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TL;DR Version
After some childish bickering, Orchid and DFQC escape from the Haotian Tower and go their separate ways. Orchid runs an errand to get a bargain on a pill to help her pass the immortal test but ends up captured by some evil immortals and taken to be sacrificed. DFQC prepares to restore his Moon Kingdom’s glory when he realizes Orchid’s physical danger puts him at risk as well.
Recap
Inside the Haotian Tower, Orchid and DFQC’s bodies have been switched and DFQC is threatening Orchid. She’s used to being the weakest immortal in the realm and so threats don’t bother her, plus she knows he needs her to escape.
Changing tactics, he starts cutting her hair off. This leads to a power struggle that’s like watching children squabble until Orchid starts crying and DFQC can’t take it anymore. He fixes her hair and comments: “You’re the first person in history to threaten me.”
Now that he’s not bullying her, Orchid is good to get them out. She doesn’t know who he really is and she figures after they get out other fairies will deal with him. But even using his body, her efforts to be powerful are comical. DFQC is ready to switch bodies back, which means doing whatever caused them to switch in the first place. Orchid brings her fingers to her lips, remembering the kiss.
Lord Chang Heng and his friend, another immortal named Rong Hao, are avoiding the fairies’ festivities together by floating on a river and drinking in a painting. Chang Heng is upset that a fairy got trapped in the Tower and no one cares. Rong Hao teases him about a handkerchief love memento that he’s carrying around, while Chang Heng is actually engaged to the missing goddess Xishan. Despite the handkerchief, Chang Heng resists the idea of ignoring his engagement and feels he needs to find the missing goddess.
In the Haotian Tower, DFQC is trying to use Orchid’s much smaller body to force a kiss on Orchid in his larger body. Eventually Orchid manages to fling him-in-her-body into the air and then chase after him. They kiss, the OST music plays, and bodies are swapped back to the original owners.
DFQC takes the time to re-outfit himself to look as sinister as possible, then blows off the top of the tower and thanks Orchid for her help by strangling her. But as he squeezes her neck a green light glows on his forehead and his own throat constricts until he has to let her go. Seeing her chance, Orchid zaps herself out of there. DFQC isn’t long after, fixing the tower to hide his tracks.
Orchid appears in the forest and immediately checks Chang Heng’s destiny book, relieved to discover her efforts saved the man she loves.
Chang Heng and Rong Hao are also in the forest, drawn there because they sensed something with the Haotian Tower, which looks fine now. Some sinister immortals did escape though, and Chang Heng and Rong Hao catch them. In the process, Chang Heng loses his handkerchief.
Chang Heng reports to the emperor that they caught all the escaped immortals, then tries to find his handkerchief without luck. Orchid overhears from gossiping fairies that all the sinful immortals were caught and is relieved the pompous one she freed was easily recaptured.
DFQC is doing fine at the Memory Loss River, calling forth a black dragon who changes into a human and is his lieutenant, Shang Que.
Orchid goes to Haishi City. She’s there to bargain with a local shop owner, Jie Li, for the pill to fix her damaged immortal root. Nearby at the Soul Transformation Grounds, some evil immortals are sacrificing plant spirits. These immortals are from Liufeng Pavilion, where Orchid goes on an errand to lower the price of her pill.
There she stumbles on a captured plant spirit and tries to smuggle her to safety. Then her bracelet alerts her to a nearby destiny book that should absolutely not be there. When she finds it, she discovers that it is nameless.
DFQC and Shang Que are in the Xuanxu realm, which is the ancient battlefield where DFQC ended up losing to Chi Di Nu Zi. The sword she used to sacrifice herself is now a giant stone monument, and all the soldiers who were mid-battle eerily trapped as stone statues.
On top of the sword monument, Shang Que catches DFQC on the latest happenings in the realm. DFQC’s brother, Xun Feng, is now in charge, there were rebellions, the Cangyan Sea is in unrest, the fairies keep causing problems, things aren’t great.
DFQC vows to restore the Moon Tribe’s glory, take back the lands, and wipe out the fairies. But he can’t loosen the giant stone sword’s spell in order to free the troops he needs.
Orchid is captured and hurt, and this causes injuries to appear on DFQC’s own arms. He quickly puts it together that this is happening because of whatever ties them together.
At the Soul Transformation Grounds, Orchid and the plant spirit get knocked off the walkway, plummeting towards the giant cauldron.
Thoughts
The visuals of this show are gorgeous.
First, there are the locations, both the real sets and the digitally created ones, are great. From Jie Li’s store to the stylized river in the painting, they create a fantasy world that seems rich in detail. In particular, I loved the giant sword monument and stone warriors in the eerie Xuanxu battlefields.
If you’re new to Chinese dramas you may not realize that many of the historical/fantasy ones are shot at Hengdian World Studios. You only need to see a few of these dramas to start recognizing buildings, and they start to feel like old friends. The Liufeng Pavilion location was the easily recognizable three-story pagoda that I’ve seen in half a dozen dramas, part of the Qing Ming Shang He Tu theme area. Except, they’ve cut and pasted it so that it has infinite floors and looks sinister and evil. I really liked the effect.
The costumes are ridiculous and yet they work. DFQC’s twisty headpiece and huge cape and shoulder pieces make him look like some kind of other-worldly god, which is exactly what he is. And when he materializes somewhere with those huge smoke-and-fire wings he’s like a heavy metal angel of some kind. I half expect him to strum an electric guitar, Mad Max style.
Story wise it’s still a lot of set-ups, with new characters and backstory. Since I’m paying more attention this time, I’m appreciating how careful they are with all the details. Orchid wants to work for Chang Heng and is working towards that when not getting in trouble, DFQC has clearly stated he’s planning to take care of his Moon Tribe, and Chang Heng can’t follow his own heart because of his missing fiance. It’s all clearly there.
And of course, the brief body swap stuff was fun, the Orchid so cold and cruel to the crying DFQC. Both actors pull it off very well, even though it is only a short bit.