The Lament of Autumn episode 35 recap: Kuang Bingwen unmasked

In short

Kuang Bingwen tries to seize the Yu army and admits he set the fire that killed Ye Pingjun's mother; Yu Changxuan's trap catches him, and he and Chen Wanqiao die by the river.

What happens in episode 35

Yu Changxuan returns to Nanhuai to find the central army has branded the Yu forces rebels and Staff Officer Yang has been shot. He asks to lead the fight against Chu Wenfu himself, finds the gap in Chu's lines, and lets Li Bowen spring an ambush that wrecks Chu's army.

Kuang Bingwen, rattled by the win, is overheard plotting by Brigade Commander Zhang and kills him. Yu Changxuan grieves over the body and lets Kuang Bingwen go home to comfort Zhang's family. Meanwhile Yu Jinxuan, who has heard about the baby, tells Ye Pingjun that Yu Zhongquan is coughing blood. Ye Pingjun brings medicine from her mother's old doctor, and Zhao Baoru begs her to stay. She agrees.

Word comes that Yu Changxuan has been killed in a mutiny at the front. Kuang Bingwen drops the mask, and Chen Wanqiao reveals she is with him. His father, Kuang Yuanshan, was left to cover a retreat on Yu Zhongquan's orders and beheaded, and his pregnant mother was burned alive; the two of them watched it happen. Yu Zhongquan sees that saving Yu Changxuan and caring for Yu Jinxuan were all part of the revenge. Kuang Bingwen says he controls more than half the Yu army and that Yu Mingxuan's old men staged the mutiny, and demands the command. When Ye Pingjun calls him a wolf, he says he set the fire to frame the Yu family and killed her mother, and raises his gun.

Yu Changxuan walks in and shoots the gun out of his hand. A cigarette found in Zhang's body, a brand only Kuang Bingwen smoked, had given him away, so Yu Changxuan let him leave, contained the mutineers and had them report his death. Gu Ruitong's men seize Gu Yigang, who had helped plan the coup. Kuang Bingwen grabs Yu Jinxuan and flees to the river. Chen Wanqiao catches up and fires at Yu Jinxuan, but Kuang Bingwen takes the bullet. He dies wishing they had never met in that hospital, and Chen Wanqiao shoots herself beside him.

At home, Yu Jinxuan remembers the pink handkerchief she once used to bandage him, which he had kept, and visits the flowers he planted for her. Ye Pingjun apologizes to Yu Changxuan: people who love each other should trust each other. She asks to go to the front as a nurse and war reporter rather than wait behind him, and he agrees. Mou Linsen and Chu Wenfu join forces against the Yu army, Jiang Xueting plans to rein Yu Changxuan in with an official order, and after days without sleep Yu Changxuan is hit by a splitting headache.

Why it matters

The fire that drove them apart is solved: Kuang Bingwen set it, not Yu Changxuan, and Ye Pingjun goes to the front by his side.

Based on the episode synopsis, summarized in our own words: TVmao (电视猫) episode synopses