Xue is happy right now; happier than she was when she liked Bian Cheng.
Tang Xue skates over before Bian Cheng can respond and asks what they’re doing. Bian Cheng and Yu Bing feign niceties and smile at each other, but later, when they shake hands before leaving, they each try to crush the other’s hand.
Da Jiang goes to the restaurant he frequents and asks the chef if he can prepare a meal on Lunar New Year’s eve for two. Both he and Yue Wei are staying on campus. He asks the chef to make a spicy hot pot, extra spicy, because that’s how Yue Wei likes it. The chef points out that Da Jiang can’t eat spicy food. Da Jiang says he’ll train. The chef tells him that if he likes Yue Wei, he should tell her. Later, when a different student comes in and asks if the restaurant is open on Lunar New Year’s eve, the chef says that he’s closed.
Tang Xue’s father asks where she’s been all morning when she returns home. She says that she was… sliding. She tries asking him how he would feel if she started skating again. He’s immediately triggered, saying that he and her mother were scared to death by her accident. He continues ranting, but Tang Xue tries to calm him down and then runs away.
Yu Bing invites Tang Xue to check out their old elementary school. It’s locked for break, but they hop the fence. Yu Bing pricks his hand and Tang Xue blows on it. He starts daydreaming that they’re acting lovey dovey and smiles sloppily. Tang Xue smacks him to his senses and he quickly catches himself.
Later, they dig around some bushes for some wishes in a bottle they buried. Yu Bing finds his first, but his wish was for Tang Xue to disappear, so he eats the note to avoid her seeing it. She finds hers, which was for Yu Bing to fail all his tests, since she still wanted to get top of the class and go to Disneyland. She notices that Yu Bing’s bottle is open and frisks him to look for the note, but doesn’t find it.
Tang Xue explains to Yu Bing why she wanted him to fail his tests: she wanted to go to Disneyland. He says that if he’d known back then, he would’ve pretended to be sick on test days so that her wish would come true.
Tang Xue surprises Yu Bing by saying that she should thank him. She was happy during the time they were classmates in elementary school and it was all because of him. Yu Bing frowns, probably feeling guilty, and apologizes for not keeping his promise to her back then. But he promises that their paths will never diverge again. She makes him pinky swear to it.
Tang Xue holds on for longer than necessary, suddenly suspicious as she eyes his mouth. She grabs his face and makes him open wide, searching for a sign of a paper, but it’s long gone.
They’re walking home when Tang Xue casually asks Yu Bing why he hasn’t dated anyone the past few years. He says that he already likes someone. He leans in close, acting like he’s going to share who it is, but then whispers, “I won’t tell you.”
Tang Xue glares at him then says that she likes someone, too. He asks who, and all she says is, “Not you.”
When Yu Bing gets home, he posts on his Weibo a photo of Tang Xue walking on their elementary school campus with the caption, “Silly, the girl I like is you.”
Yu Bing and Tang Xue are both bothered by the thought that the other person has someone they like. They both call Zhen Yu, asking who the other likes. Zhen Yu is trying to compose a poem for Huan Huan to express his longing for her, but ends up being the love guru for both Tang Xue and Yu Bing instead, making Huan Huan angry when he cuts short their call.
Tang Xue admits to Zhen Yu that she likes Yu Bing. Zhen Yu suggests to Yu Bing that Tang Xue might like Yu Yan or Bian Cheng. He suggests to Tang Xue that Yu Bing might like Yue Wei or Zhou Ran.
Yu Bing asks Zhen Yu for advice on how to confess to Tang Xue. Zhen Yu breaks it down into three simple tips, then helps Yu Bing set something up.
But the night Yu Bing is planning on confessing to Tang Xue, Zhen Yu gets stuck in traffic. Yu Bing is nervous about his absence, but Zhen Yu reassures him that everything at the location has been prepared. Yu Bing doesn’t know what he means. All he sees is a scruffy-looking man drinking beers by himself nearby.
When Tang Xue appears, Yu Bing tries to make awkward small talk. They’re suddenly interrupted by the drunk man, who mistakes Tang Xue for his ex. He rants to her that he’s only thought of her for the past six years. Yu Bing and Tang Xue are both confused and slightly alarmed, but then Yu Bing suspects that this man might be a part of Zhen Yu’s plan.
He leans in close to the man, trying to enlist his help in staging a “hero saving a damsel in distress” situation. But the man doesn’t play along and instead shoves Yu Bing away, asking if he’s drunk.
Tang Xue is done with the situation and tells Yu Bing that they should leave. She starts to walk away, but the drunk man chases after her and grabs her by the wrist. She roughly throws him off and ends up knocking him to the ground. He starts crying.
Yu Bing and Tang Xue are forced to keep the drunk man company as he starts telling them about his own failed love story. He liked a woman and thought it would be romantic to confess to her here, but she rejected him. He asks if all women are so cruel.
Tang Xue suggests that the woman probably didn’t intend to be cruel; she just changed from the girl he knew. He might have ruined their friendship by confessing. The man walks away with a wave, saying that he shouldn’t have confessed today.
Tang Xue breathes a sigh of relief once he’s gone. Yu Bing sighs too, but for a different reason.
The last part of this episode felt kind of abrupt, mainly with the transition between Yu Bing and Zhen Yu talking and all of a sudden it’s confession time. I wonder if there’s some context we’re missing that we’ll see next episode…
As a whole, the Yu Bing and Tang Xue moments of revisiting their elementary school and reviewing their childhood in a new light were cute, but that was pretty much it this episode. I don’t really care about Bian Cheng, and I don’t think I’m going to enjoy these parent interactions much…
The way Tang Xue’s mother criticized her “thick legs” (when she’s so skinny) and “muscles” just rubbed me the wrong way. I know it’s in good humor and kind of a cultural thing, and maybe it’s just the “American” in me, but I’ve always been bothered by it, especially because I’ve experienced it from female relatives and family friends back in China… and I think that’s how I’ll feel about the rest of these parent interactions. Well-meaning and not ill-intentioned but nevertheless infuriating.
The Drama Llama 