Episode 5. Only 25 more episodes to go!

1. Another Day, Another Duel

Xiao Nai has been jumping through hoops to earn Weiwei’s affections. He’s dueled the Rude Guy, ZhengShui, and now Cao Guang. He challenges Nai to a one-on-one because he’s Weiwei’s crush. The poor sap is unaware that Nai is the #1 basketball player on Varsity.

Cao: You’re Xiao Nai?
XN: That’s me.
Cao: Care to play?
XN: It’d be rude to decline. How do you want to do this?

Nai’s friends wonder why Cao looks menacing when he approached Nai. But it doesn’t manner because he’s got no chance against Nai even when Nai’s holding himself back.

When Nai walks off the court after beating Cao, the guys ask him why Cao chose to challenge him. One of their teammates, the boyfriend of Weiwei’s roommate, casually mentions that Cao is courting their Department Belle.

Nai doesn’t know Cao’s reason to call the one-on-one, but now HE has a good reason to counter-challenge Cao. He drops his gear and goes back on the court. “One more game. I was too easy on him.”

The guys start fanboying him. They can feel the intensity. It’s as if murder’s in the air, and the skies darken. Nai commands the already-panting Cao to get up.

Ooh la la. So this is how he looks like, offline, when he challenges a person!

If I were a sportwriter, I’d describe their second match like this: Before his raucous fanboys, Nai pulverized his opponent, 8-0. He dominated and outmanned Cao, giving Cao no chance to hold the ball even for a second. Cao might as well have been a cow-poop on the court with the way Nai ran around him and scored basket after basket, unanswered. Next time, Cao will know better than to dig his own grave in full view of the guys.

2. Jealousy

Later, Naihe invites Weiwei to duel a monster online with the guys.

Friend #1 tells her NOT to stand in the sidelines, and she explains, “You guys go ahead. If I join in, his attack value will increase. If a female player attacks him alone, his attack value will lower by half, to go easy on the girl. if both male and female players attack him, he’ll raise the attack value by half, out of jealousy.

lol. The monster’s kinda like Naihe, don’t you think? Earlier, he went easy on Cao because he didn’t think Cao was a threat to him. But when he found out that Cao was pursuing Weiwei, he raised the level of his attack by double, out of jealousy.

The group defeats it handily and win an “equipment.” Friend #1 tells Friend #2 to give the equipment to Mrs. Nai, but Friend #2 says if he gives it Mrs. Nai, Nai will kill him for sure. But then Friend #3 tells them that Nai is in a great mood the whole day. I’d say of course, because he schooled Cao Guang on the court earlier.

I think this scene is the first time that the guys put a boundary between themselves and Nai’s in-game wife. That is, Weiwei is HIS girl and there are some liberties or friendly teasing Nai won’t tolerate even from his own friends.

3. The video

Fighting the monster together gives Weiwei an idea for the video contest. The three guys agree to it. Nai, however, continues to ask her about the details of the story. I’ve written about this in another post

Love O2O: Eps 5 and 6, The Bandit Story Explanation

but I’ll copy and paste it portions here.

N: Have you come up with a plot?
WW: Yes, but it’s very sentimental.
XN: I’m all ears.
WW: Guzheng Player encounters Girl Bandit in the woods, en route to the capital. Girl Bandit kidnaps him and takes him back to their mountain hideout. Girl Bandit falls in love with Guzheng Player. She lavishes him with affection, but Guzheng Player is unhappy.

Weiwei then narrates how the female bandit prepares for the musician which he ignores. Sensing his disdain for her, the female bandit tries to explain her circumstances, hoping that he’ll understand her. “My grandpa was a bandit. My father was a bandit. So, I was born to be a bandit. I don’t know how to do anything besides cheat or steal. And I don’t know what else to do. Every single person here is a bandit. You detest me so much, but I’ve never actually killed anyone. I’m not the worst. But of course, I’m still a bad person. I’d like to raise some chickens and ducks, like the girls who live at the foot of the mountain, who rise to work at dawn and return home to rest at dusk, living quiet and peaceful lives. But that’s just a dream that will never come to true.”

Then, seeing that her words fell on deaf ears and didn’t move him one bit, the female bandit decides to let him go. She says, “Leave here. I’ll set you free.”

But even as she releases him, she’s sad to see him go and follows him in secret. Fortunately for him, she’s trailing him because a monster suddenly appears to attack him. She comes out of hiding to fight the monster for him. He tries to flee but trips. The monster then hurls at weapon at him but she throws herself on top of him and takes the hit instead. She ignores her injury and continues fighting until she defeats the monster.

Because she saves him, he decides to accept her love for him. They return to the bandits’ stronghold to be married. While she dances for him at a feast, he plays his instrument for her.

But soon after, his people arrive to rescue him from his captivity. She fights all of them while he stands to one side watching her fend them off.

Once she defeats them, he approaches her. They gaze into each other’s eyes and he takes out a knife hidden under his robes and stabs her. She looks at him realizing that he’s betrayed her. She collapses and he catches her in his arms.

Later, one of his soldiers tells him, “My Lord, you have had a rough time. Now we have wiped out the bandits, folks here will finally live in peace. My Lord, you deserve all the credit. You didn’t have to kill her, My Lord.”

He replies, “Instead of spending the rest of her life hating me, I’d rather that she’s dead.”

Now, Weiwei stops her story here because she isn’t sure how to end the story. She doesn’t know whether what to do with Guzheng Player.

WW: Maybe it ends with Guzheng Player jumping off of a cliff, following her death, because he suddenly realizes he’s in love with her? What do you think?
XN: Pretty good. Let’s go with it.
WW: You really think so?
XN: Mmm. I don’t have many lines. We’ll start shooting once the script is done.

The impression he gives here was that he doesn’t care either way. He’s fine with whatever she decides as long as he isn’t required to do a whole of speaking. But in truth, he sits for a while mulling over the story. Then, he begins typing again.

Later, when he visits his parents’ home, he’s hard at work on it again.

Viewers won’t realize till later that he’s rewriting the whole video and spending time on it to make the ending more “romantic” while staying true to Weiwei’s original narrative. More importantly, he’ll let Weiwei believe that the edits are done to extend the running time with recycled flashbacks because he’s “lazy.”

From Episode 6:

WW: How did you come up with the ending? It’s much better than the original one.
XN: The original ending was good but it wouldn’t work with flashbacks. It’d be too obvious.
WW: So, the ending was changed to fit in the flashbacks and to stretch the running time?
XN: (glancing at her before he replies) More or less.
WW: (thinking to herself again) I see. Naihe wanted to stretch the running time. Not only that, he also inserted a bunch of flashbacks. The new ending is a product of necessity of extending time and laziness. (lol. She’s really disappointed here). All that heart-wrenching longing after separation by death is just a lot of nothing. Sigh. I was too naïve to be so moved by it.

lol. If she only knew what he’s been up to, she’d be moved by it. But the thing with Nai is he likes to do things behind her back to make her happy. He doesn’t like to call attention to it.

4. More teasing

It’s funny how they’re discovering that they’re all studying computer science, but Weiwei evades confirming her sex.

Friend #2: Are you a computer science student too?
Friend #3: She could be a dude.
Friend #1: Crap! Computer majors are 90% boys and 10% girls. You’re so fierce. Are you a computer guy in real life?

Nai just smiles at his end because he knows the truth but isn’t volunteering the info.

Weiwei: Fierce? Really? I mean the robbery speech.

It’s also interesting that Nai likes to get the last word. When Weiwei texts that she finds it hard to believe that Nai is a student like her, they tease Nai. “Naihe often stays out all night. You should rein him in.” “He’s not home during the day, either.” “He never shows up on campus.” They’re trying to suggest that he’s a slacker or a college drop-out.

Nai only needs to write “Hide your socks. I plan to live on campus until the end of the semester,” to turn the tables on them.

Then, when the Friend #3 tells her that she should edit the line, “leave the man as a tribute” since it might confuse the audience as there are four male characters, Nai says to leave it as there’ll be no confusion. It’s obvious that the other three aren’t worth kidnapping. lol.

By the way, did anybody notice his red ears in that scene?

5. Their first conversation in real life

 

Nai: Is this seat taken?
Weiwei: No.

Her reaction after he sits down:

I bet she’s hiding her red face and beaming smile behind that book. Wouldn’t you?

After her brilliant class participation and at the end of the class, she’s struck dumb.

Weiwei: (clears throat)
Nai: You want to get out?
Weiwei: (nods head, stands up and exits quickly)

Sigh. Compared to their online conversation, their first offline conversation is anticlimactic.

Just like the video that he’s making for her, she doesn’t know that he’s planned this all along. He gives his father heads-up that he’ll be attending his lecture to boost class attendance. Of course, we know this is to allay his suspicions that he has a real personal reason for attending the lecture…like get to know Weiwei.

Then, he chooses to sit beside her when the hall is almost empty. lol.

When she laughs at his father’s joke that the students pay attention to him as he was quite handsome too in his day, she happens to look at him and he stares back at her unsmilingly.

I don’t know how she managed not to make a face at him. At that age, I would have made a goofball face… just for reaction.

Clearly, she’s getting ready to leave right after the class but he’s probably delaying getting up to force her to say something to him. But all she can muster is a brilliant, scintillating and witty “ahem.”

Again, she gets flustered. She stands up to leave and instead of saying a simple “thanks!” with a smile, she chokes (figuratively speaking) and scurries away.

I’m sure he’s figured out what’s going on here. This is the second time she’s run away from him. And they haven’t even been introduced yet….

6. Their similar perspective on gaming

From Episode 4, Weiwei explains to Cao: I used to be prejudiced against online games too. Addiction games might make one lose ambition. (But she’s realized that) games create a world of their own. There’s no right or wrong. It’s just that everyone approaches it differently. Perhaps in this world there are many others like Xiao Yang who can’t go out into the world. To say at the least, I’ve now decided to become an online game designer.

From this Episode 5, Nai asks his father, “Dad, the books you write to educate people, why do you write them?”

His dad answers, “To exert wisdom, to reach, to clear up confusion, to publish results of hard-earned research, and to convey ideas and concepts.

Then, Nai says, “Creating games is the same to me. To convey my views and ideas. It’s just a different method of expressing that. I want to use this more visual, more easily-accepted medium to depict the world that I imagine. Needless to say, the main reason is because of my pure interest.

He thanks his dad for his understanding and adds that “Game creation is just something I plan to do before I turn 25. It’s not my life goal.”