The thread is open.
As I said before, there would be a dedicated thread for each mystery so we can discuss freely.
Episodes 1 to 5: The mystery of the beheaded bride –> This is included in my First Impression thread
Episodes 6 to 10: Dark secrets in the purple bamboo grove
Episodes 11 to 15: The monster of Samyuan village
Episodes 16 to 20: The ballad of the Shuangqing Troupe
Lol. The titles remind me of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series I devoured when I was a kid.
I made an extra post on the Proposal Scene in Episode 15. You can fast-forward and watch this scene in because no context is needed to understand it. It begins at the 30:40 mark.
Let’s enjoy the show.
Spoilers incoming.
I like how the screenwriter/director clues us in on the heart of the matter.
Can you spot them?
For instance, in this mystery, I think it’s the big wooden plaque above the doors of the mansion of the good doctor. It says “Benevolent Heart, Benevolent Skills.” Shen Wan mentions in Episode 13 (timestamp: 2:07).
I think it’s fun detecting them. It’s like an extra mind game for us, viewers. I challenge you to go rewatch the earlier mysteries (i.e., the Headless Bride and Purple Bamboo Grove) and spot them.
@Packmulee – will take you up on the challenge!
I am also reflecting on the risks of having a day bed (as per Episode 12)!
And what a way to get rid of love rival (Ep 11)! Shouldn’t be allowed! haha
I have gone back to episode eleven and i’m watching the same where one of her seniors shows up and talks about how all her seniors would protect her if she went back to the valley.
I will see if this might be
For shadowing Of the type you are referring to,@pm3
Episode thirteen If I am right there are lots of little clues about what is going on in this town.
I am picking them up because I did watch a little further ahead very quickly and have a vague sleepy memory of something that relates.
I explained the significance of the purple bamboo internode for the mystery arc in Eps 5 to 10, here’s the one for the case of the Monster of Samyuan village.
I said the biggest clue here (at least, for me) is the plaque hanging above the door.
It said, “Benevolent Heart, Benevolent Skills.”
By Episode 15, we realized that the much-beloved Dr. Sun was actually a monster. He didn’t have a benevolent heart. In fact, he was harvesting hearts to un-dead his wife. And he didn’t have benevolent skills. True, he had performed countless successful surgeries, but he crossed the line when he began killing people to search for a heart for his wife.
SW saw him kissing his supine wife and realized that his wife had been dead all along.
Doctor: [My wife] isn’t dead. She’s just been sick for too long. She’s tired, so she fell asleep.
Princess: He’s gone mad!
Doctor: I’m not mad. It’s just that you ordinary people cannot see how beautiful [my wife] is. If you hadn’t interfered, she would certainly be reborn by now.
SW: (pleading with him) Senior. Come to your senses. [Your wife] is gone. She’s been gone for a long time.
I think she had been dead ever since the rumor started that a monster was roaming in the village and killing people. That’s when the doctor began
Doctor: I told you! She’s still alive! As long as I replace her heart with one from a young girl full of vital Qi, she will wake up. She will come back to life.
There he goes. He thinks that he’s such a genius, he can make the dead come alive again. He thinks he’s god.
SW: So you went around killing people? As a physician, don’t you know that even the freshest heart cannot revive someone who has already died?
As a physician, he should also have known that the first rule is do no harm.
Doctor: My heart transplant techniques have saved so many lives. Why?! Why is it aht it can’t save the one I love most? Oh, heavens! Why are you so unfair to me?
SW: This is just your excuse for murder. Because of your selfish delusions, how many villagers of Sanyuan Village have died by your hand? And how many people have lost their loved ones because of you? Have you even been fair to them?
Doctor: I’ve done nothing wrong! The hearts I took all came from the weak and dying. They wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway. Instead of letting these ignorant people cling to a miserable existence, wouldn’t it be better for them to contribute to my heart transplant technique? Wouldn’t that benefit the world even more?
Nope! Remember what I said here on the blog many times: you can’t use people as means to an end; no matter how noble your endgoals may be. In the doctor’s case, he saw people merely as an object which he can use/disregard/terminate in service to his wife.
Princess: So helping you means benefiting the world, and refusing you makes them ignorant commoners? Who do you think you are? A god? How dare you recklessly decide life and death? Shame on you!
Doctor: Crude people like you don’t deserve to follow [my wife] to the afterlife. But perhaps this is for the best. The stone gate has sealed this place. I believe with your human hearts accompanying her, she’s sure to be healthy and worry-free in her next life.
He triggers the mechanism to collapse the room, and walks over to his dead wife. He recites a poem as farewell to his wife. Psycho to the max.
Do you see the irony of the plaque above the door then?
Lol, @Kate.
Yes, he just claimed that daybed for himself. But if you notice, she stayed up working at the table to observe propriety.
I just thought it was hilarious that she was pounding on the mortar with the pestle. That’s visually suggestive of the sexual act, you know…rhythmic pounding of a phallic object on an uterus-like vessel. Hahaha.
Thanks @pkml3. I was thinking roughly along the same lines because I’d jumped to Ep 15 and watched enough to recognise the ‘doctor’ and saw the evidence that he’d been harvesting organs. Then I started Ep 11 and 12 and guessed how ironic it was that the villagers kowtowed to the Benevolent Doc Sun and even the Senior of Wan (Sun Mu Qing?) thought he’d found a great senior doctor to follow, but he was actually a murdering psycho.
Oh my @pkml3!!! (I clutch and twirl my necklace of pearls). The thought never occurred to me! A mortar and pestle will never pose the same innocent image again!
@Packmule – I am going to watch that scene again with fresh eyes! haha
I starting to notice the mirroring more – use of effects to create this dreamy look to certain scenes which you commented on. When the unpleasant Quin daughter meets with the mysterious Lord in what for me is the latest episode (12?) – there is a mirroring or reflection of their encounter. This for me suggests that there is some smoke and mirrors going on here (forgive the over egging) – something about illusion and dream versus reality.
The mirror was used in the first autopsy is for the purposes of seeing clearly.
So the directors/editors would seem to be playing with this whole truth versus illusion paradigm and allowing that to shape some of the visual effects.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more examples.
One of the clues I noticed was when the servant brought the delicious looking green biscuits. And told them how she had had heart problems and come here for treatment.And suddenly she became really good chef afterwards. Made me think of the early k drama with Hyun Bins wife. Can’t recall her name or the name of the drama. Just got out of bed. It was one of the dramas of the four seasons. Now I remember summer scent. There are other dramas, featuring heart transplants and personalit and skills transplants along with it.
@MM I watched Summer Scent. But this show is not at all about the transplanted heart bringing the sentiments or talents of it’s owner into the new body. LOL.
I don’t understand the significance of it but the lady who did the cooking was supposed to belong to the Zhang family, which surprised our investigating duo or seemed to have some significance that passed me by. That was not explained further, however.
@GB I was using that drama as an example of the many heart transplant drama tropes. She did have visceral memories of her lover,I seem to recall.
The idea that someone who receives a heart transplant then has memories and personality traits from the donor is what I was getting at.
So this woman who suddenly could cook very well After treatment for her heart condition. made me think she had received a heart transplant from someone who was a chef.
ep 13 Time 9:38 Is the reference.
She says she was one of the original people who came with the doctor to the clinic along with dong. She says how she had a necrotic part of her heart and he cut it out for her. Then suddenly she had kitchen skills.
I guess that is one way to get a good chef😁
Other more explicit clues are the people being found with missing organs and the animals being eviscerated and buried.
Awesome, @monmor!
Yes, that’s the connection.
According to the innkeeper, the recipe is only known to the daughters of the Zhang family. But the last daughter was murdered by that monster rampaging the tea plantation and village so the recipe should have died with her.
According to the maid, however, she didn’t know how to cook. But after Dr. Sun fixed her heart by replacing a part with a new one, she suddenly learned how to cook…and bake that delicious tea biscuit.
And as @monmor pointed out, there’s a trope in medical dramas like this, that the recipient of the body part acquires some characteristic or memory of the previous/original owner.
Anyway, that’s the connection SW needed to link Dr. Sun to the murder. He must have killed the tea plantation daughter for the heart (or ordered someone to do the killing) since the heart ended up inside his patient’s body. But even if a sidekick was involved in the murder, Dr. Sun is the only one with the actual skills to extract the heart from the girl’s body, and transplant it to another body.
The only thing missing in the puzzle was the motive. SW didn’t know at that point why Dr. Sun was doing all this. She only discovered his motive for the murders when she saw him with his dead wife.
@He had been refining his technique using animal organs As well. So the eviscerated animals clued me in as well.
I would like.
To note the sequence of the clues And
how they build on each other.
We probably
Already have clues for the next arc from the time when the brother arrived to take the three girls to the party.
Yes, I think we already have the clue for the next subplot. I’m guessing it’s the ballad that SW heard at night. She asked Yan Chi and he explained that the troupe was performing “Mulian Rescues His Mother.” He added, “It’s about a man, Muluan, who went to hell to rescue his mother because he couldn’t bear to see her suffering there.”
SW then said that she could relate because of the unjust deaths of her parents.
I think that’s the giveaway clue in this mystery subplot because of the attention given to explain its significance. 😂😂 But I could be wrong….