Chinese Paladin 3: Episode 1

There are only two kinds of people who don’t regularly succumb to the power of money. The unrealistic kind and the kind that makes money easily. Others like Jin Tian, only dream about wealth.

Only, his dream today isn’t entirely about money, though it has to do with something valuable (an antique box that worths hundreds). Instead, it’s of a strange old man foretelling the doom of mankind. (There, our typical game plot established.)

But before the sage can open the box, Jin Tian is waken up by Mao Mao.

Jian Tian throws a small fit at Mao Mao for waking him up before the box opens and demands a compensation fee for the antique box he could have gotten from the sage in the dream. He BiPing steps in and puts an end to Jian Tian’s nonsense. Soon, the three big boys are distracted by the meteor shower outside.

Kneeling before the shooting stars gliding across the sky, Jin Tian quickly makes three wishes — the three things he’s always wanted.

“I want to be the richest man in Yu Zhou! Then, I want to be the head man of Yong An Pawnshop. And I want to collect extremely valuable antiques!”

Mao Mao’s wishes are more basic. He wants to eat A LOT of meat, have three wives. — Wait, no, he wants five wives. — Go to Chang An, and most importantly, he wants all Jin Tian’s wishes to come true. And He BiPing? He wants money, money, and yes, more money.

As the three men happily make their wishes, Jin Tian notices an unidentified flying object (UFO!!) flying towards him. He reaches for it and the glowing object falls into Jin Tian’s palm obediently and reveals itself to be half of jade pendant.

Awfully quick for a wish to come true.

The following day, Jin Tian finds out that the head man of Yong An Pawnshop left town (the head man’s son just added a grandson to the family line so the newly grandpa is eager to see the baby). With the position empty, Jian Tian is appointed the new head man. Ahh, second wish granted.

One more wish left! Now, how does one become the richest man in town overnight? Win the lottery? Good idea, but it’s not invented yet. (It isn’t is it?) Then… marry the richest man’s daughter (or granddaughter) and inherit his wealth? Mm, let’s sit on it for now.

The smug Jin Tian is loitering on the street with Mao Mao when his pendant senses its identical counterpart (wore by a sassy maiden named Tang XueJian) and comes to life of its own. It’s mating season! The two pendants pull their respective owners from across the street, toss them in a moving sedan chair, bride and groom style, and come together in a way as though to make their owners an item — or at least, appear to be joined by the hips. With the same suddenness that drew the two people together, the sedan chair starts to raise and plants itself on the second floor of a nearby building. Then it stops.

Bickering ensues above (between masters) and below (between sidekicks), until those above fall and almost collapse those below. With the impact of the fall, the two pendants snap apart and return to their lifeless forms.

Running away from the “crime scene”, Jin Tian is stopped by a hooded man, who advises him not to sell the pendant that fell from the sky. Not taking heed of the man’s warning, Jin Tian bids goodbye and walks away — only to be stopped a second time. The man shows Jin Tian a scroll of painting, points to it and says gravely, “This is mankind in 300 days.”

Jin Tian stares into the painting and sees the figures moving: houses burning down, people turning into skeleton. He rubs his eyes in disbelief and says suddenly, “This painting isn’t out of a master’s hand, it’s not worth much.” Ignoring Jin Tian’s remark, the hooded man flings his cape awesomely and warns again in a deep voice, “Do not sell your pendant. It will come to use on Dome’s day and you will become the world’s savior.” Jin Tian snaps, “Have you seen any savior being pinned on a cart like a helpless ant? If you’re so macho, why don’t you become the savior?”

Without arguing with the inarguable Jin Tian, the hooded man grabs him instead, gives him a three revolution spin, snatches the pendant from his hands, shoves the painting into his other hand, and exits upward — all done in a mere few seconds.

The little “accident on the street” with Tang XueJian brings Jin Tian trouble. He not only violated the pampered princess, he humiliated her in public! (*gasp* How dare he!) Consequently, Jin Tian is brought to the Tang estate to await punishment. But Jin Tian’s luck turns when wind of XueJian’s loud suicide attempt turns the Tang household upside down. He volunteers to appease XueJian in exchange of his freedom. A Taming of the Shrew is officially on!

When Jin Tian arrives in the backyard, XueJian is holding on a pink cloth, shrieking and threatening to hang herself. A dozen helpless maids crowd around her — very much the Katherina Minola.

Jin Tian gets XueJian’s attention and immediately has her railed up, remembering the “intimate” albeit hectic moment they spent together not too long ago. He accuses her of falling for his beauty; she in response threatens to cut off every piece of limb contaminated by his touch. Prompted by her dare, he pokes her all over and asks for a knife. Now, does she still want to cut herself?

Giving up knife, XueJian resorts to hanging. “Waiiiiit!” Jin Tian stops her and asks for a thicker, stronger rope. “After all”, he says, “This is your first time attempting suicide, it needs to be done properly.” But the gruesome looks of a hanged man’s corpse, with it’s lolling tongue and bulging eyes turns XueJian away from dying in the same painful and unsightly manner. Poison? — Black face and possibly foul smell postmortem. Jump in the well? — Snapped neck and unrecognizable face. Oh and feast to crows.

Frustrated XueJian lets out a scream and gives up on her attention seeking little farce. Mission accomplished!

XueJian’s grandpa watches on the sideline with approval. When Jin Tian starts to head out, the grandpa stops him and searches him all over — looking for the matching pendant. When none is found, the disappointed old man waves a hand and lets Jin Tian leave.

What’s with all the sighing?

Well, we’ll have to go back to the year when XueJian was only three. That year, she got sick. No doctor knew how to treat her. Just when her grandpa Tang Kun started to give up hope, a stranger walked by the Tang residence one day playing the flute. When XueJian heard the melody, she started dancing to the tune, all signs of illness vanished instantly. Stunned but pleased, Tang Kun ran out to greet the stranger. The stranger gave Tang Kun a half pendant and told him that when little XueJian’s Mr. Right shows up with the other half, the two will fuse into one again and the owners of the pendant will never be apart.

Guess the timing just isn’t right.

When Jin Tian returns to Yong An Pawnshop, there’s bad news waiting for him. Because Tang XueJian is crossed with him and because Tang XueJian is wealthy and entitled, she made certain that Jin Tian is no longer the head man of the pawnshop. Replacing him is this infamous money leaching man called Zhao WenChang.

Unabashed, Jin Tian figures out a way to get rich — start his own business. Easy said than done, he needs cash first. (And to figure out what kind of business he wants to run etc., etc.)

Working late into the night, Jin Tian catches a glimpse of a figure heading towards the Yong An pawnshop. He follows after and catches XueJian red handed “searching” for a tea pot lid identical to the broken lid she brought with her.

Being the shrew that she is, she orders him to make a replica — Jin Tian’s sole expertise. He agrees under her coercion but he isn’t going to let her off easy is he? 😉

He makes her run around looking for clay. Where did he send her? The dirty, stinky, loo to dig up feces of course! Vile, vile JinTian! 😀

When she agrees to go without a single complain, Jin Tian is first taken aback and asks if the lid means anything to her. She replies lovingly that it’s her grandpa’s favorite tea po before heading towards the toilet. Impressed, Jin Tian takes out a box of clay he had under the table and starts replicating the lid for XueJian.

When XueJian finally comes back and sees Jin Tian shaping a piece of clay, she knows she’s been fooled. But for the lid replica, she suppresses her anger and sits down, patiently waits for Jin Tian to finish the handiwork.

Ta-da! By the end of the night, the replica is done! But something else is amiss. XueJian’s hair is growing NONSTOP in front of Jin Tian! — Guess our Cinder girl forgot that the magic disappears after midnight. She runs home in horror (how could she possibly expose her ugly side in front of a man she may have feelings to?!) It’s then revealed that every night in spring, XueJian’s hair would grow like a curse. It would grow and grow and grow and grow. Her maids would have to cut and cut and cut and cut until morning, when her hair stops growing. Then in autumn, her hair would start to fall out. It’d fall and fall and fall and fall until there’s no hair left. Then the next spring, it’s the whole hair fiasco again. (Woman is a friggin’ tree!)

At the crack of dawn, the hair finally stops growing but something else is wrong. XueJian’s beloved grandpa is feeling under the weather. Pardon my understatement, the old man is gravely ill and must rely on 100 flowers’ dew to recover. That night (when her hair magically stops growing like wild fire), she sets out to gather dew for her grandpa.

It so happens that Jin Tian is also out in the woods. His reason for being out so late is much more simplistic: he heard that there’s another meteor shower tonight and is determined to make three more wishes.

Naturally, the two destined pair meet in the woods.

They bicker like usual and one of them accidentally slips out the word “ghost”. Suddenly 20 or so ghosts pop out of nowhere and start to advance toward them. (WTF? — Oh wait, Chinese Paladin was originally a video game. Ok now that makes so much more sense.)

As both protagonists are scared of ghosts, they scream for help and clasps onto each other in a moment of weakness. Then *whooosh* a white figure swooshes in on top of the now surrounded couple. Out flew three glowing swords and landed in a circle around the three non-ghosts. A visible shield extends from the tips of the swords and sets up a wall between the men and the ghosts. They are temporarily safe.

So who is this white figure? Check out the character guide or wait for the next recap! 😉

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Comments:

This is a flawed drama but a fun one nonetheless. After all those months of recapping Black & White, I think I need something silly and goofy to offset the seriousness. So, let’s all discard our judgmental mindset for the time being and embrace a little nonsensical romance!