Fated to Love You 16: Courage

Not being able to return to Taiwan, Cun Xi mails back the two pieces he bought at the gallery, one to Anna, one to Anson. Anson opens the box and takes out the purple swan. He holds it under the light and stares at it, “This? Is a horse?? The designer mustn’t be very good.. It, doesn’t look like one.” Well, because it isn’t. Then it hits Anson, he turns away from the swan, “It’s all over.”

After the dance class is over (I wish the teachers in a real dance class is that gentle), Anna walks towards the table to open the package she had received from Cun Xi. *Dramatic music playing* She approaches it, casually opens the lid and takes out a card on the very top. Cun Xi had briefly explained his reason to stay in Shanghai, well half of the reason, and had wished she’ll be happy when she sees the present. Happy indeed. Anna removes the papers, certificates, protective layers atop and takes out the horse. She blinks once, not understanding the intention of sending her a horse. Finding it strange, she opens the certificate of the horse, there it is, in broad daylight, big and black, the three detrimental words – Chen. Xin. Yi.

Chen Xin Yi sits in front of a desk, burying her head into her hands. Her thoughts takes her back to Ji Cun Xi, enthusiastically expressing his realization after helping giving birth to Feng Jiao’s baby, then forward to Ji Cun Xi deciding to abort the baby but save Xin Yi’s life, then back again to the Abortion Agreement documents, and then forward again to Ji Cun Xi’s doubt that even Elaine can’t work alongside with him. Amidst this convoluted flashbacks, Xin Yi finally throws away her pencil in despair. She can’t concentrate.

Taking notice of Xin Yi’s frustration, Dylan inquires the source of her vexation. (hey that rhymes!) She reveals her inability to ignore the evasive thoughts concerning Ji Cun Xi and decides to give up the case. Dylan patiently encourages Elaine to be courageous, mentioning the reason the buyer of her horse gave her a pot of borage is because the flower represents courage (on top of it’s assuaging effects on PMS and/or men-o-pause symptoms). Still unsure how the case is going to, she asks Dylan if he minds that she’s working with her ex-husband. Dylan admits that he does mind, but in order for Chen Xin Yi to become Elaine, she has to overcome her feelings towards Cun Xi, whether it be fear, uneasiness, or residual sentiment of affection. Alas, Dylan’s Paris trip is going to be put on hold indefinitely.

Later in a walk with ZhongShang Long, Dylan reveals his intention to see whether Elaine will revert back to being with Ji Cun Xi or not. After all, if she does then he mustn’t mean as much to her, there’s no point in pressing. If she doesn’t, then he must walk her through it as a boyfriend. After Dylan leaves, ZhongShang Long thought to himself, “So Xin Yi used to be her daughter-in-law…”

The three days period of soap case design starts:

Day 1

Xin Yi sketches something then crumbles the paper and throws it away. Sinking into frustration again, she thought to herself, “No matter how I try, I just can’t draw it right.”

Ji Cun Xi sits in front of the laptop, tending to his company’s business. He occasionally looks up at the borage, thinking of Xin Yi.

Anna wanders around holding Baby Ji. She passes by a wedding gown shop, dreamily looking at the model in the display window, dressed in a white wedding gown. She asks herself, “Cun Xi hasn’t returned. Is my happiness really going to befall?”

Day 2

Cun Xi continues to be busy over the promotion of his soap to China; Xin Yi with the sketch of the soap box. Dylan watches over Elaine in a distance.

Day 3

Elaine’s soap box has a rough outline now. She looks upon the borage from time to time, thanking Mr. Z for giving her courage.

Anna looks at Xin Yi’s horse occasionally, sighing to herself, hesitating whether to take action or not.

In the midst of all the promotion work, Cun Xi wonders to himself how Chen Xin Yi is doing with the design.

Elaine has started to morph the shape of the soap box.

On the fourth day, Elaine has finished her draft and Anna has decided to go to Shanghai.

To minimize the embarrassment of having to confront Ji Cun Xi, Elaine asks her two assistants to hand the sketch to Ji Cun Xi. Cun Xi is sitting in his hotel room expectantly, when he sees the two assistants, his face fell.

The assistants return to Elaine, handing back the sketch and recount to her the experience of meeting with Ji Cun Xi:

When they see Ji Cun Xi in his room, they are afraid the hotel room isn’t exactly the best place to talk about business. Instead, they politely go to the café to discuss the sketch. Once they are at the café, one of the assistants ordered carrot juice for Ji Cun Xi, afraid he’ll be thirsty. This is when Ji Cun Xi’s face turned sour again. (Who in their right mind orders carrot juice for someone else at a café?) Afraid that their client is hungry, the same assistant who ordered the carrot juice orders Ji Cun Xi a meat rice with ginger sauce.

After hearing the entire story, Elaine tells them Ji Cun Xi’s least favorite food is carrot and the smell he detests the most is the smell of ginger, no wonder he wouldn’t discuss the sketch with the two of them.

After teasing Elaine for knowing Cun Xi so well, they tell her Cun Xi said he will only discuss the sketch with Elaine, no one else.

Knowing Cun Xi did it on purpose but having no way to get back at him, she promptly arrives at his hotel door and bangs at it. Cun Xi’s assistant opens the door for her, leading her into the inner compartment of the hotel room because our busy Mr. Ji is holding a meeting through webcam and talking on the phone with two other people at the same time. Elaine sits by herself, waiting for Mr. Busy to finally turn around and listen to her explanation of the sketch quickly so she can get out of there.

Unfortunately, Mr. Busy never turned his busy head because he is too busy engrossed in his busy schedule that he can’t take a minute out of his busy life for Elaine to explain the idea behind the draft. (Ok you get the idea.) So Elaine starts to cough loudly to draw Cun Xi’s attention. Cun Xi only continues to talk to the webcam. She starts to drop the magazines laying around to create some noise, he doesn’t even twitch a muscle. (Some way to treat your business partner.)

Noon rolls around, Ji Cun Xi finally calls a break and turns to Xin Yi. He walks towards her, looking at his watch, apologizes half heartedly for making her wait for a quite a while. “A LONG time” she corrects him. “Since it’s noon time, why don’t you eat lunch with me? Is there any restaurant you are familiar with?” “Sorry Mr. Ji, I’m here to discuss the sketch with you, not to eat lunch with you.” “But if I don’t eat, I won’t be in the mood to discuss business matters.” Elaine sits down and crosses her arms. Cun Xi leans in closer, Elaine turns away, he smiles at her and says, “then you would have to wait for me again. The view is quite nice up here.” He leaves. 😀 Frustrated to nth degree, Elaine walks out after him. 😀 x 10

At lunch, Cun Xi tries to make conversation, Elaine sharply antagonizes him. He shakes his head and smiles, diving into business. “Have you considered how heavy the soap box is?” “If it’s going to be a ceramic soap box, it’s going to weight a certain amount, yes.” “Have you taken into account the amount of transportation fee I have to pay for every 100 gram? We are not talking about some unique piece of art going into exhibition, we are discussing something that can be mass produced, easily packaged, and transported. Something that combines usefulness and aesthetic into one. Your design now isn’t going to cut it.” Trying hard to maintain a smile, Xin Yi tells him, “Sorry, this is not something I can do as a mere assistant to Master ZhongShan Long. Please find someone else.” She gets up to leave.

Elaine. Are you defeated already? All your changes during the past two years is to get rid of the image of a post-it girl. Is this all you can do? If you think what I suggested earlier is aimed to pick fault in you, then alright, you can go back to ZhongShang Long and tell him you don’t want to continue with this case. Or, you can sit down and listen to my suggestion, then come up with a new design. Maybe after the lunch, you can have a better idea. How is this? Are you up for it?

Xin Yi tells herself to contain her feelings and sits down, “I don’t need to prove myself. I just don’t want my teacher to go back on his words for helping your company.” The waitress brings up the lunch Cun Xi had ordered. He starts to eat while praising the tastiness of the food and Elaine’s improved taste in recommending the restaurant. Elaine tries to talk over him with the technicality of the design, no avail. She ends up watching this guy devouring the past hungrily.

Once out of the restaurant, Elaine tries to get Cun Xi to talk about the sketch, but he keeps brushing it aside and making Xin Yi take an after meal walk with him. She objects. He ignores and suggests that she goes with him for a suite shopping. She gets angry and stops, “Ji Cun Xi, I’m not your assistant nor your slave!” He walks towards her and right then a strong wind blows towards them, taking Elaine’s sketch with it.

“My sketch!” Elaine yells out. Cun Xi runs towards the streets to catch it, a car screeches towards Cun Xi. Xin Yi pulls him towards her. They stand face to face. Cun Xi whispers, “You still care about me.” Xin Yi pushes him away immediately, stuttering, “I, I was worried about the sketch. I don’t have any copies. Ah! It’s flying again.” “Then let us catch it together”, Cun Xi reaches out his hand and grabs Xin Yi’s, they start running after the sketch together. (That’s a heck of a STRONG, consistent wind.) A happy smile creeps onto Xin Yi’s face, replacing her initial shock at Cun Xi’s impulse of holding her hand to chase after the sketch. They run and they run (and run and run and run), finally, they stop in front of a fountain, where the sketch rests quietly on something protruding in the middle of the fountain. “Never mind, I will just sketch another one.” Cun Xi ignores her, he sits down on the side of the fountain and starts to take of his shoes and socks. “What are you doing? I will just draw another one. Don’t go down!” “Don’t bother. I will retrieve it for you.” He edges towards the center of the fountain, slowly and carefully, leaving Xin Yi worrying for him on the other side.

He snatches the sketch and falls butt first onto the mossy floor of the fountain. Xin Yi covers her eyes from seeing his embarrassing fall. She smiles when he tells her he did it for her and her sketch. Unable to pretend anymore. After the fountain incident, Xin Yi willingly goes to suite shopping with Cun Xi.

They are at the man’s clothing store, Xin Yi picks out a suite for Cun Xi, verbally confirming his size. He smiles and says, “Wow, you still remember my size.” Her face changes immediately. He enters the fitting room to try out the suite, when he walks out, Xin Yi walks over to help him adjust it. He tells her, “Your sense of style improved since two years ago.” Her face falls. “Now it’s your turn” Cun Xi says. “Me? I’m not planning to cloth shop.” “But the way your dress would affect my mood.” “What?!” (How many make over must this drama cram in? But then again, those are always entertaining to watch.)

After the cloth shopping, the two go back to the company for a presentation of the soap box. The various partners of Cun Xi’s company are skeptical of Elaine’s ability since she is neither as well known nor as experienced.

Elaine presents her sketch, it’s a morph between a “Z” and an “N”. (It looks more like a sideways “J” or a lower case “h” to me.)The inspiration comes from Elaine’s first buyer, the mysterious Mr. Z, but the actual meaning behind the soap box is the idea that the soap contains all natural ingredient, consequently the “N” stands for “Natural”. Moreover, the shape of the soap box resembles that of a mother’s embrace. To let a life extend in the environment of love is the meaning behind the design. Cun Xin continues her presentation with a personal lament of the loss of a fragile life and genuinely makes it clear that if he has a second chance he would trade everything for what he had lost. Xin Yi is touched listening to his confession.

Anna arrives at the gallery to confirm the Chen Xin Yi who created the horse that Cun Xi bought isn’t the same Chen Xin Yi she’s thinking of. When Dylan asks her if she needs any help, all her doubts and questions lifted, what replaced them is an overwhelming sense of dread.

Dylan and Anna settle at a outside café, Anna orders a strawberry cake, without the strawberry. Hearing this strange order, Dylan eyes her suspiciously. Anna reveals that strawberry cake without strawberry is her favorite dessert. She jumps right into business and carefully asks Dylan if Cun Xi and Xin Yi have met with each other. Dylan sees through it and sharply points out what Anna is really interested in is not whether the two have met, it’s whether something of an unusual nature had occurred between them two. Who she should be concerned about is how Ji Cun Xi thinks, not how Chen Xin Yi reacts. Yet she comes looking for Chen Xin Yi. Anna insists that she believes Cun Xi, Dylan reasons that if she truly believes him, she would not have come. She informs Dylan that Cun Xi is the true buyer of Xin Yi’s horse.

Dylan is surprised, not by the fact that Cun Xi is the purchaser, but the fact that he bought it because he, too, is deeply affected by the story behind the art piece. Dylan recalls Xin Yi’s prediction that Cun Xi never cared about the aborted baby, yet it doesn’t make sense for him to buy the horse if he doesn’t miss the dead baby. Anna feels uneasy under Dylan’s knee observation and precise deduction. She shifts her gaze left to right, afraid Dylan can see through her. Uncomfortable with Dylan’s criticism to Cun Xi and his dig for the truth, Anna gets up to leave. The waitress comes over asking if she wants to take the cake away with her. Dylan calmly answers for her, “Seems like this lady is not in the mood to enjoy her cake anymore.” To antagonize him, Anna decides to take the cake with her. The waitress hurries off the put it in a to-go box. While waiting for the waitress, Anna angrily tells Dylan not to butt in other people’s business, “Do you think you can see through other people? Why don’t you switch to become a psychologist? (Honey, psychologists can’t see through people, you need someone who knows how to use telepathy. You know, like Jean Grey in X-Men.) You don’t understand Cun Xi, nor me. The cause of Chen Xin Yi’s abortion is not Cun Xi nor me, it’s the accident!” Dylan looks up at her, “I never said the abortion has anything to do with you. I thought you were just an innocent third party.” Baffled by her accidental slip, she walks away angrily after telling Dylan the manner in which he converses in is despicable.

The waitress comes back with the cake, Anna is long gone. Dylan tells her he will take the cake, because he too, likes strawberry cakes without strawberry.

In a flashback, Dylan’s sister also likes strawberry cakes without strawberries. “What a coincidences. It can’t be.” Dylan thought to himself.

In the restroom by herself, Elaine wonders whether what Cun Xi said earlier was genuine or it’s all for business. She returns to the room only to hear Cun Xi tell his business partner that the Mont Blanc pen Xin Yi bought him two years ago has been with him to countless business meetings, because it’s from a “very, very important friend”.

Walking out, Cun Xi and Xin Yi are left alone again. Cun Xi thanks Xin Yi for her help and extends out a hand. She takes his hand, they shake hands, then he tells her she has fulfilled her job and is permitted to leave. Chen Xin Yi has been trying everything she can to leave, now the chance comes, she finds herself glued to the floor, unwilling to leave just yet. She offers to accompany Cun Xi out of the building. They take a long walk.

They wander before Cun Xi’s hotel, Cun Xi asks Xin Yi to call him “Cun Xi” again. She does. The sharp antagonizing demeanor no where to be seen. Not quite wanting to part with him, she tells him she will contact him for any other design related issues. He replies that if that happens, he will not be able to see to it personally. She is obviously disappointed. Before leaving, she brings up the promise again.

When we see each other on the streets…

I know, we are strangers.

If you really want to say hi to me…

I know, we won’t greet each other. Pretend we don’t know each other.

Disappointed but not quite thick skinned to tell him other wise, she bids him goodbye.

“Chen Xin Yi?” Cun Xi calls after her. “Yes?” she turns around immediately, eyes wide open, waiting. “Have you ever missed me in these two years?” “I..” she prepares to answer, Cun Xi cuts her off, “It’s ok. You don’t have to reply. Goodbye.” She walks away, without turning around.

Walking away slowly, she thought to herself, “Ji Cun Xi, I’ve always wanted to ask you why you’ve made that decision years ago and why do you feel a strong sense of sorrow and regret to Ji Nian Ping now. But I’m afraid your answer will hurt me more.” Suddenly, noticing his suite jacket around her shoulder, she runs back towards where Ji Cun Xi was standing, to return the jacket.

—

Here is the Preview of the next episode that encompasses the highly anticipated bed scene AND marks the end of the Shanghai interlude.

Here is the BTS of the perhaps even more highly anticipated, Ethan’s fulfillment of the promise to swim naked when the viewing rate surpasses 10. So Ethan did swim naked, but not really. And, he isn’t the one who made the promise. Who did? Watch the BTS to find out. 🙂

And yeah, you can totally tell I got lazy with pictures toward the latter half of the recap. 😛