It’s settled, DFL has decided she must marry SML if her plan of clearing up her family’s name is to succeed.
She also seems to be in cahoots with the old city lord’s madam who is doing more than just enjoying a life of luxury. These two worked together to bring down SML’s ex-wife’s family.
Meanwhile, SML isn’t doing too well. His cold ailment has emerged, taking a toll on his wounded body. DFL tends to him in concern, carefully wiping sweat from his brow as he lies unconscious on the bed.
The physician comes in a hurry to report he’s searched everywhere and found a secret formula that will save SML. However, one of the ingredients is a herb that’s extremely hard to find. It can only be found in a region where SML declared he’ll never step in.
A concerned DFL doesn’t understand the problem telling him to “Just find it”.
But SML’s right-hand steward knows better. At that moment SML snaps out of his sleep, spitting out to DFL an explanation that the northern part of that mountain where the herb is located belongs to the territory of a family that had an agreement with him to move there and never step a foot in his city again. Likewise, SML can never step foot in their territory.
DFL is having none of this nonsense. Since SML’s welfare is correlated with the city’s health, she persuades his steward that they must do their best no matter what to acquire that medicine.
“Send a request to that family to ready the medicine in the name of the city lord. I’ll take the punishment.”
Somewhere on the foot of the mountain in the forbidden territory, Random Cute Guy (RCG) holds a letter triumphantly exclaiming “The city lord finally asks me for a favor!”
Of course, he has to save him. He instructs a maid to send the medicine to show their sincerity to SML.
Is it that simple?
When SML hears of the events, his feathers are raffled as he demands to know if his words are no longer valid. DFL, however, is adamant that they must try every possible means to procure the cure. She eventually convinces him by reminding SML he’s jeopardizing the entire city.
Unfortunately, the messenger won’t make SML feel better for capitulating. RCG sent a man with a serious attitude to make his demands known. The condition is that DFL must go and get the herb herself. SML questions RCG’s intentions in demanding a female “official” make the journey to retrieve the item.
The messenger replies that he has long heard of SML saving someone from fire and feels that DFL must be extraordinary. His master may long to see DFL’s beauty and pass the herb to her.
“Go ahead and tell your master to keep the grass for himself” SML replies while pulling DFL, who was by his side the entire time, slightly behind him. As soon as the messenger leaves, SML collapses. DFL is more determined than ever to get the stupid herb for him.
With SML’s servant’s help (he was ordered to stop her but you have to rebel sometimes), DFL makes her way out of the city with the messenger’s party. When SML hears of it he insists on following to bring her back.
Meanwhile, DFL finally arrives and meets RCG who praises her beauty while looking at his caged bird. Odd.
“You and your brother look very similar,” he says as he finally looks at her. So RCG is familiar with DFL or, at least, with her family to an extent.
RCG tells her that he was driven to the northern territory due to the assassination on SML (back when DFL was kneeling following the whole shooting at her while escaping episode). SML has ordered RCG (the “lunatic”) and his entire family to get out of his city. He didn’t result in execution because he never quite understood why a family who didn’t bother much with such affairs suddenly turned into drastic measures.
In trying to figure RCG out and gauge his intentions, DFL asks him why he didn’t propose his conditions. She’d try to meet anything. A smile creeps up RCG’s face as he slowly saunters to DFL. “Any price?” he whispers as he leans in closer. “Spend a night with me” he propositions, “are you willing?”
But a messenger appears informing RCG that SML is right outside the gate. DFL looks back as if to see SML. An unsurprised RCG tells her he’s been following her the entire way. RCG even let SML enter albeit alone and disarmed.
Having ventured inside RCG’s chamber, he reminds DFL to abide by their agreement. DFL assures him she’s willing to pay the price for his safety. RCG mocks her for the actions of a devoted lover committed to saving her beloved. Suddenly he laughs and asks her “Doesn’t that make me the villain in the middle of the story?”
A villain who loves seeing the lovers end in tragedy.
DFL seems perplexed, she doesn’t know what to make of this guy. Is he insane or extremely cunning? Or, perhaps, both?
At that moment SML makes his way to the courtyard and is stopped by two guards. “He’s like a lost dog” CRG mocks. He has invited the city lord to watch a play.
SML yells in utter anguish that he doesn’t want DFL to save him. But CRG starts undressing her, peeling off her heavy coat and directing her into the chamber. With a jeering smile, he closes the doors.
Lashing out at the guards, SML attempts to break in but is stopped by CRG’s warning that coming inside will mean a dead DFL. Falling onto his knees in devastation and anger, SML begs DFL not to save him like this and to come out. Desperate, he draws the sword he took from one of the guards, holding it by his throat threatening his own life should she not come out.
Just as he’s about to hurt, potentially even kill, himself, DFL rushes out stopping the sword with her bare hands. Which must’ve hurt like bitch though not a whimper or cry came out of her mouth. Blood, however, did trickle out. A lot of blood. Horrified to see her hurt this way and for him no less, SML tries to hold onto her.
“Are you trying to force me to death?” he asks her. The audacity.
Then he begs her once again to go back with him. She has none of it. This is her choice, she will do this.
As SML remains kneeling, held by several guards in place, right outside the doors to the chamber it’s reminiscent of the time he forced DFL to bear witness to his wedding night.
SML’s memories, however, hold the truth of what happened inside that chamber. While he had forced her to kneel and witness outside the doors, he had stood facing them the entire time with an anguished expression the whole night. The sounds of pleasure were those of two people he had paid to do the deed. Whether he’d contributed or not ultimately didn’t matter, the pain he forced DFL to feel was the same regardless.
Is this his retribution? That’s his last thought before he coughed up blood and collapsed.
Inside, RCG is sitting on a chair again mocking the entire situation. “Are you trying to save or kill him?” he curiously asks DFL.
“I really want to save him” she admits “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to give him a taste of the humiliation he forced on me”.
In a swift move, RCG grabs DFL and throws the two of them onto the bed. “It’s time to fulfill the promise,” he tells her. When she questions his interest in her, he confesses the thrill of sleeping a night with a woman like her. Seemingly undeterred by his words, DFL asks him if she gives herself to him and whether he’s able to fulfill her. She takes the initiative and makes the next move, taking off yet another robe and climbing on top of him. As she goes in for a kiss he changes their positions, tears off her belt, and continues the endless way to her lips.
I beg you don’t leave me, don’t even forgive me, but let me love you
SML wakes up with his hands tied to a bed. As he yells for RCG to let him go, DFL comes over telling him that she’s the one who tied him because she feared he’d hurt himself.
Emotional, SML begs her not to leave him. “Let me be your husband, I won’t let you get hurt again in the future” he earnestly tells her. The audacity.
For some reason, maybe she cares for him, DFL laughs in his face. She confesses nothing happened between RCG and herself. Just as their lips were about to touch, DFL had picked up on a few cues and tested his desire. Upon her seductive turn, RCG had backed away yelling at her if her behavior was worthy of her brother. Not only does RCG not like DFL, but he was a good friend of her brother’s. He’d heard of everything that had happened to DFL while he was exiled and hatched this plot to help her find the truth of her family’s demise.
Out of nowhere, SML pulls DFL towards him into a searing kiss. One of the few kisses between them in the past few years that she’s returned with as much desire as his.
SML decides to meet with RCG to trust him. “You’re changing too fast,” RCG tells him as one moment he praises RCG’s maneuvering of the situation and his not hurting DFL while on the other he’s already ordering him about.
It does feel like SML is a changed man. Or is he the same man who figured out his way of “saving” DFL sucked big time?
Before SML and DFL depart, RCG hands her a token that guarantees she can go to him for help at any time.
>> ♡ <<
Once they’re back in the city, SML decides to marry DFL to make her his official wife. He tells his servant to make preparations for the event. Before his servant departs, however, he asks SML if he should ask DFL to come over to join him for the night. “Don’t bother”, he tells the man, “if she wanted to, she would have come”.
Words are easier said than done. Tossing and turning, SML finally gets up and sneaks into DFL’s room. Climbing atop the bed, he lies next to a slumbering DFL, a foolish happy smile spreads across his handsome face.
Even when you hurt and I lose you, I’ll still love you
With the impending wedding approaching, DFL asks SML to write a letter inviting her family. SML agrees, playing along with what he thinks is DFL’s memory loss. In secret, he sends his trusted friend to find her brother whether alive or dead within half a month.
The people of the city, however, aren’t too keen on DFL marrying their city lord what with her identity as daughter of a traitor. Listening to their disapproval hidden behind a decrepit building is the figure of an unkempt man who reacts in anger.
This secret man stealthily passes a note to DFL’s maid while they are outside shopping. Upon reading the note, DFL exclaims “He really is my brother! It’s really him”, with tears of happiness cascading down her smiling face.
“But I don’t know why he dresses like a beggar. He looked so destitute as he insisted I gave this note to you” the somewhat concerned maid tells DFL.
DFL doesn’t care, she’ll meet him that night and figure out what’s going on. She instructs the maid to make an excuse if SML comes for her at night. The poor maid reluctantly agrees.
In the meantime, SML’s confidant encourages SML to tell DFL the truth about all the memories she can’t recall. SML, however, insists it should be something done after the wedding because he wants her to marry him happily. The confidant doesn’t agree, he thinks SML is being selfish and this decision will come back to bite him.
While the maid makes excuses for her mistress taking a bath on an inquiring SML later that night, DFL meets her brother. He’s alive!
DFL’s brother tells her that their father did not commit suicide because he couldn’t bear his treasonous acts (as the rumor goes). Further, he goes on to say that SML has a hand in the destruction of their family. Although their noble family helped him take on the position of city lord, he repaid them in such a devastating way.
The brother shares his struggles over the past three years while trying to avoid SML’s men who were looking for him. He believes it’s SML’s efforts to completely eradicate their family to conceal his acts. It turns out the man DFL was instructed to marry was SML’s step-brother and that all this happened during their struggle for the position of the city lord upon the death of the former.
“He kept you as a maid in his mansion while he married the woman from that family,” the brother says. “Don’t you understand? Are you willing to marry him?” he confronts her in anguish.
DFL tells him of the contract in the scripture repository that can clear the name of their family. She shares how only by becoming the Madam can she enter to obtain it without raising SML’s suspicions. Reluctantly, her brother accepts the risk promising to be right below the repository’s tower waiting for her to escape.
Back in the mansion, a lot of things are brewing. SML’s concubine (remember her?) is conspiring with his step-brother who turns out isn’t dead as everyone thought. She divulges to the old Madam that, upon interrogating and killing the ex-wife, she learned that DFL must be faking her memory loss.
After seeing all those letters in that secret room, DFL knew that SML had imitated her brother’s handwriting for the past three years. After escaping the mansion that night she went to her family’s old mansion. “When she came back, she didn’t have her memory. If she was pretending to have memory loss then everything can be explained” the cunning concubine continues.
“She was stabbed which triggered a conflict between SML and his then-wife’s family. She acted in the brazier ceremony where the explosion occurred to eliminate that family.”
The old Madam suddenly understands that the premise of DFL’s actions lies in SML’s trust in her. Everyone knew how SML had treated DFL throughout the years. If she wanted to carry out her plans successfully, she’d need to regain the lost trust, and what better way than losing those painful memories?
With sudden clarity, both women agree that if they make good use of DFL as she forges ahead with her plan of becoming the Madam, they’ll finally get rid of SML.
Upon hearing news of the ex-wife’s death, DFL sitting on a swing in the courtyard next to SML and his confidant, reminisces in bittersweet memories of when all of them were children. The ex-wife had demanded a swing from the boys after seeing the swing DFL’s brother made for her. However, their swing wasn’t of great quality since it broke while the young ex-wife had gotten on. The boys ended up getting into trouble due to the swing mess.
It’s odd to hear them talk about a past camaraderie and an innocent friendship among them.
“How time flies” DFL wistfully says.
SML vows to find the real cause of her death. Despite her role in all of it, the ex-wife had been a middle person hurt by the actions of parties on either end of her. She was neither innocent nor guilty, either friend or quite a foe.
That night, DFL makes her way to the prison cell ex-wife’s father is being kept. She informs him of his daughter’s death and, knowing he doesn’t have long to live, the man tells her the man behind her family’s ruin was SML. “I saw it with my own eyes, you’re still being kept in the dark aren’t you?” he tells her. Troubled, she leaves in a hurry.
A couple of days later, DFL’s maid is sending her off to marry again. “You can finally marry the man you originally wanted to marry,” the maid says though her expression looks as though she’s in mourning. DFL can’t help but recall the last time she was married, SML’s brother carrying her off despite her efforts to free herself from his grasp.
But the maid knows that the day doesn’t mark a happy event for her mistress. The true show is about to start and their survival will depend on their execution.
As the maid departs, DFL sadly thinks that she’s finally going to marry SML. “However…” she slowly pulls out a concealed dagger from a small chest next to her. As she unsheathes it, she acknowledges this is her destiny and her marriage to SML will also mark their end.
Is it wrong to still love you even though I need to kill you?
It’s finally their wedding day. Those truly happy, those conniving, and those who want to avenge a presumed wrong all look at the beautiful sight of SML and DFL as they bow to their citizenry, the heavens, and unavoidably to each other.
The peaceful minute of their union is interrupted by the sound of swords slashing and the early cries of pain. Mayhem breaks loose all around them as SML’s stepbrother and DFL’s ex makes an appearance. His order: the one who takes SML’s head will be rewarded with titles and riches beyond their dreams.
When the chaos broke out, SML lost sight of DFL. As men accost him from every direction, he finds DFL’s maid cowering in a corner and asks for her mistress’ location. She’s in the scripture repository.
SML rushes to ascertain his wife’s safety in what he thinks is an ambush. But as soon as he approaches her, she pulls out a dagger pointed at him.
“What does this mean?” SML asks her calmly.
“You don’t think I want to marry you, do you?” she tells him. “I carry the title of a traitor’s daughter serving as your maid for three years. How can I forget such humiliation?”
“So you didn’t lose your memory” SML confirms with her. Of course not. DFL reveals that if she didn’t do this charade, she would never her attained the evidence that her family didn’t rebel.
“My family helped you ascend to the position of city lord and endured humiliation at your stepbrother’s hands. But what about you?” she confronts him while still holding a dagger at his throat. “These three years you deceived me, toyed with me, and gave me false hope. But it turns out you killed my father!” she cries out.
“I didn’t kill your father” SML gently replies. He reveals he’s been looking for her family but DFL calls it all lies.
A lit arrow makes a sudden strike in the room. Fire erupts all around them and SML tells DFL this is not the right time to talk about all of history between them. His stepbrother’s army has surrounded them outside, they need to get to safety. Only if they leave alive can they speak out for her family’s injustice.
“Who are you to speak out for my family? You are the one who should be dead!” DFL yells out and pulls out her dagger between them once again while informing SML his ex-brother should kill him because it makes her sick that he’s alive.
With regret, SML acknowledges he deserves it. He slowly grabs DFL’s hand that’s holding the dagger and before DFL figures out what’s going on, he draws closer to her while stabbing himself with the dagger.
Impaled but finally close enough to DFL to whisper, he tells her to use his head to deceive his step-brother and survive. Shocked at the turn of events, DFL watches with painful sorrow at the SML’s blood dripping from the dagger held with both their hands as flames engulf the room mercilessly.
SML pushes DFL away as a pillar comes down from the destroyed ceiling. Unable to get to her as another pillar falls, SML is suddenly pulled outside the doors by his trusted servant who managed to break in. They forcefully remove him as he yells trying to get to DFL who’s on the other side of the room. He screams out her name as she remains trapped inside the blazing inferno.
A short time following the events of the wedding, SML’s concubine converges with the old Madam and her son, SML’s step-brother. He’s thanking his mother for the plan that got him back to power. She, of course, tells him that the city lord position was his. Who did SML think he was to wrestle power away from her son?
The guards now hunt for any sight of SML who’s gone missing. Along the city streets, a man is seen walking, pretending to shop while keenly listening to the people talking around him. On a closer look, he’s SML’s devoted servant, the old man who felt strongly about his master. When he comes across a group of beggars admiring the “gifts” handed to them by the new city lord, he loses his control. Right in front of him, he sees a keepsake DFL handed to SML a long time ago. One that his lord deeply valued and had kept as a memento in his possessions. He wrestled the man and got hit many times, to finally acquire this piece of memory for the woman his lord loved yet lost (he believes DFL died in the fire).
The old man returns to an old, dark shack where he insists his lord needs to eat something. SML survived the stabbing and injuries, however, he’s drowning in grief. He’s also rendered blind. The servant implores him that he already lost his sight, if he refuses to eat and drink he’ll probably end up dead.
“Why am I alive? She’s dead” SML replies in a rusty whisper.
But the old man feels guilty. If he’d only showed up earlier, his lord’s eyes wouldn’t be smoked blind and he could’ve saved his lady wife. He hands SML the love token he’d risked his life acquiring earlier on the city streets. SML runs his hand over it reverently and brings it up to his cheek lovingly.
“My lord, the lady wouldn’t want to see you like this”, he tells SML, “she’d want you to live well”. It’s difficult to shake SML from his grief though the token proves inspiring enough to make him want to survive.
Back in the northern region, RCG receives a letter from the new city lord informing him that should RCG’s army withdraw, his more than happy to forgive the involvement. RCG, however, has long proven himself to not be the fool he might outwardly project. His army is at a stalemate with SML’s step-brother’s rebels and SML is nowhere to be found. He orders his subordinate to continue looking for SML. He’s not the only one looking for SML. SML’s confidant is also on the run, utilizing all sorts of secret agents they’d set up to look for SML.
Meanwhile, somewhere far from the city, a living DFL sits in a cottage alone in deep thought. Her brother enters bringing her medicine. She hesitantly asks him if there’s any news of SML but he shakes his head.
Her brother informs her that they were wrong about SML’s involvement. He’d recently spotted the man who stabbed their father in his prison cell and he was the commander of the new city lord’s forces. He’d been in cahoots with SML’s step-brother so he wasn’t someone sent from SML.
Regretfully, her brother admits he’d initially thought their father’s death was related to SML however it turns out it was his step-brother. He apologizes for letting his blind hatred mislead DFL.
DFL wants to go out and find him. However, she’s barely escaped with her life so her brother is adamant about letting her take on more risk.
“You saved me from the fire, I’m thankful for that. But I caused SML to lose everything, I must find him!” DFL replies.
Her brother asks her how’s she going to do that in the vast sea of people. It’s an impossible task, where would she start assuming he’s even alive?
Through tears, DFL tells him “If I can’t find him in a day, I’ll search for a month. If I can’t find him for a month, I’ll search for a year. If I can’t find him in a year, I’ll search for a lifetime”.
Her brother knows he can’t stop her, he only asks her to be careful. In turn, she requests he go meet RCG and hand him a jade pendant he gave her the last time. He’ll know what to do.
Back in the shack, SML’s old servant injured makes his way to search for food. On his way, he’s ganged up by a bunch of soldiers and dies while refusing to disclose SML’s location. SML gets wind of his servant’s death by passers-by along the window of the shack. He hears how the new city lord ordered the burning of his body and scattered his ashes instead of allowing him to be buried properly. SML can only curl his hands in anger at the news of this devastating new loss.
A week later, he’s barely making it on the streets as he’s trying to find food. It just so happens that DFL witnesses his struggle and rushes to his aid. Noting the state of his eyes, she pulls herself together and attempts to help him get out of the streets and the impending danger they pose. However, she says not a word. She doesn’t tell SML her identity, pretending to be a mute woman who just happened to show him mercy.
DFL takes SML to the cottage outside of the city where she tries to tend to his wounds. SML tells her she reminds him of a woman he once knew who had her tenacity. He can’t see who she is; she doesn’t let him know of her identity. Instead, he communicates with his voice while she writes words in his palm.
She asks SML who the woman he speaks of is, the one who bore plenty of grievances yet still had the willpower to live. He tells her she is his wife, the one he loves the most, right before drifting off to sleep from the pain.
When he awakes, he’s lying on a cot and feels the young woman who saved him sitting next to him as she’d fallen asleep while keeping vigil. He slowly ventures in soft touches along her hands and face only to have her grab his hand and put it next to her cheek while asleep. The ruse is up, he’s ascertained the gut feeling that the woman wasn’t just anyone, it was her. She was alive!
Even though SML knows the woman is DFL, he doesn’t say anything because he can’t figure out why she’s not acknowledging him. What he doesn’t understand is that she feels unworthy of him. She didn’t trust him when he said he wasn’t to blame for the father. She doesn’t know how to face him considering her role in him losing everything and in getting injured to this extent.
It takes both of them getting caught by a nearby search party for her to acknowledge SML. The two reconcile with tears and appreciation of having found each other. With the passing of days, they live together in the cottage, healing little by little. After many days, they spend the first night together as man and wife.
Their luck must be turning because one morning SML wakes up and with shock realizes he can see! He rushes to DFL to touch her, to see her, to verify these days had not been a dream.
It’s sad how all good things must come to an end. DFL soon gets captured by the new city lord’s forces while getting food for her and SML. DFL is smart, she knows her capture means a newfound effort in luring SML out. She decides to play the hate card telling the new city lord she won’t do as bait since she caused him to lose everything during the last ceremony.
But SML’s step-brother hasn’t come this far to be swayed easily by people’s tales. He lays out a plan to lure SML out of hiding by announcing his upcoming wedding with DFL. And his plan may as well work considering SML has already reached out to his confidant. He can’t wait any longer considering his step-brother wants to forcibly marry DFL.
His confidant tries to dissuade him from acting recklessly by mobilizing his troops, reminding SML these actions are meant to lure him to battle. Just as SML resolves to go alone since it’s him they want, DFL’s brother comes in along with RCG. The latter pledges his troops to SML’s command.
As the guys prepare to save her, DFL sits in a chamber staring at wedding attire yet again. Her expression shows resolve; she pulls out a pin from her hair, one that is sharp and rather lethal looking in the way she handles it. Decisive on a course of action, DFL gets up in a rush, the wedding dress display strewn all over the floor, and goes to meet the city lord.
She asks him to bargain the life of the man who took her father’s life (his captain of guards) for her willingness to marry him. While she tells him this, she walks seductively towards him and then behind him all the while pulling out the pin from her hair. Just as she’s about to pull it out and stab him in the throat, a hurried messenger comes to report SML is attacking.
Rather unexpected but not wholly unwelcome set of developments for the city lord. Holding DFL on sword point along with a flurry of troops, he proceeds outside to meet his foe. He knows he has the upper hand and so orders SML to exchange his life for DFL’s.
SML agrees despite DLF’s pleas for him not to do it. He slowly approaches his step-brother and his wife when he’s attacked!
In the ensuing commotion, DFL is freed from the grasp of the other man but doesn’t venture far. She pulls out her pin once again and aims for an attack on the city lord. However, he intercepts it successfully until SML grabs her hand and with a single maneuver sticks it into his step-brother’s throat. While he falls to the ground bleeding to death, the SML and DFL look at each other probably in disbelief it’s finally all over.
SML pulls DFL into his arms, she willingly wraps hers around him, and they both rejoice in the splendor of triumph.
The end.
