Serendipity Episode 38 Recap
> Serendipity Recap
Lu Chang did not come to persuade Jian Mingshu to give up her revenge, but to tell her that there were other ways to bring the Prince of Yu to justice. No matter what Jian Mingshu did, he would stay by her side. He was only worried that she might go down a path of no return and regret it later.
Lu Chang found out that the Prince of Yu might have instructed Cao Hai to raise private soldiers, which was an unforgivable offense in the imperial court—even if he was the emperor's eldest son. As for the imperial decree to bestow marriage, Lu Chang would find a way to deal with it. Jian Mingshu gave the bracelet to Lu Chang. She had suspected there might be something unusual about it, but could never figure it out.
Lu Chang noticed a small hole on the bracelet—when pressed, a key popped out. Jian Mingshu immediately recalled that there was also a small hole on the Guanyin statue in the ancestral hall. It seemed her father had hidden the evidence there. Lu Chang and Jian Mingshu told Su Tangli that they had found evidence of Cao Hai raising private soldiers, and hoped to temporarily put their previous plan on hold.
Su Tangli agreed—so long as the Prince of Yu could be utterly ruined, she was willing to cooperate. Lu Chang discovered that one of the people who had helped Cao Hai wipe out the Jian family had escaped and had been committing crimes ever since. Recently, he had set his sights on a couple preparing to return home with their earnings. Lu Chang warned them to take the water route, and he and Jian Mingshu disguised themselves as that couple.
Upon hearing that the husband was extremely submissive to his wife, Jian Mingshu instantly caught on. Jian Mingshu and Lu Chang dressed in foreign attire and checked into an inn, carrying a large amount of gold and silver, which soon attracted the attention of bandits. However, when the bandits hijacked their carriage, they found that the boxes were filled with stones instead of treasure. Before they could flee, Lu Chang and Jian Mingshu caught them.
Jian Mingshu and Lu Chang told the bandit leader, Master Jiao, that they had a big deal for him—ten thousand taels of gold in exchange for helping her take revenge. Cao Hai had taken the Jian family's wealth and returned it to the Lin family—about ten thousand taels. He was due to return soon to celebrate Old Madam Lin’s birthday, which would be the perfect time to strike. After some consideration, Master Jiao decided to investigate.
Prince Rui and Song Qingzhao rushed over upon receiving the news. Seeing that Lu Chang and Jian Mingshu had reconciled, Song Qingzhao felt a pang of jealousy. The Ministry of Rites had already chosen a date for Jian Mingshu and Song Qingzhao’s wedding one month later. Only now did Jian Mingshu realize that submitting the marriage rejection letter had been a foolish mistake.
Lu Chang said that perhaps once the truth about the Prince of Yu was uncovered, it might earn imperial clemency. Jian Mingshu stayed by Old Madam Lin’s side. When invited to eat together, she declined, saying she wasn’t hungry. Soon after, Old Madam Lin and the maids all fainted, as did everyone in the Lin family. Jian Mingshu went to the ancestral hall and retrieved the evidence from inside the Guanyin statue.
She and Su Tangli looked coldly at the unconscious men and women in the house—Jian Mingshu was the only surviving member of the Jian family. Old Madam Lin kept claiming it wasn’t her son’s doing, but Jian Mingshu told her that the Guanyin she prayed to every day had been carved in her mother’s likeness by her father—it wasn’t the Bodhisattva she had been kneeling to, but Jian Mingshu’s mother. But she wasn’t wrong to kneel.
Her entire family should be kneeling before the Jian family. Old Madam Lin always spoke of gods and virtue, but what kind of good had she truly done, what virtue had she really accumulated? Master Jiao indeed found many treasures in the Lin household and was about to load them onto the carriage when Cao Hai arrived with government soldiers. A battle broke out.
Hearing the fighting, Madam Zhou, unwilling to sit and wait for death, grabbed her meager savings and tried to sneak away. But just then, she went into labor. Jian Mingshu and Su Tangli watched coldly as the two evil factions slaughtered each other in the courtyard. The Prince of Yu ordered Cao Hai to take Master Jiao’s head, but Prince Rui, Song Qingzhao, and Lu Chang arrived just in time to apprehend everyone.
Cao Hai prepared to fight to the death but was killed by Jian Mingshu wielding a blade. Thirty-seven lives from the Jian family—he would repay that debt today. Madam Zhou’s baby was stillborn, and she herself bled to death, unable to be saved. Knowing she had committed great sins, she ended her own life in haste.
