Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Under pressure from Yuan Huanhuan, the Marquis of Enping writes a divorce letter to dismiss Madam Qu. She tears up the first copy, but he writes another and sends it to the magistrate’s office for official registration. Huanhuan secretly ensures it gets there.
• The Marquis tells Madam Qu to leave once the divorce is finalized, then goes to change into wedding robes, expecting to marry Huanhuan immediately.
• Huanhuan rejects him, revealing that she only pretended to agree. She exposes the earlier wedding-day deception: her intended fiancé, Qu Qianyu, was replaced by his brother, Qu Qianzhi, while the Marquis falsely claimed Qianyu was ill.
• When the crowd demands to see Qianyu, the Marquis insists he has plague. Huanhuan points out that the household should have reported an outbreak and should not have hosted a banquet. The guests panic and accuse the Marquis of endangering them and possibly plotting against the kingdom.
• The crowd attacks the Marquis. As the chaos grows, Song Yaoyao and her two cousins slip away.

Character developments and interactions

• Yuan Huanhuan shifts from seeming willing to marry the Marquis to openly rejecting and humiliating him. She explains her deception as retaliation for the dishonor his household inflicted on her and her family.
• The Marquis of Enping discards Madam Qu, believing Huanhuan will marry him, but his lies and arrogance leave him isolated and beaten by the guests.
• Madam Qu is devastated by the divorce and curses the Marquis as she is dragged away.
• Song Yaoyao and Guagua watch the unfolding drama with excitement; Song ultimately leads her cousins to safety.
• Huanhuan’s confrontation turns the banquet guests against the Marquis, transforming a private scandal into a public crisis.

Significant themes

• Betrayal and retaliation: Huanhuan answers the Marquis’s household’s deception with a deliberate public reversal.
• Public reputation and power: The Marquis’s status cannot protect him once the crowd believes he has put their lives at risk.
• Consequences of dishonesty: His fabricated explanations escalate into panic, accusations, and violence.

Key events

• Song Yaoyao and her companions watch the Marquis of Enping’s Residence from a restaurant while waiting for food. They learn that Madam Qu’s divorce from the Marquis has been officially finalized.
• Yuan Xingheng arrives with his sons and servants to rescue his daughter, Yuan Huanhuan. She breaks down in her father’s arms, and her family comforts and protects her.
• Yuan Xingheng confronts the Marquis, who claims Huanhuan had agreed to marry him. Yuan rejects the claim and beats him; Huanhuan’s eldest and second brothers also attack Qu Qianzhi for helping arrange the fraudulent marriage.
• Imperial Guards surround the residence under an imperial order, trapping everyone inside. They claim the lockdown is necessary because the Marquis’s eldest son, Qu Qianyu, has an epidemic disease, and promise that Imperial Physicians are on the way.
• Panicked guests blame the household and begin beating its members. The Marquis finally admits the epidemic was fabricated: Qu Qianyu had eloped, and the story was invented to conceal it and avoid offending the General’s Residence.

Character developments and interactions

• Yuan Huanhuan finds comfort and safety in her father and brothers, who treat her tenderly despite arriving in anger.
• Yuan Xingheng is fiercely protective of his daughter and refuses to let the Marquis defame her.
• Song Yaoyao enjoys observing the unfolding scandal and admires Huanhuan’s devoted family. Guagua reminds her that her own family also loves and supports her.
• The Marquis shifts from insisting his story is true to confessing the lie when the guests’ violence becomes unbearable.
• The guests, initially spectators, turn against the Marquis’s household once they fear they may have been exposed to disease.

Significant themes

• Family loyalty and protection: The Yuan family rallies around Huanhuan and defends her dignity.
• Consequences of deception: The Marquis’s fabricated epidemic story causes panic and earns him and his household the guests’ anger.
• Public scandal and social accountability: The wedding’s private wrongdoing spirals into a spectacle, then into an official lockdown.

Key plot points and events

• The guests at the Marquis of Enping’s residence wait for Imperial Physicians to check whether they have caught the supposed epidemic. The physicians find that no one is infected: the Marquis fabricated the outbreak.
• The Imperial Guards leave, and the guests flee the residence. Yuan Xingheng takes his daughter, Huanhuan, home, while her brothers retrieve her dowry.
• The emperor learns that the Marquis’s lie caused widespread panic and issues a punishment: the Marquis loses his title and becomes a commoner, and his family is barred from the imperial examinations for three generations over twenty years.
• Madam Qu, who has already divorced the Marquis, celebrates the decree. The Marquis lunges at her, and they fight.
• Later, at a restaurant, Song Yaoyao notices the arrival of Weng Chuchu, a famously beautiful and accomplished young woman. Guagua hints that there is gossip about her marriage.

Character developments and interactions

• The Marquis of Enping is exposed as a liar, beaten by the people he endangered, and stripped of his title. His attempt to attack Madam Qu shows that he remains volatile even as his fortunes collapse.
• Yuan Huanhuan feels guilty for bringing her family to the residence and fears they may have been infected. Her father reassures her, and her brothers help her leave with her dowry.
• Madam Qu responds to the Marquis’s downfall with open triumph, emphasizing how bitterly their relationship has ended.
• Song Yaoyao and Guagua exchange playful compliments and banter. Song admires Weng Chuchu’s beauty, while Guagua teases her for sounding jealous and introduces Chuchu’s background.
• Ning Chaorui and Ning Chaoyun consider the emperor’s punishment too lenient, comparing it with the harsher military penalty for undermining morale.

Significant themes

• Consequences of deception: The Marquis’s fabricated epidemic causes panic and harms his standing, ultimately costing him his title.
• Justice and retribution: Madam Qu sees the decree as deserved payback, while others debate whether the punishment is severe enough.
• Family loyalty and protection: Yuan Huanhuan’s relatives rally around her and help her return home safely.
• Beauty, reputation, and gossip: Weng Chuchu’s looks and talents attract public attention, setting up a new storyline involving her marriage.

Key plot points and events

• The aging emperor’s worsening health has intensified the princes’ competition for court allies. Weng Hanmin, a powerful official who remains loyal to the emperor rather than a faction, is a valuable target.
• His daughter Weng Chuchu is also politically important: marrying her could connect a prince to both Weng Hanmin and her maternal grandfather, Duke Zhenguo Qi Weitian, who commands 200,000 troops.
• The Third Prince wants to marry Weng Chuchu and chooses covert schemes over ordinary courtship. He exploits the resentment of her half-sister Weng Cixin, promising to make her his secondary consort in exchange for helping him.
• Their first plot was to disfigure Weng Chuchu by contaminating her rouge. A maid discovered the powder, and Weng Chuchu’s investigation exposed the tampering. The implicated second-class maid was killed by the Third Prince’s Shadow Guard before she could reveal more.
• The Third Prince has not given up. Weng Chuchu is dining at a restaurant with friends today, and he has ordered Weng Cixin to join them so they can carry out another scheme. Its details are not yet revealed.

Character developments and interactions

• Weng Chuchu is beautiful and accomplished, but also cautious and capable: she listens to her maid, has the rouge tested, and investigates discreetly.
• Weng Cixin resents Chuchu’s beauty, accomplishments, status, and privileged place in the household. Rather than recognize Madam Weng’s comparatively fair treatment of the concubines’ children, she lets jealousy make her an accomplice.
• The Third Prince is ruthless and calculating, willing to manipulate Weng Cixin, attempt to ruin Chuchu’s appearance, and eliminate a witness.
• Weng Hanmin and Madam Weng hope Chuchu will marry well and live safely; they do not intend to use her for political advantage.
• Song Yaoyao presses Guagua for details, while Ning Chaorui and Ning Chaoyun react with shock at how jealousy can turn someone into another person’s weapon.

Significant themes

• Political ambition turns marriage into a tool for securing power and military support.
• Jealousy and resentment make Weng Cixin vulnerable to manipulation.
• The contrast between Chuchu’s apparent privilege and the different status of principal-wife and concubine-born children fuels household conflict.
• Betrayal, secrecy, and violence underpin the princes’ struggle for influence.

Key plot points

• Weng Cixin forces her way into a meal with Weng Chuchu and a group of legitimate-born noblewomen, despite their obvious displeasure. She plans to act as their server and gain access to Weng Chuchu.
• The Third Prince has arranged for a bribed waiter to bring a dual-chamber wine pot. Weng Cixin is meant to give Weng Chuchu knockout drugs while serving ordinary wine to everyone else.
• The plan is to abduct the unconscious Weng Chuchu, have the Third Prince assault her, and then stage her disappearance. Once her reputation is ruined, he would pose as her devoted rescuer and use the scandal to win her marriage—and the political support of her powerful relatives.
• Song Yaoyao recognizes the scheme and arranges for evidence—including Weng Cixin’s earlier poisoning attempt—to be delivered to Weng Chuchu before the drugged wine arrives.
• During a commotion in the restaurant, Ning Chaorui helps slip the evidence to Weng Chuchu. She reads it in private but waits calmly to see whether events confirm it.

Character developments and interactions

• Weng Cixin reveals her ambition and resentment: she believes she will become the Third Prince’s secondary consort and eventually punish those who look down on her. Guagua explains that she is likely being used as a pawn.
• The Third Prince is exposed as calculating and ruthless, seeking political influence through a scheme that would first destroy Weng Chuchu’s reputation.
• Song Yaoyao moves from mocking the plot to taking action, recruiting Ning Chaorui and Ning Chaoyun to help warn Weng Chuchu.
• Weng Chuchu shifts from being an unsuspecting target to a wary observer after receiving the warning. She conceals her reaction and prepares to judge whether the information is true.
• Ning Chaorui carries out Song Yaoyao’s plan, using the restaurant’s disturbance to get the evidence to Weng Chuchu.

Significant themes

• Power and manipulation: The Third Prince plans to exploit Weng Chuchu’s vulnerability and her family’s influence for political gain.
• Social hierarchy and prejudice: The noblewomen’s discomfort with Weng Cixin reflects rigid distinctions between legitimate- and concubine-born women.
• Reputation as a weapon: The scheme depends on public scandal and the social consequences of a woman being “dishonored.”
• Political opportunity: Song Yaoyao and her companions consider how internal conflict in the Heavenly Mystic Kingdom could benefit their own kingdom.

Key plot points and events

• Weng Chuchu notices Weng Cixin’s suspicious behavior and realizes a warning note was right: the wine pot contains a hidden mechanism for drugging her.
• Rather than drink the wine, Chuchu takes the pot, activates the mechanism herself, and forces the drugged wine on Cixin. She whispers that Cixin’s plot—and her ambition to become the Third Prince’s secondary consort—has been exposed. Cixin soon passes out.
• Chuchu tells the other noblewomen that her sister drank too much, pays for the meal, and takes Cixin home without making a public scene.
• Song Yaoyao and her companions learn that the Third Prince is waiting nearby in an ordinary carriage, expecting Cixin to bring Chuchu to him. Yaoyao decides to interfere: she gives Ning Chaorui ghost-pepper powder to throw over the carriage and coordinates the act with a suppressed pistol.

Character developments

• Weng Chuchu proves alert and controlled. Though furious at her sister’s betrayal, she protects family appearances in public and acts decisively to stop the plot.
• Weng Cixin is exposed and loses control of the scheme, realizing Chuchu knows about her alliance with the Third Prince.
• Song Yaoyao turns the discovery into an opportunity for mischief, while Ning Chaorui agrees to help despite not knowing her full plan.

Significant themes

• Family honor and public reputation: Chuchu avoids a public fight because scandal could damage the whole household.
• Betrayal and ambition: Cixin’s pursuit of status leads her to conspire against her own sister.
• Cunning and reversal: Chuchu turns the drugging attempt back on Cixin, while Yaoyao prepares to disrupt the Third Prince’s plans.

Character interactions

• Chuchu confronts Cixin privately within the restaurant room, using the threat of exposing her ambition to force her to drink.
• The other noblewomen accept Chuchu’s explanation and let her leave with Cixin.
• Yaoyao shares information with her cousins and recruits Ning Chaorui to help target the Third Prince’s waiting carriage.

Plot points and events

• Song Yaoyao attacks the Third Prince and his guards with Devil Pepper Powder, leaving them coughing, crying, and writhing in pain. Ning Chaorui and Ning Chaoyun hurry her away.
• Song explains that chili pepper is a seasoning, but that the powder was an unusually potent variety. It will not kill the victims, though it will make them suffer. Ning Chaorui wonders whether it could be useful in warfare; Song says it could incapacitate opponents, but using enough would be wasteful.
• The group returns to their residence. They remain unable to act on their suspicions about why the Heavenly Mystic Kingdom’s emperor is still holding Ji Chengyuan’s wife and children hostage, so they continue watching and waiting.
• News later reaches Song that bystanders who tried to help the Third Prince were also affected by the pepper. The victims seek medical treatment, and some suffer particularly painful irritation after touching sensitive areas with pepper still on their hands.

Character developments and interactions

• Song Yaoyao takes gleeful satisfaction in the attack and treats the pepper as both a culinary novelty and a possible weapon. Her singing, however, proves so unbearable that her cousins distract her with questions.
• Guagua is exasperated by Song’s singing and later points out that her own pepper attack is why people are cursing her.
• Ning Chaorui shows practical military interest in the powder’s potential battlefield use, while both he and Ning Chaoyun endure Song’s singing rather than risk offending or alerting her.
• Song initially mistakes her frequent sneezing for an unexplained problem, then realizes the victims—including the people who tried to help the prince—are likely cursing her.

Significant themes

• Cleverness and improvisation: Song turns a cooking ingredient into a nonlethal weapon.
• Comic consequences: The attack’s effects spread beyond its intended targets, punishing well-meaning bystanders and bringing Song’s mischief back to her in the form of curses.
• Suspense and restraint: The unresolved hostage situation underscores that the group must wait and gather information rather than risk a reckless rescue.

Key plot points and events

• Song Yaoyao reflects on Weng Chuchu’s predicament and her dislike of the Heavenly Mystic Kingdom’s Third Prince. She hopes to rescue Ji Chengyuan’s wife and children, though Ning Chaorui’s search has found no leads.
• While walking through the city with her cousins and two disguised Shadow Guards, Song nearly collides with a disheveled man. Guagua identifies him as Qu Youping, the disgraced former Marquis of Enping.
• Guagua explains that Qu Youping’s household has collapsed: former servants and exam candidates have turned against him, his shops were taken, his wife and family left, and the emperor reclaimed his mansion. Now injured, penniless, and homeless, he lives among beggars.
• Learning that Qu Youping is heading to find his son Qu Qianyu, Song decides to follow, hoping to witness the confrontation.
• Qu Youping reaches a courtyard in the eastern city and demands to see Qu Qianyu. A servant denies that his master belongs to the Marquis’s household and tries to drive Qu Youping away.
• Qu Youping accuses Qu Qianyu of causing the family’s ruin and threatens to report him for being unfilial, loudly demanding that he come out.

Character developments

• Song Yaoyao remains quick-witted, irreverent, and eager to exploit an unexpected opportunity. She shifts from worrying about the missing family to pursuing the Qu family drama.
• Qu Youping has fallen from a powerful noble to a destitute, bitter man. He directs his anger at Qu Qianyu and appears determined to force a confrontation.
• Qu Qianyu is absent, but the scene presents him as estranged from his father and living under a household that disavows the Marquis’s family.
• Ning Chaorui and the other cousin accompany Song and listen as she explains what happened.

Significant themes

• The fragility of status: Once stripped of his title, Qu Youping quickly loses property, protection, and respect.
• Consequences and retribution: People harmed by Qu Youping take revenge after he loses power.
• Family estrangement and blame: Qu Youping’s public accusations reveal deep divisions within the family.
• Power and ambition: Song’s confidence in her kingdom’s firearms underscores the growing imbalance between the kingdoms.

Character interactions

• Song jokes internally with Guagua, which supplies information and punctures her assumptions.
• Song and her cousins follow Qu Youping after she shares his downfall with them.
• Qu Youping clashes with the courtyard servant, who treats him as a beggar and denies his connection to Qu Qianyu.
• Qu Youping’s shouted accusations set up a confrontation with his absent son.

Key plot points and events

• Song Yaoyao and her companions watch a commotion outside Qu Qianyu’s courtyard, complete with sunflower seeds for the spectacle.
• Qu Youping recognizes his son and attacks him, blaming Qu Qianyu for the Marquis of Enping’s household losing its title and fortune.
• Yu Qiuxin intervenes, insults Qu Youping, and is beaten. Qu Qianyu shields her and reveals that she is pregnant, prompting Qu Youping to stop hitting her and resume beating his son with his shoe.
• Qu Youping eventually enters the courtyard with the couple. The onlookers disperse, and Song Yaoyao’s party leaves.
• Song Yaoyao learns that Qu Youping intends to rely on Qu Qianyu for support, though he may continue making trouble. Ning Chaorui then takes the group to the Drunken Fragrance Restaurant, where a striking, androgynous-looking young general arrives.

Character developments and interactions

• Qu Youping is impoverished, enraged, and hardened by life among beggars. He blames Qu Qianyu and Yu Qiuxin for his downfall, but his need for his son’s financial support keeps him from severing their relationship entirely.
• Qu Qianyu is shocked by his father’s changed appearance and tries to calm him. Despite their conflict, he protects pregnant Yu Qiuxin from further harm.
• Yu Qiuxin initially confronts Qu Youping boldly, then falls silent after he attacks her.
• Song Yaoyao enjoys observing the family’s chaotic confrontation, while Guagua explains Qu Youping’s motives and recent circumstances. Ning Chaorui shifts the group’s attention from the drama to a meal.

Significant themes

• Poverty and desperation transform Qu Youping’s behavior and values.
• Family ties and self-interest coexist: Qu Youping resents his son but still depends on him.
• Consequences and blame drive the confrontation, as Qu Youping holds Qu Qianyu responsible for the household’s ruin.
• Spectacle and gossip frame the scene through Song Yaoyao’s amused, audience-like perspective.

Key plot points and events

• Song Yaoyao discovers through Guagua that the celebrated general Lu Manzhu is secretly a woman who has lived under her dead twin brother’s identity.
• More than a decade earlier, Lu Manzhu’s mother, Tang Youyi, married Lu Xiaoheng. They had twins, Lu Yuzhou and Lu Manzhu, and initially enjoyed a happy family life.
• When Tang Youyi’s father was convicted in the Rebellion Case of the Vassal Kings, the family was exiled. Lu Xiaoheng and his household distanced themselves from Tang Youyi: she was demoted from principal wife to concubine, confined, and moved with her children to a neglected courtyard.
• Lu Xiaoheng remarried Cheng Lexue. After having a son, Cheng Lexue began abusing Tang Youyi and the twins, depriving them of food and making them perform menial labor.
• At age six, the twins were pushed into a pond. Lu Yuzhou died, while Lu Manzhu survived. To protect her surviving child, Tang Youyi claimed that Lu Manzhu had died and raised her as Lu Yuzhou.
• After recovering from illness, Tang Youyi persuaded Lu Xiaoheng to let the frail child train in martial arts. Lu Manzhu trained fiercely, hoping to become strong enough to protect herself and avoid further suffering.

Character developments

• Lu Manzhu: Orphaned of her twin brother in all but name, she begins transforming from a frail, mistreated child into a disciplined martial artist—and ultimately a renowned general.
• Tang Youyi: Once pampered and high-ranking, she becomes a desperate but devoted mother, enduring humiliation and making a painful sacrifice to keep her daughter alive.
• Lu Xiaoheng: His earlier affection gives way to self-preservation and neglect. He punishes Tang Youyi for helping her exiled family, remarries, and conducts only a half-hearted investigation into Lu Yuzhou’s death.
• Cheng Lexue: Initially acts generously toward Tang Youyi, but becomes cruel and controlling after the birth of her son.
• Song Yaoyao: Reacts with disbelief and sympathy, condemning the Lu household’s opportunism and Lu Xiaoheng’s failure to investigate the twins’ attack properly.

Significant themes

• Gender and identity: Lu Manzhu must disguise herself as a man to pursue a military career.
• Family loyalty versus political survival: Tang Youyi helps her condemned family despite the risk, while the Lu household protects its status by abandoning her.
• Abuse of power and vulnerability: Tang Youyi and her children are mistreated because their political disgrace leaves them with few ways to escape.
• Resilience and self-protection: Lu Manzhu’s martial training grows from grief and fear into a path toward strength.

Character interactions

• Guagua reveals Lu Manzhu’s secret history to Song Yaoyao, who responds by questioning Lu Xiaoheng’s motives and condemning the family’s conduct.
• Tang Youyi repeatedly tries to protect her children: first by supporting her exiled relatives, then by concealing Lu Manzhu’s survival, and finally by securing martial training for her.
• Lu Xiaoheng uses his authority to punish and marginalize Tang Youyi, while Cheng Lexue intensifies the family’s abuse after becoming Lu’s principal wife.

Key plot points

• Lu Manzhu practiced martial arts from childhood, then enlisted to improve her and her mother Tang Youyi’s standing. After six years of service and repeated battlefield achievements, she rose from an obscure soldier to a fifth-rank general.
• Her military success improved Tang Youyi’s treatment at home: Lu Xiaoheng gave her a better courtyard and attendants, and Cheng Lexue stopped bullying her openly.
• Lu Manzhu came to the restaurant after receiving a note promising evidence that her maternal grandfather, the Senior General of the Left Guard, had been falsely accused of treason. The evidence is genuine but insufficient to clear him. The Sixth Prince’s agents sent it to draw her out and recruit her.
• Song Yaoyao learns that the general’s downfall began when he unwittingly encountered an illicit affair. The conspirators framed him to protect themselves.
• The affair connects to the palace: Han Zonghe and Hu Xiyu were childhood sweethearts, but the ambitious prince Teng Yetao arranged for Hu Xiyu to be pushed into a pond and “rescued” by him. Han was secretly immobilized, leaving Hu Xiyu trapped into marrying Teng Yetao.
• After the marriage, Hu Xiyu distanced herself from Han. Her powerful family backed Teng Yetao, who eventually became emperor; Hu Xiyu became empress, and their son Teng Yiting became crown prince.

Character developments and interactions

• Lu Manzhu emerges as a courageous, capable, and devoted daughter. Her military career is driven both by ambition to change her family’s circumstances and by a promise to uncover the truth about her grandfather.
• Tang Youyi has endured mistreatment but gains some protection through her daughter’s rising reputation.
• Song Yaoyao is fascinated by scandals and eagerly presses Guagua for details; her enthusiasm embarrasses Ning Chaoyun and irritates Ning Chaorui.
• Han Zonghe and Hu Xiyu are presented as sincere childhood lovers separated by Teng Yetao’s calculated scheme.
• Teng Yetao is shown as a ruthless political schemer who exploits public appearances and Hu Xiyu’s family’s military power to strengthen his claim to the throne.
• The Sixth Prince sees Lu Manzhu’s border authority and rapid advancement as valuable political assets and uses her family history to approach her.

Significant themes

• Merit and power: Lu Manzhu’s battlefield achievements bring influence, but also make her a target for political recruitment.
• Family loyalty and justice: Her search for evidence is rooted in a promise to her mother and a determination to vindicate her grandfather.
• Manipulation and reputation: The pond incident shows how appearances can be engineered to force someone into an unwanted choice.
• Political ambition: Personal relationships and powerful families are treated as tools in the struggle for the throne.

Summary

• Hu Xiyu’s marriage and affair: After marrying Teng Yetao, Hu Xiyu became unhappy as the emperor’s attention shifted to his expanding harem. She focused on raising their son, Teng Yiting, and sought a capable tutor for him. She chose Han Zonghe, a gifted scholar who had loved her for years. Their meetings about the Crown Prince’s education rekindled their feelings, and they began a secret affair. Han Zonghe fathered Hu Xiyu’s later daughter and younger son, though Teng Yiting is confirmed to be Teng Yetao’s child.
• The affair’s danger: Hu Xiyu and Han Zonghe’s relationship threatens both their families, since exposing it could bring severe punishment. Their secrecy becomes especially precarious when Tang Donglin, drunk and wandering outside a palace banquet, stumbles near their meeting place. Though he has heard nothing, the pair fear he may know about their affair and decide to eliminate him.
• Character developments and interactions: Hu Xiyu shifts from a neglected empress to a woman who secretly maintains her love for Han Zonghe. Han accepts the role of Crown Prince’s tutor partly because of his enduring feelings for her. Teng Yetao remains distant but has made Hu Xiyu empress and Teng Yiting heir. Song Yaoyao reacts with gleeful fascination to the scandal, while Guagua supplies the details; Ning Chaoyun and Ning Chaorui are shocked by the threat to the imperial bloodline.
• Themes: The chapter explores fading affection and lasting devotion, the contrast between public duty and private desire, the corruption and danger of court secrets, and the power imbalance of imperial life. Song Yaoyao’s comic commentary adds irreverence to the increasingly grave scandal.

Key plot points and events

• Tang Donglin accidentally overhears Han Zonghe and Hu Xiyu discussing their secret. Fearing exposure, they decide he must be silenced.
• When a vassal prince rebels, Han forges letters in Tang’s handwriting and plants them in his home, framing him for treason.
• Tang is imprisoned and tortured but refuses to confess. The emperor suspects he may have been framed, yet treats the alleged rebellion as too serious to ignore. He spares Tang’s family from execution but exiles them.
• Han and Hu continue sending assassins after Tang during the journey. Tang and his sons survive, and the family has lived in exile for more than a decade.
• Song Yaoyao decides to give the evidence of the frame-up to Lu Manzhu. Her cousins help arrange for it to reach Lu, who receives it as they finish their meal.

Character developments and interactions

• Tang Donglin is portrayed as stubborn and honorable: despite torture and repeated assassination attempts, he maintains his innocence and protects his family.
• Han Zonghe and Hu Xiyu move from hiding their affair to conspiring to destroy Tang, revealing their ruthless self-preservation.
• Song Yaoyao shifts from judging Han and Hu sympathetically to condemning them, then turns the evidence into a strategic opportunity.
• Ning Chaorui and Ning Chaoyun share her outrage; Chaorui helps execute her plan, while noting that targeting powerful figures could destabilize the kingdom.
• Lu Manzhu’s response remains unknown. She may suppress the evidence out of fear or use it indirectly against her enemies.

Significant themes

• Power and injustice: Tang is punished through fabricated evidence, while the powerful conspirators remain protected.
• Loyalty and endurance: Tang and his family survive exile and danger through strength and solidarity.
• Revenge and political strategy: Song plans to let Lu decide how to use the evidence, while keeping the option of exposing it herself.
• Unintended consequences: Tang’s accidental discovery sets off a chain of events that could shake the capital and threaten powerful families.

Key plot points and events

• The purge of officials linked to the Third Prince continues: four important court figures have been removed, leaving vacancies that the rival princes are eager to fill. The capital is gripped by fear and political maneuvering.
• Song Yaoyao and her cousins investigate Lu Manzhu, who has been visiting a restaurant regularly after receiving evidence connected to her maternal grandfather’s framing.
• Song discovers that Lu has been watching Pan Fanxing, Noble Consort Pan’s brother. Pan appears to be a wastrel but is secretly shrewd; he hides his abilities to keep the powerful Pan family from becoming a target in the imperial succession struggle.
• Disguised with a beard and a prominent mole, Lu slips Pan a note containing evidence of Empress Hu Xiyu’s affair with Han Zonghe. She deliberately leaves out the information about Tang Donglin and his framing, so the Pan family will not trace the evidence back to her.
• Pan reads the note in his carriage, reacts with excitement, and orders the driver to return to his estate.

Character developments and interactions

• Song is pleased that the Third Prince’s faction is weakening and hopes to reward her undercover agents after the capital is captured. Her curiosity about Lu’s plan leads her to the restaurant with her cousins.
• Lu proves cautious and strategic: she disguises herself, waits until she has assessed Pan, and limits what she reveals.
• Pan’s apparent debauchery is exposed as a deliberate mask protecting his family and his half-brother, the Fifth Prince, Teng Shuoming.
• Song and her cousins share intelligence and watch Lu’s move unfold through Guagua’s footage. Guagua explains the hidden motives behind Pan’s behavior.

Significant themes

• Political intrigue and succession: Court vacancies intensify the princes’ struggle for power.
• Concealment and misdirection: Lu’s disguise and Pan’s wastrel persona show how survival at court depends on hiding one’s intentions.
• Careful control of information: Lu shares only part of the evidence to protect her identity and shape how the Pan family responds.

• Key events: While dining with her cousins in the capital, Song Yaoyao learns that a disheveled beggar outside is Sixth Prince Chen Yixiao, who has come looking for her. She brings him upstairs, where he devours the food after going three days without eating. Guagua reveals that Chen endured more than a hundred assassination attempts while serving as a decoy on the weapons mission. Once the firearms were confirmed to be elsewhere, the attacks stopped. He then hurried to the capital out of concern for Song, following the Heavenly Phoenix Emperor’s instruction to protect her.
• Character developments: Chen’s battered, starving condition contrasts sharply with his former image as an elegant young gentleman, showing the cost of his mission and his loyalty to Song. Song responds with concern and generosity, though her curiosity quickly turns to gossip. She also jokes that the emperor might be her real father, then insists her own charm explains his concern.
• Character interactions: Song brings Chen to join her cousins, who recognize him and arrange more food. She offers him tea and urges him to slow down, while he is too hungry to care about appearances. Guagua narrates Chen’s ordeal and teases Song for turning his story into speculation about herself; the others are left speechless by her extravagant guess.
• Significant themes: The chapter highlights sacrifice and loyalty amid political danger, as Chen risks his life and rushes to protect Song. It also balances those serious stakes with comedy, using Song’s vanity, wild imagination, and Guagua’s dry teasing to lighten the mood.

Plot points and events

• Song Yaoyao watches Guagua’s account of Chen Yixiao’s journey, pausing to admire herself in a mirror before asking for the story.
• Chen Yixiao and his guards stop at the Heavenly Immortal Inn. The apparently ordinary staff drug them with a colorless, odorless knockout substance, strip them of their possessions, and take them to their stronghold.
• The inn’s proprietress is Cloudsong’s third chief. She considers keeping the handsome Chen Yixiao for herself, but first plans to offer him to the head chief; the guards are to be matched with women in the stronghold. When the captives wake, they are weakened with Ten Fragrance Softening Powder.
• Cloudsong is a women-led bandit stronghold with several skilled female chiefs. Though it robs travelers, Guagua says it does not kill them. Many members are women who were abandoned, cast out, or otherwise left with nowhere to go.
• The head chief, Zhang Zhixi, is introduced as a beautiful, clever strategist and formidable martial artist. A flashback begins: as a child, she was abandoned in the mountains and found by Cloudsong’s old chief, who adopted and educated her.

Character developments and interactions

• Song Yaoyao’s playful vanity and blunt humor contrast with the danger facing Chen Yixiao; she jokes that he and his guards are about to become captive husbands.
• Chen Yixiao and his companions are shown to have let their guard down despite traveling with guards, leaving them vulnerable to the inn’s deception.
• The third chief is confident and pragmatic, openly assessing the captives and deciding how they might be assigned within Cloudsong.
• Zhang Zhixi’s beginnings suggest a rise from an abandoned child to a highly capable leader, shaped by the old chief’s care and education.

Significant themes

• Appearances can deceive: the inn’s honest-looking staff conceal a coordinated trap.
• Women’s agency and unconventional power: women lead Cloudsong and control the fate of male captives, reversing familiar gender expectations.
• Community after rejection: Cloudsong offers refuge to women shunned by their families or society, though it operates outside the law.
• Nurture and potential: Zhang Zhixi’s talents flourish because the old chief rescues, adopts, and educates her.

Plot points

• Flashbacks reveal that Zhang Zhixi was orphaned as a child and raised by the old chief of a mountain stronghold. After his death, she became its chief and renamed it Cloudsong.
• The stronghold takes in women in hardship, but its shortage of men leads its residents to abduct men to father children. The third-in-command decides Chen Yixiao should become Zhang Zhixi’s husband.
• When Zhang Zhixi proposes, Chen gives the false name “Xiao Yi” to conceal his royal identity. She announces that they will marry in three days and expects him to stay home and care for their children. Drugged and unable to use his martial arts, Chen pretends to accept.
• Chen reunites with his guards, who fear being forced into marriages themselves. They agree to play along and wait for a chance to escape.
• On the wedding day, Chen and his guards drug the sentries with spiked wine and flee. The stronghold discovers the escape and pursues them.
• Chen survives alone in the mountains, rationing food until the drug wears off after ten days and his martial arts return. Two guards escape; two are captured, though Zhang treats them civilly and hopes Chen will come back for them.
• After escaping, Chen saves an elderly woman and her grandchild. The woman gives him fifty taels, which he uses to buy a horse and reach Heavenly Mystic City. The escaped guards follow clues he left behind.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhang is revealed as a capable but forceful chief, personally choosing Chen as her husband and treating his objections as irrelevant. Though intent on retrieving him, she does not resort to extreme measures against his captured guards.
• Chen uses caution and deception to protect his identity, then relies on patience and planning rather than a direct fight. He also shows compassion by helping the elderly woman and child.
• Chen and his guards share loyalty and trust: they cooperate in the escape, while the captured guards refuse to reveal his whereabouts.
• Song Yaoyao and Guagua narrate and react humorously to Chen’s predicament, with Song imagining his ordeal as a story titled The Untold Tales of a Fierce Bandit Wife and a Delicate Prince.

Significant themes

• Survival and adaptability: Chen endures captivity, a dangerous escape, and days alone in the mountains.
• Loyalty and solidarity: His guards help him escape and protect his secret, even under pressure.
• Power and gender-role reversal: Zhang’s stronghold upends conventional expectations, with men treated as potential husbands and caretakers.
• Compassion and reciprocity: Chen’s rescue of strangers is repaid with the money that helps him complete his journey.

Key plot points and events

• Song Yaoyao jokes that Chen Yixiao should marry Zhang Zhixi, but Guagua points out that a prince’s marriage is politically controlled: Zhang would likely be relegated to concubine status, which she would never accept. Yaoyao clarifies that her main concern is simply for Chen to stop harming Ou Ruoxuan.
• Chen is reminded of his failed attempts to reconcile with Ou Ruoxuan, whose returned letters and gifts have made him accept that there is no hope for them. Yaoyao misreads his momentary distraction, and Guagua calls out her contradictory judgments of him.
• Chen adopts the temporary identity “Xiao Yi” and agrees to pose as Yaoyao’s older brother, making her “Xiao Yaoyao.”
• Chen explains that he is waiting for his missing guards. Two escaped guards eventually rejoin the group, but when the other two do not arrive, Chen decides he cannot abandon them.
• The group travels for half a month to the Bandit Inn to rescue the captured guards. When the inn’s third chief recognizes Chen and calls him her brother-in-law—because he had performed wedding bows with her eldest sister—she signals the workers to surround them.
• Yaoyao knocks out the first group with her anesthetic gun. Guagua warns her that more than thirty bandits are approaching from the rear courtyard, so she uses an enhanced knockout drug to incapacitate them as well. The third chief demands to know what she did; Yaoyao calmly explains that the bandits have only been drugged.

Character developments and interactions

• Song Yaoyao recognizes that her dislike of Chen is partly biased by his past treatment of Ou Ruoxuan, though she still judges his romantic choices too quickly. She takes the lead in protecting the group and insists on using nonlethal methods so they can negotiate for the captured guards.
• Chen Yixiao remains regretful about Ou Ruoxuan, but prioritizes loyalty to his longtime guards and commits to rescuing them. He also accepts the practical disguise of acting as Yaoyao’s older brother.
• Guagua challenges Yaoyao’s inconsistent assumptions and supplies crucial information about the bandits waiting inside the inn.
• The third chief treats Chen as family because of the marriage ceremony with her eldest sister, then attempts to capture the group.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and responsibility: Chen refuses to abandon guards who have served him for years.
• Bias and self-reflection: Yaoyao admits she has judged Chen unfairly, even as she continues to jump to conclusions.
• Marriage and social status: The discussion highlights how a prince’s marriage is constrained by rank and political arrangements.
• Restraint and negotiation: Yaoyao avoids killing the bandits, preserving the possibility of exchanging hostages and resolving the conflict without escalating it.

Plot points and events

• The third chief tries to revive her unconscious bandits with an ordinary antidote, but Song Yaoyao’s enhanced knockout drug is unaffected by it.
• The chief attacks with poison powder. An invisible barrier protects Song Yaoyao’s group, while the powder poisons the chief herself. When she reaches for another pill, Song Yaoyao knocks her out with an anesthetic gun.
• Song Yaoyao has the bandits tied up and wakes one to carry a message to Zhang Zhixi: exchange the third chief and her subordinates for the people Zhang’s bandits captured earlier.
• While waiting, Song Yaoyao distributes defensive powders to her companions, expecting Zhang Zhixi to resist.
• The next morning, Zhang Zhixi arrives with the captives. She and Song Yaoyao exchange sharp, teasing remarks about Zhang’s supposed marriage to Song’s eldest brother. The hostage exchange begins, but Guagua warns that Zhang has surrounded them with hundreds of bandits and never intended to let them leave.

Character developments

• Song Yaoyao stays confident and resourceful, relying on her custom drugs, the protective barrier, and the anesthetic gun to control the confrontation. She anticipates Zhang’s resistance and prepares her group.
• The third chief proves combative and loyal to her side, but her attack backfires and she is captured.
• Zhang Zhixi presents herself as charming and welcoming, but her possessiveness over Song Yaoyao’s eldest brother and her planned ambush reveal a controlling, threatening side.
• Ning Chaorui and the others show concern about being outnumbered and follow Song Yaoyao’s lead in preparing for danger.

Character interactions

• Song Yaoyao repeatedly turns the third chief’s threats into leverage, treating her and the unconscious bandits as hostages.
• Zhang Zhixi tries to win Song Yaoyao over by calling her family and offering her a place on the mountain; Song rejects the relationship, arguing that the marriage to her brother was forced and invalid.
• The exchange remains tense: Zhang brings the captives but demands the antidote, while Song refuses to give it until her group is safe.

Significant themes

• Cunning versus force: Song Yaoyao counters the bandits through planning, specialized drugs, and deception rather than relying on strength.
• Coercion and consent: Song rejects Zhang’s claim to her brother, insisting that a forced marriage does not count.
• Trust and hidden intentions: The apparent hostage exchange is revealed to be a trap, leaving the group facing a much larger force.

Plot and events

• Zhang Zhixi surrounds Song Yaoyao’s small rescue party with hundreds of followers and admits she never meant to exchange hostages. She intends to keep them because the man she wanted to marry—who fled on their wedding night—is among them.
• Song Yaoyao frees Listening Thunder and Listening Wind, then scatters enhanced knockout powder, incapacitating more than a dozen attackers.
• She transforms her pistol into a Gatling gun and kills over thirty of Zhang Zhixi’s men. Guagua tells her to stop before turning the confrontation into a massacre; Song Yaoyao agrees, though she warns that the roughly three hundred people lying in ambush outside would also be vulnerable.
• Zhang Zhixi tries to attack but is repelled by an invisible barrier protecting Song Yaoyao. Realizing she cannot win, she concedes and offers five thousand taels as an apology.
• Song Yaoyao’s group leaves safely, keeping the Gatling trained on their opponents until they are clear. Listening Thunder and Listening Wind are weak from Ten Fragrance Softening Powder but are expected to recover.
• On the journey back, Ning Chaorui asks about the Gatling and imagines using it in battle. Song Yaoyao explains that their current manufacturing capabilities cannot produce one.

Character developments and interactions

• Song Yaoyao shifts from seeking a peaceful hostage exchange to using overwhelming force when Zhang Zhixi betrays that possibility. She remains controlled enough to heed Guagua’s warning and prioritize her companions’ safe escape.
• Zhang Zhixi begins arrogant and threatening, but the Gatling and the barrier convince her to yield. She apologizes with money and lets the group go.
• Chen Yixiao and the Ning siblings are alarmed by Zhang Zhixi’s ambush and stunned by Song Yaoyao’s weapon. Chen helps reunite and free the hostages; Ning Chaorui’s fascination with the Gatling reveals his enduring interest in warfare.
• Guagua restrains Song Yaoyao from escalating further, though it postpones explaining its reason.

Themes

• Power and deterrence: Song Yaoyao’s weapon and protective barrier reverse the balance against a much larger force.
• Restraint amid violence: Despite having the ability to inflict greater casualties, she stops when warned against a massacre.
• Technology and its limits: The Gatling’s battlefield potential contrasts with the group’s inability to manufacture it.
• Consequences of arrogance: Zhang Zhixi’s refusal to negotiate peacefully brings defeat and forces her to make amends.