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#I think WKX just stole my heart
chalkrevelations · 3 years
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Word of Honor Ep 5, and this is a lot of politicking. (Although not as much as there will be.)
Due diligence, first: If you are NEW or JUST VISITING, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep, but for the entire show. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch unspoiled.
Before we get to the politicking, let’s talk about what we’re really here for: Date Night For Our Pair Of Merciless Killers. I’m going float a theory about this episode. I’ve talked in previous rounds of this re-watch about how Wen Kexing’s thirst takes on a different dimension when we know his backstory and how he’s trying to get info about Siji Manor and confirm Zhou Zishu’s identity, as well as reacting to him as his one-time shixiong. I’m going to suggest that a lot of the sexual harassment in this particular episode – at least in the back half of it – is about diverting ZZS while he’s trying to figure out an op that WKX’s actual Ghosts were involved in. I think WKX is laying it on so thick here – constant come-ons and physical crowding and repeated attempts to touch ZZS that we repeatedly see ZZS step away from or actually push away - because he’s deliberately trying to make ZZS uncomfortable in order to distract him. More on this in a bit.
Re: the politicking. Straight-up, I’ll admit that I didn’t follow this aspect as close as I maybe ought to have on the first go ‘round because I was distracted by WKX’s thirst, just like ZZS is supposed to be (so, another point to you, show). I’m going to take this in basically chronological order to try to make sense of it: We open on Shenshen fighting Hao Tong and Lv Liu (ugh) to protect Ao Laizi, leader of Tai Shan sect, a lesser sect; the last two living Danyang Sect shidi; and the Danyang Glazed Armor. Shenshen chases Insufferable Grandma and Grandpa away but is kind of an asshole about wanting the Danyang Glazed Armor. He does a credible job of trying to maneuver them all into coming back to the Five Lakes Alliance at Zhao Jing’s place after Zhao Jing shows up with one of the Tai Shan disciples who ran to Sanbai Manor for help. Ao Laizi was not born yesterday and appears to outmaneuver him, although if you pay attention, Zhao Jing actually allows them to slip the snare. I have my suspicions that Zhao Jing wants the Danyang Glazed Armor to stay in the wind, where he’s less likely to be blamed once Ao Laizi gets knifed in the back and gets his newly acquired Glazed Armor took, which I’m assuming – knowing what I know about Awful Yifu from my previous watch – is the plan. This will end up being a big mistake for everyone involved. WKX then gets himself and ZZS invited to dinner at Sanbai Manor, where they get to sit at the head table with Chengling, Zhao Jing, Shenshen, and a dude representing Yueyang Sect, who is apparently Gao Chong’s favorite disciple, despite not being his head disciple, so you lose again, Deng Kuan, sorry. There’s a lot of ostentatious poetry quoting and bullshit toasting of each other at the head table, interrupting ZZS’s actual work of drinking. WKX attempts to feed ZZS by putting a prawn on his plate, which goes over about as well as you’d expect at this stage of their relationship, and which I now have to compare to the New Year’s dinner we’ll see in a later ep, at Siji Manor, which shows just how far their relationship comes. EVERYTHING about how awkward and uncomfortable this banquet is stands in stark contrast to that New Year’s dinner.
Cut to Mu Yunge – oh, this is the guy who was sitting in the back row of the cast during the WoH concert, when I couldn’t figure out who he was or why he was there instead of say, Wang Rong (Han Ying, my beloved …). We saw him earlier with the Five Lakes Alliance contingent that shows up to look vaguely horrified and tearful post-massacre at Mirror Lake. Now, he’s staggering along a deserted street after nightfall, running from Ghost Valley, who appear to be the legit deal this time, in the form of the Department of the Unfaithful. He runs into Ao Laizi and his charges (don’t they have a home to go to?), begging for help, before he gets yoinked away by a red banner that acts an awful lot like a tentacle. Ao Laizi goes running after him. BIG MISTAKE.
Back at the banquet, Shenshen appears to be disgracefully drunk (can none of these Five Lakes Alliance assholes hold their liquor? Damn.) and is busy berating Chengling about learning to drink like a man. There are a lot more weird sympathetic looks from WKX here, along with ZZS. Zhao Jing sends both Shenshen and Chengling to bed like 5-year-olds, and WKX takes advantage of his shameless persona to ask pointedly about the strapping young fellow who escorted ShenShen to bed (aka Song Huairen, Gao Chong’s favorite disciple from Yueyang Sect). There is literally no reason for WKX to need to know this, but it will help us, as the audience, to know it later. Cut to Song Huairen putting Shenshen to bed and leaving, and then we find out, surprise! Shenshen is not drunk! Is not sleeping! Is apparently going to get up and go skulk around secretly …. somewhere. Who knows? We don’t see him again until he has a chance to berate Zhao Jing, which is always a good time, even if Shenshen is insufferable. Pick your fighter, I guess. Back at the banquet again, we and WKX meet … oh. It’s This Guy, Yu Qiufeng, leader of Mount Hua Sect – remember this asshole, he’ll show up again, in various iterations – and his son, Tianjie. ZZS, meanwhile, wanders off, also acting disgracefully drunk, pretending to throw up in the bushes so the maids will leave him alone and he can drink in peace. I’m not sure why we act like WKX is the only shameless one in this marriage. Also, this is … actually not the last time he’ll resemble Shenshen in this episode, now that I think about it. Anyway, ZZS spots Yu Tianjie sneaking away suspiciously and follows him to some part of Sanbai where Tianjie sneaks in then chases out someone in dark robes with his face covered who looks suspiciously like Song Huairen, Gao Chong’s favorite disciple. The banquet gets interrupted by someone who sounds like Happy Ghost berating the Five Lakes Alliance, a maid comes screaming up the stairs, and we all rush out to discover Ao Laizi and two of his disciples, dead, hanging outside the front gate. This really is the worst party ever. Significantly, WKX takes a minute to look around the banquet hall, as if to see if anyone is eying him suspiciously. He does NOT follow everyone to the front gate, but instead ends up outside Chengling’s room when Chengling yells for his shifu because someone’s trying to get him. When they all run to Chengling’s room, WKX is faffing about outside, leisurely fanning himself and saying that surely that wasn’t Ghost Valley, because they were SUCH mediocre fighters and ran away the minute he started fighting. I JUST BET THEY DID.
OK, so, here’s the thing. Back in Ep 4, A-Xiang told Lovelace to take a message back from WKX to tell everyone to assemble at Sanbai Manor. I’m thinking that this time, this is actual Ghost Valley, that they grabbed Mu Yunge essentially as bait to get Ao Laizi, and then killed Ao Laizi and took the Danyang Glazed Armor, so that Ghost Valley is actually IN POSSESSION of a piece of the Glazed Armor, finally. They also, in the process, stole it out from under Zhao Jing’s nose, taking away his chance to have (probably) Xie’er go after Ao Laizi and get it. Ghost Valley then hung Ao Laizi at the gate and presumably menaced Chengling, either as a distraction or to make WKX look good or both.
So, we get Chengling back in bed and see ZZS tell him to go to sleep and not to cry because men don’t cry – thanks, Shenshen. I’ll be sure to remember that when you figuratively stab me in the HEART with your sad little face and crystalline tears later in the show. ZZS has a flashback to telling baby Qin Jiuxiao at Siji Manor basically the same thing, and I’m wondering if this is following Qin Huaizhang’s death? I don’t know, I don’t think we get enough info. ZZS then sneaks onto the roof to listen to Shenshen berate Zhao Jing, who supposedly discovered he had his own piece of Glazed Armor stolen during this ruckus. NOW, LISTEN. Was the dark-robed figure chased by Yu Tianjie actually Xie’er, “stealing” Zhao Jing’s Glazed Armor? Because we know, later, Xie’er wears the Tai Hu Glazed Armor as a necklace. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through, to make him actually “steal” it, when you could just give it to him and act like it was stolen, but Zhao Jing also didn’t know (I think?) that ACTUAL Ghost Valley was going to show up and create a convenient ruckus and an obvious scapegoat to pin the theft on. This is also where I’m unsure about which particular faction scared the shit out of Chengling. I’m assuming it’s actual Ghost Valley, who were “conveniently” driven off by WKX, because also in Ep 4, the Scorpions were told to assemble at Yueyang, not Sanbai Manor, and will make their kidnap attempt there in a later episode.
Anyway, we’re finally back to Date Night For the Merciless Killers, and ZZS chases WKX through the treetops, set to a romantic tune, until they arrive at what will turn out to be a crime scene, where WKX stops ZZS from walking into some Hanged Ghost-style Soul Winding Threads. ZZS remarks this must be the “real” Hanged Ghost, unlike the one at Mirror Lake, because A-Xiang wouldn’t have been able to kill the REAL Hanged Ghost. (SO CLOSE, my friend, but we know that the real Hanged Ghost got got in Ep 1. Although whoever was at Mirror Lake did have access to Soul Winding Threads, as Shenshen and his group discovered them.) At this point, WKX wants to know if ZZS is afraid of ghosts because he’s a VIRGIN, hahaha? He also starts getting up on ZZS, who walks away to continue his investigation of the tree with the Soul Winding Threads. Blood drips from a corpse in the tree down onto ZZS’s sleeve, and ZZS comments that blood “disgusts” him; I think there may be some significance to this word choice, as it correlates to his past breakdown over his work in Tian Chuang and his reaction to the deaths of the Four Sages of Anji - this is the metaphorical blood on people’s hands, including his own, literalized. Anyway, at this point, WKX cuts ZZS’s sleeve. I mean. :hands: He also tries to joke and bet about the identity of the corpse in the tree, who turns out to be Yu Tianjie. ZZS once again will not be diverted and keeps investigating this crime scene like the most devoted Fantasy Ancient China CSI ever. WKX rushes after him, saying that HE’s afraid of ghosts (implying that HE’s a virgin?) and getting right up on ZZS, enough so that ZZS physically pushes him away, as they reach a second body on the ground. Dark-robed, masked, turns out to be Song Huairen, Gao Chong’s (former) favorite disciple, who ZZS theorizes is the traitor who was after the Tai Hu Glazed Armor. There’s a repeated pattern here of WKX really pushing the sexual harassment and other diversionary tactics every time ZZS is working to figure out a piece of this puzzle, which might take him too close to WKX, up until the point when ZZS advances a theory that points away from WKX. ZZS is clearly working his way toward WKX, though, even with some of the wrong turns he’s making. The last thing we do in this ep is move on to the Zhao Coffin Home, where they encounter the Drunk Like a Dream incense and the Drug Men. On entering the place, ZZS pulls WKX back from more Soul Winding Threads, but he then pulls away when WKX tries to put a hand on his shoulder. WKX asks ZZS who he is, again, and it sounds like this time he’s asking more than what the face under the mask looks like. ZZS responds by asking WKX who HE is, and the way he says it – this is where I really begin to think he’s getting suspicious. You can see the wheels turning.
Final observation:
We get two SUPER SIGNIFICANT things at the end of this ep: There’s what I think is the first use of “Lao Wen,” shouted by ZZS in warning when WKX is wandering around high and the Drug Men show up. And WKX calls ZZS “Zhou Zishu” – not Zhou Xu – when he complains about being made to drink the Drunk Like A Dream antidote. ZZS notices.
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iruze · 3 years
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After much debate and witnessing its rising popularity, I decided to give 'Word of Honor' a try. Although it has been only 2 episodes, it's too early for me to say anything. I will patiently wait and watch the drama to fall in love with it.
But one thing is clear: everybody seems to adore Wen Kexing and I can see the reason why.
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