When last we left the warlord and the beauty, Wei Shao realized Man Man might have been having a hard time.
So this year, she’s allowed at the family memorial
At the banquet afterwards, Wei Shao toasts to the family for how far they’ve come in 15 years. Then he thanks Man Man, and says the future is what matters, not the past. Grandma has some wisdom about hatred being a mountain, not water.
Then Wei Shao’s mom makes him visit so she can give him used clothing from pregnant women to put under Man Man’s bed. This’ll help Man Man get pregnant. We know where Wei Shao gets his ridiculousness from because he considers this idea.
Liang and Tao have a date, and she learns that all that’s standing in the way of their marriage is money. Considering Liang’s skill with money and math, Tao is worried. He doesn’t get that she just wants to be with him sooner rather than later, and she stomps off.
Now our two ridiculous men work together, as Wei Shao sends Liang to take Fan’s clothes. Yup. Since Fan was recently pregnant.
Wei Shao doesn’t realize Man Man might already be pregnant
Fan is excited to send Man Man anything she wants as an apology for what happened between them.
She also remembers when Man Man had her pick out things so she could escape with Bi Zhi. This is her chance to pay her back, and she wants to send her the musical instrument Bi Zhi made for her. This is an odd choice to me given Man Man’s lack of musical talent or interest.
Liu Yan is losing allies and plans to kill everyone, despite his poor advisor’s endless warnings. This advisor really needs to make like a Japanese drama and go runnnnnnnnnning.
Yu Lou agrees to marry him now, giving him a story about some dream. Really, she wants to manipulate him like she does everyone, and it works. He’s going to visit the weak Qiao Clan while she gets him other allies.
Poor advisor thinks this is all a terrible idea, but he is not a hot woman.
Liang is still trying to get more money for Tao
She makes the mistake of saying she doesn’t need a house, and now he thinks she expects a house. Whomp whomp.
More silly stuff, as Wei Shao makes excuses to come into Man Man’s room and stick that stuff from Fan under her bed. Then, as Man Man explains all her pregnancy symptoms, he doesn’t get it. So he gets a back hug!
Now he puts it together! And thinks it somehow happened in the instant he put stuff under her bed? Come on, man.
But they cuddle on top of a cold tower at night and discuss baby names. They want peace for their child. That’s good. He promises to bring peace to her. How romantic.
Oh no, the children in Kangjun are singing
Even worse, the lyrics are about how Man Man’s Uncle sucks, and her father is awesome. The problem isn’t that it’s untrue, but how it’ll make Man Man’s stupid Uncle feel.
Meanwhile, Man Man has a horrible dream about wolves going after her father. Wei Shao offers to have someone bring her father to live with them for a bit. He’s making up slowly for being a jerk all that time.
Liang is still saving, and now thinks Tao wants the moon, or maybe a lynx, both. Tao gets him to understand she wants to marry him, and isn’t worried about money. If he can get this orchid from Kangjun to bloom, then they can marry.
So the generals use this to convince Liang to be the one to fetch Man Man’s Dad. He can get a fresh orchid from Kangjun. Uh-oh.
Tao sees him off, and he tells her that he’s off to get her a real orchid. And we get a slow-mo wave goodbye. Uh-oh.
Liu Yan has a secret meeting with Man Man’s Uncle
No points to Uncle for being initially reluctant to betray his entire family, because he promptly poisons his brother. Not to death, but he accidentally blinds him. Uncle’s advisor, the one advisor who sucks, is a big help to Liu Yan with all this plotting.
Time is flying, because we see Fan, Bi Zhi, and their baby. She gets a nice letter from her father inviting them to visit, and Fan and Bi Zhi think he’s sincere. Uh-oh.
So they immediately arrive in Kangjun, and Uncle takes Fan hostage so that Liu Yan can force Bi Zhi to kneel and agree to an alliance.
Liang arrives next, and even though he can kinda tell something is wrong, he goes about business as usual. He picks up an orchid for Tao and then meets with Uncle. When Uncle won’t let him see Man Man’s father, he asks about Ci, Fan, and Bi Zhi. None of them are available.
Well, Bi Zhi is available, because he’s there to attack and kill Liang on Liu Yan’s orders.
Ci and Man Man’s Aunt are being held hostage
But Ci also takes his Aunt hostage, and himself, sorta, and escapes. It’s complicated. Or not. I’m not sure.
Somehow, Ci reaches Liang, who is almost comically running from Liu Yan’s soldiers and their weapons. The way Ci and Liang are attacked really isn’t funny, especially when Liang gives Ci the orchid and asks him to tell Tao not to wait for him.
Ci escapes, Liang is murdered, and I’m sad.
Because Ci escapes, Liu Yan has to attack Panyi right away
They use Uncle’s friendship with Panyi’s magistrate to get through the gate, which makes taking over the city easy with their diminished number of troops.
Uncle gets the Magistrate to agree to help them, and tells him his old arch enemy (remember that) is dead. The canals are now under Liu Yan’s control, and he wants Magistrate to tell everyone.
We get sad flashbacks of the Magistrate’s dead frenemy. Really show?
News about what’s going on reaches Uncle Bian, who doesn’t want his son involved. Wei Yan is back from the border and would like to get involved. But Uncle Bian refuses and has him locked up.
Yu Lou plans to attack the Wei State as soon as she can so she can kill the Wei family for what they did to her.
Ci arrives back at Wei with the orchid. He kneels to Tao and reports on Liang’s death.
Tao yells at Ci, and is also crying, then goes to do the laundry
Ci cries as Wei Shao yells at him to repeat it, and he explains what happened with Man Man’s Uncle in front of Wei Shao and the other generals. No one can quite accept it and even wants to kill Ci, but Wei Shao stops them.
And someone reports to them that Panyi has been taken. Wei Shao says that tomorrow they will march on Panyi!
That escalated fast
And because of that, our team looks kind of stupid.
They either had absolutely no idea something might be going on (Fan & Bi Zhi) or they did but did nothing (Liang). Meanwhile, despite being recently attacked by Liu Yan and semi-recently by Yu Lou, Wei Shao is too busy putting clothes under his wife’s bed to be in any way prepared for them to attack yet again. I get that his soldiers are busy with the canal, but he knows he has enemies, and he knows who they are.
And I wouldn’t mind this kind of plotting, but Liang is dead, and Tao is crying, and Bi Zhi is miserable.
I think if they’d made this happen over at least 1-2 more episodes, they could have drawn it out so it didn’t feel so easy for our bad guys.
Other than that, we’ve got a bit of a birth/death theme with Fan’s baby and Man Man being pregnant. But we didn’t get to spend much time with Wei Shao and Man Man. I would have liked to see them strategize together.
Maybe they’ll get a chance in the last two episodes?
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