Lucky’s First Love Episode 1 Recap / Alt Title: The World Owes Me a First Love / 世界欠我一个初恋
For the first drama recap, I picked one of my favorite Chinese dramas. Lucky’s First Love (alt title: The World Owes Me a First Love) is a sweet drama with a healthy dose of spiciness. It hits all the markers for me: independent and intelligent female lead. Caring, but slightly oblivious male lead. No more than moderate drama regarding second leads. Solid friendship building. Healthy and fun family interactions. And the kisses… They had me squealing every time.
Hope you enjoy this drama as much as I did.
TL;DR:
Lucky is a bright, professional girl who has worked beside CEO Xia and helped him build the TIG company from the ground up. He seems to trust her implicitly and considers her to be his lucky charm. Xia wants what is best for her and helps her along with her fledgling romantic ambitions. Lucky goes on a blind date with Chu Nan for the sake of her promotion, but genuinely finds him interesting and peruses a relationship with him. Xia and the other directors are impressed with Lucky’s proposal and promote her to Instance Developer. With the help of CEO Xia, she sets up a second date with Chu Nan. But when Xia recognizes Chu Nan, he chases after to stop their date.
Full Recap:
The drama starts with an introduction to CEO Xia Ke, a hard-working young man living a comfortable, stylish life. While driving, he gets a call from his secretary, Amy, with a rundown of his daily schedule. Amy asks if Xia will be bringing her along. He replies with of course followed by a blaring horn, screeching tires, and a crash.
Now we meet CEO Xia’s lucky charm. Lucky’s phone rings and the display reads Answer Immediately. She answers frantically and Xia informs her she must come to assist him.
Xia is waiting patiently while the woman who hit him stands beside his car attempting to lure him out. Once Lucky arrives, he steps out and the woman starts to apologize. She uses the opportunity to convince him that they are fated. Of course, Xia is having none of it and simply walks away. Apparently, this is not the first time and Lucky handles the situation using her CEO Xia female-defense playbook.
The woman asks Lucky for Xia’s phone number, but Lucky is a professional at handling these matters and will not take the bait. She informs the woman that they can either settle through insurance or the cost will be a minimum of $10,000. The woman is flabbergasted at her pick-up ploy gone wrong. She argues CEO Xia could not possibly be so petty and Lucky just laughs.
Lucky runs to the elevator and finds CEO Xia waiting inside. She tells him she has resolved the car situation and he looks unimpressed. He is not surprised by her competence. She informs him that he could just call the administrative department, and he dismisses the idea. Clearly, he prefers to rely on her.
We get the backstory on how Lucky joined the company and a few backward compliments as to his generous and thoughtful nature as a boss. We also get a rundown of the company TIG and how they have become a leader in the mobile gaming world in only 2 years. CEO Xia is quite upset with the planning department because they are supposed to be creating a dungeon for the game and it is not going well. There will be open recruitment within the company for a dungeon team manager. Lucky wants to give it a shot, but she is a little insecure as to her capacity in the role.
We head over to the racetrack, where CEO Xia is riding and a couple of fangirls are squealing by the side of the track. Lucky just rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath. But as soon as she gets over to CEO Xia she tells him how cool he is and offers him a beverage. She stands firmly by his side while he hammers out a business deal. CEO Xia wins a race, effectively sealing the deal on his terms.
Lucky flatters him again and he smirks. He obviously loves her flattery. She uses his good mood as an opportunity to pitch him her dungeon idea. As she is digging through her backpack, a car comes screaming by. CEO Xia deftly pulls her back from the street and spins her into his arms.
Her inner dialogue turns meta and she wonders why he had to use an idol drama pose to save her. HA! As he holds her intimately she wonders if he is going to confess to her. He softly tells her that she is his Lucky charm so, of course, he has to save her.
He lifts his hand gently towards her forehead and for a second it looks as though he might gently brush her hair out of the way, but he simply flicks her forehead and says she is a dating newbie. She argues that has nothing to do with work and she is very passionate about the project. He simply tells her that before she can work on the project she has to find a man. Something he will certainly regret.
Back at the office, CEO Xia catches one of Lucky’s friends logging her employee code into the time clock. He threatens her year-end bonus to get Lucky’s whereabouts from her. As it turns out, Lucky has skipped work to go on a blind date. He is amused and a little surprised that she actually went on a date.
Chu Nan introduces himself to Lucky; his name is 楚楠 (after Nanmu wood) an unfortunate pun on 处男 which is slang for a male virgin. The poor guy looks relieved when she obliviously states he has a nice name. Xia calls and Lucky ignores the call, only for him to call again and again. When she answers he lectures her and tells her to come back immediately. Being a self-professed workaholic himself, Chu Nan offers to take her back to the office immediately.
Xia sits down in a nice restaurant and asks the woman across from him when her brother will arrive. She answers that he is coming, but that they should order first. Just a little bit dodgy. Seems he has a recurring problem with women crafting scenarios.
Chu Nan drops Lucky off at work and tells her he wants to see her again. He feels they are a good match. She is taken aback and stumbles through a proper response. He gives off a killer smile as she runs into the revolving door. I might have just fallen for Huang Jidong a little.
Back at the restaurant, Xia is complaining to his unintentional date about TIG’s stray cat that is now bringing home other cats. Jealousy already? He looks over to see a mom with her two daughters at another table, only in his daydream Lucky is the mom. Is he stressing out because he might lose his Lucky charm or is there more to it?
Xia gets a phone call and his date tells him to go ahead and take it at the table. The female caller asks what he is doing and he bluntly elaborates on his current predicament; he thought he was coming for a business dinner and was tricked into a blind date. The date at least has enough sense to be embarrassed. The caller asks to see who it is and we see both women quickly prepare for a cat fight.
The caller confidently starts picking apart the date’s appearance. The date turns and berates Xia for still being in contact with his ex-girlfriend and proceeds to storm off yelling back that she hates cats. Xia smirks, picks up the phone, and asks the caller, his older sister, if she is done with her prank. She tells him to pick her up at the airport on Tuesday.
Bai Lu’s comedic acting is coming out well in this role. Lucky is at the office recalling her date with Chu Nan and giggles at how easy dating is. She then envisions Xia apologizing for underestimating her and giving her the dungeon lead position. While she is giggling like a maniac, the planning team walks by and catches her. They inform her that Xia is gone and that he probably was punishing her for leaving early.
Lucky calls him to chew him out for playing dirty. Xia is downstairs walking across the lobby. It seems that he wasn’t just punishing her after all. He teases her about her failed blind date, but stops dead in his tracks when she announces that the joke is on him because she is now successfully in a relationship.
Now we meet He Yu in a bar, where his current girlfriend is gifting him the key to her house. He takes this as his sign to break up with her, saying that God created the earth in seven days, so by the eighth day it gets boring. Ha! He Yu calls a driver to drop him off at the house of a person who is way more important than a girlfriend.
We now go to CEO Xia’s house where Xia is in the middle of a Mortal Combat style nightmare with Lucky. I love that he even dreams in video games! She launches all sorts of attacks at him like time off for wedding and maternity leave, culminating in her resignation. Xia wakes after being K.O.d in his dream to find He Yu cuddled up in his arms.
Xia asks how he got in and He Yu just laughs at how easy it is to crack Xia’s passcode. When Xia threatens to call security, He Yu swears upon his 28 ex-girlfriends that he didn’t make a mess. Leaving Xia amused that he managed to up the number by 2 in the last month. He Yu swears that he is there for business and gives him a proposal to provide advertising for Xia’s company. He swears that his recent singledom will allow him to focus all his energy on Xia’s company.
Now we are back at TIG where Lucky is proposing her new instance. In the middle of a very professional rundown, she suggests a five-minute break. After the break, she explains that only 3 people bothered to log into their company’s game. The reason? Their game has an immersive storyline, but lacks any quick play modules. Her vision for the instance is to add that element.
In the breakroom, her coworkers tell her she wasted her hard work since CEO Xia was just using this as a tactic to light a fire under the planning department. As Lucky is in the middle of cursing out Xia, he walks right up behind her. She picks up the signals from her coworkers and quickly tries to redirect her cursing to the boss on the fourth floor. That boss is just perverted compared to their own illustrious CEO Xia. Ha! Xia just continues to the espresso machine. On his way out the door, he tells Lucky to come to his office.
He sits down in his chair and asks if she has any other complaints. He was not fooled at all. She backpedals and states actually, she doesn’t mind his method, since it is all okay so long as the company does well. He tells her to hand over all her work to Maggie. Assuming she is being fired, she starts apologizing and begs for him to be the bigger person. He tells her if she doesn’t want to hand over her work, she should hand over the instance project instead. Lucky is ecstatic that she has been given the chance to lead the dungeon project and runs out of the room giggling. Xia chuckles at her exuberance.
Outside the TIG building, He Yu and Xia are watching tourists take pictures standing in front of a painting of the game characters. He Yu reiterates that he will make the game much more popular and is curious about the new developer he will be working with. Xia remarks, How to describe? Quite unique, look forward to it.
Yet again we see Lucky multi-tasking. So cute! She seems to be struggling to ask Chu Nan out again. Xia notices, but just continues by. Later in his office, he tells Lucky that her Love Instance feels loveless. He asks if she has been dumped and she tells him she is not sure. Chu Nan was so forward to seeing her again, but has not contacted her since. She asks how he started a relationship with his ex. He simply stares at her and asks to borrow her phone.
She hands it over and he is a bit indignant that his ID is Answer Immediately. He figures out her beau’s ID and proceeds to ask him out for her. He is definitely going to regret that. Smirking, he hands the phone back to her. Lucky is upset at first, but Chu Nan immediately agrees to pick her up. She happily leaves and Xia looks a bit concerned that her beau is experienced enough to play hard to get.
Lucky’s coworkers are all standing in the downstairs lobby commenting on Chu Nan, who is waiting outside by his car. Their conversation shifts to gossip about CEO Xia’s love life and once again Xia is standing right behind them. Haha. They don’t seem to learn. Dong Dong remarks how he didn’t think CEO Xia was that type of person. Xia claps him on the shoulder and responds that he also didn’t think of himself as that type of person. I love Xia’s unaffected attitude.
As the coworkers are trying to smooth things over, Xia watches Lucky walk up to Chu Nan. Once he confirms that Chu Nan is Lucky’s new boyfriend, he runs over to them. But by the time he gets outside, Chu Nan and Lucky have already taken off.
Impression:
I really love Lucky’s First Love because Lucky and Xia start from such a good place. They have a long-standing friendship based on respect and trust. They have both been so focused on building up their company that neither has prioritized relationships. I get the feeling that Lucky would not have bothered to date if it had not been career-related. Like most friends to lovers dramas, they know each other well.
I also really love the workplace comradery. Everyone has worked really hard for TIG to be successful. They are well aware of Lucky’s contribution and professionalism. Again, such a refreshing change from the typical hapless drama heroine. Hope you enjoyed this recap. Please look forward to more of Lucky’s First Love.
Recap Home >> Lucky’s First Love Episode 2
