Recaps

Shen Tang secured a chance to command Yonggu Pass, then led a delegation into Ten Crows while protecting the tribute women and maneuvering around the Princess’s secret pregnancy. When rival princes launched an ambush, Shen Tang secretly withdrew her people and returned with Jiang Sheng to aid the exhausted Su Shi Yilu.

• Chu Yao confronted General Chu at Yonggu Pass, and Shen Tang later won the officers’ respect in a duel before agreeing to prove herself by bringing back thirty thousand Ten Crows heads.
• Chief Clerk Yu learned that Yu Zi was his great-grandniece, while Shen Tang received orders to gather a thousand young women for the Princess’s marriage tribute.
• Shen Tang sent Xianyu Jian’s force toward Ten Crows with Gu Chi, Jiang Sheng, and Lin Feng, and Chu Yao urged Lin Feng to kill the Queen Mother’s heir.
• Shen Tang discovered that the pregnant Princess was hiding the child’s true father, then refused her seduction and later accepted a secret map of Ten Crows in exchange for considering help.
• Shen Tang’s soldiers killed Ten Crows guards who attacked the tribute women, and Su Shi Yilu warned his people not to provoke her before the delegation continued onward.
• Rival Ten Crows princes ambushed the delegation, and Bai Su rescued the Princess while Shen Tang’s forces fought off the attackers.
• Shen Tang burned the emptied tents to conceal her troops’ withdrawal, then disguised herself and Jiang Sheng as wounded survivors and returned to help the exhausted Su Shi Yilu.

Shen Tang raided Ten Crows tribes, gathered starving refugees to her cause, and used a mysterious stele to spread a message against their rulers. The refugees began to see their oppression as a betrayal of their ancestors, setting unrest in motion among the Ten Crows.

• Shen Tang rescued Su Shi Yilu from three Martial Gall Warriors, then learned his camp had been devastated and the Princess’s escort was missing.
• Shen Tang reunited with her forces, confirmed the Ten Crows Defense Map, and began attacking isolated tribes while Su Shi Yilu returned to the royal city and found himself barred from the Great King.
• Shen Tang’s army destroyed several tribes and took their wealth, while the royal court’s rival princes and the Great King’s possible role in the attacks deepened Su Shi Yilu’s suspicions.
• Shen Tang captured a merchant who revealed that more than a thousand starving refugees were trapped in a valley, then sent Xu Quan to seize the stronghold and promised the refugees food in exchange for cooperation.
• Xu Quan’s men discovered Sparrow Head, a slave boy with dyed purple hair whom Gu Chi could not read, and Lin Feng recognized him as matching her teacher’s warning.
• Shen Tang’s forces and the refugees attacked a tribe for grain, and Shen Tang proposed using the Golden Crow as a shared ancestor to unite the Ten Crows against rulers who had seized their land.
• A three-legged crow-like beast fell from the sky and vanished, leading Shen Tang’s officers to a stele about the Golden Crow, and Shen Tang chose to copy and guard it rather than destroy it.
• Gu Chi helped spread the stele’s message that Ten Crows descendants were equal and entitled to their land, and the refugees connected it to their oppression as unrest began to grow.

Shen Tang’s forces exploited divisions among the Ten Crows as Lin Feng killed the Twelfth Prince, while Yan An’s attempt to kill Zheng Qiao ended in his own death. Gongxi Chou sent Gongxi Lai to the Clan Land, then attacked the rulers responsible for his clan’s destruction at Chengkang Temple, where Tang Guo arrived.

• Shen Tang agreed to the refugee headman’s loyalty and contacts in exchange for the stone stele, and planned to weaken Ten Crows’ tribes as her army advanced.
• Lin Feng pursued Sparrow Head, killed the Twelfth Prince, and sent his severed head back to camp, where Sparrow Head died.
• Su Shi Yilu found the Twelfth Prince’s mutilated body, then led the Ten Crows army toward Yonggu Pass as Shen Tang prepared to attack the tribes.
• Yan An confronted Zheng Qiao in a strange space, wounded him, and died after stabbing him, while Zheng Qiao ordered Yan An’s family captured and learned they had escaped.
• Gongxi Chou named the dancer Gongxi Lai, adopted her into his clan, and sent her with supplies and retainers toward the Clan Land.
• After learning that Yonggu Pass had fallen and that King Zhi and the Royal Uncles were at Chengkang Temple, Gongxi Chou killed his adopted brother and attacked them.
• Gongxi Chou killed King Zhi and the two Royal Uncles, devastated Chengkang Temple, and greeted Tang Guo when he arrived and told him to stop.

Gongxi Chou avenged his clan and learned the truth about his father before turning toward the Clan Land. Meanwhile, Shen Tang’s forces devastated the Ten Crows capital, and Yan Xingning’s sacrifice helped restore the National Border Barrier as the battle for Yonggu Pass began.

• Gongxi Chou relived the massacre of his clan, joined forces with Jimò Can and the Heroic Spirits, and killed Tang Guo.
• Jimò Can revealed that he had traded his life to resurrect Gongxi Chou and that Gongxi Chou’s elder brother might still be alive, then died in his son’s arms.
• Gongxi Chou set out for the Clan Land with Jimò Can’s ashes as news spread of trouble in the Ten Crows capital and an impending invasion of Yonggu Pass.
• Kang Shi, Chu Jie, Chu Yao, Zhao Feng, and Xun Zhen prepared Yonggu Pass for the Ten Crows’ attack, while Shen Tang’s army dug tunnels beneath the capital.
• Shen Tang’s forces collapsed the tunnels beneath the Ten Crows capital, set the city ablaze, routed its defenders, and looted its treasury.
• Five thousand taels of the stolen gold vanished through “When a thousand gold pieces are spent, they return,” and Shen Tang accepted the loss as the price of helping defend Yonggu Pass.
• Zhao Feng won three duels against Ten Crows generals, but the Ten Crows army advanced in formation as Kang Shi recognized Yuan Liang’s role in the attack.
• Yan Xingning’s incarnation, Wuyou, helped restore the National Border Barrier at the cost of her life, and Xun Zhen summoned Heroic Spirits to counterattack.
• Chu Yao and the defenders led their forces against the Ten Crows vanguard, with Chu Yao empowering Zhao Feng and Chu Jie and ordering his chariot troops into formation.