As you can guess from the title of the post, I am not going to try to recap the episodes but will instead go over some general plot line and highlight some of the scenes I loved.
Episode 4
◦ Ordered by the Crown Prince to search for Xue Futu, Gu Yan and his man were almost wiped out when they were attacked by Xue Futu.
◦ Ning Yi meets with Gu Yan and finds out from their conversation about what happened that fateful night. Ning Yi takes out a cloth pouch (belonging to Gu Yan’s family) and tells Gu Yan that he has never given up trying to find Gu Yan’s family for him all these years. Surprised but unmoved, Gu Yan reminds Ning Yi that our hero was the eight year old boy who had forced him (Gu Yan) to betray his group by threatening to kill his wife and child so that makes Ning Yi just as evil as the Crown Prince. Visibly pained, Ning Yi reveals that he had never planned on killing the child because he had naively believed the emperor’s promise that if he was able to convince Xue Futu to surrounder then Gu Heng (Gu Yan’s brother) and the child would be allowed to live.
◦ Ning Yi tells Gu Yan if he really wants to figure out the truth behind Xue Futu’s attack that killed so many of his men then he will start following 5th Prince (the Crown Prince’s lackey). Gu Yan protests that it is not right he as a servant to spy on a prince but falls silent when Ning Yi pounds on the table and challenges “I refuse to believe that you don’t want to seek justice for your men!”
Episode 5
◦ Gu Yan saves a woman who was about to be killed by 5th Prince’s command. The grieving woman identifies all the dead bodies (including that of her husband) that were supposedly Xue Futu rebels but in reality, there were innocent men that had been kidnapped by the Crown Prince and forced to pretend to be Xu Futu assassins. After sending the grieving woman away with a bag of coins and warning her to forget any thought of revenge, a furious Gu Yan vents that his reward of working like a dog for the Crown Prince for the last 18 years is to have his men treated like expandable bugs. Weigh down by guilt and hopelessness, Gu Yan laments that he has no hope of exacting revenge against someone as powerful as the Crown Prince.
◦ In a conversation between Ning Yi and Xin Zi Yan we find out that the Crown Prince is actually the one that controls Xue Futu now so it was the Crown Prince who had ordered Xue Futu to attack Gu Yan. After showing up to “save” Gu Yan, the Crown Prince chased after the escaping Xue Futu. On the surface, it looked like the Crown Prince was very successful since he brought back many dead bodies that were supposedly Xue Futu rebels but of course the dead bodies were in actuality innocent villagers he had kidnapped then killed. (The Crown Prince is trying to make himself look good in front of the emperor and to appear that he has a handle on the whole Xue Futu situation.)
◦ Mama Qiu discovers that her brother’s concubine has become suspicious about her two kids’ real identity and promptly kills her. Zhi Wei walks in to see her mother standing over the concubine’s dead body.
Episode 6
◦ Weary that the emperor has put Ning Yi in charge of investigating the reappearance of Xue Futu, the Crown Prince decides to use Mama Qiu as the escape goat. The Crown Prince plans to use Mama Qiu’s identity as Gu Heng’s widow to accuse her of inciting Xue Futu to seek revenge for her husband’s death.
◦ Zhi Wei runs away from her uncle’s house with Mama Qiu and Feng Hao but they were soon chased by armed men that appeared out of nowhere. Thinking the guards must be there to arrest them because of the concubine’s death, Zhi Wei fights valiantly alongside of Mama Qiu but they were forced to surrounder once Feng Hao was easily captured by the guards.
◦ Ning Yi shows up in time to save Zhi Wei by shielding her with his own body and taking a sword right in the shoulder. Frantic when she saw her mother and brother being hauled away by the guards, Zhi Wei yells at Ning Yi “Save them! You are a prince! This whole country is yours, what can you not do?!” Almost collapsing, Ning Yi replies “But I am a useless prince.” Finally realizing Ning Yi is severely hurt when one of his man yells at her, Zhi Wei is overwhelmed with guilt and exclaims “You are hurt!”
Funny scene: A masked Xin Zi Yan rushes towards Ning Yi, grabs him and asks “Where are you hurt.” With a wince, Ning Yi replies “The hand you are grabbing…” Xin Zi Yan: “OH!”
Bandaging Ning Yi up the best she can while they are riding in the carriage, Zhi Wei cries “I don’t know what I would’ve done if something happened to you.” and blames herself for everything that happened. (She thought her ongoing feud with her uncle’s concubine was the reason her mother ended up killing the concubine.) Ning Yi tries to cheer Zhi Wei up by teasing her “I told you I am fine. If you really feel so bad then come be my maid and you can serve me for the rest of your life?”
Peering at Zhi Wei closely when she listed off all the reason she was to blame and continues to cry, our hero makes the brilliant observation “You look ugly when you cry.” Amused as Zhi Wei promptly covers her face with a hand, Ning Yi declares that he will save Zhi Wei’s family for her.
Zhi Wei “Really?”
Ning Yi “Of course! Didn’t you say that this whole country belongs to my family anyway?! Plus, am I not your generous supporter?”
Much calmer after hearing Ning Yi’s promise, Zhi Wei replies “Perhaps you should stop being the generous supporter and be a menace instead. After all, it has been said that menaces are bound to live for a thousand year. This way, you would stop getting hurt or spitting blood everytime I see you.”
Pretending to be offended, Ning Yi retorts “Don’t be a generous supporter and be a menace instead? A thousand years? What am I? A demon now?”
Satisfied when Zhi Wei breaks into a laugh, Ning Yi goes back to wincing in pain and complains of being cold.
◦ Seeing no point in having his wound go to waste, Ning Yi tells the emperor’s eunuch that he was wounded by Xue Futu who had attacked him.
◦ Sneaking out of her hiding place after Ning Yi is finally alone, Zhi Wei stares at an unconscious Ning Yi tenderly even as the painful memory of her mother making her swear to never marry Ning Yi comes back to her.
◦ Waking up the next morning by Ning Yi’s bedside, the first thing Zhi Wei says to our hero is “Can I ask you a question…”
Wincing in pain, Ning Yi promptly answers “No.”
Undaunted, Zhi Wei presses “I thought about it all night. Why did you come and save me last night?”
Ignoring Zhi Wei’s question, Ning Yi tells her that he is hurting so he needs to sleep more.
Pouting, Zhi Wei pokes Ning Yi and says “Keep pretending!” but quickly stops when Ning Yi pulls open his robe slightly and moans “I got hurt because of you last night…”
◦ After a few rounds of hide and seek, Zhi Wei finally corners Ning Yi and asks him how he would know to come save her that night. Ning Yi replies that it is because he likes Zhi Wei. Flustered for a moment then huffy once she decides Ning Yi is just joking, Zhi Wei starts to list off many things that seem suspicious now that she has time to think over what happened that night. Ning Yi reveals that the only reason he knew to come save Zhi Wei was because he found out that her drunk uncle had said she and her family would not survive the night. Thinking back to what her mother had said the night before, Zhi Wei realizes her uncle must be involved somehow.
◦ After listening to Ning Yi promising Zhi Wei that he will rescue her family, Xin Zi Yan teases Ning Yi that it’s too bad that his budding romance is doomed. Listening patiently, Ning Yi is still calm even after Xin Zi Yan tells him that Zhi Wei is Gu Yan’s daughter…which makes Ning Yi her father’s killer and her mortal enemy. Taking out a letter written by the dead concubine (Ning Yi picked it up during the night he saved Zhi Wei) in which she asserts that one of Mama Qiu’s two kids is the last remaining royalty of Dachengempiree, Ning Yi shows it to Xin Zi Yan. After a moment of stunned surprise, Xin Zi Yan quickly realized that if they hand the letter to the emperor it would be a great weapon against the crown prince. Promptly rejecting Xin Zi Yan’s proposal, Ning Yi bring up the question Gu Yan had asked him before: Between the life of a baby and the title of the crown prince…which is more important to Ning Yi? After some consideration, Ning Yi has come to the decision that the life of a baby is more important so while he does want the throne, he does not want to the seat at the cost of shedding innocent blood. Accepting Ning Yi’s decision, Xin Zi Yan promises to help our hero to obtain the throne in the manner he wants.
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No wonder I couldn’t find the episodes anywhere, forget subtitled ones, I couldn’t find the raw ones either.
The reason for the same is that the show is picked up by Netflix and will begin airing from September 14th!!
Thank you so much for the quick recaps…you are a life saver!
On another note…are you watching Ashes of Love? What do you think of the show? I’ve just begun and despite multiple times either one or both of them die, I’m pinning my hopes on the scene where both are seen playing with a young boy ;D.
I liked the first couple episodes of Ashes of Love and totally meant to follow it…but then I got sidetracked. Let me know you are liking it. I might pick it back up later.
For sure, will do!