The Duble- Novel Ending (Spoilers!)

It is one great mystery of life why the powers that be for these sorts of dramas feel the great need to change a perfectly happy ending, but I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by this point seeing The Double has already added plenty of body counts when those characters were perfectly fine and alive in the novel.

• As I mentioned in the previous post, the whole welcoming the delegation plot did not exist in the novel. Our heroine moved right to the last step of her plan which was to give the princess a pill that would make her think she was pregnant with Shen Yu Rong’s baby. By the way, that whole flashback of the princess being abused by her husband and being unable to have more kids was not in the novel. In the novel, the princess had been eager to marry Shen Yu Rong so the baby just lit a fire under her to get the ball rolling. In the novel, it was our hero who took care of getting the princess to ingest the “pregnancy pill.”
• Shen Yu Rong tried to convince the princess to abort the baby but the princess was bent on marrying him. The princess convinced her mother to go ask the emperor to grant a marriage between her and Shen Yu Rong. Knowing full well that the emperor wouldn’t be too pleased to have one of his own promising court officials firmly in Lord Cheng’s camp by allowing him to marry the princess, our heroine convinces Minister Jiang to suggest to the emperor that a marriage between the princess and Li Jin would be a better idea. (The older of the two brothers who had been trying to create problems for our two leads the whole show.)
• Utterly stunned when she found out the emperor had ordered a marriage between herself and Li Jin, the princess was furious but was convinced by her mother that the marriage would be temporary and easily taken care of once her brother, Lord Cheng becomes the emperor.
• Back tracking a bit. In the novel, Ruo Yao did not have a change of heart because of our heroine but instead ran away from home after her mother died. Ruo Yao was picked up by Li Lian (the younger of the two brother) and became his concubine despite knowing Li family was her father’s arch-nemesis. After the princess marries into Li family, Ruo Yao had the bad luck of overhearing the princess discussing her pregnancy with her maid. Caught by the princess, Ruo Yao was thrown into the princess’ private dungeon. Li Lian tried to ask for Ruo Yao back from the princess but was rebuffed and convinced by his older brother that Ruo Yao is not important enough to make the princess unhappy.
• Li Jin found out about the princess’ pregnancy, and thanks to a timely tip from our heroine’s man, figured out the baby must belong to Shen Yu Rong. Li Jin and his father are convinced Lord Cheng must know of his sister’s pregnancy and are both furious the master they have been loyal to would treat them so falsely. This wedge of distrust was of course something already foreseen and planned for by our heroine. Li Jin decides to make the princess lose the baby but no matter what he does, the princess’ pregnancy continues. Right before the effects of the “pregnancy pill” stop working, our heroine had our hero’s people in the Li family create an accident that makes the princess lose her “baby” and helps the princess to discover the evidence that proves Li Jin had made multiple attempts to make her miscarry. Furious that Li Jin would dare to harm the love child between her and Shen Yu Rong, the princess decided to shame Li Jin publicly by exposing the fact that he is a pervert who likes young boys. (Something the princess “discovered” thanks again to our two leads’ help)
• Determined to expose Li Jin in such a way he would have no way to cover it up, the princess charges into the palace and asks the emperor to grant a divorce for her in front of all the court officials. Equally furious the princess would bring shame upon himself and his whole family, Li Jin promptly fought back with the fact that the princess married him while carrying Shen Yu Rong’s baby.
• His sordid affair with the princess dragged out into the open right in front of the emperor and all of the court officials, Shen Yu Rong had no way to defend himself…nor was anyone interested in hearing it. Quite different from the drama, the one thing Shen Yu Rong cared about the most above all else in the novel was his good reputation so this was really a big blow to him.
• The princess got her wish and her divorce was granted by the emperor but that’s the only good thing to come of this mess for her. With all the court officials in attendance, the capital was soon swirling with rumors of the princess’ affair with Shen Yu Rong. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be any consequences for Shen Yu Rong and Li Jin but both men soon handed in their resignation to the emperor after being subject to jeers from other court officials. A smart guy after all, Shen Yu Rong knew that with his relationship with the princess out in the open, he was now permanently on the emperor’s naughty list, and losing his job was just a matter of time so he might as well save himself some pain and face by resigning first. It was the same for Li Jin, since a publically known pervert would be fired at the first opportunity.
• It turns out, Shen Yu Rong and Li Jin made the right move to save themselves from further embarrassment because two days after the chaotic exposé in the palace, the emperor finally made his edict. The princess’ title was taken away from her and she became a normal everyday citizen that she so despised before.
• With the stage now set for our heroine’s sweet revenge, our heroine tells Daddy Xue that it’s finally time for him to take the princess (for the sake of clarity, I am just going to keep referring to her as the princess) to court for framing himself and killing his two kids.
• Wanting to make the case against the princess as big as she can, our heroine asks Duke Su to find the princess’ private dungeon and get Ruo Yao out of it. Duke Su and his men entered the princess’ dungeon and found Ruo Yao who not only lost an eye but had been driven crazy by torture. Ruo Yao was not the only one Duke Su rescued. While walking past cell after cell of badly tortured prisoners with most already driven crazy like Ruo Yao, Duke Su’s leg is caught by a hand. Looking down, Duke Su sees a young man covered in dried blood and terrible scars who could only mouth, “Please, help me.” His interest caught when he saw the young man’s bright eyes, and the smile he was attempting despite his terrible state, Duke Su surprised his subordinates by ordering his men to bring the young men back to the manor with them.
• The young man was of course none other than our heroine’s brother, Xue Zhao. Unlike in the drama, at this point, Xue Zhao had completely lost the use of his leg and was told by Jiu Yue that even she couldn’t do anything for his legs. However, if I remember right, through sheer stubbornness, Xue Zhao was eventually able to regain some use of his legs. In the novel, Xue Zhao was Jiu Yue’s romantic interest. Despite being an extremely aloof and cold person, even Jiu Yue was unable to resist Xue Zhao’s awe-inspiring sunny disposition and kindness even in the face of the most horrible personal pain and tragedy. The novel doesn’t end with Xue Zhao and Jiu Yue officially together but the author made it obvious that they liked each other.
• Our heroine actually doesn’t find out for quite a while that her brother has been rescued by Duke Su. Due to Xue Zhao’s initial inability to talk at first and subsequent reluctance to talk about his own identity, it took a bit before our heroine finally chanced upon him in our hero’s manor.
• The existence of the princess’ dungeon and the fact she would even dare to imprison officials (albeit, all lower level officials) including the daughter (Ruo Yao) of a high level official shocked everyone in the capital. With both Daddy Xue AND Minister Jiang demanding justice, the princess and Shen Yu Rong are thrown into the dungeon awaiting their sentence. Finally realizing this might be the one time her mother and brother won’t be able to clean up her mess, the panicked princess turned to Shen Yu Rong for comfort but by this point, Shen Yu Rong was only preoccupied by his own regret to pay the princess any heed.
• I am very intrigued by the fact that Shen Yu Rong never got angry at the princess at the end. Once he realized he was done for, it was like the princess was no longer of any use to him and he didn’t even see the point of wasting anger on her.
• The night before the execution, our heroine paid the princess a visit in the dungeon, a favor she had asked of Minister Jiang. Our heroine told the princess frankly that her pregnancy was fake, and that it was all orchestrated by her.

The princess furiously demanded to know why Jiang Li would do such a thing to her. Our heroine smiled and said, “I did it, because you told me to.”

“Me?”

“You said…” Jiang Li’s voice was gentle and soft, but its frightful color slowly emerged in the darkness as she said, “I am the daughter of an insignificant official. You killing me, was as simple as killing an ant. Next life, remember to be born into a noble family.”

There was first puzzlement on the princess’ face, then she froze as if hit by lightning.

The words that had already turned fuzzy in her memory suddenly appeared clearly in her mind.

“You, you, you…” the princess couldn’t help but take a step back, “Are you a person or a ghost? You are Xue Fang Fei?!”

Xue Fang Fei’s name finally made Shen Yu Rong, who had been hidden in the dark come crawling over, and stare at Jiang Li through the bars.

Jiang Li didn’t look at him but continued to stare at the princess. She suddenly smiled, and said in a low voice, “Who said I am not.”

• One thing I loved about this scene is that our heroine never once spared any attention on Shen Yu Rong. As she walked past, Shen Yu Rong grabbed hold of her skirt and asked “Are you Fang Fei?” Not sparing him a glance, our heroine simply yanked her skirt out of his grasp and left.

• Having achieved her revenge, our heroine meets with our hero, ready for him to kill her. (At this point in the story, our heroine has not told her father her identity because she fears it would be worse for him to lose her a second time if Duke Su kills her. Our heroine also does not know at this point that her brother is still alive.) Never one to mince words, Duke Su asks our heroine straight out why the princess would call her “Xue Feng Fei.” Realizing he has guessed the truth, instead of answering our hero’s question, our heroine tells him she is ready to fulfill their bargain and she is ready for him to take her life. Our hero put his fan against our heroine’s throat and slowly tightened his hold on the fan. Our heroine felt the coldness of the fan and felt death itself approaching her. Our hero’s eye suddenly fell on a butterfly jade pendent on his fan (the pendent was personally carved by our heroine and gifted to him as thanks for all that he has done for her about the midpoint of the story.) and abruptly whispered by our heroine’s ear, “Your life, I don’t want it anymore.” 
• In exchange, Duke Su asks our heroine to not lie and tell him everything. “I can tell Duke Su everything you want to know, but I fear you would not believe my words and instead think I am lying.” Jiang Li raised her eyes and looked at him. 
• Looking at her with an almost innocent, gentle trust, as if he would trust everything she said without hesitation sort of expression in his eyes, he said slowly as he gazed deep into her eyes, “I won’t. Everything you say, I believe.” In the novel, Duke Su flirts with our heroine quite a bit but kinda with a careless attitude that makes our heroine think he still wouldn’t hesitate to kill her at any time.
• A reader asked when did our two leads fell in love with each other in the novel. My personal take is that it was a steady but very slow process. We are almost at the end of the novel by this point, and our hero is still having a moment of “hmm…maybe it’s better to just kill her?” And our heroine is still going in with the assumption that our hero will kill her even if she did harbor some hope that maybe she could come out of it alive. Now, I think there were plenty of signs that our two leads were already most way in love with each other by this point. For example, Jiang Li personally carved a pendant for our hero. In the novel, our heroine was totally focused on her revenge so to spend that much thought and effort on a gift was abnormal for her. What was even more abnormal was Duke Su accepting it AND hanging it on the fan that never leaves his hand. Like I mentioned before, Jiang Li had actually accidentally foiled a few of our hero’s plans so it had always made more sense for Duke Su to kill our heroine but instead of doing what he would usually do, he kept helping her. At first, he helped her according to his mood and then eventually, our two leads’ struck that deal about her giving him her life later, and from that point on our heroine went around fearlessly with the “You can’t let anyone else kill me because my life is yours to take and how can you let anyone take what’s yours?” The fact that logic worked on our hero enough that he gave her pretty much whatever help she needed from that point on proves that she is already different to him. It was actually pretty uncharacteristic for our heroine to rely on our hero so much as well. Our heroine’s character is scary smart and capable in the novel so after developing trust issues thanks to her jerk husband and her best friend (who poisoned her), she really was not used to relying on others so I think it meant a lot she unconsciously started to rely on our hero.
•  I think the complicated thing that was in the novel that wasn’t in the drama was the fact that both of our two leads were very scarred emotionally, to the point that neither thought of the possibility of liking someone. However, I would pinpoint this junction of our heroine finally telling our hero everything and him believing her as a turning point of the two starting to look at each other romantically. In fact, alarmed by the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to kill our heroine, knowing he is not someone that can have any vulnerabilities, Duke Su promptly told our heroine that their deal had been completely fulfilled…meaning there was no more need for them to interact anymore. Feeling a sense of disappointment upon hearing Duke Su’s words, our heroine nonetheless suppressed her feelings and tried to go on with her new life without a revenge mission.
• With their “deal” now done, our two leads should’ve gone on their separate ways but fate of course had other ideas. Jiang Li’s third uncle (of the Jiang Clan, not her maternal side) and his wife had secretly been working for Lord Cheng. Wanting to get on Lord Cheng’s good side, Jiang Li’s third uncle and aunt decided to betray Jiang Li to Lord Cheng by telling him that the princess’ downfall must have something to do with Jiang Li. (They don’t know anything about our heroine’s real identity. Their logic was that if Jiang Li was not a busybody and rescued Official Xue (our heroine’s dad) then Daddy Xue wouldn’t be alive later to accuse the princess of killing his family.) They figured Lord Cheng just needed some powerless scapegoat to vent his anger on, and our heroine was the perfect one for the job.) While on the way to the Ye family (real Jiang Li’s maternal relatives), our heroine was kidnapped by a man and a woman working for Lord Cheng. On Lord Cheng’s order to bring Jiang Li to him, the kidnappers made sure our heroine was drugged the whole way. Despite being mentally alert, the drug made our heroine unable to move or talk.
• It didn’t take long for our heroine’s family on both sides to discover she had been kidnapped but by then the kidnappers had already disguised our heroine’s face and left the imperial capital with her. Already helpless, things takes a turn for the worse for our heroine when it becomes apparent that the male kidnapper is convinced that Lord Cheng will just kill Jiang Li so he might as well have his way with her while he can. At a little inn, our heroine was overjoyed to recognize a parked carriage as belonging to our hero. Gathering up every ounce of her strength she had been saving up, our heroine managed to struggle out of her kidnapper’s grasp…and fall to the ground (she couldn’t speak). All her hope was dashed when the carriage’s curtain didn’t even lift an inch and no one around would recognize her because of her disguise, our heroine could only close her eyes in despair later that night as the male kidnapper started to rip her shirt. Just as a piece of fabric on her shoulder was ripped away, our hero showed up, looked at Jiang Li’s exposed shoulder, turned back to look at the kidnappers, and said, “You dare to harm what’s mine, you certainly are brave.” (I could’ve translated that line as “You dare to harm one of my people” but this line could also mean one person, meaning the one special person. So it’s a line that can be read a few different ways.)
• Our hero not only saved Jiang Li but when they were faced with enemy soldiers (by this point Lord Cheng’s rebellion had started so it was decided that it would be safer for Jiang Li to stay with our hero), our hero went back into danger in search of a very important pendant Jiang Li had lost. (It was a pendant with a cat carving that had a special meaning to our heroine because it was a gift from her dad. Before our heroine discovered her father was still alive, the pendant was the only thing she had left from her family.) It was also the pendant that helped our hero recognize our heroine back when she was still with her kidnappers. When Jiang Li fell to the ground, our hero was in the carriage and thanks to his exceptional hearing, heard the sound of the pendant hitting the ground and recognized our heroine. (Apparently, this particular pendant made a unique sound compared to other pendants.)
• This was the point of the story when our heroine finally started to realize her own feelings for Duke Su. Like our hero, our heroine promptly went into avoidance mode. Our hero could tell our heroine’s change in behavior and understood the reason behind the change but he didn’t do anything to change her mind at this point. 
• In the drama, Lord Cheng was the big bad, but in the novel, our hero’s enemy was someone else entirely. With Lord Cheng’s rebellion, the emperor had to summon General Zhao De, the general who had been guarding the border to come back to the imperial capital to fight Lord Cheng. General Zhao De was our hero’s father’s best friend but he ended up first killing our hero’s mother then his father all because he was having an affair with the grand-empress. Our hero’s mother had chanced upon General Zhao De and the grand-empress together in the palace (it would later be revealed that it was actually all a set up by the grand-empress out of jealousy towards our hero’s mother.) To protect their secret, the grand-empress had General Zhao De kill our hero’s mother but not before getting some men to humiliate her in hopes that her dead body would show the evidence of it and thus make it so that her husband’s family would try to cover up her death out of fear it would bring shame upon their family. However, our hero’s dad refused to stop trying to find his wife’s murderer, even if it meant being kicked out of his clan. Nervous that our hero’s dad would eventually find out the truth, General Zhao De set up a trap to kill his best friend. To make sure no one suspects his relationship with the grand-empress, General Zhao De even went as far as marrying a woman and act well enough that everyone thought he was a devoted husband. 
• Lord Cheng was easily killed by General Zhao De which showed how formidable his army was. Sending his son and daughter to the imperial capital, General Zhao De wanted his son to marry Jiang Li. After meeting our two leads, General Zhao De’s son fell in love with our heroine and his daughter likewise fell in love with our hero. 
• Undaunted by our heroine’s very obvious rejection, General Zhao De and his son decided to just ask the emperor to give an edict of marrying Jiang Li to the son. Getting wind of General Zhao De’s plan, Duke Su promptly tossed patience to the wind, planted an unexpected but very thorough kiss on our heroine and asked her, “I know you like me already, but do you know that I like you?” Completely flustered, our heroine tried to protest but her stammering and blushing face was a dead give up to her feelings.
• Having obtained our heroine’s agreement to marry him, our hero promptly convinced the emperor that marrying our heroine to him would be better than letting General Zhao De get Jiang Li’s dad into his camp through marriage. Thanks to our hero’s “sacrifice” the emperor was able to gleefully tell General Zhao De that he was a step too late when General Zhao De came with his son to ask the emperor for an imperial edict to force Jiang Li to marry his son.
• General Zhao De’s ultimate goal is for his son to become the next emperor but he knows for that to happen, he will have to get rid of our hero first. Knowing how formidable Duke Su is, General Zhao De goes all in and has a showdown with our hero but ends up getting killed by our hero’s grandfather who showed up unexpectedly. Unfortunately, this is one exception where the drama actually gave us a happy ending as opposed to the novel’s. Our hero’s grandfather was finally able to avenge his son’s death by killing General Zhao De, but he was also hurt badly and ended up dying very peacefully in our hero’s arms. In the novel, our hero’s grandfather lived with him the whole time. Like the drama portrayed, our hero did have a hard time understanding his grandfather’s refusal to dig into his father’s death when he was young, but in the novel, by the time our heroine met our hero, he had already been through enough to understand how powerful their enemy was, and why his grandfather had to do what he did in order to protect him.
• General Zhao De’s son- Yin Zhi Li was actually taught to be an upright young man who believed his father to be a hero and aspired to help the common people. Unfortunately, Yin Zhi Li’s world was completely destroyed when his father confessed to him that he was the product of an affair with the grand empress and that he now expects his son to do everything he can to become the next emperor. With his father now dead, Yin Zhi Li felt he had no choice but to keep going with the crazy plan his father had laid out for him to finish up…including kidnapping our heroine so he could kill our hero when he came for her.
• Of course our hero did go rescue our heroine while knowing full well that he was walking right into a death trap. The rescue was a success but our hero was severely hurt, taking an arrow right in his back as he protected our heroine with his own body while they were riding away.
• In his fury that his own sister (he was close with his sister but found out recently from his father that they are actually not biologically related. The sister also had a crush on our hero.) was the reason our two leads could get away, Yin Zhi Li accidentally killed his sister. Overwhelmed with grief, Yin Zhi Li’s step-mother (who he was also close with) killed herself as well. His whole family now dead, Yin Zhi Li cannot even think of a reason to keep on living but in his deranged state, the only thought that kept him alive was why should he die like a loser when Duke Su was riding off into the sunset with the woman he wanted.
• Jiang Li went home to her much-relieved family while Duke Su led an army to fight Yin Zhi Li. Both of our leads were aware this was going to be a very dangerous mission for Duke Su since our hero had never led an army to the battlefield while Yin Zhi Li had grown up with the army that was guarding the border. To make matters worse, Yin Zhi Li’s army is known for being extremely well-trained. Our hero asked Jiang Li if she would forgive him for having to leave. Jiang Li’s reply was “If you promise you will come back and marry me, then I will forgive you.” With utmost seriousness, Duke Su replied, “I will.”
• Duke Su managed to kill Yin Zhi Li on the battlefield, but it was a difficult battle and his men reported that the last they saw was our hero falling off his horse, stabbed by Yin Zhi Li’s man, and then taken away. Duke Su’s men were later able to confirm from the captives that our hero had managed to escape but it seemed that he had ended up going into an area filled with poison insects and ferocious animals. Our hero’s men didn’t give up and continued to search for him but days turned into months until they finally returned to our heroine with a half broken butterfly jade pendant. (That’s the one our heroine had carved for our hero.)
• Our hero’s men informed Jiang Li that Duke Su had left them an order that if he was to die, then everything he had (including his people) would be left to our heroine and she could do with them as she wanted…including selling off everything (ie. his manor). Jiang Li told Duke Su’s men that she had no plan to sell our hero’s manor at all and instead, asked his men to help her keep everything that belonged to our hero safe. This was not an easy task because we were not talking just about an ordinary piece of property since it’s tied to the duke’s title. Titles are a finite thing so with our hero’s death “confirmed”, there are plenty of people wanting to swoop in and take that title away from Duke Su.
• Everyone in the capital, be it those who are friends, foes or simple bystanders was all waiting for Jiang Li to move on now that Duke Su was confirmed to be dead but Jiang Li was unmoved in her determination to either keep on waiting for Duke Su to return or to spend the rest of her life as his widow.
• Backtracking a bit. After our heroine chanced upon her brother in our hero’s manor, she told him her real identity (with Duke Su sitting right there so that’s what tipped her brother off that he has a new brother-in-law). Later, both siblings then went to Daddy Xue to tell him together. In the novel, Minister Jiang never did figure out his daughter Jiang Li had been replaced by Xue Fang Fei but in his own way, he tried to be a better father to our heroine.
• Daddy Xue and his son decided to stay in the capital but that means they will need to sell their old house. Jiang Li agrees to Daddy Xue’s suggestion that she go with them back home to take care of wrapping up business there.
• Back in the town she grew up in, Jiang Li wandered the night street until she abruptly saw Duke Su sitting in front of an opera play that was going on. So shocked that she dropped the butterfly pendant in her hand, Jiang Li watched as our hero walked to her, picked up the pendant, his eyes with his usually teasing seduction, and said with a smile, “Miss, it seems you have picked up what’s mine.” A laugh burst out of Jiang Li. She once thought first meetings were the most lovely but in actuality, in this world, reunions are the most precious. “Then how do you plan on repaying me?” She tilted her head, and laughter filled her eyes, “How about giving yourself to me?”
• This is the official end of the novel but the author added some extra chapters to explain what happened to our hero when he went missing so there is a little more I want to cover.
• I decided to translate a bit of the novel ending extras instead of summarizing so look for a separate post.
• Before we end this post though, there is one more thing I wanted to add. While talking together, our hero reminded Jiang Li that there was actually one time they had met while our heroine was still Xue Fang Fei. On the day his father died (everyone thought our hero’s dad died when he was really young but his dad was actually in a coma due to being poisoned and had been hidden away by our hero’s grandfather. Unfortunately, in the end, our hero’s dad never did wake up again and died.) our hero wandered around the capital aimlessly until he ended up sitting outside of Xue Fang Fei’s house. Out in the courtyard, our heroine was singing an opera story for her maid. It was one of the rare times when our hero’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law were out of the house so our heroine could finally be herself for a bit. While listening to our heroine’s conversation with her maid, Duke Su realizes that Xue Fang Fei was fully aware that being married to Shen Yu Rong meant she had to suppress her real self. However, because of her love for Shen Yu Rong, our heroine had no resentment or fear for the situation she was in. Sitting outside on the other side of the wall, our hero thought perhaps Xue Fang Fei was not the mindless beauty he had once thought but he also knew clearly that someone like Shen Yu Rong would throw his wife away at the first opportunity if she became an obstacle to him. Our hero left with the thought that it was a shame a woman with such potential of blooming into a dazzling beauty is destined to wither with Shen Yu Rong. As Duke Su walked past the slightly opened door, our heroine met his eyes. Our hero’s eyes made such an impression on our heroine that even as Jiang Li, she could recall that experience when Duke Su sang the song she sang that day and told her they had met once before.

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