@GrowingBeautifully said that she was intrigued that I picked up this show to blog about. 🙂 @_d_e_y_ on twitter recommended it to me. I already finished reading the translation of the original novelette and while it’s entertaining enough, it isn’t profound. It’s a beach-read, a chick-lit. But I think the screenwriter of the Cdrama and director have recreated the plot and rearranged the storyline to produce a nuanced work.

1. Take for instance, this concept of “love at first sight.”

At the opening of Episode 2, Qiao Yi, the narrator of the show, scolds her husband Yan Mo for being unkind to her at their first meeting.

QY: We’ve known each other for…
YM: Thirteen years.
QY: Yes, thirteen years. In the beginning we were deskmates. You were so rude back then!
YM: Was I?
QY: Of course. When you saw me for the first time, you tried to kill me with your eyes. Couldn’t you be more friendly to your new deskmate?
YM: I’m sorry. After all, who knew that my deskmate would be my wife.

Later, she credits cruel fate for throwing her and Yan Mo together. She was falsely accused of cheating and received zero marks on the test. She says, “When I think back to it many years later, if it hadn’t been for that cheating case, our story might not have begun.”

Well, yes and no.

There was certainly that school policy which required students to take their seats according to their grade. But I believe that Yan Mo also “exploited” that rule to maneuver QiaoYi to sit beside him.

I think that, even after 13 years of knowing him, QiaoYi is still underrating Yan Mo. It doesn’t enter her head that Yan Mo might have left nothing to chance.

Here’s my explanation.

Yan Mo was the math representative back then, right? It would have been easy for him to calculate the odds of her ending up as his deskmate.

I would have….

Look: There were 38 students in the class and 40 seats (20 columns with 5 rows). The seating arrangement was to be decided by class rank. Meaning, the Top 1 student would get first pick of the 40 seats, the Top 2 student would have 39 seats to pick from, the Top 3 would have 38 seats to pick from and so on. For the last student or the 38th student, namely Qiao Yi, there were only 3 seats left to choose from.

Now, Yan Mo, being the Top 1 student, had the privilege of sitting by himself. His classmates would respect that privilege.

The other two open seats would obviously be next to the “unpopular kids” in the class. The seats were already passed over by the other kids exactly because they were unpopular.

What do you think would be the odds of Qiao Yi rejecting those same seats? Given her timid and effacing personality, she wasn’t going to sit with those “unpopular” kids either. She’d be intimidated or scared to sit beside them.

So her only real choice was to sit with Yan Mo.

To me, that was the reason Yan Mo chose that particular spot from the very beginning.

If you notice, all the other kids in line, except for him, had their backpacks on that day.

When he walked in that empty classroom, his backpack was already hanging on the back of that seat.

Also, his cassette player was under the table already.

lol. That seat was definitely NOT his spot prior to this seat rearrangement.

To me, he had “reserved” the spot from the very beginning. He was Top 1 so he got first dibs. But why pre-select that spot? What’s so special about that seat that he picked it?

Weeeeell, it was Qiao Yi’s spot.

He kept tapping her table with his three fingers, right?

She was sitting there.

And here, too. Who knows how long she’s occupied that specific spot.

In my opinion, he reserved it because he thought Qiao Yi would like to have the same exact seat as before. lol. Methinks, although he said nothing to her since the term began,

he’d like her to be his seatmate, and he was hoping she’d choose to sit with him.

To me then, Qiao Yi’s mistaken when, in the beginning of the episode, she accuses her husband of trying to kill her with his eyes when he saw her for the first time. Yan Mo is similar to that dog of his. It’s happy to see him arrive home although it doesn’t greet him enthusiastically.

Nevertheless, Qiao Yi’s correct when, towards the end of the episode, she observes that, “What you see may not be the truth. The truth needs to be proven by time.” Time will tell whether Yan Mo already liked her waaaaay before she began to like him.

lol. Back then, she thought her previous grade of 60 and this lab work with Yan Mo of 70 were only “passing grade”. She didn’t know the ‘TRUTH” that 60 was considered 85% and 70 was 100% because of the new grading scale.

2. Idiots are afraid to let others know of their efforts. 

Just like Qiao Yi is PARTLY correct when she says “When I think back to it many years later, if it hadn’t been for that cheating case, our story might not have begun,” she’s also PARTLY correct when she narrates:

“No matter how late a smart child studies, he’ll tell others that next day that he slept at eight o’clock. But actually, an idiot is also afraid of others knowing her efforts. Each time she makes an attempt, she’ll hear a voice laughing at her about going beyond her depth. That’s why her desire to advance is hard to tell. But an idiot has her way of surviving, just pretending and caring nothing of it.”

She’s explaining how she had pretended to be dumb and lied that she copied her brother’s Physics lab work because she didn’t want it known to others that she tried her best when her best might not be good enough.

Back then, Yan Mo stepped in to protect her. He handed her their group’s lab report to sign.

YM: Sign it.
QY: Sign it? Shouldn’t you, the group leader, sign it?
YM: You conducted the experiment and completed the theories and processes at home. Of course, you should sign it.
QY: You’re letting me be your group leader?

And this is funny because the other day, he wouldn’t allow her to do anything during the experiment, not even be the “decoration”.

YM: (repeats himself) Sign your name.
Classmate: Yan Mo, don’t be in the same group with her. She copied someone else’s work. She’ll implicate you. What about teaming up with me? I’m in the twelfth place of the grade.
YM: (taps QY’s desk) Who’s she?
QY: (embarrassed for him) She’s Yu Miaoumiaou, our classmate.
YM: (getting the signed paperwork from her) Good job.

Back then, Yan Mo already had a good insight on her personality. She didn’t want to burden him so she VOLUNTARILY asked to repeat the lab work on her own. And she had pride. She didn’t want others to know how hard she struggled on her own.

That’s why he called her an idiot.

Not because she was intellectually inferior, but because she NEEDLESSLY struggled on her own since she thought she was too dumb to be helped. Her problem is her inferiority complex.

In this sense, Qiao Yi’s correct in her observation that even an idiot is afraid of letting others see the amount of effort expended to achieve a goal. But her error lies in failing that this applies to love, too. That is, there are also idiots in love who are afraid to pursue their love-of-their-life out of fear that their efforts will become known to all and sundry.

Each time they make an attempt to seek out their loved one in Cambridge, Nanchuan, or Beijing, they’re afraid to hear a inner voice laughing that they’re going beyond their depths. That’s why their desire to love again is hard to tell. Like idiots, they end up pretending that they don’t care for each other.