GUARDIAN Episode 5

[adisgracetothescholars]

Introduction

A quick note: rageprufrock won’t be able to join us this week because she’s had to be a Responsible Adult. We’re jealous that she got to skip this one.

moggiesandtea: My notes for this episode begin, “I have no memory of this episode.” Then, all of two minutes in, I was swearing about how this was the shitty water CGI one.

lazulisong: I think this is the one that really gave Tam and I flashbacks to watching tokusatsu for eight hours straight and I still wasn't sure which one it was at first.

kitsunec4: isn’t this how all of our recaps begin? I mean, the, “I have no recollection of this place,” schtick?

moggiesandtea: I have regrets.

tactless_yet_lovable: Fucking Zhu Yilong and his goddamn everything. GODDAMN WUHAN BOYS AND THEIR SAD PINING CHEEKBONES. Between him and Wang Kai, Wuhan has did me dirty.


Plot

moggiesandtea: We open on nighttime and a fancy car pulling up to a fancy house. Young Boss, whose name is Huang Linqi, has arrived home late and is greeted by Butler Wu. Linqi and his dad almost immediately get in a fight over the fact he’s meant to be getting married soon, to Li Jiaqi. Linqi storms off to take a bath. The bathwater goes all weird and the actor playing Linqi tries to pretend something is pulling him down in the water.

kitsunec4: “Tries” is definitely the operative key word here.

tammaiya: There is so much bad acting and bad CGI in this episode, it’s hard to choose which is the standout of badness.

lazulisong: This one genuinely sounds like a member of the writing team recycled their webnovel for plot ideas.

moggiesandtea: We cut to Dragon City Aerial Shot: Dawn Edition and Shen Wei having tea with the Dean. The Dean is nonplussed about all these criminal investigations Shen Wei’s been involved in and suggests Shen Wei move out of the faculty dorms. But continue teaching and doing research, of course, he needs to protect the university’s academic reputation.

hollyberries: Because conducting investigations while living off-campus gives the university the extra veneer of respectability, natch. (Like, he’s STILL teaching here, the optics won’t even help when he’s spotted running around because it’s still gonna be Prof Shen. SIGH.)

kitsunec4: Shen Wei’s ratings on ratemyprof.com are vital to the university ok?

ohbthr: Especially that chili pepper rating

moggiesandtea: He asks if Shen Wei needs any help finding a place. Shen Wei says he’s already found one. Three guesses where.

hollyberries: Is now a good time to mention that in the book, Shen Wei doesn’t actually have a bedroom in his new condo, he just has a room full of paintings of Zhao Yunlan throughout all his reincarnations?

tactless_yet_lovable: I love him but he is such a goddamn creep.

arrghigiveup: Quick reminder that Shen Wei had already been looking for a new place over in episode 3, well before this encounter. And he was also being very insistent about it being in a very specific area.

tammaiya: Pretty sure absolutely no one watching is going to be surprised by the revelation that Shen Wei is a stalkery worship-from-afar kind of boyfriend. Notwithstanding the book canon about his failure to invest, in the drama he must have had a tidy sum put away for the specific purpose of stalking Kunlun reincarnations.

moggiesandtea: Back at the SID headquarters, Lin Jing is running vitally important experiments on a popcorn maker instead of studying the Longevity Dial. Zhao Yunlan comes in and almost immediately jumps up on the table to crouch down and fish out popcorn, because he was raised in a barn by wolves.

tactless_yet_lovable: This is the most accurate college student science experiment, by the way. Only to be beaten by “Is this flammable?” as a pastime.

arrghigiveup: Seriously though, why did Zhao Yunlan feel the need to climb the table?! Why is he like this?

tactless_yet_lovable: I want to say he failed his domestic education big time. A goddamn slutty gremlin surviving on wiles and sleaze.

hollyberries: There’s failing domestic education and then there’s his mother killing him so as to avoid extreme shame upon the family. This is the latter.

lazulisong: On the other hand, after his mom, any death look he gets from Shen Wei must be nothing.

moggiesandtea: We cut to actual crime scene investigation at the Huangs’, where we properly meet Huang Linqi’s dad, Huang Chaoyan, who is a prestigious industrialist with really shitty taste in suit fabrics. Mr. Wu shows the team around and does most of the talking, emphasizing how the father and son are so close because the son was born so late in the dad’s life. Huang Dad tries to shove the rest of the questioning off on Mr. Wu while Old Chu holds up a pillar and Guo Changcheng takes notes.

Huang Dad’s business partner Mr. Li shows up in a panic over the disappearance. Mr. Wu quickly ushers the team out, and Zhao Yunlan is suspicious, probably because everyone is acting suspicious as fuck. However, Zhao Yunlan is also wearing a denim vest over a light blue shirt with distressed jeans and poorly laced work boots, so I’m not sure he gets to judge.

tactless_yet_lovable: The only thing more damning than Zhao Yunlan’s fashion is Shen Wei’s taste in men.

hollyberries: Kunlun got him young, via negging. There was no hope.

lazulisong: I just wanna know how these stylists can take individually rather nice pieces of clothing and turn it into … that.

moggiesandtea: The team does get some information from Mr. Wu, specifically that Linqi was fighting with his dad over the whole arranged marriage thing. They notice the fiancee, Li Jiaqi, sitting in her dad’s car some distance away. Zhao Yunlan makes a comment about her being pretty, Old Chu gives him crap about being able to tell from this distance. Zhao Yunlan also observes that Mr. Wu has very good reflexes for his age.

And the SID team gets ready to leave, forgetting Lin Jing is still in the house.

arrghigiveup: “I feel like I’ve forgotten something,” Zhao Yunlan says. Yunlan. Buddy. Dude.

hollyberries: Zhao Yunlan is usually the most competent investigator in the series, so I can only assume the scriptwriters sacrificed him on the altar of expediency. He was laid down next to the rotting carcass of the plot.

tammaiya: That or he did it deliberately to troll Lin Jing. (Kidding, I don’t think the scriptwriters are capable of that without neon signposting, but it would be funny.)

moggiesandtea: Zhao Yunlan and Old Chu agree that no one is telling the truth here and they should follow everyone, starting with Li Jiaqi, since it’s her fiance who’s missing.

We cut to Shen Wei touring a furnished apartment with a real estate agent who’s trying to upsell him on some other place that’s been more recently renovated and other pluses. Nope, Shen Wei wants this one.

arrghigiveup: He completely spaces out staring at the door directly across from his, clearly thinking “I can stalk him from up close now.”

moggiesandtea: We cut back to Jiaqi, who has shut herself in her bathroom to avoid her dad, who is suggesting maybe she could marry some other nice boy who is also probably a business associate’s kid but who isn’t mysteriously missing. She starts to draw a bath, and for some reason the tap water is blue. Zero surprise, she is also yanked into the bath water and disappears.

hollyberries: I’m confused because she had previously shown the same amount of interest in her missing fiance as she would a passing crack in the pavement so this level of attachment is out of the left field. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to get married, in which case, my sympathies, girl.

kitsunec4: Maybe it’s a, the idiot you know, thing? I too, would rather take an idiot I’m familiar with than an entirely brand new stranger.

tammaiya: None of this makes sense, the writing’s bad, the acting’s bad, maybe she’s supposed to be the stereotypical aloof tsundere girlfriend and both the acting and the script completely failed out at giving any convincing evidence of it. They TELL us she likes him…

lazulisong: I know I've read too many webnovels but guys this is exactly the plot of 15 shitty het webnovels I've read this month.

moggiesandtea: Meanwhile, Zhu Hong is on a stakeout at the Huangs’ with Guo Changcheng and Da Qing, who are both useless and have fallen asleep. I really feel for her having to put up with these idiots.

kitsunec4: At least Da Qing has the excuse of being a cat, who expects a cat to stay awake and focused during a stakeout? Wall Wall is just flat out useless.

moggiesandtea: Cut back to more crime scene investigation, this time in Jiaqi’s bathroom. Zhao Yunlan uses steam from the tap to discover someone with very lousy handwriting has written “I’ve returned” on the bathroom mirror.

tammaiya: Not that the writing is subbed, but even if you can’t read it you definitely get the “I’m BAAAAAACK, bitches!” vibe from it.

arrghigiveup: Ok, with what though? Like, how does that even work? What in the culprit’s powers would allow him to leave a message on a mirror that repels water condensation and, more importantly, does it again when he’s not around?

lazulisong: I… I think I thought it was just oil or something, from his finger?

tactless_yet_lovable: Ssshhh ssshhh ssh, you can’t bring science to this travesty of a plot.

tammaiya: Idk, he’s a water person, maybe he physically became a person in the room so he could write on the mirror? Makes as much sense as anything in this show. I.E., not a lot.

moggiesandtea: Huang Dad and Li Dad meet up with Mr. Wu. All three clearly know something about what’s up, but Mr. Wu seems to have the best idea of what’s going on. So he goes to some nearby body of water and yells questions at it. Lin Jing and Old Chu surprise him there, and he gets taken in for questioning.

Zhao Yunlan interrogates Mr. Wu and finds out he was a homeless wanderer 20 years and some weirdly specific number of months ago. Huang Dad took him in and saved him. Mr. Wu argues he was just visiting a pond. Zhao Yunlan counters with have you ever heard of Dixingren, then gets distracted by a person passing by outside. Mr. Wu lies blatantly that he’s never heard of Dixingren.

Shen Wei shows up right after Mr. Wu is let go to talk to him. Shen Wei clearly knows a lot about Mr. Wu as a Dixingren and a teleporter, but Mr. Wu doesn’t recognize him until he takes his Secret Identity Glasses off. Shen Wei gives Mr. Wu a speech about how he won’t interfere in whatever’s between Mr. Wu and the SID, he’s just here to threaten Mr. Wu re: touching Zhao Yunlan. He also mindwipes some of either Huang Dad or Li Dad’s flunkies on his way out.

arrghigiveup: The dynamics here are fun. I think this is the first we see of Shen Wei in Black Cloak Envoy persona as seen by the average Dixingren (outside of Chu Shuzhi) and not someone he’s actively trying to apprehend/kill, and he’s cold yo.

tammaiya: The secret identity glasses are still absurd, though. Like. Black Envoy wears a mask and a cloak! How do you suddenly recognise him because he took his human disguise glasses off???? How do they stop anyone from recognising him in the first place? Why do I even care? Auuuuugh.

lazulisong: Super Dixingren science holograms that are definitely not magic disguise glasses, also if Shen Wei looks at you like you're trash, you remember it cause you find yourself in a garbage can.

tammaiya: … isn’t that literally the excuse they used in Superman? Whatever, if it works, I guess. Lol.

moggiesandtea: Back at SID headquarters, Lin Jing has established that the water from both the bathtubs came not from municipal water but from some nearby lake that apparently has really clear water. Zhao Yunlan points out that that’s not really evidence of anything.

We cut to Shen Wei in his office doing professor things, when the phone rings. Zhao Yunlan wants to know why Shen Wei hasn’t interfered in the investigation yet, and hey, didn’t I see you outside the coffee shop I was questioning Mr. Wu in? Shen Wei pretends he’s been on campus all day. Zhao Yunlan doesn’t really believe him, but does have some questions for him. The moral of this episode is that these two need way more screen time together than they get to make the surrounding “plot” bearable.

kitsunec4: Agreed, because short of rewatching for the recaps, the only thing I remember about this episode is Shen Wei and his ridiculous apartment.

arrghigiveup: Excuse me while I continue to rave about how these two manage to convey so much with so little. Shen Wei’s voice and expression are flawlessly calm and polite when he answers the phone, and they remain so for the entirety of the conversation, but at the moment when he first hears Zhao Yunlan’s voice his fingers give the tiniest of twitches and bends the corners of the pages of the publication he’s reading:



hollyberries: I remember behind the scenes mentioning that this was an improvisational moment Zhu Yilong suggested. Bless that hotpot cryptid.

arrghigiveup: Also, Shen Wei addresses Zhao Yunlan as “Zhao Chuzhang” (Section Chief Zhao) throughout the conversation, and Zhao Yunlan calls Shen Wei “Shen Jiaoshou” (Professor Shen) for most of the conversation, save for one point shortly after their initial greetings where he addresses Shen Wei very seriously by name and goes “Shen Wei. Were you at school the whole day today?” It’s extremely familiar, especially for the conversation they’re having, and it reminded me vividly of the I’m-going-to-ask-you-one-question moment from last episode.

hollyberries: It’s the kind of tone and word choice that--a suspicious and jealous girlfriend might use with her boyfriend? Very flirty, and way too close for people who’d met about a week ago.

tammaiya: To quote myself to you guys the first time I watched this…“the contents of this phone call are really innocuous and yet the way they’re talking sounds like when you’re lying in bed talking on the phone to your boyfriend as a teenager.”

More seriously though, it’s interesting how they do take that step back into normal levels of formality for the rest of the conversation, which is what you expect for their level of acquaintance but at odds not only with that opening but also with their last interactions with each other (please recall moonlit walks and “intimacy”). I’m glad the show doesn’t drag this phase out forever— the progression of their relationship is the one thing they did right in this show in terms of pacing— but the tension of their cat and mouse game and the way it leans into an obvious fascination with each other is so well balanced, particularly when until this point of the episode you’ve been spacing out muttering “wow this water effect is SO DUMB and I hate these stupid people anyway” to yourself.

moggiesandtea: The next day, Mr. Wu is trying to leave the Huangs. Someone named Xiaojun is back and he has to go find him. We find out Xiaojun is a) Mr. Wu’s son and b) has been missing for 20 years. We find this out via Huang Dad’s flashback, and if this doesn’t make you more suspicious of the checked suit wearing motherfucker, I don’t know what to tell you.

Mr. Wu goes back to the lake and yells for Xiaojun. He’s been followed by both Li Dad’s flunkies and Old Chu and Guo Changcheng. Everyone is shit at stealth.

There’s an explosion in the water and a horrible CGI person appears. This is Xiaojun, who thankfully goes back to human super quick. Mr. Wu is very happy to see his son. Xiaojun is less than happy to see his dad, because apparently Huang Dad and Li Dad abandoned Xiaojun in the mountains 20 years ago after they found him playing with his water powers while Mr. Wu was out. Xiaojun is understandably pissed about this, but Mr. Wu argues that Linqi and Jiaqi are innocent in this. Bad CGI Water Xiaojun jumps in the lake, and Mr. Wu teleports after.

Linqi and Jiaqi are tied up in the middle of...some other part of the lake, and by tied up, I mean there’s shitty water CGI ropes. They’re arguing about how each thinks the other doesn’t want to marry them. Xiaojun shows up to drown both of them, but Mr. Wu shows up right after to beg for their lives. Xiaojun relents and hauls Linqi and Jiaqi out of the water.

lazulisong: For a show that spends so much time attempting to shoehorn in heterosexuality, 85% of their straight plotlines are terrible.

arrghigiveup: I would like to interrupt here to point out that Li Jiaqi is still in the clothes she was grabbed in (she’d been sitting on the edge of the bathtub fully-clothed when she was grabbed). Meanwhile, Huang Linqi is somehow in his pyjamas, when he’d been taken while he was naked in the bath with a washtowel. Which means that at some point, Wu Xiaojun must have taken the trouble to dress him.

kitsunec4: you know, I’d not noticed that before and now I’m just. Confused.

tactless_yet_lovable: Ok but would you want to see a naked Huang Linqi, or would you also deus ex machina some clothes? As a CGI water being out for revenge, I would also snatch some pjs instead of seeing his dick the entire time I’m waiting to dramatically kill him.

hollyberries: I’m just confused by where Xiaojun’s been staying, how he’s been feeding himself, and/or how he’s raised himself all this time.

tammaiya: Maybe he eats algae? God, nothing about this subplot makes sense. I managed to muster a really lukewarm feeling of “guess you like each other after all, good for you guys I guess” at this scene, but like, whatever, rich brats realising feelings while tied in ridiculous water bondage, bad acting, same 5 extras in every episode, eh. Mostly I was too busy killing myself laughing at the bad CGI to notice anything else. Like, the bad CGI with Chu’s dolls in episode one offended my eyes, but the bad CGI water is just. Hilariously B grade.

arrghigiveup: “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through these last 20 years!” No, no dude, he literally doesn’t, and neither do we, because you never actually tell us.

lazulisong: This is like … someone told them to show and not tell and they were like "well okay" and all backstory was trashed to save budget.

(Tangent: being vague about details can work for things if the quality of writing is otherwise up to par. Like, you can mention the Lost Empire of Elves in a video game and if you back it up with background stuff, then, sure, even if the characters only mention it briefly you're probably okay. This is …. Not that.)

moggiesandtea: The touching reconciliation of father and son is spoiled by Li flunkies trying to shoot Xiaojun with a tiny crossbow? Mr. Wu blocks the bolt with his body, and it’s apparently a super effective tiny crossbow bolt. He tells Xiaojun to run. Old Chu and Guo Changcheng are both useless here.

kitsunec4: I’m actually way more annoyed on the rewatch at the uselessness of Guo Changcheng… possibly because now I know he never actually improves? Like. Why.

moggiesandtea: Xiaojun goes to horrible CGI kill Huang Dad, who has set up some sort of electricity trap that zaps Xiaojun. Xiaojun rallies, but Zhao Yunlan shows up before Xiaojun can kill Huang Dad. He tells Xiaojun that Huang will be punished by the law, but Xiaojun should go to his dad.

Like I said, the tiny crossbow bolt was apparently super effective, because Mr. Wu is dying on the SID headquarters couch. Guo Changcheng runs and grabs the Longevity Dial. Zhao Yunlan’s about to give in to the puppy dog eyes and use it to save Mr. Wu when Shen Wei as Black Cloak Envoy shows up. He yells at them about using the thing, then uses his dark energy to save Mr. Wu.

arrghigiveup: Minor correction: The whole team, but especially Zhao Yunlan, gives him the desperate pleading puppy eyes, and then he saves Lao Wu. He’s such a marshmallow for Zhao Yunlan.

moggiesandtea: In some abandoned warehouse, Anime Villain smashes a chess piece.

We cut to what turns out to be Dixing. It’s dark, cloudy, and there’s random lava. Shen Wei is escorting the Wus, his prisoners, only to be intercepted by two guards who have orders to take the prisoners. And to immediately shoot them, apparently, but Shen Wei disappears them with dark energy.

Cue backstory exposition. Mr. Wu knows Shen Wei because he was on a team dispatched to Haixing to find the Holy Talismans 20 years ago. The team was attacked by youshou, which the English subtitles render as “ghost beasts,” and when Mr. Wu woke up, everyone was dead. Shen Wei says the leader also survived and hid out in Haixing committing crimes, but he was killed before Shen Wei could question him. Mr. Wu reveals that the leader’s wife was pregnant before the mission, and Shen Wei gets all excited about there being a descendant to track down.

hollyberries: It’s puzzling because the timeline puts this at twenty years ago, and it’s clearly been long enough that Mr. Wu felt he would never again see Shen Wei again ‘in this life’. However, Mr. Wu’s aged and had a kid in the meantime, but Shen Wei barely has a wrinkle. Are we meant to infer Shen Wei doesn’t age? Also, who led the team, for what purpose?

tammaiya: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean I absolutely would believe that Shen Wei doesn’t age except for the inconvenience of people around him noticing. But if he just looks like that and it isn’t some kind of human disguise, maybe he does like all hot unaging immortal beings do and moves around every ten years or so when it would get suspicious. Makes up a new background, fakes some qualifications… except we know that he never changes his name and no one ever seems to go anywhere other than Dragon City and the immediate surrounds, so who the fuck knows, honestly.

moggiesandtea: You would think the episode would end here. It’s a good stopping point. Nice closure. But no. We cut to a couple in bed together. The woman wakes up, gets out of bed and goes to take a shower in the middle of the night for some reason. The guy wakes up later, realizes she’s not in bed, and goes to find her. She has disappeared and there’s some faint signs of struggle in the bathroom.

Some morning, perhaps the next morning, who knows how time works here, Zhao Yunlan is making Da Qing jog with him.

arrghigiveup: During the jog, Da Qing complains about having to jog, to which Zhao Yunlan replies in what appears to be complete seriousness that Da Qing should train up his physical strength to be prepared to meet challenges at any time, and, out of the blue, apropos of absolutely nothing, draws a comparison to Professor Shen, who is “so good at sharing our burdens and helping to solve problems.” Not to accuse Zhao Yunlan of obsessing over how fit Shen Wei looks, except I am absolutely accusing him of that.

kitsunec4: I mean, a man has eyes.

hollyberries: How quickly he forgets the suspicions of yesterday, lol.

tammaiya: He has a very selective memory when it comes to his own personal stalker, okay.

lazulisong: It’s DIFFERENT for his family's Shen Wei, all right?????

moggiesandtea: They happen upon Shen Wei, who has just moved to the area. Zhao Yunlan thinks this is on purpose, which. Duh.

Meanwhile, Old Chu is testing Guo Changcheng on his ability to follow someone. Guo Changcheng fails. He’s been failing all his tests, apparently. He is spared Zhao Yunlan tormenting him about this by a phone call regarding a locked room disappearance.

kitsunec4: HOW HAS GUO NOT BEEN FIRED YET?!?

tammaiya: Fuck knows. It’s still at the point where Chu is probably equally aggravated by keeping him around as he would be by firing him— so doesn’t even have the benefit of keeping your one field operative happy. Is the calamity Guo brings on everything he breathes on really worth keeping his powerful uncle happy? Is it REALLY, Zhou Yunlan?

moggiesandtea: We get more crime scene investigation. The boyfriend insists Wei Wei would never go out on her own, especially not during the day: she hates sunlight. The team wonders if this is Xiaojun again, but no, the Black Cloak Envoy took him into custody.

arrghigiveup: Zhao Yunlan says, “If people who’d been personally taken away by the Black Cloak Envoy could come back so easily, the Dixing regent’s tears would drown the whole of Dixing.” This is a mildly hilarious comment in light of the number of times Shen Wei ends up letting people go in this show.

moggiesandtea: Zhao Yunlan asks the boyfriend if there was anything weird that had happened lately. The boyfriend mentions that he did walk in on Wei Wei being attacked by a strange woman in the bathroom who then disappeared.

And end credits, in perhaps the most abrupt manner possible.

Character Beats

tactless_yet_lovable: I feel like I was trying to survive a famine this episode. All I had was like, a fraction of the Shen Wei-Zhao Yunlan I needed to actually endure watching this level of bad CGI. I’m dying, Bad CGI Squirtle.

arrghigiveup: Seconded, so hard.

hollyberries: Did they give Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu a much-needed break from carrying the entire show on their two shoulders? ;____;

arrghigiveup: I mean, looking back, pretty much the only reason why we have this episode is to introduce Lao Wu and to establish a motivation for his helping them in later episodes.

tammaiya: That and giving them an excuse to have that scene of Shen Wei looking cool at the wedding for the opening. Oh, and bringing up that other plot… about the team that got killed. Not that anyone cares, really, let’s be honest.

Production Choices

moggiesandtea: Jesus wept, y’all.

tactless_yet_lovable: … Wait, IS THIS DUDE DISCOUNT JESUS? He walks on water. He turns water into wine murder. I. I am having a moment here.

tammaiya: “choices” is one word for it, LOL. Although you guys clearly never watched enough shitty children’s TV in your youth, because I’ve definitely seen equivalently terrible water person CGI before.

lazulisong: If I was a slightly more terrible human being, I would definitely pull out some especially shitty Kamen Rider or Super Sentai CGI and torment you with them until you became stronger

Final Thoughts

moggiesandtea: THIS EPISODE WAS SO BAD.

kitsunec4: Why do we continue to do this? I was rewatching while lazing around in a bed on vacation and whispering to myself, I could be out on a bar crawl right now or in another hot tub? And yet. This show is soooo bad, but Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan continue to be the beating heart of this show. They are the only reason to watch, really.

tactless_yet_lovable: I hate this goddamn trainwreck of a show. Somebody please just create a fan cut of only Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan being hella shameless at each other and let me feel peace. Please. It’s almost Christmas. I was good for 2018. I voted. Let me escape this hell.

kitsunec4: No, no escape for you, or any of us. Like the fey, once a bargain has been struck you are Stuck With It.

hollyberries: I think I’d rather be kidnapped by discount cdrama Jesus.

tammaiya: Dubious CGI water bondage and all.

Join us here in two weeks for a discussion of Guardian: Episode 6, wherein the filler episodes continue and we really want some booze!

Comments

[kitsunec4]

Welcome to our suffering. The struggle is super duper real.

On the other hand, I’m kind of amazed every other day that this show even happened?

[rageprufrock]

I'm in both camps: grateful the show existed so we got the absolutely phenomenal casting so we have perfect actors in our minds for the characters, but also equally furious that we didn't get the full-court press treatment. In a weird way, as mad as I am about being ripped off the full penetrative reality of the relationship, I'm even angrier about stripping out the supernatural components of the story, which are so essential to the narrative and so deeply CHINESE, too. Infuriating. But also a gift that I have to like. So like an Instapot -- but in puke green.