Lingmo is led to his mother’s room but is short of seeing her. Yao Jue knows that she’ll face consequences if she dares to open that door to see her son. She’s left with no choice but to maintain the lie about having a cold and tells her son she can’t see him.
Yao Yong pretends to check on her resolve. “Lingmo misses you so much. Are you really not going to see him?” Yao Jue insists on her reason for not seeing him, which gets Lingmo to tell her that he’s not afraid of getting sick and thinks her refusal to see him might be because she doesn’t miss him.
Yao Jue could only send him off back home with a nursery rhyme after telling him that she did miss him but hopes that he’ll be a well-behaved and patient boy. He listens, running off to cry, but accepts not being able to see her for now.
Wei Yun and Chu Yu prepare to leave Yao Yong’s place, but not before telling him that the Li Changming wishes to see Yao Jue and wants Chu Yu to bring Yao Jue with her. It’s not actually true, but she gets Li Changming to agree to Chu Yu’s plan when she tells Li Changming about it later. Li Changming goes further by getting Lu Qiba and a team at the Arsenal Bureau to personally bring Yao Jue back to the Wei Mansion after her visit, which included learning that Yao Yong was planning a rebellion.
As Chu Yu sees to Lingmo, Wei Yun has a chat with Yao Yong, interested in understanding his reasons for staging a rebellion. Wei Yun had attempted to have him think twice about the rebellion without directly talking about Yao Yong’s plans against Great Sui. Wei Yun brought up Baidi Valley and Yao Yong’s efforts in preventing a fourth city from falling into the hands of enemy forces.
Yao Yong’s answer is it was the duty of a general, and move on to suggest a dissatisfaction with His Majesty and a feeling of being wronged—something that Wei Yun had noticed and might be behind Yao Yong’s actions. As Yao Yong had served under the Lord of Qin, he was spared from execution and made to earn merit through serving in the army. However, he seems to feel there’s no chance of him moving up further in life.
Yao Yong had compared the way he was treated to the way Wei Yun was treated after the battle in Baidi Valley when Wei Yun tried to caution him about making the wrong move. While he was made to earn merit with no hope to climb, Wei Yun was spared despite a defeat that saw the loss of 70,000 soldiers at Baidi Valley and inherited the Marquis of Zhenguo.
Yao Yong denies feeling wronged when Wei Yun asked and maintains he has a sincere heart for His Majesty and Great Sui, telling Wei Yun he looks forward to fighting alongside Wei Yun again, but their visit sees Lingmo discover a letter hidden under a tree at the Yao Mansion referring to the time and place of the suspected rebellion.
This was the purpose of Yao Jue’s nursery rhyme. She had banked on Lingmo to go to the tree and hide under it, as this is the only nursery rhyme she recites whenever he and Yao Jue played hide-and-seek, and it seems the game was played under a large tree in the courtyard. It’s under this tree that Lingmo finds the secret letter.
Back at the Marquis of Zhenguo’s Mansion, Chu Yu and Wei Yun work out the place and time of the suspected rebellion from Yao Jue’s letter—the Xu hour on the 7th, Dingfeng Valley.
With Yao Yong’s mind assumed to be occupied by his rebellion plans, Chu Yu and Wei Yun make the decision to rescue Yao Jue. With Li Changming’s invitation in hand, Wei Yun hands it over to Lu Qiba to go to the Yao Mansion to bring Yao Jue back. It all goes smoothly without issues.
Yao Jue’s return brings relief to Jiang Chun. Ever since suspecting that something was going on between Chu Yu and Wei Yun in Episode 15, she’s been keeping a close watch on them. The eye she kept on Chu Yu and Wei Yun was so vigilant that they even had to sneak around their own place in order to hold a meeting together to talk about Yao Yong’s rebellion.
Song Wenchang and Song Shilan also learn about the rebellion plans after they visit the Wei Mansion. Song Wenchang’s initial plan was to form a good relationship with Chu Yu to help him put in a good word with Chu Jin. He hasn’t forgotten that Chu Yu and Chu Jin didn’t have a great relationship, but the way he sees it, it’ll still be good to be on Chu Yu’s good side since Chu Yu will become his sister-in-law in due time.
Without hesitation, Song Wenchang puts his hand up to join the ambush Chu Yu and Wei Yun m planned in Dingfeng Valley. It’s against Chu Jin’s preference. He had once told her that there’d be no way he’d go to the battlefield, but as he’s already said he wants to go, he couldn’t take it back. Song Shilan also joins.
Song Wenchang finds himself underestimating Chu Yu’s battle skills and losing to Chu Yu in a sparring match after assuming that because she’s a woman, she couldn’t be as formidable as a man and doesn’t think she could go on the battlefield.
Chu Yu and Wei Yun have a short sparring match, too, and come off evenly matched. Originally, Wei had wondered if Chu Yu could perform a sword dance for him, but she answered with a sparring match instead. Wei Yun seemed to be trying to find out Chu Yu’s thoughts about him, possibly also whether she could see him the way he sees her.
After they finish sparring, Wei Yun tries again by bringing up the time she was on the roof outside Spring Breeze House (Episode 1). It’s not clear exactly where he was heading, but he seemed to be hinting at a hypothetical situation where if he replaced Wei Jun that day, whether she could consider him. He of course didn’t get far, as she seemed to have sensed where he was going and cut him off to prevent him from going there, appearing to reject his feelings.
Just as Wei Yun and Chu Yu are about to execute their plan to ambush Yao Yong in Dingfeng Valley, they get news that Gu Chusheng’s gone missing after going to Qinxi Valley to investigate. A scene showed him discovering a note detailing supply carts being sent to North Qi and 20 spies being sent to Great Sui to Yao Yong. After leaving, he was chased down with an order from the pursuer to have Gu Chusheng killed.
Wei Yun worries that this might be just a tactic to split him and Chu Yu up in this ambush mission of theirs. He finds the timing to be too coincidental. He also believes Gu Chusheng is still alive; else, there would have been news an official has been killed.
Wei Yun was right. Gu Chusheng is still alive and had hidden in a river before taking refuge in his old home. Chu Yu was asked to look for Gu Chusheng, as she was the only one who could understand the clues he left to find him, but Wei Yun made the decision he’d track Gu Chusheng down.
Chu Yu agrees to go with the plan. Wei Yun goes looking for Gu Chusheng in Qinxi Valley while she stations herself on the hill surrounding Dingfeng Valley with Song Wenchang and Song Shilan.
Chu Yu gives Wei Yun a few suggestions to focus on to try to locate Gu Chusheng before Wei Yun goes on his way. She tells him that since Gu Chusheng is a good swimmer, Wei Yun should focus on water sources and look for clues there. This leads Wei Yun to follow the only water source near Qinxi Valley, stopping by a river after noticing footsteps that stop there. He spots a character for “wood” on a rock. This “wood” character symbolised the direction “East”, which Chu Yu had also briefed him on below before he left, leading Wei Yun to suspect he’s at the Gu family’s old residence where Gu Chusheng hides injured.
With how Wei Yun and Gu Chusheng not on the most friendly terms, Wei Yun moves to treat Gu Chusheng’s shoulder wound, but not without being particularly heavy-handed. To stop Gu Chusheng from talking too much, Wei Yun stuffs a coptis pill in Gu Chusheng’s mouth, telling him it’d stop his bleeding only for it to have no effect. Then, during bandaging, he deliberately tightens the bandage with more power than needed, just to see whether Gu Chusheng would shout out in pain.
Gu Chusheng grits his teeth through the pain, unwilling to give Wei Yun the satisfaction of seeing him unable to take the pain. With Gu Chusheng unable to go on a horse in his state, Wei Yun makes his move to face Gu Chusheng’s pursuers. He wasn’t the type who likes to wait for death.
