Okay, too much to say, too little words.
Firstly, characters. Qi Rong's character design caught me very off guard, but it fit him perfectly. His robes are so different from everyone else; the brightly coloured stripes along the lining of his coat, the fur, the skull motifs, and the purple crystals are all setting him apart from most of the characters that tended to stick to geometric shapes, blocks of colour and a solid colour pallette (I know he's primarily green-coded but he has so many different colours overall). It's all VERY flamboyant, especially the bright cyan mask, which is fair for a guy who thinks himself above most and wants to stand out among and atop others. Also, the lavender lipstick killed me. I could go on about Qi Rong's character for a while, so I won't. The design fits, and I love it.
Also, XL looks fantastic in the new outfit, no, I will not be taking objections.
HC, of course, is the other main player in this episode; in the beginning, he was clearly enjoying the time he was having with XL, but with the full awareness of needing to deal with QR. By the end, he is enjoying the beating he's beginning to give, a sadistic glee in punishment, a complete contrast to the fairly tame way he's been presented so far, and it's made more effective by the fact that he was in the form of San Lang. Once again, I'm praising the donghua animators for the expressions. The use of shadows to obscure and/or highlight his face was great. We all know HC is ready to beat everyone there.
The other thing is the music. QR clearly has something of a leitmotif here. When entering the cave in the beginning and QR's appearance, it's a very similar rhythm that's playing. It's goofy at some parts while being somewhat ominous in others, again a good reflection QR. But the big point is the music that played in between these events, where we see XL being called a plague god, and it dwarfs QR's theme in terms of levels of ominous and worry. It's a good contrast between XL and QR; while QR's theme is more personal, XL's moment had a more grander feel, a buildup to something, intermingled with screams. It definitely makes the ominous parts of QR's theme feel much less threatening and significant, which is a good show of how QR is viewed in general.
The episode is buildup for the next serious episode, but the funny scenes definitely landed. I burst out laughing when the ghost got beat by Pei Su, just the quiet 'hm?' followed by murder. QR's minions definitely lightened the mood, QR was ridiculous during most of the time, and HC looked like a deer caught in headlights when XL touched him.
Honestly, I love this episode, and I can barely wait for the next one.
