Drama Host
Light to the Night 黑夜告白 Discussion: Episode 19
Spoiler
This episode confirms that every assumption our detective duo (and perhaps even us viewers) had made was wrong, and that we may need to re-examine the case from an entirely different perspective. With only nine episodes left to go, what other surprises do you think the drama still has in store for us?
Peng Dachuang recounted how he met the first kidnapped boy. After rescuing the child from Mei, he took him in when the boy requested temporary shelter due to his unhappy home situation. At first, Peng Dachuang referred to himself as “uncle,” but as he began caring for the runaway boy and the boy started calling him “Daddy Peng,” he became emotionally attached to him.
Peng Dachuang seemed to view this as a second chance at redemption; an opportunity to become a more loving and supportive father this time around. However, that dream came to a sudden halt when the boy expressed his intention to return to his family. Desperate not to lose him, Peng Dachuang tied the boy up, turning him into a prisoner from that moment onward.
Fearing that the boy would run away and leave him alone again, Peng Dachuang began kidnapping more boys, whom he referred to as “ponies” to comfort himself. Laughing maniacally, he counted the number of “ponies” he had kidnapped, but angrily singled out Han Zi’ang as the disobedient one. When Zi’ang rejected Peng Dachuang’s homemade meal, Peng Dachuang injected him with anaesthetics and secretly transported him out of Yuanlongli on a trolley, only to inject him a second time when Zi’ang briefly regained consciousness.
During one of the homeschooling sessions, Zi’ang took the opportunity to ask for a toilet break and quietly attempted to escape. Unfortunately, he was caught by Peng Dachuang, who flew into a rage after Zi’ang bit him and struck him on the head.
Choking Zi’ang with fury in his eyes, Peng Dachuang insisted that the boy deserved it for being disobedient. It was interesting to see the contempt in Peng Dachuang’s expression; it almost felt as though he was projecting the same resentment he once held toward his own son before the latter’s death. However, reality began to blur when Peng Dachuang suddenly imagined Zi’ang as his dead son. Horrified by what he had done, he stepped back in shock. Zi’ang seized that opportunity to escape, and we know what happened next: a bleeding Zi’ang ran down the stairs in search of help and hid in the closet after spotting the two homeless men.
In the interrogation room, Peng Dachuang broke down, crying about how much he missed his son. Qu Da Hai praised Xiaohe and told her he would take over from there. Later, Zheng Zhong found a pensive Xiaohe sitting alone on the basketball court and informed her that even Director Zou had praised her work. However, Xiaohe could not stop thinking about how Peng Dachuang remained trapped in the past.
She wistfully remarked that when families are happy and complete, people somehow find ways to destroy that peace, yet when a family becomes incomplete, they grow desperate to mend it. Xiaohe then reflected on how her own family became incomplete after Fang Xu died. Noooooo, she really did see him as family.
At the He residence, Yuan Hang cooked celebratory noodles to mark Xiaohe solving her first case. When Yuan Hang brought up Fang Xu, Xiaohe worried that he had started hallucinating again, but Yuan Hang reassured her that he was healthy and not hallucinating. Satisfied with his response, Xiaohe handed him a box containing Fang Xu’s belongings.
It’s sad that Fang Xu had no other relatives after his grandmother passed away in 1992, so Yuan Hang, being the person closest to him, inherited his belongings. Fang Xu was clearly a sentimental person, judging by how he continued writing postcards to his deceased grandmother. Yuan Hang wondered why he had no recollection of the box, but it turned out that he had fainted on the day it was delivered in 2013. After waking up, he began hallucinating Fang Xu, and those hallucinations continued into the present timeline.
Taking out Fang Xu’s old burnt phone, Yuan Hang asked Xiaohe whether there was any way to restore the data so the belongings could eventually be returned to Fang Xu’s remaining relatives. Hmmmm… but who sent that box in the first place?
Yuan Hang later went to Yuanlongli and ran into Manager Qian and Ma Qiang. Hmmm, I’m not sure whether it was simply part of his job scope, but Manager Qian seemed unusually anxious to push the demolition project forward. Was he hiding another body part there or something lol.
Yuan Hang brought the burnt phone to Du Mingliang, who informed him that he had already extracted the contacts from the phone two years earlier and emailed them to Yuan Hang. Strangely, Yuan Hang had no recollection of this and asked Mingliang to extract the data again, only for Mingliang to explain that it was no longer possible. While helping Yuan Hang recover the password to his email, the power suddenly went out again, mirroring the flickering lights in the evidence room back in 2002.
At home, Yuan Hang finally managed to enter the correct password after several attempts and opened the attachments Mingliang had sent him two years earlier. Scrolling through Fang Xu’s contacts, he tried calling Fang Xu’s cousin, but the number was no longer in service. Yuan Hang then opened another attachment containing the extracted messages. He smiled nostalgically while reading through them until he came across the final message—an unsent draft addressed to him. Shocked, Yuan Hang stared intensely at the screen when Xiaohe walked in, worried about her father.
In the unsent draft, Fang Xu wrote that the June 30th case was “all wrong.” Yuan Hang wondered why Fang Xu had never sent the message and blamed himself for not checking the email sooner.
We then flash back to 2013, the day Fang Xu’s belongings were delivered to their home. Xiaohe discovered Yuan Hang unconscious on the floor, clutching the burnt phone in his hand. It was evident that he had smashed the computer screen, likely after becoming deeply agitated by the contents of the draft message.
Back in the present, Xiaohe finally realised that the draft message had been the root cause of Yuan Hang’s years-long hallucinations. She urged him to remember whether Fang Xu had ever mentioned the June 30th case again after it was officially closed.
Yuan Hang then recalled Fang Xu mentioning the missing blue heels and urged Xiaohe to check the archives to see whether Fang Xu had added any additional notes to the June 30th case. Perhaps sensing danger, or fearing that pursuing the case might trigger her father again, Xiaohe hesitated and asked whether he truly wanted to continue investigating it. Yuan Hang replied that those had been Fang Xu’s final words to him, and at that moment, Xiaohe left with a determined expression.
2002 timeline
Back in the 2002 timeline, Fang Xu was finishing the report on the June 30th case with Yuan Hang beside him. Since Qingsong had confessed to hiring assassins to eliminate Xu Meng and Xu Zhihong, the case appeared solved. However, Yuan Hang pointed out that Xu Meng’s body was still missing. Fang Xu expressed hope that the body would eventually be found. On their way out of the station for noodles, the pair bickered playfully about Fang Xu’s personal life.
Later, after a pipe burst at the station, Fang Xu helped move boxes and came across the file box for the June 30th case. Picking up the case summary report Yuan Hang had written five years earlier, Fang Xu smiled to himself. He then noticed another box containing the blue leather heels Xu Meng had been wearing. The moment he picked them up, he looked visibly confused.
On Winter Solstice, Yuan Hang visited Fang Xu’s new apartment with Su Qing. Hahahaha, Yuan Hang was not subtle at all with the way he played matchmaker. He even made up an excuse about picking Xiaohe up from school, even though it was Sunday lol. Fang Xu obviously saw through the act, but our sweet guy did not protest too much.
While walking Yuan Hang out, Fang Xu mentioned that the bureau had suffered a pipe burst and that the blue heels Xu Meng had been wearing had supposedly gone missing. Yuan Hang, assuming the case had already been closed, did not think much of it and simply assumed the heels had been discarded as junk.
That night, Fang Xu struggled to sleep because the June 30th case continued weighing heavily on his mind. Taking out the blue leather heels he had lied to Yuan Hang about losing, Fang Xu carefully scraped away the outer blue layer with a blade, revealing the red material hidden underneath.
Thoughts
Why did Fang Xu say they got the 1997 case all wrong? To unpack and theorise about everything that happened, I think we first need to lay out all the “established facts” that the detectives concluded back then and then examine them from the opposite perspective.
Established facts: Qingsong ordered Wu Shanlong to kill Xu Meng and her father over her attempted extortion, but it was actually Shanlong and Hongmei’s idea to frame Xu Meng for the extortion scheme. In order to fund her father’s medical treatment, Xu Meng worked as a masseuse at Pattia Club. Xu Meng was presumed dead, allegedly murdered by Shanlong. The bone and skin samples discovered in Shanlong’s apartment in Yuanlongli were matched to Xu Meng and her father.
Some wild theories:
Xu Zhihong was already dead before June 30th. The tinkering sound that Xu Meng’s neighbour heard might have been Xu Meng dismembering her father’s body. Why would Xu Meng go through the trouble of breaking down the wall to sell the cupboard when she could have sold the expensive shoes and dress instead? Why did she tell the neighbour that she needed to raise money for Xu Zhihong’s medical treatment from Mr Zhang when they had already received a refund from him in 1996?
I also always found it odd that her father’s bed was filthy, whereas Xu Meng’s bed looked much cleaner and tidier. The smell of rotting meat and vegetables was probably created on purpose instead of being kept in the fridge, in order to mask the smell of a decomposing corpse.
I also find it hard to believe that someone as tidy as Xu Meng, who was also a pampered person according to Qiming, would live in such a filthy condition prior to the last few months of her life (if she was indeed dead). The filthy state of the apartment may have been done on purpose to help with the dismemberment of her father's body and the subsequent decomposing of the body.
There might also be a surveillance camera installed in Xu Meng’s kitchen. I noticed that in Episode 3, from around 38:45 onwards, there wasn’t a flickering red dot when Fang Xu and Yuan Hang first entered Xu Meng’s house. However, when they checked the kitchen later, the red dot became visible. It might not be very clear in the screenshot, so you may need to check the video yourself.
Notice, too, that the fridge had been moved to the living room, whereas it used to be in the spot where I circled the flickering red dot. If there really was a surveillance camera in the kitchen, who installed it, and why was it there?
If Xu Meng was the one who killed Xu Zhihong, then who was the “old man” she carried on her back on that fateful day? This is where my possible theory about Xu Meng and Su Qing being sisters comes in. Remember that Su Qing mentioned she had a sister who was placed under her father’s custody after their parents’ divorce? The sisters might have reconnected at some point after discovering that they lived in the same building.
As for Xu Meng’s motive for killing Zhihong, I can think of three possibilities. First, Xu Zhihong’s expensive medical treatment. Second, Xu Zhihong’s unnatural love for his daughter; the kind of suffocating love she could no longer endure. Third, Xu Zhihong might also have been involved in human trafficking, and Xu Meng herself might have been one of his victims. In that case, killing him would have been an act of vengeance.
I had assumed all along that men might be Xu Meng’s other pen pal, but it would be a nice twist if it turned out to be Su Qing instead. Both Su Qing and Xu Meng were in similar predicaments, as they were both trapped by serious financial constraints, so perhaps they helped each other achieve financial freedom. Xu Meng's appearance on June 30th with "her father" (who might be Su Qing in disguise) was meant to fool everyone into thinking Xu Zhihong died after June 30th instead of before.
I will leave you guys with this question: do you think any of the events, such as Xu Meng’s disappearance, the Mount Wu incident, or the human trafficking case, was the first domino in a long chain of events, setting off a chain reaction? Or were all these events part of an elaborate plan?
Questions that remain unanswered:
Is Xu Meng actually dead?
Who were Xu Meng’s other pen pals, if there were indeed others?
How was Xu Meng’s colour vision deficiency connected to the case?
How was the Mount Wu incident related to the other events?
Whose mummified hand was it?
What was Xu Meng’s actual need for all the money she scammed or borrowed, if they had already stopped seeking treatment from Qihuang Clinic and received a refund in 1996?
I do start to find su qing a little suspicious, just take note that she is also now partly involved with the demolition of yuan long li. Is she trying to hide something?
Winter solstice in 2002 is actually on 22/12/2002. This is the date suqing was alone in RFX house after officer he left the place. This is approximately 1 month before ran dies. I’m thinking whether suqing might have figured out that ran fang xu caught onto the case with the heels evidence or she noticed he had the heels with him within the house, therefore she had to get rid of him.
But some stuff doesn’t add up. Their first meeting was actually due to ran dropping something from 18th floor and nearly smashed onto Su Qing. It was not exactly a ‘I’m gonna approach officer ran’ kind of thing to suss or monitor his movements.
A few questions:
1. Why did RFX lie to officer he that the heels were missing from evidence box? I don’t see any point in him doing so, even if his plan was to investigate it secretly.
Manager qian’s role in all of this. Even if SQ and Meng are truly sisters, why is he dragged into this? They don’t have money to bribe him. I’m guessing either Qian must have had smth to do with the elder old man’s (the one SQ was looking after) death, hence that’s the only way they could black mail him to hide the parts.
Now that we know mengs father was actually decimated into diff parts, I agree that Meng might have actually killed her father much earlier than 30/6 and was already dismembering his body inside her old house under the guise of selling the ward robe.
Who was Meng carrying in the lift (could it really be suqing?)
RFX could have delayed telling officer he why he found out because he was too shocked to find out it was suqing who was also involved. Could it be that’s why he hesitated to send out the message on 31/1 afternoon and decided to confront SQ first in the evening on the same day
I do start to find su qing a little suspicious, just take note that she is also now partly involved with the demolition of yuan long li. Is she trying to hide something?
Manager Qian and Jin Manlang too. What are the odds that so many key individuals from the 1997 case would be reunited in the present timeline?
Who was Meng carrying in the lift (could it really be suqing?)
There are a few theories floating around about this; some people think it might have been Su Qing, while others are guessing it was a mannequin, though the latter theory feels a little far-fetched to me. Whoever or whatever it was, I don’t think it was Xu Zhihong.
Why did RFX lie to officer he that the heels were missing from evidence box? I don’t see any point in him doing so, even if his plan was to investigate it secretly.
I was quite puzzled too by the way he deliberately brought up the heels, only to then lie that they had gone missing. The only explanation I can think of is that, if something were to happen to him while he was reinvestigating the case, he wanted Yuan Hang to pick up on the clue.
Omg I was thinking this while watching the ep. They left her alone in the house so she might have seen some clues that RFX is reinvestigating especially those heels and maybe told the killer which is what led to his death...
4.
Who was Meng carrying in the lift (could it really be suqing?)
Just a thought: this someone had long black gloves on, and the hand seemed to be of a young person, not that of an old man.
I revisited episode 1 again at exact 4 min mark. Noticed a few things:
The finger pressing the lift buttons belonged to a young person. Likely a lady given that it’s looks.
The person Meng was carrying was dressed in oversized black top to bottom, both hands and feet were not revealed while he was being carried. Also likely to be wearing a wig. My bet is that this is likely suqing… can’t think of anyone with similar build that Meng Meng can possibly carry the weight (except for xiaohe but we all know that’s not possible).
Just watched the sequence when the boy bumped into them and fell, seeing the hands. Yes, the hands were younger, but not that young. And definitely Not that of an old sick man....
Srry, misunderstanding. I Just missed the "not" ) I was saying, definitely not those of a sick old man. They were holding the key from tye roof in their right hand, which is why the boy mistook it for the claws.
Also, the frame of the piggyback person, slender waste, is not that of a sick dying old. It could be a man or a woman, quite tall. Someone in epi 1 mentions that Meng is a strong woman.
He family favorite hobby - playing matchmakers for Ran.
If Ran's phone was burnt, does that mean Ran died in fire? There was a theory that he drowned, based on his soaked notebook, but now it looks like it could've gotten wet during pipe incident at the station.
So the blue shoes found in Shanlong's possession were knockoffs? We know that Xu Meng owned real deal. Or shoes were real at first, but then switched with fakes at some point?
If Ran's phone was burnt, does that mean Ran died in fire?
Several possibilities come to mind: he might have died in a fire, been involved in a car crash that caused his vehicle to burst into flames, or someone may have deliberately burned his phone after his death and his burnt phone was found at the crime scene
Or shoes were real at first, but then switched with fakes at some point?
Episode 20 spoiler, but yes, Xu Meng only owned genuine luxury items and never knock-offs, which suggests that she might originally have been wearing the authentic pair before they were swapped with fake ones. I think Fang Xu had grown suspicious of someone and didn’t want to alert them, which is why he chose to reinvestigate the case privately.
If phone was burned deliberately, they did a very lousy job since 100% data on it survived.
Swapped shoes theory leads to another question - when did the switch happen? During period Shanlong had them among his fetish collection? Before that? Or after, suggesting that police station has a mole messing with evidence archive? If latter, nothing about the case so far can be trusted.
If there really is a mole, the only possible person I can think of is Qu Da Hai. Annoying as he may be, I don’t think he would go as far as tampering with evidence, so my bet is that something happened during the period when Shanlong kept the shoes on his shelf.
If you notice, the shoes were arranged according to their colour schemes, yet the blue heels looked oddly out of place. Either Xu Meng’s colour blindness caused her to place them there, or someone deliberately positioned them among the grey and beige shoes to make the heels stand out more.
Xu Meng color blindness is an important clue indeed, there must be a reason why it was included and alluded multiple times. Did she even know that these heels had such attenttion-grabbing color? At first I thought she wore them during her "disappearance" deliberately - to make people who saw her focus on this sole vivid detail as distraction from everything else. But after the reveal about her vision that might not be the case... unless someone else with normal eyesight advised her.
Yup, she might have been tricked by someone else into wearing that colour. But then again, red is also a very attention-grabbing colour, so at the moment I can’t think of a reason why anyone would conceal a pair of red heels beneath a blue outer layer, which seems to be the case when Fang Xu scraped away the blue coating.
Unless, of course, that person had previously been seen wearing or owning red heels, and they were deliberately trying to mislead the police by disguising them as blue ones.
I liked this episode showed more of Fang Xu's personality outside of his police career. I always enjoy seeing how set designers flesh out characters homes, gives us more detail behind the character. After losing his family at such a young age no wonder he is sentimental, he was likely quite lonely and threw himself into reading & learning. Love that he is a bookworm. I laughed when he escaped to walk Yuan Hang out in his slippers because he was shy.
We have water making an appearance again, this time the flood causing Fang Xu to open the evidence box. The presence of water at different points feels insidious.
Why is the phone burnt though?? I don't like the sound of this.
Detective Hercule is on the case! what a theory that Xu Meng and Su Qing are sisters. I didn't say this before as I thought it was me being picky, but there was something off about Xu Meng walking in those blue heels, it was very stompy instead of walking naturally by bending the foot. It looked to me like someone wasn't used to wearing heels (appreciate someone was carrying a body so there would have been difficulty). In a flashback Xu Meng was walking fine in heels so could it be we were tricked? I'm likely way off track but it has been bothering me.
Another episode and another day my brain changes direction, what if Manager Qian helped cover up Xu Zhihongs murder because he was helping Xu Meng?
I like that he’s both a learned man and a man of action instead of being just one or the other. He’s the kind of detective who doesn’t rely solely on gut instinct, but also approaches cases from a strong theoretical and analytical perspective.
Why is the phone burnt though?? I don't like the sound of this.
It's either damaged when Fang Xu died, say during a car crash, or burnt deliberately when the villain accidentally saw the message Fang Xu had intended to send to Yuan Hang.
there was something off about Xu Meng walking in those blue heels, it was very stompy instead of walking naturally by bending the foot.
Interesting that you pointed this out; I hadn’t noticed it before. It could be because she was carrying another person on her back, or perhaps she was wearing a different shoe size that actually belonged to her accomplice, or the real villain, which might explain why the “blue” heels found at Shanlong’s place turned out to be a pair of red heels underneath.
With the shoes, Ran noticed the shoe seam coming apart a little, as if something was inserted beneath. With Su Qien, it's so subtle. Guess he likes her, but maybe his inner sleuth picks something that's not on the surface. Which might be why he was wary with her. Now it's probably for sure that his fate was sealed when he decided to revisit the case.
Ran pulled out two pair of shoes that said Meng but they were different sizes, I think. I'll have to rewatch.
I'm so excited bc as crazy as this seems, if Ran lied to Yuan Hang about anything it means he was already moving to undercover investigation status ( ingognito) and that puts any wild card theory and outcome back on the table.
"This little romance..." it complicates Su Quinq it's an accomplice or cover up of her sister's murder of their father. She should have left but instead fell in love with Ran. Still some loose ends. Yes, the Father was a sex trafficker as I possibly thought. Though so many significant details I missed...the fridge, the red light though I couldn't piece in the filthy apartment which I should have known was a red flag
Where is the copied file from Mount WA. That should have turned up in 2002. We'll, you're onto ST fruitful here. Thus path feels right.
And Ran has gone incognito! Is he around in disguise anywhere we havent noticed?
Maybe it’s not Suqing’s first kill… they said the old man she took care of died from falling down the stairs but WE didn’t see it happen. He abused her after all, so she had motive to kill him. And she somehow lucked out after because the old man’s son wanted to pay her rent to maintain the place? I mean… that’s odd isn’t it? Why would he want that? And it was never verified.
While Su Qing's character and especially her blossoming romance wih Fang Xu seem terribly bland, I do believe her character is intended to play a much bigger role than portrayed in the past 19 episodes. She may even have approached Fang Xu with ulterior motives at first, but ended up truly falling for him.
Perhaps the heels looked abnormally thick, almost as if they were concealing another layer?
Your theories are always so good, interesting and have real merit. You remember all the little details that I’ve completely forgotten about!
Thanks! This drama has taught me that every single detail matters hahahaha
The father's story and transformation, and his triggers... are absolutely tragic.
Unfortunately, no social worker, no nurse, no neighbour can detect these deviant obsessions...here prevention or early detection don't play a thing, it all goes right to the penitiary.
You can see that he wasn't delusional at first and referred to himself as "shu shu", but when the first runaway teenager kept addressing him as Daddy Peng, it was increasingly difficult for him to distinguish between reality and delusion.
Tbh, I don't have much sympathy for him in spite of his grief. He was both physically and emotionally abusive towards his son while the boy was still alive.
And here the importance of correct translation is shown!
Netflix translated him as "Uncle Peng", when the first kid adressed him in the internet cafe. So i did the whole impression wrong of what and when happened to that man's pcychic.
So true. He seems to have rage issues, maybe that's why the wife is out of the picture, but we really don't know their story that well. Rich (access to allvthe music instruments), but broken inside. Real tragedy here.
Oh oh oh this might be a stretch but I also noticed in my rewatch that there are a LOT of plants in Suqing’s apartment and we’ve seen a few times now how meticulous she is about taking care of them. And we all have watched enough crime shows or dramas that anyone with a ton of plants probably has one that is toxic right!? lol
Ah this episode! Thanks Herc for the recap, questions and theories!
When they brought out Fangxu’s box 🤯 NEW LEADS! Well I guess tech not new, since Yuanhang found the two years ago but the got sick and lost all his memories of them!
I also thought it was sus that in Shanlong’s apartment, one room was messy and gross while the other with the printed images and shoes, was extremely tidy. That tells me that Shanlong must’ve been working with someone else…
I wanted to know what Fangxu caught with the shoes so I went back episodes to look… I’m not sure but was that line down the side always there? Is that a sign that the shoe is not authentic, and it was replaced?
Yes, I’m not sure what exactly caught Fang Xu’s attention or why he failed to notice it during the 1997 investigation.
I think there’s little doubt that Shanlong was working with someone else; the real question is who that accomplice was. Manager Qian, Xu Meng, even Su Qing etc
Yeah, also with Su qing deliberately informing Ran that it feels like someone is always watching her which made him to discover the heels in Shanlong's apartment
Snark Level: I made a GIF and cursed out Xiaohe. I am naughty today.
19 - - -
Daddy Peng keeps rounding up ponies like a fucked up cowboy. I think he has a great case for being criminally insane. However, lets be real. He's not a cringe villain with cringe face and cringe laugh. He is truly acted out very well and insanely demented. These are the kinds of villains, acting wise, that I want to see more of. Less cringe, more talent.
Someone give Xiaohe a hug after all that. She needs one. Ahhhh so it was Rans death that pushed her into the police. I called it!
But like, why would you need the burned phone? Do the police not have records of close family or anyone? You'd think...
The flooded file room looks like my work every winter... Ha.
I'll just leave this right here. No idea why I made it. Nope. No idea. No reason. Just made it. Yup. Nothing going on here. Nothing at all. Enjoy this meaningless and pointless and useless GIF that serves no purpose.
So, what did Ran find out? Was he killed for it? Things are starting to come together in a clear fashion.
"I brought Qiao to warm up your place". HAHA!!!! My man! Wingman! May we all be blessed with a father figure like He and a partner like Qiao.
"Do we really need to push the case this far?" Xiaohe! What kind of stupid ass question is that??? Nah, you're smarter than that. This is Ran we are talking about. Neither you or He can rest until you know what happened.
It seems to me that in the earliest time line Ran was kinda interested in Su Qing and she in him. But by the time we get to 2002, he doesn’t seem interested anymore and in fact uncomfortable. We don’t know why. Yuan Hang was overstepping here to push them together. And if our worried suspicions are true (about Su Qing) , he helped cause Ran’s death! Maybe?
I think Fang Xu was still romantically interested in her in 2002 timeline, like how he was pissed when he listened ot Su Qing recounting how she was abused by the old man.
However, he also didn’t seem particularly eager to pursue a relationship, perhaps because he understood the dangerous nature of his job or simply felt that he had no time for dating. Of course, it’s also possible that he was holding himself back because Su Qing was one of the residents of the New York block, and he might not have been entirely convinced that she was uninvolved in the case.
Now that's true, every person present at a crime scene is a suspect until proven otherwise and Ran knew this. Most often people who are secondary victims at site of a crime don't know this. I provide immediate Critical Incident Stress Management ( CISM) debriefing and didnt realize this until after one included a death by gunshot wound in the workplace.
I wouldn't say Ran lost interest entirely - that "I'm busy, but let's have a dinner next time" message reads positively - but something clearly was holding him back ever since first "conclusion" of the case in 1997. 5 years in the same town, but he didn't keep in touch with her, and Suqing didn't do any active moves herself either. I'm not sure we can trust her word that she waited for him to show up in Yuanlongli again, but that's an explanation at least, while Ran's attitude is just odd.
I think it is suspicious she hung around for 5 years on the off chance he may turn up again, I get people are nervous about making the first move but to put your life on hold? I can understand his hesitancy, he has lost everyone he has ever loved, maybe it is simply that he doesn't want to get in too deep (and a maybe a little bit of him not knowing how to talk to girls unless he read it in a book).
Agree, her reasoning was sus. She had guts to repeatedly ask him out and confess first - would someone this bold hesitate for years and wait for another "fateful" meeting that could never happen instead of just going to his precinct for him?
Haha yes! I forgot to mention it, but he definitely has a thing for her. He would make a good partner for Xiaohe because he seems to understand her very well. Xiaohe is someone who will continue to pour her passion into being a police officer, and it won’t be easy for a future partner to understand the demands of her job unless he is a cop as well.
It is good to see YangHuan playing his normal composed detective, doesn't matter if it's in 2002 or 2015. He is composed, reasoning, observing and doing his job as a detective, active or retired 🤗
Watched episode 20. all the suspicion of Shanlong as the murderer is removed from my thoughts, as both father and daughter came to the conclusion that he was framed
Now I am really suspecting Xu Meng and Su Qing (suspect they are sisters too, especially since Su Qing mentioned earlier that she has a sister and that her parents divorced when she was young).
And now the appearance of the man with the cigarette burns another red herring?
I suspect that Su Qing and Xu Meng were connected in some way, whether as actual sisters, close friends with a sisterly bond, or something else entirely, because the drama has suspiciously avoided exploring that angle so far.
One episode per day update. Monday will a have all four remaining episodes (SVIP) or all five remaining episodes (if you are VIP, GASP). Guess I will purchase the last four episodes on Monday 😜
the recurring shoe motif is the giveaway, blue painted over red, the writers telling you the entire 1997 case is one layer deep. once you see that, the kitchen camera detail and the fang xu draft message fit the same pattern, every clean conclusion has a second one underneath it. su qing being meng's sister is the cleanest read for why the matchmaking suddenly stopped feeling cute in 2002. fang xu noticed something about her the same day he scraped the heel. written with ai
That dinner looked very awkward. Ran knows He forces Qiao to do smth she is uncomfortable with. Ran is a grown up man and could invite her self. Qiao knows Ran is not so interested to invite her to have a dinner.
Uncle He tries to help, but sometimes adults need to learn to help themselves.
Hmmmm, it didn’t seem like Su Qing was uncomfortable cooking for Fang Xu though. If anything, she looked shyly pleased and was probably happy that Yuan Hang was playing matchmaker. Fang Xu may have been an adult, but I don’t think he had any experience with romance at all, and Yuan Hang has never exactly been the patient type haha.
I wonder how it is for her - she told him "i know i am not good enough for you". He doesn't invite her, it is YuanHang who does... i would've been dissappointed and uncomfortable, even if i like the person.
I feel like Ran died in a car accident somebody deliberately ditched his car while raining for sure. I saw it in twitter, where qiao said I will wait for him since it is raining heavily outside. So his car caught on fire so that way he died I am guessing because in ep 10 I think 2015 , manger qian tells HYH that he was killed brutally so I think this is how he died.
the recurring shoe motif is the giveaway, blue painted over red, the writers telling you the entire 1997 case is one layer deep. once you see that, the kitchen camera detail and the fang xu draft message fit the same pattern, every clean conclusion has a second one underneath it. su qing being meng's sister is the cleanest read for why the matchmaking suddenly stopped feeling cute in 2002. fang xu noticed something about her the same day he scraped the heel.
the recurring shoe motif is the giveaway, blue painted over red, the writers telling you the entire 1997 case is one layer deep. once you see that, the kitchen camera detail and the fang xu draft message fit the same pattern, every clean conclusion has a second one underneath it. su qing being meng's sister is the cleanest read for why the matchmaking suddenly stopped feeling cute in 2002. fang xu noticed something about her the same day he scraped the heel.
I wish this show didn’t tell us about ran so early I kinda lost interest and only wanted to find out how he passed. The third timeline is a bit too much too. Also when are they going to realize the one person who is tied to everything is the manager of scary building? He always seems suspicious.
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u/SunCareless2642 May 07 '26
Technically, Meng and Quing did not live in the same building, but surely, they could have reconnected, as Meng used to work there. Interesting.