Jia Le and Zhen Yu start to accept their temporary daily cohabitation as their new reality. Zhen Yu learns that he and Jia Le are connected by more than their shared residence and realizes that Jia Le might hold the key to his redemption,
Recap
Da Jun recognizes Zhen Yu in the background of Jia Le’s selfie at the Legal Aid Foundation. Zhen Yu remembers giving her legal advice on her water leakage issue — specifically because he texted a friend about how dumb she was. But as he stares at the photo, the picture suddenly changes and the universe rearranges itself. Instead of being all smiles, Jia Le is now upset that there are perverts everywhere.
Zhen Yu falls backward, startled, and tells Da Jun that for some reason, he has two versions of the same memory with Jia Le. Da Jun has no idea what he’s talking about.
Zhen Yu’s head hurts as he remembers the second version of that memory: Jia Le immediately recognized him and started smack-talking him, but at the time he had no clue who she was. She accused him of faking it, because he repeated a similar phrase telling her to go see a psychiatrist instead of coming to see a lawyer.
Zhen Yu struggles to communicate what he’s experiencing to Da Jun, so he asks if Da Jun remembers his text message from four months ago. He’d said something about a crazy woman accosting him. Da Jun finds the message and they stare at each other in disbelief. Zhen Yu just met Jia Le a night ago, so how could there be a message about her in Da Jun’s phone from four months ago? The only possibility is that she’s actually from the past.
At night, Zhen Yu waits around for the clock to strike 10:06. Jia Le strikes a drum and counts prayer beads, trying to ward off evil spirits like Zhen Yu, but is startled by a phone call from her boss. He’s in the middle of berating her for a typo when her signal suddenly cuts out. She doesn’t notice the apartment transforming around her, but turns and walks straight into Zhen Yu’s chest.
They yell and spring away from each other. Jia Le immediately goes on the offensive, trying to attack Zhen Yu, while he tries to pitch the idea of space-time fusion to her. Jia Le refuses to listen and continues to attack him with her light saber, but Zhen Yu has prepared the apartment with evidence to try and convince her.
Then he takes her out of the apartment, into his 2018 world, where they eat at a Subway that was under construction in her time. It’s enough to convince Jia Le that this is the future and that she and Zhen Yu will continue being roommates for 46 minutes every night.
The two bicker on the way home; Zhen Yu admits that meeting her has boosted his morale and pulled him out of his slump. He notices her shivering and offers her his coat. She rejects it. He wraps it around her shoulders, but not out of pure benevolence — he doesn’t want her to get sick and pass it on to him.
It starts pouring. Jia Le is prepared with a Pokemon-themed umbrella. Zhen Yu hurries to take it from her so he can be under it as well, commenting on her love for Pikachu. He puts an arm around her shoulder and pulls her closer so she’s fully under the umbrella and doesn’t get rained on, but claims he just doesn’t want his coat to get wet. Jia Le steals the umbrella back from him for being so rude.
Zhen Yu checks the time and realizes that they only have a couple of minutes left before they separate. He doesn’t want to be stuck in the rain, so he grabs Jia Le by the shoulders and forces her to rush back to the apartment building. They laugh as they run through the rain.
They make it to the overhang outside the apartment building and shake themselves off. By the time they each turn back toward the other, smiling, the other has disappeared. They both look a little disappointed. Zhen Yu smiles to himself and says, “Good night, Cheng Jia Le.”
Back in her apartment, Jia Le laments the possibility of having to be roommates with Zhen Yu for a period of time every single night. She gets a call from Cheng Hao, who invites her to a celebration for Yi Jie and Yu Ren, who were selected for the Asia Games.
At the party, Cheng Hao makes Jia Le and Yi Jie reconcile after they drink together. Yi Jie reveals that Cheng Hao has a girlfriend. Jia Le immediately hops up to ask him about it. Yi Jie teases her and they start bickering again while Cheng Hao chuckles.
Mu Si Ming questions Zhen Yu in court about how and where he found his supposed evidence. Zhen Yu insists that he’s being framed and points out to Si Ming that they’ve known each other for so long — does he really think he’d fabricate evidence? Si Ming responds that it’s because they’ve known each other so long that he thinks it’s plausible Zhen Yu would do such a thing. He reminds Zhen Yu that in the eyes of the law, there are no gray areas.
Zhen Yu smirks. Si Ming isn’t doing this because of what happened back during college, is he? Si Ming forcefully responds that he would never let the past bias him now. If Zhen Yu is innocent, then he needs to come up with the proof to convince him. (What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Though I guess Si Ming is the prosecutor in this case so he’s trying to prove Zhen Yu guilty…)
Jia Le teases Cheng Hao as he walks her home — did he come with her to Taipei because he wanted to see his girlfriend? He responds that she’s probably getting ready for bed, even though it’s only 7 PM — apparently, she has a curfew. He tells Jia Le about all of his girlfriend’s great qualities. Jia Le says that he should marry her immediately if she’s so great. Cheng Hao admits that he already bought a ring. He met his girlfriend through a blind date set up by her family, so they both knew that the end goal was marriage, but he’s afraid of scaring her off by proposing too early. Jia Le encourages him to “man up” and propose.
Cheng Hao promises that he’ll introduce Jia Le to his girlfriend soon. She pesters him to see a photo, and he pulls one up on his phone. As we know by now, his girlfriend is none other than Ji Rou. (If you haven’t caught on, Cheng Hao is the same Jiang Cheng Hao who was murdered.)
At night, Zhen Yu is browsing through Jia Le’s Facebook page again when he spots a photo that he didn’t notice before. It’s a picture of Jia Le with Cheng Hao and Ji Rou, the caption indicating that it’s the first time Jia Le met Ji Rou. Zhen Yu smiles as he notices that the meeting is taking place in two days (in Jia Le’s time.)
Zhen Yu tells Da Jun about Jia Le’s connection to Cheng Hao and pitches a bold idea: maybe they can prevent Cheng Hao’s death from happening. Then they would no longer be entangled in this fraudulent evidence mess. Four months ago, Ji Rou wasn’t even married yet. Da Jun groans. Is Zhen Yu really going to ask Jia Le to prevent Ji Rou and Cheng Hao from getting married?
But Zhen Yu can’t be dissuaded from his one chance to change fate, though he admits he’s not quite sure how he’ll accomplish it. He pores through Jia Le’s Facebook again, looking for clues on how best to cozy up to her. He notices her taste in terrible movies and creme brulee.
Man Man sets a creme brulee down in front of Jia Le, who groans that she’s been eating creme brulee for a month. But Man Man believes that her brain needs sugar in order to function. They gossip about Cheng Hao’s whirlwind relationship and Man Man laments her previous failed relationship and how much of a struggle it was to live with her previous boyfriend. Jia Le curiously asks her opinion on a messy woman living with a finicky man. Man Man teases her, asking if she has a man hidden away somewhere. Jia Le is saved from responding when she gets a call from work.
Zhen Yu makes creme brulee for Jia Le, then wonders where she is when she doesn’t show up and the apartments have already merged.
Jia Le returns home from the office at 10:30 and tries to open her apartment door, but no matter how hard she tries, she can’t open the door more than a few inches. A forceful glowing light pushes back at her. She wonders if this is because of the time-space fusion. She knocks on the door, calling Zhen Yu’s name, and tries ringing the doorbell, but there’s no response.
Zhen Yu opens the door to check if Jia Le is outside, then laughs at himself. Why would she appear outside? They both end up leaning against either side of the door, simultaneously counting down the seconds to 10:52 in their respective times.
The next day, Jia Le returns home after another long day at work and stares around her apartment. Despite trying to tidy up the previous day, the place is still a mess. She starts trying to clean up, which mostly involves throwing everything into a box, but then gets distracted when she realizes all the embarrassing things that Zhen Yu must’ve seen.
Zhen Yu is making another creme brulee when the clock strikes 10:06. He goes into the living room and then wonders if the magic is broken — how is the apartment so clean?
Jia Le comes out of the bathroom and tries to act like she just got home and that she’s normally a very tidy person — she was just too busy with work the past few days which is why her apartment was so messy. Zhen Yu shows the creme brulee he made, then is disappointed to find out that Jia Le doesn’t like creme brulee. She suspiciously asks why he thinks she would like it. He quickly changes the subject and mentions that he has a nice bottle of red wine to share instead.
Zhen Yu pours them both a glass of wine and toasts Jia Le. She clinks her cup with his, but doesn’t drink. Instead, she proposes that they set some ground rules.
Rule 1: refrain from sleeping or going to the bathroom at 10:06. Zhen Yu at first doesn’t want to promise that he won’t go to the bathroom, but Jia Le starts pointing out the ways that can go very wrong and they both stop before the conversation can get more awkward.
Rule 2 is to not touch each other’s personal things. Zhen Yu tries to act like he would never do such a thing.
Rule 3 is to not be overcourteous with things like making creme brulee or treating each other with wine. They should each just go about their own lives. Zhen Yu disagrees with this one: the fact is that they’re going to be living together, however temporarily. He doesn’t want to act like she doesn’t exist.
Zhen Yu thinks that they should try to get to know each other better, but Jia Le isn’t forthcoming with information when he tries to make small talk about her job. He settles for talking about himself. Jia Le makes snarky comments — if he’s one of those fancy lawyers who handles cases for rich people, why is he living in a place like this with all the common folk? He says that he’s going to tell her the truth, but then talks in vague metaphors about how his life is going. She responds that she can’t seem to understand lawyers when they tell the truth.
Zhen Yu doesn’t understand why Jia Le is being so antagonistic today (“only today?” she quips in response) and tries to prove to her that he’s a good person. He tells her about how he recently helped an elderly man win a case and goes into the bedroom to look for a calligraphy letter he received from his client. Jia Le realizes where he’s going and rushes after him, but she’s too late: Zhen Yu opens the closet door and is buried under a mountain of the clutter that Jia Le had hidden away.
Commentary
This drama is so cheesy, but it’s cute. I’m always on the verge of being annoyed with Jia Le and her obstinacy, but we always cut away right before I actually get annoyed with her. Her snarkiness can be a little off-putting, but I also love to see it in a female lead.
It’s interesting to see Jiang Cheng Hao from Jia Le’s perspective in 2017. The angle that Zhen Yu took with his criminal defense made it seem like Cheng Hao was somehow at fault and invited his own death. Either he had been involved in some sketchy criminal underworld dealings, or he had been abusive toward Ji Rou. Yet from Jia Le’s relationship with him, both explanations seem implausible. He seems very much a gentle giant who is head-over-heels in love. So what went wrong?
The Drama Llama 