Chu Yu shares with Xue Hanmei that there are hostile intentions within Li Changming’s group of followers. She doesn’t mention the case. Rather, Chu Yu talks about having discovered some of her gifts in Qiliu Store, which means there are followers stealing from Li Changming and selling the gifts.
She moves to ask about the selection process for followers. Xue Hanmei tells her that talent is a criterion. The other is that they also need to be handsome. He also confirms that a background check is done.
With the selection process appearing to check out, Chu Yu finds it strange how followers with hostile intentions could be let in. This is when Xue Hanmei asks Chu Yu whether she suspected him. Since he’s the closest to her and he appears to have some influence over her decisions, he could have the influence to guide her towards the selection of preferred followers.
No. Chu Yu denies thinking of him as a suspect. She tells him that if she thought so, she wouldn’t be telling him about it in the first place.
Li Changming appears before them with a questioning air. They’re both brought in and given a chance to explain themselves. Xue Hanmei speaks first intentionally to get Chu Yu into more trouble. He tells Li Changming that Chu Yu had told him not to tell her about what they were doing. When Chu Yu takes all the blame for the meet-up, Xue Hanmei drops in a lie that Chu Yu called him by his first name to give the impression she was making advances towards him.
Chu Yu dared to joke and not correct the suggestion made from Xue Hanmei. It sees Li Changming test her with whether she should give her to Xue Hanmei. Chu Yu stops and asks for forgiveness, telling her that it was a joke and to punish her for it.
Xue Hanmei’s reaction to being offered to Chu Yu is a frown. The indifference surprised him. Li Changming’s always made all the advances towards him, showing how much she favoured him, yet here she was, so easily offering to give him away to Chu Yu. He’s probably questioning how much Li Changming actually likes him. It’s the first time we see Xue Hanmei show a bit of his feelings towards Li Changming.
Li Changming lets the whole matter go. She decides she won’t punish Chu Yu. However, she warns her that if there’s a next time, she won’t let things slide.
Xue Hanmei moves to provide a reason for the late-night visit, seemingly helping to, at least, say something that would explain it. He tells Li Changming that Chu Yu wanted to get close to Li Changming and wanted to gift her something—an explanation that Chu Yu goes along with. It sees Li Changming ask Chu Yu for a solution to get the nobles to donate 100,000 taels to relieve the strain on the national treasury (this is the reason Emperor Chunde won’t let go of the pearls without payment).
The idea Chu Yu comes up with is an auction banquet where the nobles donate their personal items for auction. The place she suggests to hold the banquet is in the remote Qinxi Valley located in the south of Huajing City. The auction banquet and the remote location are deliberate suggestions Chu Yu comes up with to buy her and Wei Yun a good amount of time to search Yao Yong’s mansion for evidence whilst Yao Yong attends the banquet.
Chu Yu’s choice of location is one that has Xue Hanmei give a rather curious look. A follower who’s just a simple follower probably shouldn’t react to whatever location is suggested, but it had him ask Chu Yu about it later on. It makes you wonder why her choice of location stood out enough for Xue Hanmei to react. It could be explained away with a simple concern for Li Changming—he was heard reminding Chu Yu to not let anyone harm Li Changming. However, with the revelation that Qinxi Valley is a meeting place for the long scheme of annexing Great Sui, anyone in Li Changming’s group of followers could be a traitor, including Xue Hanmei.
Li Changming reveals to Xue Hanmei later that she actually suspects Chu Yu of wanting something from her. She didn’t believe it to be as simple as her wanting to get close to her. When Xue Hanmei asked why she agreed to the auction banquet, Li Changming told him it’s because she finds Chu Yu interesting as well as being curious about what she’s up to. She was just going to sit back and watch.
Chu Yu is greeted by Wei Yun when she finally makes her way out of Li Changming’s mansion. He’s been waiting for her since discovering Wanyue waiting outside, telling him that Chu Yu was inside.
The trip back with Chu Yu sees Wei Yun riding the carriage with a long face. He’s not happy about her going to Xue Hanmei as a starting point to find out who amongst the followers is a problem. He’s got a tendency to be quite guarded when dealing with people of interest in an investigation or people whom he suspects, but this time, it’s also because she’s being too close to a man.
Wei Yun’s feelings for Chu Yu are getting stronger. After returning to their place, hearing Chu Yu call her puppy “Xiao Qi” doesn’t get Wei Yun to feel as offended as usual. Chu Yu insisted on keeping the name because she thought “Xiao Qi” was a good name. That had Wei Yun let her have her way. After all, Xiao Qi was a puppy she adored, and it shared the same name as his nickname.
Back then, Wei Yun saw the naming of her puppy as an attempt to make him comparable to a dog. Now, it could be seen as something Chu Yu really likes. Maybe it’s meant to show a change in Chu Yu’s view of Wei Yun, too. She appeared to choose the name to rile up Wei Yun at the beginning, but now she reveals she thinks it’s a good name.
Wei Yun decides to ask Chu Yu whether she would have married Wei Jun if he were still alive. Her answer seems to be that it would be unlikely. She sees him as one of the best men in the world and believes he would have met another woman.
Interestingly, her thoughts are very similar to the words Wei Yun had said to his brother in Episode 2. When Wei Yun found Chu Yu suspicious and thought that Wei Jun had chosen her as his loved one, he expressed that his brother was one of Great Sui’s finest and deserved the best woman. Wei Yun was corrected by his brother at that time, telling him that the best woman is the one whom one loves the most.
It’s not clear what Wei Yun thought when he heard Chu Yu’s response, but he had smiled, as if acknowledging her thought to be on the same wavelength as his—which is good news. If Wei Jun’s words about the person whom one loves the most is the best woman/man, then the best man for her is the one she loves. The fact that she said that she was unlikely to be the woman Wei Jun would end up with would then suggest she doesn’t see Wei Jun as the one she would love most.
But then Chu Yu reminds him of reality. There is no such thing as “if” in this world. The fact is she’s married to Wei Jun and is currently known to everyone as Wei Jun’s widow and she is his sister-in-law.
Back in his room, Wei Yun falls asleep at his desk and dreams of Chu Yu asking him to be with him, revealing inner thoughts and desires. He’s reluctant to admit his feelings. “What are you afraid of?” The Chu Yu in his dream had asked. His dream shows him avoiding Chu Yu’s gaze and becoming flustered by her approach.
It was clear he had feelings for her, but he’s been resisting acknowledging the feelings since the time he helped her untangle a hair ornament from her hair. The dream had Chu Yu call him out on keeping her hair ornament as a sign he liked her. The Chu Yu in his dream called him out on his jealousy whenever he saw her talk to another man (likely referencing the times he interrupted the meetings between Xue Hanmei and Gu Chusheng).
The time Wei Yun seems to have noticed and was attracted to Chu Yu, though, is confirmed again to be outside Spring Breeze House after he returned from battle and saw her dance on the rooftop in the red dress. “Back in the Spring Breeze House, you were the first man I saw. I know you like me. Am I right?”
Wei Yun is jolted awake after the analysis of his subconscious feelings for Chu Yu. Wei Yun scolds himself for dreaming about something like this, but he couldn’t deny his feelings now. As well as the things mentioned in dream telling him he liked her, there are also the couple of times she looks to have made his heart beat just a bit faster. When they returned home together, Chu Yu’s sudden move to feel his forehead to see if he was unwell had him stiffen in place. Immediately, his hands that were clasped together tensed up. In Episode 11, when he and Chu Yu were trapped in the secret room at the Arsenal Bureau, he also tensed up when Chu Yu was lying on top of him.
He tries justifying his desire to be with her with the fact that nothing actually happened between Wei Jun and Chu Yu. He then becomes defiant—what if he insists on his feelings and go after her?
On the day of the auction banquet, Chu Yu and Wei Yun carry out the plan to use it as an opportunity to search Yao Yong’s mansion while he’s obligated to attends it at Qinxi Valley. Chu Yu was to attend the auction banquet and holds him off from attempting to return to his mansion while Wei Yun and his guard—Wei Qiu—try to break into Yao Yong’s study for any evidence relating to his involvement in helping North Qi achieve their mission.
Multiple times Yao Yong had tried to leave. The moment he saw that only Chu Yu showed up at the auction banquet, he was suspicious what Wei Yun might be up to. Chu Yu had used the same reason Yao Yong didn’t show up at Wei Yun’s Thanksgiving/investiture banquet—that he was busy working. However, once Wei Yun is fine with work, he would attend.
Unable to leave the banquet, Yao Yong could only rely on the guards to keep a tight watch of the study room and get the word back to them that Wei Yun might be at his place.
Before the guards receive this information, though, Wei Yun manages to lure away the guards outside the study room with nuggets of silver that they thought were common behaviour of crows that like to steal silver because of its luminance.
When they enter the room, they come across a lock that is a challenge to unlock, but Wei Qiu eventually succeeds. Wei Yun and Wei Qiu enter the study to discover a room of weapons he had secretly kept there. It’s around this point the guards receive information of Wei Yun’s possible presence, and they all descend on the study room, as this was the last place they’ve yet to check.
Back at Qinxi Valley, Yao Yong is visibly impatient as he sits through the auction banquet. He had attempted to leave before the auction started, making up an excuse that there was an urgent family matter he had to attend to suddenly, but just as he made his move to leave, Li Changming finally arrived.
The auction banquet was off to a slow start, as no one dared to make a bid on the first item up for auction—a one-of-a-kind white jade ring from His Majesty. In the end, it was Li Changming who put up her hand to bid for her own item.
To get the ball rolling on getting all the noble guests to donate an item, Chu Yu offers her item first—a dagger. She then encourages Yao Yong to donate an item. He seems to have come empty-handed, and so, he simply offers to bid for Chu Yu’s dagger. However, Chu Yu wasn’t satisfied with just a purchase and pressured Yao Yong to donate an item. Yao Yong pulls off the jade pendant on his belt and donates it.
At the halfway point of the auction banquet, Yao Yong sees his opportunity to leave after a break is called. With Yao Yong having already done his part for the banquet—he’s purchased something and he’s offered up an item for auction—there’s not much Chu Yu can do to stop him from going back to his mansion.
Only one problem pops up with Chu Yu’s claim. Chu Yu was seen injuring her own arm. Wang Linlang happened to pass by and saw Chu Yu slice across her own arm with a dagger and called her out in front of everyone.
Yao Yong moves to expose Chu Yu, demanding her wound be checked. As well as claiming an assassin was present, she claimed that the assassin had wounded her with a scimitar. He also attempts to implicate Chu Yu in wanting to have people suspect Li Changming of colluding with North Qi—therefore, making Chu Yu appear to have ill intentions towards Great Sui’s Eldest Princess.
Fortunately, Li Changming is not on Yao Yong’s side and doesn’t let him move the narrative in this direction. She stops him from using his own person (who he claims is a physician) to verify the wound was caused by the weapon Chu Yu had claimed and instead calls Tuantuan over to check on Chu Yu’s wound.
In a private room, the wound is revealed to be one caused by a dagger and not a scimitar as Chu Yu had made it out to be. However, the truth isn’t reported back. Instead, Li Changming had Tuantuan lie so that Chu Yu’s story checks out—that indeed there was an assassin in the area. Lu Changming had once again decided to help Chu Yu. For what reason—that’s yet to be revealed.
Tuantuan’s report has Wang Linlang confused. Xue Hanmei, as a simple follower of Li Changming, shouldn’t be reacting to the report. However, he too shows confusion as a deep frown appears and his eyes move around as if he were trying to work out what was going on.
Chu Jin also speaks up and questions Chu Yu about how she manages to get herself hurt when she’s normally so fierce. It touches on her story being unimaginable, but Chu Jin could also be expressing concern that’s masked as a bit of a scolding.
Although the story about there being an assassin had been made up by Chu Yu, Gu Chusheng and Song Shilan actually come across a group of archers during their check of the surrounding area. The archers were spotted along the hills that surrounded the valley just ahead of Gu Chusheng and Song Shilan.
Their target was Chu Yu. An arrow had been aimed at her, but the person it hit was not Chu Yu but Gu Chusheng. He had managed to make it back to the inn where the auction banquet was held and took the arrow for her.
