Strange Tales of Liao Zhai: Judge Lu
The fourth Liao Zhai story is a little more...uhm...complicated than the others.
Essentially, two judges of the underworld, Judge Lu and Judge Situ enter into a bet...Situ believes that a bad man is a bad man regardless of his intelligence, while Lu believes that most men are only bad because they're stupid, and that if they were made smart, they'd be good. So the two choose a stupid man-Zhu Erdan-to give the heart of a smart man to make him smarter and see what happens. Erdan is petty and cowardly and more than a little superficial, but is really neither good nor bad. Lu gives him the heart of a scholar named Hong who had just died. Earlier that day, Hong had gotten into a fight with a pharmacist and aspiring scholar, Bai Yang, and when Hong's body is found without a heart(Lu was coming back to put Erdan's heart in him so no one would know), Bai Yang is accused of killing him and arrested, so Lu asks Erdan to use his newfound intellect to free Bai Yang.
Before he became smart, Erdan met and became besotted with Xiao Man, Bai Yang's fiancee, and after he became smart, he became obsessed with her. When he sees her being attacked, he asks Judge Lu to save her(dude, instead of running away, if you want to save her, just grab one of those rocks lying around and bash him over the head, seriously) Lu tells him that she's being punished for sins in her past life but managed to preserve her virtue in this one, but died in the process. So Erdan asks him if he will put her head on his own wife's body because he thinks his wife is ugly(not as pretty as Xiao Man, no, but personally, I think he's just too picky) Lu can see that he made a mistake, but hopes that Erdan can still be made good, so he does it. Xiao Man learns what was done to her, and escapes hell show she can return to earth and tell Bai Yang what happened, and after earthly courts fail to bring him justice, Bai Yang goes to hell himself to plead their case before the King of Hell.
If I thought It was odd seeing Hu Ge going from bratty but well meaning swordsman Xiao Yao in Chinese Paladin to uber sweetie in Xiao Qian, this was even odder seeing Bryan Wang go from the kind, smart and loyal(and at the end angsty and hot and fake!evil so that he can save his friends by destroying the villains from the inside. *points to icon*) Jin Yuan in Chinese Paladin to the petty and evil Erdan in Judge Lu. I love the guy, but he made a concerningly good villain. I liked Bai Yang and Xiao Man a lot, as well as Erdan's wife, Shao Rong, who was happy as she was and miserable once she gets Xiao Man's head-she loved Erdan and learned her only wanted beauty, and she certainly didn't want beauty at the cost of another's happiness. Bai Yang is a little too honest and straight forward for his own good, but he stands by his beliefs and never backs down, and Xiao Man...well, true, she was a good girl and studied her "Damsel in Distress" handbook quite thoroughly, but if her man is going to be too busy grieving to come bring her justice in her afterlife, then she'll just have to take matters into her own incorporeal hands.
Only 2 Liao Zhai stories left...then I have to wait for Strange Tales of Liao Zhai 2 to air, get subbed and become available to me(Liao Zhai 2 has Eddie Peng and Esther Liu-aka, the secondary OTP in Chinese Paladin-in the same story. *wants them to be OTP again. And live. As humans.*)
Essentially, two judges of the underworld, Judge Lu and Judge Situ enter into a bet...Situ believes that a bad man is a bad man regardless of his intelligence, while Lu believes that most men are only bad because they're stupid, and that if they were made smart, they'd be good. So the two choose a stupid man-Zhu Erdan-to give the heart of a smart man to make him smarter and see what happens. Erdan is petty and cowardly and more than a little superficial, but is really neither good nor bad. Lu gives him the heart of a scholar named Hong who had just died. Earlier that day, Hong had gotten into a fight with a pharmacist and aspiring scholar, Bai Yang, and when Hong's body is found without a heart(Lu was coming back to put Erdan's heart in him so no one would know), Bai Yang is accused of killing him and arrested, so Lu asks Erdan to use his newfound intellect to free Bai Yang.
Before he became smart, Erdan met and became besotted with Xiao Man, Bai Yang's fiancee, and after he became smart, he became obsessed with her. When he sees her being attacked, he asks Judge Lu to save her(dude, instead of running away, if you want to save her, just grab one of those rocks lying around and bash him over the head, seriously) Lu tells him that she's being punished for sins in her past life but managed to preserve her virtue in this one, but died in the process. So Erdan asks him if he will put her head on his own wife's body because he thinks his wife is ugly(not as pretty as Xiao Man, no, but personally, I think he's just too picky) Lu can see that he made a mistake, but hopes that Erdan can still be made good, so he does it. Xiao Man learns what was done to her, and escapes hell show she can return to earth and tell Bai Yang what happened, and after earthly courts fail to bring him justice, Bai Yang goes to hell himself to plead their case before the King of Hell.
If I thought It was odd seeing Hu Ge going from bratty but well meaning swordsman Xiao Yao in Chinese Paladin to uber sweetie in Xiao Qian, this was even odder seeing Bryan Wang go from the kind, smart and loyal(and at the end angsty and hot and fake!evil so that he can save his friends by destroying the villains from the inside. *points to icon*) Jin Yuan in Chinese Paladin to the petty and evil Erdan in Judge Lu. I love the guy, but he made a concerningly good villain. I liked Bai Yang and Xiao Man a lot, as well as Erdan's wife, Shao Rong, who was happy as she was and miserable once she gets Xiao Man's head-she loved Erdan and learned her only wanted beauty, and she certainly didn't want beauty at the cost of another's happiness. Bai Yang is a little too honest and straight forward for his own good, but he stands by his beliefs and never backs down, and Xiao Man...well, true, she was a good girl and studied her "Damsel in Distress" handbook quite thoroughly, but if her man is going to be too busy grieving to come bring her justice in her afterlife, then she'll just have to take matters into her own incorporeal hands.
Only 2 Liao Zhai stories left...then I have to wait for Strange Tales of Liao Zhai 2 to air, get subbed and become available to me(Liao Zhai 2 has Eddie Peng and Esther Liu-aka, the secondary OTP in Chinese Paladin-in the same story. *wants them to be OTP again. And live. As humans.*)