Welcome to the Open Thread, everyone! Can you believe we’re almost at the end?!? 😭 Today I wanted Ziwei and Junjie to headline our post, because I think their friendship deserves a bit of the spotlight. And, it’s just so nice to see them having fun, playing basketball together like this. ❤️

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS, before we begin:

1. ZERO SPOILER POLICY ON THE OPEN THREAD

We will be adopting a ZERO SPOILER POLICY for this Open Thread, except for events that have happened in the show, up to this point.

The spoiler tags don’t work in email notifications, therefore, please take note that WE WILL NOT BE USING SPOILER TAGS FOR THIS OPEN THREAD. ANY AND ALL SPOILERS WILL BE REDACTED to protect first-time viewers in our midst (although, I’d appreciate it if you would save me the trouble of having to redact spoilers, heh 😅).

*This includes (but is not limited to) how characters or relationships evolve over the course of the story. Just pretend that this is Past You, on this Open Thread!*

2. SPOILER ZONE AVAILABLE

HOWEVER!! If you’d like to discuss spoilers from a rewatcher’s point of view, I’ve created a SPOILER ZONE for you, where you can discuss all the spoilers you’d like, without the need for spoiler warnings. You can find it here!

Without further ado, here are my reactions to this set of episodes; have fun in the Open Thread, everyone! ❤️

My thoughts

Episode 11

Oh. My. Word. What a mind-bender of an episode this turned out to be! 😳 I gotta say it again; I LOVE how brilliantly written this show is! 🤩

Not only is Creepy Psychiatrist the culprit behind Yunru’s attack and Cai Wenrou’s murder, he turns out to be his own coach in murder..? Gosh. I know that going by the rules of this drama world, it’s possible for Creepy Psychiatrist to interact with his younger self, but the idea of him, coaching his younger self in the joys of murder, is still hard to wrap my brain around.

So.. where had this blood-thirst originated, I wonder? It seems like the seed had initially been planted by Lil Bro’s fascination with Elder Bro’s insect specimen collection, but instead of Elder Bro being the one to water that seed, he’d taken the opportunity of the timeslip, to water that seed himself.

It’s so bizarre, and also, so clever of Show! That said, the idea that Lil Bro had killed the cat, just to see what it was like, is still shudder-inducing to me. 😫 It’s not Elder Bro who needs to be kept in a psychiatric facility; it’s Lil Bro.

Speaking of whom, I feel really sorry for Class Monitor now. It seems like his entire life has been changed by Lil Bro’s timeslip. From the way he describes it to Yuxuan and Uncle, it sounds like he’d ended up in that house-tent space, which I’m assuming to be in a corner of his own mind, while Lil Bro had been at the reins.

He’d had access to what Lil Bro was doing in his body, but couldn’t control it. And because of this, it seems that he’d been certified as psychologically unfit, which is how he’s ended up spending years at that medical facility. Poor guy. He could’ve lived a perfectly normal life, if Lil Bro hadn’t timeslipped into his body, and messed him up.

Also, how very trippy it is, to revisit certain scenes, with the new knowledge and perspective, that Lil-Bro-posing-as-Elder-Bro, had been right there, eavesdropping. Like at the hospital, during Ziwei’s visit, and also, around the corner, when Yuxuan-as-Yunru had been telling Ziwei and Junjie about her memory of Yunru’s attacker being in their school uniform.

It certainly lends a sinister layer of meaning to it all – particularly since it appears that he’d been ready to try to kill “Yunru” right there at the hospital, by removing her breathing tubes.

And, I have to remind myself that this isn’t Class Monitor, but Creepy Psychiatrist, who’s a grown adult, with a lot more shrewdness than the average highschooler.

On another note, I’m absolutely gutted that 2019 Ziwei doesn’t survive the attack by Creepy Psychiatrist. That’s just the most horrible thing. 😭😭

Ziwei had gone through so much, and was finally reunited with Yuxuan, for whom he’d waited 15 whole years, and after just a few short days together, he’s no longer of this world. What a cruel, unfair fate. 😫

My only consolation is that Yuxuan still has a chance to change things, by going back to 1998. (On that note, it feels like SUCH a relief, to see both Ziwei and Junjie, alive and well, in 1998. 😍😍)

The only problem with that, as we find out, is that Yuxuan’s timeslip doesn’t quite go as expected, most likely because the walkman had been trashed and had to be put back together again? Perhaps that’s why it’s Yuxuan who ends up in the house-tent, while Yunru gets to be at the reins of her own body once again.

Of course, I feel for Yunru, because it’s not fair for her to have been locked up in her own mind all this time either. And yet, I find myself disturbed by her choices, now that she’s allowed free rein of her body and her life.

I can see why she’d choose to impersonate Yuxuan, since it’s been clear for her to see, that everyone seems to gravitate towards Yuxuan, while Yunru, as herself, had been largely ignored. I can imagine that the temptation to hold onto that popularity would be very great.

This must have been the reason Yunru had been studying Yuxuan’s words and actions so closely, while in the house-tent.

Still, it feels wrong for her to pursue a romantic connection with Ziwei, while allowing him to believe that the person he’s with, is Yuxuan.

Also, it feels like there’s possibly going on between Yunru and Creepy Lil Bro? I mean, she’s actively avoiding him, like she knows exactly who he is. Does Yunru have access to Yuxuan’s latest memories from 2019, even though Yuxuan’s just acquired those memories?

Episode 12

Augh. So much conflicting emotion this episode; this is really the stuff that gets me invested in our characters.

This episode, I can’t help feeling sorry for Yunru, even though I, like Yuxuan, want her to stop lying to Ziwei. I mean, surely there must be some kind of urgency stemming from the new knowledge that he’s going to die by Creepy Psychologist’s hands, if nothing is done?

But, I suppose, in Yunru’s mind, that’s something that’s very far away, in 2019, and therefore, the urgency to tell him is.. relative? Plus, there’s the thing, where she now knows that she’s due to be killed on the even of the Lunar New Year. Surely that would be more urgent in her eyes, than Ziwei’s future murder?

The reason I feel sorry for Yunru, is that it must suck so bad, to have everyone – literally, everyone – in her world, express in one way or another, that they much prefer Yuxuan over her. That, they’d much rather she not revert to her old ways and her old self. What a horrible thing to learn.

And yet, I can’t blame the people around her, because of course they have no idea that they’re telling Yunru that they like someone else better than her; they think that they’re just telling her to stick with her more recent, brighter ways.

Also, given that Yunru is so desperate for Ziwei’s affection, I can understand her giving in to the temptation of pretending to be Yuxuan, in order to experience what it’s like, to receive his fondness and attention.

It’s hard to reason with your feelings, and I’d say that Yunru, being young and emotionally vulnerable, is understandably more swayed by her feelings than any rational argument, to do the right thing.

At the same time, I feel really bad for her, because she can’t enjoy her fantasy anyway. She has to keep asking herself what Yuxuan would do, in her position, at every moment. She can’t ever relax into her fantasy and just enjoy it as herself, because her own self isn’t good enough.

During every moment when Ziwei’s being nice and sweet to her, Yunru is acutely aware that it’s all for Yuxuan, and not for her. That’s really sad, honestly. 💔

One of the ideas that I found myself really drawn to, this episode, is how, if you really care about someone, you’d recognize their essence. We see it in both Junjie and Ziwei, who both separately realize that the girl whom they’ve been spending time with, is now no longer the same Yuxuan as before.

I still find myself asking the same question this time around, as during my first watch: Does Junjie really mean what he says, about having always believed that Yuxuan was a construct of Yunru’s imagination? That he’d played along, so that he could have a way to keep being friends with Ziwei?

I’m not sure, really. I feel like perhaps Junjie isn’t so sure himself, either. I find it hard to believe that he doesn’t believe the time-travel thing at all, so I’m guessing that he probably vacillates between the two way of thinking about things.

I also found it interesting, that even when Junjie realizes that the old Yunru is back, he doesn’t do anything to let on that he knows. He doesn’t try to connect with her more; he just continues to watch her from afar, like he’d used to do.

As for Ziwei, I felt really sorry for him, because his experience is kinda-sorta like Yunru’s, but from the opposite angle, if that makes sense.

He’s like Yuxuan for a while now, so to have “Yuxuan” suddenly express her feelings for him like this, and want to be close to him, holding his hand and kissing him, must be a thrill for him. And, it must be a thrill that’s big enough, that it’s hard for him to come to terms with the realization that this really isn’t the Yuxuan that he’d come to know and love.

And therefore, his journey to coming to terms with this realization, is quite a heartbreaking one. In admitting to himself that this isn’t Yuxuan, he also has to let go of the romantic thrills that he’d felt with “Yuxuan,” in the last little while. More importantly, he also has to admit to himself, that Yuxuan has left, and there’s no guarantee that he will ever see her again.

Oof. That’s gotta hurt. And Greg Hsu portrays that sense of loss and confusion impeccably. That scene, where Ziwei tells Junjie that he can’t stop missing Yuxuan even after hearing from Yunru that Yuxuan was never real, is just so full of heartbreaking, raw vulnerability, laced through with a deep sense of loss and confusion. So well done.

With Yunru coming to the conclusion that everyone in her world hates her, and that she, too, hates herself, I’m not entirely surprised that she might want to give up on life.

We’re not explicitly what the deal is between Yunru and Creepy-Psychiatrist-posing-as-Class-Monitor, but it seems like she maybe agrees to let him kill her..?

I mean, it looks like she’s meeting him at the site of the murder, willingly..? At least, he doesn’t actually have to kidnap her to bring her there..?

GAH. So nervous about what’s going to happen next.

Will Yunru survive this? And if she doesn’t, what happens to Yuxuan..? She’s still in Yunru’s head, in that house-tent?! 😱