When last we left our Handsome Stranger and the Pig Butcher, Changyu was looking for Ning.
And Yan Zheng is busy doing War Things
Poor Bao is doing nothing but mumbling “don’t hurt my mother” over and over. To get him to eat, Qi’s Nanny suggests he needs food for strength to protect his mother.
That gets him eating. He even dips his bread into ink for extra flavor. The poor kid isn’t fully there.
The Nanny convinces Qi to allow Ning and Bao to meet. Bao’s eyes refocus, and he sobs in her arms. She gives him her whistle, saying that if he uses it, someone will rescue him.
Changyu is being held at… I guess it’s a camp? But not the fun kind, the kind where they force you to quarry rocks. She can’t leave until they confirm her identity. Somehow. Later.
They have to work in pairs, and Changyu is paired with an elderly man, Tao, who won’t let her help him and gets in her way. Until she physically picks him up and moves him to the side.
Changyu knows a scholar when she meets one
And Tao is one. He was looking for a disciple who had gone missing when Chancellor Wei had him put in this camp. He does not like Chancellor Wei.
Changyu brags that her husband was a bit of a scholar, too. Tao thinks she’s a widow. Changyu hopes she isn’t a widow.
To make it clear that Tao’s disciple and Changyu’s husband are the same person, somewhere, Yan Zheng sneezes. This is one of his 3 appearances in this episode.
The local bullies want to bother them, but suddenly Mr Jin is there to stop them! Changyu is thrilled to see them, and later secretly meets with them at night. She lets them know about their village and their family members being hurt and/or killed.
She tells them Yuanqing was behind it. Mr Jin thinks he can just leave and kill him now, but Changyu thinks they need to get home safely first. After that, revenge.
Upstairs, doing scholar things, Tao overhears this conversation
He sits with Changyu to discuss her awesome husband and his awesome disciple. If only she didn’t have an awesome, handsome-as-jade husband, he would set her up with his awesome, handsome-as-jade disciple.
Yan Zheng sneezes somewhere, again. That’s his second appearance.
Qi’s Nanny tells Qing the only way to help Bao is to work together. Qing is suspicious of her but happy to see Bao and Ning again. Nanny claims she’s doing this to protect the royal bloodline.
Later, Qi and Yuanqing watch as Qing laughs and plays with the kids. But they’re all just pretending to be happy so no one thinks they want to escape.
Later, Qing and Qi together in the bath gives me the ick. A flashback reveals that they met when Qi leapt into some water to escape a fire but couldn’t swim. Qing fished him out and did feeble chest compressions and some mouth-to-mouth, saving him.
Qing hopes this good deed gets her home soon. It doesn’t. It gets her brought in front of him and a jade pendant thrown at her as a reward.
Later, Qi wants to behead his own soldiers for not handing Ning over to Yuanqing’s soldiers without question. Yuanqing prevents the murder but takes Ning. Qi is coughing a lot again.
Yan Zheng’s final appearance isn’t a sneeze, but he gets a message from Yuanqing, offering to exchange Ning for Yanzhou. I think Yanzhuo is a place. Yan Zheng is ready to go to Baxia.
Qi has Qing tied up, then releases her so she can slap him
He knew the happiness was an act. She demands to know where Ning went. Qi explains that his foolish brother thinks she’s Marquis Wu’s daughter.
Qing is stunned to learn Yan Zheng’s true identity.
Later, Qi and Yuanqing learn Marquis Wu has attacked the borders. Qi is uneasy about Marquis Wu’s small army. Yuanqing has no questions or concerns, only confidence.
Back at the camp, Changyu makes an offer to General Tang, the guy who arrested her. If she carries a ton of rocks up a mountain, can her group eat drumsticks? It’s a huge amount of rocks, but that’s no problem for her. She does it, and her group gets drumsticks And More.
Tao knows this was an excuse to investigate the area. She saw that the quarried rocks were being used to build a dam.
Nanny secretly takes Bao away
Once Qi discovers this, he locks Qing in a woodshed. The Nanny’s son is strangled until he agrees that they must have run off and offers to chase after them. Qi sends him off, knowing this is all just another trap for him.
Tao visits General Tang because he’s figured out Yan Zheng’s plan to drown everyone. He’s actually Grand Tutor Tao. That’s why he knows Yan Zheng so well.
A sweet maid brings Qing some food and maybe convinces her she’s not working for Qi. Maybe. Who knows. Anyway, Qing shows the maid the large dagger she’ll use to break her chains. She tells the maid to save herself and not worry about Qing.
Tao gives Changyu a pouch that she’s only to open if he’s not around in the future
Changyu has a few questions, but Tao’s answers only confuse her.
Flashing back, we see that Tao shared a plan with General Tang that would reduce the number of innocent lives lost when flooding the area.
Suddenly, lots are being drawn to decide who has to leave the camp. Everyone thinks that leaving means dying on the frontline. Really, anyone staying behind will be in the path of the flooding waters from the dam they’re going to destroy.
Mr Jin, his guys, and Changyu all draw papers that say “stay”. Tao gets one that says “leave”. He acts pathetic to convince Changyu to trade with him. Everyone thinks he’s going to get her killed, but he’s trying to save her.
Changyu agrees, thinking she’s saving HIM.
These random lots were not random. General Tang asks Tao why he switched his. Tao feels responsible for his disciple’s deadly plan and can’t walk away.
Neither can Mr Jin and his guys
They all trade their lots to join with Changyu.
But at night, one of the guys overhears that the ones who stayed behind are the ones who are going to die. Changyu immediately opens the pouch from Tao. Inside is a message telling her to escape. From the frontlines? When was she supposed to open this?
They realize Tao is the only one currently in danger.
Worse, the camp is under attack. They save Tao, who isn’t thrilled they’re back. But Changyu needs some of her loved ones to keep living.
Despite this unexpected attack, they still need the dam to flood at the right time. General Tang has two arrows in his chest, but tells them that several scouts have escaped. They can’t warn the enemy or the plan will be ruined.
Changyu, Mr Jin, and his guys run after them, splitting up to chase the scouts.
Yuanqing faces Yan Zheng down on the battlefield, Ning on the horse with him. The fighting starts, and Ning calls Yan Zheng her brother-in-law, revealing their true relationship.
Yuanqing tries to skewer her, but Yan Zheng rescues her and sends her off with one of his guys. Sans child, the men fight, and Yan Zheng takes Yuanqing down. Then, he races into a gorge with him, Yuanqing’s men chasing after them.
Changyu catches up to a scout before he can send up a signal. He’s the guy who lied to her and tried to kill her earlier. Now he lies to her, getting his knife ready.
There’s a loud crack as the dam blows up. The water comes rushing straight towards where Tao still sits in the camp.
Exploding Dams and Falling Off Cliffs
These are a few of historical-ish cdrama’s favorite things.
So, Qi isn’t actually interested in helping his brother. Is the coughing made up too?
I don’t trust anything that either Qi or Qing does because they are double-, triple-, quadruple-crossing each other and faking each other out. It’s exhausting. I don’t have the energy to guess what’s really going on, I’ll just wait and see.
There’s not enough Yan Zheng in these episodes. All he’s doing is trying to drown the rest of the characters. If Changyu died, would he accept her as a casualty of war the way he accepts all the human loss involved in his plans? Would Changyu understand being sacrificed for the greater good?
Changyu isn’t dying, but I’m curious where this thread about Yan Zheng’s ruthlessness is going.
I’m hoping we don’t lose too many characters in this flood, because Changyu is sad enough. But this doesn’t seem to be a show that avoids a high death count. So, I’ll just brace myself as we go into the next episodes!
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