I confess that ending had me checking the calendar there for a second – it sure as hell had an air of “finale” to it.  It’s not of course – we have six more episodes to go.  But it was the end of the novel’s first volume, which certainly explains that confusion.  That little epilogue after the end credits gave us an idea of who the next big antagonist is likely to be (Bingyue sure as hell didn’t end up being much of a problem).

I was relieved not to have an actual story this week after two eps of massive infodumps.  Bingyue’s part was resolved pretty early (a trend I’m noticing with carryover plots in this show).  All he had to do was ask nicely and Shouxue would have helped him on principle but no, he had to go and take Jiu Jiu hostage (and give her a wound, too).  What Bingyue was hanging around for was the try to help Princess Mingzhu (who he’d planned to marry despite being her nephew), the ghost under the tree.  And as expected, the comb was the key to that story.  It’s not in Shouxue’s nature to leave suffering souls as they are, so she settles things in just a little too easy fashion (as usual) by digging up the Princess’ comb and giving her an IC card to paradise (Bingyue too).

Not content with that little bit of ghostbusting, the Raven Consort turns her attention to the Emperor’s night visitors.  Gaojun (I suppose we’d heard his name before but I don’t recall it) was right, his mother and Ding Lan are harmless apparitions – but they aren’t the only ones in the vicinity.  Their appearance a month earlier was no coincidence, because (as was hinted at) the Empress Dowager tried to curse Gaojun before she was executed.  Again, this is disconcertingly easy for Shouxue – her being basically infallible is a bit of a writing crutch, and we saw it manifest no less than three times this week.

Along with a bit of dim sum, Shouxue gets a message from the Flower Princess – Gaojun is doing some legislating, but will be checking in with her soon.  The laws he enacts are basically for her benefit – he cancels the capital punishment decree against her clan, on the grounds that they’re all dead already anyway.  I see this as largely a symbolic gesture – it’s not like she’s going to stop dyeing her hair, or indeed like anyone was interested in killing her.  But as much as anything this series seems to be about the Summer King trying to get the Winter Kind to lower her guard and let him embrace her – fraternally if not romantically, symbolically if not literally.

These two are both essentially kind people, and the notion that they could be friends or lovers is certainly plausible in a vacuum.  Fate has dealt them a harsh hand in that respect, though.  Even absent their unique historical relationship it’s hard enough for an emperor to have friends anyway.  But that relationship complicates things immeasurably.  He can acknowledge her as a fellow monarch of equal rank in private, but in the eyes of the world she’ll always be one of his subjects.  And, more to the point, a prisoner of fate – a fate not even the emperor seems to have the power to change.