"Loving you is the best thing I'll ever do."
Hello everyone!
Still, for right now, it's manageable and I'm here to talk about more C-dramas.
I am, apparently, in my Zhang Linghe era at the moment, which isn't something I was anticipating and yet here we are.
After seeing him in Pursuit of Jade, I of course got bombarded on Youtube and other socials with other dramas of his, so I made a list and randomly picked through it.
Tonight's choice of blog topic one by a large margin, because it looked, at that time, to be the only contemporary show of his he'd done, others being historical or fantasy.
Which means this is a DECIDED change of pace, but I didn't mind one bit, so hopefully you won't as well as we take a look at The Best Thing.
The Best Thing is probably the most low-key drama I have ever watched in my entire life, and that's saying something because I watch a lot of shows. This one though?
If you want something relaxing, low-level, tender and uplifting, while also having definite comedic moments as well as plenty information you might use in your own life, then this is the show for you. I genuinely enjoyed watching this after sweating my body weight off every afternoon shift during the first heatwave, when all I could focus on was getting liquid back into my body and winding down after hours.
Now, for the story:
Linghe plays He Suye, the youngest senior resident at the Traditional Chinese Medicine University hospital's oncology department, specifically specializing in palliative care for late-stage cancer patients. He mentors a group of master's degree students (because his grandfather is their teacher) and works at a TCM clinic every Saturday seeing patients from all walks of life.
He also has a sad past behind him: his parents married young, his father moved them to a different city, then pursued his studies and his career religiously, leaving Suye's mother and Suye himself mostly to their own devices. Unfortunately, Suye's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and the poor boy could only watch her fade away, something that prompted his choice of studies later.
This enraged his father, who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, practicing Western medicine and gaining fame and money, so the two have been on the outs for most of Suye's adult life. While his father half-heartedly makes attempts to reach out and reconcile, and even Suye's maternal grandfather urges him to forgive the past, Suye himself is pretty locked in, honestly.
That is, until he meets a patient. Her name's Shen Xi Fan.
Xi Fan suffers from insomnia and has tried pretty much everything, so her mother tells her about the TCM clinic near their neighbourhood and that's how she ends up Suye's patient. She's the Front Desk manager at the most prestigious hotel in the city, working alongside her two best friends, and gets dumped at the beginning of the series by her ridiculous boyfriend, Yan Heng.
We get a glimpse into this relationship very briefly, seeing how dismissive he is of her and how absolutely narcissistic, making everything HER fault and locking her down tightly into a perceived image of herself so she can't move a single muscle. He then doesn't even have the decency to break up in person, but does it over WeChat and then never picks up the phone afterwards again.
This, more than anything, and previous turmoil from a relationship going very sour, is what's causing Xi Fan's insomnia, but she isn't honest with Suye from the beginning, so it takes him a bit to figure it out.
Liking her immediately, he makes several attempts to get her phone number (all of which fail, mind), until he just plucks it from the registration form at the clinic to let her know about some medicine-related stuff.
Thus then begins the most beautiful friendship, and the rest, as they say, is history, really.
It isn't immediate. The drama makes that clear. Suye actually steers clear of her after learning about the boyfriend since he's honourable like that. But once he knows she's single, and her parents are organizing blind dates for her (including but not limited to one of his underlings, actually)? Then it's game on, because he wants to make it known that HE is her best choice.
Xi Fan turns him down once she figures out where this is going, however, which is after he drags her home, totally drunk, and she kisses him. Poor Suye thinks he's winning, only to get slammed right back down to Earth by her rejection.
He doesn't stop being her friend, though, and that's the most important message of the entire show. The two are friends first, and he worries and cares for her, showing her that just because she said no, doesn't mean he's going to walk away, that he's nothing like Yan Heng.
They work together on a project her hotel is putting up, and hilarity ensues while she's convinced he's a dad and everyone around him is like: Suye? A FATHER?!? YOU'RE JOKING! Turns out, it's just a young cancer patient who's taken a shine to the good doctor and follows him around like a puppy. A few more bumps and rocky starts later, and Xi Fan finally decides she's miserable without Suye in her life in a more permanent capacity, something her BFFs also point out to her.
The reason she's been fighting this, however, is because she plans to study abroad for at least a year, and doesn't want to be in a long-distance relationship again, something she did with Yan Heng and look how that turned out!
But one of her friends explains all this to Suye, and when he finally understands the full picture, he can have a more honest conversation with Xi Fan about it - about how he knows she still has to heal. And that he hopes she heals a little faster ... in his direction.
She makes the conscious choice, which is adorable, and it's mostly cuteness and fluff from there on out. Suye hits it off with her friends too, and there's a plethora of activity between these two couples (because, yes, Xi Fan's two friends figure out they like each other as more than just friends after ten or so years), while the families also draw closer together. Suye's grandfather is particularly pleased, because he now has other people to hang out with closer to his own age! Success!
Special note here: the grandfather is played by the same actor who portrays Marquis Wu'An's Master in Pursuit of Jade, making this extra hilarious when you think about it.
At this point, the audience can see how bad Yan Heng was for Xi Fan, really, and how good He Suye is for her, because instead of bringing her down and belittling her all the time, he actively works on boosting her confidence and self-esteem, and supports every plan she has, no matter how insane it might sound. In turn, Xi Fan trusts him with herself, more and more each day, culminating in them spending the night together when she gets locked out of her own apartment.
She also helps him with the whole father debacle. As one of the keynote speakers at a medical conference (and one of the younger ones at that), Suye is in the same orbit as his father, finally, so Xi Fan organises dinner for them all. It's a start, and she gently urges Suye to remember they only have one life, and one set of parents, and he's already lost one half.
Suye gifts her a bracelet from his mother, and of course, Yan Heng makes a final appearance.
The man waltzes in saying they took a break but now they're getting married, if you can believe it. Everyone and their granny is side-eyeing him like, ew. Go away.
Xi Fan makes short work of this, and after that, it's time to get her abroad to study.
Only, her mother gets diagnosed with breast cancer, going to Suye for help. She has surgery, but tells nothing to Xi Fan, and swears Suye to secrecy, as well.
This almost derails Xi Fan's study plans, and also causes a major argument between her and Suye, but thankfully they're all adults in this show and talk things through after emotions dry out. Xi Fan's mother encourages her to go and live her life, because how else will she be happy?
After a lot of convincing, she does go, and the wait for the reunion is long and hard, especially for Suye (at one point, during their letter exchange, he talks about a dream he had that he's even embarrassed to think about!), and it also shows how much of a healthier relationship this is for the two of them in contrast to the past (Suye, too, was broken up with, after his then-girlfriend went to study abroad and never returned home).
Xi Fan tells him that, instead of coming home as planned, she took another internship for two months. She doesn't actually discuss it with him, but Suye just smiles and goes: okay, fine, come back when you can. Love you.
Their reunion is adorable, and the next step is logical: marriage.
The two marry surrounded by their family and friends, having mended most of the relationships in their lives that needed mending, with help from their significant other of course, and it's quite obvious, as the titular song goes, that choosing to love one another is the best thing they both did.
Low-key, no-nonsense, funny and hitting very close to home often, The Best Thing is the show to watch if you want something to literally calm your nervous system right down. I'm telling you, I kept waiting for that stupid third act breakup or SOMETHING dramatic to happen, but nothing ever does, and it's such a soothing balm for the nerves I can't even tell you.
TCM doesn't just heal insomnia in this one, it heals hearts, too, and I absolutely recommend you watch this if you ever get the chance! Give it a go even if it seems slow at first, it's so realistic and so lovely you'll want to binge it a few times over.
10/10 recommend!
xx
*images and video not mine
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