Irreplaceable Episode 12 Recap
**SPOILER ALERT**
Table of Contents
TL;DR (Quick Overview)
Bu Tianna storms a construction site to confront Zhao Heng over rumours about him and Xu Chi, and he silences her with a kiss before explaining it was all innocent. The Celestial project collapses amid suspicions that Ma Ke struck a corrupt outsourcing deal, and Xu Chi is sent on leave during the investigation, realising Yang Rui may have used their breakup to sideline her. Ye Xinzhi races back overnight to find her, finally explains his moonlight message was a confession of love, and the two become a couple with Xu Chi sealing it with a kiss. Meanwhile, Lin Long makes a strong return to work as sparks fly with Shen Jin.
Not the Milk Tea She Expected
Bu Tianna’s daydream is cut short when Zhao Heng walks straight past her and hands the milk tea to Xu Chi, thanking her for the other night. He queued just for her as a mark of respect. Xu Chi warns him people might get the wrong idea, and he jokes that he doesn’t mind as long as she doesn’t misunderstand his total devotion.
She tells him to scram. He says he only came back for his car anyway, since he’ll be at the Blue Bay project site all week, and tells her not to miss him too much. Xu Chi tells him to look after himself because he’s still heartbroken, and to stay alert around all the cranes and debris on site. He says hearing that actually makes him feel better, reminds her to drink it, and leaves.
Xu Chi notices Bu Tianna staring and offers her the untouched drink. Bu Tianna says she just didn’t sleep well. She then asks what’s going on with Ye Xinzhi, since Xu Chi surely told him about the breakup, and wants to know how he reacted. Xu Chi asks if she really needs to know. Bu Tianna says of course, what else would she ask about? The conversation is cut short when Yang Rui arrives and the meeting begins.
Bu Tianna Defends Her Friend
At lunch, Yang Rui sits with Bu Tianna and asks why she and Xu Chi didn’t eat together. She says Xu Chi went to the bank. He mentions hearing that Xu Chi is under pressure on her team because the two of them work so efficiently together, almost like one person.
Bu Tianna tells him to just ask what he wants to know. He says he only wants to know how Xu Chi is doing since she moved teams. Bu Tianna tells him she’s doing great, fully focused on work and not missing him at all. When he remarks that he didn’t expect Bu Tianna to defend her, she says they aren’t close, so he shouldn’t bother asking her next time.
Nearby, colleagues gossip over a photo on WeChat Moments from a bank team dinner the previous Saturday, which shows Zhao Heng with Xu Chi, along with a rumour that he confessed to her on the spot. They wonder aloud whether Zhao Heng wasn’t chasing Bu Tianna. She walks over, asks to hear the gossip, then tells them that if they have so much free time, they should think about how to get promoted.
Sitting alone at lunch, Yang Rui sits down and hands her ice water to cool down. He says that Zhao Heng used to drive Xu Chi to Celestial all the time, and even while they were dating, Xu Chi preferred Zhao Heng’s car. Bu Tianna asks what’s wrong with him, trashing his ex behind her back, and says no wonder she dumped him.
Yang Rui says Bu Tianna isn’t the only one allowed to be sad. He was cheated on, and his feelings for Xu Chi were real, so why can’t he say so just because Xu Chi is her friend? Bu Tianna tells him he can say it anywhere he likes, just not in front of her, and snaps at the onlookers to stop staring.
A Hard Hat and a Kiss
The rumours keep replaying in Bu Tianna’s head. At the Blue Bay site, a worker tells Zhao Heng that a female colleague dressed all in white has rushed in wearing a hard hat looking for him. It’s Bu Tianna. She says she came to apologise, since he wanted one. She was wrong to call him shameless and to insult his parents, and it’s all on her.
When he asks what she means, she says she wants to go back to how things were. If he wants to chase her, she’ll play along. If he wants to use her as a stepping stone, she’ll even introduce him to connections. But he has to leave Xu Chi alone and come at her instead of hurting Xu Chi to get back at her.
Zhao Heng is baffled. Bu Tianna says Xu Chi is too naive. She broke up with Yang Rui on a whim for Ye Xinzhi, who left her hanging, and now she’s a mess and can’t handle his sweet talk. She knows exactly how powerful his tricks are: driving Xu Chi around, then gifts and milk tea, then sweet words. Isn’t he just after money? The whole company and even Celestial knows they were drinking together. He doesn’t need to go this far to get back at her.
When he tells her to calm down and she insists she is calm, he kisses her. She asks if he’s crazy. He reminds her she told him to come at her, and asks if she’s calm enough to listen now. He doesn’t know what she heard, but he and Xu Chi are just friends, like buddies.
That Saturday, after their argument, he was in a bad mood and ran into Xu Chi at the office and asked her to drink with him. He got drunk, she put him in a cab and sent him home, and the milk tea was his way of thanking her. That’s all.
Relieved, Bu Tianna says she’s fine now. Zhao Heng says he isn’t. He has realised she really gets him. With a gorgeous woman with money, a fancy car and a big house right in front of him, does she think he’d change his life goals over one fight? When she tries to leave, he asks how she can take advantage and walk away.
Bu Tianna tells him that if he’s pursuing her, he’ll have to get used to her mood swings and to being used and tossed aside. He says he’s really happy she came to see him. Before she goes, he tells her the kiss was far too short, and next time they should make it longer and lose the hard hats.
The Project Collapses
Xu Chi calls Bu Tianna, wondering why she isn’t at the office or answering WeChat. Celestial’s board secretary and legal team have just gone straight to Mr. Pi, and he has announced that the entire project is on hold. Then Xu Chi is summoned to Sha Sha’s office.
Sha Sha tells her the conversation is being recorded as standard procedure, and Compliance will take her work laptop for the investigation, all permitted under her contract. Everyone on the Celestial project team is being investigated. Sha Sha asks why Xu Chi transferred out of the IT team.
Xu Chi says it was because she and Yang Rui broke up and felt it wasn’t appropriate to stay together, especially since he’s team lead. When Sha Sha asks why they broke up and whether they fought, she notes Xu Chi doesn’t have to answer private questions, but it may affect how the company sees things. Xu Chi says they just weren’t compatible. There was no fight, they weren’t together long, and they talked it out quickly.
Asked whether she wrote the detailed reform plan for Celestial’s IT department, Xu Chi says she drafted it and did about sixty percent, while Yang Rui did the other forty. Sha Sha asks her to highlight everything she worked on and recall as much as possible, because it will be cross-checked against her emails and the investigation into Yang Rui. She must also list every meeting with Mr. Sun and what they discussed.
Bu Tianna’s Theory
Bu Tianna asks Xu Chi to meet her on the rooftop. Lu Le only spoke to her for ten minutes about Xu Chi’s general work on their team, so when Xu Chi didn’t come out for so long, she knew something was wrong. After asking around at Celestial and among some elders, she has a theory. Ma Ke may have made a shady deal with Director Peng of Celestial’s IT department.
Their plan would change Celestial’s entire system architecture, which the IT department can’t do alone, so it would have to be outsourced, and that outsourcing is tied to Director Peng. The man they met that day was Mr. Sun, but he’s only the deputy, filling in because Director Peng had a last minute business trip.
Xu Chi immediately thinks of Yang Rui pushing the overhaul so hard and telling her not to go off on her own. Bu Tianna asks her to be honest about whether she was involved. If she was, Bu Tianna will beg her father to get her out. Xu Chi insists she would never do that, since Ye Xinzhi drilled into her that avoiding conflicts of interest and kickbacks is a consultant’s most basic rule.
Bu Tianna says Mr. Sun kicked up such a fuss about the ridiculous plan that the higher ups had Integrity and Compliance review it just to calm things down, but within two days they uncovered the problem between Ma Ke and Director Peng. Xu Chi realises that explains why Yang Rui told her to keep quiet during the pitch, acted so pushy and set such a tight deadline, and why Ma Ke called Yang Rui to keep her out of it.
Bu Tianna bluntly asks if it didn’t seem suspicious that Yang Rui broke up with her so early. He must have known she’d leave his team afterwards. Xu Chi realises that because she sided with Mr. Sun against the overhaul, she was in their way, and Yang Rui is Ma Ke’s right-hand man. She can’t believe Yang Rui would be that kind of person, then remembers him telling her Ma Ke has been short on money for years and drank himself sick to land the Celestial deal.
Xu Chi wants to go and clear things up with Sha Sha, but Bu Tianna stops her. This is a joint investigation by two top tier companies, so she won’t be wrongly accused. Xu Chi remembers a similar case at Anxinda in 2014 where several people were criminally detained. Bu Tianna tells her to forget about Yang Rui. All that matters is that she’s fine, and since Mr. Pi and Sha Sha both think highly of her, they’ll protect her once they confirm she wasn’t involved. Xu Chi isn’t so sure.
This has blown up, and insurance is the most sensitive part of finance. If they can’t get to the bottom of it, will they sacrifice the innocent to protect their reputations? She’s only a junior analyst, and to them, she isn’t irreplaceable.
Sent Home
Behind closed doors, Xu Chi’s proposal is judged to be clean. Sha Sha tells her how serious things are. Celestial is preparing to bring in economic crimes investigators. Xu Chi says she has a clear conscience and will fully cooperate. Sha Sha explains that investigations take time, so the company wants her to take temporary leave during an off-site audit to avoid any interference. If she’s cleared, she’ll return. Xu Chi asks if anyone else is on leave.
Sha Sha says Yang Rui, Ma Ke and herself, because bringing Xu Chi in long after the project began doesn’t look right. She apologises for dragging her into this. The leave will last about a month for now, with salary and benefits unaffected, and Compliance is already waiting at her desk. Xu Chi asks if Sha Sha believes her. Sha Sha says she only believes in facts.
Xu Chi tells Bu Tianna she’s on immediate leave, and that even Sha Sha got dragged in because of her. Bu Tianna promises to keep an eye on things and not let her get screwed over. Xu Chi asks if even she thinks it’s over for her now, and Bu Tianna tells her not to overthink it.
As Xu Chi hands in her badge, colleagues whisper about whether she’ll ever come back, one admitting she used to be jealous of how fast Xu Chi was promoted. On her way out, Xu Chi runs into Lin Long, newly back at work, and welcomes her back.
A Ride and Some Good News
Zhao Heng invites Xu Chi to grace his crappy car with her presence. He tells her to cheer up because paid leave is a once in a lifetime chance, and one day when she makes partner, she can brag about it to her team. Xu Chi says she can handle it and he didn’t need to drive her. He says it’s not just for her, because Bu Tianna will be glad to hear about it.
Xu Chi noticed them whispering earlier and asks what happened while she wasn’t around. Zhao Heng thanks her. Someone took a photo of her putting him in the cab that night, and Bu Tianna saw it and drove straight to the construction site in her all-white outfit to grill him about making a move on Xu Chi, telling him to come at her instead.
Xu Chi jokes that she’s clearly just the cheap side piece while they’re the real couple. Zhao Heng explains Bu Tianna was jealous but too stubborn to admit it, so she used Xu Chi as an excuse to talk to him. Once he explained, she was happy. He still doesn’t have an official title, but the moment Xu Chi got into trouble, Bu Tianna called him to work out what to do. Xu Chi tells him to keep at it and make it official soon.
“The Moonlight Is Beautiful Tonight”
Shut in her hotel room, Xu Chi relives the interrogation over and over and is spiralling out of control. After she hasn’t left her room in forty-eight hours, hotel staff threaten to open the door with a spare key card. Ye Xinzhi is with them. He sends a staff member for sports drinks and makes her eat, asking if she’s lying to him or to herself when she claims she has just been sleeping.
He heard about Celestial straight away, because the consulting world is small, and called Sha Sha. When Xu Chi went missing again, ignoring WeChat with her phone off, he dropped everything and flew back overnight from Shanghai in a panic. A thunderstorm forced an emergency landing in Jinan, so he caught the 7am high speed train and came straight here without even dropping off his luggage, because he was worried.
Xu Chi tells him to go ahead and scold her or laugh at her. She’s stupid. To bury a secret feeling she couldn’t share, she grabbed a random boyfriend, randomly broke up, and got dragged into this. Now she might lose her job, her mother’s apartment and her big dreams.
Ye Xinzhi says he isn’t laughing. He’s happy about the secret feeling she couldn’t share. When she tells him not to make assumptions, he asks why she never replied to his WeChat messages. She says she didn’t know how to respond to a business trip photo.
He tells her to look at the picture again. She reads the caption about the moonlight being beautiful and still doesn’t get it. Flustered, he explains he picked it specially, thinking young people would understand. People online say it’s another way of saying I love you. He asks if that’s okay.
She is completely shocked and she looks at the photo again and realises now what he had meant. Xu Chi replies softly with the matching line, that “the breeze is gentle too.” Ye Xinzhi says he wanted to take it slow, but now he’s scared to let go. She hugs him tightly and asks if they’re still in the grey between black and white. He smiles and says it’s red, the red of his heart racing for her.
A Boyfriend, Officially
Du calls, and Ye Xinzhi realises he’s late for a meeting. He suggests Xu Chi help him since she’s on leave anyway. The Wen Ruosen project is wrapping up, and having her there would make things easier. When she asks if that’s okay given her situation, he says it should be, since she’d just be doing a little private work for her boyfriend.
She asks him to repeat himself, and he does, adding she can check with Sha Sha if she’s worried. He’ll see her at his apartment at eight. As he leaves, Xu Chi stops him and asks if he said all this just to comfort her. He asks if he looks like that kind of man. She admits she always thought a mature man like him would never go for a kid like her.
He confesses that he kept calling them master and protégé because he was terrified she’d look down on his past. Love makes people insecure, and it makes him a coward. Xu Chi tells him she has plenty of courage and will share some with him, and she kisses him. Once he’s gone, she shuts the door, leaps onto the bed and shouts that the moonlight is beautiful tonight and the breeze is gentle. Xinzhi overhears this in the corridor as he walks out and smiles in elation.
Lin Long’s Comeback
At Bolo Culture, Lin Long is leading a two-day training on the overseas business matrix Maxmise designed. While she struggles to get the screen working, Bolo staff gossip that everything went wrong the last time she was here and they’d have fired her ages ago. Shen Jin tells them to keep it down, since Maxmise bills by the hour and could easily drag things out if they’re offended.
Cindy, who asked to have Lin Long assigned to her, says she just wanted to see how thrilling it is to have her old rival working under her. Lin Long says it’s not as thrilling as kicking her ex-husband to the curb. Cindy admits the last few months were lonely without anyone pushing back. When Lin Long thanks her for letting her back on the project, Cindy waves it off. The office is waiting for Lin Long to fail, and Cindy isn’t letting anyone steal her exclusive rights. She gives her half an hour and tells her to go touch up her lipstick.
Mr. Shen’s Concern
Shen catches Lin Long redoing her makeup and asks why she bothers, since she looks the same either way. He asks if she has fully recovered and why she’s rushing back, offering her spicy snacks and telling her that as the paying client, he’s in no hurry. If she isn’t well, she should just wing the training and send the slides later.
Lin Long asks if he thinks she has been coasting all these years. She admits she wasn’t professional enough before, blaming her pregnancy hormones, but now she’s back and will do it properly. When he says he was only showing sympathy, she asks if he’d want sympathy when he fails.
He complains that she threw his kindness back at him. Lin Long then thanks him properly for taking her to the clinic after the accident and for checking on her now. She tries to return the Baiyun Temple charm Xu Chi delivered, along with his wish of a rebirth through hardship. She has had her hardship, and now she’ll earn those better days herself.
He tells her to keep it, but warns that if she does a bad job, he’ll still have her replaced. As she heads back in, he clarifies that he didn’t buy the charm specially for her, since everyone at his company has one, then adds that he meant it when he said she looks good with or without makeup.
Lin Long nails the training, explaining the HR integration between Bolo and Qingyi as a marriage between a KPI obsessed CEO and an artistic girl who meditates before every meeting. Getting married is easy. Living together, down to whether the toilet seat stays up, is hard.
The real value of a merger is hidden in the everyday conversations between two organisations. Cindy messages Sha Sha that Lin Long is good to go and asks after Xu Chi. Sha Sha says she can return to work next week, but Ma Ke and Celestial’s IT director are still blaming each other, so the investigation won’t wrap up soon.
Getting Down to Business
At Ye Xinzhi’s apartment, the new couple sneak photos of each other, claiming they were just snapping the painting and flowers behind one another, then bicker over who looks puffy. Finally, Xu Chi gets down to business. He has had her gathering market data on digital collectibles for ages, so what exactly is he planning to do to Wen Ruosen?
Irreplaceable Episode 12 Recap: My Thoughts
OMG, this episode!!!! I don’t understand how this drama keeps getting better every episode, and now I’m sad it’s only 20 episodes long!
I’m not even going to bother talking much about the work investigation. The upside is that Xu Chi now has a whole month off, which means more time with Ye Xinzhi.
Let’s talk about Bu Tianna and Zhao Heng, our second CP. Seriously, Bu Tianna, you go girl, defending your friend from slander and unfounded rumours! I loved how fiercely she shut Yang Rui down when he started trash talking his ex. Part jealousy, part staunch friend, it was all good.
I loved how they captured her uncontrollable urge to do things NOW, running onto a construction site in an all-white suit. Well done, Zhao Heng, you know exactly how to handle her, and kudos to you for even wanting to try! Great kiss!
Then there’s the shock of the investigation. Learning that Yang Rui may have been part of Ma Ke’s shady dealings, and that their breakup might have been a convenient way to get Xu Chi off the team, left me so disappointed in him.
OK, the leads… that was CRAZY GOOD!!! Poor Ye Xinzhi! I’m sure it took so much courage for him to send that photo, and when he didn’t get a reply, he must have been so anxious. Then flying overnight, the emergency landing, catching the train, all because he was freaking out that yet again our girl wasn’t answering her messages.
“The moonlight is beautiful tonight.” “And the breeze is gentle.” Xu Chi, if you knew the response, why didn’t you get the photo in the first place?! I loved two things he said: that he looked up what young people do, hence the photo, and that he used master and protégé to describe their relationship because he was insecure about what she’d think of his past.
I also loved how they brought back the grey between black and white, only for him to say it’s red now, his heart racing for her. Instead of a loud, cliché declaration, the confession felt intimate, intelligent and completely earned.
Awesome, awesome scene, and the first kiss came from her! When she shut the door and jumped on the bed, I felt it all! And I love that their love isn’t taking anything away from her ambition. She’s straight back to business, asking what he’s planning for Wen Ruosen.
Before I wrap up, let’s talk about a possible third CP! What?? There was already an inkling a few episodes ago when Mr. Shen was so caring about Lin Long’s pregnancy and health. That confrontation after the restroom was everything. He’s so caring and totally smitten! And yes, Lin Long, good on you for checking yourself for being too harsh. When he said she looks good with or without makeup, I got all the feels! We all deserve a second chance, right?
Bring on the romance, guys!
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