I am back for more! In this episode of Falling Into You, we get more of a glimpse into Zhi Sheng and Yu Qian’s friendship and working relationship: Zhi Sheng is the hotheaded one who bets big, while Yu Qian is usually the one trying to give him a reality check. Zhi Sheng continues to try and find a way to get rid of Zi Tong, but struggles to find flaws in her work.
Recap
Zhi Sheng and Yu Qian meet with a banker, who seems skeptical about their plan to turn their app into a courier service and rejects their request for a 3 million dollar loan. But Zhi Sheng is prepared. Yu Qian excuses himself to go to the bathroom while Zhi Sheng scoots closer to try to pitch him some more. He surreptitiously calls Yu Qian’s phone with his own.
Yu Qian has left his phone on the table. It rings and the banker’s eyes widen when sees the contact name on the screen. Zhi Sheng picks up and pretends to chat with “Jeff.” He hangs up and the banker splutters as he asks if it was really Jeff Bezos on the other end. Zhi Sheng explains that Yu Qian was at Amazon for a bit, but doesn’t like to publicize his connection to Bezos. Zhi Sheng shows the investor a photo of Yu Qian and Bezos on his phone.
Zhi Sheng starts to leave, apologizing for wasting the banker’s time, but the banker stops him, now all too happy to invest in a company with ties to Jeff Bezos.
Yu Qian is not happy with Zhi Sheng’s strategy for getting the investment and feels like they scammed the bank. Zhi Sheng may not have outright lied, but he let the banker makes his own assumptions and didn’t correct him. Zhi Sheng is confident they’ll be fine. As long as the company stays afloat and they’re able to repay the loan on time, the bank won’t have any reason to question them. He climbs onto a statue and proclaims that in this world, success and failure are all that matters. If they don’t want to be seen as liars, they just have to succeed.
Zhi Sheng is showering at night when he hears an unexpected noise in his house. He goes downstairs to investigate, grabbing a baseball bat he has lying around along the way, and discovers a thief rifling through cabinets downstairs.
Later, a police officer chuckles as he takes Zhi Sheng’s statement. He took out the thief with one blow? There aren’t many civilians with a sense of justice like him, between catching thieves and saving women who are falling off buildings. The police officer asks if he plays baseball, admiring the accuracy and force with which he took out the thief — the man’s nose was broken.
Zhi Sheng smiles sheepishly while remembering what really happened. In reality, the thief had noticed him and Zhi Sheng missed. The thief grabbed a nearby fruit knife and started sparring with Zhi Sheng. At one point, the thief accidentally cut himself when Zhi Sheng kicked him. The thief tries to choke Zhi Sheng, who started to freak out when he saw the bleeding cut on the man’s arm. The sight of the wound brought flashes of traumatic memories from his childhood.
Zhi Sheng somehow managed to flip the thief over his shoulder, shaking free, but struggled to stand up himself because he was still in shock. That’s when he looked up to see Zi Tong staring back at him. The thief got back up and tried to attack Zhi Sheng again with the knife. Zi Tong sprung into action and knocked him out with a few well-placed kicks.
Now, Zhi Sheng leaves the police station and gets confronted by a flock of reporters who want to know all the details of the incident. He’s forced to retell his fake version of events. Meanwhile, Zi Tong slips out of the police station behind him and ducks around the media, completely ignored.
Zhi Sheng can’t even look at the injury on his own big toe without being triggered — he also doesn’t even like to hear the word “blood” — so he gets Yu Qian to help him dress the wound. Yu Qian is skeptical that Zhi Sheng managed to fight off the thief on his own, knowing how Zhi Sheng is with blood.
It turns out that Yu Qian is right to be skeptical. Zhi Sheng’s toe didn’t get injured during the fight. Instead, it was afterward, when he saw the thief’s bloody nose, that he freaked out and slammed the baseball bat down onto his own foot.
Zi Tong had been impassive, and instead made Zhi Sheng sign for the delivery and pay before she helped him call the police.
Now, Yu Qian points out that, like the fall off the building, it turns out this incident is fake too. Zhi Sheng calls it a beautiful misunderstanding. Yu Qian scoffs. He also thinks Zhi Sheng is ridiculous for smashing a baseball bat onto his own foot just to stay conscious. Who does that?
Zhi Sheng holds up a hand and says that he will never allow himself to faint twice in front of the same woman. Yu Qian is concerned about the news, but Zhi Sheng says people will forget about it within a week. Yu Qian is also concerned about Zi Tong — she was involved in both incidents and knows the truth. Zhi Sheng isn’t worried about her. She seems so focused on getting her five stars that she seems to notice little else. Besides, he ordered with his aunt’s name.
Yu Qian asks why Zhi Sheng had something delivered in the first place. Did he some ulterior motive? Zhi Sheng claims that he often orders things using Fang Qing’s name to observe his workers. But Yu Qian remembers that Zhi Sheng wanted to fire Zi Tong before. Was he planning on giving her a one star review and using that as an excuse to fire her? Zhi Sheng feigns innocence, but grabs his phone and starts to leave Zi Tong a rating.
Yu Qian is worried that he’s actually going to leave a one star review — in reality he gave her five stars — and struggles with him over the phone.
Zi Tong’s phone buzzes. She sees her new one star rating and frowns. She tells her convenience store coworker to cover for her and heads out.
Yu Qian can’t believe that Zhi Sheng actually gave Zi Tong one star. Zhi Sheng claims that he wanted to give her five stars; Yu Qian must have pressed the wrong thing when he was trying to grab the phone. “No, you did,” Yu Qian responds, and they go back and forth over who did it until Zhi Sheng tells Yu Qian to go fix the rating in the system.
But the system is down for updates because it’s 3 AM. Zhi Sheng tells him to just do it in the morning when the workday starts.
Zhi Sheng gets home and is about to unlock his door when a bright headlight shines in his face. Zi Tong strolls up, demanding to know why he gave her only one star. He tells her to take it up with management at her company. She responds that that’s what she’s doing.
“You know who I am?” he asks. He quotes a corporate policy at her about how to contest her star rating, but Zi Tong wants an answer now. She knows the truth about the rooftop fall and the thief, and she knows about his hemophobia. She threatens to tell his secrets if he doesn’t fix her rating.
Zhi Sheng gets offended that Zi Tong is trying to blackmail him into giving her five stars. He threatens to fire her, saying that his company doesn’t need people like her who will do anything for five stars. She calls him fake. At least she relies on her abilities and working hard instead of cheating her way into money like him. The money he spends on one meal is more than what his employees make. Vampires like him, who feed on the blood, sweat, and tears of the people they employ, are more despicable than her.
Zhi Sheng is furious and immediately calls Yu Qian when he gets inside, ignoring the fact that it’s the middle of the night. He fumes that he wants to give Zi Tong no stars. He wants to fire her. But Yu Qian is half-asleep and makes him repeat what he says several times. Even if he wants to fire Zi Tong, he has to wait until they get to work.
Yu Qian realizes what Zhi Sheng is saying and tries to reason with him. He has to have a real reason for firing Zi Tong, otherwise no one will take him seriously. He can’t just fire her because he doesn’t like her. Zhi Sheng realizes that he has a point — she already threatened him, and it wouldn’t be good for everyone to know about his problems. He seems to have a “real reason” in mind.
Tian Lin’s father ask him if he’s called Yun Jia yet. Has he forgotten that she’s getting remarried and is sending Xin Yan to live with them? Tian Lin asks when. Da Quan exasperatedly responds that she’s coming home next week. Xin Yan is Tian Lin’s daughter — how does he not remember something as important as his daughter coming home?
Da Quan is disappointed that Tian Lin, whom he personally raised, could turn out to be such an uncaring father. Tian Lin responds that he and Zi Tong are both more like their mother. Da Quan gets even more annoyed. Tian Lin tries to calm him down.
Da Quan reminds him that regardless of what happened to his marriage with Yun Jia, Xin Yan is innocent. Tian Lin doesn’t know how to interact with her, but Da Quan says that he’ll just have to learn. His relationship with her will get better. “Like yours and Zi Tong’s?” Tian Lin asks. Da Quan throws an orange at him.
Wang Xin Hui, one of the journalists who interviewed Zhi Sheng outside the police station, gets lectured by her superior for always causing trouble. He doesn’t want to have to pick her up from the police station again. But then she pitches the idea of an exclusive interview with Zhi Sheng. She’s confident she can get one, and her editor agrees to give her extra compensation if she manages to get the interview.
Tian Lin shows up and whispers to the editor about a secret story a company called Ming Tong Group that he’s been working on. Xin Hui tries to eavesdrop, curious. Tian Lin volunteers to go do an interview at Xinyue Resort, a place he claims to be familiar with, when the original reporter drops out last-minute.
Zi Tong goes to Doctor Du for a check-up on her knee. He tries to warn her against continuing to work as a courier, concerned about the toll it takes on her knees, but she reminds him that without much formal schooling, she has limited options for a job. Doctor Du shakes his head and sighs after she leaves, saying that she’s just as stubborn as her mother.
Tian Lin wanders the grounds of Xinyue Resort, nostalgic. He used to work there when he was younger, and fondly remembers a fellow employee named Sunny — Fang Qing — but the current employee he talks to doesn’t know anyone by that name. As fate would have it, Fang Qing also happens to be on the resort grounds, and just misses crossing paths with Tian Lin.
Fang Qing calls Zhi Sheng, checking if he and the house are okay. Zhi Sheng admits that something isn’t quite right with him. He saw some images from after “he” left them. Fang Qing tells him not to think too much about the images. In the past, thinking about it would make his head hurt and he would sometimes vomit.
Zhi Sheng reassures his aunt that he already saw his doctor. He also thanks her again for taking care of him for so many years after “he” left.
Fang Qing hangs up after a coworker asks her if there’s anywhere good to eat nearby. Fang Qing immediately points out a place near the resort, explaining that she’s familiar with it because she used to work here.
Zhi Sheng spots Zi Tong on the side of the road. He frowns as he watches her appear to take money from a panhandler’s tin can and dump coins in instead.
The GoGoVan employees are all hanging out when they all get matching notifications from the company app. Zi Tong is being promoted from being a courier to being the CEO’s personal assistant. He You Zhi, one of the older employees, congratulates Zi Tong when she walks by. Zi Tong is confused — she hasn’t checked her phone yet and didn’t know about the promotion.
Zi Tong goes straight to Zhi Sheng’s office to confront him. She claims that she only wants to be a courier, but Zhi Sheng doesn’t believe her. Why would she threaten him if she wanted to only be a courier? This opportunity is a bargain for her.
Yu Qian wants to know why Zhi Sheng suddenly made Zi Tong his assistant. Zhi Sheng reveals that his grand plan is fire her after a month, that way if she tells the media anything, he can claim that she was making up lies to get revenge.
Yu Qian thinks that Zhi Sheng is scheming too much, but Zhi Sheng claims that these are just preventative measures. He’s already learned from her colleagues about what kind of person she is. Jia Qi and Ren Guang talked about how cold and unfriendly she was and how she always acted like everyone owed her money. The only person who had anything nice to say was You Zhi, who beamed and said that she looks cold but is actually a very warm-hearted person.
Yu Qian latches onto what You Zhi said — someone thinks she’s a good person! But Zhi Sheng doesn’t think it means anything. You Zhi thinks everyone is a good person. Yu Qian points out that it seems like it’s always Zhi Sheng who is trying to antagonize Zi Tong. Zhi Sheng childishly responds that it’s because someone called him childish.
Fang Qing’s coworker teases her about her younger boyfriend, but in an encouraging way. The woman’s stomach suddenly gurgles and she drags Fang Qing off in a hurry to their room. In the process, Fang Qing accidentally bumps into someone and exclaims, “Sorry!”
The commotion attracts Tian Lin’s attention. The way she said sorry is exactly the same way that Sunny said sorry when he first met her. He’d just arrived at the resort for his first day of work after running away from home. At the time, Tian Lin had been a classic sullen teenager and had been offended when she called him a kid, proclaiming that he was already seventeen. Sunny had made him climb up on a ladder and prune some tree branches. He was afraid of heights but unwilling to admit it and she laughed at how he shook as he climbed up the ladder.
Now, Tian Lin gets a call from his ex-wife, confirming that he’s ready for their daughter next Wednesday. After hanging up, he takes out his lucky coin and wonders if Sunny is now married and experiencing the happy life she said he wouldn’t be able to give her.
When Fang Qing returns home, she’s amazed to find her house sparkling clean, including Zhi Sheng’s room. Zhi Sheng has been waiting for her to return home, having missed her home-cooking, and begs her to make some of his favorite dishes.
Zi Tong drops by a bookstore, looking for books on being an assistant. The overly enthusiastic bookstore employee, Dora, drags her over to the romance section where she pulls out three novels featuring the CEO-assistant trope. Zi Tong makes a face and walks away.
Jia Qi and Ren Guang are at the HR department — Jia Qi is reporting Ren Guang for spying on a customer showering — when Zi Tong shows up and everyone falls silent. She doesn’t smile as she asks where her desk is. Someone points and she goes over without saying anything else.
She runs into Zhi Sheng and Yu Qian, who have just arrived. The other employees watch curiously as Zhi Sheng orders Zi Tong to come into his office. Yu Qian stops her on the way in and advises that she should try her best to accommodate him, but if she can’t she shouldn’t force herself. Yu Qian remembers that he never introduced himself and starts to, but Zi Tong knows exactly who he is: Gao Yu Qian, the CTO.
Zhi Sheng has a clipboard with sticky notes of tasks that Zi Tong needs to complete. She scans the list quickly and asks him if he wants sugar with his coffee. He asks why she picked that first; she noticed that it said “right now.” He tells her he wants his coffee black. She leaves to go get it and he watches her go with a thoughtful expression.
Jia Qi finds Zi Tong as she’s making Zhi Sheng’s coffee. Jia Qi knows that Zhi Sheng is very particular about his coffee and asks if Zi Tong knows how to make pour over coffee. Zi Tong gives her a look, but doesn’t respond. Jia Qi looks disgruntled as she watches Zi Tong expertly make a pour over coffee. Finally, Zi Tong primly tells Jia Qi that she’s worked at a coffee shop before, then heads in to give Zhi Sheng his coffee.
Zhi Sheng warns Zi Tong that he’s very picky about his coffee, then takes a sip. He’s surprised when Zi Tong’s coffee tastes even better than his aunt’s. But when he puts it down, he says that it’s just passable. He starts to ask for his suit; Zi Tong grabs it and returns before he’s even finished his sentence. He asks for a dress shirt; Zi Tong promptly rolls in several freshly dry-cleaned shirts.
Over the next few days, Zi Tong proves herself to be extremely capable, flawlessly accomplishing all of Zhi Sheng’s tasks. Zhi Sheng is dismayed that he’s unable to find anything wrong with what Zi Tong does. Why? He yells, “This is too weird!” from his office, alarming everyone else nearby.
Zi Tong delivers a document to Yu Qian, who comments that Zhi Sheng’s past assistants have been unable to keep up with his high level of productivity. Is she used to it? Zi Tong responds that it’s okay — it’s not as fast-paced as she was expecting. She turns to leave. Yu Qian tells her to wait, but then doesn’t really have anything to say. Instead, he gives her some encouragement.
Zi Tong pauses after she exits Yu Qian’s office. His words of encouragement reminded her of the brusque way her mother would encourage her between drills.
Yu Qian tells Zhi Sheng that Zi Tong that he wasn’t fast-paced enough. Zhi Sheng decides that Zi Tong should be responsible for taking meeting minutes for this afternoon’s meeting. Yu Qian protests. The meeting this afternoon is very technical. How can they expect Zi Tong to understand some of the technical terminology? But Zhi Sheng’s mind is set.
Zi Tong struggles to keep up with notes at the meeting. Zhi Sheng smirks, glad to see her finally struggling. Later, he peeks at her through the windows of his office as she finished up her notes. He doesn’t think she can do it. Yu Qian asks if he’s an evil mother-in-law who loves to harass his daughter-in-law. Zhi Sheng calls Zi Tong, telling her that he expects the meeting notes first thing tomorrow morning, then he smirks at Yu Qian. This is what an evil mother-in-law would do.
Zi Tong recorded the meeting on her phone and references the recording to transcribe the meeting. She keeps getting interrupted by Zhi Sheng, who has a variety of other tasks he needs her to complete. Zi Tong stays late after work and only leaves when she gets a reminder on her phone to go to her night shift at the convenience store. She continues working at the convenience store. Her coworker hesitantly asks if she really needs to work so hard, balancing two jobs. She doesn’t respond and he shrugs, saying it’s not like he’s concerned about her or anything.
Zi Tong finally responds, saying that she needs money. A lot of it. Her coworker’s friend says she might as well steal the money. Zi Tong responds that she would if it weren’t illegal. Her coworker just nods and reminds her to restock later, then leaves her alone.
The next morning, Zhi Sheng is dismayed to discover that Zi Tong’s meeting notes are perfectly detailed. He can’t find any faults. Yu Qian also takes a look — she even wrote down his joke at the end of the meeting.
Zhi Sheng finds it unbelievable. All she has is a high school diploma — how could she have gotten all of the meeting down? Yu Qian reminds him that ability is more important than education. That’s also something Zhi Sheng has said before.
Zhi Sheng notices that Zi Tong isn’t at her desk. Yu Qian realizes that he hasn’t seen her all morning, either.
Zi Tong is back out as a courier, making deliveries, when she gets a call from You Zhi, asking where she is. The CEO is looking for her and not in a good mood. Earlier, Ren Guang got into an accident with a courier from a rival company. That company thinks that GoGoVan is trying to steal business and the situation is not good.
Zhi Sheng is with Ren Guang in a parking lot, where Ren Guang and the rival company’s courier each accuse the other of intentionally causing the accident. The rival company’s leader, President He, shows up and smacks his fist with his hand intimidatingly, but then surprises everyone by punching his own employee in the face. All he cares about is the customer receiving the delivery. Then he turns toward Zhi Sheng and Ren Guang.
Zhi Sheng tries to encourage his rival to talk rather than fight, but ends up insulting the rival couriers, who sprint toward him, ready to beat him up. Zhi Sheng and Ren Guang close their eyes and try to shield themselves, but then Zi Tong shows up and singlehandedly starts fighting them off.
She manages to do pretty well, to everyone’s surprise, but then two of the men gang up on her and she gets put on the defensive. Before the fight gets any further, Yu Qian comes running up with a security officer in tow, forcing an end to the fight. President He points out that the closest security camera is broken — they should at least do their research — then takes his men and leaves, saying that they’ll resolve this next time. He and his men stare down Zi Tong as they leave. She glares back.
Ren Guang rushes over to Zi Tong and gushes over how cool she was. He asks what kind of martial art she used, but she ignores him. She goes over to Zhi Sheng and Yu Qian, upset that this situation was a set-up (albeit, a poorly thought-out one, since the security camera was broken.) Zhi Sheng responds that he doesn’t do anything he isn’t certain about. They stare each other down.
Commentary
I’m into this. The plot and characters and relationships themselves feel like they’ve been done before, but originality is overrated these days. All that matters is execution, and at the very least, I am entertained!
I really appreciated the way Zi Tong called out Zhi Sheng for profiting off of the hard work of minimum wage workers. As someone who works in the technology space, the wealth gap between the people who power service-oriented startups and the people who are writing the software or running the company is a moral gray area that I often grapple with. I’m not sure if the show will dive into that any more — it seems a bit too heavy and out of scope for what I think they’re aiming for, but I like that it was at least mentioned.
Some quick hit thoughts:
- If only Yu Qian could wear those circle glasses the whole time. Then he would be more of an endearing puppy! Thankfully I think I am adjusting to Yan Yu Lin being this character instead of his Someday or One Day character, which is good for my sanity.
- Of course Zhi Sheng has some sort of childhood trauma backstory!
- Zi Tong is the epitome of “if there’s a will, there’s a way” and I love it. (I’m pretty sure I also said this about Du Ai Sha in The Wonder Woman.)
The Drama Llama 