Recap: Falling Into You (Ep. 5)

Zhi Sheng tries to win back Zi Tong and convince her to return to the company, but she’s more than happy to make him work for her trust. Meanwhile, Fang Qing finds herself getting involved in Xin Yan’s life and has some awkward run-ins with Tian Lin.

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Recap

Zhi Sheng notices a van tailing him. He manages to lose it, but then waits outside his car for it to show up. He surprises the men who try to apprehend him by saying that he wants to see their boss. Zi Tong spots him in the back of the van and decides to follow.

Zhi Sheng is taken to see his rival, President He, who says that he’s been waiting a long time for him. Zhi Sheng responds that he’s the one who has had to wait. He asks for a form, but Zhi Sheng sits himself down and casually pours himself some water. If they’re having lawyers take care of it, why should he personally bring the form?

While they talk, Yu Qian nervously enters an office building with a stack of documents in his arms. He asks to go up to the Mingtong offices.

President He asks if Zhi Sheng is trying to mess with him. Zhi Sheng responds that ever since He had his men start following him, he had a bold idea: what if they collaborate?

Fang Qing apologizes to Tian Lin for hitting him earlier. She knows she shouldn’t have done it, but she was worried that if Xin Yan keeps getting neglected, she’ll turn out like… she suddenly trails off, thinking about Zhi Sheng.

Fang Qing apologizes to Xin Yan too, who pointedly ignores her. Tian Lin tells Xin Yan that her teacher was right to get mad at him. Da Quan agrees, and smacks Tian Lin on the head again. Xin Yan finally speaks up, telling her grandfather to not hit her dad. Da Quan shames Tian Lin again — even sick, Xin Yan is still trying to speak up for her father.

Fang Qing asks if Xin Yan will forgive her. Xin Yan asks if her father will be with her more if she forgives Fang Qing. They all look at Tian Lin, who glances uncomfortably at his own father before turning back to Xin Yan and saying that he’ll agree.

Da Quan has to coach Tian Lin into picking Xin Yan up, but he awkwardly does. Xin Yan beams, clinging to his neck, and Fang Qing and Da Quan smile behind them.

• 

• 

Zhi Sheng asks President He what he thinks about working together. If He is able to win the Mingtong contract, then fine, but if Zhi Sheng wins it, he wants to work together with He. He is skeptical that Zhi Sheng would be so magnanimous. Zhi Sheng tells He about his ambitions to expand to all of Asia and eventually the whole world. He’s logistical expertise and Zhi Sheng’s technology would make a great business partnership. President He is still skeptical.

Zhi Sheng pulls out his phone and speaks with someone on the other end. He claims that he was on the phone the whole time, ever since he got into He’s van, and everything they talked about has been recorded. President He slams his hand down on the table, seemingly upset, but then laughs. Zhi Sheng breathes a sigh of relief. President He finds Zhi Sheng interesting and proposes a toast. They’ve just touched their cups when Zi Tong bursts in, saying that she’s already called the police.

She stares around awkwardly when she realizes that Zhi Sheng isn’t in any sort of danger. Zhi Sheng whispers, asking why she’s here. He didn’t order a delivery. Is she here on a rescue mission? “No,” she replies, then turns to leave. Zhi Sheng rushes out after her, hastily saying goodbye to President He.

Zhi Sheng spots Zi Tong taking the stairs one at a time, favoring her knee. He offers to take her to the hospital. She rejects him, saying she won’t die, but he picks her up bridal style, ignoring her protests. She threatens to beat him up. He calls her on her bluff, pointing out that it would be dishonorable for her to attack someone who doesn’t even know martial arts.

Zhi Sheng carries Zi Tong back to her scooter, then bends down and starts to pull her pant leg up to check her injury. She stops him — isn’t he afraid of blood? But Zhi Sheng looks anyway. He pauses when he sees her ACL surgery scar. He asks if the scar is from when she got injured before. Does it hurt? She doesn’t respond.

Zi Tong only has one helmet, but that doesn’t deter Zhi Sheng. He abruptly stops someone riding by and pays him an exorbitant amount for his helmet. Then he hops onto Zi Tong’s scooter and drives her away.

The ride to the hospital is mostly silent, Zi Tong lost in her own memories of how her mother ditched her after her surgery. At a downhill part of the road, Zhi Sheng tells Zi Tong to hold on, then gently puts her arm around his waist and smiles.

Zhi Sheng insists on carrying Zi Tong into the hospital and rushes her to a nurse, demanding that she receive an X-ray. The nurse goes to fetch a doctor. While they wait, a man is pushed into the hallway in a wheelchair, bleeding profusely from a large cut on his arm. Zhi Sheng faints at the sight of blood. The doctor shows up and glances from Zi Tong in the wheelchair to Zhi Sheng on the ground in confusion — so who’s the patient here?

Zi Tong wakes up from napping at Zhi Sheng’s bedside to find him looking distressed and muttering in his sleep. He alternates between saying, “It wasn’t me,” and, “Blood, so much blood.” In his nightmare, he sees the same traumatic memory of his father bleeding from the head. This time, he sees himself, holding a bloody glass shard.

Zi Tong tries to wake Zhi Sheng up. He switches to muttering her name and saying that he didn’t want to fire her. He regrets it — will she come back?

Zhi Sheng wakes up to find Zi Tong at his bedside. “Are you okay?” she asks. He asks if he’s dreaming, then smiles awkwardly when she says no and tells him that he fainted.

Yu Qian arrives, worried that Zhi Sheng is in the hospital because of President He, but Zhi Sheng reassures him that everything went smoothly on his end. Zi Tong stands to leave. Zhi Sheng gets up, offering to take her wherever she’s going. Zi Tong says she can go on her own, but Zhi Sheng pulls her keys out of his pocket — can she really?

So Zhi Sheng ends up going home with Zi Tong. He looks around, commenting on how out of the way her apartment is. Her boyfriend doesn’t worry about her? “I don’t have that kind of thing,” she responds, then points him to the nearest bus stop. There aren’t any taxis around and the bus comes every hour.

Zhi Sheng smiles to himself upon learning that the man from the other day isn’t Zi Tong’s boyfriend. Zi Tong gets a call asking her to cover for a shift at work. She starts responding that she can, but then Zhi Sheng grabs her phone, tells the person on the other end that she’s unavailable, and hangs up.

Zi Tong is irritated with Zhi Sheng’s interference, but he won’t let her do anything with her injury and insists on following her home, where he promptly pushes his way in and starts exploring her apartment. She protests, but he ignores it and insists on prepping a hot compress for her. She tries to grab it out of his hand, knocking him off balance. He catches himself on the wall behind her and the end up very close together.

Then Zi Tong’s stomach growls and they look away from each other awkwardly. Zhi Sheng offers to make her something to eat, then frowns at her mostly-empty fridge. Zi Tong tries to use that as an excuse to get him to leave — there’s nothing to cook here. But Zhi Sheng pulls out some lettuce and two eggs. Being poor has allowed him to identify potential. Zi Tong is surprised he’s ever been poor. Zhi Sheng cooks as he tells her that he and his aunt bounced around from relative to relative like a ball being kicked around. From her, he learned how to make delicious meals from the bare minimum. It’s how he got by in college.

Zhi Sheng makes a portion for himself as well and sits down to eat with Zi Tong. She’s subdued as she eats — this is the first time in a long time that she’s eaten with someone else.

Fang Qing drops by the Chen household with some of Xin Yan’s schoolwork and a gift. She finds Tian Lin trying to force Xin Yan to eat something while she refuses. Fang Qing helps out by bribing Xin Yan with the reward system she uses in class.

Afterward, Tian Lin watches with a smile as Fang Qing tucks Xin Yan into bed.

• 

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She catches him looking at her and asks him outside whether he had something to say. He responds a little awkwardly that seeing kids sleep and eat all the time reminds him of… she interrupts, saying that it’s rude to compare a girl to a pig. He sheepishly finishes his sentence — he was going to say a koala. Fang Qing apologizes with a grimace for misunderstanding him and quickly walks away, embarrassed. Tian Lin follows closely. When she turns around abruptly, she bumps into his chest, then they knock heads when each trying to apologize to the other.

Fang Qing tries to apologize again for hitting him in the hospital earlier. Tian Lin responds that he deserved it because he hasn’t been a good father to Xin Yan, but Fang Qing reassures him that Xin Yan cares a lot about him. She gives him some encouragement that he can be a good father if he tries. He’s reminded of how she had encouraged him when he first met her as a sullen teenager. At that time, she had given him a coin — it’s the lucky coin he often wears. He starts to pull it out of his pocket.

Da Quan rushes up and tries to get Fang Qing to stay for dinner, but she politely declines, saying that there’s someone waiting at home for her to cook. Tian Lin looks crestfallen.

Da Quan and Tian Lin watch as Fang Qing walk away. Da Quan sighs that Fang Qing seems great — she’s pretty and nice. Is she single? He elbows Tian Lin, who sulkily responds that she’s married, pointing out what she said about cooking for someone.

Zhi Sheng is lost in thought during dinner. Fang Qing asks what he dreamed about this time — Yu Qian told her about his fainting incident earlier in the day. She forces him to tell her what’s on his mind. Zhi Sheng admits that he’s been thinking about his relationship with his father. Why was his father always so cold toward him? Why did he hit him and yell at him? Why did he always treat him like the enemy?

• 

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Fang Qing tries to remind him of how much he loved his father when he was younger. He used to call him his idol. But Zhi Sheng responds that he stopped viewing his father as his idol after the day his father got angry with him for asking him to stop drinking and locked him in his room. He admits that he’s not sure whether his dreams are real memories or just dreams.

Fang Qing tries to apologize on behalf of her brother. She tells Zhi Sheng that his father really loved him and cared for him, but just couldn’t handle his mother’s death. That’s why he started drinking. She starts crying as she sighs that she should have discovered the truth sooner.

Zhi Sheng tries to cheer her up. This is why he doesn’t like talking about these things, because she always acts so guilt-stricken toward him. He volunteers to drive her to school in the mornings for a week as “punishment” for making her cry.

But later, Zhi Sheng finds himself researching abused children who commit murder. He goes to see a psychologist, Dr. He, who thinks it’s more likely that the dreams Zhi Sheng has are the result of a sense of guilt over his father’s death rather than actual murder. Zhi Sheng worries that he suppressed his memories as a child because he killed his father, but his doctor reassures him that there’s no way a malnourished child like him could have killed an adult. His doctor has known Zhi Sheng for well over a decade. If he really had an antisocial personality, it should have been apparent by now.

Zhi Sheng shares that he’s been having nightmares every night. Maybe he’s too stressed at work? Dr. He asks if it’s about work, or about the assistant he fired. Zhi Sheng admits how upset he was when he thought that Zi Tong had betrayed him. He couldn’t even breathe. Even now, he’s getting agitated just talking about it, but he doesn’t know why. He’s never felt this way before about other problems like business deals gone wrong. His doctor points out that often it’s not the betrayal that hurts, but the person doing the betraying.

Zi Tong’s convenience store coworker tells her that he didn’t switch to the day shift with her because he was worried about her or anything. It’s just better for his sleep schedule. Zi Tong responds that he knows — this is the third time he’s told her.

Zhi Sheng shows up at the convenience store and tries to act like it’s a coincidence to find her there. He asks her to come back to the company and invites her to a celebratory banquet for the Mingtong contract. She contributed a lot to it. Zi Tong asks if the contract has gone through yet. Zhi Sheng admits that it hasn’t. She tells him to come back when it has. He takes that as her agreement to come to the banquet and says that he’ll pick her up.

Of course, there is no actual celebratory banquet planned, but when news comes that Mingtong wants to sign the contract, Zhi Sheng tells Yu Qian that it’s “party time.” They put together a celebration at the office. Zhi Sheng and Ming Huan both watch the door, waiting for Zi Tong to show up.

Yu Qian goes over to talk to Zhi Sheng, reminding him that Zi Tong said she would come only if she didn’t have work lined up. He points out that Zhi Sheng can’t force Zi Tong to come back if she doesn’t want to. Even if he forces her to come back, she won’t be happy. But Zhi Sheng seems to get a sudden stroke of inspiration and runs off. Yu Qian tries to follow, but Ren Guang and Jia Qi pull him onto the dance floor.

It’s late when Zi Tong gets home from work. She looks around as if hoping that someone will be waiting, then shrugs and heads up to her apartment. She’s surprised to find Zhi Sheng inside her apartment with dinner laid out on the table. He says that he already got her mail for her and tells her to sit down and eat. She tells him to leave.

When Zhi Sheng doesn’t move, she tries to drag him out, but he resists by catching himself against a wall and stares seriously at her while saying, “I’m sorry.” He apologizes for accusing her of something she didn’t do without trying to figure out the truth. He broke her trust in him, he hurt her, and he shouldn’t have.

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But Zi Tong just shoves him away to put some distance between him, guessing that he’s only doing this to get her to come back as his assistant. He admits that’s true — her job at his company has a better salary and better benefits than her convenience store job. Most importantly, it’s easier on her knees.

He picks up an envelope from the table from Memorial Hermann, a well-known hospital for sports medicine rehab in America. He guesses that she’s been saving up money so she can get treatment there and be able to compete in taekwondo again.

Zi Tong snatches the envelope away from him and snaps that it’s none of his business.

Zhi Sheng isn’t easily dissuaded. He tells her that he’s watched her final competition dozens of times. He doesn’t know what made her so upset and he doesn’t need to know — everyone has things in their past they don’t want to talk about — but he wants to see her compete again.

“Can you come back?” Zhi Sheng pleads. He promises to rebuild her trust in him. Zi Tong responds that she doesn’t trust him. He says that if she doesn’t trust him, then she should at least trust money. He promises to increase her salary and benefits and add on bonuses. He holds his hand out to her, asking again if she’ll please come back.

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Zi Tong stares at his hand for a long moment, then grabs his wrist and pushes him out of her apartment, slamming the door in his face. He pounds at the door and reminds her to at least eat the food — food is innocent and it’s a crime to let it go to waste. He texts her the same reminder: “You can hate me, but food is innocent. Remember to eat.”

Zhi Sheng smiles to himself and starts walking down the stairs after he sees that Zi Tong has left him on read. He’d rather be left on read than left unread.

Zhi Sheng complains to Yu Qian the next day, trying to figure out how to get Zi Tong to come back. Yu Qian seems to only be half-listening as he’s nursing a hangover from the previous night. The rest of the employees also seem to be nursing hangovers. Jia Qi asks Mi Ya when Zhi Sheng’s new assistant will be hired, but Mi Ya says it’s up to Zhi Sheng. Jia Qi crosses her arms with a frown — does it really have to be Zi Tong? Ming Huan overhears and asks sadly if Zi Tong is really never coming back. Jia Qi points out that Zi Tong stood up Zhi Sheng at the party. What does he think?

But she lets out a surprised shriek when she turns. Everyone else stares and gapes, too. Zi Tong has returned. She strolls into Zhi Sheng’s office with his dry cleaning and coffee like she never left.

Zi Tong firmly tells him that she’s back because she trusts the money, not because she trusts him. He smiles at her and says that he’s just glad she’s back. He remembers Dr. He telling him that his reaction toward Zi Tong means that he trusts her and has hopes for her. Now, Zhi Sheng promises Zi Tong that he will make her trust him again one day.

Zi Tong warns him that he’s not allowed to mess around with her. All she wants is for her courier account privileges to be reinstated. Zhi Sheng agrees to not mess with her and says she can wear whatever she wants. But he won’t let her take side gigs during work hours — it’ll affect her knee. Zi Tong responds that running courier deliveries is like physical therapy for her. She knows her limits.

Zhi Sheng nods, deciding to trust her. He holds out his hand, formally welcoming her back. She takes it. He warns her that this time, he won’t let go so easily. She warns him that he has only once chance. He promises to not let it go to waste. They continue to hold their handshake and stare at each other.

The man Fang Qing went on a group date with thanks her for her help in referring him to her school. Tian Lin is dropping off Xin Yan at school when he spots the man picking some dust out of Fang Qing’s hair. He looks jealous. They cross paths and Fang Qing greets Xin Yan and Tian Lin. He suddenly puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her out of the way protectively while catching a stray baseball with one hand. She stares up at him in surprise.

Fang Qing hastily gets to her feet and thanks Tian Lin for saving her. Her new coworker glances between them, looking a bit disappointed, then takes his leave. Tian Lin seems relieved that the man is just a coworker. Tian Lin says he thought he might have been her husband. Fang Qing asks if she looks like the kind of woman who is married. Tian Lin just shrugs and smiles a little sheepishly. Fang Qing hurriedly says goodbye and scurries off. Tian Lin smiles to himself.

In the morning, Zi Tong wakes up with a start from a nightmare in which she relives her knee injury.

At work, Ming Huan finds Zi Tong and apologizes for getting her in trouble. But Zi Tong never blamed him for speaking to the reporter. All he said was the truth — it’s the reporter who is at fault. Ming Huan is relieved that Zi Tong isn’t angry with him. He welcomes her back.

Zhi Sheng is in a surprisingly good mood when he gets to work, complimenting Mi Ya and telling Yu Qian that he trusts his judgment 200% when it comes to decision-making on whether to buy some new servers. Ren Guang accidentally knocks a folder out of Zi Tong’s hands when she exits Zhi Sheng’s office. She and Zhi Sheng both reach up to catch it, but she easily snags it before him.

Zhi Sheng comments on Zi Tong’s champion-like dynamic vision. She asks him to not bring up the past. He leans in close and winks — her past can be their little secret. She’s unamused. Zhi Sheng tries to give Zi Tong breakfast, but she says she already ate. He says it can be lunch instead — she says she brought lunch from home. He frowns at having his plans dashed, but is adamant that Zi Tong accept his meal, so he claims that today is a lunch exchange day and grabs her bag, saying he’ll eat her lunch instead.

During lunch, Yu Qian asks Zhi Sheng if he likes Zi Tong. There’s no point in pretending otherwise — everyone can tell. Zhi Sheng says he’s not trying to pretend anything. He freely admits that he likes Zi Tong.

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Commentary

This drama is so feel-good and pleasant to watch! Zhi Sheng and Zi Tong are both such earnest people, though they have different ways of expressing it, and seeing how much Zhi Sheng is willing to do for Zi Tong and how much he genuinely cares about her is so heart-warming.

I also find the Fang Qing, Tian Lin, and Xin Yan relationship so adorable and precious and can’t wait to see more. I’m sure the show will try to play up the jealousy between Tian Lin and Zhi Sheng — Zhi Sheng already thinks Tian Lin is Zi Tong’s boyfriend, or at least interested in her, and I’m sure Tian Lin will find some way to misconstrue Zhi Sheng as Fang Qing’s boyfriend. I am all for this type of misunderstanding and fake love square!