The Early Spring Episode 23 Recap
**SPOILER ALERT**
Table of Contents
TL;DR (Quick Overview)
LUKE IS MY DOG TOO
Luan Nian refuses to take no for an answer, showing up at Zhitao’s family tavern, camping out in the snow, and worming his way back into her apartment and her parents’ good graces. Beneath the stubbornness lies real vulnerability, and by episode’s end, her carefully built walls are cracking, even if she won’t admit it out loud.
An Uninvited Guest
Luan Nian shows up unannounced at the small tavern Zhitao’s parents run, and her father, recognizing him instantly from an old photo, wants nothing to do with him, seeing only the man who once broke his daughter’s heart. Her mother tries to keep the peace before Zhitao gets home, but her father refuses to actually serve him, ignoring every dish he orders outright.
Undeterred, Luan Nian helps himself to peanuts and a drink, calmly announcing he’ll simply wait until Zhitao arrives. When her father tries closing early just to force him out, Luan Nian doesn’t budge, even offering to mind the shop himself so the two of them can rest for the night. The standoff only breaks when Zhitao finally walks through the door and convinces her parents to head upstairs.
Money on the Table
Alone with him now, Zhitao stays cold and distant, telling him plainly to leave her family’s tavern and keep any future business strictly to her office. His response is to transfer ten thousand yuan straight to her account, an absurd amount for a plate of peanuts and a soda, and she’s furious, asking sarcastically if he’s trying to buy the whole place outright.
Bringing up her sudden departure, she offers to return whatever money she’d made selling his old gifts, or donate it to charity instead, just to settle things evenly between them. He tells her to keep it, call it even, and announces he’ll be back the next day regardless.
When she snaps, asking if he’s planning to expose their history to her parents, she throws out something bitter, claiming she only ever got involved with him to climb the corporate ladder in the first place. He rejects that outright, insisting he genuinely loved her through every one of those six years, never once viewed it that way.
A Cold Ride Home
Noticing how exhausted she looks, he insists on driving her home, pointing out plainly how dangerous it would be for her to drive half-asleep. She dozes off in the passenger seat during the quiet, freezing drive, and once they arrive, she thanks him with practiced coldness, telling him she’ll retrieve her own car tomorrow before disappearing inside.
A Man Freezing in the Snow
Back in her room, a text from Lumi lands, wondering aloud whether Luan Nian’s total disappearance means they’re actually back together. Glancing out her window into the frozen night, Zhitao spots him sitting alone on a bench in the snow, drinking just to stay warm.
Unable to just leave him out there, she rushes downstairs to confront him, warning him she won’t take responsibility if he freezes to death on her account. When he asks, almost casually, if she’s seeing someone, remembering her assistant’s earlier joke about a “brother-in-law,” she lies defiantly, claiming Xing Yi is actually her fiancรฉ. He asks, instead, if he can see Luke.
Zhitao stops him, insisting he can’t see Luke, it would only break his heart all over again. He tells her, half-broken, that she’s treating him worse than she treats the dog. She looks at him and says plainly, Luan Nian, we’ve been tangled up in each other for so many years now, and she’s exhausted.
All she wants is her own life back, to take care of her family, to put things in order. Nothing more than that. If he wants to know why she left without a proper goodbye, it’s because she knew that if she’d said it to his face, he’d have said something cruel enough to hurt her one more time, and she’d already had enough of that.
He nods, understanding, and asks if she’s finished, because now it’s his turn to speak. He tells her this is something she actually deserves to hear. Back when she was up for the Specialist title, he’d given her an incredibly high score, and only found out afterward that Song Ying had even been added as a competitor.
He’d always told everyone he judged people fairly, and his score reflected exactly how he saw her. If she ever believed she wasn’t good enough when she first joined Lime, that she lacked confidence, that he looked down on her, he wants to set the record straight, even now that she’s gone. She wasn’t particularly strong when she started. But by the time she left, she was the best employee he’d ever trained.
It was snowing that day too, he reminds her, the day she walked out of his place and forced Luke to choose between them. It felt like a divorce, he says, except at least people negotiate through a divorce. She’d simply walked away. Did she really think he’d given her his heart for six years and felt nothing in return? Didn’t he try, too?
She tells him, gently, that she’s genuinely grateful for everything he did for her over the years, that she meant every word in her last message wishing him well. She hopes things go well for him, always will. But they both still have a long life ahead of them, so many things left worth doing, so many people still worth loving. Go home, Luan Nian, she says, and turns to walk away.
He pulls her back. He’s not leaving, he tells her, he wants to see Luke right now. That dog’s been with him since the day they brought him home together, he fed him, walked him, took him hiking, why shouldn’t he be allowed to see him?
She tells him Luke is her dog now. He points out, quietly, that the dog is literally named after his own English name, that he’s the one who trained him, why can’t he see him? She keeps crying. He keeps crying too. And then he steps forward, pulls her into a hug, and holds her as she breaks down, calling her Tao Tao. It’s the first time we’ve ever heard him call her that.
A Reluctant Reunion
Eventually, she lets him inside to finally see Luke, who greets him with pure, unrestrained joy. Noticing right away that the dog’s lost weight, Luan Nian can’t resist pointing out that her supposed fiancรฉ doesn’t seem to have made much of an appearance around the apartment at all.
Worn down, Zhitao admits she doesn’t really have the right to keep Luke from him, and tells him he’s free to visit whenever he wants to see him. Still, she sets firm boundaries, no more surprise money transfers, they only make her uncomfortable, and he needs to stay away from her parents entirely. Things are fine exactly as they are, she tells him, and that’s where it needs to stay.
Digging for Information
Hungry for more details about her life, Luan Nian later drops by her company under the guise of a casual visit, finding her assistant Fu Dong holding down the desk. Fishing for information, he asks about her professional boundaries, and Fu Dong happily describes just how strict she is about keeping clients at arm’s length.
He also slips in a question about her love life, visibly relieved to hear from Fu Dong that her packed work schedule leaves absolutely no room for dating anyone at all.
A Budget, and a Plan
Determined to stay in her orbit however he can, Luan Nian meets with Song Qiuhan back in Beijing, suggesting they funnel part of their regional ad budget into an agency based in Harbin. Song Qiuhan sees straight through the move, realizing exactly who he’s really trying to help, and teasingly advises him to stop overthinking it, just be direct, sweet, and persistent instead.
A Suitcase, and a Cover Story
Taking that advice to heart, Luan Nian shows up at Zhitao’s apartment uninvited, suitcase in hand, along with fresh meat to cook up treats for the dog. Luke abandons her instantly to fawn over him instead. When he casually mentions telling a neighbour he’s her boyfriend, she plays it off with total indifference, prompting him to joke that between the two of them, their matching reputations practically make them a perfect match.
While he’s busy cooking in her kitchen, her parents arrive unexpectedly with food, and he quickly explains he’s simply there helping look after Luke while she’s swamped with work.
Dinner, and a Test
Her parents end up staying for the meal, her father repeatedly toasting him throughout the night, clearly testing his character while thanking him, somewhat begrudgingly, for having looked after Zhitao back in Beijing.
Her mother senses something’s being left unsaid, though Zhitao stays quiet regardless. Luan Nian drinks every glass poured his way without complaint, earning real respect from her father for keeping his composure even as the alcohol clearly takes hold.
A Night on the Couch
The moment her parents leave, his drunken act disappears entirely, and he settles back into her apartment, claiming every nearby hotel is fully booked. Despite her objections, he makes himself comfortable on her couch for the night.
Later, unable to sleep, he knocks on her bedroom door, sensing she’s still awake, and steps inside to apologize properly, for his old arrogance, for realizing everything far too late, assuring her his love was always real, and that he genuinely wants a future built together.
Alone in the dark afterward, Zhitao cries quietly, turning over how stubborn pride and buried insecurity kept them apart for so long, frustrated at how easily his presence alone can still dismantle every wall she’s worked so hard to build.
A Familiar Argument
The next morning, before heading to the airport, he stops by with breakfast for Luke, and finds her fridge completely bare, needling her for how little she takes care of her own home. She defends herself, insisting there’s no need to cook when takeout, her mother, or eventually some future boyfriend who actually knows his way around a kitchen could handle it for her.
He teases that she should probably start pressuring her so-called fiancรฉ to sharpen his culinary skills if he wants to stay competitive, before offering, once again, to cook for both her and the dog himself. Not in the mood to keep arguing, she heads off to the office instead.
The Early Spring Episode 23 Recap: My Thoughts
In this episode, Luan Nian has gone into full win-back mode, no cost too high. From sitting in her parents’ tavern eating peanuts, patiently confident she’ll walk through that door eventually, right through to insisting on seeing Luke and simply inserting himself back into her life whether she likes it or not.
That scene where he’s supposedly heading back to the hotel but instead just sits on that bench downstairs, unable to actually leave, was such a pivotal moment. This is the first real conversation they’ve had since the day she walked out, and honestly, I wish I had a clearer sense of the timeline here, is this a year later, two years, I’m not sure, but they finally have the conversation they should have had a long time ago.
Watching them lay everything out, all the things they’d both been holding back, both of them crying uncontrollably, mourning what this relationship had become, or maybe crying simply because he wants her back so badly and she’s still so hurt, was incredible to watch. It felt completely real. And honestly, I’m sitting here crying over a dog. What has this show done to me?
When he’s playing with Luke afterward and they talk before he leaves, the OST kicks in with an acoustic guitar version of the title track, and it’s absolutely stunning. That instrumental arrangement is so soft, so poignant, painful in the best possible way.
If Zhitao’s second-guessing herself right now, honestly, good. This is their first real interaction since everything fell apart, and of course she’s still angry, but even that much is progress. If there’s even the slightest flicker in her thinking maybe they could actually work this out, I wouldn’t blame her at all. Because clearly, underneath all that pain, she still loves him. If she didn’t, none of this would hurt this much. She’d have been able to walk away completely unaffected.
I think that conversation gave Luan Nian a renewed sense of purpose, a real determination to win her back properly. He’s loosening up now, being playful, inserting himself into her life under the perfectly convenient excuse of seeing Luke, and she’s just watching him do it, fully aware of exactly what game he’s playing.
And really, if she truly didn’t want him there, she never would have let him into her kitchen, cooking, restocking her fridge like he owns the place. The osmanthus milk was such a lovely little touch, and the fake-drunk act was hilarious, but also clever, a perfect excuse to stay the night. Watching her watch him, clearly amused despite herself at the lengths he’s willing to go to, was such a fun beat.
And his sincere apology at the end of the night felt necessary, something she needed to hear. I imagine she spent that whole night lying awake crying, turning it over in her mind, wondering whether she could actually accept it, believe it, let herself hope again, or whether she shouldn’t.
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