When last we left our Handsome Stranger and the Pig Butcher, Changyu found out her father was a traitor.
Who people still want to burn in effigy 17 years later
During a funeral. This seems so wild to me that I thought it was a dream sequence. It isn’t. Did people do this?
Anyway, Changyu tries to stop them and gets yelled at by the Generals trying to set things on fire.
Yan Zheng arrives and makes everyone shut up and kneel so he and Changyu can pay their respects to General He without anything on fire.
Afterward, Changyu is back to shutting Yan Zheng out and treating him like a stranger. He thinks he knows what’s bothering her, but she won’t even let him behind the screen to see her. She tells him it’s serious enough to cost him his command of the army.
He says he leads the army based on merit. She thinks he’s saying he alone decides everything. Huh? Except for the kissing, I think it’s been the opposite.
Proving that point, he leaves when she tells him to, though not without one more glare through the screen.
Now it’s time for some cdrama tone shifting
Li shows up. Half-dressed, bleeding, and asking Changyu to beat him with brambles. This is how he’ll earn forgiveness.
Instead, she breaks the thorny twigs in half. She already knows she was wrong to knock him out. Everything is cool. No beatings.
Things get sillier when an annoying eunuch shows up with some imperial decrees. Changyu gets dragged from her pork stew to kneel and listen to them. First, General He is given a posthumous title. Next, Li is given a new military position. Finally, Changyu is given a new title and control over half an army, sharing it with Li.
But she misses this because she went back to her stew.
This is all just more of the Li and the Wei power struggles
Li finds Yan Zheng so they can fight over Changyu. Yan Zheng knows Changyu’s recent promotion is because Li filed her achievements with the court.
Li did this to protect her, and plans to continue protecting her. Yan Zheng thinks his wife doesn’t need Li’s protection. But Li reminds him he’s not married to Changyu. So Yan Zheng reminds Li he’s betrothed to the Grand Princess.
This is tiring.
After Li leaves, Sun guesses Chancellor Wei and Grand Tutor Li don’t see Changyu as a threat, so they allowed her to have this power. But it puts her in greater danger, and Yan Zheng vows to protect her.
Li also knows Changyu is being used, and plans to protect her.
The Grand Princess uses Li to make Sun jealous
Then she gives Sun the cold shoulder. He chases after her.
At her door, he asks if she has feelings for Li. She says she doesn’t have feelings for Li or for him. If he has no feelings for her, he should stop bothering her. He says nothing, and she closes the door.
He’s annoyed with himself for saying nothing. I am also annoyed with him.
Changyu’s new military position comes with new educational requirements. But she’s still the worst student ever. She goes through all the scholars and then Li himself.
Later, trying to study on her own, Changyu remembers learning with Yan Zheng. She always remembered things when he taught her. She wonders what he’s doing now.
Me too, but instead we see troops having stupid arguments
Over something about prisoners and merits and how they’re divided. I guess because leadership is divided between Li and Changyu? The argument veers into Changyu and Li’s love lives and whether they involve each other. Fun.
Li stops the noise by telling everyone he and Changyu are sworn siblings. Per usual, Changyu is standing nearby to overhear. Li quickly finds her and tells her it’s a temporary measure. He doesn’t want her to be offended.
No worries, she already sees him as an older brother.
But we’re not done with this love hexagon. The annoying eunuch meets with the Grand Princess and tells her she’s to marry the Marquis.
Grand Princess is Not Happy. But she tells the eunuch that if Yan Zheng agrees, she’ll agree.
Yan Zheng cuts the eunuch’s ear off
And gives it back to him on the end of his sword. That’s a no to marrying the Grand Princess.
Sun disapproves. But Yan Zheng is Done With This Nonsense, and even talks about deposing the emperor. He doesn’t want to become like his Uncle.
Then, suddenly, Yuanqing and a very small number of men are there to kill Yan Zheng and avenge his father. He charges at Yan Zheng and… Yan Zheng easily knocks his spear into the ground. So. Captured again.
Yuanqing’s mother, Princess Changxin, is Unhappy that Qi sent her son off to be killed. Also, she’s known this entire time that Qi isn’t her real son. She thought he was a pathetic child, and since her older son was gone, she’d raise him anyway.
Now she’s realized how vicious he is. Raising him is her biggest regret.
Qi literally stabs her in the back. Crying, he promises her corpse that Yan Zheng will send Yuanqing to her side soon.
Shi San exists! And watching with us!
Even Changyu knows Yan Zheng is to marry the Grand Princess
Never mind that. Changyu wants to track down Qi. Before they last parted, Qian told Changyu the truth about Qi’s identity and the tiger tally. And that he’s terrified of fire.
So Changyu looks for a house that should be lit up but isn’t. And they find it. Inside is a dead Qi with his dead mother, and no tiger tally.
Yan Zheng probably had the same idea and arrives soon after. Changyu tells him Qi is dead and leaves.
Later, Sun and Yan Zheng rehash what happened 17 years ago. Sun wonders if a fake tiger tally was used, and that’s why Wei Qilin didn’t show up with the grain.
Also, Yan Zheng confirms that the corpse wasn’t really Qi, but a double. They suspect the reason they haven’t been able to catch Qi is that someone inside is feeding him information.
And that someone is Li
We see him and Qi meeting, but not what they say. Probably Li really does want to protect Changyu.
Meanwhile, the wind blows Changyu’s door open for Yan Zheng. She tries to close it on him, but he tells her he will not be marrying the Grand Princess. In this lifetime, his heart is hers alone.
She lets him in, but tells him his kindness makes her uneasy. Then she’s shocked he already knows she’s Wei Qilin’s daughter.
He’s going to keep investigating until he finds the truth, and he wants to be by her side. We get a … nice hug! But she’s not sure how he’ll get the truth if Qi is dead. And what if the truth isn’t good?
Skipping the second problem, Yan Zheng has a plan. He has Nanny’s Son visit Yuanqing in prison to tell him the truth about Qi. And that he killed their mother.
Now Yuanqing is determined to kill Qi, and Nanny’s son sets him free to do so.
Meanwhile, Li is writing a letter when he learns Yuanqing escaped. He wants the letter sent to the capital right away. But outside, Yan Zheng is waiting for him!
I feel like this show needed more episodes
All the explanations for what happened 17 years ago come via conversations between characters and flashbacks to conversations. This doesn’t give it a whole lot of emotional impact and makes it hard to remember.
This is the rare case where I want more flashbacks. If I saw some of what went on between General He, Wei Qilin, Chancellor Wei, etc., at the time, it would mean more to me.
I also wouldn’t mind more time to develop Sun and the Grand Princesses’ romance into more than “he can’t use his words”.
Or maybe they could cut some of the silliness around Changyu. That could make the show too dark? But all that silliness feels like it exists to drag out the conflict between her and Yan Zheng.
I can believe that Changyu, having been through A Whole Lot, is struggling and Not Making The Best Decisions. Which was, I guess, that her past threatened Yan Zheng’s military career if they’re together? Or is this more shame, because now she’s even worse than a butcher, she’s a traitor’s daughter?
In character or not, I resent how little we’ve gotten to enjoy Changyu and Yan Zheng being together with no secrets between them. They had the moment after cooking fish, and after she left and he chased after her. That’s it. I want more.
But the scene with the screen between them? Yes, that was well-done angst. I’ll give it that much.
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