The Early Spring Episode 24 Recap
**SPOILER ALERT**
Table of Contents
TL;DR (Quick Overview)
WELCOME BACK TO BEIJING
Zhitao fights to keep her fledgling company alive while Luan Nian works quietly behind the scenes to support her without ever taking credit, until an emotional visit to Beijing tears down the last of her defenses for good. Confessions, a museum built entirely from memories, and a proposal finally bring six years of heartbreak full circle.
A Business on the Brink
Fu Dong brings Zhitao three pieces of bad news all at once. The denim promotion planned for the following week has fallen through, despite deposits already collected. A client with an overdue payment is begging for another two months, pleading financial hardship. And the sponsor backing the ice sculpture event is slashing their budget entirely, leaving Fu Dong unsure whether to proceed at all.
Knowing they desperately need new markets to break into, Zhitao decides to push forward regardless, reasoning that some business is better than none. Moved by her resolve, Fu Dong, her very first hire, promises to stick with her through anything, even without pay if it comes to that.
Determined to keep the company standing, Zhitao arranges to mortgage her own apartment, handing over her property deed to secure a bank loan through an associate named Xing.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, Luan Nian’s been quietly working his own connections behind the scenes, recommending her as a business partner to contacts of his own, then coordinating directly with Fu Dong to make it happen.
When Fu Dong offers to tell her the truth, Luan Nian insists on staying anonymous, telling him the real outcome should rest entirely on her own negotiating skill, not his interference. He does ask for the company’s address though, just to send over two winter coats.
A Job Application
Meeting her in person soon after, Luan Nian learns just how deep her financial strain runs when she admits she’s mortgaged her apartment to keep things afloat. He offers to help immediately, and she refuses just as fast, explaining she’s already sold her car and has enough savings to manage, insisting she needs to succeed entirely on her own terms.
Rather than back off, he declares he’s applying for a job at her company, driver, assistant, boyfriend, whatever gets him in the door. She points out, reasonably, that he’s wildly overqualified and her small operation can’t accommodate someone like him.
He won’t let it go. When she argues they need someone local and long-term, he offers to relocate on the spot. When she pivots to explaining her business is shifting toward digital advertising, a space where his expertise might not even translate, and that training someone local would take at least six months anyway, he counters by offering to work completely free for those first six months just to prove himself. Unable to out-argue him any further, she gives in and hires him as her driver.
Settling In
Luan Nian folds himself into her life fast, visiting her parents with Beijing specialties and health supplements, though her father stays icy toward him regardless. He spends his days helping around the office and caring for Luke alongside her. When the dog suddenly falls ill, a panicked Zhitao calls him immediately, and he arrives fast to steady both her and the situation.
A Confession Between Friends
Later, celebrating her business finally stabilizing over drinks with Lumi, Zhitao apologizes for keeping the relationship hidden for so many years. Lumi just laughs, admitting she’d clocked their chemistry ages ago, recalling how flustered Zhitao used to get around him, and the time he’d personally stepped in to handle that shady real estate agency on her behalf.
When Lumi asks how he’s treating her these days, Zhitao admits, genuinely, that he’s being wonderful. Turning the conversation, Zhitao asks about Will, and Lumi sighs, explaining his traditional family looks down on her simply for being a demolition compensation recipient. Steering things back, Lumi encourages her plainly to finally give Luan Nian the real chance he’s been fighting for.
A Video She Wasn’t Meant to See
The last of Zhitao’s resistance starts crumbling the moment Tan Mian sends her an unexpected video, Luan Nian standing beneath the aurora in tears, confessing everything, his love, his regret, all of it completely unguarded. Tan Mian’s message alongside it is simple, Luan Nian has no idea this was ever recorded, and if she loves him too, she shouldn’t let this go so easily.
A Kiss That Almost Happens
Luan Nian returns to the apartment and lets Zhitao know that Luke’s been resting comfortably on his IV drip, reassuring her, still visibly worried, that the dog should make a full recovery within a couple of days. Relieved, she thanks him quietly.
In a quiet moment between them, he leans in, wanting to kiss her, admitting how deeply he regrets never pulling her into a hug, never comforting her properly, the day she left with Luke all those months ago. Instinct takes over and she pushes him away before it can happen.
He doesn’t push back, heading toward the door instead, but at the last second, he turns around and rushes back to her, desperate for that kiss anyway, before ultimately holding himself back once it’s clear she isn’t ready.
If he weren’t so determined to spend the rest of his life with her, he tells her, he’d have made her pay for that today. With his flight back to Beijing scheduled for the next morning, he asks if he can stay the night in her guest room instead. Left alone in the hallway, she lingers there quietly, replaying the last few days they’ve just spent together.
Late Night Reconciliation
Unable to sleep, Zhitao heads to the kitchen for water, and Luan Nian, equally restless, joins her there. Overcome, he pulls her in, and this time she doesn’t pull away. He tells her he’ll stop the moment she wants him to, but she can’t bring herself to push him back at all. What follows is passionate, aching with everything they’ve held back for months, and clinging to him, she lets him carry her back to the bedroom, kissing all the way.
A Father’s Discovery
The next morning, her father shows up at her door after failing to reach her by phone, and Zhitao tries desperately to get him to leave before he notices anything. Luan Nian steps out of the bedroom right as her father arrives, and seeing the two of them in sleepwear tells him everything he needs to know. Her mother’s summoned immediately to demand answers.
Luan Nian steps forward and takes full responsibility, laying out the truth honestly, six years together, a painful misunderstanding that split them apart, and a reunion that reignited everything between them. He tells them plainly he’s ready to marry her whenever she’ll have him. Moved by his sincerity, her parents soften and leave the two of them alone to finally talk about their future properly.
A Confession, Fully
Alone together, he calls her his wife, admitting that if they’d never separated at all, they’d likely already be married with a child old enough to be running around by now. When she teases him for saying whatever comes to mind, he insists he means every word.
He finally explains the plan he’d quietly carried for years, that his transfer to the US was always meant to give her the space to earn her Specialist title on her own merit. Looking at her with total sincerity, he tells her he wants nothing more than to spend the rest of his life by her side. She answers with a kiss.
A Return to Beijing
As her company grows, Zhitao starts splitting time between Harbin and Beijing, and Luan Nian arranges for her to visit Lime’s Beijing office to share her experience as an event partner. Her old colleagues welcome her back warmly, and Tracy jokes about how she’s managed to survive Luan Nian’s famously difficult temper all this time, prompting him to defend himself proudly, taking her hand right in front of everyone before leaving early to run Chinese New Year errands together.
A Museum of Memories
Later, Laun Nian brings her to something he’s built entirely for her, a place he calls the Museum of Time and Eternity. Acting as her personal tour guide, he walks her through an exhibit charting her entire journey since first arriving in Beijing back in 2012, confessing along the way that he deliberately wanted to drive her home even though it was completely out of his way.
He admits he was the one who once wrote anonymously in her office diary, urging her to make every day count. He recalls the mountain rescue too, admitting he’d set out to save her, only to end up saved by her instead.
He finally addresses the expensive handbags that he continuously bought for her, explaining honestly that he’d only done it because his own mother loves designer handbags, and that he simply hadn’t known how else to show he cared and offers an apology.
Further down the corridor, they stop at a photo of her at her old desk beside a bundle of flowers, the very ones Sun Yuanzhu had once sent anonymously. He admits, quietly, that they’d actually suited her perfectly, and that he’d lied at the time saying that it didn’t purely out of jealousy, adding that Sun Yuanzhu had been a genuinely wonderful person, someone he wishes now he’d properly thanked while he still could.
Another photo further along shows the two of them relaxed together at his apartment, tangled up in each other. He tells her plainly that this was the moment his boss self had already fallen for her, long before he’d even realized it himself, that he was the one who fell first, even while trying to convince himself feelings like that could simply be managed and kept quiet.
He admits he was never good with soft words, never quite knew how to say he missed her even when he did, that he struggled with empathy and impulsiveness for years. He tells her that he even faked illness just for an excuse to see her and also quietly flying to whatever city she was in just to catch a glimpse of her from a distance.
A Bucket List, Fulfilled
Deeper into the exhibit, Zhitao finds pieces of her own childhood, handprints, footprints, old baby clothes, her long-forgotten Walkman, all carefully gathered by him. Beside them sits her bucket list. Genuinely remorseful over his old arrogance, he promises to help her complete every single item on it. He admits real regret over once claiming he’d never thought about marriage and kids and that never had a bucket list of his own.
From now on, he tells her, he wants to be part of every single dream on that list, wants to build an entire future with her starting today, reminding her this museum doesn’t just hold her past, it holds what comes next for both of them. He reaches his hand out, and she takes it, walking toward him as he formally asks for a place in her personal museum going forward. Crying with happiness, she agrees.
He produces a necklace next, a small typewriter charm bearing the letter L, and fastens it around her neck. Then he calls out for Luke, who comes bounding in ridiculously dressed, a balloon trailing behind him that reads simply, marry Dad. Dropping to one knee, ring in hand, he asks her outright, will she marry him.
A Proposal, Answered
Lumi and their closest friends rush in right on cue to witness the moment, urging her on. Through tears, she says yes, and they share one final, overwhelming embrace as he slides the ring onto her finger, both of them finally stepping into the brightest chapter of their story yet.
She reflects, in the end, that they survived the bitter winter together and finally found their early spring, carrying that warmth through the blazing summer and into the brightest season of their shared life, a warmth she hopes will never fade, for her, for him, for everyone still waiting on their own.
The Early Spring Episode 24 Recap: My Thoughts
Through the back half of episode 23 and into the front half of 24, we watch Luan Nian do everything humanly possible to win her back, offering to work for her for six months completely unpaid, insisting on being her driver, just fully inserting himself into her life through whatever creative excuse he can find.
And the fact that she’s only mildly annoyed rather than furious, never once telling him to leave for good, feels like a real sign of hope. Though honestly, that’s just her nature, she’s always been soft-hearted, and I think he knows exactly how to take advantage of that.
Thank goodness Tan Mian sent that video. Rewatching that aurora scene made me cry all over again, and it only reinforced how genuinely broken this man is. Hearing him say I know I’m a mess, I don’t deserve to be loved, hit me hard the second time around too, so heartbreaking.
And saying I love you, I love you, I love you, three times over to absolutely no one on the other end of that call, that’s devastating. Girl, if that doesn’t shift how you feel about someone, I don’t know what would.
And looking at the timeline, that recording happened a long time before she ever saw it, which tells you exactly how long he’s carried this without letting go. If anything, that distance seems to have forced him to finally reckon with everything he did wrong, and everything he never did right.
Midway through the episode, when he comes back with news about Luke being at the vet, you can see his resolve is finally starting to crack her defences too. He’s bolder now, leaning in for that kiss, and she doesn’t pull away from his hand or his touch, only stops him right at the line of an actual kiss. That tells me she’s wavering too, genuinely tempted. And when he announces he’s staying the night, she doesn’t throw him out either.
That whole reconciliation scene that night, the intimacy between them, was perfection. And I loved the morning after just as much, watching him fully own what happened, happy to claim it out loud, finally saying everything he’d been holding back for so long.
The museum walk was so beautiful. Whoever came up with that idea is a genius. After all the romantic proposals we’ve seen across every drama and film imaginable, this one still managed to feel completely fresh. Everything he said to her in that space was gorgeous, and it finally gave us real answers too, the truth about the handbag she’d once assumed was hush money, and finally clearing that up properly. His confession about the flowers, lying about them not suiting her, suggesting green foxtail instead purely out of jealousy, and his genuine regret over never properly knowing Sun Yuanzhu, landed so well.
And that final section, surrounded by pieces of her entire past, was so thoughtful, so considerate. I loved the line about wanting to be part of her bucket list going forward. It was the perfect proposal, surrounded by everyone they love, the whole cast we’ve grown attached to standing right there. Exactly the ending this story deserved.
The one thing I do wish had been tied up properly is Zhitao’s reaction when she learnt about the sacrifice Luan Nian made going to the US in the first place. She still doesn’t know about the incriminating photos, doesn’t know he stepped away from Lime China specifically to protect her career there.
She resigned anyway, of course, but he still went through with that sacrifice regardless, and I wish the show had found a way to bring that back into the reconciliation, since so much of this stretch focused on him owning his faults without ever getting credit for the good he actually did.
I know fans who’ve read the novel keep pointing to the episode cuts as the reason the reconciliation arc felt rushed. As someone who hasn’t read the source material, I honestly didn’t feel that way at all. The whole arc, breakup, distance, reconciliation, getting back together, played out across four episodes at a pace that felt right to me, never too choppy, never too fast or too slow.
My only real complaint remains the timeline itself, I can’t tell how much time passed between her leaving with Luke and the proposal happening. We know he spent six months in the US, but beyond that, it’s fuzzy. Overall, though, a genuinely great way to close this story out.
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