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"Go Ahead Fearlessly" - Liu Yuning

♫ Grudges and karma, right and wrong ♫

♫ The past hides blood and tears ♫

♫ It is hard to catch up after years of separation ♫

♫ The truth cannot be fully revealed ♫

♫ Fate is full of twists and turns ♫

♫ Life and death, fortune and misfortune go hand in hand ♫

♫ Obsession is hard to get rid of, keeping the truth and getting rid of the lies, let the wind blow ♫

♫ Tossed about by the wind and rain, I will never regret it, I will accompany you for my whole life ♫

♫ At least you share my joy and sorrow ♫

♫ Unravelling fate, fearlessly, a dream returns ♫

♫ The mountains and rivers are bright and beautiful, holding hands, together we return ♫

♫ In this life, my heart returns untainted of dust and ash ♫

[Melody of Golden Age]

[Episode 7]

I've practiced the pipa for two hours.

It's more exhausting than having a day of autopsy.

Qin, get me some preserved fruits.

Yes.

Great Chief.

What are you doing here?

This is the Shen Mansion. I can do whatever I want.

But you…

Do you really consider yourself the hostess here?

How dare you ask my servant late at night to get the preserved fruits from the kitchen,

and play noisy sounds on the pipa.

I'm sorry.

I bought these preserved fruits from west street.

Next time, I will get them myself and not trouble your servants.

As for the noisy sounds,

in order to make them pleasant as soon as possible,

I can only practice all night to make it sound good.

Please forgive me.

Singing and dancing require talent.

Cramming at the last minute will only invite ridicule.

I advise you to give it up to pretend to be a courtesan.

- What if I succeed? - Even if you succeed, you won't solve the case anyway.

- What if I succeed? - Even if you succeed, you won't solve the case anyway.

Don't forget the murderer targets one man and one woman.

Just you alone is not enough.

There must also be a man constantly entangled with the courtesan.

Well, I do have a candidate in mind.

Great Chief, please invite him over.

Well, I…

Director Wu.

Today, please accompany Madam Shen to the Mizar Festival together.

She insisted you take this role.

Great Chief, you have misunderstood me.

I am wronged.

If you don't believe me, inquire at the Ministry of Justice.

Madam Shen and I are by no means close.

We can't get along well and are at loggerheads with each other.

You don't have to be that anxious.

Today, Madam Shen is only disguising herself as your pretty mistress.

Great Chief, well…

Why me?

Great Chief. Don't drag me.

Great Chief! Great Chief!

Why me?

Because your mistress is so beautiful and famous in the Imperial City.

You!

Let me go.

Great Chief. Madam Shen rarely dresses up like this, she looks quite charming indeed.

If you have time to flatter me here, you'd better do something practical.

Yes.

Follow me.

Good! Good!

Good! Good!

During the Mizar Festival, the Grand Empress Dowager will make a street parade, requiring my escort.

You must keep a close watch on Madam Shen.

If there's any weird movement, capture him immediately.

If something happens to her, you will be held accountable.

Long live Your Majesty!

Grand Empress Dowager, may you live long!

Good!

Splendid!

I wonder if there are any talented men or ladies who would like to perform on stage.

Everyone!

My beloved concubine wishes to present to you a piece of pipa music.

Good!

How dare this Wu Taiming bring his mistress here openly!

How can he call the courtesan who has not been married in his family his concubine?

He's embarrassing Madam Wu.

Long live Your Majesty!

Grand Empress Dowager, may you live long!

Greetings, Your Majesty!

Greetings, Grand Empress Dowager!

Your Majesties are coming to west street to parade for blessing.

May Heaven bring good luck and great prosperity to Great Cang.

May wind and rain come on time.

May the country be prosperous and the people at peace.

Good! Good!

Really good!

Look! It's a phoenix!

It is a phoenix!

It is really beautiful! It's a divine bird!

[Phoenix]

Good! Good!

It's Heaven's will.

May Heaven bring good luck and bless our Great Cang.

What is this fragrance? It's so strange.

Thousands of butterflies and spring stars dance as the sleeves flutter.

Nine-branched bells arise as melodies fill the night pavilion.

Well matched! Good!

Madam!

- Madam! - Jing Lin.

Great Chief, Wu Taiming and Madam are missing.

Get on!

Say it.

Who is the mastermind behind the murder case?

Murder case? What murder case?

Where is Madam Shen?

Spare my life.

Great Chief, spare him!

This is a scandal in my family.

My brother-in-law had an affair.

I wanted to teach him a lesson. Is this a crime?

Most of these paired corpses knew each other well in life.

They were often seen together.

However, there are two pairs, for whom no entanglements have been found prior to their deaths.

Oh no!

I am Shen Du. Are you all right?

Brother Shen Du.

Brother Shen Du, do you still recognize me?

Of course, I recognize you.

Yan Xing.

I would never forget you.

None of this is real.

Should I recognize you?

Don't try to be the real Madam Shen.

You are not the wife I want to marry.

Don’t even think about surviving in the Shen Mansion.

- Where is this? - You don't need to know.

Why have you killed so many people?

You don't need to know.

Why do you talk so much nonsense?

It seems today, I can't escape from you.

Why don't you take off the mask and show me your face?

Everyone knows you are smart, Sixth Miss Yan.

If I show you my face, after you die,

you will be a ghost

and tell your husband in a dream.

What would I do then?

You have killed so many people.

Their resentment has long turned into fierce ghosts surrounding you.

And accompanying you day and night.

Can't you see them?

They are nothing,

but people who deserved to die.

Even if they turned into ghosts, they would still not dare to appear before me.

Or I'd kill them again.

Am I also someone who deserves to die?

The people you mentioned all share common traits,

and you think they deserve to die.

In your eyes, do I also deserve to die?

Even if you ask so many questions, you have to die anyway.

But…

I still need to wait a little longer before taking action.

What are you waiting for?

I'm waiting for your blood to coagulate.

Then when I take your heart out, you won't even bleed.

But I'm the Great Chief's wife.

If you dare to kill me,

when they find you, they will certainly skin you alive and tear out your tendons.

Even if I don't kill you, Shen Du won't let me go if he catches me.

I have to die anyway.

I might as well drag Madam Shen down with me and use her as a scapegoat.

I can plead for you.

He might leave you an intact body.

We have a very good relationship.

The whole Xiang'an City knows it well.

He will listen to me.

He will listen to me.

He will listen to me.

He will listen to me.

Shut up!

You shut up!

You shameless hussy!

He won't listen to you.

He is mine, mine, mine!

Stop.

Let me go!

Sixth Miss.

Are you all right?

Sixth Miss.

Thank you for arriving in time.

Fortunately, you'd sprinkled flour on your clothes.

The dog could follow your scent over here.

How do you feel?

I-I'm fine.

But…

Have you caught the murderer?

But I had a dream.

Jing Lin.

Take off her mask.

It's you.

Sixth Miss.

Take her to the Imperial Guards.

Yes.

- Take her away. - Yes.

Sixth Miss, you're awake.

Chuichui, how long have I slept?

Where is Madam Tang? Has she been interrogated?

You've only slept for two hours.

Why are you asking these questions right after waking up?

No wonder Shen Du asked me to keep a good eye on you.

What's the outcome?

Of course, she won't admit it.

But the Empress Dowager visits the Imperial Guards

to interrogate her personally.

Let's see if she will admit it this time.

I'll go.

You stay.

You're not even off your medicine yet.

I've been investigating this murderer for a long time.

I know how to make her talk.

No way.

You'd almost lost your life today.

The sky won't fall without you.

Besides, Shen Du told me to keep an eye on you.

Are you my friend or his friend?

Chuichui, you know me.

No one can stop me from doing anything I want.

There is one thing I need your help with.

I truly never expected that the one who committed this heinous crime

would be the widow of Tang Chengyi, a loyal official.

Why would you do such a thing?

I remember you and Madam Tang were very close.

Now, she is the suspect in the murder case.

Princess of Valor,

do you have an inside story?

Mother Empress, although I had some interactions with Madam Tang,

I really didn't know anything about her committing murder.

If I had known she was the murderer,

I would never have gotten close to her.

Let me ask you.

Why would you kill so many innocent people?

They are not innocent.

Great Cang has its own laws.

If they are innocent or not, it's not for you to decide.

I am Yan Xing, a clerk from the Ministry of Justice.

Sorry for the abruptness in this urgent situation.

Grand Empress Dowager, please forgive me.

I have been lax in managing my household and have disturbed Your Majesty.

I humbly request your punishment, Your Majesty.

It's all right.

I've heard that Madam Shen is quite skilled at solving cases through deduction.

This Meng Ceran refuses to confess.

What do you think?

In response to Grand Empress Dowager.

Those men Madam Tang killed all had matrimonial engagements.

Yet they loved to have fun with courtesans.

And those women all had a similar appearance, with a flying fairy hairstyle,

and were courtesans skilled in playing the pipa.

Shut up! Who would believe such nonsense?

Grand Empress Dowager, all the bodies that have been found

have been treated with cinnabar to delay decomposition,

resulting in the inaccurate estimated time of death.

Later, we deduced the correct date of death.

Astonishingly, we found they were all during the Mizar Festival calculated by the Astronomical Bureau.

Madam Tang,

are you really doing all this just to vent your hatred?

At first, I was guessing you did it based on the similarities in their faces.

But later I discovered that it involved much more about a deep fixation on their status.

I think the women you killed

were mostly associated with someone very close to you.

Shut up!

Have you suffered any trauma?

Or perhaps, did you have any emotional entanglements with other men

that occurred on Mizar Festival?

Nonsense!

If you want to accuse someone falsely, you can always find a reason.

Right, a few days ago, my husband caught a cold at night.

The weather has turned colder recently, so you must take care.

It's much better now.

If you take any more care of me,

I won't catch a cold.

But you…

You have been frightened; why don’t you rest well?

I am...

worried about you.

Great Chief, you really treat the Imperial Guards as your home.

Madam Shen has taken this place as if it were her own bedroom.

Seeing the deep affection between you both, I am very pleased.

But, Madam Shen, the case is of great importance right now.

You need to handle the investigation with discretion.

Yes, I'm sorry.

Marshal Xu Xiangren requests an audience.

I'm Xu Xiangren.

Greetings to the Grand Empress Dowager.

Sixth Miss.

I take my leave.

Another pair of male and female bodies were dug up at the inspector's place.

This is the reconstruction portrait of the male victim's face that I have made.

You give it to me!

Give it to me!

Just as expected.

In your mind, you are the victim. Right?

You know nothing.

This is not my fault.

They betrayed me first.

It's them…

This is all their fault.

I treated him so well.

Why did he betray me?

The one you're talking about is the person in the portrait,

your first husband.

It is him.

During my childhood,

my younger sister was kidnapped.

When we met,

she had become a courtesan who was skilled at pipa.

At that time, I was already married.

But I never expected on the Mizar Festival…

On the Mizar Festival, I discovered

she was having an affair with my husband.

The two people I loved the most.

The two people I trusted the most.

Both betrayed me.

To save face, I gave her a cup of poisoned wine.

But unexpectedly, my husband drank the wine.

No!

After my husband passed away,

my younger sister also disappeared.

I really looked for her for a very long time.

In the end, I found her in a grave.

The two of them were still tightly embracing each other!

No.

It's not like that.

It's not like this.

It's not like that.

It's not like that.

That despicable woman wasn't my younger sister at all.

She was just a courtesan who seduced my husband.

She deserved to die.

She did not choose to be a decent person,

instead, she seduced my husband.

She deserved to be torn to pieces.

She deserved to be skinned and deboned.

She deserved to be humiliated by the world and laughed at by everyone.

So you killed those who resembled your younger sister?

Does it look good?

Pretty.

They deserved to die.

And those despicable men!

Why do they always love those courtesans?

In this world, not everyone has the right to choose their own life.

Among them, many were born in the music house

and can only serve others with beauty, without any choice.

Moreover, you can't kill others for this reason.

Actually, at first,

I also blamed myself.

If it weren't for me, my younger sister wouldn't have died,

nor would my husband.

If it weren't for my momentary lapse in judgment...

I wouldn't have lost both my loved ones at the same time.

So, you regret it.

You put those bodies in a hug pose to fulfill their wish.

Madam Shen,

you're indeed smart.

You hit the nail on the head.

But do you think that with your wisdom,

you can forever win a man's heart?

Do you think he's going to keep protecting you like that?

He says he loves you,

but he only loves himself.

He will surely deceive you,

breaking your heart into pieces and making you feel like life is worse than death.

What's wrong with loving yourself?

Everyone should love themselves before they love others.

Between a couple, it should never be one-sided taking,

nor should it be one-sided protection.

A couple should weather the storm and face challenges together.

That's what a family should be.

Grand Empress Dowager, the truth is now clear.

And the murderer has confessed to her crime.

As for how to deal with Madam Tang,

I defer to Your Majesty's judgment.

Grand Empress Dowager, in my opinion, the murderer has become insane.

Please do not let old sentiments cloud your judgment, Your Majesty,

and close the case quickly.

Considering she is the widow of a loyal official,

leave her an intact body.

Yes.

Like a moth to a flame, live at dawn, die at dusk.

Not entering the cycle of reincarnation, undying.

Jing Lin, put out the fire.

Yes.

Isn't that what Chen Huo'e said before she died five years ago?

- Take this madwoman away. - Yes.

Have you been this nosy since you were a kid?

It's a matter of life and death. How can you say so?

I know. You asked Chuichui to keep an eye on me.

But if I hadn't gone there, how could Madam Tang's case be that easily settled?

Today...

you did well.

Aren't you going to scold me?

Another pair of male and female bodies dug up. It's what you made up yourself. Right?

I asked Brother Xu to get the portrait of Madam Tang's first husband,

in order to provoke her into telling the truth.

The truth is clear now.

But…

But we're missing something in this case.

What exactly are we missing?

The hearts.

Madam Tang has killed so many people and all the deceased had their hearts taken out.

So where have all those hearts gone?

Madam Tang, I have something important to ask you.

Murder is easy. Moving the body, digging a hole, and reburying

are not something a woman could easily do.

You must have had help.

To go to such great lengths, what's it really for?

Like a moth to a flame.

Like a moth to a flame.

She's gone mad.

She's very important.

How can she be mad?

I will never die.

I will become a moth and live forever.

Flying.

You've killed so many people, where have all the hearts gone?

I'm flying.

- Meng Ceran. - I'm flying.

Please burn me to death.

Please, I want to be reborn from the flames.

I want to be reborn from the flames. Please. Please.

No need to ask. Whatever a madwoman says lacks credibility.

- Burn me. Burn me now. - She will be executed soon.

Burn me.

Burn me now.

What are you thinking about?

I'm thinking about Madam Tang's case.

Her love turned into hatred and became her obsession.

Yet it's a mix of love and hatred, which she can't let go of.

It's so sad.

A fool would indulge himself in a relationship.

And in this world, fools often do evil deeds.

What's there to be sad about?

Yes. That sounds like something someone as smart as you would think.

Great Chief, I am exhausted. I need to rest.

Prince Xian has successfully completed the disaster relief affairs and will soon arrive safely at Xiang'an.

That's good news.

From now on, there's no need to wander over to the pigeon coop.

I wonder who gave you that false information.

But the secret letters from the Imperial Guards

don't need carrier pigeons.

I know that.

Those pigeons in the coop all have soft feathers and are simply incapable of long-distance flight.

But I have to wander around the mansion.

You have your jobs. And I have my jobs.

I have to pretend to do something. But no real action will be taken. Rest assured.

Now you can believe that even a tiger will not eat its cubs.

Let alone the strongest of them all.

Stop it, I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear what I shouldn't, lest trouble finds me.

Right, I have something to tell you.

The Ministry of Justice and the inspectors are holding a celebration banquet

and have sent over invitations, inviting both you and me to attend.

- I know. You won't go. - I…

I'm just letting you know.

- Jing Lin. - Yes, Great Chief.

Tell Uncle Zhong to make another set

of the light-blocking curtains.

Yes, Great Chief.

What beautiful flower buds. What a pity.

- Your Highness. - Sir.

Your disaster relief and pacification efforts this time are of immense merit and hard work.

I've heard that the Grand Empress Dowager will reward you greatly.

Was your journey back peaceful?

Rest assured. Imperial Guards escorted me throughout the journey.

It was very safe.

I have brought back some local specialties this time.

Prepare one portion and let him take it back.

Prepare another portion and send it to my imperial sister.

It's my kindness to her.

Yes.

Your Highness, you are kind-hearted and love your sister.

I am truly moved.

But recently, Princess of Valor was involved in the case of Madam Tang.

I am afraid she's having a difficult time these days.

When I was on the way back, I also heard about this.

She has always been on good terms with Madam Tang, and both support the poor scholars.

But the public opinion now is very unfavorable towards them.

Indeed. In the Madam Tang case,

I didn't expect Sixth Miss Yan to make great contributions.

I didn't expect this concubine's daughter would have

some tactics at a critical moment.

Prince Xian, do you think this Sixth Miss Yan could be…

The one you value would naturally be excellent.

I think she is the one

who breaks the deadlock.

This flower needs to be fertilized.

[Princess of Valor Mansion]

Your Highness, it seems many women are claiming illness

and will not attend this Floral Banquet.

Understood.

Those who don't want to come,

don't have to come anymore.

Those who cannot be used by me…

Subtitles and Timing provided to you by 🎶 The Copper Sparrow 🪶Team @viki.com

"Only Want You" - Ding Yuxi, Deng Enxi

♫ One look confirmed our fate ♫

♫ Upon meeting again, I know you're the one for me ♫

♫ Gaze at the stars, dreaming about old times ♫

♫ A pair of people have already taken root ♫

♫ Lovers before the candlelight, do not ask their thoughts ♫

♫ Affection is bound, lasting forever ♫

♫ Using the evening breeze to express deep love ♫

♫ I have someone I long for in this life ♫

♫ Deeply in love, you are the one I have chosen ♫

♫ Autumn moon and spring breeze, I only want you for my whole life ♫

♫ The trace of your palm ♫

​♫ Your gaze ♫

♫ Our love is heating up ♫

♫ Deeply in love, you are the one I have chosen ♫

♫ Autumn moon and spring breeze, I only want you for my whole life ♫

♫ The trace of your palm ♫

​♫ Your gaze ♫

♫ Our love is heating up ♫

♫ You are the only one for me ♫

♫ Embracing each other, how serious we are about our love ♫

♫ Every moment is treasured ♫

♫ From dawn to dusk ♫

♫ You and I, forever inseparable ♫

♫ Without noticing, you broke into my heart ♫

♫ Slowly immersing myself, I become undaunted by perils for love ♫

♫ I charge into battle with unmatched resilience ♫

♫ Because you are my responsibility ♫

♫ Deeply in love, you are the one I have chosen ♫

♫ Autumn moon and spring breeze, I only want you for my whole life ♫

♫ The trace of your palm ♫

​♫ Your gaze ♫

♫ Our love is heating up ♫

♫ Deeply in love, you are the one I have chosen ♫

♫ Autumn moon and spring breeze, I only want you for my whole life ♫

♫ The trace of your palm ♫

​♫ Your gaze ♫

♫ Our love is heating up ♫

♫ You are the only one for me ♫