Recap
Si Yin confronts Li Jing, who knows that he’s wronged Si Yin. But he also seems defeated by the fact that he and Si Yin are on opposite sides of an age-old conflict. Xuan Nu begs Si Yin to allow her and Li Jing to be together, because they like each other. Li Jing tells her to go be with Mo Yuan, which is possibly even more offensive to Si Yin, because the one thing she won’t stand is someone badmouthing her teacher.
Si Yin is hurt by Li Jing’s empty promises and tells them to be together if they want, then shuts herself in her room and cries. Later, she drinks herself into oblivion while burning all the letters and little hand carvings that Li Jing gave her.
That night, Li Jing and Xuan Nu leave Kunlun for the Demon Realm.
Mo Yuan exits seclusion earlier than expected and finds Si Yin in the wine cellar. He tells her that he’s well and that his injuries aren’t bothering him. He also already knows everything that has happened to Si Yin and comforts her, saying that while Li Jing may be bright-eyed, he also has poor vision (judgment).
Si Yin doesn’t want to talk about Li Jing and Xuan Nu anymore and instead asks him about the Donghuang Bell. Mo Yuan tells her that his father, the God of Creation, gave the bell to Qing Cang as a show of good faith in order to have the Demon Clan’s support in the war against the Devil Clan. The Donghuang Bell has the power to destroy all living beings. The only way to stop it is for a powerful soul to give their life in sacrifice.
The Donghuang Bell also has another power: it can seal a soul. But only people from the Celestial, Fox, and Phoenix Clans can use that power and there are only four people who are capable of doing it: Bai Qian’s father, Zhe Yan, the Celestial Monarch, and Mo Yuan.
The Lord Lingbao invites Mo Yuan to a meeting. He doesn’t usually accept, but this time he does and decides to bring Si Yin with him. Die Feng tells Si Yin that Mo Yuan probably accepted this time for Si Yin’s sake, in the hopes that going out will cheer her up. They’ve all noticed that she’s been depressed since Li Jing and Xuan Nu left and the reason is obvious: she’s in love with Xuan Nu.
The moment Li Jing and Xuan Nu enter the Demon Realm, they are greeted by guards and a smirking Li Yuan. Qing Cang wants to kill Li Jing for his treachery against the Demon Realm. He’s well aware that he betrayed Li Jing’s mother (apparently he sacrificed Li Jing’s mother in order to conquer the Demon Realm), but he’s never given Li Jing reason to betray him. If anything, he’s the most lenient toward Li Jing.
Li Jing is more than willing to accept death – his only request is that Xuan Nu be spared. But Xuan Nu won’t face death so easily and throws herself at Qing Cang, spinning a story about how Li Jing is fiercely loyal and only went to Kunlun in order to spy on the Celestial Clan. Now that she’s here and in love with Li Jing, she wants to help them overthrow the Celestial Clan and can prove her own usefulness – she can get Qing Cang the Celestial Clan’s tactical plans, which are kept at Kunlun. All she asks for in return is for Qing Cang to let her and Li Jing go and to allow them to be formally wed so she can have a position in his palace.
Qing Cang laughs and grants her wish, saying that they’ll have a nine day celebration for their wedding starting the next day. Li Jing stares at her like he doesn’t even know her.
Mo Yuan and Si Yin run into the Second and Third Celestial Princes outside of Lingbao’s palace. When Lingbao hears that Si Yin is one of Zhe Yan’s immortals, he mentions that the Celestial Monarch wants Zhe Yan’s help in arranging a marriage between Bai Qian and the Second Prince.
One of the reasons Mo Yuan responded to Lingbao’s invitation is to use the celestial hot springs. His injuries from the heavenly lightning are still bothering him. Lingbao asks why he’s in such a rush to recover quickly – is it because of the golden lotus he’s been tasked with nurturing, or the Demon Clan? Mo Yuan responds that it’s both. Lingbao congratulates him – he sensed the golden lotus’s energy when he went to Kunlun earlier. It won’t be long before Mo Yuan’s task is complete.
Li Jing is bitter and depressed the night of his wedding. Instead of acknowledging Xuan Nu, he speaks out loud to Si Yin. His biggest wish in life is to be able to marry her one day, but instead he’s here with Xuan Nu, who could not be more different from Si Yin. He’s disgusted by how she so easily was able to betray her own clan. Si Yin, someone who strongly values friendship and loyalty, would never do such a thing.
Xuan Nu tries to explain that she did this all for him. He tells her that she fell in love with the wrong person. There’s only room for one person in his heart and it’s not her. He makes a toast to Si Yin, saying that this is all his fault. Xuan Nu begs him not to be like this on their wedding night. He scoffs at the mention of their wedding and leaves, while Xuan Nu cries alone.
Li Yuan is waiting with guards outside and has Li Jing taken away on their father’s orders. He’s not to be released until the battle has begun. Then he sends some other soldiers in to grab Xuan Nu. Xuan Nu is beaten and tortured. Qing Cang orders for her to be left at Kunlun’s gates as a message for the Celestial Clan.
Mo Yuan asks to rest for a bit while he and Si Yin are on their way back to Kunlun. He tries not to show her how much his injuries are bothering him. She tries to give herself a pep talk – in a few million years, she’ll forget all about Li Jing. After all, it was just a crush.
She chides herself for being an unworthy disciple and making her teacher worry about her. The golden lotus spirit appears and agrees that she’s unworthy. Everything Mo Yuan has done recently has been for her and now he’s burning up inside and she doesn’t even know. Si Yin continues to talk to herself and the golden lotus demonstrates interest in her life. She has a fourth brother? But of course, she can’t hear him.
Si Yin wonders if Mo Yuan would bring her to war when the time comes. The golden lotus responds that if he were Mo Yuan, he wouldn’t let her… and he trails off when she turns to look at Mo Yuan and seems to make eye contact with him. He gets up and vanishes.
Die Feng is distracted while playing go with Ling Yu. He knows that Mo Yuan is still injured and he’s worried that the Demon Clan might attack, but he warns Ling Yu and Chang Shan (the second disciple, who is watching) that they shouldn’t let Si Yin know otherwise she’ll feel guilty again. Chang Shan spots Si Yin and quickly changes the subject, but then ends up making Si Yin overhear about Xuan Nu and Li Jing’s wedding. Si Yin reveals herself but acts like she didn’t hear and seems to have returned to her old self.
A young disciple runs up and reports that Xuan Nu has been dropped off at the Kunlun gates. The three older disciples find her looking beaten and bloody. Xuan Nu tells them that this is all her fault and she shouldn’t have gotten close to Li Jing. She warns them that the Demon Clan has already raised an army.
Mo Yuan discusses the Demon Clan’s uprising with the Celestial Monarch and the Donghua Emperor. The Donghua Emperor doesn’t seem to care at all and keeps asking Mo Yuan about the teacup he’s holding. Mo Yuan tells the Celestial Monarch that if there’s a war, he will fight it, but he wants nothing to do with how the Celestial Monarch plans on getting the Demon Clan to willingly submit to the them afterward.
Die Feng and the other disciples tell Mo Yuan what Xuan Nu said about the Demon Clan’s impending advance. Mo Yuan asks the Celestial Monarch for 200,000 troops for ten days to combat the Demon Clan’s 200,000.
Zi Lan tells Die Feng how Mo Yuan didn’t seem very concerned during his discussions with the Celestial Monarch and Donghua. Die Feng frowns – the more difficult a battle is, the more relaxed Mo Yuan will seem beforehand.
Xuan Nu goes to Si Yin and kneels, begging for forgiveness. But Si Yin is unsympathetic. She considers it a mercy that she didn’t kill Xuan Nu when she found her with Li Jing. The only reason Xuan Nu is here is because Die Feng is kind. She tells Xuan Nu to leave the moment she’s better, otherwise she might actually kill her.
Si Yin leaves Xuan Nu kneeling in her room and runs into Ling Yu outside. Ling Yu tells her to get ready for war: the two of them are to accompany Mo Yuan to the Celestial Palace to gather troops. The other disciples will lead soldiers and monitor the border between the Celestial and Demon realms.
While the disciples of Kunlun are busy preparing for war, Xuan Nu approaches Mo Yuan’s office. She’s even more spiteful now after kneeling for Si Yin, and still bitter that Die Feng would rather die than marry her, and says to herself that she’s going to steal the Kunlun tactical maps and ensure they suffer a crushing defeat.
Commentary
Wow I can’t say that I didn’t see any of this coming. Li Jing is quite the sadboi. Where is the fight in him? Why does he just let these things happen to him?
Si Yin’s relationship with Mo Yuan is also a strange one. It makes sense why they raise so many eyebrows because the way they interact is nothing like a student-teacher relationship. Like what kind of student cries on their teacher’s knee? But it seems like the primary setup is for Bai Qian to have a relationship with this golden lotus Mo Yuan doppelganger, which should be a relationship with less of a problematic power dynamic.
I don’t find Xuan Nu particularly sympathetic, but she’s also not the most hateful villain I’ve encountered. She does what she needs to to survive. I almost thought that she was pretending to be Si Yin when Si Yin showed up while the disciples were playing go, and I definitely thought her evil plan involved a lot of using the face transformation spell for evil, but I think that’s giving her a little too much credit. Maybe she’ll get there eventually but she’s not that devious yet.
The Drama Llama 