themarchioness

In the cast list, you’ll find him as Lei Ming (name of character) - you’ll meet him again towards the end of the drama.

After WRL, SJZ, and NCM escape Shanghai to Jiangxi, WRL leaves SJZ behind telling her that he needs some space to figure out what he needs and wants. He spends about an episode visiting his father to tell him about his brother's death, how he killed a man, and explain why he's now a wanted man in Shanghai. His father tells him it's okay. He was right to avenge his brother's death and he stood up for the poor. WRL then goes to work for a local store as their bookkeeper where he meets a young girl, someone who'd grown up near his family. WRL can sense her interest in learning and offers to teach her basic skills, such as accounting, so that she can get a job to help support herself (and her family; they're poor). Unfortunately it's not long before loan sharks come looking for the girl. Her father owes money and his daughter is his only asset. WRL asks his father if they've money to spare to help the girl, but his father says it's a hopeless business as the girl's father is a wastrel. Ultimately the young girl is killed.

Later, the Communist party soldiers come around to round up the loan sharks and create order. WRL witnesses their efforts to help the people and how the people in the local community respond to the soldiers. This becomes the impetus and affirmation he needs that joining the Communist party is the correct thing to do, and so with their fathers' blessings, both he and NCM rejoin SJZ.

While with the Communist party, they basically encounter three roadblocks: 1) The KMT has started circulating counterfeit CCP money in the local markets to disrupt their CCP economy, 2) the KMT cuts off water route access that the CCP was using (in concert with the Guangdong Army) to import necessary supplies, such as salt, and expert certain goods, such as tungsten ore, which they use to raise funds.

It is during the matter of the counterfeit money that WRL realizes the KMT must have someone crafty on their side. Indeed, it is his former mentor, STN, who was announced as having died (after helping his sister escape). The KMT sends him to nearby KMT-controlled territory (Ganzhou, if I remember correctly) under the name, Tu Nanshen, and he is tasked with bringing order to that area. Namely, to stop the Guangdong Army from cooperating with the CCP for profit. To "assist" him, the KMT also sends Lin Qiaosong (but really, LQS is also sent to keep any eye on STN).

WRL asks to lead the team to break up the counterfeit money ring and brings with him SJZ for help. As suspected, their investigations lead them back to STN. His sister is shocked to find him alive. Due to WRL's plans, the CCP soldiers are able to destroy the counterfeit money making factor and capture STN. They bring him back to Jiangxi where WRL shows him around and both he and SJZ try to convince him that this is the path forward. STN is moved by what he sees, and even admits that his conscience hasn't allowed him to sleep a night of peace since arriving in Ganzhou, but he remains steadfast in his regards for the Three Principles of the People. As he's expected to be executed, he asks his sister to take care of his wife/daughter for him. He also asks WRL to take care of his sister and then tells him he's proud that WRL has been able to hold to his principles and achieve what he's always hoped to achieve as a banker - the trust and respect of the people. He tells WRL to never lose what he holds sincere.

Before STN can be executed, a fire breaks out and STN escapes back to Ganzhou. It would appear that he goes back to his prior ways - being ruthless towards the CCP. On WRL and SJZ's next mission, to obtain the passcode for the water route (a new system that STN had implemented to protect the waterways and prevent the CCP from using them), LQS even asks him what he should do if he runs into SJZ, and STN replies, "She's a Communist first and then my sister next."

While WRL and SJZ ultimately succeed in their mission and get the salt that they need, bringing it back to to the local residents, LQS has poisoned the salt. This upsets STN as he wants to harm the CCP, not the local people. He sends words to the CCP that it's tainted and they're not sure whether they can believe him. WRL insists that they can and sure enough, after running a few tests, they discover that some of the salt is indeed tainted.

The KMT continues to mess with the CCP's financial market. They're trying to breed distrust in the people so that their bank will fail. WRL comes up with an idea to hold a big public event where they can show everyone in the community how much is really in the bank's coffers. His leader agrees this is a great idea. However, on the day of the event, LQS infiltrates it with his men and place bombs near the event stage. The bomb goes off while SJZ is performing on stage with children. She barely survives the bomb blast and is trying her best to get the injured children off the stage when just as the last one remains, the roof the stage structure collapses. She protects the child by using her own body as a shield and WRL, who's lying injured a ways away, also from the bomb blast, witnesses the roof fall onto her back, killing SJZ.

WRL sends a letter to STN and his wife that SJZ is deceased.

The second to last showdown between the CCP and the KMT is over the tungsten ore. The CCP's goods are intercepted by the KMT and come into their control. The KMT decides to sell this to the Germans instead, and so STN goes to meet with his German friend. They haggle over pricing and when they can't agree to a bottom line number, STN agrees to take the German's counteroffer back to his superiors for their consideration. Meanwhile, while those talks are going on, WRL and his men have already made their way to the shipping dock where the tungsten ore is being held. They provide paperwork suggesting that a deal was reached between the KMT and the German and because WRL was able to guess the price that STN was going to offer to the German, when the people at the shipping dock call LQS to verify the contract, he believes it to be correct and tells his people to proceed. It is only after STN comes out of the restaurant where they're waiting that they realize it was a scam. However, by the time LQS, STN, etc., race their way to the shipping dock, the ship has already pulled out with the tungsten ore loaded on it. On the boat, we see the German asking another person whether WRL will be alright. The other person answers that WRL has always managed to get out of pickles before so he should be alright, and the German says that in the future, he only wants to do business with WRL. In a flashback, we also see how WRL had gone to meet with the German and predicted what the KMT would offer for the tungsten ore while offering an even lower price. The German asks whether he can rely on WRL's offer and WRL tells him if he wants to know, he should come to the shipping dock at the appointed hour. In the end, everything had gone as WRL predicted, and so that's how the CCP were able to successfully get their tungsten ore back to sell to the Germans.

The final showdown with the CCP and the KMT is over medical and other supplies that the CCP needs to transfer their base. Using the money they made from the sale of the tungsten ore, WRL and his people buy medicine and other supplies that the CCP will need as they begin their Long March. Of course the KMT want to prevent this sale. Ultimately everyone ends up on the same train - it's the final death match. To put it in simplest terms, a shootout begins. LQS makes his way to the solo carriage where STN is riding with his assistant. He shoots STN and Huang Cong Yun throws his body over STN to protect him, getting shot multiple times and dying instead. After LQS leaves believing he's killed them both, STN rolls aside HCY's dead body and emerges alive. It turns out he'd finally worn the bulletproof vest his sister had given him all those episodes before. In the meantime, LQS had found WRL and were in a tussle. LQS had WRL in a chokehold and was in the throes of yelling at WRL and sending him to death when STN walks up from behind and shoots at him. He kills LQS and avenges his sister's death.

STN next turns his gun on WRL noting that he also holds WRL responsible for his sister's death, but WRL points out that he knows STN has been secretly helping him all along, as there's no way he would have been able to pull off every mission successfully without his mentor's help. In a flashback, we see STN leaving a coded message for WRL to find - once WRL decodes it, he learns the price the KMT were going to offer for the tungsten ore. STN offers to help WRL and his remaining men get off safely at the next train stop, but WRL tells him they can manage on their own from there. There are only 3 of them who survive after the train shoot out: WRL, NCM, and another guy. NCM and the other guy jump from the train first while WRL and STN hold a final gaze before WRL jumps from the train. At the next stop, STN is met by a bunch of soldiers but after he pulls out his ID, they let him through.

The final minutes of the drama are of the CCP beginning their Long March. In a voiceover, we learn that WRL made it to the end of the Long March. And that later, the CCP sent him back to Shanghai under a different identity to meet with another underground member of the CCP. WRL steps off the boat (arriving back to Shanghai) and catches a rickshaw to the Shanghai stock exchange. Upon arrival, he sees the back of a man... that man turns around. It's STN. Drama ends.

Hopefully I got most of the details correct (relying on memory from a week ago by now). I've left out some stuff to provide a quick summary, but I would add it's never quite clear when STN switched sides. Clearly he started becoming sympathetic towards the CCP's endeavors when he was captured in Jiangxi and I would imagine as well his sister's death to be a breaking point. But I would also consider his wife and daughter to be factors in his slow process turn. I didn't mention above, but when SJZ and WRL were looking for the passcode to the water routes, it was his wife who helped SJZ find that information in his study. At the time his wife was thinking at most STN would just get dismissed from the KMT and that would be better for the family. After all, after his faked death, she'd wanted them to leave everything behind and move to England, thinking that would be safer for them all. But in the end, STN backed out of the England plans and continued working for the KMT. His daughter, meanwhile, was traumatized by events that had happened while in Ganzhou - events that snowballed from an incident STN had caused. For a time she was scared of her father and said he was a 'bad man' and you could see how that affected STN. I would imagine all those things ultimately played a part in STN's decision to start helping WRL and the CCP even before officially changing over.

Anyway, hope that helps!

Some of the characters speak at times with the local Shanghainese dialect.

Yes, in Episode 36. The CCP were holding an event for the public to demonstrate the stability of their bank. Lin Qiao Song and his men infiltrated and set bombs near the stage where SJZ was performing with children. When the bomb detonated, she and the children were injured. She was rushing as best she could to get help for the children and before the last one could be carried away, the roof of the structure they’d been on collapsed. SJZ threw herself over the remaining child to protect the child and ended up bearing the weight of the entire building on her back. She sacrificed herself for the people.

Definitely not planned, not even sure it’s realistically in the cards. It was said in the context of *everyone* being asked what kind of fan service they would provide if the drama broke the 10K heat index on iQiyi, so something the director said in the heat of the moment.

This is adorable. Yibo and the actress playing Fang Ling once cooperated on his variety show, Day Day Up. It was in 2017 and she was just a little girl!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5UwUjrLDko/?igsh=MWI0azNibzFteWNnNQ==

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that ALL humans blame others for their own actions. Rather, it is a human characteristic. Therefore, while we may feel anger towards Auntie Zhou, or disappointment (orinsert whatever adjective you will towards her), the one we shouldn’t feel is surprise. It’s not unexpected that she reacted as she did.

Beyond little teases, e.g. the ML commenting on how his mentor’s sister is beyond his reach, and his mentor’s daughter calling him “uncle” because she overheard her parents suggesting a match between the ML and their sister, no - at least not so far. And I don’t know if the drama will ever take it beyond that because it’s just not that kind of a drama.

Don’t watch it for romance, but watch it for the compelling story.

It’s the second time and she definitely should’ve learned her lesson after the first time, but the stakes were higher this time as was the loss - she lost her home and her livelihood. In that way it’s easier to understand how after the first time she was able to come around and acknowledge that she was the one who was at fault, but this time, I think it’s just the human instinctive reaction kicking in to place the blame elsewhere. Unfortunate because WRL definitely wasn’t to blame, but t the extent his bank had pushed the bond and made it seem like a safe investment and a patriotic act to buy in, it’s not surprising that he would feel as responsible as he does. Honestly, it’s just truly heartbreaking for all the innocents involved.

Oh gosh, maybe I shouldn’t have watched it. Now I’m dying for tomorrow’s episodes… 😅

Preview for 29 is now up!

https://www.iq.com/play/war-of-faith-1tdm1uc0eww?lang=en_us&sh_pltf=4

Well, we know that he did seek help from her (aka Big Sister) when he went to visit Mr. Yu. He basically traded his soul for WRL (gah, love this mentor/student relationship). But the reality is WRL was already taken to the execution ground so even though the order has now come down that WRL is not to be killed, who knows if the news can get their before the act is already done. We see STN racing out of Mr. Yu’s house but again there’s presumably a distance to the execution ground and plus there was already that time spent driving from Mr. Yu’s, haggling with him, Mr. Yu calling Big Sister, and then calling Mr. Kang. Given all that, I think there is a real possibility that it might be who SJZ who gets to WRL first.

He’s arrested at the end of 13 and the bulk of the torture scenes are in 14. In 15, the Shen siblings will undertake efforts to clear WRL’s name (go Shen Jizhen!!) and in 16, he’ll be released.

There were social media posts circling around in May 2023 of Yibo’s pots and pans (see linked example), and if I remember correctly it was said that this was Yibo leaving Hendgian as he’d finished filming this drama. https://twitter.com/SgWangyibo/status/1654122932933898241

Some of the characters speak Shanghainese mixed in with Mandarin at times, so that could be what you’re hearing.

Have you watched Meet Yourself? It's also got a healthy, mature romance that balances life and work.

Yes, she takes the UN detail. No we don’t get a wedding for the leads - I’m presuming she had to leave too quickly for that. We get the cousin’s instead and during the ceremony, FL calls with congratulations. We see ML with her and learn he visits every two months, except for this particular occasion - he has a reason for visiting early this time. They are married though so at least we get that!

I don't remember what the opening score was, but I know when the drama ended it was 6.5. Nice to know the score is only going up even after its run. Hopefully that means word of mouth is spreading, more people are giving it a chance, and so the score is growing.

Yes, very - marriage, kids, the whole works!

Not until the second to last episode….