At midnight, the real-time ratings on Sakura TV continued to climb. Even before the airing of Episode 14 of 'An Ancient Love Song', the channel's ratings had already surpassed 3%.
Under normal circumstances, ratings like this would only appear during the 8 or 9 p.m. prime-time slots.
Akasaka Yoshitoki, producer of 'The Gilded Ones', couldn't fall asleep at all that night.
Especially Matsumoto Jun, one of 'The Gilded Ones' producers, who stayed at the station personally monitoring the real-time ratings.
His usual calm demeanor had given way to tension. His fingers repeatedly twirled the mustache above his lips, trying to soothe his inner restlessness.
Stop rising…
He silently prayed.
Once midnight passed, the broadcast froze for a moment.
Then, the theme song of 'An Ancient Love Song' slowly began to play.
The last time Chu Haosen heard this melody on television, an inexplicable sense of melancholy welled up inside him.
[Episode One: The Song Is Unfinished, The People Have Not Parted.]
The title of Episode 14 appeared. From Lu Yuan's timeline, this was indeed the very beginning—the place where her dream had first started.
But for Shen Buyan, this was the end of his story with Lu Yuan.
The scene shifted.
Back in the modern era, Shen Buyan stood by the window of his home.
A transverse flute played softly.
A melody composed by Lu Yuan a thousand years ago flowed once more from his flute.
At that moment, the title 'An Ancient Love Song' fully revealed its meaning.
A piece of music written a millennium ago—
Known only by Shen Buyan a thousand years later.
[That jade pendant traveled through a thousand years to reach my hands. I then crossed a thousand years to return it to Lu Yuan, completing this causal loop… Is this the entire meaning of my journey?]
With a lonely expression, Shen Buyan arrived beside the ancient tree at Nanmeng Lake.
Back when Lu Yuan and Shen Buyan had confessed their love beneath it in ancient times, the tree had only been a sapling.
Now, it stood tall and towering.
Countless small wooden plaques hung from its branches—wishes left by modern people following the customs of the ancient Sheng Kingdom.
Chu Haosen began to feel restless.
What are you doing, Shen Buyan?
Hurry up and find a way back to the past!
If you're content staying in the modern era, then Lu Yuan's fate in history will be sealed forever!
At that moment, the elderly woman who had once sold the jade pendant to Shen Buyan appeared again.
Shen Buyan hurried after her, urgently questioning her about the pendant.
"This jade has been passed down through my family. It was meant to be given to someone named Shen Buyan."
With those words, the drama's greatest foreshadowing was finally revealed.
She was a descendant of Chu Tongshang, Lu Yuan's adopted son, who had unified the Nine Kingdoms.
And Lu Yuan's fate—
It was unveiled through her lips.
"Lu Yuan did not die in the Yuanqi Rebellion."
Chu Haosen's eyes widened.
Huh?
He couldn't quite understand it.
The story rewound to Episode One.
Lu Yuan had shielded Shen Buyan from an arrow and collapsed into his arms.
Even the 36-year-old Lu Yuan believed she was destined to die, because at 26, she had heard that future from Shen Buyan himself.
At that time, Shen Buyan had been pulled back to the modern era by the jade pendant. Believing Lu Yuan had died at 36, he told her the future to her 26-year-old self.
It was a loop.
But in reality—
The 36-year-old Lu Yuan was ultimately saved.
Unfortunately, Shen Buyan never knew. He believed that his time travel had altered history—changing Lu Yuan's fate from being purged by Chu Tongshang to dying at age thirty-six.
Guided by this misunderstanding, he traveled back a second time… then a third.
Yet none of his journeys ever changed history.
On the contrary, his travels were themselves part of history.
Chu Haosen's eyes widened even further. His blood pressure spiked.
This… isn't how I imagined it.
If history can't be changed, then how can Shen Buyan and Lu Yuan—one from the modern world, one from ancient times—ever be together?
Screenwriter, are you stirring trouble again?
The perspective shifted to ancient times—to Lu Yuan.
At twenty-one, she experienced the despair of Shen Buyan being summoned back to the modern era, breaking his promise to her.
When she met him again at twenty-six, she chose not to acknowledge him, unwilling to drag him into a love doomed to have no ending.
At twenty-six, unable to change her brother's death or her own destiny of becoming Empress, Lu Yuan finally accepted fate.
But—
Lu Yuan was never someone who believed in fate.
For ten years, she planned for the Shangsi Night of her thirty-sixth year.
She intended to save the Sheng State.
Knowing Li Yong planned to steal the city defense map, she used her adopted son, Chu Tongshang, to swap the real map with a fake, deliberately allowing Li Yong to defect.
Northern Lie Kingdom attacked using false intelligence and suffered a crushing defeat.
After realizing the truth, Li Yong was killed by Northern Lie Kingdom.
To stabilize public morale, Lu Yuan did not expose his betrayal. Instead, she framed his defection as a deliberate sacrifice—an act of bait to lure Northern Lie Kingdom into a trap—galvanizing the entire nation.
As for herself, due to years of opposing the "hero" Li Yong and pushing reforms that offended the gentry class, she was branded the Demon Empress.
The more Chu Haosen watched, the heavier his chest felt.
So that's how it was…
He didn't care how the Sheng Kingdom ended.
What he cared about was Lu Yuan's ending.
So she waited from thirty-six… all the way until death… without ever seeing Shen Buyan again?
What kind of ending is this?!
Screenwriter—do you even have a heart?!
The screen flickered.
Lu Yuan is forty-one.
Under the tree at Nanmeng Lake, she hung a wooden plaque.
This tree appeared far too often throughout the series.
On the plaque were her words:
"To see Shen Buyan once more."
This was Lu Yuan's wish at forty-one.
Chu Haosen could no longer hold back. Tears blurred his vision.
"I still want to tell him that I'm alive. Every day, every moment, I think of him…
Do you think he still remembers me?"
Lu Yuan asked Yihua beside her, gazing at the plaque.
After learning the truth, Shen Buyan also hung a plaque on the modern tree at Nanmeng Lake.
"To see Lu Yuan once more."
Their wishes aligned across time.
Only then did the drama finally reveal the truth behind Shen Buyan's dream in Episode One.
Surrounded by a crowd, he watched a dignified and regal woman being executed.
During her reign, Demon Empress Lu Yuan implemented sweeping reforms, offending powerful elites from top to bottom.
Like Shang Yang of Qin.
When Chu Tongshang ascended the throne, he inherited a revitalized Sheng Kingdom—but to gain public support, he had to purge Lu Yuan, the one blamed for framing the "virtuous minister" Li Yong.
And this—
Was something Lu Yuan herself agreed to.
The dream Shen Buyan had in Episode One—
The woman being executed—
Was Lu Yuan.
"So that dream wasn't a dream at all," Chu Haosen murmured, his stomach twisting.
"It was Lu Yuan seeing Shen Buyan for the final time before her death."
That Shen Buyan did not recognize her.
That was Lu Yuan—who loved him her entire life, who waited from age twenty-six until death—casting her final gaze at him.
Chu Haosen felt his chest tighten. He couldn't speak.
At this moment, countless viewers across the Xia Nation watching 'An Ancient Love Song' on Sakura TV were stunned.
[What about the happy ending?!]
[Where's the promised happiness?!]
[Why does the angst just keep piling on?!]
[Did you ever consider whether fans could handle this?!]
Time passed within the drama.
In the modern era, Shen Buyan could only work endlessly to clear Lu Yuan's name in history.
Years later, Lu Yuan's mausoleum was excavated.
Inside was a priceless konghou harp.
Several strings were broken.
It was the very harp Shen Buyan had bought for her when she was eighteen, after selling the jade pendant.
In the museum, Shen Buyan gazed at the konghou that had crossed a thousand years and played Lu Yuan's melody on his flute.
He had once taught her how to encode messages through dissonant notes.
Matching the broken strings with that knowledge—
The hidden message Lu Yuan sent across time was:
"I miss you."
Chu Haosen's hand trembled.
An overwhelming sorrow surged within him.
Resentment rose.
Emotion values surged!
[Screenwriter—may you meet a girl like Lu Yuan, and never be able to be with her for your entire life.]
Shen Buyan's flute echoed softly, as if responding to the unspoken message within the ancient harp.
'An Ancient Love Song' reached its final—and most heartbreaking—moment.
The ancient tree fulfilled Shen Buyan's wish.
For the sixth time—
He saw Lu Yuan again.