Spring of The Blade Episode 17 Recap

**SPOILER ALERT**

TL;DR (Quick Overview)

As rumours spread that Yan Rui is an impostor, Shen Che tries to kill Qingyuan as a threat to their revenge, revealing he is Yan Rui’s brother and the sole survivor of the Shen family massacre. Qingyuan frees Cui’er, but tragedy strikes the Xie household when Madam Hu secretly swaps Zhengjun’s letter and Zhenglun dies at the frontier. After Concubine Mei is driven mad by grief and a poisoned flower garden, Third Madam confesses to Qingyuan that Madam Hu has been the mastermind all along.

A Wish for Her

Qingyuan leads Yan Rui to the wish-granting tree and buys a wishing plaque for him. When she asks what he wished for, he says whether his own wishes come true depends on him, not Heaven, so he spent this one on her.

He wishes her good fortune every day and that all her wishes come true. Gazing at him, Qingyuan speaks silently to Shen Run. She sees him in this man once again, and can no longer tell them apart. Is he the one she’s been missing? Perhaps they really are the same person.

A Rumour Takes Flight

In a public square, a storyteller praises Lord Yan Rui from the capital for his swift methods and iron heart, killing corrupt officials, ending the famine and wiping out the northern bandits. Then he asks whether the crowd really believes Lord Yan is a court official at all. An informant claims Lord Yan isn’t even surnamed Yan. He’s a fake.

The real Lord Yan is dead, and this man is a commoner who borrowed his identity and title. He walks a dark path, never parts with his sword, and once beheaded seventeen people in a single night. That, the storyteller says, explains how a civil official could stand up to northern bandits. Some in the crowd decide he must be a bandit himself. Others don’t care. Fake or not, he works for the common people, and they still like him.

Meanwhile, a messenger tells Qingyuan that Lord Yan wants her to know Cui’er is fine and will be released soon. Qinghe tells her the rumours about Lord Yan’s identity have spread across Hengtang overnight, and suggests she go see him if she’s worried. She also mentions that Concubine Mei is doing poorly and may be sent away. Qingyuan says she deserves it.

Cui’er Set Free

Qingyuan meets Cui’er on a bridge after her release and asks where she’ll go. Cui’er wonders whether someone like her can even choose her own future. Qingyuan says she can. She’ll arrange a new identity and give her money to settle down. Cui’er can go anywhere, marry, start a small business, and live any life she wants without anyone knowing her past.

Cui’er asks what she must do in return. Nothing, Qingyuan says. Cui’er asks if she doesn’t hate her. Qingyuan says she was only a pawn, and if not her, it would have been someone else. All she asks is that Cui’er live well, and when she’s able, help those around her so they too can have the right to choose. That would be repayment enough. Cui’er thanks her, and they part.

A Blade at Danyue Pavilion

That night, Qingyuan finds her maid Baoxian unconscious, and Shen Che steps out of the shadows and he says he’s here because of Lord Yan. Yan Rui bears heavy responsibilities, and because of her, he’s distracted and neglecting them. Qingyuan says that once Yan Rui makes up his mind, no one can sway him, least of all her.

Shen Che replies that his path leads to certain death, and the slightest distraction will ruin everything. Having her at his side is a disaster waiting to happen. Yan Rui arrives and tells him to step aside. Shen Che says if Yan Rui still remembers his family name, he’ll let him remove this threat.

Yan Rui asks what good her death would do. If it reminds him of their family’s blood debt, Shen Che says, it won’t be in vain. Yan Rui tells him he’s never forgotten. For years he lived like a walking corpse, and only by her side does he feel alive. Shen Che warns that he has only one life and a mission to fulfil, and his sword cannot rust because of feelings. He tells him to think it through and leaves.

Overwhelmed, Qingyuan asks who that man is and what blood debt he meant. Yan Rui says everyone in this world has their feuds. He and Shen Che walked out of the same hell and carry the same blood debts, but Shen Che suffered more than he did.

A Survivor’s Fear

Alone, Shen Che reflects that Yan Rui thinks he’s acting out of resentment for him falling in love. That isn’t it. What he fears isn’t Xie Qingyuan herself but whoever might be pulling her strings. The Xie family knows too well how to kill, and what if they use tenderness instead of blades this time?

Yan Rui can’t gamble his life on one moment of weakness. Qingyuan may be innocent, but their mission can’t afford any what-ifs. He isn’t trying to kill the woman Yan Rui loves, only to remove every possible threat to him.

Yan Rui finds him, and Shen Che asks if he knows what it was like to lie beneath their mother’s corpse, feeling her body grow cold, then crawl out from a pile of the dead and face that silence alone. Those were all their family.

Yan Rui doesn’t know, he says, and that’s why he can forget their responsibility for his own feelings. Yan Rui tells him he truly believed Shen Che died back then, and only learned how much he’d suffered when they found each other again.

He admits it. He has fallen for Qingyuan. If hatred can’t be helped, can love? But he can control his own life, and his life is bound to Shen Che’s. Until their father’s name is cleared and their enemies pay in blood, he will never waver. He only hopes that once it’s all over, they can let go of the past and live well. Shen Che breaks down in tears.

Cast Out

Concubine Mei lies sick in bed when Nanny Liu arrives to take her to the estate, on the Head Madam’s orders. Concubine Mei refuses, saying she never planned to leave this house. Nanny Liu then mentions a letter from Eldest Young Master, and when Concubine Mei demands it, she sneers that after such a grave crime, she isn’t fit to read a letter from a Xie descendant.

From now on, both young masters are registered under the Head Madam’s name. Zhengjun bursts in and drives the maids out. His mother begs him for help. She couldn’t even see Zhenglun off, and she wants to know what he wrote to her. Zhengjun promises to find a way.

Kneeling in the Rain

At Wuzhu Courtyard, Nanny Liu reports that Concubine Mei is so furious she may breathe her last. Madam Hu says that if she doesn’t survive, she has only herself to blame, still stubborn and competitive to the end. Zhengjun kneels outside in the rain, refusing to leave until Madam Hu finally lets him in.

He asks for his brother’s letter for his mother. Madam Hu says she knows why he’s here, and asks if he knows why she made him kneel so long. With Zhenglun at war, Zhengjun is now the only man in the family, and they hope he’ll be sensible and shoulder its responsibilities. His mother is a sinner against the family and has no right to the letter under its rules.

Zhengjun begs her to understand how close he is to his mother. Madam Hu praises him for caring, but warns that getting too close to her could displease his father and harm his future. Since he and Zhenglun are now hers, like her own sons, she suggests that perhaps a word from his elder brother might carry weight with their father. Zhengjun thanks her.

A Letter Rewritten

Zhengjun struggles to write to Zhenglun, asking what to do now that their mother is locked up and about to be sent away. Qingyuan comes to call him to dinner and tells him to look after his health first. He asks if she hates him and his mother.

She says Second Madam’s deeds were her own, and the sins of parents don’t fall on their children. When she learns he wants to ask his brother for help, she points out that Zhenglun is working so hard at the front, and offers to help him write something else instead.

Together they write a warm, ordinary letter. Everything is fine at home, the weather is turning cold so he should dress warmly, Mother is well and Zhengjun is studying hard, and they pray for his safe and triumphant return. Qingyuan tells Zhengjun to send it with someone he trusts and let no one else handle it.

The letter reaches Madam Hu anyway. She remarks that Zhengjun has grown up, reporting only good news, but that won’t do. She tears it up and sends a different letter under Zhengjun’s name, ordering it delivered to Zhenglun without delay. The rainy season has come to Hengtang, she muses, and she wonders how many flowers won’t survive it.

Fallen at the Frontier

An urgent dispatch arrives. Vanguard General Xie Zhenglun of the Ningwu Army volunteered for battle when war broke out at the border, was trapped in a besieged city, and when it fell, died pierced by countless arrows protecting the people.

In his final moments he remembered his family’s love and regretted that he couldn’t come home to care for them. Old Madam Xie collapses in grief, crying that no grandmother should have to bury her grandson.

Qingyuan quietly asks Zhengjun if he’s certain the letter never passed through anyone else’s hands. He’s too shattered to think. His brother is gone, Zhenglun was fine when he last wrote, and Zhengjun doesn’t know what will happen to their mother now. Qingyuan urges him to think hard, since it matters greatly.

An Errand of Cruelty

Madam Hu calls Qingyuan aside. With so much upheaval and Zhenglun’s death such a blow, Qingyuan is the only one she trusts with this task. She hands over Zhenglun’s letter to Concubine Mei, which she held back fearing more trouble.

Concubine Mei killed Qingyuan’s mother and has paid for it, Madam Hu says, but she’s still Zhenglun’s mother, and respect for the dead comes first. This letter is his last words. She asks Qingyuan to deliver it along with the obituary and offer some comfort if she can. Qingyuan agrees.

The Last Straw

At the estate, Concubine Mei is being worked like a servant, threatened with no dinner and the woodshed if she doesn’t finish the laundry. Qingyuan understands she hasn’t really been sent to deliver a letter. She’s been sent with the final blow meant to break Mei Yinghua.

Concubine Mei reads Zhenglun’s letter. He regrets not saying goodbye, hopes Zhengjun is looking after her, and promises to come home when his work is done and stay with her, whether she chooses to chant sutras or live at the estate.

She’s relieved. As long as her son is well, she can rest easy, and she thanks Qingyuan. Then she senses there’s more and asks. When she sees the obituary, she cries that she wasn’t the only one who harmed Fifth Madam, and he should never have paid for it.

Madness Among the Flowers

Concubine Mei, who loves her potted flowers, picks up a dead one and begins talking to it as though Zhenglun has come home, calling him to come over to her, then ordering imaginary servants to move the pots and clean up.

The estate workers note that Third Madam kindly had all of Concubine Mei’s belongings sent to the estate, despite how she was treated. Concubine Mei was always the proudest and most domineering, and now she’s a lunatic. Sometimes, one remarks, going mad is a kind of release.

The Mastermind Named

Qingyuan visits Third Madam at Hanxiang Parlor. Third Madam says that with Zhengjun in mourning and Zhenglun gone, Qinghe is in low spirits, and the herbal shop is only running thanks to Qingyuan. Qingyuan says it’s a pity Qinghe and her young lord can’t marry during the mourning period. Third Madam says that in a noble house, everyone rises and falls together, and no one stays untainted.

Qingyuan asks whether that’s also why she purged the ranks. She knew Concubine Mei loved flowers, so she poisoned the soil and drove her mad. Third Madam says Second Madam killed Chunqing and she was only avenging her. Qingyuan asks why, if she wanted revenge, she didn’t use that poison nine years ago.

Isn’t it because the mastermind only gave permission now? And the day she testified for Qingyuan in public, it wasn’t because Qinghe persuaded her, but because the mastermind told her to. And that person is First Madam. Who would have imagined the long-suffering Head Madam was behind it all?

A Secret Shared

Third Madam breaks down. It’s her fault. She harmed Chunqing and Fifth Madam. Unable to bear Second Madam’s contempt any longer, she told First Madam that euphorbia and Congxian grass are deadly when taken together, never imagining Chunqing would be the one destroyed by it.

First Madam has held that over her ever since. She withdrew from household life to stay out of their battles, but this time, though she was put up to it, she truly wanted to avenge Chunqing, so she did what was asked.

Qingyuan says she doesn’t hate her. What she hates is that every time, those who pay for these struggles are innocents like her mother and her eldest brother. Third Madam tells her she doesn’t understand. As long as the wind keeps blowing, the trees will keep swaying. One Concubine Mei has gone mad, but there will always be another.

Spring of the Blade Episode 17 Recap: My Thoughts

At the start of this episode, we get full confirmation of Yan Rui’s love for Qingyuan, and judging by how she responds, she has strong feelings for him too, even if she hasn’t said so out loud. But when she compares him to Shen Run, whom she holds in such high regard, the line between the two has blurred to the point she can no longer tell them apart.

We finally find out how Shen Che is related to Yan Rui and how he survived. At the start of the show, we saw the Shen family massacred, and later episodes referred to 72 deaths. That now makes sense, because Shen Che was the survivor Yan Rui believed was dead. His hatred and insatiable hunger for revenge are convincing, and you can really feel his pain.

The rest of the episode felt very disjointed to me. We jump from Zhenglun’s letter to Second Madam, to Zhengjun’s letter being intercepted, to Zhenglun’s death, to Second Madam going mad, and then to Qingyuan working out that Madam Hu was the mastermind all along.

The start of the show was like this too, with choppy scenes that left you confused about how one thing led to another, only for it all to be explained later. It’s safe to say Madam Hu engineered Zhenglun’s death, but how? What was in that letter? I have to admit it left me a bit frustrated, and I’m hoping it becomes clearer later.

I also felt the way Yan Rui professed his love for Qingyuan in front of Shen Che was a bit of an anticlimax. She didn’t respond or ask anything about it, and went straight to asking what Shen Che was talking about. It felt like a missed opportunity, and after that, we pretty much don’t see Xu Kai again.

A bit of a disappointing episode for me.

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