GUARDIAN REWATCH - Episode 3

[trobadora]

Beginning of episode: At the university, Zhang Ruonan comes to Shen Wei's office.
Ending of episode: Shen Wei is caught at a crime scene in the alleys of Dragon City.

Content warning: featuring one rape victim, three rapists, and one avenging girlfriend who ends up harming the woman she meant to protect.



Important scenes/developments:

• Lin Jing investigates the Longevity Dial (so far it only responds to Zhao Yunlan)
• Zhao Yunlan visits Shen Wei, sneezes all over his office and eats his cake
• Zhao Yunlan introduces himself to Zhang Ruonan as "Professor Shen's ... good friend", significant pause included
• Shen Wei secretly saves Zhang Ruonan's life
• first instance of the Black-Cloaked Envoy letting a Dixingren go free
• Zhu Jiu realises Shen Wei isn't what he seems
• Shen Wei and Zhu Jiu are both looking for the Hallows
• Zhao Yunlan finds Shen Wei at the next crime scene in an alley

Visit count: Zhao Yunlan visits Shen Wei's office no less than three times!

Thoughts:

• Meaningfully, the episode focused on a pair of lesbians opens with a rather sapphic statue!
  
  
  
  (And it's not explicit that Zhang Ruonan and Wang Yike are lovers, of course, but it's about as much text, and as obvious, as the relationship between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan. Who would say to a platonic friend, "I can finally let you touch my face without fear"?)


• I can't quite make out the file Shen Wei is contemplating at the start very clearly, but it doesn't look like Zhao Yunlan's - it looks like a woman's picture to me. He immediately hides it once he notices someone approaching. Anyone have any idea? (It could be Zhu Hong's? He's investigating the SID after all.)


• Zhang Ruonan is so traumatised, it's hard to watch. And Shen Wei knows something's wrong and tries to get her to tell him, but she doesn't. (Echoes of Li Qian.)


• Zhao Yunlan is at maximum obnoxious in this episode. He questions Shen Wei while sneezing all over his office and eating his cake, being as deliberately provocative as possible, watching Shen Wei's reactions like a hawk.
  
  


• Quote of the week: "In this world, there are three things that can't be trusted. One, the bellyband on a bestseller. Two, texts about winning a lottery. Three, coincidences in a case. I think that all coincidences are man-made."
  
  Zhao Yunlan is so suspicious of the coincidence that the victim was Shen Wei's student again, but for all his excellent intuition, it really is a coincidence. Neither the death of Lu Ruomei nor the attacks on Li Qian had anything to do with Shen Wei, and this episode's killings are unrelated to him in either of his identities as well.


• Regarding the sneezing: it's not just provocation aimed at Shen Wei; he does it all over the place. At the SID, at the university, at the hospital. His full-body sneezes are very expressive, but he doesn't even bother turning away from people, much less sneezing into his hand or arm. Ugh, Zhao Yunlan, NO.
  
  (I would like to believe that, at least as far as Shen Wei's office is concerned, Shen Wei uses black energy to sanitise the room afterwards ...)


• At the SID, Lin Jing is wearing a mask; in Professor Shen's office, Xiao-Guo is wearing a mask (put pulls it down at some point, bizarrely). I remember back when I was watching this the first time, I was wishing we could get away with wearing masks here when people had colds, but it would have been so unusual as to come across as incredibly pointed and rude. Look what a few years and a pandemic can change.


• One of the most iconic scenes of the episode: Zhang Ruonan getting introduced to Zhao Yunlan.
  
  
  
  Shen Wei: "This is ..." (I'm never sure whether he breaks off because he doesn't quite know what to say, or because he's letting Zhao Yunlan decide how he wants to be introduced. Probably both!)
  Zhao Yunlan: "Zhao Yunlan. I'm Professor Shen's ... good friend." (He speaks up very quickly, presumably due to not wanting to be introduced as Chief Zhao of the SID. But that pause before "good friend" is definitely him not quite knowing what to say instead. *g*)


• Of course, Zhao Yunlan immediately uses the opportunity to question Zhang Ruonan about the dead Zhang Hao. She reacts strongly to hearing about his death and rushes out - thereby guaranteeing she's on Zhao Yunlan's radar in connection with this case. And he immediately remarks she's either got low self-respect or she's been traumatised. Shen Wei speaks up to defend Zhang Ruonan. And he's wrong that she's got nothing to do with the case, but during this rewatch, I ended up wondering if Shen Wei's strong reaction is due to how the last case ended, with Zhao Yunlan accusing Li Qian of murder - wrongly, as it turned out.


• Also, regarding Shen Wei defending Zhang Ruonan and (later) Líu Yadong: he may be wrong, but his instincts are protective, and he's assuming the best of people. Which I think is a good approach for a dread figure of judgment with vast powers to destroy other people's lives - which may be why he cultivated it. (Not that it doesn't come naturally, too. But Shen Wei is too self-aware to not know what he's doing.)


• Something I didn't remember/realise before: Zhang Ruonan being a teaching assistant, so presumably a grad student or postdoc. And Shen Wei is clearly supervising her. Thanks to elenothar, who looked up the term used in Chinese, 助教 zhùjiào, to confirm it! And to shadaras, who pointed out her being a grad student would make more sense for her thinking it normal to be invited to a birthday party by a student.


• Zhao Yunlan sends Chu Shuzhi to question Wang Ziqiang - we don't see who he's talking to on the phone, but that's who appears in the next scene. So "win people over with kindness" was directed at him, LOL!


• Zhao Yunlan's excellent instincts/detective skills are really on display here. He picks up on who's involved in this case very quickly. Zhang Ruonan, Wang Ziqiang, Wang Yike, Liu Yadong. He even anticipates Wang Yike's phone call towards the end and has Lin Jing ready to trace it.


• When Zhao Yunlan visits Shen Wei again, Shen Wei tells him he's disrupting his work, and for the first time doesn't give him his focus - instead, he keeps writing while Zhao Yunlan talks. He seems annoyed with the investigation. (Still with Zhao Yunlan suspecting Zhang Ruonan's involvement?)
  
  Shen Wei also says he knows nothing about Wang Ziqiang and Wang Yike, but gives a character reference for Liu Yadong. (Ouch). At this point, Zhao Yunlan must have figured out Liu Yadong's involvement, because Zhao Yunlan tells Shen Wei he may be an expert in biology but clearly hasn't studied people. Shen Wei is being very intense when he asks in return whether if seeing through people would make things less painful and disappointing.
  
  


• Da Qing is supposed to shadow Wang Ziqiang at night. He just wants to eat some fish first, and then falls asleep instead. Wang Ziqiang promptly gets killed. On the one hand, he's such a cat! It makes sense! On the other, this is terrible, and the episode doesn't take it seriously enough. (Not that it makes light of it, but there's also no weight put on it either, much less any acknowledgment of guilt. And that's not due to lack of sympathy with a rapist; they don't know what the three students have done yet.)


• It takes so little to make Zhang Ruonan tell the story of what happened - all Zhao Yunlan does is ask. But she still doesn't mention the one surviving rapist, who's standing right beside her being smarmy all over her.
  
  Worst part of this: Liu Yadong doesn't seem to be worried at all about being exposed for what they did, either. He's only afraid of being killed. That does not say good things about Haixing's society, and so perhaps it's no wonder Zhang Ruonan didn't tell anyone other than Wang Yike.


• Regarding the flashback: at first it looks like they just stood her up, humiliating her by making her wait for a party that didn't exist. And perhaps that's how it started out, but they don't leave it at that. And we don't see what actually happened, just a masked man snatching her; the rest is all in her traumatised reaction to them afterwards, which makes it all abundantly clear. I feel like in a Western show, more would have been depicted, and it wouldn't have been good.


• What really struck me this time: Da Qing isn't the only one on this case who doesn't seem to take things very seriously. What is Zhao Yunlan thinking? Consider: he knows from the Roman numerals that there's a third rapist/potential murder victim, and he clearly already suspects Liu Yadong (as he later says when he finds evidence via his third visit to Shen Wei's office: "as expected") - but he still sends Zhang Ruonan off with Liu Yadong. I assume it's meant to be a trap, but if so it's a very poorly enacted one, since it seems to depend on Zhao Yunlan arriving back in time, and even then he can't actually stop Wang Yike. Even if Zhang Ruonan hadn't tackled him and physically prevented him from chasing her, he had no way to protect himself from her powers.
  
  Also, Liu Yadong is dead by that point - not that Zhao Yunlan seems to care; he doesn't even check if he's really dead. And the dead body just lies there in the background for several more scenes. Just like Zhao Yunlan didn't seem to care about Wang Ziqiang's death, even though Da Qing could have prevented it. Honestly, this is all rather frustrating to me, not because the rapists deserve any sympathy but because it results in Zhao Yunlan looking rather careless and sloppy with his job, despite all his cleverness in figuring things out.


• Zhao Yunlan apparently tells Zhang Ruonan's whole story to Shen Wei before getting the evidence he needs from him. Privacy, what is that?
  
  


• Zhao Yunlan asks Zhang Ruonan what relationship she has with Wang Yike, the same question Zhu Jiu will ask later about Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan. :D


• In a flashback, Zhang Ruonan tells Wang Yike to stop killing, and says she'll surrender and confess in her place. Wang Yike naturally refuses. Sacrifice theme! Mutual protectiveness! ♥
  
  In the present, Zhao Yunlan says Wang Yike has been around for "so long" and never hurt anyone; she must be doing it only for Zhang Ruonan - but now if Zhang Ruonan takes the blame for her, what's the point of what Wang Yike did for her? (The point is that it's mutual, of course.)


• Very cool: Wang Yike with her hand on Shen Wei's neck while he looks at her entirely unaffected. He just stands there letting her power not work on him, similar to what he did with the hospital attacker. And then that threatening step forward again!


• Wang Yike: "Someone like you will never understand what she means to me! So long as I can protect her, my life has worth."
  
  


• Zhao Yunlan and Lao-Chu arrive to "save" Shen Wei, a puppet string pulling Wang Yike's hand away from him. Zhao Yunlan asks Shen Wei if he's okay; Zhang Ruonan rushes in and asks Wang Yike if she's okay. (Parallels!)
  
  


• Zhao Yunlan is strongly affected - unlike everything else, this gets under his skin: Wang Yike inadvertently harming the woman she'd meant to protect.


• More of what Zhang Ruonan and Wang Yike mean to each other: Zhang Ruonan says without Wang Yike, she wouldn't have been able to survive that day. Wang Yike says only Zhang Ruonan never treated her like a monster. (The bit about only Zhang Ruonan treating her like a person mirrors the young Envoy with Kunlun ... no wonder Shen Wei sympathises!)


• Shen Wei's sneaky little look before interfering and saving Zhang Ruonan! (And here he needs to touch; this is more complex than throwing up a shield, apparently!)
  
  


• Zhu Jiu (dramatically playing with his xiangqi pieces) has noticed what no one else present did - Shen Wei neutralising Wang Yike's power. (At the SID, Da Qing speculates she survived because she's been close to Wang Yike for a long time; Zhu Hong says it's not as if someone could have saved her right under their eyes.) Does he have Wang Yike bugged? (More likely: Ya Qing was watching from the window.)


• The last time we see Zhang Ruonan, she's in a wheelchair, and leaving university. The scene makes it look as if she'll remain alone; then we switch to the SID, then to Shen Wei in his office, and only then do we get a flashback of what happened next, namely Wang Yike appearing, not gone and in Dixing after all. One of the drama's main motifs, things not being as they seem! And for the first time, we discover the Black-Cloaked Envoy sometimes lets Dixingren go - and she did use her power to kill, so it's not even a case of "she didn't do anything".


• Also, Shen Wei is already planning to move closer to Zhao Yunlan! (Though we don't find out about where he's moving yet.) And as he looks at the thank you photo he got from Wang Yike and Zhang Ruonan, he touches his pendant through his clothes. This is the first time we see that gesture from him - but the viewer is primed to notice anyway because we've already had Li Qian and her emotionally significant pendant. *g*


• Lost in thought, Shen Wei murmurs, "It turns out I'm not the only one who can't understand people." I was never sure what that was about. Of course it didn't help that the original subs confusingly had this as just, "I'm not the only one who can't figure it out", but even though with better subs or the Chinese original it's perfectly clear this is a callback to his earlier conversation with Zhao Yunlan (Zhao Yunlan telling him he hasn't studied people; Shen Wei asking if seeing through people really would make things better) I'm still not sure. Is it about no one guessing he let Wang Yike go?


• We see Xiao-Guo writing in his diary for the first time (unless I'm forgetting something?), and it's an excellent device for making some parallels explicit. He points out Li Qian and her grandma, and Zhang Ruonan and Wang Yike, re: using their lives to protect their loved ones, a major theme of the drama. And voices his desire to to stay at the SID and become someone who can guard everyone. ♥
  
  


• Next case: Lao-Chu and Zhu Hong are out in the alleys. Zhu Hong is complaining: "I'm a secretary, not a field agent!" and: "When have you seen a snake who likes to walk?" LOL!


• Shen Wei (without his glasses) is searching with black energy, and Zhu Jiu taunts him, laughing. Since Zhu Jiu seems to be responding to Shen Wei's thoughts there, I wonder if Shen Wei was "talking" to himself through black energy. (Is that a thing? I'm saying it's a thing now. *g*) And Zhu Jiu is clearly in the process of figuring out who Shen Wei is.


• From the screams to Zhu Hong yawning, making it look for a fraction of a second like she's the one screaming. Great transition! She catches someone sneaking around, and attacks him with her powers. (First instance of that! She doesn't use them often.)


• And one of my favourite moments: Zhao Yunlan confronting someone at a crime scene, and Shen Wei first puts his glasses on before he turns around and reveals himself! :D
  
  
  
  (This also shows that the glasses are part of a disguise the same way his mask is; when Shen Wei is just being himself on his own, he's wearing Haixing clothes but no glasses.)

Discussion starters:

• What's your favourite moment in this episode?


• Anything you didn't remember or noticed for the first time during this rewatch? I had totally forgotten that Zhang Ruonan is a teaching assistant, for example!


• When Zhang Ruonan comes to Shen Wei's office at the start, do you think she was considering talking to him? (Instead, she brings up Li Qian, making for a lovely bit of continuity. ♥) She does approach him multiple times in this episode, and she always has other reasons, but I wonder how close she was to telling him what happened ...


• About Zhao Yunlan's cold: I always thought it was at least partially due to the Sundial's effects on him. (He's holding it multiple times this episode, and Lin Jing points out that it only responded to him. The second time we see in the Hanga arc, he's also carrying the Sundial around on his body. And Li Qian is coughing in one of her flashbacks (episode 1, 29:47, don't ask how long I just spent tracking that down ...). What do you think?
  
  


• When Zhao Yunlan aims all his provocative sneezing and cake-eating at Shen Wei, what reaction is he looking for? What do you think he gets out of Shen Wei's (non-)reaction?
  
  And what do you think he thinks about Shen Wei refusing to give him full attention in the next office scene?


• Two questions about medicine:
  
  Wang Yike gets meds for congenital anaemia, but has never had a physical exam. I keep wondering how that works - who prescribed it for her?
  
  And Zhu Hong brings Zhao Yunlan medicine - is that Snake Tribe medicine? (Lin Jing makes a face when Zhao Yunlan drinks it.


• Regarding Da Qing falling asleep on duty: does Zhao Yunlan putting him on this job mean he doesn't usually fail, or simply that the stakes have never before been high enough for it to matter?


• Shen Wei asks him if seeing through people would make things less painful and disappointing, and tells him that "Many tragedies were destined from the beginning." I'm never sure what exactly is on his mind here, but this time round, it struck me that Zhang Ruonan had said earlier (with regard to Professor Shen having his students' best interest at heart), "good intentions may not always be rewarded", and these statements feel related to me ...
  
  What do you think he's thinking of when he talks about tragedies?


• Zhang Ruonan says she knows Wang Yike is from Dixing, and has a special power. She doesn't seem surprised by either, even in her flashbacks, so she must have known before meeting Wang Yike. Any thoughts about how?
  
  (I do find it kind of conspicuous how many people in Shen Wei's or an adjacent field know something: Professor Ouyang is working on that very topic at the lab; Professor Zhou is working with him; Professor Shen himself knows - and in Professor Ouyang's eyes that isn't a sign of him not being Haixingren -, and now Zhang Ruonan ...)


• Why do you think Wang Yike goes after Shen Wei? She calls him a hypocrite, and says he was so close to Zhang Ruonan, he must be planning something. Is she just jealous?


• When Zhang Ruonan's life is drained, Zhao Yunlan tells Xiao-Guo to call Wang Zheng; he says there's information at the department. Xiao-Guo says he's seen it; he'll find it. And he starts leafing through his notebook. What the hell are they talking about?! (I didn't remember this at all!)


• Regarding the alleys at the end of the episode: why is everyone here? The SID seems to have some sort of lead on the face stealer case - and a correct one, since Zhang Danni is also there, but why is Shen Wei looking for the Hallows in this place? And why is Zhu Jiu there to find him?


• What do you think about how this episode treats the lesbian couple, overall? I know opinions vary, but personally I always thought the episode was 100% on their side, and the tragedy doesn't take away from that - romantic tragedy is perhaps the quintessential cdrama trope, after all. And the het couples get no better fate. At least Wang Yike and Zhang Ruonan get to stay together.


• And since the plot of the week is rather heavy, let's end with something more light-hearted:
  
  
  Poll #28354

  Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

  
  

  View Respondents

  
  

  What's your favourite comedy moment in this episode?

  View Answers
  

  Lin Jing mockingly imitating Zhao Yunlan's grandiose statement about being extra-special
  4 (30.8%)

  Xiao-Guo jumping into Lao-Chu's arms
  5 (38.5%)

  Xiao-Guo telling Zhao Yunlan that "we do all the work, you just give orders"
  3 (23.1%)

  something else (see comments)!
  1 (7.7%)

Let's talk about episode 3!
Come and talk about this episode - anything from favourite scenes or lines of dialogue to notes/questions about continuity or translation, most gorgeous (or angsty) smile, or anything else that strikes your fancy! And share links to your own and/or others' episode-related meta, picspams, and fanworks, new or old!

Comments

[autodach]

Anything you didn't remember or noticed for the first time during this rewatch? I had totally forgotten that Zhang Ruonan is a teaching assistant, for example!

I did not catch on to that before the rewatch at all.
Possibly because of the way she is dressed, no grad student would look like that where I live XD


What's your favourite moment in this episode?

When Wang Yike tries to kill Shen Wei. I'm a sucker for Shen Wei being effortlessly threatening ❤️

[china_shop]

When Wang Yike tries to kill Shen Wei. I'm a sucker for Shen Wei being effortlessly threatening ❤️

So good!!! :D

[trobadora]

Yeah, she doesn't have the look, does she? I totally missed it too, or forgot, I can't tell.

I'm a sucker for Shen Wei being effortlessly threatening ❤️

Haha, you and me both! It's so great. I love that moment, and other moments like it, to pieces. :D