Episode Summary
This episode was all about mothers. We had a disastrous blind date torpedoed by a "ghost," a marketing plan built on total lies, and the start of an all-out war between Mingzhu's biological and adoptive families. The final confrontation between the two grandmas was the explosion we've been waiting for.
Spoiler Alert
The Worst Blind Date Ever
A Match Made in the Divorce Line
So, Ni Dani's mom works at the Civil Affairs Bureau. An older couple, the Wus, comes in to get a divorce. It's not because they hate each other. They're just trying to scam the system for an extra apartment from a demolition deal.
Dani's mom learns their son is single. A lightbulb goes off in her head. She immediately decides this is the perfect guy for her daughter. You can already see where this is going.
The Ghost of Ni Debao
Dani's mom arranges a blind date at their house. She cooks a massive dinner and invites the son, Little Wu, over. Dani is not thrilled. She asks her friend Shen Mingzhu to come along as backup.
Little Wu walks in and the first thing he sees is a funeral portrait of Ni Debao. He just assumes the guy is dead. He meets Dani and is instantly smitten. He can't wait to get married. He even promises her a great life. His parents told him they'd give them a new apartment for every single kid they have.
Then, the man himself, Ni Debao, walks in uninvited.
Little Wu recognizes him from the portrait. He thinks he's seeing a ghost. The guy literally screams and runs for his life. It was perfect. Dani's mom, of course, is furious and blames the whole thing on Debao.
Mingzhu's Big Project
The Wedding Hotel
Shen Mingzhu is all business. She pitches an idea to her boss, Mr. Zhao. She wants to turn the Nanxi Hotel into a high-end, specialized wedding venue. He loves the idea. He puts her completely in charge of the project.
To get things started, she needs a promotional video. She gets her friend Dani to do her makeup. Mingzhu puts on a wedding dress and looks great for the camera.
A Complicated Alliance
Xu Zhixia sees Mingzhu's promo video on her social media feed. She immediately offers to help promote the hotel. She even suggests her own brother, Xu Zhidong, should have his wedding there.
This is where it gets messy. Zhixia asks Mingzhu to be nice to her parents, Yu Jingxiang and Xu Dacheng. You know, the same parents who are secretly Mingzhu's biological parents. Mingzhu doesn't know this yet, but Zhixia is trying to manage the situation.
Later, Mingzhu and Zhixia go for a prenatal check-up. They bump into Li Jingzhe. Zhixia, ever the networker, invites him to eat. She asks about his love life. He admits his girlfriend cheated on him, so they broke up. Zhixia immediately gets his contact info to set him up with someone new.
A War Between Mothers
Team Bio-Mom
Yu Jingxiang, Mingzhu's biological mother, gets the DNA test results. It's confirmed. She's desperate to connect with her daughter. Her husband, Xu Dacheng, warns her to keep it a secret from Zhixia for now.
Jingxiang goes into overdrive. She buys the freshest food for Mingzhu. She makes her son, Zhidong, a single boiled egg for breakfast, and he is not happy about it. She brings Mingzhu special roasted rice water to help with morning sickness. She just watches her with so much emotion. It's intense.
Team Adoptive-Family
Meanwhile, Mingzhu's adoptive family is also hovering. Her stepmom, He Lihua, makes a huge breakfast and tells her exactly what to eat. Her adoptive grandma, Yue Xiue, sees Jingxiang doting on Mingzhu from a distance. She is furious.
To make things worse, Mingzhu's biological dad, Xu Dacheng, brings fish to her adoptive dad, Shen Shengli. He's thanking him for getting his impounded motorcycle back. But we learn Shengli actually had to pay the 3,000 yuan fine himself to get it back. Shengli just takes the hit.
Yue Xiue is not having any of it. She sees Jingxiang giving Mingzhu eggs and loses her mind. She tells Shengli he needs to keep Jingxiang away. Yue Xiue vows she will make Jingxiang regret ever coming near their family.
A Marketing Plan Built on Lies
Xu Zhixia needs a good angle to promote the Nanxi Hotel. She decides to focus on Zhang Hao's family. Three generations of his family got married at that hotel. It sounds like a perfect story.
It is not a perfect story.
The interview with Grandma is a disaster. She says she was tricked into her marriage. Then Zhang Hao's mom comes out and starts flinging a wet sheet around, splashing water all over Grandma. Grandma gets angry and leaves.
So Zhixia tries to interview the mom. That's even worse. The mom complains that on her wedding day, her in-laws left without paying the bill. She and her new husband were held at the hotel until he could go get money.
The whole thing is a mess. Zhang Hao tells Zhixia to just make up a happy story. So she does. She writes a completely fake article about three generations of blissful marriages at the Nanxi Hotel. And of course, it works. The hotel is flooded with calls from happy couples.
The Showdown
Yu Jingxiang reads Zhixia's fake article. She immediately decides her son, Zhidong, will have his wedding at the Nanxi Hotel.
She goes to the hotel to tell Mingzhu the good news. She can't help but comment on how much Mingzhu looks like her son.
Just then, Yue Xiue storms in.
She starts screaming at Jingxiang. She tells Mingzhu to stay away from this woman. She yells that Jingxiang and her husband abandoned Mingzhu as a baby 30 years ago.
Jingxiang tries to defend herself. She claims it was all her own mother's fault. She says they never knew. She says her mother left an address and always planned to come back for Mingzhu once they had more money.
