In this episode, Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan both face political opposition from their respective governments
Yes! They're both besieged in different ways, and while Shen Wei is being outright attacked, what's going on in Haixing isn't any less dangerous for (so far) being less violent.
For minor characters, two-thirds of whom we have no real reason to care about, the show spends a whole lot of time on Sha Ya and Hua Yuzhu's story, including the extensive flashbacks last episode. I think it's going, "Pay attention! This is an important theme!" to set us up for the ending between Shen Wei and Ye Zun. We can infer by now that Ye Zun is most likely operating from false information, that his vengeance is misguided, and that the conflict will resolve when the truth is revealed.
Yes, very true about the parallels and the foreshadowing!
Anyway, I was thinking about this when Shen Wei gave Sha Ya the ring from Lin Jing, and I suddenly went, "Oh nooo, is the ring ≡ the pendant??" (Is Lin Jing very roughly equivalent to Zhao Yunlan in this scenario -- human, peripheral to the conflict, devoted? I know he's devoted to the wrong party for a one-to-one analogy, but parallels can't be too on the nose or there's no suspense/mystery.)
I'm not sure I understand, who would make for more of a one-to-one analogy?
But yeah, I think there's definitely a parallel being drawn, not just with the ring, but also with Sha Ya telling Shen Wei to tell Lin Jing "we will meet again one day", which is also what Kunlun promises YOHE!Shen Wei. And what, later in this episode, despite not having heard Sha Ya's message, Lin Jing tells the SID when he's leaving. Wide thematic parallels, not all resolved in the same way but still echoing each other!
The ring is given in absentia, it marks a separation (which ends in death), it holds a hidden wonder (stars, lollipop wrapper; po-tay-to, po-tah-to) which is revealed after the holder affirms their connection to the giver... And one is given in Haixing and fills the sky with stars; the other is given in Dixing, and Zhao Yunlan clutches it while he... yeah. I don't think this is coincidence!)
This is such a lovely observation!!!!!! :D
I still don't like Lin Jing making Sha Ya say that she loves him, but the ring is otherwise very cool.
Yeah, agreed. And it's still ugh, but it could easily have come across way more unpleasant than it actually does!
And OMG do I ever wish we could have seen the scene where Lin Jing talked to Shen Wei and asked him to pass this message on! *g*
We talked the other day about Hua Yuzhu's reasons for her silence about what really happened to Gu Ban; here she reveals that part of it is that she blames herself and thinks Gu Ban died because of her.
And as for Sha Ya's reaction to the revelations, she calls herself ridiculous, and Shen Wei seems to have a reaction - looks like this is touching something in him. What is he thinking about? Can it be Ye Zun? I mean, he doesn't even know yet that Ye Zun wrongly blames him for what happened when they were separated.
Interestingly, Shen Wei changes into his Envoy look before going through the portal. And then later, he'll ditch the robes after things go wrong at the palace - I suppose he decided to lean into his image initially, and then after being attacked he decided there was no point to that any more.
Oh, I think he changed clothes because he's being Ye Zun's big brother here, not the Envoy?
And that too, probably!
Also, he promises he won't let Ye Zun feel complacent for too long, that this is just the beginning of Ye Zun's demise. Is he overestimating himself, or is he thinking of his contingency plan, which will mean that no matter what, Ye Zun will lose?
In the hallway of the DoS, Zhao Yunlan tells Lin Jing he's brought him along to explain the situation to Minister Gao.
I wonder about this, since Lin Jing goes to the "bathroom" before the meeting and doesn't apparently expect to be missed. So weird!
(Lin Jing looks very mopey, as Zhao Yunlan remarks, and part of it is of course because of Sha Ya, but the other part I'm sure is that it's starting to hit home just how much he doesn't want to betray the SID.)
Zhao Yunlan meets with Minister Gao alone and argues strenuously that they should warn the public about Ye Zun. (I don't actually know about this; wouldn't it potentially cause chaos and worsen anti-Dixing prejudice, when the message inevitably got scrambled? And what can the average person on the street do to prepare, other than form vigilante squads? /o\ Maybe it is better to wait till they know what they're dealing with? But Zhao Yunlan seems very sure it's the right thing to do.)
Between this scene and the later one when Zhao Yunlan argues for warning the public again, I think it's pretty clear that he not only thinks people deserve to know the truth, but also expects the information to get out anyway. (Which it would later, even if Ya Qing didn't spread anything online, with the attacks from Ye Zun's people and Ye Zun's broadcasts.) The way I understand it, he thinks they should go public now, so they have a chance to control over the way the information is presented, and can spin everything in a way more likely to keep people calm. If they don't, at best they've left things to chance; at worst they've handed this chance to their enemies instead.
Ya Qing talks about the energy reactors built by the Merit Brush, and asks about the timing of the final attack. I found this confusing: 功德笔构建的能量反应堆已经筑成 - "the energy reactors constructed by the Merit Brush have already been built" - weren't those reactors used to break the Pillar? Looking at the original, 筑 means not just build/construct, but also ram/hit, so maybe she's saying they've already struck? Idk.
Ye Zun wants to go after the SID (they're too annoying) and tells Ya Qing to alter their information and release it online.
I wonder why he chose that avenue of attack over something more obvious, like killing them? And he says he thinks that once people lose faith in the SID, it'll just collapse on its own - going by the way Ya Qing looks off to the side at that, she doesn't seem terribly convinced.
She's secretly reluctant (this is where she draws the line??)
I think her reluctance is more about the delay than about drawing a line - she's asking about the final attack, and he's telling her there's another plan she should take care of. She wants her payoff, and I think the longer things go the more she starts worrying that it won't happen, but she keeps telling herself it will, because she has too much invested in it by now. (Also, Ye Zun tells her disruption should be useful to the Yashou, making it sound like he cares about what she wants.)
Lin Jing talks back to Prof Ouyang (the effect of spending so much time with the SID rabble?) -- he defends the SID and casts aspersions on Prof Ouyang's research. Go, Lin Jing!
Yeah, this is a great conversation, and you can see why Zhao Yunlan after hearing this is pretty damn sure of Lin Jing and doesn't hesitate making him a double agent. Especially given that Professor Ouyang complains about Lin Jing not giving him any useful info in the last year! ♥ (Which does make me wonder what info he gave him in the years prior to that ...)
And I love that Lin Jing calls him out on his unethical research, and getting stranger and not looking well. We've seen Professor Ouyang get worse over the course of the show - glad Lin Jing is pointing it out!
Zhao Yunlan lets himself in with the degausser and slow-claps. He says to Lin Jing, "Come to the bathroom with me." LOLOL! Also, I love that he just walks off, leaving Lin Jing to decide whether to follow.
This is such an awesome bit!
Everyone is Very Upset in different ways, which is really fun. (LOL at Wang Zheng's accounting of Lin Jing's tardiness and sleeping on the job.)
It's delightful! Everyone's defensive of Lin Jing, even knowing he was a spy! Apart from Wang Zheng's speech, I especially love Xiao-Guo reminding Zhao Yunlan that the Inspectorate is their superior, and Chu Shuzhi supporting him, and Zhu Hong telling him to just wait for Professor Shen to come back, because Zhao Yunlan will listen to him. She doesn't doubt for a second that Shen Wei will be on their side in this. :D
Lin Jing returns Changcheng's baton, saying he's fixed it. (Did Sha Ya break it when ChuGuo interrupted the attack on Changcheng's uncle and aunt?)
No, he still used it during the rooftop confrontation with Sha Ya, but she electrocuted him and it there, so I assume that's when it broke.
(Zhu Hong stompily goes anyway.)
I love how she stomp-stomp-stomps after him!
(Chu Shuzhi looks so unhappy!! Maybe he thinks he's next. After all, he's kind of a spy, too, even if he answers to a friend of the SID, and he doesn't know Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei talked about it. /o\)
Yeah, maybe! We talked a bit about this on discord, and of course it's different - Zhao Yunlan always knew Chu Shuzhi was sent by the Envoy, whereas he had no idea Lin Jing had been deliberately sent to the SID. And he knew Chu Shuzhi was loyal to the Envoy, whereas he had no idea Lin Jing had any other loyalties. But I don't think all of that would be on Chu Shuzhi's mind.
Besides, as satsuma pointed out, Zhao Yunlan seems to treat the Haixing Inspectorate and the lab as more of a threat to the SID and its mission than Dixing, which is very interesting since we're talking about his own superiors ...
But oh no, Ye Zun has control of the guards, and the Regent is being completely useless and/or outright evil! Flashback to the coup and him trying to message the Envoy, but An Bai's friend notices and stomps on the incense. [...] Anyway, the Regent seems to have decided to make the best of the situation? Pretend he's still in charge? [...] FTR, Shen Wei could totally have taken the guards if not for the Dial exchange, and the Regent knows that, too. I wonder if that's why he felt free to open fire...
To me, the Regent looks very tense when Shen Wei discovers the guards are under Ye Zun's control, and he seems a bit annoyed that it took the Envoy so long to turn up while all this was going on in the palace. And when Shen Wei gets shot, he looks genuinely shocked, even if he immediately covers it by mocking Shen Wei for his weakness.
The way I read it, the Envoy is hedging his bets - on the one hand, completely expecting the Envoy to win this fight and save the day, but also not willing to risk openly taking a stand against Ye Zun before that.
(Also, Sha Ya really must be drained after Wang Xiangyang's death - if she could fight at anything resembling her previous power level, surely she would?)
(Would it have worked without burning the incense?)
Maybe he could have ignited it with black energy?
(I wish we'd got to see if An Bai was aware of any of this. It's interesting that Ye Zun doesn't try to coopt him -- maybe the throne offers some protection?)
Or maybe the Dijun isn't able to do anything that Ye Zun would care about? If he can't act on his own, and everyone he might give orders to has been suborned, does it matter?
Sha Ya and Hua Yuzhu tell Shen Wei to save himself, and he teleports away in a cloud of dark energy. (Has he ever used that power before? It's cool!)
I was wondering the same thing - I don't know; it would surely have come in handy a few times but we've never actually seen it before ...
He reappears in the empty streets of Dixing, running, and changes into his blue suit. He still seems to have quite a lot of dark energy at his disposal.
Yeah, he's far from powerless, just not as quick to shrug off an injury as he used to be.
are these Professor Ouyang's test subjects??
Huh, I hadn't thought about that, but they might be! I'd thought it was maybe the effect of some weird Dixing power from one of Ye Zun's flunkies, but couldn't figure out the point. Also, "melanin permeating the skin" is such a weird thing to list as a symptom!
(Lin Jing didn't know Li Qian worked at the lab, huh. I thought the SID knew that.)
Huh, yeah, I'm not sure why Zhao Yunlan would have kept this from people ...
Shen Wei gets stuck to the pillar, manages to break free and summons his dao, but then energy!Ye Zun appears
I have so many questions about Ye Zun's weird black energy form! First off, why does he appear this way? Previously when he escaped the Pillar, he did that energy projection thing; why is he a blob now?! And all the moving around as an energy cloud, punching Shen Wei with a cloud and such, makes me wonder if the black energy holding Shen Wei to the Pillar when he first hits it, and the black energy on the chains that tightens them and makes them painful for Shen Wei, is also Ye Zun himself, not just a power he's exercising ... After all, when Ye Zun leaves, all that goes away too and Shen Wei is just held by the chains.
Shen Wei tries using logic to convince Ye Zun to kill him instead of everyone else, but logic is not Ye Zun's love language. He wants to torment Shen Wei by going after his friends. I feel like if Shen Wei had used more Zhao Yunlan-esque tactics here, he could totally have annoyed Ye Zun into eating him, but Shen Wei is Shen Wei.
LOL! But also, I don't think Shen Wei is at the point where he really wants to provoke Ye Zun into eating him, just yet. He's ready to take the opportunity if Ye Zun goes for it, but I don't think he believes just yet that there's no other way to deal with this.
Minister Gao rebukes him for insubordination and threatens to disband the SID. Zhao Yunlan calls his bluff, which seems ill-judged. I find it interesting that Minister Gao doesn't just fire Zhao Yunlan and appoint another chief.
Yeah, that's definitely bad judgment on Zhao Yunlan's part. As for Minister Gao, he's still not aware of how things stand between Zhao Yunlan and his father, so he probably doesn't think firing him is a credible threat while Zhao Yunlan's father is the head of the Xingdu Bureau. And his initial threat to disband the SID is OTT, but then he doesn't expect Zhao Yunlan to react the way he does!
(And I don't quite know what Zhao Yunlan is reacting against here? There haven't been any actual developments -- why the urgency? Does he want to free himself up to go to Dixing? Or is it just that he's getting more and more wound up, worrying about Shen Wei?)
He says he thinks it's inevitable anyway. So given that things are ramping up, he expects that if they don't get the info out in a controlled way soon, it'll get out in uncontrolled ways and they'll lose the chance to influence the public opinion at all. Which he turns out to be right about, sooner than he probably thought he would!
Zhao Xinci (but actually Zhang Shi) arrives and tries to mediate.
Is this Zhang Shi from the start? I thought it might well be Zhao Xinci at the start, since him saying that so long as the SID is on the same page as them there's no problem seemed like a veiled threat to me - "get on the same page, or else".
The end of the scene is definitely Zhang Shi, though, yeah.
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Yes! They're both besieged in different ways, and while Shen Wei is being outright attacked, what's going on in Haixing isn't any less dangerous for (so far) being less violent.
Yes, very true about the parallels and the foreshadowing!
Anyway, I was thinking about this when Shen Wei gave Sha Ya the ring from Lin Jing, and I suddenly went, "Oh nooo, is the ring ≡ the pendant??" (Is Lin Jing very roughly equivalent to Zhao Yunlan in this scenario -- human, peripheral to the conflict, devoted? I know he's devoted to the wrong party for a one-to-one analogy, but parallels can't be too on the nose or there's no suspense/mystery.)
I'm not sure I understand, who would make for more of a one-to-one analogy?
But yeah, I think there's definitely a parallel being drawn, not just with the ring, but also with Sha Ya telling Shen Wei to tell Lin Jing "we will meet again one day", which is also what Kunlun promises YOHE!Shen Wei. And what, later in this episode, despite not having heard Sha Ya's message, Lin Jing tells the SID when he's leaving. Wide thematic parallels, not all resolved in the same way but still echoing each other!
The ring is given in absentia, it marks a separation (which ends in death), it holds a hidden wonder (stars, lollipop wrapper; po-tay-to, po-tah-to) which is revealed after the holder affirms their connection to the giver... And one is given in Haixing and fills the sky with stars; the other is given in Dixing, and Zhao Yunlan clutches it while he... yeah. I don't think this is coincidence!)
This is such a lovely observation!!!!!! :D
Yeah, agreed. And it's still ugh, but it could easily have come across way more unpleasant than it actually does!
And OMG do I ever wish we could have seen the scene where Lin Jing talked to Shen Wei and asked him to pass this message on! *g*
And as for Sha Ya's reaction to the revelations, she calls herself ridiculous, and Shen Wei seems to have a reaction - looks like this is touching something in him. What is he thinking about? Can it be Ye Zun? I mean, he doesn't even know yet that Ye Zun wrongly blames him for what happened when they were separated.
Oh, I think he changed clothes because he's being Ye Zun's big brother here, not the Envoy?
And that too, probably!
I wonder about this, since Lin Jing goes to the "bathroom" before the meeting and doesn't apparently expect to be missed. So weird!
(Lin Jing looks very mopey, as Zhao Yunlan remarks, and part of it is of course because of Sha Ya, but the other part I'm sure is that it's starting to hit home just how much he doesn't want to betray the SID.)
Between this scene and the later one when Zhao Yunlan argues for warning the public again, I think it's pretty clear that he not only thinks people deserve to know the truth, but also expects the information to get out anyway. (Which it would later, even if Ya Qing didn't spread anything online, with the attacks from Ye Zun's people and Ye Zun's broadcasts.) The way I understand it, he thinks they should go public now, so they have a chance to control over the way the information is presented, and can spin everything in a way more likely to keep people calm. If they don't, at best they've left things to chance; at worst they've handed this chance to their enemies instead.
I wonder why he chose that avenue of attack over something more obvious, like killing them? And he says he thinks that once people lose faith in the SID, it'll just collapse on its own - going by the way Ya Qing looks off to the side at that, she doesn't seem terribly convinced.
I think her reluctance is more about the delay than about drawing a line - she's asking about the final attack, and he's telling her there's another plan she should take care of. She wants her payoff, and I think the longer things go the more she starts worrying that it won't happen, but she keeps telling herself it will, because she has too much invested in it by now. (Also, Ye Zun tells her disruption should be useful to the Yashou, making it sound like he cares about what she wants.)
Yeah, this is a great conversation, and you can see why Zhao Yunlan after hearing this is pretty damn sure of Lin Jing and doesn't hesitate making him a double agent. Especially given that Professor Ouyang complains about Lin Jing not giving him any useful info in the last year! ♥ (Which does make me wonder what info he gave him in the years prior to that ...)
And I love that Lin Jing calls him out on his unethical research, and getting stranger and not looking well. We've seen Professor Ouyang get worse over the course of the show - glad Lin Jing is pointing it out!
This is such an awesome bit!
It's delightful! Everyone's defensive of Lin Jing, even knowing he was a spy! Apart from Wang Zheng's speech, I especially love Xiao-Guo reminding Zhao Yunlan that the Inspectorate is their superior, and Chu Shuzhi supporting him, and Zhu Hong telling him to just wait for Professor Shen to come back, because Zhao Yunlan will listen to him. She doesn't doubt for a second that Shen Wei will be on their side in this. :D
No, he still used it during the rooftop confrontation with Sha Ya, but she electrocuted him and it there, so I assume that's when it broke.
I love how she stomp-stomp-stomps after him!
Yeah, maybe! We talked a bit about this on discord, and of course it's different - Zhao Yunlan always knew Chu Shuzhi was sent by the Envoy, whereas he had no idea Lin Jing had been deliberately sent to the SID. And he knew Chu Shuzhi was loyal to the Envoy, whereas he had no idea Lin Jing had any other loyalties. But I don't think all of that would be on Chu Shuzhi's mind.
Besides, as
To me, the Regent looks very tense when Shen Wei discovers the guards are under Ye Zun's control, and he seems a bit annoyed that it took the Envoy so long to turn up while all this was going on in the palace. And when Shen Wei gets shot, he looks genuinely shocked, even if he immediately covers it by mocking Shen Wei for his weakness.
The way I read it, the Envoy is hedging his bets - on the one hand, completely expecting the Envoy to win this fight and save the day, but also not willing to risk openly taking a stand against Ye Zun before that.
(Also, Sha Ya really must be drained after Wang Xiangyang's death - if she could fight at anything resembling her previous power level, surely she would?)
Maybe he could have ignited it with black energy?
Or maybe the Dijun isn't able to do anything that Ye Zun would care about? If he can't act on his own, and everyone he might give orders to has been suborned, does it matter?
I was wondering the same thing - I don't know; it would surely have come in handy a few times but we've never actually seen it before ...
Yeah, he's far from powerless, just not as quick to shrug off an injury as he used to be.
Huh, I hadn't thought about that, but they might be! I'd thought it was maybe the effect of some weird Dixing power from one of Ye Zun's flunkies, but couldn't figure out the point. Also, "melanin permeating the skin" is such a weird thing to list as a symptom!
Huh, yeah, I'm not sure why Zhao Yunlan would have kept this from people ...
I have so many questions about Ye Zun's weird black energy form! First off, why does he appear this way? Previously when he escaped the Pillar, he did that energy projection thing; why is he a blob now?! And all the moving around as an energy cloud, punching Shen Wei with a cloud and such, makes me wonder if the black energy holding Shen Wei to the Pillar when he first hits it, and the black energy on the chains that tightens them and makes them painful for Shen Wei, is also Ye Zun himself, not just a power he's exercising ... After all, when Ye Zun leaves, all that goes away too and Shen Wei is just held by the chains.
LOL! But also, I don't think Shen Wei is at the point where he really wants to provoke Ye Zun into eating him, just yet. He's ready to take the opportunity if Ye Zun goes for it, but I don't think he believes just yet that there's no other way to deal with this.
Yeah, that's definitely bad judgment on Zhao Yunlan's part. As for Minister Gao, he's still not aware of how things stand between Zhao Yunlan and his father, so he probably doesn't think firing him is a credible threat while Zhao Yunlan's father is the head of the Xingdu Bureau. And his initial threat to disband the SID is OTT, but then he doesn't expect Zhao Yunlan to react the way he does!
He says he thinks it's inevitable anyway. So given that things are ramping up, he expects that if they don't get the info out in a controlled way soon, it'll get out in uncontrolled ways and they'll lose the chance to influence the public opinion at all. Which he turns out to be right about, sooner than he probably thought he would!
Is this Zhang Shi from the start? I thought it might well be Zhao Xinci at the start, since him saying that so long as the SID is on the same page as them there's no problem seemed like a veiled threat to me - "get on the same page, or else".
The end of the scene is definitely Zhang Shi, though, yeah.
To be continued ...