Back to 1989 (2016) s01e13 Episode Script

1
What a pity. Such a good match.
Perhaps our family
is just not that fortunate.
Ya-juan.
Did something happen
that I don't know about?
No.
They tried to be polite about it,
but I know they think that
we're not good enough for them.
That's why I ask you to follow
proper etiquette every day. Understand?
All right. You must be tired.
Go and get some rest.
I'll get dinner ready.
Anyway, he'll pay attention
to all that you do.
When you get sick,
he'll worry about you.
And in time of need,
he'll come to the rescue.
I don't know why I came over.
I don't know why I always
manage to screw things up
or why I felt miserable when I heard
your parents arranged a blind date.
Is that
Is that all? Is there anything else
you wanna tell me?
Why are you always so quiet?
Why don't you ever have anything to say?
Li Jin-qin, I don't get you.
Ya-juan.
I'm so sorry.
It wasn't easy to gather courage
to see you.
I didn't think of how you'd feel
before I threw a tantrum.
I'm sorry.
I'm to blame, too.
You came all the way to help me,
but I questioned your intentions.
Today's events actually provides us
with an opportunity
for me to tell you how I really feel.
I can't run away anymore.
That's right.
I disappeared because I panicked.
I don't have any plans for my future.
Any girl who decides to be with me
is only going to end up unhappy.
Your mom just wants to secure your future
when she forbade me to see you.
It's natural for parents
to react that way.
So
I, Li Jin-qin, have decided to face
our relationship with a positive attitude.
I've decided to finish college
a year early.
I want to reinvent myself,
to work hard and save some money.
When I have enough,
I'll study in the U.S.
and become an engineer
in a big American company.
I hope that one day,
your mom would accept me
and give our love
her true blessing.
That day will come.
I'm sorry.
I put you through a difficult time.
You must've been worried.
Who says I was worried about you?
Are you serious?
Jin-qin actually said that?
That's a good start.
I have faith in you.
Keep it up.
See you tomorrow. Bye.
Hey.
What are you thinking about?
Nothing.
Are you feeling happy
for Ya-juan and Jin-qin?
Of course I'm happy to know
that they finally made up.
Aren't you?
Li-jing was right.
You're a case of cold hands,
warm heart.
Li-jing.
What else did she say?
She said
someone who breaks through your heart
will discover a passionate soul.
Hey.
That smile is making me uncomfortable.
Do you girls talk about me behind my back
when you get together?
Of course we don't.
I just wanted to say that
even though you aren't
as cold as you appear to be,
and you seem to actually
like helping people
something was different
when you played peacemaker
between Ya-juan and Jin-qin.
The way you cared
felt like you've known them
for a long time.
That's nothing.
I care about you just as much.
What I meant was, I care about you,
Guo-an and your parents.
I care about your entire family.
That's all.
Zhen-zhen, come quickly.
Go to the convenience store and get me
these. Here's the shopping list.
Mom, that's a lot of stuff.
That's more than I can carry.
Just tell Guo-an to go with you.
Go on, I need soy sauce.
Okay, fine.
-Ye Guo-an!
-I'm busy!
I know. I like helping people, right?
Let's go.
Sixty cents.
Forty-five cents.
-That'll be ten dollars.
-Okay.
I have change.
Are you newlyweds?
Your husband is so thoughtful,
coming here to help you carry things.
I wish mine were like that.
He just pretends to be busy
when I need his help.
Ma'am,
we're not married.
Maybe you aren't now, but you will be.
Why else would he be so nice to you?
He's a keeper.
You better hang on to him.
Ma'am, you are so--
Ye Zhen-zhen, are you done?
I'm coming.
Go on. Men are all the same,
never patient with their women.
Thank you, ma'am. See you.
The shop owner was right.
Like Dad. He's always polite to people,
but when it comes to Mom,
he becomes impatient.
Chen Che is always
very respectful to Ya-juan
but yells at me all the time.
Is it because he
What's so funny?
Nothing.
Mr. Wu, a bowl of noodle soup, please.
Professor Chen, did you
just come back from a trip?
Yes, I came straight to you
from the airport.
I haven't even gone home yet.
What I missed most while I was away
was your noodle soup.
Have a seat.
The usual?
Less noodles, more soup
and add a hard-boiled egg
plus a meatball, right?
That is, without a doubt,
the correct answer.
Ye Zhen-zhen. Where are the batteries
you bought from the store?
I left them at the convenience store.
You're such an airhead.
You were giggling all the way back there.
What's so funny?
I'll go back and get it.
Didn't your mom say she needs soy sauce?
You go home. I'll get it.
-Okay.
-Don't just say okay. Go.
Go on.
This is what we perceive
as the axis of time.
But if time isn't actually
a straight line like we thought,
but rather like so,
this point in the past
and this point in the future,
could overlap.
In that case,
both sides can be connected.
Do you see? Do you see? Do you see?
The overlap that the tunnel created
between these two points
is called a wormhole.
Young man, you're pretty smart.
Professor Chen said,
on the other side of the wormhole,
another world exists.
I have no idea what he's talking about,
but it's still pretty interesting.
Am I right?
It's possible to go
to a different timeline
through a wormhole.
Young man, I'm surprised.
You're correct.
In astronomy,
we call the passage between a black hole
and a white hole a wormhole.
But at this point,
these are just theories.
We have yet to observe such a phenomenon.
Young man, have we met?
I'm--
My wife's bugging me again. She
doesn't like it when I eat street food.
Mr. Wu, that's one dollar, right?
That is, without a doubt,
the correct answer.
Here you go.
-I'll get going.
-Okay, thank you.
Goodbye.
Oh right, young man,
I didn't get your name.
I'm Chen Che. I'm your--
If I reveal who I am
to grandpa so hastily,
he'd definitely see me as a mad man.
I'm
a fan of yours.
I follow your research on astronomy,
and I admire you very much.
Fan
l have fans?
To be more accurate,
I'm a big fan.
Big fan.
You're an interesting young man.
Seeing how we share the same interest,
wanna drop by the lab sometime
so we can chat?
I will.
-Goodbye. Goodbye.
-Goodbye.
Yes.
Great, Grandpa has returned.
Maybe he can explain
how I came to 1989.
Dad!
You finally came home.
How are you?
Good. I missed you.
Really?
Here, I have a gift for you.
What is it?
Chocolate.
Thank you, Dad!
Dad, let me help you.
Your mom won't let me rest.
She's been paging me
since I got off the plane.
She's in the kitchen.
Looks like it's another feast tonight.
Dad, did you eat street food just now?
Don't let your mom hear you.
If she finds out,
we won't hear the end of it.
I know that.
But Dad, you must at least taste
Mom's cooking. Don't make her upset.
Yes, milady.
-Dad, how was the conference?
-It was great.
Let me tell you,
there was this physicist from the U.S.
who proposed a new research theory.
-Really? I want to hear all about it.
-Sure.
Where's your hero?
Where's your lover?
Why you
Mom, why are you preparing to-go boxes?
They look delicious.
For your dad of course.
He's going to Hsinchu City tomorrow
to meet up with an old friend
who wants a suit made.
I'm packing a lunch box
for the train ride.
He could just buy one on the train, right?
See, that's where you're mistaken.
Did you know your dad was sought after
by countless women when he was younger?
You can't imagine, right?
So, as a dutiful wife,
I must take care of his stomach
so that I may be
the only one in his heart.
So, I started to hone my culinary skills.
I would collect recipes, watch Julia Child
and make sure he always eats my food
when he's not home.
Since then, he's been
completely under my spell.
He now gets uneasy
if he's not eating my cooking.
Mom, you're so smart.
Where's Chen Che?
Should we page him?
He's old school. He doesn't know
how to use a pager.
What should we do?
Should we wait for him?
What if something happened to him?
Mom, let me go look for him.
There you are. Where have you been?
Nowhere. What's wrong?
Why do you look so uptight?
What's the matter with you?
You don't use a pager, you don't call,
then you suddenly go missing.
We didn't know where to look for you.
We were worried, you know?
Don't do that next time.
I understand. From now on,
I'll tell you where I'm going.
Good.
What's important is you're back.
Okay, wash your hands.
Give me those.
Thank you.
Let's eat.
Stop playing games, Ye Guo-an!
Dinner time!
She really got angry?
No way.
No signal.
Why do I even bother charging it?
In this place, a cellphone is useless
compared to a pager.
I brought with me something that
doesn't belong to this period.
If I could ever go back,
I should probably bring it with me.
But if I really get to go back,
it seems as though
someone might worry that I disappeared.
I should never get angry before I eat.
I didn't eat properly.
I'm so hungry.
Did I overreact?
Will Chen Che think I'm a drama queen?
My sweet image is ruined.
Mom forgot to refrigerate the lunch box.
Such an airhead like me.
Good thing I noticed.
If not, Dad would be having
a spoiled lunch tomorrow.
I have an idea to redeem my image.
Yes, that's the plan.
Fei.
Why is this phone number
-Good morning, Professor Chen.
-Good morning.
My fan! What was your name again?
Chen Che.
What a coincidence.
I just saw your message.
But your phone number is a bit weird.
Why does it have so many digits?
I was in a hurry.
Maybe I wrote the wrong number.
Wrote the wrong number?
Parabola.
Score.
You're here so early,
you must truly be my big fan.
Oh, right. Can you wait inside?
I'll get something
from the conference room.
I just wanted to ask you.
Is time travel,
like in Back to the Future,
plausible?
You mean, like that movie,
where a mad scientist invented
a time machine out of a car?
And then he takes the main character
time traveling to different periods?
Yes, something like that.
Professor, do you think
that it's possible?
If I didn't know beforehand that you're
passionate about astronomy,
I would assume that you're
nothing more than a sci-fi fanboy.
But
didn't your research thesis
explain that it could be possible?
My dear fan,
the reason why a theory is called as such
is because it hasn't been proven.
If time travel is really possible
I would have gone back in time
to invite Albert Einstein
for a cup of coffee.
What about the wormhole
we talked about?
According to the 1988 publication
of Michael S. Morris,
if we can capture and amplify
a wormhole,
then could we potentially find a way
to create time travel?
That is, without a doubt,
the correct answer.
I wish my students
were half as enthusiastic as you.
True.
That is the latest theory
published last year,
but up to this point, there's no proof
that wormholes even exist.
Which means, at the current stage
of scientific development,
time traveling
is impossible.
Then is it possible for people
from different timelines to communicate?
Do you mean receiving a call
from the past or future?
If you're referring to
communication interference
it could be a result of the magnetic storm
that occurred in March.
That magnetic storm not only interfered
with the frequency of short wave radios.
It interfered with the feed
from the GOES.
I remember that
there was another storm in August.
It made the Toronto Stock Exchange
to suspend operations.
However, even though
it wasn't a small storm,
there's still no proof whether
magnetic storms are capable
of connecting communications
from different time periods.
That means
Mom didn't make that call.
My dear fan, don't be upset.
Just because the scenarios
you're describing are impossible now,
it doesn't mean it isn't possible
in the future.
Right?
Furthermore,
isn't the exploration of the unknown
the value and calling of scientists?
Zhen-zhen, what's 5-3-0 in pager code?
It means "I miss you."
Was that from Jin-qin?
Why not a code that says "forever love"?
We're not even close to that stage yet.
So you do know the codes.
I thought you would only know
codes like "I'm hungry."
-Bad News Jian's here!
-Good morning, sir!
Chen Ya-juan, you're so mean!
Why do you look so tired?
You stayed up late, didn't you?
I stayed up all night studying recipes
and woke up before dawn to pack
a lunch box. I barely slept a wink.
Lunch box?
For Chen Che?
The human sloth, Ye Zhen-zhen,
did not only wake up early,
but she even cooked?
Last time it was ginger broth.
This time it's a lunch box.
So grand, the power of love.
It can even change a person.
It's nothing!
Chen Che must feel touched.
He didn't even know about it.
He left early to go who-knows-where.
Chen Che.
This is for you.
Why?
So that we can locate you.
Don't worry, it belonged to my dad.
He can't get used to it,
so you should have it.
If I'm not going back anytime soon,
I should really get used to
using things from this era.
What's the matter? Something wrong?
Nothing. Thank you.
Take a look. What are the numbers
on the display?
0-7-8-6-8.
What does it mean?
You don't understand pager codes?
That's asking to see if you are hungry.
You left early this morning.
You haven't had breakfast, right?
But no worries,
there's a surprise for you at lunch.
5-7-8-6.
I know this one. "I'm stuffed."
Correct.
NTU Economics Department,
hello?
Hello, may I speak to
Assistant Professor Chou?
-Please hold.
-Thank you.
Mr. Chou, it's Lin Xiao-long.
I'd like to ask for a favor.
Could you please
look somebody up for me?
Everyone. I'm gonna buy lunch
at that place by the alley.
-Anybody else want something?
-I do. I do. I do.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Chen Che, you want one?
Chen Che.
I packed lunch for you.
Ye Zhen-zhen!
Did you make that yourself?
No way.
Lin Xiao-long, don't act so surprised.
What's so difficult about it?
It's nothing fancy,
so it didn't take much time.
I've known you for a long time.
How come you never packed one for me?
Lin Xiao-long, you should just be quiet.
Why are you minding others' business?
That's lunch for her love.
Why would she make one for you?
A lunch box is a lunch box.
What's with the love?
You'll never understand.
You see, when I was in college,
I received so many sweets
on Valentine's Day
I could stack them three feet tall.
And it took me three days
to eat them all.
Three feet?
That's about your height, right?
And you probably got the sweets
that others threw out
because they needed to make room
for other chocolates.
Why you
That's enough.
Eat it while it's still hot.
Is this really edible?
I'll take it away.
Hold on.
If Chen Che doesn't want it,
I'll have it.
That's quite enough.
Zhen-zhen woke up before dawn
to make that.
Open it quickly. I bet it's all burnt.
Che, I have some stomach pills on my desk.
Let me know if you need them.
-You're so bad.
-Come on, let's see it.
Hey, Chen Che.
-Hey Qian, let's go get lunch together.
-Lunch, right. Let's go.
Take me with you!
Ya-juan, your lunch looks pretty great.
What's that? Can we have a look?
It's like a feast.
Did you make that?
-No, my mom did.
-Make us some next time.
Ye Zhen-zhen.
Ye Zhen-zhen.
Ye Zhen-zhen, do you like shrimp?
Of course I do.
Do you not like shrimp?
I do but I'm too lazy
to remove the shells.
Its shell was practically ripped apart.
Poor shrimp
I'd rather eat it with the shell.
Why is this so salty?
How much salt did you use?
Yes, Mr. Zhang.
Jian Zhen-hua
You wish to have Hu Li-jing
as your broker.
That's no problem.
I'll take care of it.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang.
Hu Li-jing, my foxy.
How I wish I can protect you
from these sleazy clients.
But I have a duty to uphold,
My hands are tied.
I've searched for years,
yet when I abruptly turned to look
who do I discover
but she who stands afar.
Jian Zhen-hua.
Sign this. It's urgent.
This is chocolate that a client
got for me from Belgium.
You know I don't like sweets.
I know. Thanks.
Wait, wait, wait.
I heard that you and Mr. Zhang
are pretty close these days.
You had dinner together
three times just last week?
Is there a problem?
You always say this is
a competitive business
and encourage us
to socialize with our big clients
so that they'd stay with us.
You
You and Mr. Zhang
are not an item, right?
Are you asking as my boss?
I like to keep my personal life private.
You better not push me.
Push what, sir?
Push-- Push my employees
with words of encouragement.
Attention, everyone!
For the sake of boosting morale
and increasing sales,
as well as team building,
we'll hold a two-day, one-night
staff retreat this weekend.
It will be an all-expense-paid trip.
Hurray!
Isn't he super stingy?
Why would he take us on a retreat?
He must have ulterior motives.
-Sir.
-Everyone has to come.
No-shows won't get
their year-end bonus.
Let me hold you once again
Listen to
my only wish in life
I will not have you
fade away from my memories
Leave me with the tenderness
of loving you
Thank you.
This is the last time
that I will be singing up here.
There's that special someone
in all of our lives.
And for me
Two people can be so close
despite being 27 years apart.