How come I feel like Nai is waging a campaign to make her aware of his presence? He’s everywhere she is now. On the same day that he appears in his father’s lecture hall to sit beside Weiwei, he hovers around her in the library while she studies at night.

1. The video launch

But there’s a reason he’s there in the library. He’s about to upload their video and he wants to see her reaction up close.

The video is unchanged up until the Girl Bandit and the Musician return to their lair after the monster attack. This time firework celebrates their homecoming and their wedding ceremony is more elaborate and elegant.

As expected, his soldiers come to rescue him. But instead of Girl Bandit fighting off the soldiers single-handedly while the Musician stood safely away from the melee, this time the Musician stands his ground in the middle of the hall and Girl Bandit rushes to stand with him. Unlike in the original script where the Girl Bandit is aware of his betrayal, he stabs her in the back and she falls dead to the ground. He kneels in front of her as his people march out of the banquet hall.

The Musician exiles himself even as his soldier protests, “You have such a bright future. Why must you waste away on this desolate mountain?” The last scene shows the Musician playing his instrument while his wife dances for him. For the rest of his days, he’s going to live with just his brief memories of happiness with her.

The finale is a tacit acknowledgement that he’s atoning for sacrificing her for the sake of the greater good. Jumping off the cliff would have been the easy way out. With his self-imposed solitude, the Musician carries the burden of loneliness and longing for her as long as he lives.

Weiwei is obviously moved by the new ending. It shows a poignant understanding of love and separation than her original story.

She wonders, “How did this happen? When we shot the ending, Girl Bandit dies and Guzheng Player jumps off the Sunset Peak with her body in his arms. I can’t believe Naihe made such a melodramatic change to the ending.”

She calms herself so people won’t know that she cried over a video. But too late! Nai’s been watching her and he’s pleased with her reaction to the video. She’s moved.

pic

2. Her reaction to the video

She immediately texts him about the changes.

WW: Did you change the ending?
XN: Yes, otherwise the running time is too short.
WW: Running time, what running time? I remember the video can be any length.
XN: In the detailed guidelines, the winning video that is over 30 minutes long will receive double the reward. We already took the time to make it. We should earn all we can.

She’s impressed with him. “Wow! That’s what makes him the master player. He even studied the detailed guidelines. But are you confident that we will win for sure? No, winning’s not the point. The point is, according to Naihe, the ending plot that nearly drove to tears was added to stretch the running time?”

It’s obvious to the viewers that Nai is lying. He doesn’t care about winning this contest.

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?

She sounds disappointed like she found out that Santa Claus is a mere creation to make it easier for parents to lengthen the video with flashbacks to show their children that they’re loved whether they’ve been naughty or nice all year.

XN: (glancing at her) More or less.

I sympathize with her here.  She’s curious to know whether there was a special reason or an ulterior motive for his revision. But Nai isn’t going to tell her that he changed for her. He knows this ending would tug at her heartstrings but he didn’t want her to know that he planned it for her. Only in Episode 13 did the viewers get their confirmation when Nai confessed to his friends.

That’s why Weiwei is bummed out that the changes were purely for TECHNICAL reasons and not for romantic reasons. She thinks, “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. 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.”

WW: Let’s publish it to the forum.
XN: You do it. I’m too lazy to register.

Of course, he’s teasing her that he’s too lazy. He’s spent a lot of time working on this video so why would he suddenly feel lazy now. But probably to him, seeing her satisfied with the film was reward enough. Also, when I see him smile like this, I think he’s smiling at how easy it is to push her buttons. He knows he’s just provoked her.

WW: Okay, I’ll get on it.

Later, she texts him to report on the reception of the film online.

WW: The comments are pouring in, right after I posted. Have you read them? Many people cried. The beginning and the end are so melodramatic. They’re all slamming the scriptwriter. I took the blame for you. You put my name as the scriptwriter.
XN: I haven’t read them. Let me know the result.
WW: Okay, I’ll report back to you every day. Why does Guzheng Player have to kill Girl Bandit?
XN: I’m pretty sure you wrote that part.
WW: But I was playing around. If it were you, would you kill Girl Bandit?
XN: Not me.
WW: Hmmm?
XN: He’s not me. I wouldn’t reach that point.

WW: (she smiles. she’s comforted by that.) I should go. There’s not a soul in the library.

XN: I’m sure there are.

…Like him, of course. 

WW: (she looks around) It’s true! How did you know?
XN: Lucky guess. Be safe on the way back. (Awww. Isn’t that cool?)

She packs up her things and leaves. He waits for her to leave and then he follows her out, too.

Of course this scene is romantic because:

a. he plans ahead and supports her from the background. It would have been the easiest thing for him to disapprove of the Girl Bandit’s death at the hand of the Musician and to insist on a happy ending. But Weiwei wanted a sentimental story and he went along with it. He only enhanced the story to make it more stirring but even then, he pretended as if he didn’t put much thought into it.

b. he’ll watch over her and protect her without making her feel incompetent.

c. it reminds me of that phone date in “You’re Beautiful.” Both girls thought they were conversing with their guys long-distance when they were right beside them.

 

3. Her Ex-husband is dating his wife in real life.

Her friend Nini reports on the new couple. Her Ex Zhengshui is willing to pay her money to withdraw from the contest because his girlfriend really wants to win the seven-colored outfit prize.

She ends her conversation with NIni because she has an online meeting with her husband Naihe. To me, these regularly scheduled meetings online are like dates with each other.

She asks Naihe if they’re all in the Capital City (Beijing) and he just grunts, “Mmm.” lol. He doesn’t even show interest in meeting up with her for real. lol. So she goes off to kill monsters.

His friends arrive and they tease him. “You’re shameless. You hide behind the missus and get the reward for free?”

He comes back with, “You get used to being a deadbeat after a while. Guys like you, who don’t have the missus’ protection, will never understand.” And they start fighting again.

The guys complain that they were protecting Weiwei from her deadbeat husband but she didn’t come to their aid when Nai was beating them up. She claims “selective blindness.” Friend #1 said they won’t interfere in their domestic arrangement anymore.

4. Weiwei’s seven-colored outfit > Nai’s six-colored outfit

They win the video contest so they get their matching outfit. She tries them on and there are seven different colored dresses for her. He tries his, too but he only has six.

Friend #1 is the first to observe this, “Six colors? I think it’s missing one?”

Friend #3 gets it right away, “The green one!” And Nai quickly changes back to his white outfit.

Weiwei thinks: The green one? Naihe’s regular headwear is a white ribbon, yet the seven-colored outfit’s headwear is green. The game designer probably did that on purpose.

Friend #3 continues to tease Nai. “Something’s wrong with Nai. He refuses to wear the matching outfit with Mrs. Nai. Could it be…?”

Nai says, “We’re an old couple now. We don’t care about superficial stuff.”

Weiwei looks oddly at him — it’s her OMG-Did-you-really-say-that? reaction again

then quickly excuses herself, “Have fun, guys. I’m going to take a stroll.”  And Naihe watches her disappear with a funny smile.

Not being Chinese, I didn’t get the joke about the color green. Fortunately, google is my friend. So here’s what I think happened. Nai didn’t want to wear the green because he’d be forced to exchange his white hair ribbon to a green one, and a green headgear like a hat or ribbon would mean that Weiwei had been unfaithful to him.

Reference:

Green is usually associated with health and prosperity. However, this color is also associated with the Chinese saying “wearing a green hat” “戴绿帽子” or “dài lǜ mào zǐ”. This saying dates back to the Yuan dynasty where the relatives of prostitutes where forces to wear green hats. Thus, in Chinese culture, if you are given a green hat by your significant other, he or she has been unfaithful. Today it is mostly a saying, however it is a good idea to avoid wearing a green hat, or giving it as a gift.

source: https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/chinavia/copenhagen/colors-chinese-culture

And here’s another one:

戴绿帽子 (Wearing a green hat)
If you are traveling in China, you might notice a curious thing – you will never find a Chinese man wearing a green hat. Let it be a warning to you: no matter how curious you are, you’d better not ask them why they don’t wear a green hat! The reason is, in Chinese culture, wearing green hat has a dark meaning: the one wearing it was cuckolded. And, be sure you don’t wear one yourself, either.
The source is a story from the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang enacted a law, which required men who worked in the prostitution trade to wear green hats. Later, it became common to say about man whose wife had an affair, that she made her husband wear a green hat. It’s best to stay away from those green hats!

source: https://www.italki.com/article/92/the-dark-meaning-of-5-chinese-terms

5. The flashback on how Nai ended up being the Big Boss of the gang

If rank according to age, Friend #1 was oldest, followed by Friend #2, then Friend #3. Nai would have been the youngest. But Nai challenged them, saying as they were MEN, they should be ranked according to abilities rather than age.

(lol. So should girls…)

And he got them to play the game with him and they all lost to him. Hence, he earned the right to be considered Big Brother. But Nai said that he’ll settle for Third Bro because Big Bro is the “acknowledged dorm supervisor, in charge of maintenance.”

6. Eating at Weiwei’s cafeteria

Nai decides that they eat at a new cafeteria, the cafeteria at Weiwei’s dorm. Of course, he’s ulterior motive is to look for Weiwei. He spots her right away.

See? He zooms in on her. Erxi’s wrapped around her.

But instead of lining up behind them, he lines up beside them.  lol. All the fangirls try to take a pic of Nai and when Erxi is caught by Nai stealing his photo, she quickly changes to to taking selfies instead.

OOooohhh, so cute! 

Gulp!

Nice save, girlfriend!  Erxi makes such a good wingman…errr. wing(wo)man.

Smoooooth. Let’s repeat that with gifs.

credit: sehun’s tumblr

I’m so happy that I don’t have to deal with embarrassing moments like this anymore.

The other funny thing here Weiwei think that sitting with him at the same table will be a drain on their “health points.” She using game language.

7. Sweet and sour pork ribs

Didn’t this remind you of a game on variety show? When you and your partner have to say the same answer to prove your compatibility?

He’s being a gentleman when he changes his choice so she can have the last serving.

lol. The girls’ original plan was to order the exact same food as Nai (for bonding with their crush, kinda like “couple food”). Weiwei can’t order “salted chicken” now because she’ll give away their game plan. Flustered, all she can say is she isn’t taking the sweet and sour ribs.

The other notable thing here is that he’s looking at her.

8. Guilt Complex

Weiwei thinks that ever since she lied to Cao Guang that she wanted to have a boyfriend like Xiao Nai, she’s been running into him more often.

lol. It has nothing to do with bad karma. Nai is deliberately entering her space so she’ll notice him and get used to him. It’s an invasion.

And he sneaks a peak at her when the guys aren’t paying attention.

9. Scheduling their upcoming In-Game Couples Battle Championship

He tells her to remind him the day before if there’s a match. Sure, she replies, “I’ll be your planner.”

This is the first cheesy thing I’ve heard her say but of course she doesn’t notice it. Offering to be HIS scheduler implies that they’re close enough for her to have a say about his time. To me, the standard reply should have been, “Okay. Will do that.”