There might not be electricity in Joseon, but that doesn’t stop our heroine from getting shocked this week. She learns that her father-in-law is actually a villain-in-law, and she goes from widow to wife before she can process it all. She’s also nowhere close to finding out what happened to her brother, and there’s still no definite evidence to solve the 15-year-old mystery.
EPISODES 9-10
We resume from where we left off last week with the sword relay. Yeo-hwa points her sword to Yoon-hak’s throat, and Soo-ho aims his sword at her neck. She turns around, and Soo-ho is startled when he recognizes the face behind the mask. Yeo-hwa is also surprised to see him, and there’s a mini commotion when she sees that the person she was aiming at is Yoon-hak.
In the midst of the chaos, Yoon-hak attempts to unmask Yeo-hwa, and Soo-ho pushes his brother out of the way to help her escape. Although Soo-ho swears that he was also attempting to catch the masked person. Lol. Yeo-hwa heads to Myeongdo inn to wait for Soo-ho, and when he eventually arrives, they have the “why is your brother looking for my brother” conversation.
Soo-ho tells Yeo-hwa his real name, IM HYUN-JAE, and he says he’s the son of the head of the late king’s guard. But he is not in the best position to answer Yeo-hwa’s “What happened [15 years ago]?” question. Yeo-hwa can tell that Yoon-hak is looking for something her brother passed down to her — probably the late king’s jade tablet — but all she got from her brother is the moonlighting sword she uses. In any case, Yeo-hwa is all for uncovering the truth and getting everything that was taken from her and Soo-ho: her brother, and his real name.
Yoon-hak eventually pieces together Yeo-hwa’s identity, and he tells the king that the masked hero is Lord Seok’s daughter-in-law. This is turning out to be the worst kept secret in their world. Lol. Yoon-hak and Yeo-hwa’s next encounter is at the Bookshop of Covert Meetings, and he tells her about the late king’s death, the poisonous petal tea, and Lord Seok’s involvement in everything.
Yeo-hwa asks if he has evidence of her father-in-law’s involvement, and Yoon-hak says her marriage into Lord Seok’s family is the evidence. Yeo-hwa is shaken, and she refuses to believe the man she respected for 15 years was keeping her hostage to use as leverage against her brother. But when she thinks it through, she can’t help but admit that everything points to him.
Yeo-hwa realizes that being Lord Seok’s daughter-in-law means that her family and Soo-ho’s are enemies. But Soo-ho promises he won’t take revenge on her. I mean, they’re both victims. Plus he can’t guarantee he will win if they face-off against each other. What a tease! Yeo-hwa tells Soo-ho that Pil-jik was the one who attacked him last week. And since Soo-ho now knows that Pil-jik was the man who killed his entire family, it’s payback time. Yeo-hwa versus Lord Seok, Soo-ho versus Pil-jik. May the best man win!
Finally, we get to meet the dowager, and how fitting that the first time we see her, she’s with Lady Oh — who’s bringing in some tea for the king! It’s not the poisonous kind, though. This is more like Oh’s warning to Lord Seok — who’s present at the tea giving ceremony — not to mess with her. But it’s Lord Seok we’re talking about here, and he’s not one to take kindly to threats. So he summons Pil-jik for an assignment: make Lady Oh follow her husband to the afterlife.
This is a hard pill for Pil-jik to swallow, and he begs his sister to run away instead. But Lady Oh refuses to beg for her life to “someone as lowly” as Pil-jik. Pil-jik is deeply hurt by her words, and he bows to her for the last time. “Knowing that you never saw me as your brother leaves me free of guilt.” She scoffs at his words, and that’s the last thing she does before he reaches out to strangle her. She did not see that coming! Thankfully, Soo-ho barges in, and Pil-jik escapes before he is caught. Against all odds, Lady Oh lives to see another day.
In the meantime, Yeo-hwa baits her father-in-law with the note she got from Yoon-hak last week. (The one telling her to meet up for more information about her brother.) Lord Seok is rattled by the note, and seeing how Yeo-hwa has been bringing up her brother recently, Seok decides to put a stop to it. How? By sending her away for a three-year mourning period beside her husband’s grave.
Yeo-hwa calls everyone — including Yoon-hak — to the Myeondo inn to share the recent development, and Soo-ho is very visibly and vocally worried about the possibility of Yeo-hwa leaving the capital for three years. Awww. Yoon-hak is tasked with coming up with a way for Yeo-hwa to remain in the capital, after which, he and So-woon excuse the lovebirds. Yeo-hwa can no longer pretend she doesn’t know how Soo-ho feels about her, but she tells him they cannot have a relationship even after she leaves the Seok family. I don’t think it matters to Soo-ho that Yeo-hwa was someone’s wife, but for now, it is what it is. Sigh.
The king is updated on the plan to have Yeo-hwa remain in the capital, and he decides to arrange a meeting between her and the dowager. But the plan is put on hold when Lord Seok threatens the king with his mother’s safety. Apparently, the dowager has been innocent all along, but Lord Seok made it look like she was behind Lady Oh. Lady Oh and Pil-jik have also been embezzling from the dowager’s charity outreaches, and Seok warns that the dowager will go down for everything if the king doesn’t fall in line. Wow! I guess using family members as hostages is Lord Seok’s go-to MO.
Speaking of hostages, Lord Seok detains Pil-jik in his inn for failing to kill Lady Oh. Yeo-hwa and Soo-ho sneak in to see if they can get him to turn against Seok, but all they inevitably do is help him escape. The good news is that he told them about the existence of the late king’s royal edict, but the bad news is that Lord Seok is now aware of the presence of a masked man roaming the capital.
Earlier on, Lord Seok and Yo-seob — or should I say, JEONG — met in secret, and Seok warned his son to leave Joseon and never return. To this warning, Jeong replied with a sound “No!” Jeong insisted on remaining in the country to beg for forgiveness from his mother and his wife, but Lord Seok ordered his son to at least leave the capital because a dead man cannot be revived.
When Lord Seok sends some ruffians to Myeongdo inn, Jeong has to pack up to avoid putting the merchant guild in trouble. He leaves Myeongdo inn like his father wanted….and heads to the temple where his mother went to pray for his soul. Ha! Something about chess and checkers. Jeong triumphantly returns home with Lady Yoo — who’s the most joyous woman on earth at the moment — and there’s nothing Lord Seok can do about it. Hehe.
Yeo-hwa is dumbfounded when she hears that her husband is alive and well — and even worse, that he’s the “not right in the head” merchant she ran into at Myeongdo inn the other day. Lol. But at least one good thing came out of her husband’s return: she no longer needs to leave the capital for the three-year mourning period — which everyone suspects is Lord Seok’s pretext to kill her and make her a virtuous widow. To think that it is Seok himself who’d attempt to do this and not Lady Yoo. Tsk.
Jeong plans to bury everything his father did and live happily with his mother and wife, but “living happily” throws said wife and Soo-ho into a state of sadness. It’s ironic how Yeo-hwa — who longed to wear colorful hanboks — would now much rather live with her White Hanbok of Widowhood than play wife. Sure, she’s now free to leave the house and all, but true freedom, to her, is being able to leave as Yeo-hwa rather than as Mrs. Jeong.
To compound Yeo-hwa’s current plight, Lady Yoo wants a grandchild ASAP! Oh boy! On consummation night, Jeong formally apologizes to Yeo-hwa for making her live like a widow. He states that he is not in a hurry to consummate, but Yeo-hwa cannot take chances, so she knocks him out and heads to Myeongdo inn. Soo-ho is a drunken mess at the inn, and when Yeo-hwa comes in, he thinks he’s hallucinating. So he tenderly reaches out to her with a: “My lady. You, Lady Cho, who is someone else’s wife.” Gahhh. My heart can’t take this!!
Thankfully, the show wraps up next week, so we’ll be spared a long period of angst. Phew! I’m not that curious about how the show will wrap up the Lord Seok business, because he’s definitely going down as per sageuk villain rules. What I want to see is the fate of Yeo-hwa and Soo-ho’s romance. Jeong has been shown to be a sensible person under all that goofiness, so here’s hoping that he does the honorable thing by releasing Yeo-hwa to be with the man she loves. I mean, he is a big fat shipper of Soo-ho and Soo-ho’s “veiled lover” anyway. Heh.