Recap

Yi Yong asked the Fedora Man to let the father experience dying once, so his fall doesn’t kill him. Instead, he faces his son and worries about his suffering, and the son whispers something we don’t hear.

Yi Yong talks to the father about his own grief and guilt. He feels they don’t need to forgive themselves but leave room for good memories. He gives the father a drawing of the Fedora Man and the child. We see that earlier his son whispered all of his favorite things to him. 

Yi Yong takes beer to the mausoleum but doesn’t make it inside. 

We see that earlier Chu Ying didn’t give him the USB, but made him promise to call her to watch it when he was ready. He tries to call her, but the Fedora Man shows up with the smoke child. Apparently, the burnt calligraphy was from an old man and lady and it is an exam for Yi Yong.

Yi Yong doesn’t understand what it means and focuses on his new job painting murals onto electric boxes. He goes running when he learns his grandfather is in critical condition, and cries with relief when he learns he’s stable.

Holding his grandfather’s hand and sleeping, he dreams his grandfather says “there’s nothing we can do” and the scary smoke lady calls him selfish and says she won’t let him go. He hears his grandfather flatlining with a red splotch growing on his chest but wakes up to him still in a coma.

Yi Yong grabs Guang Yan and wants him to tell him when his grandfather will wake up. Guang Yan is properly annoyed. Yi Yong also wants Guang Yan to stay up all night watching him sleep on video chat in case someone shows up while he’s sleeping. 

It goes as well as you’d expect, and while they both sleep the murals Yi Yong painted turn into smoke. We see a strange-looking girl with a pendant in her hair.

Yi Yang doesn’t get paid because his art disappeared and goes to Guang Yan for help getting a job. He shares his art and Guang Yan sees on his old career choice sheet that Yi Yong originally wrote that he wanted to be a comic book artist. He wants to know why Yi Yong erased it.

Yi Yong feels he doesn’t deserve to dream. Guang Yan reminds him about keeping brain space for stuff besides guilt. But then his suggestions for various temple-oriented jobs make Yi Yong attack him. Both think they are being bullied.

Chu Ying and Guang Yan are both there when Yi Yong loads up the USB to watch the footage, though neither wants him to watch. Yi Yong wants to confirm if his grandfather fainted and see his Dad. Neither can argue against that.

Yi Yong sees that at the same time as his grandfather faints, the smoke lady appears next to him.

Yi Yong nearly punches Guang Yan in confusion, but immediately apologizes. He won’t tell them what he saw. He has them leave and traumatizes himself by watching it over and over until he’s crying.

Both Chu Ying and Guang Yan worry about him later but don’t know what to say.

There’s another apparition outside, and Yi Yong shows up in Guang Yan’s bedroom to sleep in his bed. Guang Yan takes pity on him, and they share a tiny twin mattress.

Despite the company, Yi Yong dreams of his grandfather and the smoke people again. The scary smoke lady wants to know if he’ll be different from his grandfather and he wants to know if she caused the crash. 

Smoke lady says his grandfather only ever answered: Preserve one’s own purity and integrity

Guang Yan wakes Yi Yong up, and Yi Yong asks him about the phrase. It used to be about cultivating oneself but now refers to people who only care about themselves. Yi Yong opens his hand and finds black material from the scary smoke woman.

Thoughts

Yi Yong’s thoughts on grief and loss match my own experiences. At first, all you can do is worry about your loved one’s suffering and what you could have done differently. It’s easy to forget about the good times and get stuck in that sad, lonely, guilty place. I loved that the son when asked about his suffering, told the father about everything he’d enjoyed instead.

This episode was different from the last few as we focused more on Yi Yong and what was going on with him while there was no nagging-apparition-needing-help to focus on. Like the father, Yi Yong is stuck, able to give advice but struggling to follow it himself. 

Not that he isn’t trying. In this episode he has Fedora Man put the father through his son’s suffering so he can realize the good times. Then, later in the episode, he watches the tape from the bus, his own effort to understand his father and grandfather’s suffering. 

He also tells Guang Yan about his dream and admits why he doesn’t feel he can pursue it. It feels good that Guang Yan is the person he’s gone to for help and the first person he’s told (outside his high school friends) since Guang Yan seems to be the person really seeing and appreciating him. He certainly knows what foods he likes and dislikes and listened when Yi Yong was talking to the father about his sense of guilt.

Even if it did end up with Guang Yan tackled to the ground, it feels like progress.

But ultimately Yi Yong isn’t there yet. Working with the apparitions so far has brought him closer, but we’re only halfway though the show so… There’s that.

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