As you all know, on this blog, I like to deconstruct dialogues and scenes in order to uncover what is not so obvious to regular and casual viewers. By being meticulous in this manner, I believe we appreciate the story better than merely sharing our thrill over watching love scenes.

For this episode I want all BODers to pay particular attention to the presence of water in every scene I’ll dissect.

For instance, in that recent love triangle scene I just analyzed in Part 1, Qiao Man (QM) must have been wearing wet clothes after hiding in the water pot to escape the soldiers. If you watch it again, (timestamp: 35:24, Ep 3), you’ll see that the pot still held water at the bottom third.

Not only that, the water canal is behind Wei Shao and his army. In fact, some of his men crossed the bridge to get to the frontline.

In the next dialogue, I already mentioned in my First Impressions, that there’s water in the background as WS tended to QM’s injuries on a bridge. You can see it clearly at 7:35. (Sigh. I wish I still had the capability to take a screenshot! It’s such a serene picture after the chaotic madness just a few scenes earlier.)

I’ll copy and paste what I wrote with a few additions.

2. Couple argument on the bridge

In Episode 4, he finds her in Panyi and tends to her injuries on a bridge over water. Here, QM’s softness-like-water is in full display.

WS: (gently touching her ankle) Does it hurt?
QM: Mm.
WS: Here?
QM: Mm.
WS: You are so delicate! Out on the battlefield, some get their legs broken, with even the bones showing. They just wrap it up and keep fighting. Why cry over this scratch?
QM: (pulling her leg away from him) Yes, it’s all my fault. Blame me, a spoiled girl, for not being as tough as the soldiers in your troops who can forge their shattered bones anew, hardened like steel. That is why I don’t deserve to marry you.

Three things:

a. Remember in the previous episode when his Advisor openly questioned whether he was going too far with his treatment of QM after banishing her from the city? (Re-read my write-up if you can’t recall.) He defended his action, citing as reasons the Qiao’s betrayal, her insincerity, and his 14-year hatred for her clan. Given his strong argument and sense of righteousness, the Advisor could only remind him that QM was a woman after all.

Well, the Advisor is certainly prescient. In this very moment, WS is learning that QM is a woman indeed. She’s fragile and she sheds tears. Unlike his men, she needs extra TLC on the battlefield.

b. She’s putting on full display the feminine element of water: its softness.

c. I give QM 10/10 for making him feel worse about the injuries she sustained because of him. He becomes defensive.

WS: You do not have to be so sarcastic.

He knows that she’s mocking him when she says that she doesn’t deserve to marry him. Obviously, it’s the reverse: she thinks that HE doesn’t deserve her. He treated her abominably, but she was magnanimous enough to overlook that and save him and his precious people.

Then, WS sees the burn mark on her wrist. She wrests her wrist from his hold and hides it.

QM: And I am not crying over this wound. My pain is nothing compared to the people’s suffering.
WS: Then why?
QM: I just never thought we would meet again after I left Xindu. (sniffling) If Wei Xiao’s arrow had killed me, I would never these kind words from you.

Lol. At first I thought she was totally being sarcastic here. But after rewatching the way she gazed at him when he appeared on his horse, I’ve reconsidered. She really didn’t expect to see him again.

WS: (defensively) I stopped him, didn’t I?
QM: (wailing) But what about “Kill the Qiao girl for morale!”?
WS: (wordless)
QM: You would rather kill the innocent than let the guilty one go. You had no proof, yet you still believed that I eloped with Liu Yan! While I burned the sulfur for you. And even helped you take the city.
WS: You should have stayed out of it. Matters of war are no place for a woman to meddle. You nearly died here.

Finally! He’s realized that she’s a woman! Even if he harbors extreme hatred for her clan, he can’t exact vengeance on an innocent individual — and a woman at that. His latent chivalry is beginning to show.

QM: If my life can buy the lives of the people, then it is worth it. The Qiao family has always protected the people and the soldiers, never letting one die in vain. It has never changed since 14 years ago. (sniffling)

Interesting, isn’t it? WS lets her defend her family’s reputation without challenge. It would’ve been an easy shot for him to remind her that his family lost generations of men, and their kingdom because her Qiao family didn’t come to their rescue at their hour of need. But he holds fire.

QM: (continuing) Fine! Blame me for meddling, all right? Blame me, a woman who cannot fight ten men on her own. Who got captured outside Xindu’s gates. Who was too slow to help you take Panyi. And now has to be taken care of by you. (sniffling still)

She piles on her self-pity. But it works like water. That is, her dramatization of her amazing feat of bravery is wearing him down like water on rock.

WS: Enough! Quit acting so pitiful.

This is his fight-or-flight mechanism. He realizes that he can’t win this argument, so he puts an end to this self-pitying spree. He kneels in front of her.

WS: Get on. I will carry you back.
QM: How dare I?
WS: Stop talking. Get on!

And then, as she climbs on his back, a single teardrop wells again from QM’s eye again, and lands on his neck. He notices it then, later that evening, reflects on it. Her tears are slowly eroding the hardness in his heart.

As he carries her home on his back, she snuggles against his shoulder, perhaps to find a comfortable position or perhaps because she’s sliding off. He isn’t accustomed to such awkward physical proximity, so he tells her to hold still. In the olden times, he probably would’ve just dumped her on the street. She capitalizes on his subtle change.

WS: Hold still.
QM: The current you is nothing like the one who drove me out of Xindu. Then let me be honest with you. I no longer wish to marry today’s you. Back then, Liu Yan looked down on me for my meager dowry. Later, when he learned Panyi was part of it, he tried to force the marriage. And you? After taking my seal of Panyi, you just cast me out of Xindu. How are you any different? For women in this world, marriage is a life-altering matter. Why has mine been nothing but hardship? Am I unworthy? I am telling you I will not marry.

Lol. I like that she’s appealing to sense his chivalry again. She acts like she was helpless and vulnerable like other women, when in reality, she was calling the shots. But he lets her go on and on without saying a word. To put a stop to it, he jolts her higher on his back.

Later, in her boudoir with her maid, she reveals that she was only heeding grandfather’s words, and that the idea of water wasn’t far from her mind all along.

Maid: My Lady, do you truly not wish to marry Wei Shao?
QM: Of course, I do. But he must be the one to act. Now that he has taken over Panyi, what leverage do we have? In the act of war, the best strategy is to conquer minds. I want him to marry me on his own will.
Maid: I saw that when Lord Wei escorted you back earlier, he seemed quite unsettled.
QM: (smiling faintly) No wonder Grandfather often said, “overcome hardness with softness.”

She’s learned to melt his heart by acting soft, weak, and fluid as water.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

To be continued later. I have three more points.