Spring of The Blade Episode 29 Recap

**SPOILER ALERT**

TL;DR (Quick Overview)

Old Madam Xie reveals she knew Qingyuan’s scheme all along and secretly protected her, until Qingyuan shows her Chunqing’s letter and names Xie Shu as her mother’s killer. Confronted, Xie Shu turns his adoptive mother’s own teachings against her, and she hangs herself with white silk. The Emperor lets her death settle the scandal, leaving Xie Shu alone in an emptying house, where he hears Chunqing’s song and finds Qingyuan wearing her mother’s dress.

Sent Away to Be Safe

Old Madam Xie explains why she sent Jin Chunqing away. After Xia Yingying died, Hu Wenzhuo’s brother, who worked under Eunuch Xia, took over the investigation, and it was certain to go against Chunqing. So she struck a deal with the Hu family to let Chunqing leave the Xie residence.

Qingyuan points out that this means she drove her mother away from her side for a second time. Old Madam Xie insists it was for Chunqing’s own good. She believed that once her daughter was out of this troubled house, she would be safe. What she never expected was that Chunqing was already pregnant.

From then on, she quietly looked after mother and daughter from a distance. Qingyuan remembers the Lady Lu who sent wheat cakes during the Cold Food Festival, when fires were forbidden, worried they wouldn’t have enough to eat.

That was the best protection Old Madam Xie could give them. She saw them in the alley that day, Chunqing urging her daughter to eat and laughing that it was time to find Yunya a father, before her maid hurried her away.

Soon after, a servant brought word that Chunqing had been sheltering Shen Zhibai’s son, a fugitive, and that officials had burned her house down with her inside. Old Madam Xie had always believed there would be time to bring them both home, or at least to hear from afar that they were safe. She never imagined that glimpse outside the alley during the Cold Food Festival would be the last time she saw her daughter.

Afraid of Karma

After the fire, she was ill for three days, and from then on she became a vegetarian and devoted herself to Buddhist practice. She had never believed in anything but herself and what power and cunning could bring her. Once Chunqing was gone, she grew afraid of karma, hoping that chanting sutras might earn enough merit for her daughter to have a gentler life next time.

Meanwhile, she watched Qingyuan grow up with Grandma Chen. The life was poorer than the Xie family’s, but peaceful, and Grandma Chen was more of a real grandmother than she could ever be. So she held herself back from disturbing it.

Then the blood-written poem appeared, and a Taoist priest declared the family needed a lucky charm. Old Madam Xie saw at once that it was the girl’s scheme. Instead of exposing her, she sent Yuejian to find the Xie family’s long-lost fourth daughter. Since Qingyuan wanted in, she helped her get in.

She knew everything Qingyuan went through in the house. When Nanny Rong bullied her, Old Madam Xie found an excuse to have her killed. She saw that Young Master Li was sincere and tried to make that match happen. And she saw Yan Rui’s feelings for her too.

 With so many in the family treating Qingyuan as a thorn in their side, his protection might have been her way out, so she played along. From the moment Qingyuan arrived, she had sworn to herself that what happened to Chunqing would never happen to her granddaughter.

Patching Up Old Mistakes

Qingyuan refuses to accept that this was all she could do. If she hadn’t swapped her daughter for a son that night, none of the suffering and bloodshed that followed would have happened. Everything began with her, and all she has done since is patch up her own mistakes and fool herself.

Old Madam Xie tells her she’s still young and doesn’t understand. A woman must give everything to her family before marriage and to her husband’s family after it. Once she married into the Xie family, carrying on the line came first, and the ancestors’ rules don’t let women inherit. It wasn’t up to her.

Qingyuan reminds her that her surname isn’t Xie. Neither are her parents, her daughter or any of her blood relatives. The world only knows her as Old Madam Xie, while her real name, Lu Lingshu, lies hidden in a cold bronze mirror where no one sees it, and every achievement she’s proud of ended up as the Xie family’s glory. Is that really what she wants?

Old Madam Xie insists that when people remember the Xie family, they remember her. Her mind is made up. She will give her old life to protect the Xie family one last time. It’s her fate.

Before she trades her life for the family, Qingyuan asks, has she ever wondered who actually killed her mother? Old Madam Xie still believes Chunqing brought disaster on herself by sheltering her friend’s orphaned son. No, Qingyuan says. Her mother was already dead before the guards arrived.

Chunqing’s Letter

Old Madam Xie is shocked by this revelation. Qingyuan shows her the letter her mother wrote before she died. The night it happened, Chunqing had tucked the young Shen Run into bed, promising him lots of good food the next day.

In the letter, she asks Lu Lingshu whether she should call her Old Madam or Mother. She finally understands that the protection she received was never mere courtesy, nor because she was a daughter-in-law. It was a mother’s love for her own flesh and blood, and her way of making amends.

But what could make abandoning her worth it? If she cared, how could she hand her daughter to a drunken, gambling brute and make her call him father? Chunqing was treated like an animal from childhood, forced to earn a living in a theatre troupe while still young, only to have every coin taken from her.

His creditors harassed her daily, and more than once, drunk, he had vile thoughts about her. All the while, her mother sat behind countless doors in the Xie residence, watching her covered in mud and humiliation, never revealing the truth. Chunqing writes that she should be grateful, but how can she not feel hatred? And yet she can’t bring herself to hate it all.

Xie Shu

Then Qingyuan names her mother’s real killer: Old Madam Xie’s fake son, Xie Shu. The old woman breaks down, raging at the bastard who dared to kill her daughter. Qingyuan tells her that all this karma and disaster was planted the night she swapped her daughter for a boy.

Will she still take the blame for Xie Shu now? Can she bear to let her daughter’s murderer go free and keep living in luxury? What did she live her whole life for, and what is she dying for? As Qingyuan turns to go, Old Madam Xie asks whether she hates her, whether she can forgive her, and whether she’ll call her that name one more time.

Qingyuan says yes, she hates her for defending such unfair rules, and she is the root of every disaster. But she pities her more, because no one has been trapped in this house longer than she has. She asks her not to make the same mistake again, and calls her Grandmother.

A Filial Son

The next day, Xie Shu arrives claiming he’s come to pay his respects. Old Madam Xie remarks that he’s really come to remind an old eyesore that it’s time to go. He protests that all he’s ever wanted is for her to enjoy a long and healthy life, since the Xie family is only well if she is.

She calls him a bastard. She allowed him to marry Chunqing because she believed he truly cared for her, and instead he killed her with his own hands. Xie Shu is unbothered. So she knows everything. Good. Now there are no secrets between them, which is how a real mother and son should be.

When she says Chunqing was her own flesh and blood, he tells her that’s not what she taught him. She always said that next to the Xie clan, nothing else matters, not family, not friends, not even their own lives. Why turn sentimental and selfish now? It isn’t like her.

She tells him that to outsiders he’s a model of filial devotion, but deep down he hates her. He insists he’s the most filial son in the world, and today he will carry out his filial duty to the very end. She tells him not to call her Mother, because each time he does, she hates him more. She should have seen from the time he was a baby that he was born a vicious demon. Isn’t it a little late for that, he asks.

Old Madam Xie orders him arrested, but no one moves. Xie Shu has bought the guards’ loyalty, and those who refused have already been dealt with. Yuejian, now his Sixth Concubine, brings in a bowl of ginseng soup, prepared on his orders.

The Golden Tablets

Old Madam Xie calls him a bastard and says she meant to go keep Chunqing company anyway. Xie Shu agrees, then reminds her that she’s the one who raised this bastard. When it comes down to it, who really killed Chunqing?

She did. Her Xie family did. The ancestors behind every one of those golden tablets killed her. Old Madam Xie admits he’s right, and that she’s the one who deserves to die most. Xie Shu bids her farewell.

She chooses white silk over the poison. Her greatest regret, she says, is that she never held Chunqing properly and never once heard her call her Mother. She tells her daughter she’s coming to find her, and hangs herself.

Empty Fame

Qingyuan grieves at her mother’s tablet, telling her they’re all dead now, even Grandmother. Shen Run comes to her. She says she now understands that people really can spend their whole lives chasing an empty fame that was never theirs, giving up everything and everyone they love, only to end up trapped in a cage of their own making and leaving tragedy after tragedy behind.

The Same Wretched Fate

Yuejian tells Xie Shu that Old Madam Xie’s confession has been sent, and swears in terror that she knows nothing and won’t say a word. He grabs her by the throat and asks if she wants to become the second Hu Wenzhuo, though she doesn’t deserve to be.

That old woman gave him a servant as a concubine only to humiliate him, to remind him that the two of them are the same. However clever, talented, hardworking or good-looking you are, no one can change the wretched fate in your bones. But he changed it, completely. The Xie family is his now, and its hundred-year foundation is all his.

The Emperor’s Choice

At court, the Emperor finds Xie Shu’s claim that he knew nothing of his origins unconvincing. He has inherited the Xie residence for decades and benefited enormously from it. Lord Ye observes that Xie Shu knows this, which is why he sent his adoptive mother’s confession, betting the Emperor would accept her life as his apology.

The Emperor remarks that it’s easy to be a foolish ruler and not hard to be a wise one. The hardest part is knowing your ministers flatter you to your face and are hypocrites behind your back, yet keeping them for the greater good.

Lord Ye urges him not to let men from the past hold back his reforms. The Emperor explains that governing a vast empire from deep within the palace means relying on people, which means tolerating their selfishness and being deceived.

He could have Xie Shu cut to pieces and push through the reforms at once. But Xia’s faction has only just fallen and the court isn’t stable. Without Xie Shu to hold them together, Hengtang’s noble families would scatter like loose sand, and even the Emperor couldn’t control them.

The people can still carry the burden of old corruption, but chaos would bring worse factional fights and war. Reform must be pushed slowly and patiently, outlasting one Xie Shu after another. Since Old Madam Xie has apologized with her life, he’ll leave the Xie family its last fig leaf, and the matter ends there.

A Beast in a Cage

In the emptying residence, Xie Shu taunts his caged bird, telling it that it’s no phoenix, only a beast kept in a cage, and that someday he’ll pluck its feathers and see how it tastes. Then he hears voices calling his name from every direction. He searches the courtyards, shouting for everyone to come out because the patriarch is here, threatening to skin them alive one by one. He calls for Qingrong and Donglin, but no one answers.

He finally catches Donglin trying to leave and demands to know where everyone has gone. Donglin tells him Sixth Madam has gone mad and been sent to the estate, and that he’s leaving too, since his old mother is gravely ill at home. Xie Shu crows that Hengtang now belongs to him alone, and he was just about to promote Donglin, but the servant walks away.

Chunqing’s Song

Alone again, Xie Shu hears Chunqing’s song drifting through the house and follows it. He sees a woman in costume who moves just like her and calls out Chunqing’s name. When she turns, it’s Qingyuan.

She remarks that he called her mother’s name, so it seems he still cares about her. Xie Shu recognizes his daughter, marvels at how beautiful she looks and praises her singing. She’s wearing her mother’s theatre dress.

Spring of the Blade Episode 29 Recap: My Thoughts

This episode was so lacklustre! They’re really dragging this out for all it’s worth. Just get rid of him already! And that bloody fan!

A few interesting things were revealed this episode. Old Madam Xie always knew Qingyuan’s motives for inserting herself back into the family, and she watched her own daughter being abused by a drunken adoptive father.

She also chose to hang herself when she had the option of poison. Perhaps she wanted to leave a hanging ghost in the house to curse Xie Shu forever so he could never live in peace. But that unravels everything she worked towards, and the Xie family will crumble.

Don’t get me wrong, Fu Dalong did a remarkable job as the slimy, power-hungry villain, and that scene where he strangles Sixth Madam while his dead mother hangs before him was pure evil.

I don’t have much else to say about this episode, other than that I got bored and impatient. It just rehashed the same things over and over. The writers gave us five minutes of getting rid of corruption, then whole episodes on this storyline.

And we got barely two seconds of Xu Kai, which is crazy with only one episode left before the finale. I understand they want to expose the truth and close the main arc of Qingyuan’s revenge, but surely they could have written him in more. He’s her husband, after all. Not happy.

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