Moye suggests to Fengjiu that she should save Princess Quiet (Ju Nuo) from the coming punishment since Fengjiu is playing Aranya. And if they want to find out the truth behind Aranya’s death, then Fengjiu should make the same decisions Aranya made back then to mirror the past as much as possible.
Fengjiu reluctantly agrees, but freaks out when she hears that she will have to involve her blood in the rescue plan.
Here’s the deal (I think): Quiet will be placed in an open arena to battle a wild beast. If she can somehow escape or if anyone can fight on her behalf and win, she can be spared.
Quiet’s blood will be used to activate a blade, which will then call the beast over. Or something like that. To neutralize the situation, Fengjiu is expected to add her own blood to the mix, then they’ll figure out what to do from there, I guess.
Fengjiu is terrified. She doesn’t want even a paper cut, let alone an intentional gash by a knife.
On the day of the punishment, Fengjiu tells Moye her genius idea: she has acquired some chicken blood for the task. Haha, she’s so relatable.
But Moye says no, because only fresh blood works, and it must be the blood of someone who’s related to Quiet. He also says that Fengjiu will have to give… half of her entire body’s blood for this to work. Does this guy just make things up as he goes! What do you even need that much blood for??
At another table, Donghua is watching the whole thing in his usual relaxed pose. I would call him out for looking like he’s enjoying barbaric punishments; but objectively, he is a god who has seen too much that nothing can faze him anymore. Unless he sees Xiaoyan and Fengjiu sharing snacks, of course.
Shenye battles the beast. When the time comes, Fengjiu jumps out, cuts her palm on the blade – yep, they always have to go for the area with the most nerve endings — and lets her blood run just like Moye told her to do. This, of course, makes her faint. OK, now we know why we need that much of her blood: because something needs to happen to make Donghua get off his slouching cushion.
He flies oover to catch Fengjiu as she faints and takes her away. Honestly, though, I forgot for a moment that he is Fengjiu’s husband here, and not Shenye.
Outside the dream Realm, the Demon Lady sends her astral self out on a mission. It seems she had something to do with the existence of Shenye in the Dream. She has also found the real Fengjiu’s body, which Donghua hid at the bottom of the lake.
As the Demon Lady starts to draw power from Fengjiu’s unconscious form, Donghua appears to fight her off. In the process, he has to abandon the Aranya-Fengjiu. She wakes up, starts wandering around and runs into Fengjiu’s body. When they are close enough, their forms merge and now there’s only one Fengjiu. Thank the heavens.