The Duke of Hu Song Zhao has Song Wenchang and Song Shilan practise the horse stance for four hours as punishment for recklessly going to Dingfeng Valley and risking their lives. Although things had gone well in the end, Song Zhao thought they—but in particular, Song Wenchang—were overconfident with their battle abilities.
There’s a difference of treatment between Song Wenchang and Song Shilan after Song Zhao appears to scold them about the impulsiveness of their decision. With Song Wenchang expected to take over Song Zhao’s position one day, Song Wenchang is handed a secondary punishment of writing 15 pages of calligraphy every day, with three more pages added if one mistake is found
With Song Shilan, Song Zhao hands down the punishment of swinging his sword 1,000 times a day, shooting 300 arrows, and standing in a horse stance for two hours. The reason he is handed this punishment is to have Song Shilan see that it’s his responsibility to hold Song Wenchang back from making these kinds of decisions that risk his life and endanger the Song family losing their heir.
It sounds like Song Zhao is favouring Song Wenchang over Song Shilan in terms of position within his family and punishment, but that’s not the case. Song Zhao decided on Song Wenchang to be the heir because he wants his family to stay away from the whirlpool of the imperial court (the politics, the power struggles, and the factional conflicts). With Song Wenchang having a heart that is pure and stays true to his original intentions, he is more suited to take over Song Zhao and ensure his intentions for the family continue.
Song Shilan knows this well. It was he who had recognised the reason he and Song Wenchang were punished, and it was he who had expressed the reasons why he was given such punishment. In contrast to Song Wenchang, Song Shilan shows ambition towards the military route, but he didn’t join the army. Instead, he took the imperial exams and went to the Court of Judicial Review because of the vision his father has for his family.
Song Zhao is a good father. He sees Song Shilan’s efforts and the route he wishes to take. The military talent Song Shilan has is not missed. It has Song Zhao ask Song Shilan to give him some time to see if he can figure things out and consider Song Shilan’s unspoken desire to join the military side of things.
Chu Yu returns home to learn from Wei Yun that her puppy Xiaoqi had run off amidst the chaos in the city during Yao Yong’s rebellion. The door was left unlocked, which led to Xiaoqi running out of the mansion. Jiang Chun had tried to find the puppy, spending the past few days searching, but failed.
Seeing Xiaoqi’s left, she can only hope the puppy found a new home. With that said, she lets Wei Yun know she’s made the decision to leave the Marquis of Zhenguo’s Mansion and return home. While they were talking about Xiaoqi having run away from home, Wanyue had finished packing everything.
It confuses Wei Yun. His place was her home. So, he didn’t understand why she was taking about going back home. Chu Yu goes on to talk about Huajing City being in turmoil after Yao Yong’s capture and how there are still more important things to do. Chu Yu seems to be suggesting that with so much still to do, they can’t be thinking about feelings.
For Wei Yun, though, her words only have him thinking that because there is still so much to do with regard to the Yao Yong situation and Huajing City, it gives Chu Yu less of a reason to leave. She needs to stay so they can work together on it. The way he sees it is that Chu Yu might be doing this to avoid him.
He tells her that he can accept her not answering his question about whether she regarded his home as hers. He can also accept her refusing. But he doesn’t want her to avoid him. Chu Yu denies wanting to avoid him, telling him that they’re family. She couldn’t possibly avoid him. She tells him her family’s door is always opened for him.
She was emphasising a familial relationship between them and creating distance so she could sort out her own feelings. She didn’t refute Chu Linyang later about not being entirely sure about what she felt for Wei Yun. She may have refused Wei Yun but admits she still needs time to think it through.
Chu Yu makes a move to leave. Wei Yun stands there with his gaze towards the ground, brows furrowed, and his hands baked up into fists. He couldn’t stop her from leaving him. Just as he let his other sisters-in-law come and go as they wish, he had to let Chu Yu do the same. He could only let her go as she wanted. He had to convince himself that she wasn’t leaving him when Chu Yu had asked for a goodbye to avoid making their time together end in such a final manner. “There’s no need for goodbye. You’re just going home,” he told her as he swallowed the hurt he was feeling.
Sixth sister-in-law Wang Lan discovers Shen You in an alleyway, seriously injured. Unable to leave an injured person on the street, she takes him back to a room at an inn to be treated by a physician. She’s told that although the cut is almost to the bone, it won’t leave him disabled and will recover.
Wei Qiu, who had been tracking Shen You all along, makes his way into the inn to check on the situation under the guise of buying some pastries Wei Yun wanted. Wei Yun also goes to check on the situation with Wei Qiu later and decides to leave the situation as is for the time being and instructs Wei Qiu to keep a close watch. Wang Lan was pregnant. He didn’t want to alarm her and risk any harm to the unborn baby. With Shen You injured and unable to walk, he expects Shen You won’t be going out to find his contact anytime soon.
Yao Yong is brought before Justice Minister Gu Chusheng, Wei Yun, the Chus, and the public to be executed for treason—for the blueprints to the octagonal crossbow to North Qi; for colluding with North Qi and fabricating military intelligence that killed 30,000 Chu troops; and for conspiring to kill 70,000 Wei troops.
Before he is executed, Wei Yun has Yao Yong see that he’s been serving his actual enemy the whole time. He tells him that the Lord of Qin’s death was not a wrongful death as Yao Yong believed. It was the gullibility of the Lord of Qin that the Lord of Qin was outmanoeuvred by North Qi, leading to the leak of Great Sui’s military secrets. The Lord of Qin’s demise was not the result of Emperor Chunde’s jealousy as Yao Yong had believed.
Yao Yong’s generalship is stripped off him and sentenced to beheading. He’s executed by Wei Yun. Finally, the Chus and the Weis have been avenged, and they can rest in peace.
Chu Yu returns home, where Chu Linyang is seen working on improving the octagonal crossbow. The recoil is smaller with the adjustment of the arrows. It’s progress, but it’s not the most ideal solution. In order for the octagonal crossbow to be promoted with confidence, Chu Yu (who Chu Linyang thinks sounds so much like Wei Yun) thinks the octagonal crossbow needs more suitable materials for the mechanism.
With Wei Yun coming into the conversation, it’s here Chu Yu talks about needing more time to sort out her feelings for Wei Yun. Chu Linyang was less willing to keep out of the matter between her and Wei Yun. If she did have feelings for Wei Yun and insisted on being with him, being known to the public as Wei Jun’s wife would impact Chu Yu’s reputation a great deal. But, as already mentioned, since Chu Yu was working through things, he let the master rest for the time being.
Li Huan dropped by the Duke of Hu’s residence with betrothal gifts for his engagement to Tuantuan. He brought along so many items that they filled the reception room. Song Zhao, a father who hears his daughter out and considers her feelings, tries to reject the gifts under the matter of Li Huan having kept a mistress.
Li Huan doesn’t miss the implication of Song Zhao’s words and defends that he’s changed to a better person. He assures the mistress is a matter of the past, and to back up his improved character, he tells Song Zhao that he helped relieve his father’s worries by promoting capable officials and showed care when his father was ill. When his father recovered, he sent the betrothal gifts they see before them.
Song Zhao fails to refuse Li Huan.
Song Wenchang shows up to refuse Li Huan, saying how their mansion is too small to accommodate his noble gifts. He tries to have Li Huan take them back with him as a way of rejection, but Li Huan just tells Song Wenchang the family can just put them in the courtyard. Li Huan wasn’t going to break the engagement. It’s not only an imperial decree, but the matter is between him and Tuantuan, and she should be the one to go to him if she objected to the betrothal.
Tuantuan does go see Li Huan about it after having a chat with her brothers. She admits that Chu Linyang is just one reason she doesn’t want to marry him when Li Huan asks about it, but her interest is in medicine and exploring and finding cures, not power and ruling the world. Being a bird trapped in a cage and unable to fly free isn’t a life she wants. She adds that if in the future Chu Linyang becomes a wall in her pursuits that she won’t stop for him either. She tells Li Huan that if he cares about her then he’d have His Majesty revoke the betrothal.
