Old Nine Gates 老九门 - Episode 26 (Recap)

kakashi: It took the villains 26 episodes to get their act together. The only reason for their success now is that both Er Ye and Fo Ye are not well after their tomb-adventures. Dark times for our boys ahead.
SakiVI: Our villains aren't exactly evil geniuses.

Episode 26 - Er Ye is Captured

Ba Ye has accompanied sexy doctor (you think so? I find her bland like Ya Tou. Oh well, no, indeed not exactly radiating the sex, but she's prettyMo Ce over to the Hong mansion. What a shock for them to find him out cold! Mo Ce gives him some medicine and he wakes up, thinking she's Yatou in his muddled state. Oups. How embarrassing. (Understandable, considering they're both mild-mannered and agreeable characters.) She goes out to fix some warm towels. Ba Ye thinks it's time Er Ye told him a bit more about what happened to him in the tomb, but he won't. He just tells Ba Ye to go to his secret room and burn it to the ground. Noooooo! All those nice things!!!!!
Such a shame. Er Ye is being unfair.
What will happen to the shark?! TT__________TT
It's in water, it won't burn.
But nobody will look at it anymore TT________________TT

Ba Ye studies the model of the tomb, wondering about the size of it. It's far, far bigger than they thought! He douses everything in gasoline and lights it up. However ... one notebook falls to the floor. Uh-oh.
The model actually had made me think it wasn't that big. Then again, Ba Ye, is looking at the measurements right there, so he must be right.
We know that there are several levels, too, some of which go down to the earth core. That model there? Completely flawed.
At the bordello, that soldier they are targeting (Chen Ye) finally makes an appearance. Sure, cause he got paid by Fo Ye for keeping quiet! In case you don't remember, the bad guys picked him as the one most likely having a loose tongue. It doesn't take long and he starts telling them about a huge treasure in the mines outside Changsha and how not even Fo Ye and Er Ye made it out unscathed. Outside, listening: The Nose!
Oh, Noes!
It's soon the talk on the streets, that there is a huge treasure. The twist: Chen Pi made sure that people think that Zhang Da Fo Ye wants to keep it all for himself! That's clever, it's probably Hendry's plan. Chen Pi goes to the mine himself, but can't find an entrance. He has no skillz, seriously. Even Hendry thinks so.
Ha, Chen Pi was so incompetent, you posted a picture of Hendry!
At the Zhang mansion, things are not well. Fo Ye hears strange things and has weird seizures. No dreams of hair, but that's probably only a matter of time.
It's like he's possessed.
Slime Fucker Lu finds it highly amusing that the whole of Changsha now speaks badly of Fo Ye - and Madame Huo thinks it's time for the next step, which involves her visiting Fo Ye. At first, he smiles.
But when she gets increasingly rude, accusing him of trespassing on her territory, thus breaking the rules of the Nine Gates and then demands to be handed all the information about the mines, he loses it. Scary.
Also, if that's her territory, he should've included her. I think she could have been nicer, but she wasn't technically wrong. Fo Ye was wrong. 
Yes. He definitely made a mistake. But I think his mistake weighs less than hers (which is conspiring with someone like Lu the Fuck Slimer)
Madame Huo flees, furious, but I got to tell you, Fo Ye really isn't himself these days. Leave him alone.
If this has been his behavior with her, even on a lesser scale, I'm not surprised she jumped to the Lu Ship so easily.
He goes to see Ba Ye. But Ba Ye isn't affected like Fo Ye is. Fo Ye feels he is losing control over his own body. Oh. Hm. No, this is serious. No such thoughts allowed.
Ba Ye wasn't exactly helpful here.  
Luckily, Ba Ye has a "protective copper mirror" from his very talented ancestors, who can drive away evil and darkness. Bring it! It can reflect ferocious ghosts and make them show their true forms. Damn. Fo Ye looks sceptical but takes a good look at himself (Ba Ye leaves to get some tea water).
Okay, let's get a paranormal diagnosis.
And all of a sudden, his mirror image changes into the face of his father.
That happens as we get older.
Fo Ye is assaulted by horrible (supressed) memories, of him running away from the Japanese in the forest, with people from his family. His father is shot multiple times in front of him.
If the Zhangs have so many skillz, shouldn't they have shaken off the bullets? Maybe I'm overthinking this...
Cut to him burying the dead all by himself ... in THE tomb (we saw that room in Episode 6 and I'm guessing the coffins in Episode 21; remember, he had some Zhang flashbacks).
Ah, so he'd been there before! These current forays weren't the first time.
Yes! But he does not remember.
He takes one last, sad look at his dead father when all of a sudden....... A Qilin appears!!! That's all kinds of messed up. You know what I think, Saki? This is the "monster" the people in the mines were so afraid of! The other monster, not the hair monster.
Yes, I totally agree, kakashi! It's an actual monster! But why did it leave our tomb-raiders alone? I would've thought it would have been hungry. And what did it, and that old miner, live on down there?
Blood sacrifices? The Qilin might eat walls.
Ba Ye finds him in a trance and really has to shake him out of it. Poor Fo Ye. You know what, you have PTSD, you should go have that checked.
Some therapy seems a good idea.
If you've been waiting for some "explanation" about the face-down corpses, here it comes! Fo Ye feels that they, like him, were being held down by something. I hope it wasn't that Qilin. That Qilin is scary.
Agreed.
Hey, so that's what the Qilin ate! He sat on people and sucked the blood out of them. Or their souls. Or whatever.

Slime Fucker Lu pays Fo Ye a visit, super friendly, as always ... but he talks about the "higher-ups" and how they have heard about that evil rumor about Fo Ye and the mines. Fo Ye tells him to not take him lightly. Well, not in those words, but that's the gist.
Urgh, this guy is so smarmy!
Visual Zhang - cutieee! Yay!- puts two and two together: Lu and Madame Huo are now working together (seeing how they both came to get information about the tomb). Right, now it also makes sense to them that Xie Jiu Ye's business abroad run into troubles. Careful, boys, careful!
And go apologize to Huo Niang and get her on your side, you dumbasses. This is the perfect opportunity for some counterintelligence.
Lu Fuck Slimer moves against Er Ye next. They tear him out of bed and arrest him at gunpoint. Just like that? Yes, just like that! That is shameless, Lu! Chen Pi is quite outraged (awww, he feels for his Master), but that sentiment doesn't last long. After all, Er Ye let the Mistress die like that.
Chen Pi uses Ya Tou's death as an excuse for all sorts of bad behavior: murder, theft, slander, and false imprisonment.
Fo Ye hears about this immediately and goes over to Lu's stupid house. Sizzling hot. Did he get a haircut?
Maybe he just gelled it back slightly differently?
Can he please always be pissed off like that?
He demands that Er Ye is let go, but Lu the Fucking Slimer claims he had to capture him because he has info on the ancient tomb. They have a witness (Fo Ye's bragging, stupid soldier). Damn. He basically tells Fo Ye to admit he went into the tombs, which Fo Ye does not want to do (cause that would cost him his job). He threatens Lu if he harms Er Ye, but he just laughs at him. So he wants to use his official power for a personal matter? "Don't forget", says Fo Ye, "I'm also the head of the Nine Gates". I might have squeed a little.
Squeeing now!

Comments

You know what, for the first time in quite a while I really appreciated an episode. The dialogue actually made sense! That last scene with Lu and Fo Ye for example ... I hate Lu, but it was pretty awesome to see how he cornered Fo Ye. Alas, Fo Ye is indeed very near a corner now. Lu has Er Ye and that is one of Fo Ye's weaknesses. 
Lu has no info on the tomb though - yet. I hope it stays that way, cause he has no business there, the Fucker. I'm glad to see that Fo Ye is still keeping it together enough to go and threaten Lu, but I'm also quite afraid for him. I wasn't joking when I said he had PTSD. As we see in later episodes, what happened to him when his father was killed is pretty horrible and him having weird memories about it is not a good sign. I also love the mystery around him and his heritage. A Qilin in the tomb!
Finally we got to see some paranormal tomb fun! And getting some information on our mysterious Fo Ye is always interesting.  lus, it's good to see him be human as well as a superman. This was an excellent episode. Thumbs up, Ba Ye-style!