An Ancient Love Song

Shen Bu Yan convinces Lu Yuan to reconcile and join him at Nanmeng Lake, promising to celebrate the Shangsi Festival with her every year. He also works to help persuade Emperor Yuan Qi to halt a northern military expedition she opposes.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Yi Hua — Participant

On his third journey into the past, Shen Bu Yan arrives during Lu Yuan's 21st year, the first year of Emperor Yuan Qi's reign, and finds her working at Jing Hua House. She tearfully confronts him for disappearing for three years, and the two celebrate the Shangsi Festival together, unknowingly foreshadowing their final meeting.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Li Yong — Participant

When Lu Yuan learns Shen Bu Yan intends to move against Li Yong, whom she trusts, he withholds the truth about time travel and Li Yong's real nature. Believing he means to harm a good man, Lu Yuan draws a line in their relationship.

Involved: Lu Yuan — Participant · Shen Bu Yan — Participant

Li Yong briefly captures Lu Yuan on false pretenses before being forced to release her by imperial edict. In court, Emperor Yuan Qi reasserts his authority for the first time in years and publicly reprimands Li Yong, who retaliates by slandering Lu Yuan and exposing the emperor's fragile state.

Involved: Li Yong — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Emperor Yuan Qi — Participant · Yi Hua — Participant

When Yi Hua tries to attack Li Yong out of revenge, Shen Bu Yan intervenes and is stabbed, abruptly ending his second time travel. He awakens in the present to find that Lu Yuan's fate did not ultimately change.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Yi Hua — Participant · Li Yong — Participant

While Lu Yuan and Shen Bu Yan are away, Lu Shi is attacked at the household, poisoned and outnumbered. He ensures Yi Hua and Chu Tong Shang remain hidden before dying at the door, guarding it with his last breath.

Involved: Lu Shi — Participant · Yi Hua — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Shen Bu Yan — Participant

With no time to grieve her brother, Lu Yuan and Shen Bu Yan devise a plan to stop Li Yong from seizing control of the army, leading Lu Yuan to accept her fate and formally declare her position as empress.

Involved: Lu Yuan — Participant · Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Li Yong — Participant

Using foreknowledge to devise a fog bomb strategy, Shen Bu Yan helps turn what should have been a fatal ambush into a decisive victory, sparing Lu Shi from his originally recorded death.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Lu Shi — Participant

At the Lu household, Guo Lao Tou reveals that Premier Li Yong assassinated the King of Bei'an, devastating Lu Shi and setting off efforts to protect the king's orphaned descendant.

Involved: Uncle Guo — Participant · Lu Shi — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Li Yong — Participant

To protect the orphaned descendant of the King of Bei'an, Lu Yuan gives him the name Chu Tong Shang and formally decides to adopt him into her household.

Involved: Lu Yuan — Participant · Uncle Guo — Participant

While out finding milk for the newly adopted Chu Tong Shang, Guo Lao Tou is suddenly attacked, leaving his fate uncertain.

Involved: Uncle Guo — Participant

Preparing to face a deadly ambush meant to kill her brother Lu Shi, Lu Yuan removes her mask on the battlefield and declares that she would rather die than see Shen Bu Yan or Lu Shi harmed, revealing the depth of her feelings for him.

Involved: Lu Yuan — Participant · Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Lu Shi — Participant

Shen Bu Yan travels back again, this time arriving during Lu Yuan's 26th year, the 5th year of Yuan Qi's reign. Lu Yuan and Yi Hua initially pretend not to know him, but a letter later reveals they had recognized him all along.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Yi Hua — Participant · Emperor Yuan Qi — Participant · Commander Zhao — Participant · Lu Shi — Participant

Shen Bu Yan's first journey into the past brings him to Lu Yuan's 36th year, the 15th year of Emperor Yuan Qi's reign, where he meets her as the "demon empress" and senses that history has misjudged her.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Yi Hua — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant

Recognizing this as the night of the historically recorded Yuanqi Coup, Shen Bu Yan intervenes to protect Lu Yuan, who in turn shields him from an arrow meant for him, taking the injury herself and altering the course of the story he thought he knew.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Lu Yuan — Participant · Li Yong — Participant

In the present day, Shen Bu Yan faces pressure from Editor-in-Chief Lin to rush a sequel to his bestselling book about the historical "demon empress" Lu Yuan, and refuses to fabricate history he cannot verify. Upset and frustrated, he experiences a nosebleed that will soon set his time travel journey in motion.

Still in the present day, Shen Bu Yan visits a wishing tree and buys a broken jade pendant from a mysterious old woman, who warns him that incomplete jade can affect the mind. His blood later drips onto the pendant, triggering his first journey into the past.

Involved: Shen Bu Yan — Participant · Old Lady at the Wishing Tree — Participant · Editor-in-Chief Lin — Participant

Shen Bu Yan sees a dream or vision of a woman on a balcony who, in tears, clutches a jade pendant before falling, shattering the jade in the moment his own pendant breaks in the present. The exact chronological placement of this moment relative to the rest of the story is unclear.

In the aftermath of Lu Shi's death, deputy general Yang Cong dons Lu Shi's tiger-leopard mask and impersonates him to maintain morale and deter further Beiyuan incursions. The deception works: Hua Feng Bao does not fall again, symbolizing how Lu Shi's spirit lives on through the soldiers he trained.

Involved: Vice General Yang — Participant · Lu Shi — Participant