Pang Ying:Hello, I’m Pang Ying. Welcome to Episode 30 of Think Like a Debater. After several heavy topics, we asked Weibo users to choose something lighter: if forced to choose between ‘Wanwan resembles you’ and ‘a beautiful beginning ending in ruin,’ which would you take?

Let me briefly explain both phrases.

First,‘Wanwan resembles you.’In Empresses in the Palace, Zhen Huan discovers that the emperor remains devoted to his late wife. He writes that Wanwan resembles her but falls short. It is a story about being a substitute in love.

Second,‘a beautiful beginning ending in ruin.’This idiom is not limited to television. It describes lovers who begin in happiness but end weary of each other rather than growing old together. In Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace, childhood sweethearts ultimately part ways.

We are not debating television details or competing in advanced Zhen Huan trivia. We want to abstract features of love from the stories and discuss love itself.

Love-related episodes often rank highly on Vistopia, usually from male perspectives. I’m curious what discussion two women can bring.

First, Zhan Qingyun chooses ‘Wanwan resembles you’—being the substitute. Please present your case.

Zhan Qingyun:A beautiful beginning that decays is the sadder love, so if forced, I choose the other.Life’s greatest challenge is reconciling with ordinariness—our own and life’s.

As children we hold fierce, innocent hopes that unimaginable happiness awaits us.

I imagined the joy of a hundred-square-meter home, attending the Olympics, or spending a day at Disney. Achieving them reveals much more ordinary pleasures, unequal to those early passions. Love is perhaps the last fantasy we surrender and the last we defend.

Many children see parents who are not soulmates, quarrel, give each other the silent treatment, sleep apart, barely speak, and fill the home with tension. We vow never to accept that. Years later, life still becomes the same. ‘If this happens, then that follows’ becomes ‘even after all that, it still ends this way.’

Though I secretly rewatched Empresses in the Palace for this topic and cried wholeheartedly for two hours, I agree the plot should not confine us.