Season 1 • Episode 42
LatestCHAI has found SZE but is distressed to learn that LAI is the only one she loves. With the help of LAI, CHAI is allowed to die with dignity. Yuet’s troops return in triumph. TSIN has not put the sacred wood back to the royal temple but chooses to burn it instead. Having noticed everything, LAI decides to leave. TSIN would like to take SZE as his concubine. As advised by YEE, SZE decides to kill herself by jumping into the river. In the nick of time, SZE is rescued by LAI and the pair can finally fulfill their pact and take a sail together on Lake Taihu. TSIN blames YEE for killing SZE and puts her in isolation as a punishment. CHUNG is executed by TSIN for rebellion and treason. TSIN has taken CHAI’s place as the overlord of central China. A few years later, Yuet is defeated and annexed...
Fan Lai, Au Tsin, Fu Chai, and Sai Sze navigate power struggles, love, and war during ancient China’s Spring and Autumn Period.
Acting
Chen Kun's Fan Lai — smug genius you love to hate, then hate to love.
Costume
Painstaking Spring and Autumn period accuracy, every robe tells rank.
Writing
Historical events twisted into delicious melodrama.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Adapts the Yue-Wu conflict and Fan Li/Wu Zixu legends foundational to Chinese political philosophy. The 'sleeping on brushwood, tasting gall' idiom originates here.
Chen Kun reportedly researched Fan Li for months, modeling his performance on historical accounts of the strategist's rumored affair with Xi Shi — the series implies this triangle heavily.
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