In Fengling City, Chu Linyang’s seeing great results from the tests conducted on the octagonal crossbow. The strong recoil has been completely solved, and the penetration power has increased significantly. The only problem was the shortage of the mineral required to make the weapon on a mass scale.
While Chu Linyang was out testing the octagonal crossbow with his men, Tuantuan worked on making pills from hemostatic herbs for the soldiers at the place they stayed. For some unknown reason, her jars are exploding. Chu Linyang arrives to shield her after yet another one explodes.
He keeps denying he cares about her, that he likes her when Tuantuan asks him about his feelings again. He maintains he and Tuantuan are suitable when Chu Yu teases him about it, but he once again shows he cares quite a lot and can’t help worrying about her during a thunderstorm later that night. Upon hearing the thunder, he immediately went to her to check she was okay.
Tuantuan had shrunk into him when the medicine jars had exploded during the day. This had Chu Linyang think that she might be afraid of the sound of thunder. The fact is Tuantuan was neither afraid of the exploding jars nor the thunder. As someone who had often worked to develop medicine, exploding jars was something she’d previously experienced many times before.
So, the sound of thunder was something she was also not afraid of. However, Tuantuan took advantage of Chu Linyang’s belief; she was afraid to see if he’d go check on her. With him going to her to do exactly that, he yet again showed Tuantuan he cared and liked her. The fact he didn’t get angry after she revealed she had pretended to be scared was further proof to her.
Chu Linyang remains stubborn. He doesn’t give her an answer. He just ends his visit by telling her to get some rest.
Tuantuan goes to Chu Yu to hear what she thought Chu Linyang’s feelings were for her. Chu Yu’s answer is as Tuantuan believed. He liked her and believes Chu Linyang will one day go to her. It’s just that Fengling (which is like a home and family to him) is important to him. She tells her that it’s what’s holding him back from going to her.
The talk with Tuantuan has Chu Yu thinking about Wei Yun again. Tuantuan had made a comment about it being difficult to find someone who truly likes you and that giving up on happiness is silly. In her view, no problem can’t be solved. The first time when Li Changming gave her the advice to not regret it later, Chu Yu made the decision to throw caution to the wind and act on her feelings for Wei Yun. This time, though, she told herself that there were more important things than just love in life.
Right now, she needed to bring Li Changming back to Huajing once Lu Qiba returns with any news of her whereabouts. There was also a suspected stronghold in Fengling City to defend.
The fight between Wei Yun and Gu Chusheng at the end of Episode 26 was all an act to make Xu Lingzhang reveal his true self to them. Gu Chusheng continues the act. He pretends to be dissatisfied with Wei Yun for his pestering Chu Yu and speaking rumours about his ambitions for taking over the guarding of Qingzhou with the Wei army to achieve military merit and gain prestige. Being Qingzhou’s ruler is Xu Lingzhang’s ultimate goal, so Gu Chusheng’s words about Wei Yun apparently trying to steal that power through deploying his Wei army get Xu Lingzhang scheming to take out Wei Yun.
Gu Chusheng seems to know Xu Lingzhang’s ambition and intentions. So, he asks Xu Lingzhang to help him take out Wei Yun so that he is no longer a competition for Chu Yu.
This request is the direction Xu Lingzhang wants, and so he arranges a belated “welcome banquet” between him, Gu Chusheng and Wei Yun. Wei Yun plays along, acting suspicious over the lack of guests and showing disdain towards Gu Chusheng when he’s told it’s to help him patch up with Gu Chusheng.
Wei Yun acts difficult. He tells Xu Lingzhang that it all depends on how far Gu Chusheng is willing to go to repair their cooperation. Gu Chusheng offers to drink a small cup of wine as a way to sell forgiveness from Wei Yun. Wei Yun rejects it. It wasn’t enough. Gu Chusheng offers to drink the whole jug, which Wei Yun finally accepts, and returns the gesture by drinking a small cup of wine.
The sight pleased Xu Lingzhang. The cup of wine had been spiked with numbing powder, which Wei Yun pretends to succumb to just as he takes his leave to go change guard.
It’s unclear whether the cup was swapped or if he had pretended to drink the wine, but Wei Yun was completely fine once the act was over. In fact, he expected the wine to be spiked. In a separate scene where the Song brothers were prevented from heading to Qingzhou Yamen and attending the supposed welcome banquet, Song Shilan revealed that Wei Yun had specifically told them to stay away from the wine, as it can bring trouble. Song Wenchang had forgotten that advice and was about to take a sip but was stopped when Song Shilan reminded him of Wei Yun’s words.
With Wei Yun back at his seat and unable to move, Gu Chusheng takes action and thrusts a blade into Wei Yun’s chest for real. It probably wasn’t meant to go this far. Gu Chusheng would never go as far as doing any fatal damage, but Gu Chusheng seems to want Wei Yun to feel some pain.
The way Wei Yun made Gu Chusheng show greater respect with drinking a jug of wine and Gu Chusheng taking advantage of Wei Yun’s condition were all acts, but it also comes off as true thoughts and actions towards the other. Even when Gu Chusheng put that carving of Chu Yu in Wei Yun’s face and Wei Yun gave Gu Chusheng a good beating, it felt like they were taking advantage of the act to vent on each other.
The antagonistic relationship between them is actually quite a good watch. Wei Yun doesn’t like Gu Chusheng, but his view of Gu Chusheng as an official is actually positive. Gu Chusheng may appear as if he’d love to kill Wei Yun. However, he won’t, because he knows that justice requires fierce generals like Wei Yun to defend Great Sui. Gu Chusheng doesn’t acknowledge out loud that Wei Yun is one of those fierce generals which Wei Yun later had mentioned as the reason Gu Chusheng didn’t deal a fatal stab, but Wei Yun believes Gu Chusheng believes this about him.
After stabbing Wei Yun, Gu Chusheng pretends to celebrate the Marquis’ imminent death and tells Xu Lingzhang to make the final blow and end Wei Yun.
Xu Lingzhang doesn’t go after Wei Yun. Believing Wei Yun to be no longer a threat, he moves to let Gu Chusheng know that he’d be killing him, too, so that he can realise his goal of becoming the ruler of Qingzhou. Once all remaining capable people like Wei Yun and Gu Chusheng are dead, there’d be no one else to defend Great Sui (therefore achieving North Qi’s goal), and Xu Lingzhang should then be rewarded with Xue Hanmei’s promise to make him Qingzhou’s ruler.
But since this was all act, Wei Yun’s actually fine, and Gu Chusheng is actually working with Wei Yun this whole time; Xu Lingzhang’s schemes fall apart following his confession of his true motive. Xu Lingzhang still had hope that he’d get out of this without being taken in, as he believed he’d be saved by the soldiers he hid in the city. Presumably, they were meant to storm in and take down Wei Yun and Gu Chusheng, but it’s Song Shilan, Song Wenchang and their soldiers who storm in, surrounding Xu Lingzhang.
Gu Chusheng’s search into the secret case files had led him to discover a secret passage leading from the outside into the city. This allowed Song Shilan and Song Wenchang and their men to make their way into the city, taking down all Xu Lingzhang’s hidden soldiers on their way in and detaining Xu Lingzhang for interrogation.
Failing to use Xu Lingzhang to kill Wei Yun, it’s back to using the original plan for Shen You and North Qi. They already have North Qi troops stationed in Qingzhou with North Qi Commander Gao expected to join Shen You.
Ten thousand North Qi troops gather outside the gates the next day. It’s a situation that was too timely to be a coincidence. What’s more, a North Qi scout had returned precise information on the location of the North Qi encampments and the number of their soldiers on a North Qi garrison map.
Wei Yun orders the strengthening of defences as opposed to heading straight in to fight. The fact that such precise information was obtained suggested that North Qi wasn’t worried about keeping this kind of information tightly guarded. As Song Shilan explained to his brother about why Wei Yun didn’t order them to go straight for the North Qi troops, the real danger was yet to come. This was the message North Qi wanted to convey to Wei Yun and Great Sui through this map.
