*Episode premise spoilers.*
Unsurprisingly, things are getting tangled again for Zhang Wuji. But this time around, it’s less about physical danger and more about emotional harm. His past is colliding in all kinds of surprising ways, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
Despite her prickliness, Zhang Wuji’s companion Ugly (who reveals her real name to be Zhu’er) proves incredibly loyal very quickly. Wuji is rather without friends in the world at the moment, so he offers her loyalty in return. But things get complicated after a run-in with the righteous sects, still on their way to fight Ming. Now Wuji’s walking alongside important people from his past under an assumed name, unable to reveal who he is.
I appreciate learning more about Zhu’er, beyond just her name. We find out what caused her facial scar and why she’s so guarded, and it becomes easy to put the pieces together of why she’s so attached to Zhang Wuji. Once the pair encounters Ermei, she immediately gets possessive every time Wuji is pleasant to another woman, but we see how much of her jealousy is rooted in self-loathing and abandonment issues. While that doesn’t make it right, it lets me understand her actions.
Although, for Zhang Wuji, her affection is kind of a double-edged sword. Besides the jealousy, Zhu’er gets them both in big trouble pretty quickly. This leads to a hilarious moment where a martial artist from another sect whines, “Teacher, she is making fun of us. Maybe we should just kill her!” But Zhu’er is more than capable of looking after herself, and even if Wuji is too injured to fight, he has knowledge that allows him to transfer some of his newfound power to her temporarily.
It's another good episode for Zhang Wuji. He’s always been a pretty noble young man, but that’s been taken up to new level ever since he studied the secret manual. When he finds out that Zhu’er misguidedly took extreme measures for his sake, he gently pushes back on the idea that she had to get revenge on someone who wronged him. “Silly,” he tells her, “there are so many people who have harmed me,” suggesting it’d be a waste of her time to go around settling scores on his behalf. Likewise, when he pledges a vow to her and her reaction makes it clear that she’s conflating him with a man she’s still hung up on, I love how Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays Wuji’s subtle response. With just a slight change of expression, he lets you know everything Wuji is feeling in that moment.
Because while Zhang Wuji remains almost superhumanly good and his new skills/knowledge have lent him this peaceful aura, I like that we see he is still human. He has a strong sense of control over his reactions to things, but they do affect him. It’s nice work on Leung’s part, keeping Wuji grounded in small ways so he never feels too noble to be believed.
When Zhang Wuji and Zhu’er get caught up with Ermei Sect, the run-in brings them into contact with the other righteous sects, including representatives from Wudang. Suddenly, Wuji is face to face with people he hasn’t seen since he was a child, but they don’t recognize him. And though he longs to tell them who he is, he’s also cognizant of how many different sects he’s surrounded by, and he remembers the havoc and heartbreak that resulted from everyone clamoring to find out where Xie Xun and the Dragon Sabre are. So he can’t say a word—so close to everything he’s been missing for years, but so far away.
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