L13

Thoughts after ep. 14, may contain spoilers if you're behind:

RZZ's in-laws and the ML's (should we call him Mr Tan now?) teammates are SO annoying lol. RZZ's, uh, aunt-in-law continues to be the worst, and the ML's teammates keep doing stupid and illegal shit even though he keeps telling them not to.

We got a reminder today that the ML is not part of the company that hired him to get close to RZZ, BTW. This was already established a few episodes ago in a conversation between his accomplices. They call him Mr Tan, so that must be the identity he uses with them, but is it actually his real name or are there multiple layers of deception to his act?

Also why do they keep meeting on a boat lol

I CANNOT WAIT for You Gang's stupid little extortion scheme to blow up in his face. As much as I dislike his wife, he should have never gambled away their money without telling her—and in fact after she explicitly told him not to—and every single decision he's made since then just makes things worse and worse.

I wonder if the ML's anger when RZZ suggested installing a security camera to identify the intruder was genuine worry for her or an act to manipulate her into letting them change the locks. I mean, I'm sure he was manipulating her, but was he *also* genuinely angry that she thought so little of her own safety?

I'm loving how complex the main characters' motivations and relationship dynamics are, but I'm really looking forward to seeing some sign that the ML is actually warming up to RZZ for real. He seems like such a tough nut to crack!

Also lol @ RZZ thinking she could afford a security camera, though. Lady, with what money???

Oh, and we got confirmation that Lu Yang (I think that's his name? I'm too lazy to check) is cooking up a scheme Mr Qiu doesn't know about. I did think in previous episodes that he was keeping some info from Mr Qiu and here we finally see it confirmed. I wonder who his real boss is.

Lastly, JUICY last few seconds... We're about to get some crumbs about the ML's life outside of this whole con in the next episode!

You don’t have to be autistic to have different priorities in dealing with people and find certain social norms unpleasant. Autism is a specific condition (although it manifests in a wide range of ways, especially in women), not a catch-all explanation for people having different personalities.

I think he might still be someone who knew them in school, but re. the letter I think the real Gao Jun simply gave the ML everything he needed to fake his identity convincingly, so he must have told him about the letter. We’ve got some hints already that the real GJ was the one who hired the fake one.

I think she’s quite smart and observant actually! Definitely not stupid or naive. She can seem passive in social situations, though, even though she is quite proactive in other ways (going to the factory on her own, getting a job as a dishwasher, etc.).

There are several things at play with the in-laws IMO.

One, she's a very proud person and can't bring herself to stoop to her in-laws' level and engage in some stupid argument about money, affairs, etc. She feels it's beneath her. And yeah, there can be such a thing as being prideful to the point of stupidity when it leads to you not advocating for yourself, but I don't think it's a part of her personality she can simply turn off.

Two, I think she still wants to preserve some illusion of peace between them for the sake of Xu Youning's memory and their feelings toward their son. It's not that she still believes he was a good husband, but she's a very proper person who wants everyone to part on good terms for the sake of the time they spent together. Also she still feels indebted to XYN's family for taking her in.

Finally and most importantly, I think she realises her in-laws' behaviour toward her is irrational and spiteful and if she reacts she'll just be giving them ammunition. She's not the kind of person to engage in petty verbal fights and schemes like her MIL and cousin-in-law, so she doesn't know how to fight people like that with their own weapons. She feels it's better to just bear some unfair treatment that she considers irrelevant than to spend extra time and energy thinking about these people and their nonsense because it will be her loss, not theirs.

Like, if she tries to tell them about XYN's women, the fake watch, that he faked her signature, etc., they're obviously not going to go, ooh, fair enough, we’re so sorry! lol

IU? All the rumours I've seen have been about Park Eunbin.

The scene in episode 10 where Zhenzhen broke down in the bathroom because she looked up GJ's coat and realised it was too expensive for her to buy him a new one and she felt desperate was so good. Her frayed mental state (and her pride in being self-sufficient and not owing people anything) was communicated so clearly without any words.

And also in that phone conversation with his flunkies when they were stalking Zhenzhen in her hometown, he told them not to do anything illegal because it would compromise their op. Then when they were chatting with each other, the older guy mentioned an 'equipment department' or something like that: in any case, something that sounded too official for a criminal organisation to have.

So I agree with you that he might be some kind of cop.

Also, last but not least, several people have mentioned the premise of the drama is very similar to that of the Audrey Hepburn film Charade... in which the ML turns out to be a cop in the end.

I thought the stuff in front of the factory was really gripping! It gave Gao Jun an opportunity to observe Zhenzhen and realise she's not a helpless damsel but has guts and brains and persistence. I really enjoyed the psychological tension. That said, I felt it got draggy in the latter part of the episode when he was hiding from her in the backseat.

I really don’t think the letter is that important. He already knows she didn’t do it and it doesn’t change things for him. His motivation is the money, not a personal vendetta.

I think they called her husband’s phone and she picked up.

Haha, I think him being an intense weirdo and/or con artist as opposed to Mr Nice Successful Lawyer Who Represents His First Love Free of Charge makes their relationship much more interesting.

Does anyone doubt that she loved him? I don't think people are denying that.

Ratings are volatile when so few people have rated a drama. The rating was like 8.5 earlier today.

I think Gao Jun, his female accomplice and the two guys who keep following RZZ around--not the guys who keep deflating her tires, but the ones who tracked her car--are the 'team' mentioned by the mysterious younger man Mr Fang met in episode 8 or 9. Mr Fang told this man that things would get difficult if XYN returned, so clearly he suspects XYN may be alive, but he and the other guy didn't seem to know for sure. I thought the other guy might actually be XYN himself, but he talked about XYN in the third person, so who knows.

So if Gao Jun was hired to get close to RZZ and get some info/money out of her, I'm not sure what his real identity is. Is he really a lawyer who does dirty work for rich people, or a criminal pretending to be a lawyer? Is he the real Gao Jun, or someone pretending to be him? (After all, RZZ and Su Wen didn't recognise him.) I'm leaning toward him being the real GJ, but I'm not sure.

Lastly, this is totally unrelated, but as much as I like Su Wen, I have a nagging feeling she may have slept with XYN behind RZZ's back for maximum drama. I hope I'm wrong!

Zhenzhen is a strong and smart person and I like rooting for her. She doesn't deserve all the shit she gets from all these dirty guys trying to play her or her toxic in-laws. Xu Youning's pregnant sister/cousin and the control-freak boss at XYN's company (Mr Qiu) are particularly unlikeable at the moment.

But Gao Jun is obviously the biggest creep for staging all these incidents to make her feel like he's the only person who can help her and gain her trust. I really hope she makes him suffer when he falls for her. I have some more detailed thoughts about what's going on that I'm going to spoiler below:

He already told his female accomplice after they visited their old school that it sounded like it wasn't Zhenzhen who'd posted the letter, so I think it's clear now that's not what this is about. He also told the same woman earlier that Zhenzhen's affection for XYN was too strong and he didn't know if they could proceed with the court case, let alone the rest of their plans, which implies there's a bigger scheme afoot.

My guess at the moment is that they suspect RZZ has the 40M yuan somewhere, even if she doesn't know it, and the whole plan is to get the money from her somehow.

I'm still on episode 5, so my comment may be invalidated by the time I catch up on all available episodes, but I'm really not getting the sense that Gao Jun is white-knighting for his first love like your average kdrama SML. It's true he has photos of Zhenzhen from school that he's kind of obsessed with, but he's very calm and calculating in his interactions with her, sometimes makes insulting assumptions about her that show he's not putting her on a pedestal (like when he thought she'd bought the luxury watch for herself with money she was hiding) & in general seems cold and hard to read.

I think the fact he was 'chubby' and unpopular in school may come up later to explain some of his motivations. Remember when Su Wen was shocked by his appearance and GJ was like, 'Well, I wasn't popular enough for you to notice me in school'? Awkward! He definitely has unresolved issues that go back to their school days, but they seem less likely to stem from a childhood crush he's still fixated on than pent-up resentment perhaps. He told Zhenzhen he and Xu Youning were good friends, but is that really true? Wouldn't she remember him if that were the case? I suspect there was more to GJ and XYN's relationship (bullying?) and perhaps GJ approached Zhenzhen after XYN's death with some ulterior motive. Also Su Wen said GJ was rumoured to have posted a giant embarrassing love letter online in their school days, but a. was that really him and b. was it addressed to Zhenzhen? The latter was never actually stated explicitly.

There's definitely more to this than 'I was obsessed with you in school even though you didn't know who I was and I'm still in love with you 15 years later'... which I'm very happy about because all these first-love stories are boring and unrealistic to me.

I mean, Sou did tell him it was okay, then they lost touch, so their status as best friends is kind of questionable, and Minato waited years before he started dating Tsumugi. I don't think "dating someone your best friend in school whom you haven't spoken to in years dated back in the day" is quite as bad as dating your best friend's ex.

This drama WILL be the sexy romantic thriller I've been waiting for with a scumbag ML who falls for the woman he's trying to con and gets his life wrecked and it WILL be fun and dark and full of tension sexual and otherwise, I am MANIFESTING this for myself!!!

I watched the first 6 episodes, but I don't think I'm going to continue. The premise feels kind of pointless; Daqian's relationship with Lizi is not different enough in the parallel timeline from what it's like in the original timeline to justify the timeline hopping shenanigans, and Lizi himself is not a very interesting or charismatic male lead. And there's no plot? Like, the whole drama so far is just Daqian's bumpkin family and friends being loud and annoying?