Ron Does Stuff

I have to admit to being an idiot — I did not know that Alchemy of Souls airs two episodes during the weekend. If I hadn’t just looked at Netflux I would not have know that episode six was already out and would have probably waited until this weekend to watch and would have found myself behind again.

But we’re here now! And we’re recapping!

In the last episode, Jang Wook promised to take Naksu to the top of a tree she used to climb when she was still in her old body, a roundabout way for him to say that he’s training for her sake and her happiness. Okay lover boy.

But at the start of episode six, it’s Seo Yool’s perspective that we see, and all that tree represents for him is Naksu “cutting his sincerity in half,” which I could easily make a castration joke about since it was all chaste tea jokes in the previous episode but I won’t because I am a civilized person.

Seo Yool, however, is acting like the Yoon Ji-hoo character from Boys Over Flowers and being a douche because he got his heart broken as a young guy and you know what, also a trope I am tired of! Am only tolerating it because you are hot, Minhyun.

During the course of Naksu and Seo Yool’s interactions we discover that Seo Yool doesn’t know how to cook rice, because why would you need to learn this if you’re a handsome noble, after all? He claims it’s easy enough to learn once Naksu teaches him, but he ends up burning the rice instead which sets up a cute sequence of playful bickering between two people who are attracted to each other, a trope I am definitely not tired of!

It also leads into a cute sequence where Jang Wook becomes jealous of Seo Yool, because of course the playful bickering leads to Seo Yool realizing that he needs instruction and following Naksu’s instructions lead to great results! Truly, a second lead that will not end up with the girl since he recognizes that he can learn something from her!

Later, when Naksu is washing the dishes, Jang Wook is being passive-aggressive and complaining about how Naksu is teaching Seo Yool while she has a student, namely him. Completely forgetting that he chickened out from training in the previous episode, leaving Naksu frustrated and disappointed. The male lead in K-dramas that always gets the girl, people! Jealous, slightly irrational, and therefore will get the girl! Whoever thought that listening to a woman’s instructions and recognizing her worth is the way to her heart!

Finally, we’re going to healthier stuff, like Master Lee, Park Jin, and Heo Yeom discussing a desiccated corpse. The three are piecing together that the evil is probably coming from Jin Mu and the royal palace, and it’s also revealed that Master Lee is more than 100 years old and is a pupil of the first magic wielder of Daeho. He’s like the Avatar or something!

Back in male lead/second lead/Naksu-land, Seo Yool and Naksu are reminiscing in the woods, but with neither one of them admitting that they’re thinking about each other. After all, Seo Yool doesn’t know that Naksu and Mu-deok are the same person. But the chemistry is there!

However, it’s now time for Dang-gu and Seo Yool to leave, and we are once again with frustrating bickering between Jang Wook and Naksu. Am I just too old for this type of relationship building? Am I frustrated by this because my bones are almost dust?

Back in Songrim, Seo Yool reveals to the elders that he used to know Naksu when he was young, and that she had shared that her father was a constellation recorder in the same place where Jin Mu is now. And we get confirmation that Naksu did see her father murdered by the four families, and it wasn’t just a false memory from her perspective.

Meanwhile, Naksu has come to the conclusion that the only way Jang Wook will be able to survive a duel with the crown prince is by learning Tansu, which is the ability to flick energy form one’s sword. She tells Jang Wook that yes, he doesn’t have the skills for it, but it’s his only choice if he wants to live. Which would motivate even me to be honest. And it looks like it really works because Jang Wook is not insufferable for once and actually commits to training! My golly good things do happen to evil people like me!

This time around though, it is Naksu who is the ~douche~, as it turns out that her way of training Jang Wook could ostensibly lead him to his death, not because of a duel with the crown prince, but because of the ~rotted~ energy that could possibly spread all over his body. The explanation isn’t really clear okay! But the tension is diffused with banter that admittedly shows the growing chemistry between the two!

Back in the royal palace, we find out that the current reigning king has been getting it on with multiple concubines in an effort to have an heir with the energy of the King’s Star. It’s here that the crown prince’s weakness is revealed — he’s afraid that either the king will have a son like that, or that there is someone out there born with energy (Jang Wook!). It’s this same fear that Jin Mu stokes, saying that he should kill Jang Wook in the duel since it was his father Jang Gang that prophesied the next king of Daeho would have the energy of the King’s Star.

Meanwhile, Cho-yeon is trying to convince her mother to give her sister’s room to her and Jang Wook once they get married — the plan to use the Jin family’s special plaque that can override the king, remember? But there’s some denial there from the mother about the fate of Cho-yeon’s sister that is hopefully explored further down the line. Meanwhile, check out this video, because it seems there’s something sinister about Cho-yeon???

Dong-go seems to have feelings for Cho-yeon, which I guess will work out for him since Cho-yeon isn’t the main female lead and he’s doing all the good guy things that the non-leads always do that help them end up with the female character that isn’t the lead.

All of this is happening without Jang Wook, Cho-yeon’s groom, knowing about it, and when he does learn that he’s going to get married, he and Naksu emerge from hiding and head to civilization. They two separate as Jang Wook does his own thing, which ends up with Naksu being dragged along to the royal palace because the crown prince asked for her.

You know what’s bad? The crown prince and Naksu have more chemistry than Jang Wook and Naksu. The banter flows better! Anyways, the crown prince had Naksu taken to the palace because he wants her to stop Jang Wook from going to their duel as he does not want to make an enemy of Songrim or the Jang household. It seems the crown prince does have a heart, despite Jin Mu’s machinations! He even offers to take Naksu in since Naksu has made it seem that she will not be with Jang Wook if ever the marriage with Cho-yeon pushes through. Again, in this scene they just have better chemistry than the actual main couple the show is pushing!

Either way, Naksu refuses the crown prince’s offer, and as she leaves she bumps into Seo Yool, who has been investigating Jang Wook’s missing spirit plaque and has discovered that it was Naksu trying to sell it in the first place. When he confronts Naksu about it, she readily admits to it and says she did it because she wanted money. Seo Yool doesn’t do anything about it though, which honestly confuses me a bit.

But that conversation is heard by one of Jin Mu’s minions — the one that was initially supposed to get rid of Naksu in episode 2 but killed somebody else instead. He’s figured out that Mu-deok is Naksu and intends to make the right kill this time around. Dun dun DUN!

Jang Wook has made it back home, and is being quizzed by his maternal figure on whether he has somebody that he likes. Jang Wook admits in his own roundabout way that it’s Naksu but without revealing her identity, and…well okay dude.

Cho-yeon, on the other hand, has been made aware of Jang Wook’s feelings for Naksu/Mu-deok via Daeho’s historians — the tsismosas at the brothel were Mu-deok was first sent. Of course she is fuming and tries to set up a situation where Naksu will be blamed for the breaking of the yin-yang jade that was going to be turned into Cho-yeon and Jang Wook’s wedding rings. Naksu refuses at first, but the presence of one of Jin Mu’s minions forces her to follow Cho-yeon instead. Once she reaches the residence of the Jin family, the artifacts kept there begin to have a reaction to her, something that Naksu herself also feels.

And Naksu was right to be worried, because as she explores the Jin household’s artifact room, she gets sucked into a mirror, leading Cho-yeon and her mother to think that she ran away with the yin-yang jade that Cho-yeon made her carry.