#spoiler: mei changsu's plan works

[thecrenellations]

“I am now a weak scholar and can never again beat you in a fight. What are you smiling about?

“You’re the one who has the advantage. Even if you hit me, I wouldn’t dare hit you back."

“You’re the Crown Prince now. If I hit you, that would be a death wish.”

Advanced Bittersweet Evasion, A Masterclass by Mei Changsu. (aka Nirvana in Fire, ep. 52)

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: Nirvana in Fire, Episode 04

(Masterpost) (Pinboard)

Warning! Spoilers for all 54 episodes!

Schemes in Progress:

Mu Nihuang’s Marriage//Martial Arts Competition: Mei Changsu has a foolproof plan for defeating the lead contender, Baili Qi, who is the only contender who can actually beat Nihuang to win her hand. His plan appears to involve having small children beat the mighty warrior. In fact his plan is way simpler and more delightful than that, but I’ll discuss the specifics in a later post. It’s politically important to defeat Baili Qi, not just personally, because he represents a potential enemy state. 

Mu Nihuang’s Marriage//Sima Lei: The Crown Prince and his mom, Consort Yue, want to force Nihuang to marry their dude Sima Lei. The plan is to use Roofie Wine on her. Consort Jing gets wind of this plan and gets a counter-plan rolling. 

Getting Tingsheng Out Of The Palace: Mei Changsu uses the anxiety caused by Baili Qi’s badassery to get the Emperor to agree to his ridiculous kid-training plan, and then makes sure Tingsheng, the secret son of the late Prince Qi, is one of the kids he gets to train. 

Put Jingyan on the Throne: This scheme gets rolling, with a general pattern of Mei Changsu & team doing whatever they can to sink the leading contenders for the throne, which gives Jingyan an opportunity to rise up. The leading contenders tend to cooperate in their own sinking because they are ruthlessly ambitious, and Mei Changsu designs his plans to take advantage of that. 

Banquet Battle

After thoroughly disarming and whomping Jingrui, Baili Qi finishes by flinging Jingrui’s sword into the floor right in front of him. 

Jingrui, who hoped to literally cripple Baili Qi in this fight, has the nerve to be affronted by this. 

(More behind the cut!)

Baili Qi shows his impeccable barbarian manners, giving the Emperor a nice gesture of respect that is presumably local to Northern Yan. Meanwhile, Mei Changsu and Nihuang are snarking quietly at their table like a couple of high schoolers.

Mei Changsu pretends to be embarrassed when the Emperor tells them to share their joke with the whole class, but of course it’s always a scheme, with him. 

He and Nihuang explain to everyone that they were just chatting about how Baili Qi is great and all, but that Mei Changsu could train some small amateur children to beat his bitch ass, given a couple of days to teach them to run in a circle. 

The emperor thinks this is a good plan, and gets right on board with it. 

This is not actually because the emperor is an idiot, however, although Prince Yu clearly thinks so. 

The emperor IS an idiot, but on this occasion I think he has correctly deduced that Mei Changsu has some kind of shady plan in mind, and he is 100% in favor of shady plans, if they work to his benefit. 

Consort Bestie

Jingyan’s mom Consort Jing is hanging out in the palace, and meets up with her girlfriend bestie, Imperial Concubine Hui. Historically, the Emperor’s collection of women was divided into ranks; how many ranks was different for different periods. In NIF, Consort Jing and I.C. Hua belong to the “outer palace” and the Empress and Consort Yue belong to the “inner palace” because they rank higher. The Empress likes to pick on  IC Hua, and has sent her to light a bunch of candles in a haunted palace.

Consort Jing goes with her because they are girlfriends besties, and because she is a consistently nice person who deserves all the good things in the world. Spoiler: Both of these women survive, they stay friends, things work out well for both of them and for their sons. Go ahead and root for them! 

Because the haunted palace belongs to the late Empress, mother of the Emperor and of Grand Princess Liyang, these BFFs are ideally placed to overhear some important scheming, involving some drugged wine that’s been sitting around in this part of the compound for like 30 years. 

They realize that someone is planning to sexually assault a woman by using this drugged wine, and Nihuang is the obvious candidate, since her marriage plans are all anyone’s talking about now. Consort Jing tells Concubine Hua to forget all about this and not get involved in palace drama, but she immediately gets to work intervening in the situation herself. 

Training 

Over at the Xie guesthouse, Mei Changsu is training the kiddies in a special sword formation designed to beat Baili Qi. They sure do have pretty sword forms for a bunch of kids who have never held a sword. Also, someone’s chalk skills are off the chain.

Mei Changsu tells Fe Liu that they have to be faster, so Fe Liu tells them “go faster” and they do, which is apparently the essence of learning martial arts. 

Mu Nihuang shows up and sees right through all of this, making it clear she needs a miracle to get her out of this unwanted marriage. Mei Changsu tells her that he’s got it covered. She says that she believes him, although she’s not sure why. 

Then they stand there gazing heatedly at each other, like you do when you are two random people who have never met until recently, and definitely have never gotten each other off even a little bit. 

Embroidery Flexing

Meanwhile, Consort Jing sets out to save Nihuang from the wine/marriage plot, through the power of embroidery. 

In order to do this she has to make embroidered scent sachets for the Dowager Empress, the Empress, the Grand Princess, and Consort Yue, which she does before going to bed for the night, apparently. Consort Jing kicks ass. 

She makes sure that the Dowager Empress, who is a sweetheart, will be pleased enough with her sachet that she will invite Consort Jing into the room, which will give her an opportunity to present the actually important sachet to Grand Princess Liyang. 

Communication was complicated, before cell phones. 

Once they’re alone, Consort Jing tells Grand Princess Liyang about the plot to force Nihuang to marry Sima Lei. She tells her in the most round-about, triggery way possible, because she needs Liyang to have a flashback, I guess? Otherwise we wouldn’t get to watch her own Mom drugging her to force her to marry Xie Yu. 

Thanks, Mom, I’d be happy to drink this cup of obvious poison. Mom is terrible but her crown is awesome. 

Anyway, once Liyang knows what’s up, she’s on board with team Save Nihuang From Having To Marry A Creep Like My Own Husband.

Clean-shaven Xie Yu: even creepier than regular Xie Yu and also very shiny. Beautiful costume, though. Why are they dressing the flashback villains so nicely? 

Side note: presumably Liyang and her mom didn’t know she was already pregnant when they brought Xie Yu into the mix? Because if they had known, she would probably have been fine with just, like, consenting to marry someone or other, to keep her reputation intact. Anyway it’s worth noting that this whole situation is about appearances, not about whether anyone is actually a literal virgin. 

The Laughing Prince

Jingyan comes for a visit to see how the training is going, and he and Mei Changsu have a sitdown. Mei Changsu tells him that he’s come to town to make sure that the two main contenders for the throne don’t get it, and that he’s going to work to make Jingyan the next emperor. 

Then they stand there gazing at each other, like strangers who definitely have never gotten each other off even a little bit. 

Then Jingyan laughs at him

Jingyan thinks it’s impossible that he would ever be emperor, but he’s happy to go along with Mei Changsu’s plans if it will keep his jerk brothers from winning. 

Building Team Jingyan

Late at night, Meng Zhi drops by to look at Tingsheng and say that he resembles Prince Qi, which he totally doesn’t, but Chinese dramas really don’t worry about casting people who resemble each other to play twins or whatever, so we can take Meng Zhi’s word for it. 

They talk about the Make-Prince-Jing-The-Emperor plan, with Meng Zhi wanting to help out, and Mei Changsu wanting to make sure that only his own hands get dirty with all the schemey stuff he’s planning. 

Hu Ge is really good at talking directly to the camera without looking into the lens. It’s a good technique for intense moments and because he doesn’t look straight into the lens, it doesn’t break the fourth wall. 

Building Team Nihuang

Liyang has spent the day trying to warn Nihuang about the roofie wine situation, but can’t reach her due to a lack of cell phones and/or embroidery skills. 

So she takes the daring step of going to Mei Changsu’s guest house--on her own dang property--which is such a high risk endeavor she has to wear a fancy cloak and cary a super obvious fancy lantern.  God forbid a woman walk around her own house at night.  Anyway, she’s able to pass the warning to Mei Changsu, and asks him to pass it to Nihuang. 

Of course that’s when her husband comes knocking, presumably looking for some affection--he actually is a nice husband who genuinely loves his wife, within the context of a society in which rape is perfectly fine, anyway. 

Her junior servants are freaked out, because visiting a man, even your own houseguest, alone at night is not perfectly fine, so if he catches her, they’re all dead, basically. But the elder servant tells them to chill and just watch how she handles it. 

She politely tells Xie Yu that his wife was reminded of their first date, and so maybe he should leave her and her feelings and her sharp hairpins and whatnot alone for a while. (I’m inferring the hairpins.) He looks slightly terrified and immediately withdraws. 

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Nirvana in Fire Episodes 34-39

Spoiler cut! (LOTS of spoilers.)

Wow that was a masterful plan! The rescue itself was exceptionally planned, but the political aftermath...I’ve never seen a better example of someone turning every possible weakness into a strength!

I need to write this down to put it all together.

First, there’s the planning of the regular attack on the Xuanjing Bureau - luring away all the senior officers (especially the Marquis of Yan’s role in luring away Xia Jiang and then stealing his horse), using smoke bombs, having the city guard interfere (under to claim of pursuing a criminal - with everything about the thief set up in advance!) so that no one is captured. And all that is just a feint! Mei Changsu accurately anticipates that Xia Jiang will have moved Wei Zheng away from the Bureau.

Then, using Xia Jiang to lead them to where Wei Zheng is actually being held, and freeing him.

Then, intentionally exposing their actions, on several different levels! Having Yujin set things up so that the Emperor’s brother (someone entirely outside of politics and whom he will trust) sees Xia Dong helping Wei Zheng to escape. Xia Jiang can’t just claim that Xia Dong is a traitor (even though it’s true), because he has never accused her before and has given no indication that she was ever disloyal, so such an accusation would seem implausible. Many, many characters have used reverse psychology on the Emperor - e.g., defending their rivals in order to induce him to be harsher on them - and likewise, Xia Dong’s protestations that she acted alone make the emperor even more convinced that Xia Jiang orchestrated it. And so, by confessing to exactly what she did (leaving out Prince Jing’s involvement, and adding a few things she didn’t do, like killing Wei Zheng - an excellent move, as it extinguishes pursuit), she destroys Xia Jiang.

Likewise, Mei Changsu, when taken to the Xuanjing Bureau, confesses to exactly what did happen, but Xia Jiang is so terrified of what games he might be playing and what he might say in front of the Emperor that the confession is completely useless to him. The fact that the Bureau readily employs torture is turned into a weapon against them, as any testimony from Mei Changsu can easily be recanted in front of the Emperor and explained as him telling Xia Jiang what he wanted to hear in order to stay alive. He takes a situation where he has no power and has confessed to everything and maneuvers it so he’s the one in control! Everything about his interactions with Xia Jiang was amazing and Mei Changsu’s continual trolling was a delight to behold, starting off with his entrance (saying he slept well while yawning widely) and continuing from there. He’s a joy to watch when he’s dealing with people he hates.

I don’t know if Consort Jing’s part in this was coordinated or just serendipitous, but it also worked perfectly! Calling the Emperor away from questioning Prince Jing in order to accuse Jing’s mother made everything look like a set-up (all the more because Consort Jing was only doing what the emperor asked her to!). He had to punish her, but the Empress was the one he was really mad at.

And then, finishing off by having the two ministers bring up the evidence from the fireworks case to implicate Prince Yu, when the emperor already suspects Prince Yu of taking control of Xuanjing Bureau (because why would they act against Prince Jing on their own initiative?). The combination of which makes Prince Yu look like a very dangerous rival rather than a prospective heir.

In short, Mei Changsu successfully managed to have Prince Jing commit treason and get the entirety of it blamed on his greatest rivals and greatest enemies. Primarily by taking advantage of the very fact that Xia Jiang did want to bait them into attacking. Xia Jiang can’t explain himself (even if the emperor gave him a chance), because his motive for  baiting them into attacking is rooted in the fact that he framed Prince Qi.

This was so, so well done - and the only ‘collateral damage’ (besides Xia Dong, who had to know what she was getting into) is Mei Changsu himself. Ooh, the scene where he walked out to be arrested gave me shivers!

[cerinamroths]

Nirvana in Fire 2 Thoughts

The strongest quality of NIF2 is the emotional resonance it gives to the audience as it focuses more on the characters/family and less about the intricacies of the schemes and politics. Whereas I didn’t feel as much in NIF until its ending, I felt and cried so much throughout NIF2. Also “The Wind Blows in Changlin”?? More like a fucking tornado storms through Changlin!!!

Let’s start with how the one sentence google summary of NIF2 is a terrible spoiler! The description basically summarizes eps. 1-37! It states “Xiao Pingjing finally succumbs to the grief caused by the death of his brother and his father, and he leaves the capital to return to Langya Pavilion.” 

This kind of ruined it for me, bc I expected their deaths from the first few episodes & then I just waited for them to die... and then every happy scene of them just made me sadder knowing what’s to come... It’s like reading about Game of Thrones with a description “The remaining Stark family learns to play the game as the oldest son & father perishes...” LIKE WHAT EVEN

The OST is beautifully heartwrenching! My favorite one so far - I’ve been listening to it between watching and driving to/from work.

The OTP of this series IS Pingzhang and Qianxue. Sure, Lin Xi & Pingjing are fated and cute, but we didn’t get enough moments between them. You see PZ & QX teasing each other, supporting each other, respectively doing their duties, going to battle together, being intimate as much as one can be in a cdrama, etc. I’m sad they had to end but at least she did have a son and we got a happy ending through Lin Xi & Pingjing.

Speaking of that ending, I am so happy for Pingjing. When it comes to responsibilities, especially in that time period, one cannot be so lucky... but to have those military achievements and honor of defending His Majesty and then being free of responsibilities & duties to go live out the rest of your life with your love is the best gift one could ask for. It kind of makes you thankful that Minister Xun succeeded in dismantling the Changlin army...

In asian culture where one has to be successful, especially if there is a family legacy, I really admired Tingsheng for imparting that final advice to Pingjing - saying he doesn’t need to continue with Changlin or to be what PZ and TS was in the past... but to live his own life. 

Maybe it makes for a better story, but I was utterly pissed off at Minister Xun & The Empress! I rather have someone with committed evil intentions (like Marquis Xie & Yuanqui) than someone with misguided intentions. The only reason why they dismantled the Changlin family was to thwart them from possible evil future crimes!!! URGH. I do understand though, and the show makes sure to highlight it throughout, especially at the end in the last conversation between General Yue and Pingjing.

I really hated Puyang Ying... but that just shows how much of a threat he was! If he had grander plans than just taking revenge for the plague, he could have been as calculating as Mei Changsu. I really feel bad for his disciples not knowing he stole his king’s seal & tricking everyone to commit evil actions. And Yuanqi... I clearly see why he did what he did, but those moments in the earlier episodes when you see Yuanqi contemplate his morals... URGH he could have been so good! Poor fucking Anru! ): I’m surprised Marquis Mozi didn’t make appear at the end but that’s most definitely a future problem.

I can’t believe they used the actress for Xia Dong in NIF to be Madam Qi from Donghai in NIF2!!! Also holy fucking shit when Yuanqi burned her alive!!!

Pingzhang was the best male character of the series - he was the embodiment of a powerful warrior, intelligent mind, responsible-but-can-have-fun personality... the love for his family especially finding out he was adopted & saving his brother’s life was just so amazing!!!! 

Feizhan was the second best male character. He has such an unbreakable moral foundation. Now that is an example you can pit against Yuanqi... he will still make the right choices even if his family is in the wrong. Poor him for being in love with Qianxue! Bc in that life and in any other reincarnated life, it’s going to be PZ & QX buddy... unless AU OT3?! But anyways, how can you not admire his steadfast and resolute moral outlook!?

Pingjing grew on me throughout the drama. I understand that main characters must have flaws to overcome in a story, but he was really annoying in the beginning. Smart, but stupid with Lin Xi! He was so impulsive with court matters, that I wanted to facepalm & cringe so hard. But when he really had to grow up... man the change! ): 

My favorite moment is when the disbanded Changlin army reunites and is ready to go to battle for Pingjing to save His Majesty.

The battle at the Northern Border with the solar eclipse was also epic!!! I haven’t watched many Chinese Movies/Dramas, but it felt semi-reminiscent of Red Cliff and it made me yearn for more battle scenes.

From ep. 38 and on, I really like the plot they give to the side characters of Pei-er, General Yue, and his subordinate Tan Heng.

Little Emperor - ngl, my favorite moment was when he ordered to kill Yuanqi! Like YES, DIE YUANQI. But also I really enjoyed his relationship with Pingjing. That ending quote though took my heart:

“Older brother Pingjing, no matter where you will be from now on, do not forget your old friend here in Jinling. You must frequently write him back." 

I love the callbacks to NIF and those scenes made me so emotional especially when Tingsheng reminisced about Mei Changsu & his father Jingyan! Also wtf happened to Fei Liu! I’m annoyed that Commander Meng didn’t spend as much time teaching Qianxue & focused on the boys instead... especially when fucking Princess Nihuang led the entire Mu army and protected the southern border. It was nice to have Pingjing & His Majesty escape through the tunnel between Changlin Manor (aka Prince Jing’s Manor) and Sir Su’s residence!!!

There are barely any fics for NIF2!!! I really with for a time travel fic where maybe the NIF2 characters meet NIF1... or NIF1 characters come to the future and help Changlin Manor and let the world know what’s up (imagine Mei Changsu scoffing at Minister Xun & The Empress). Or even PJ going back to the start of the drama, showing how much he’s grown to his father and elder brother. Some fluff between PZ & QX and PJ & LX. 

Also with both NIF & NIF2, thank goodness Langya Court isn’t evil lol... because they are certainly biased!

Ending with a shot of Ce’er waving goodbye (so cute!). Hoping to start The Legend of Fuyao or The Rise of Phoenixes next. 

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: Nirvana in Fire, Episode 02

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 54 Episodes!

A Cunning Plan

Let's start by checking in with the in-progress schemes. Nirvana in Fire features many, many overlapping schemes that stretch across multiple episodes.

Princess Nihuang's Marriage: Princess Nihuang is betrothed to a dead guy, and that's fine with her. If she needs tender emotional care she's got Xia Dong. Xia Dong is married to a dead guy so this works well for both of them.  

The Emperor wants to marry Nihuang off, because she's got a loyal heap of troops at the southern border, and he's a paranoid old fuck, who doesn't like anyone to have the power to overthrow him. Marrying her will sort of force her to hand her troops off to her impulsive younger brother, or something.

The Emperor has a soft spot for Nihuang, however, so he's allowed her to set a bunch of impossible conditions on the marriage, including a martial arts contest. NIF is a hybrid palace drama and Wuxia drama, so there are courtesans and backstabbing and sneaky maids and sneaky eunuchs but also, people can fly.

The two main power seekers, Prince Yu and the Crown Prince, have flunkies that they want Nihuang to marry, but their flunkies suck at martial arts, so if they want her to marry one of their dudes, there will have to be cheating.

Note that Nihuang's good friends Jingrui and Yujin are taking part in the contest to marry her, which might be weird, except they both know she can beat their asses so they seem to just be joining in for fun & prestige. 

The fact that she doesn't want to marry either of these loveable cuties means that she's pretty serious about staying betrothed to her first love, despite his apparent deadness.

(more after the cut!)

Recruiting Mei Changsu / Killing Mei Changsu: Team Prince Yu wants to recruit Mei Changsu. Team Crown Prince wants to recruit him or kill him, if recruiting him doesn't work. 

Mei Changsu acts like this is so tedious; all he wants to do is rest. But they only want to recruit him because he and his pal Lin Chen made them believe he is the answer to their problems.  Whenever Mei Changsu acts annoyed at something, it's probably something he actually orchestrated. "Pork chops again?" (secretly buys more pork chops).

The Duke Qing/ Landgrab Case: In Episode 1, the Jiangzuo Alliance protected some witnesses against Duke Qing in an enslavement/land grabbing case. It's difficult for me to find anything about historical land grabbing in China because Google is full of 21st century land grabbing information. Anyway Duke Qing works for Prince Yu, so the witnesses are (whether they mean to be or not) on The Crown Prince's side. The Emperor has an interest in this case, because land grabbing is bad, apparently, even by corrupt-emperor standards. Xia Dong is in charge of investigating.

The Chiyan Army Case: This is the big conspiracy that the entire show is about. 11 years ago, the Emperor received evidence that Prince Qi, Lin Xie (Mei Changsu's father), and the entire Chiyan army were going to rebel. This was supposedly reported by Xia Dong's husband, Nie Feng, before Lin Xie supposedly killed him. The emperor ordered executions for everybody.

Prince Jing thought this was a bunch of bullshit and didn't hesitate to say so, which got him sent off to distant regions to do army things for years at a time, and landed him a place high up on the emperor’s shit list.

The Hazelnut Pastry Scheme: This is a small scale, benevolent scheme, in which Concubine Jing will eventually stop making cookies with hazelnuts in them, because Mei Changsu is allergic to them. 

Ok, that’s the scheme roundup for this episode. On with the show!

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

After a quick expository chat between the Emperor and Gong Gao, laying out the reasons for the Nihuang Marriage Scheme, we go to Prince Yu’s place to watch superhot Meng Zhi, commander of the emperor's guards, whip some ass. Not, alas, literally.  Despite his leather shoulder thingies and his handsome beard, and his commanding ways on a battlefield, when it comes to interpersonal relations he is pretty much a labrador retriever puppy in human form.

Meng Zhi is kicking the asses of Prince Yu’s fighters to determine if they're qualified to compete in the Marriage contest. They are not. He points out to the Prince that they can't put such terrible wimps into the competition because it will make the country’s defenses look weak.  

This beatdown is observed by Prince Yu and by Xie Yu, who Prince Yu thinks is on his side. Xie is 100% on the Crown Prince's side, but is carefully hiding that fact; he has his son working for Prince Yu as part of his cover.

In determining how severe an ass kicking is, everyone talks about how many moves it takes to defeat someone, like it's chess. Meng Zhi can beat literally anyone else in the show. He's number two on the Langya List of fighters & we never meet #1.

Fe Liu Was Fast as Lightning

Mei Changsu is hanging out in the garden at Xie manor while Fe Liu jumps around. Fe Liu wants Mei Changsu to play Roblox with him, and pouts when MCS opts for staying in the garden and reading a book.

Fe Liu is utterly devoted to Mei Changsu; I really love their relationship. Fe Liu’s backstory isn't fully explained in the show, but apparently he was raised from an early age to focus on being extremely lethal, and didn't spend much time learning to talk or other skills, making him the epitome of the asynchronous/ gifted teen. Mei Changsu isn’t who raised him to be like this; MCS and Lin Chen rescued him, which is why he is now Mei Changsu’s personal murder pet.

Fe Liu is both a complete fantasy character and also a really believable teen, beautifully acted by Leo Wu, who DMBJ fans know from Tomb of the Sea, and who Xiao Zhan fans know from Battle Through the Heavens.

Fe Lui promptly gets into a fight with Meng Zhi, who's visiting Xie manor. All Fe Liu was doing was leaping about the rooftops like an assassin, but since Xie Yu is the sort of guy that a lot of people would like to kill, Meng Zhi doesn't think this is so good. They have a hilarious, entertaining fight with many, many wire-assisted moves.

They're pretty evenly matched, and Xie Yu watches them with extreme interest until Mei Changsu shows up and tells Fe Liu to stop. Xie Yu is watching because he needs to know how many dudes he should send to assassinate Mei Changsu. Answer: more. Always more.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately since it’s probably all part of MCS’s plan) Fe Liu's extreme skilz make it obvious that his boss is someone important. Mei Changsu discusses this with Jingrui and Yujin in an open-air setting where Jingrui's brother Xie Bi can totally hear them.  In no time flat, father and son have reported his identity to their respective princes.

Over at Prince Yu's place, Qin Banruo and her awesome eye makeup join the party. She's Prince Yu’s advisor/manipulator, working for the (fallen) Hua kingdom, led by the (deceased) Princess Xuanji . She has a network of spies who work for her, that she deploys for Prince Yu's schemes. Her ultimate goal is not to help him, however, but just to fuck up the Da Liang Empire, which conquered the Hua.

(Nearly) Everybody Hates Jingyan

Xia Dong heads out on her assignment in the Land Grab Case, and Nihuang goes to see her off. They talk about gender expectations and how annoying it is to have to marry a dude, and briefly hang out being WLW goals with their mutual devotion, excellent fashion sense and deadly fighting abilities. Nihuang, in particular, wears the prettiest things and also stands at attention like she's commanding an army; I adore her.

They're interrupted by the arrival of Prince Jing, who is greeted cheerfully by Nihuang and eye-rollingly by Xia Dong.  

He's wearing an awesome brass-and-blue armor that we never see again after this episode. It's too bad - it's a good color for him and it has a cool vampire cloak with a high collar.

Prince Jing takes the opportunity to snark at Xia Dong about her investigation and the Xuanjing Bureau’s penchant for inventing finding conspiracies, and then rides off before she can reply.

This leads Nihuang and Xia Dong to get into their chronic argument about the Chiyan Conspiracy and the Lin family, and then Xia Dong hits the road.

Prince Jing and his subordinates stand around outside the palace waiting to report to the emperor while the emperor ignores him. They get sweatier and sweatier while they wait. which makes me like the Emperor a little bit more.

Prince Yu and CP Xian are busy sucking up to the emperor as they look at a manuscript. They are a bunch of assholes and you can see that Gao Zhan isn't a fan of this bullshit.

Eventually Gao Zhan reminds/persuades the emperor to summon Prince Jing, whose brothers snark at him like a couple of 12 year old girls while he radiates manly vigor and handsomeness.  

Consort Jin is bummed that she can't see Prince Jing for another 5 days, and her maid sidekick says random comforting things. This maid, Xiao Xin, is actually a little snake, who works for Qin Banruo's network. We don't learn that until sometime later.

All of the maids have this same hairstyle. If you are a westerner and you think this hairstyle is crazy, have a look at some Roman and Byzantine historic hairstyles. I'm not saying this hairstyle is NOT crazy, mind you; just that crazy hair was a feature of many, many historical empires.  

Consort Jing has someone deliver her hazelnut cookies to Prince Jing; she doesn’t know about Mei Changsu yet so hazelnut is still on the menu. Nicest mom. Also smartest, helpful-est mom, as the story develops.

Suck-Up Contest

At Xie manor, Xie Bi tries to get Mei Changsu to go meet the Empress, who has stopped by with Nihuang specifically to meet him, as part of the Recruit Mei Changsu scheme. Jingrui says nope, fuck that, he's not going to be a pawn in your political games, fuck off. We get to see Jingrui being steely and righteous, which is both cool and hot. Nihuang should totally marry him.

The Empress is annoyed that Mei Changsu doesn't show up, and Nihuang is like, it's ok, I don’t actually give a fuck about meeting new men. But I did want to meet his murder puppy Fe Liu.

Grand Princess Liyang says they don’t need to bother meeting pugilists, despite her son being one and her supposed best friends/co-parents also being pugilists.

Grand Princess Liyang will probably be glad Mei Changsu didn’t come to her little party, once she realizes what tends to happen when Mei Changsu comes to a party.

Then we go to the suitor tournament, in which everyone more or less sucks.

The princes really want to go over to Mei Changsu’s balcony to meet him, and they have a hilarious silent interaction where they both try not to be the first one to move. They finally cave, and go together.  

Then they compete to see who can be the most cringe and blow the most smoke up Mei Changsu's ass.

They ply him with gifts and flattery, which he mostly manages to resist.

Cookie Time with Granny

Then they get summoned to go meet the grand empress, who is (I think) the mother of the previous emperor, the grandmother of the current emperor, and the great grandmother of basically every highborn character of the current generation, including Nihuang and Yujin, although it’s not clear where they sit in the family tree. Historically, cousin marriage - particularly of maternal cousins - was no big whoop in China, so it's not surprising that a lot of nobles would share a great-grandmother.

The Grand Empress is a sweet lady with dementia. She can’t figure out who the hell anyone is. First-time viewers feel the same way.  

Her dementia is pretty well depicted, unlike a lot of TV dementia, or at least it matches up to my experiences with my own elders. She remembers the distant past more vividly than recent times; when she understands who’s in front of her she connects with them emotionally, but she falls off track easily. And she projects the identities of people she misses onto people who are around her.

Like many other grannies, no matter who is visiting, she wants them to 1. get married 2. produce offspring 3. eat something, you’re so skinny

When Mei Changsu meets Granny she immediately calls him Lin Shu, either because she recognizes him or because she really misses Lin Shu, or both. She calls Nihuang over and joins their hands, and Mei Changsu grabs onto Nihuang's hand and holds it for a while.

Everyone thinks it's adorable that Granny has dementia and is confused about that guy who was horribly killed, except Nihuang, who was already checking Mei Changsu out and is somewhat verklempt. She might have to revise her anti-man feelings a little bit.

Everyone leaves, and Nihuang hits up Mei Changsu to take a walk with her, casually mentioning that she could have his hand cut off for touching her, but since she's not in the mood, he's ok.

She prods a bit to find out what he's doing in town and what he's up to. “Do you have a girlfriend? Like a serious girlfriend or just a stalker who works for you?” She asks him which of the two princes he's going to support, but they’re interrupted by a eunuch beating a slave child. That’s the price you pay for trying to have a date in the palace, I guess.