"My Mountains and Seas" Grand Finale: Starts Off Promising but Declines, a Period Drama Full of Plot Holes

“The Mountains and Seas of My Life” has already concluded. The show started strong but declined, especially after Fang Wanzhi began her entrepreneurial journey, which seemed to go smoothly. Many parts of the story are hard to believe, and looking back, it’s clear this is a flawed period drama with numerous unreasonable plot points and obvious logical gaps. Here are some examples:

1. Zhao Jun, feeling neglected at home, develops a personality of independence and reluctance to trouble others. Initially, she doesn’t plan to acknowledge Aunt Fang Wanzhi and is unwilling to help sell clothes at Wanzhi’s stall. She claims she doesn’t work evening shifts, leading Li Juan and Fang Wanzhi to speculate she has another job at night. In reality, Zhao Jun is highly motivated and uses her evenings to attend night school.

This plot is fundamentally unreasonable. The reason is simple: Zhao Jun was bullied by Ah Nan and his group at the factory, and she didn’t want to lose her job at the garment factory. In that era, working overtime at night to meet deadlines was common. Occasionally taking leave was possible, but how could Ah Nan allow her not to work overtime at night? If Zhao Jun insisted on not working overtime, Ah Nan would have fired her long ago.

2. The head of the Yao Dong Garment Factory, Sister Lian, is the one who recruits Fang Wanzhi and Li Juan. There are three unreasonable points here:

First, the head of a foreign-invested factory is usually a frontline management position, but Sister Lian appears to oversee an entire workshop. She should be a production supervisor.

Second, at that time, it was hard to find jobs, and Sister Lian, as a line leader, wouldn’t have the authority to decide who to hire or not.

Third, Ah Nan’s reliance on boss Huang Yaodong to become a deputy line leader seems unnecessary. The term “assistant line leader” (助拉) is known, but “deputy line leader” (副拉长) is unfamiliar. Later, the chief line leader, Sister Lian, also seems inexplicable.

3. Fang Wanzhi is decisive and bold, but her first entrepreneurial attempt is overly risky. She only has 30,000 yuan but dares to buy over 300,000 yuan worth of goods from Huang Yaodong. If Gao Xiang hadn’t guaranteed her and lent her money, she would have lost everything.

After initial success, Fang Wanzhi repeats the mistake with an even bigger gamble. She loans 3 million yuan from the bank to secure the nationwide distribution rights for Yaodong Apparel. This detail is completely implausible. The reason is simple: Fang Wanzhi is neither a local from Shenzhen nor has any property or assets to collateralize. She doesn’t know anyone inside the bank (her acquaintance with Director Xu, Gao Xiang’s classmate, is only established later). Why would the bank lend her 3 million? And she’s not a big company—she’s just starting out.

4. The collaboration between Huang Yaodong and Fang Wanzhi is a trap. Because the factory was poorly managed, Huang Yaodong planned to scam her and run away with a large sum. He lured Fang Wanzhi with the idea of transforming the factory into a brand focused on the domestic market. To become the nationwide agent, Fang Wanzhi had to prepay 4 million yuan worth of goods. She and Li Juan only had about 1 million (possibly borrowed), so she took out a 3 million bank loan.

As expected, Fang Wanzhi was scammed into bankruptcy. However, she quickly recovered by leveraging her established sales channels to代理 new brands, repaying all her loans in less than three years.

Not to mention how easy it was for her to make money, the real issue is that she lost all her money. Where did she get the capital to start again? Even if she had a sales advantage, starting capital isn’t a small amount, right?

5. In 1998, Fang Wanzhi returned to her hometown Yuxian after three years to pay respects to her adoptive mother, Fang Jingyu. At this time, Li Xingke, who had been imprisoned for stabbing Han Bin, was released from prison. Li Xingke said he didn’t plan to work but would pursue graduate studies at his alma mater.

In 2000, after repaying her loans and planning her career anew, Fang Wanzhi was hired as the chief assistant to the president at Hongtu Trading. Later, Gao Xiang mentioned introducing her to a fellow Yuxian native, who turned out to be Li Xingke.

The problem is, Li Xingke only started graduate school in late 1998. Over two years, he not only finished his master’s degree but also became an executive at a multinational company in Shenzhen. That seems highly unlikely.