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Jing Ping Year 30: Lu Yuan, 18 years old

Let’s start from when Shen Buyan traveled to when Lu Yuan was 18 years old. At this time, Shen Buyan is carrying the regret of not fulfilling his promise to stay with her. He has come back in a very frail condition and encounters Lu Yuan. Then the following exchange occurs between Lu Yuan and Shen Buyan—remember this scene, as it will become relevant later:

LY: You recognize me? What is the matter? Why are you crying? SBY: Someone’s waiting for me. But I went the wrong way.

18-year-old Lu Yuan sings the following lines of poetry as she returns home. These lines also appear in prior parts of the plot:

At first, when we set out, The willows were fresh and green; Now, when we shall be returning, The snow will be falling in clouds.

Translation from the Chinese Text Initiative of the University of Virginia

This poem comes from the Classic of Poetry's "Caiwei," which tells the story of a soldier who is enlisted into battle at a faraway border. In the endlessly long years of war, he expresses longing for his family. These lines discreetly touch on the drama's three main themes: the cruelty of war, longing for your beloved, and prolonged periods of waiting.

Shen Buyan first decides to keep his distance from Lu Yuan. But when he discovers that she's being mistreated, he still reveals himself to pass knowledge on to Lu Yuan.

Some of his teachings are more obvious foreshadowing, like hiding secret codes in music or when he teaches her things about the nations that are beyond the time period's understanding—even though it isn't explicitly said, we can still guess that in addition to geography, he teaches her all about economic and military matters. Hence, he gives her what she will need to become the mother of the emperor who will unify the nine nations.

Aside from that, the first lesson that he teaches her is to "understand larger truths from smaller signs." When we first watch, we might see this teaching is foreshadowing for when Lu Yuan later takes down the husbandry official—it's through this lesson that she discovers the official is secretly selling military horses to Beilie.

But I think the lesson is mainly a prelude for the rest of the drama. When people talk about this show, they all say that Lu Yuan is a wise and intelligent female lead. I think that everything started with this lesson of "understanding larger truths from smaller signs," because it explains how later—be it with Shen Buyan's time travel or her battles with Li Yong—she's able to understand everything. This includes how, through very small details, she will deduce the truth of the reversed timelines. It's a huge reason why Lu Yuan is able to become the person she is at the very end.

After Shen Buyan finishes teaching her and she defeats the official, Shen Buyan decides to end things and leave. However, Lu Yuan bravely expresses herself and manages to obtain for them a period of time in which the two of them are happily together. But with the start of war, Li Yong sees potential in Lu Yuan and recruits her as a spy to go to Beilie. She says goodbye to Shen Buyan, and ends this first time leap.

In this first leap, I think two details that should be noted are:

Lu Yuan remembers every little thing that Shen Buyan tells her. Specifically, she remembers every little thing from their time together. After a pair of lovers separate and think about each other afterward, aside from looking at physical belongings (like the jade or the konghou), they're likely to spend more time remembering all their tiny interactions with each other. So every detail throughout this first leap is something that Lu Yuan can recall clearly. This is very important to remember for later, when we observe how she changes.

In the three years during which Lu Yuan searches for Shen Buyan, she makes use of the chancellor's connections and resources. In the drama, she says that after completing her mission, she continuously searched for him. During her search for him, she follows Li Yong to Jiangdu. As Li Yong's intelligence director, the information available must be incredibly thorough and it also covers intelligence about all nations. You can assume that she used that intelligence to look for him through an exchange that comes later:

Where have you been all these years? I searched for you for so long. They all said they could not find someone like you. They did not know of you.

We can largely assume that the results of her searches tell her that no such person as "Shen Buyan" ever existed. So in these three years, Lu Yuan must be suspecting whether or not "Shen Buyan" was a real person or who he actually was.

What must Lu Yuan feel as she searches for him? I think we can mainly interpret that at this point, Lu Yuan views him as her first love. If, in this kind of relationship, Shen Buyan never turns up again, we can presume that Lu Yuan would house it away in her heart forever as her first love before moving on to live the rest of her life.

This can be deduced because when Lu Yuan is 18, the difference between this time and her later years is that she doesn't know that Shen Buyan will come back. Plainly, there are no such promises between them. The only thing that exists is the period of time that they spend together. She asks Shen Buyan to wait for her, but when she comes back, she finds that Shen Buyan didn't wait. She wouldn't think that Shen Buyan "disappeared," she would think that he "left." He left without promising to return.

Then, in the following three years, he doesn't contact her at all. So mainly, Lu Yuan would think, He left. Has he forgotten me?

Based on this, you can guess why in her older years, she recalls meeting him again at 21 like this:

Three years later—on the day of the Shangsi Festival—when I thought that everything was simply a beautiful dream from my youth, he suddenly appeared before me once more.

When we think about her in those three years, she must be missing Shen Buyan. But she also wonders whether Shen Buyan has forgotten all about her. If Shen Buyan hadn't returned, she would have preserved him in her memory forever, but she also would have started a new life.

--

Yuanqi Year 1: Lu Yuan, 21 years old

While it's fairly easy to understand Lu Yuan's perspective from when she's 18, it gets much more complicated in the second time leap. Let's first summarize how it goes:

Right when Shen Buyan arrives, he intends to kill Li Yong. After Lu Yuan stops him, the two of them enter into some disagreements. Ultimately, Shen Buyan gives up on his plans before going with Lu Yuan to their home in Nanmeng Lake. They spend some peaceful and happy times together, with Shen Buyan respecting her decisions.

Then he returns with her to persuade the young Emperor against his movements north, and they later witness Li Yong's betrayal and his role in incapacitating the Emperor. Throughout this time, Lu Yuan discovers instances in which Shen Buyan doesn't remember certain things that occurred in their relationship. Afterward, Lu Yuan decides to move to the palace. Shen Buyan fully intends on following her there.

The scene of the rainy night in which he disappears from the carriage is widely recognized as an intensely sad one, but I have a different perspective on it.

First, let's look at the overall progression of this second time leap. We know that Lu Yuan has discovered the existence of the reversed timelines. When she realizes that Shen Buyan doesn't remember the fruit tree or the jade, she'll then think about the words that Shen Buyan spoke in his sleep before and put everything together. That's when she realizes that they're trapped in reversed timelines.

I do think that she only understands it at surface-level and hasn't yet thought about it in more depth. Like how realization dawns on us as we watch the last episode, she more so only recognizes the foundation of things.

My second thought is based on the first. In the rainy scene of the carriage, why do we all find it to be a very sad scene? One part of it is that Shen Buyan promises to stay with her, but can't follow through. He suddenly disappears without explanation. The second point is that Lu Yuan doesn't know exactly what has become of Shen Buyan, even if she knows that he's disappeared. That she's in pain and turmoil, but she doesn't know how he feels.

We can guess that Lu Yuan overturns these doubts at a later point: when she's in the rain looking for him, she ultimately has to get up on her own and take the carriage herself to the palace. After this, five years pass.

In these five years, she knows much more than she did in the previous three. She knows for sure that Shen Buyan is from the future. She knows with certainty that he had no choice in disappearing. So over the next five years, she will eventually deduce that how they parted from one another when she was 21 was also how they met when she was 18.

She'll think, Why was it that back when I was 18, Shen Buyan was in such awful condition? It was like he had been through hell and back. He was completely frail and kept calling her name.

At 18, she couldn't understand why. But after five years, locked in the palace, after spending every night thinking about it, she will eventually figure it out: While I searched for him in the rain, he had not wanted to leave. And when he returned by the river, he was in the same condition that I had been in—no, even worse.

So the reasons for which we deem the rainy scene will be resolved as she thinks everything over. She will realize that he felt just as awful as she did in that moment, and that perhaps he searched for her even more desperately than she did for him. I think after realizing this, Lu Yuan smiled truly, from the bottom of her heart.

In actuality, the director also borrows 18-year-old Lu Yuan in their first meeting to tell Shen Buyan what 21-year-old Lu Yuan wants to say:

Look at the state you are in. I think that she definitely would not blame you!

My third thought is that over these five years and through her understanding of the reversed timelines, taking into account details from the two times that they met, she will be able to conclude that their very first meeting did not happen in this time leap. Since she didn't recognize Shen Buyan when she was 18, then when Shen Buyan first meets her in the future, he won't recognize her either. Thus, while their relationship is bound to begin at some point in between, it can't be when she's 21. That's because when they first reunite during this time leap, the two of them are clearly already in love with one another—even though Shen Buyan doesn't know about events from when she's 18, he still loves her already in this second time leap.

With this, you can tell why Lu Yuan will ultimately stick to this decision:

Shen Buyan. If there truly will be a next time, I would rather we not recognize one another.

It's easy to interpret this as her being hurt severely by his departure, but I think the deeper meaning is that when she puts together the puzzle of her meeting Shen Buyan at 18 and 21, this is a decision that will protect Shen Buyan. She's thinking about how to change his fate. Just as Shen Buyan once did to her when she was 18, she wants to leave him, pretend that she doesn't know him so they can avoid their entire relationship from beginning at all. She knows that as soon as it does, they'll end up hurting each other.

This drama is quite symmetrical. Shen Buyan leaving Lu Yuan to protect her and Lu Yuan's decision to do the same after five years' worth of consideration are parallel:

LY: Since you clearly do not wish to leave, why can you not stay? SBY: For efforts that will not lead to any results, what is the point in forcing them?

SBY: Lady Lu! What do I need to do for you to believe me? LY: Do not follow me. If you continue, I will no longer remain so polite.

Without me, she seems to be happier.

I am afraid the more that I care about him, the more I should not reunite with him.

So over these five years, she has concluded that Shen Buyan never forgot her, but instead he had no choice but to leave when she was 18 due to the reversed timelines. So every doubt she had over the last five and previous three years has been resolved.

When we think about those first three years, she waited for nothing since there was nothing promised. But in these five years, she has something to look forward to. Unlike before, she now knows for sure that she and Shen Buyan will meet again. But unlike the next leap where she knows that it will take 10 years for Shen Buyan to return, in these five years, she doesn't know how long it will take for him to come back. Shen Buyan doesn't tell her—not this time, nor when she was 18.

However, based on experience, she can guess that since their first and second meetings both took place during the Shangsi Festival, then the next time they meet will also be on the day of the Shangsi Festival. You can imagine that in these five years, during every Shangsi Festival, Lu Yuan is hoping to see him again. Maybe she walks on the street or goes to places they've been before to wait for him. But he doesn't appear until Yuanqi Year 5.

In these five years, Lu Yuan's thought process must be incredibly complicated. She has a lot of time to think about things like, How did we meet before? Why did you appear in my life? Why did we grow so attached to each other?"

At the same time, she's in a lot of pain, as she'll recall later at 26:

Each time, I harbored expectations. Yet they were shattered every time. But still, I held a little hope.

She knows very clearly that the two of them cannot be together and that they're destined to come to an end, but she can't help it. She can't control her feelings. Or, she has no way of leaving her feelings behind.

I think that these five years are much harder for Lu Yuan to endure than the previous three. Whereas in those first three years she viewed Shen Buyan as a typical romance partner, within these five years, the most painful part is having to part ways.

When two people begin growing closer, being together is part of it, but leaving one another might be the bigger part. So when they've already experienced parting from one another, the experience of a happy reunion will brand this love of theirs into Lu Yuan's life. She'll feel more and more that fate is toying with them, that it's ensuring that the two of them will never be together. That sense of fate will push her to miss him even more intensely and await their next meeting with even more anticipation.

But alongside this expectation, she may return to Nanmeng Lake and see the wish Shen Buyan made to change her fate. At this point she'll think, I want to change your fate too. Maybe I cannot change whether or not you return, but I can change whether or not you fall in love with me. By not letting you fall in love with me, by pretending to be a stranger, I can lessen your pain.

Now when you think about their interactions when she's 26 and pretends not to recognize him, you'll discover that it's actually a very sad arc.

--

Yuanqi Year 5: Lu Yuan, 26 years old

When Lu Yuan is 26, the progression of the plot is that by the time Shen Buyan arrives, Lu Yuan has already decided to ignore him. But as chance would have it, Shen Buyan saves the Emperor and follows them into the palace. Li Yong begins the battle at Huofeng Fort. Shen Buyan wants to go to battle with Lu Yuan to change Lu Shi's fate. They'll assume that they've successfully prevented Lu Shi from dying, and then they'll go to Nanmeng Lake. That is when they discover Lu Shi's fate hasn't changed at all, and Lu Yuan uses the Phoenix Tablet to take the position of Empress. Together, Lu Yuan and Shen Buyan confront the enemy outside of city walls—then Lu Yuan and Yi Hua are captured to the palace. The time leap ends when Shen Buyan takes the arrowhead from Yi Hua to assassinate Li Yong.

Let's take note of some details in this third time leap. First is that Shen Buyan makes a promise to stay. At this point, Lu Yuan doesn't say anything. Take note of her expression:

SBY: I've decided. No matter how difficult it is, I will stay here and face everything with you, together.

Based on what Lu Yuan is aware of at this point, she previously heard Shen Buyan say something similar during that rainy night in the carriage. Right after he did so, he immediately disappeared—this became a very painful memory.

But now that she's hearing it again, she doesn't say anything that would point that out. You can tell why based on something she says later:

SBY: Since I have told you so much, you should tell me too. In our past, what exactly did we go through? LY: I cannot tell you that. Otherwise, once you meet the me of the past, everything you do will be too purposeful. It will not reflect your true feelings.

Then, Shen Buyan tries to assassinate Li Yong and disappears again. We know that Lu Yuan will endure 10 years of waiting.

But in these 10 years, she has something to wait for. Shen Buyan very, very clearly tells her that they'll meet again on the day of the Shangsi Festival. And within these 10 years, she will put together the events of what has happened during this leap and the previous two.

First, she'll understand why when she was 21, Shen Buyan tried to kill Li Yong immediately after arriving in the timeline. That was because right before he disappeared when she was 26, he tried to assassinate Li Yong in Lu Yuan and Yi Hua's stead. Li Yong held them as prisoners, planned Lu Shi's death, and caused the Emperor to become mentally disabled, so the first thing Shen Buyan desperately needed to do back when Lu Yuan was 21 was kill Li Yong.

Lu Yuan will remember that at the time, she rebuked him for it. That was possibly their one and only argument, but now she understands why he acted as he did. And she'll think, How ridiculous of me, that I stopped him. That I did not believe him.

Even though while she was 21, she found out why Shen Buyan wanted to kill Li Yong when she witnessed what Li Yong did to the Emperor, she didn't yet know why killing Li Yong was the very first thing Shen Buyan wanted to do. Now she does.

The second thing of note is that through this leap, she now knows how they came to love each other—more accurately, how Shen Buyan fell in love with her. She knows that the next time they meet will be a time when Shen Buyan isn't in love with her. That's because when they first meet in this leap, Shen Buyan calls her "Your Majesty." At that point, their relationship was more so him reporting his knowledge to an Empress, so there was no love to speak of.

Lu Yuan learns that the reason Shen Buyan falls in love with her during this time leap is that while Shen Buyan intended on going to take Lu Shi's place in Liuli Valley, Lu Yuan ends up taking Shen Buyan's place. That is the start of his feelings for her.

During this time leap, there's an interesting parallel that can be drawn: Lu Yuan is doing to Shen Buyan what Shen Buyan did to her when she was 18; that is, trying to end things between them. But ultimately, neither of them succeed. What provides the parallel for their shared failure are two hug scenes:

1. 26-year-old Lu Yuan obviously loves Shen Buyan very deeply, but she pretends to be distant and pretends to not know him. She keeps this up until the incident in Liuli Valley, where they come to the conclusion that they can change fate.

2. Compare the above to when Lu Yuan was 18 and Shen Buyan very clearly loved her, but still pretended that there was nothing between them and tried to leave. It was only when Lu Yuan told him that even if she had only 10 days left to live, she would still want to be with the person she loved that they reconcile with another hug.

There's something additional here that will let us see the actors and directors' attention to detail. Throughout Lu Yuan's life from when she was 18 to when she's 26, there are a total of four hug scenes:

18-years-old: Shen Buyan is full of sorrow and wants to leave. Though he embraces her, Lu Yuan is still crying:

21-years-old: There are two hugs, during both of which Lu Yuan is happy, but still visibly concerned that Shen Buyan will leave again:

26-years-old: They embrace one another and Lu Yuan believes that they have changed fate, meaning that Shen Buyan can truly stay with her. This is the only hug in which Lu Yuan is completely happy:

Let's now take a look at Lu Yuan's life between the ages of 26 and 36. Before disappearing, Shen Buyan tells her to "keep living."

I think this line has a very deep meaning. In a short period of time, Lu Yuan has witnessed the deaths of her little brother and her lover. They both die in her arms.

LY: I have already lost Lu Shi. I cannot lose you too.

For the sake of the country, she marries someone she doesn't love, yet she still becomes the hateful "Demon Empress" in everyone's eyes. If it weren't for Shen Buyan's words and his 10-year promise, if it weren't for Shen Buyan telling her to keep living, if it weren't for the thought that Shen Buyan's sacrifice won her the opportunity to end the war...it's greatly possible that Lu Yuan couldn't have lived on.

We can also feel exactly how difficult it is for Lu Yuan in these ten years. Even though she has no longer has the military support of her brother, she slowly grows while tolerating it all. She gradually forces Li Yong from a position of great power to fleeing to Beilie with the city defense map. In these ten years, she also puts her soul into raising and teaching Chu Tongchang. She must pass down all the knowledge she gained from Shen Buyan to Chu Tongchang—after all, this child is the direction and hope that Shen Buyan brought to her in this latest time leap.

In these ten years, she also walks without hesitation toward her destiny. She now understands everything about the story of her and Shen Buyan. When she thinks about all their short encounters, she will remember that even though Shen Buyan does not have memories of the times they spent together, he still has feelings for her while respecting her decisions. From the very beginning, he has been someone who will sacrifice himself to protect her—even when he didn't have feelings for her.

To Lu Yuan, someone who maintains such a pure heart at every moment and who is constantly trying to change her fate will inevitably move her over and over again. All of these beautiful yet painful memories support her lonely self and become her motivation to keep moving forward in the palace.

So although these ten years are long, Lu Yuan waits and prepares amidst her sorrow for the Shangsi Festival that she and Shen Buyan promised to each other.

Knowing that he would arrive in ten years gave me endless hope in those long days.

--

Yuanqi Year 15: Lu Yuan, 36 years old

36-year-old Lu Yuan meets Shen Buyan, who views her as a stranger. For answers to three of his questions, she exchanges three favors: changing his clothes, having a meal, and roaming about the festival. After a brief reunion, Lu Yuan uses the information that Shen Buyan gave her ten years prior to corner Li Yong. She blocks an arrow for Shen Buyan and ends this time leap. Out of all the time leaps, this is the shortest one, but the amount of emotion in it is the deepest and most enduring.

Let's look at these three favors. When we watch the show, we think that these are things Lu Yuan is completing based on what she always wanted to do with Shen Buyan during the Shangsi Festival. Of course, this is the first level of meaning.

We know that within the last ten years, based on the information that Shen Buyan provided her when she was 26 and his attitude toward her, she will conclude that this next meeting of theirs will be very short. Then she'll think back to the time when she didn't recognize Shen Buyan and how he treated her back then.

Lu Yuan knows that she won't have the same amount of time as he did. When Shen Buyan met her for the last time, he left behind knowledge, the konghou, and the jade. Through these, he gave her things to reminisce over during her future days of sorrow. So, she also wants to leave something for Shen Buyan.

She thinks about how in the days that she spent getting older, the one thing she kept wondering was whether Shen Buyan still loved her. Hence, she wants to find some way to tell the future Shen Buyan that in these ten years, she was constantly thinking about him.

Of course, an overly direct confession to someone who doesn't know you will only scare them. She must think of alternatives. I believe that in the three favors, aside from fulfilling her own wishes, they also contain all the things that Lu Yuan wants to tell Shen Buyan.

1. Changing clothes: These clothes are ones that Lu Yuan made for Shen Buyan when she was 18, but she was never able to give them to him. When she was 21 and they went back to Nanmeng Lake, the director took care to give a close-up of Lu Yuan packing up these same clothes.

Top: 18-year-old Lu Yuan sewing the clothes - Bottom: 21-year-old Lu Yuan packing them up

She brought them to Nanmeng Lake, so why is it that she still didn't manage to give them to him? When we think of the possibilities, we have to consider that making clothes by hand in ancient times was typically done with the intention of giving them to lovers or husbands. You can think of this as a method that women could use to more directly confess to someone within a conservative society. Lu Yuan has also always been someone to whom such rituals are important, as displayed by this scene from when she was 18:

LY: I finally have the opportunity to tell you. You still owe me one last lesson. I hope that after that lesson is complete, we can find a place with just the two of us so I can tell you.

When she was 21, even though they were together, Lu Yuan was preoccupied with how to convince the Emperor against war. Not to mention, she also thought that Shen Buyan wouldn't be leaving again. What she wanted was to give him the clothes properly, after they managed to persuade the Emperor. But we all know what happened.

I don't think that the gifting of clothes is a simple gesture. In the Classic of Poetry that she and Shen Buyan use as a code book, there's a poem called "Zhengfeng Ziyi." It talks about the feelings of a wife as she makes clothes for her husband, representing the way that women in ancient times expressed love. By finally giving Shen Buyan these clothes, Lu Yuan believes that later—when Shen Buyan will go over the Classic of Poetry with her 18-year-old self—he will then understand the silent confession of her 36-year-old self.

And when we look at her pained expression in this scene, we can imagine that from the moment she finished the clothes, she has pictured personally giving them to Shen Buyan and seeing him wear them an infinite amount of times.

SBY: How did she know my height and measurements?

2. Having a meal: We know that Lu Yuan made the food, but what I want to focus on is how the act of having a meal represents Lu Yuan's attachment to Nanmeng Lake.

Nanmeng Lake was a part of every prior story of theirs. The beginning of their story took place at Nanmeng Lake. She also requests to Chu Tongchang that she be buried there. So she really hoped that she and Shen Buyan could go back there together.

But she knows that their reunion will be very short, and she also has to remain in Jiangdu to counter Li Yong. Knowing that they can't go back, she could instead make food from Nanmeng Lake.

In the past, it was always Shen Buyan and Yi Hua who would grill fish for her. I think that over the last ten years, Lu Yuan practiced cooking this meal repeatedly. Because she knows that once Shen Buyan goes to the past, he will understand what she wanted to tell him through this meal: "Although I am in the palace, my favorite food is still that simple food from Nanmeng Lake. Although I gave up our love over and over again for the sake of my country, all I really want from the bottom of my heart is to go home with you. I wanted to do as you asked when I was 21, and settle down with you at Nanmeng Lake."

SBY: Are you willing to leave Jinghua House and Jingdu to settle down at Nanmeng Lake and stay with one another?

3. Roaming the Shangsi Festival: 21-year-old Lu Yuan's dream was to spend Shangsi Festival on the streets with Shen Buyan. 36-year-old Lu Yuan takes a willow branch to drive calamities away from Shen Buyan.

In this scene, Lu Yuan hasn't actually told him everything about this tradition. To complete her explanation, the director and writers borrow the voice of an old town crier in every successive time leap:

I wish that all of Dasheng's people may drive away calamity from themselves, and welcome the return of their beloved!

Yes, Lu Yuan only tells Shen Buyan half of the tradition. What she leaves out is also the answer to his last question:

LY: My regret is not being able to spend the Shangsi Festival with someone. SBY: Who? LY: Is that your third question? You will find out next time.

The answer is: "May you avoid calamities. I have welcomed the return of my beloved."

I think these favors form the best method that Lu Yuan can come up with that both wouldn't disturb Shen Buyan and also express all of the longing and love she has felt in these ten years.

With this, the time leaps forming the main story are effectively over. To Lu Yuan, these four encounters with Shen Buyan encapsulate all the love in her life. Each encounter was shorter than the last, and each time she had to wait longer. I think she doesn't regret meeting Shen Buyan, but she grieves that she keeps waiting longer and longer and loves him deeper and deeper, yet their periods of reunion are shorter and shorter. She laments that they never went back to Nanmeng Lake and that they couldn't say a proper farewell.

--

The remainder of Lu Yuan's life

The first shot after the time leaps is of Yuanqi Year 20, where Lu Yuan is hanging another wish tablet, on which she has wished to meet Shen Buyan one more time. The second shot is of 56-year-old Lu Yuan sitting atop the city gate, where she sees Shen Buyan in the last moment of her life before she jumps down.

A few details: in the scene where Lu Yuan is hanging the wish tablet, take note that like Yi Hua, she is in mourning clothes. Aside from the death of Lu Shi that occurred when she was 26, I think that when she was 36, she also started mourning for Shen Buyan. Because in her heart, Shen Buyan was her lover and husband.

Important to note is that at this time, we're still tracking the years by the Yuanqi calendar. "Yuanqi Year 20" means that Emperor Yuanqi hasn't died yet. In a time when the Emperor isn't dead, the Empress dressing in mourning clothes must have caused her to be on the receiving end of much negative sentiment.

The second detail is that Lu Yuan believes that fate has changed since she didn't die that night in the palace. In actuality, her fate hasn't changed at all. It's just that when Shen Buyan left, he didn't know that her death was fake, so from his understanding, he always thought that she died after being struck by the arrow. Maybe Lu Yuan considered that, but in all her years of waiting, she needed a reason to keep going.

The third detail is that after the time leap from when she was 36, she has waited for Shen Buyan for 20 years. Her biggest question in these 20 years must have been, "Does Shen Buyan still think of me?" She kept missing him, but she knows that it's probably only been a few months to Shen Buyan. Compared to the separation that death brings, the more distant separation comes with time. She doesn't know whether or not Shen Buyan will forget her in the time to come, or if he'll still miss her.

I tend to think that Lu Yuan never arrives at the answer to this question as she approaches the end of her life. A lot of people think that 56-year-old Lu Yuan remembers that she met Shen Buyan when she was 6. I don't think that this is logical, especially since she doesn't address these memories directly in her narration of the special episode. So I believe that she struggles with this question until she dies.

The fourth detail is with the old woman who sold the jade to Shen Buyan. Her life's duty is to give the jade to someone called Shen Buyan and tell him to hang a wish tablet. Her request for him to do so is also quite insistent.

When some viewers discovered that this old woman isn't Lu Yuan, they felt a bit disappointed. But if you think about the context of this woman being a descendant of the Chu family, it makes the story even more impactful.

We all know that Lu Yuan doesn't have any descendants, but Yi Hua, who she considers family, also doesn't. Only her adopted child Chu Tongchang does. We can deduce that Lu Yuan spends the rest of her life thinking of Shen Buyan and must repeatedly tell Chu Tongchang that the jade and the wish tablet request must to be passed down to his descendants. And we can see that this will become the most important duty of the entire Chu family. Otherwise, how could her requests survive so many years until modern-day?

The fifth detail is regarding elderly Lu Yuan and the konghou with the snapped string. My personal take on this is that when elderly Lu Yuan saw Shen Buyan when he traveled for the very first time, "I miss you" was what she wanted to tell him. At this point in time, Shen Buyan doesn't know anything. But once he experiences everything and sees that konghou with a snapped string being excavated, he will understand that the ancient love song Lu Yuan played that day and her breaking a string upon seeing him will have been her saying "I miss you" before she jumped.

SBY: I do not understand either. How about you tell me? LY: I...miss you.

When Lu Yuan leaps down from the city gate, aside from it being an act to take responsibility for all the nation's anger, it can also be considered a form of liberation. I think that after witnessing the deaths of Lu Shi and Shen Buyan, she had already considered dying, but two things kept her going: one being that she had to raise and teach Chu Tongchang, another being that she had to wait for Shen Buyan.

But in 56-year-old Lu Yuan's life, Chu Tongchang is already an adult who can handle himself. She's waited for Shen Buyan for 20 years, and he hasn't shown up. She can let go now. Yet her sincerity proves fruitful, because in her last moments, she sees Shen Buyan again.

In that scene of the rainy carriage night when Lu Yuan was 21, she said the following to Shen Buyan:

You and I have different duties. With our different duties, we walk in different directions.

Lu Yuan's duty is to end a tumultuous period and raise an emperor who will unify the nine nations. Shen Buyan's duty is to track history and restore Lu Yuan's good name.

Lu Yuan of the past never cared about the burden of the mark "Demon Empress." Shen Buyan of the past never cared about the Sheng nation's fate. With that, they were destined to move in opposite directions. But as time passes and they near the end of their lives, they have both slowly changed their previous perspectives and eventually end up on the same page.

Lu Yuan was always protecting Shen Buyan. Physically, but more so emotionally. Apart from when she was 18 and 21 and didn't know the truth of their situation, she constantly restrained herself starting at 26. She did so toward the lover of hers for 5 years, 10 years, even if it meant each reunion could possibly be the end of any beginnings.

Shen Buyan was also always protecting Lu Yuan. With a very average physique, he stood up for her in the middle of danger and revolt. During war, he was willing to take her brother's place in facing death. In the palace, he attempted to assassinate Li Yong to protect Lu Yuan and Yi Hua, buying Lu Yuan 10 years' worth of time to repair the nation of Sheng.

Aside from protecting her, Shen Buyan also respected her choices. Once he learned of 18-year-old Lu Yuan's wishes to depart for Beilie—even though he knew this was the last time he would see her—he respected her choice and said nothing but his last farewell. I think this is the true meaning of Shen Buyan's name (T/N: "Buyan" literally means "without speaking").

LY: See you again! Wait for me! You have to wait for me! SBY: See you again!

Now that we're at the end of the story, I want to interpret her line of "I have grievances, but no regrets."

She doesn't regret meeting Shen Buyan. It's in her persistence in leaving behind something for Shen Buyan before she dies.

She doesn't regret showing courage. In each short encounter she had with Shen Buyan, as an ordinary woman during a conservative time period, she still bravely expressed her own feelings. She didn't let any meeting of theirs simply slip by.

She doesn't regret that she spent her life lamenting a lost love. In the last episode, they describe that Lu Yuan was buried in Nanmeng Lake. Buried alongside her were the konghou and the sheet music for a love song. She spent her whole life performing and interpreting this ancient love.

She also doesn't regret giving up family, love, and her own life for the sake of her country.

[pw: dramavixen2023]

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

Episode 5

Episode 6

Episode 7

Episode 8

Episode 9 (alt link due to c0pyright)

Episode 10

Episode 11

Episode 12