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The Annual Interdimensional Haixing-Dixing 520 Day Reverse Exchange is coming back for 2026!

520 sounds like "I love you" in Mandarin, so May 20th is a bit like Valentine's Day. To celebrate, we're back with the eighth annual 520 Day Reverse Exchange. As the name says, this is a reverse exchange: instead of making your request and that request being assigned to a writer/artist/fanwork creator, here:

1. You sign up with the kinds of things you enjoy creating.
2. You choose three writers/artists/fanwork creators based on anonymised ads.
3. You make a request of each of them based on what they enjoy creating.
4. You are assigned one request to create for, based on your offer.
5. You receive a gift from one of the creators you chose.

(An updated rules/info post will go up before sign-ups open, but here is last year's for reference.)

This year's schedule

Sign-ups part 1 - offers: Sunday 15 March - Friday 27 March
Sign-ups part 2 - requests: Saturday 28 March - Friday 3 April
Matching: Saturday 4 April - Tuesday 7 April
Assignments out: Wednesday 8 April at the latest
Deadline: Wednesday 13 May
Work reveals: Wednesday 20 May (there is no anon period)

ETA: This post is also on tumblr now, if you'd like to reblog over there!

Hi, welcome to this week's instalment of the Guardian drama Slo-Mo Rewatch! Watch half an episode a week, and then come and chat about it here in comments. Or you can just jump into the comments without rewatching, of course!

Here is last week's half-episode. On to the second half!

Episode 12, from 22:18:

Summary: We start with murder! Zhu Jiu is collecting people's life energy and has recruited the human manager of a fight club to provide it for him. Chu Shuzhi leaves the SID to find out where Guo Changcheng is, since he's still missing. Zhao Yunlan questions Tan Xiao and learns about Zheng Yi's abusive stepfather. He understands Tan Xiao's motive, but tells him he has to follow protocol. At that moment, the Envoy arrives and briskly takes Tan Xiao away. (Da Qing wonders what Zhao Yunlan has done to upset him, since he won't even chat!) When Zheng Yi cries, Zhao Yunlan offers kitty!Da Qing as a comfort.

Returning to the SID, Zhao Yunlan is unhappy with the case's easy resolution. He starts putting together all the clues and realises that it's Zheng Yi who's Dixingren, not Tan Xiao. Meanwhile in a park, the Envoy (literally) shakes down Tan Xiao, then knocks him out - he's deduced the same thing. (In a flashback, Zhu Jiu recruits Zheng Yi just as she's killing her stepfather.) Zhu Hong wakes up, and she, Zhao Yunlan and Lin Jing rush to the hospital, but Zheng Yi and Da Qing are gone. They in turn have gone to the SID, where Da Qing hands Zheng Yi the Hallows. She remembers she's supposed to go to a wedding to find Tan Xiao.

At the Li/Huang wedding, we re-meet Papa Li, the bride and the groom, and Minister Gao, as well as meeting Cong Bo for the first time, who's secretly recording things. Meanwhile, Da Qing walks past Wang Xiangyang's fruit stand, is suddenly reminded of something Kunlun once said to him, loses control and starts trashing the fruit stand.



Quote:

Lin Jing: "We need permission from the boss!"

Chu Shuzhi: "The boss' decision is the same as mine."

Detail:

Lin Jing tells us that "weak-minded" Dixingren accidentally losing control and using their powers, harming themselves and others, happens a lot.

Is it that they're weak, though, or is it that living in hiding, they lack the support and infrastructure to learn control properly?

Questions:

What's your favourite bit from this half-episode? If the Envoy had stopped to talk to Zhao Yunlan, would that have made a difference to the outcome? If Zhao Yunlan et al. hadn't left the SID to rush back to the hospital, could they have stopped Zheng Yi? How does Tan Xiao know about Dixing and the Envoy? How deliberate and premeditated was Zheng Yi's killing of her stepfather and his flunkies? Where does Lin Jing's speech about the hardships of Dixingren come from? Is what's going on with Minister Gao and Li Guangbiao actually headline-worthy? Any thoughts on parallels with other parts of the drama? Or on how this relates to things in the novel?

(These are all just conversation starters - feel free to answer all, some, or none, and to say as much or as little as you like! You don't have to be keeping up with the rewatch to join in!)

For the next two weekends, we're taking a break to give everyone (including ourselves) a bit of time to catch up! Regular posts will resume on the weekend of 20 March.

Here is our schedule for the current batch of episodes - please do sign up to host a post if you can!