American Perspectives: Together, In Love, Faking Hatred ("The Wolf" Ep. 38)

Prince Bo rides away with Ma Zhaixing, taking her away from the battlegrounds of Boxiang.  It's a war they both started, and a war that was left to their kingdoms to finish.  Both are seriously injured.  Prince Bo is making it his priority to heal Ma Zhaixing first.  He remains dead set on dying in order to pay his debt.  Ma Zhaixing understandably remains dead set on her anger.  She is sure that Prince Bo has ulterior motives to kill her.  She's ready to escape at the drop of a hat, but she forgets, he's the Wolf Boy, and he can hear and sense all!  Her attempt to escape out the window from the Healer's place was unintentionally humorous in that regard.  Mainly due to the "You've got to be kidding me" look on Prince Bo's face.

They are seen together like this, and there's a longing for them to just bury the hatchet, and let them be as they were originally supposed to be.  In spite of the anger, the love (and pain) in their eyes is evident.  Neither one of them asked to be political pawns, and you kind of just want them to run away and start over.

When Prince Bo puts a lead rope around her waist, initially, it seems like he's being a dick.  We soon find out he's doing it to keep her from falling off the side of the steep mountain, as her injuries have made her walking very unsteady.

He carries her over his shoulder, not to force her, but to keep her wounds from being infected as they cross the icy cold, raging river.  While his verbal responses seem matter of fact and uncaring, his non verbal responses make it obvious he cares. (And does he ever look gorgeous in black.  Wow!). I could seriously kiss him.

He removes the top layer of her hanfu, but it is not to sexually assault her.  It's to keep her from getting heat stroke, and to prevent her injuries from getting worse.  It is apparent that he does not feel good about frightening her in that way.

It seems like he is forcing her to eat, but he's having her eat in order to heal her injuries, and he's double checking that the fruits he is feeding her aren't rotten.

He silences Ma Zhaixing, not to oppress her, but to keep his military from finding her and killing her.  He is exhausted from all of these fake emotions.  He is exhausted from faking cruelty.

The side effects of the mood altering Wolfbone flower are about to take him down (which could provide inadvertant harm to Ma Zhaixing), so he goes to great lengths to hide it.  Ma Zhaixing knows none of this, and tries to break free.  Prince Bo thinks if he is away, gathering food, he can beat it, but it doesn't work out that way.  So when he returns to their shelter, acting out from the Wolf Bone, he releases her, telling her to run.  But he loses it, and Ma Zhaixing has to reach him by touching his face, and calling him by his childhood name.  It does not go well, and they are both hurt.  A wedge gets further driven between them.  Zhaixing is terrified, but she wants to help, as the ingestion of the Wolf Bone flower was her doing.

Ma Zhaixing soon realizes he really doesn't want to harm her, and that they are both a product of some really shitty political circumstances.  They care about each other, but they have to pretend they don't care in order to get through the end result of a situation that neither one of them asked for.  If either one of them had a choice, they both would have been content to live together on Wolf Mountain without interference from the outside.  There's so much from this scene that really tears one apart emotionally.  Especially when Ma Zhaixing says she misses Wolf Boy, and you can tell it's ripping Prince Bo apart, but he has to pretend he doesn't care.