Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms 三生三世十里桃花 - Episode 34 (Recap)

kakashi: Can't say I particularly like the next two episodes, when our Bai Qian's storyline intersects with mortal Dijun's storyline. Because I don't like the mortal Dijun storyline. The episode is saved for me due to some Xuan Nu craziness.
JoAnne: I can't say that I really like the Dijun mortal storyline either - but you're right, Xuan Nu is often enough to save the day. Isn't it funny how we can enjoy her crazy but we despise Su Jin?
The recap is officially saved because of JoAnne. Watch out for the Lotus-comment. 

Episode 34

Almost tenderly holding a radish, Bai Qian declares to Mi Gu that she knows how to solve this "cooking" problem once and for all (Ye Hua is cooking when he's around, so they just need a substitute when he isn't): One of her subjects has to become his disciple in the kitchen! What an excellent idea, Fox Queen.
Or you could learn how to cook. Or someone could save Fengjiu from herself in the mortal realm and bring her home. Or you could live on fruit and just accept that Riceball will be stunted and have bowel problems.

The Ex-2nd Prince and his eternally pregnant wife are back home after parting with their unlucky son. Sang Ji cannot understand why his wife insists on going to see Bai Qian about this - he already arranged for one of their servants to pose as a taoist nun in the mortal realm. But for her, it's a clear case: she cannot see her son go through any major grievances. Plus, the Celestial Tribe still owes Qing Qiu (not exactly sure for what, but I guess it's true). Shao Xin thinks "Aunt" is the only one who can interfere in their son's mortal punishment without fear of punishment from the Heavenly Asshat.
I think the owing is for her loss of face. So this is rich - basically Ms. Fertility is saying 'We embarrassed her so badly, Heavenly Lord can't really criticize her for anything. Let's take advantage of that and ask her to help us with the son we wouldn't have if we hadn't embarrassed her in the first place!"

There's a long line of people in front of the Fox Den - everybody is dying to be Ye Hua's disciple. Bai Qian hangs around drinking tea and Ye Hua is just generally amused to see all this. But he tells her to have them all leave. They don't look like they have talent. But she - she'd do well. But then, it's enough that one of them can cook. *swoooooon*
Easy for him to say, he's not there when he's not there to cook. You know what I mean.
Maybe he's saying he will never leave her alone again.

Bai Qian caves so easily when he tells her to do something, haha. Well, all the eager Fox subjects are sent away (awww, they're so disappointed) and Ye Hua takes his Qian Qian on a walk. They're talking about her "level of laziness" (OMG Ye Hua! True, but be a bit more careful with her) with regards to the lotus flowers in her lake, but he still thinks they're not inferior to the ones in his Celestial Pond. She says that's unlikely, his Lotus Pond has been praised in countless poems, by mortals and immortals after all. Eagerly, he turns around and asks: "Do you want to see it?"
Yes, Ye Hua. Show us your lotus. Although now that I say that, it seems like something Bai Qian should say to him. 'Would you like to see my Lotus? It's particularly fetching by candle light.'

But she doesn't. She says she may not have seen it yet, but there are many places she hasn't seen. Like Kunlun, for example. Bai Qian! Ahahahaaaaa, why does she keep mentioning that place? She's saved from further questions by Shao Xin's appearance though.
She's so awkward and she thinks she's so slick.

She invites her in, but has the pregnant woman kneel and all ... Bai Qian, Bai Qian. Shao Xin is uncomfortable when she sees the Crown Prince there, but he establishes right away what he thinks: her son has been punished too severely and he has "no side consort".
She looks like she's wearing an ET costume, but no ET mask.

Here is why our Snake Lady seeks Bai Qian's help for this. She made inquiries and found out that Yuan Zhen will encounter a major ordeal when he is 18 years old down there. It will ruin his life. And his mother can't stand to see him suffer. Well, Bai Qian agrees, acknowledging how smart Shao Xin's request is, seeing how she's indeed the only one in all the realms who can possibly get away with this. But: after this, their relationship is officially over. All ties between them will be cut.
I really think she just needs to get over herself at this point. Come on, Bai Qian. You didn't even like the guy. I get that you were embarrassed, but let it go.

That's our Bai Qian for you, Ye Hua. He notices indeed - she cuts people out of her life if they cross her. Shao Xin accepts this, wordlessly ... but there are tears in her eyes. She remembers how Bai Qian gave her the Cloud Clearing Fan, way back when. To defend herself against bullies. That's our Bai Qian too - extremely generous.
One could say she goes to extremes in either direction.

Well, this needs to be done and Bai Qian sighs that she will have to go see Si Ming to find out the details of Snake son's story. Ye Hua tells her that Si Ming is "quite eccentric" and won't show his Book of Destiny to anyone (uhm ... really?). Luckily, Si Ming owes him a favor (for sparing Fengjiu, actually), so he will do this for Bai Qian. However, Bai Qian has to promise Ye Hua to seal her powers, because changing a fate is dangerous stuff. If you use your immortal powers, you're punished for it - the same amount of magic you use will rebound back at you. That doesn't sound pleasurable. Especially with their upcoming Heavenly Lord / Heavenly Empress trial (81 sacred blazes and holy bolts of lightning!). Yup, Bai Qian, that's in your future.
So who decides the rules about these things? Who pushes the start button?  

Haha, and then she makes a remark about how they're not married yet and that, if he had to take on the position of Heavenly Lord today, she wouldn't be able to do that trial because she wouldn't be Heavenly Empress yet. D'awwwwwwwz, he steps closer and tells her he regrets not marrying her 300 years ago. Yeah, well. Should have, would have, didn't.
That's not exactly fair. She jumped off the Terrace before he could. If you accept that he had to be officially declared ... hmm. He was the Crown Prince, but that could have been taken from him. So what was it that he had to be before he could start doing what he wanted? It couldn't have been the Heavenly Lord.

So, Ye Hua goes up to the Nine Heavens and gets to read Yuan Zhen's fate. Trust Si Ming to make an off-hand comment about how kind Aunt is for helping the son of a man who broke off the engagement to her in such a rude way, haha, Ye Hua side-eyes are the best. Anyway, the two men decide that Bai Qian needs to take the place of that servant-nun. 
We need to see Si Ming in real life, I think.

Because she has Miao Qing spy for her, Su Jin finds out about Bai Qian's upcoming stay - with her power sealed! - in the mortal realm. Yeah, great. She asks Miao Qing to go after her down there, but we don't hear the details of her evil plan.
I hope Su Jin's eventual punishment is that someone casts a spell to make her outside match her insides.

Ye Hua brings Bai Qian the story Si Ming wrote for Yuan Zhen and she is surprised he brought the original scroll, if it's that precious as he claimed. Yeah, Qian Qian ... I think your man lied to you. Anyway, she goes to the mortal realm afterwards, to get close to Yuan Zhen in time to save the boy. The story that Si Ming wrote is this: The emperor will go to the river soon, where a roc bird will appear, scaring everyone. A beautiful woman will fall into the water and Yuan Zhen will jump in to save her. Of course, they fall in love. But! The Emperor, his father, falls in love with the same woman.
Si Ming: Celestial Drama Writer-nim

The son cannot keep away from the Beauty though (=sexy times) and soon after, she gives birth to a prince. Only, Yuan Zhen does not know the boy is his (and neither does the boy). When the Emperor (Dijun) falls ill, the boy prince battles Yuan Zhen for the position of Crown Prince and Yuan Zhen kills him. Upon hearing the tragic news, the Beauty hangs herself - after writing a letter to Yuan Zhen, revealing the truth about the boy's parentage. Duty is stronger than the wish to kill himself, so Yuan Zhen reluctantly takes the throne and suffers all his life from his horrible fate. *claps enthusiastically* (does Si Ming secretly write KDrama?)
I'd watch that. Can Jo In Sung be Yuan Zhen's role?

Yup, so Bai Qian has to go live down there for half a year as Yuan Zhen's new Shifu (this time, she plays a Taoist nun) and make sure he does not fall in love with "the Beauty" when he's 18. Simple enough! And Ye Hua has already made all the arrangements for her, in his eager and slightly pushy way.
I can think of so many ways for this to go wrong, KDrama-style.

Well, before we have a chance to get bored by this, we're at the entrance to Kunlun Mountains, where Sixteenth threatens Li Jing. Ghost Lord has turned up to see Si Yin! Sixteenth thinks he's insane but no! Li Jing swears he has seen Si Yin only a few days ago! He thought he would have come back here, now that the school is coming back to life.
Li Jiiiiiiiiiiing. So handsome. So boring. I am quite upset about that.

Well, Sixteenth may kick Li Jing off the mountain, but Li Jing knows what he knows! So he draws a picture of Si Yin and has his demon soldiers search for him. One of those pictures makes it up to the Heavens and into Ye Hua's hands. Of course, he immediately realizes who this Si Yin is. He keeps this knowledge to himself though.
Today's headdress is the prow of a ship, I guess.
It looks like a house design by Swiss architect Valerio Olgati.  

Cut to Xuan Nu, rocking her dead or at least not very alive baby in the cradle. She calls it "Ying'er" and "good boy" for never crying. Damn, this is creepy and sad (sareepy. creepad). When the Ghost Lord returns home, he tells her as much. She just says she has a way to make this child better and then, she'll bear many more and very healthy princes and princesses for him. Gah, seriously.
Crazy bish. She has the best styling though, doesn't she? So pretty, even with those gold twigs in her hair. Or maybe it's supposed to be coral, in a nod to the Ghost Tribe's connection to the Mermaid Tribe... except that is Li Yuan's blood line, not Li Jing's. Hmm.
It's all antlers and twigs and other shamanistic things in the Ghost Realm. Them and the Foxes seem to have many things in common.

He then asks her who exactly Si Yin is (she doesn't know!) - and then fills her in that he's a she and what's more, a woman of the fox clan, like her. Xuan Nu does not want to believe that at first, but she soon realizes that if this is true, that woman is Bai Qian for sure. Not good. Because now, Xuan Nu knows whom to turn her hate against - Qian Qian. Her long time rival! One-sided rival that is.
That's our Li Jing, continuing his legacy of stupid decisions.

That's not all though, unfortunately. She realizes that Bai Qian must be the one who has Mo Yuan's body ... and she gets a greedy look on her face she thinks of that body. Us too, darling, but I hope we don't look as crazy?
We'd all like to leave him drained, but I think our methods differ.

She turns herself into Bai Qian and heads over to Qing Qiu, baffling everyone with how soon she's back and how nice and polite Aunt is today. Haha. She's also really weird in front of A-Li, but Mi Gu does not react on his suspicion that something is off. Take her away from A-Li :((((

Mi Gu is also stupid enough to take her to the Mo Yuan cave. He realizes his mistake when this version of Aunt does not greet Mo Yuan like she usually does, as his disciple - but it's already too late! (Again, I notice that Yang Mi does some of the fight scenes herself, I like that!) Xuan Nu enchants him and orders him to bring the Little Prince here. Noooooooooooo!
Fuck with Riceball, Xuan Nu, and you fuck with us all.

A-Li's parents know nothing of this. The episode ends with Ye Hua paying his Bai Qian - who is puzzling over how to get Yuan Zhen out of this - a visit. He says he has terribly missed her. She says .... nothing. How long has it been? Not long at all, if I'm not miscounting. Haha, you poor lusty puppy, Ye Hua.
Way to deflate a guy, Bai Qian.

Comments

Mortal realm stuff: boooooo. It's not even very clever to have Yuan Zhen's fate and Dijun's fate intersect. I hope this doesn't last too long. Well, so far, the drama has not dragged out things, so I'm hopeful.

Yay, I guess, for Ye Hua finding out about Qian Qian = Si Yin, though I don't yet know what he'll make of this.
I think that's how they lead into his jealousy of Mo Yuan?
 

And yay for Xuan Nu finding out the same, but not because it's good for our characters ... because otherwise, this episode would have been one of the worst so far. Xuan Nu getting her hands on Mo Yuan's body AND on A-Li is about the worst that can happen in terms of dramatic tension. And we need some dramatic tension.
I need to get my hands on Mo Yuan's body.
JoAnne, that sounds creepy.