Emotional Availability and Emotional Intelligence: Why the Marquis of Wu’an Is the Man of Our Dreams
What Pursuit of Jade Can Teach Writers About Love Languages and Meeting Emotional Needs of Our Readers
The Butcher’s Shelf, Part 2
Pursuit of Jade’s male lead, portrayed by actor Zhang Ling He, embodies one of the most romantic love interests I’ve ever come across.
Welcome the Butcher’s Shelf Part 2 where I go on and on talk about what makes the Marquis of Wu one of the most sweepingly romantic male leads in recent memory.
Although he is older, of higher social status, better educated, and wealthier than Fan Changyu, he never talks down to her. Instead, he points out that he would be an ingrate to think badly of her when she has rescued him, and he converses with her about societal injustices. When he learns that her uncle has filed a petition to take the house because her father had no male heirs, he comments that the law should be changed to allow female orphans to inherit.
He also observes that she is quite capable so when she is in distress or conflict, he doesn’t necessarily intervene. He does just enough to assure himself that she is not in genuine danger. Maybe he flings a well-aimed piece of candy a particular wretch, but otherwise stays back.
WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD:
When she is in genuine danger, he becomes completely unhinged. (See Episode 11) This is in alignment with traditional alpha male characteristics, but it’s notably not his default mode with Changyu in Pursuit of Jade. His restraint makes me root for him more. And when she wakes up and asks him not to kill the failed kidnapper, Yan Zheng wraps her in his embrace and sheds a tear, which was so intense. My take was that his whole life he has put himself in danger for the nation but here is Changyu asking him not to endanger himself on her behalf.
The biggest thing, though, is what happens after the first arc (those 16 or 17 episodes set in Ling’an). When they are later reunited, he becomes wholly emotionally available to her. This is a trend we’re seeing in romance novels too, as noted by Erin C. Niumata’s recent deep dive into publishing trends, What Romance Readers Actually Want Right Now: “The modern fantasy romance hero is increasingly emotionally devoted beneath the danger.” And: “Readers are exhausted. They do not want to spend four hundred pages begging a fictional man to use his words. They want yearning, tenderness, a man quietly making soup when she’s sick.”
Yes, yes, and yes! Yan Zheng has been doing exactly this since episode two.
This carries through even into the battle scenes later. He is effectively the commanding general in some of the most treacherous sequences in the show — and even there, the emotional devotion is present beneath the danger. (See episode
The Man Beneath the General
After episode 17, when Yan Zheng sheds his false identity and resumes his role as the Marquis of Wu, we see a different side of him entirely. He is a ruthless general, constantly strategizing to preserve the empire and counter the enemy.
But when Changyu’s path intertwines with his again, he finds himself living a double life. He gets to bask in her tender care as a wounded simple soldier, a man she doesn’t yet know is the same man who broke her trust. This leads to some of the best comedy in the show, but also some of its most revealing moments for his emotional state. He knows exactly who he is to her. She doesn’t. And he chooses, again and again, to stay close anyway.
Waging War on Her Rejection
I’ve seen takes online about how people felt she forgave him too easily after episode 26 when his true identity is revealed — and that’s a separate post, because it speaks to something much larger about the vast difference in their social station. But what I want to focus on here is what happens after she rejects him.
It’s in her rejection that he works the hardest. He goes into full problem-solving mode, effectively waging war on her refusal and applying every skill from his martial and strategic life to the greatest battle he will ever fight: winning a place in her life and her acceptance of his proposal.
And that proposal. It is one of the most remarkable pieces of dialogue in all 40 episodes, second only to the pledge he makes at the shrine. (The Shrine speech needs a separate Substack!) I wish I could fully comprehend the untranslated version of his formal declaration, made as his true self asking for a place in her life. Even with the Netflix English translation it lands with full force. (This is a credit to Zhang Ling He who delivers it with complete sincerity, conveying a man who is offering himself wholly to his true love.)
Two Love Languages, One Relationship
Even more impressive than his emotional availability is actually his emotional intelligence.
In both the web novel and the C-drama, Yan Zheng is depicted as needing physical touch and words of affirmation. However, because of his keen powers of observation, whe he studies Changyu and what she needs he gives her acts of service which is her love language. What’s impressive is that from the earliest episodes he is doing things for her that will make her life better especially when considering that she doesn’t actually meet him where he is emotionally until twenty-four episodes in.
The Reunion, the Kiss, and What He Asked For
It’s only much later, when they reunite around Episode 24, that she tells him how much she missed him. She has been searching for him in the army, and there’s a look of surprised pleasure on his face when she reaches for him and gives him a big hug. That’s one of the few times she’s initiated physical touch out of affection as opposed to touching him to bandage him or measure him for his wedding robes.
In Episode 25, he asks for reassurance that she didn’t just search for him out of guilt. He wanted to know she was motivated by caring. She responds by begging him to come home with her. His face is a revelation and it’s clear he treasures this moment. For someone like him who has duties to his clan, to avenge his father, to preserve the peace of the northern borders…just knowing she doesn’t want anything from him other than to return to their days in Ling’an must be a balm to his soul.
Then later, when they’re about to separate again and he needs to take his soldiers to one location but she needs to go rescue Yu Qian Qian he has a big growth moment. He obviously offers to do it for her, but she basically tells him: “I wouldn’t be who I am if I let you do that. I have to go do this.” Instead of shutting her down or overriding her, he understands. What he seeks from her before she goes is (in the literal English translation) “tell me you like me,” but it’s really more like “tell me you care for me.” And that’s when she gives him a kiss.
These three episodes show us that his love languages are Physical Touch, and Words of Affirmation, which makes it even more romantic that he has been giving her Acts of Service since episode 2.
What the Web Novel Tells Us
In the web novel there are some really lovely scenes that are not in the drama. In the drama, they go to the matrimonial tree and toss a ribbon, and it’s very endearing that he has threaded the tree with his own ribbons already so that no matter where she tosses hers, it will land next to his. However, in the novel there’s a scene where he takes her to a monastery that has the tree, and they sneak in over a wall. She has no idea why they’re doing this, but it turns out it’s so they can write their wishes onto a little plaque and toss it onto the tree. When she throws hers up there, she doesn’t show it to him…which is a classic depiction of their relationship, that she doesn’t often tell him how she feels.
So he sneaks back into the monastery and reads the plaque. She wrote: Morning and night, year after year, I wish to spend with you. He’s so happy after he reads it that he laughs. In fact, he is so joyously loud that he alerts the monks that somebody has broken into the monastery.
As much as I love the drama, I think this scene from the web novel says so much about his need for words of affirmation.
The Bonus Chapters and Her Puppet Show
There’s also a bonus chapter depicting scenes after they’re married. (They have a grand wedding and it’s a shame the drama doesn’t depict this!)
They have a disagreement, and it takes her a long time to figure out what is going on with him because he doesn’t express to her why he’s unhappy. She eventually makes a little puppet show for him. In the puppet show, she tells a story about herself, and then says:
“...the girl had recently learned a poem: Having seen my Lord, how can I not be joyful? Even in wind and rain, seeing you brings joy to the heart. She felt this was exactly how she felt every time she saw her husband, and that she should tell him.”
Changyu gives him the puppet show because she realizes she rarely says things like that to him but that he would appreciate hearing them and that’s how they make up after the argument.
To me this bonus scene demonstrates that their relationship is often out of sync. Changyu takes time to catch up to where he is emotionally since he fell first. Throughout the show Yan Zheng is always thinking about and doing things for her. Half the time it’s not even clear she realizes all the things he has done for her, and he never seeks credit for any of it.
This is a lot like the Mr. Darcy grand gesture in that Yan Zheng is not seeking credit. His gestures are often small, like the time he orders food and items for New Year and then tells his shopkeeper: when you deliver it, say it’s from her father, that he prepaid for it before he passed away. I don’t think she ever learns through the course of the 40 episodes that he did this. In his mind it was a very small sum of money, but for her and for Mrs. Zhao it was an abundance that genuinely shocked and delighted them.
The Craft Takeaway⇒ Don’t be afraid to have a love interest who gives all, often, and early.
And now for Book Auntie’s Book Recommendations:
A Marvelous Light by Freya Marsk
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon