Oh man, 14-16 feels like the calm/happy/cute before the storm. Is it possible to wholeheartedly root for both Lan Ling Wang and Yu Wen Yong?? Daniel Chan is kicking butt in his role, especially as we get to see different facets of his character back in Zhou. These aren't recaps, just my thoughts mixed with some of the plot points I find interesting, but stop reading now if you don't want to be spoiled!
Episode 14: In which the main bad guys plotting against Lan Ling Wang get what they deserve. The crown prince's mother (the queen) and the crown prince's adviser (the old guy who's constantly feeding bad ideas to him) framed LLW and Xue Wu, claiming that they tried to hex the king. LLW gets thrown in jail and Xue Wu is faced with leaving with her grandmother and allowing LLW to head to a certain death, or staying behind to save LLW and never seeing Grandma again. Easy choice, am I right? To Ariel's credit, she managed to make me believe for a few minutes that severing ties with Grandma was something to be sad about. Then Xue Wu does that awesome thing where she uses what looks like magic but is really just her ingenuity to save the day and indict the true villains in front of the king and his court. It's such a complete victory-- the queen is banished and the crown prince's adviser is sentenced to something awful I couldn't quite understand-- that I almost wish the story could end there. To top everything off, the king's mother (who had disguised herself in an earlier episode as a servant in LLW's household to personally scope out Xue Wu's character) does some fancy footwork and traces Xue Wu's ancestry back to someone with the name Zheng. So she gets to be Zheng Fei, Lan Ling Wang's prophesied one true love, after all!
Though there are contrivances/storytelling decisions in this drama that make me roll my eyes, I like that it's at least trying to be thoughtful about this 'fate' thing. There's a scene in an earlier episode where Grandma sends Xue Wu a dream. In it, Xue Wu sees Lan Ling Wang and another woman, Zheng Er (not to be confused with little Zhen Er!), who is his wife in this alternate reality. They're both given poison wine by the crown prince and die after drinking it. Having met Zheng Er and seen her own meet cute with Lan Ling Wang as a palace maid, you can easily imagine the two of them falling in love and getting married-- if Xue Wu didn't exist. And having met the crown prince and seen his love for Zheng Er, it's also not hard to understand why Zheng Er and Lan Ling Wang's romance would only drive the future king to hate Lang Ling Wang even more. What's fascinating is how Xue Wu's willful intrusion into this story redirects the paths these people take, yet will almost assuredly take them to the same destination. There's still a Zheng Fei, and the crown prince will still be the king who forces Lan Ling Wang to commit suicide. While Zheng Er's fate is changed the most significantly, you could argue her purpose as a person who brings about Lan Ling Wang's demise remains the same: in one version, she's LLW's wife whom the king wants and can't have, and in the other, she's the king's wife who hates LLW because she can't have him. I won't pretend the logic is perfect, but the effort is there. It's this almost unexpected thoughtfulness in the writing (because let's be real, who isn't in this for the pretty people and the romance?) that makes me appreciate the show more.
Episode 15: In which.. not a lot happens plot-wise? I mean, Yu Wen Yong does get Xue Wu to go to the Zhou kingdom for a month to cure Zhen Er's illness, but the episode takes its sweet time setting things up and gives us lots of funny scenes to enjoy, which I actually appreciate. I'll probably have to rewatch episode 15 to remind myself of the good old days when things get inevitable gloomy in the second half of the series. The funny: An De Wang/Wu Ye hitting on Lan Ling Wang's main maid, only to have all the other maids reveal that he used the same lines on them before. George Hu's way underused in this drama, more Wu Ye hijinks please! And poor Lan Ling Wang, it's getting silly how many times his attempts to get lovey dovey with Xue Wu gets thwarted by her getting distracted. She also needs to stop falling for the rando-kid-as-kidnapper-bait trap. Love that the writers know to poke fun at themselves, though-- Lan Ling Wang even says, "Don't you remember from last time (when she got kidnapped by the crown prince's adviser's guys) that it's a bad idea to follow strange kids?" Jealous Lan Ling Wang secretly following Xue Wu to Zhou requires a LOT of willingness to suspend my disbelief but is so, so money.
Episode 16: In which Yu Wen Yong breaks my heart and then gets schooled by Xue Wu on how to use his. I didn't really feel for Yu Wen Yong until we go back home with him and see everything he's up against. Yu Wen Hu is a cunning opponent and a cruel one, and he doesn't let Yu Wen Yong forget it. I think I was more touched by Yu Wen Yong personally mercy-killing his general, Yu Chi Jiu (the fierce looking one who caused a bunch of trouble for Lan Ling Wang in the first few episodes), than I was by Xue Wu and Grandma's goodbyes. Daniel Chan is amazing in that scene; his anger and helplessness is so palpable and you just want to give him a big hug. Then he goes on in the second half of the episode to be oh so cute with Xue Wu, who points out that he's clueless about love. Xue Wu sees the humanity behind Yu Wen Yong's mask, and we see him quickly fall in love with her because of that. Since this is all fiction anyway, can't we have both Yu Wen Yong and Lan Ling Wang win? Clone another Xue Wu for one of them? Gah.