Flashback to when Noble Consort Gao and Lady Jia were discussing the exchange of the powder. Lady Jia tells her that she has a plan to break the trust between the Empress and Ying Luo.
Back in the present, Ying Luo sees that the lock on the door is broken. Someone destroyed all of the lychee trees in the storage by pouring boiling water all over the trees.
At the banquet, the Emperor and the Empress are being all lovey-dovey and Noble Consort Gao just rolls her eyes looking at them. The Empress singles out Consort Xian, thanking her for the gift that she gave her. She gives her a gift in return. Consort Xian first says that she couldn't take the gift, but the Emperor insists, saying that it was impolite to refuse. She accepts it and the wind slightly blows on the corner of the cloth that covers the gift and reveals a plate of silver underneath. Consort Xian has a complex expression - she looks very relieved and grateful for the gesture but worries about how this would affect her after.
Ying Luo is running around trying to figure out a way out of her dilemma. She goes to Lady Yu and invites her to go to the banquet. Lady Yu is scared, saying that she doesn't want to confront Noble Consort Gao and Lady Jia. However, Ying Luo throws scissors at her, telling her to kill herself if she wants to avoid facing her fears. Ying Luo continues to try to convince her to face her fears, saying that she is doing what they want her to do - be too scared to do anything back to them.
Back at the banquet, the lychee is served in a dish. Noble Consort Gao criticizes the dish, saying that lychee should be eaten fresh and that one could always use the dried ones to make the dish. She then reminds everyone that the Empress wanted to pick the lychee fresh off the tree and asks where Ying Luo was. Just then, Lady Yu arrives at the banquet and apologizes for being late. The Empress is very happy that she decided to attend the banquet. Afterwards, Ying Luo arrives with one tree, hidden under a red cover. As the Empress approached it to pick a lychee, Snowball jumps out. All the Consorts are startled because of Snowball. Lady Yu then exclaims, asking what Noble Consort Gao wants as this is the second time she tried scaring her with Snowball.
This is the first time the Emperor heard of this incident and he demands to know what happened. Lady Chun then tells the Emperor that a month ago, Snowball was loose and scared Lady Yu and now that she finally felt better, she got attacked a second time. Noble Consort Gao tries to blame everything on Snowball and said that she would skin him as a punishment. Ying Luo interupts, saying that the dog has no conscience and that the owner should be to blame. Ying Luo states that all the servants just allowed Snowball to do whatever he wants, afraid they would offend Noble Consort Gao. She also admits fault, saying that she should have guarded the lychee trees better. The Emperor said that she was right, and that he would punish her... and the Empress quickly chips in and says... by taking away half a year's salary. Lady Jia steps in and tries to share the blame with Noble Consort Gao. In the end, the Emperor is furious as all his hard work to make the Empress happy ended up like this. The Empress makes Lady Jia apologize to Lady Yu and Noble Consort Gao apologizes to the Empress. In the end, the Emperor punishes them by sending them to the Cold Palace.
After the banquet, Ying Luo then tells the Empress truly what happened. The Empress laughs and praises her, saying that she is very clever. She then offers to teach her how to read and write.
Consort Xian confronts Lady Chun, asking whether she told the Empress that she needed money. She said she did. Consort Xian's maid is happy now that they have money they don't have to worry. However, Consort Xian is unsettled since she still can't read Lady Chun and feels like she still owes her a favour in the future.
The Head Enuuch gives Snowball to the Hai Lancha to dispose of it. Ying Luo then takes Snowball away from him. Fu Heng sees this and tells Hai Lancha that he shouldn't push his responsibilities to her.
The Emperor then realizes that there is something that doesn't match with what happened with the lychee tree. He remembers how it looked like and realizes that there's no way that Snowball could reach and destroy the upper branches. He wanted to punish Ying Luo for tricking him again, but feels like he couldn't reverse his decisions so quickly and wanted to give face to the Empress so he decided against it. The Head Eunnch wonders why the Emperor is being so lenient on Ying Luo since she is just a maid. He discussed this with another Eunnch and he suggests that the Emperor might have feelings for her. The Head Eunuch quickly dismisses that thought.
Ying Luo then gives a white fur coat to Hai Lancha as proof that she disposed of the Snowball. Fu Heng looks at the coat and sees a black spot...
----------
I love how quick-witted Ying Luo is, being able to turn around the situation that quickly. I also like how the Empress always sides with her, and the fact that she is smart enough to pick up what is going on before the Emperor. This also marks another time that Ying Luo tricked the Emperor... I wonder how many times the Emperor can tolerate before he actually does something about it. Also, can we talk about the foreshadowing of the Head Eunuch?
I'm glad that Consort Xian finally got around her money problems. I do think that she is thinking too much and that will eventually be her pitfall. The palace politics can be cruel, but I think the Empress geniunely wants to help her.
Poor Snowball. Poor Fu Heng. I wonder if Ying Luo purposely took Snowball to scheme something up for Fu Heng?
1 comments:
commentsi'm watching the series for the 3rd time now, and this part of it is possibly my favorite. it's a time where wei yingluo's scheming is making her able to topple powerful characters, and we still don't quite know what she is capable of - we even can believe that she might actually have skinned snowball!
Reply