Before I start recapping, I want to mention that I usually do not watch the opening credits of a drama, but I love the credits of Fateful Love. It feels magical, a little nostalgic, and overall, it is very beautiful.

The last episode ended with our female lead, Zi Qing, trying to find a command key to activate herself so that she can wake up in her real life. She decided that it must be the dagger, but when she goes looking for the dagger, even with the help of her maid, she finds out that the dagger doesn’t exist.

Her maid tells her that all of her mother’s property had been thrown away by her stepmother and that a dagger isn’t allowed in the women’s quarters, so her mother could not have owned one. Then, her maid timidly asks why she is behaving very differently and why her character has totally changed. She replies that she refuses to be bullied inside and outside her home.

Zi Qing then tells her maid to help her find out where her mother’s properties had been discarded, particularly the dagger, because anyone who has seen it would take note of it, as it is so glamorous that it would definitely leave an impression. Already at this point, I deeply suspect that her stepmother might be in possession of the dagger.

Her maid then takes the opportunity to advise her to go back to being mild-mannered and shy, more accommodating of everything, especially since she is going to marry into a family rumored to be impoverished. She needs the support of her family; otherwise, she is going to have a very difficult life. The female lead then tells her maid that she doesn’t have any plans to marry that man.

Our female lead then asks her maid to get her a mask and some other items. While she is swinging from roof to roof, we meet two new characters, a young man and a young woman. I’m not entirely sure what’s happening, but the man is with a reptile of some sort, and he’s angry because the reptile isn’t reacting as he wishes.

Anyway, Zi Qing makes her way to her destination, which unsurprisingly is the house of the son of that lord who claimed to have taken her virginity the previous night. She arrives just in time because he is being assaulted by two masked men, and he basically admits that he was put up to lying and everything by our female lead’s stepsister.

Right in front of her, they produce a written confession, basically accusing her stepsister of concocting a plan to destroy her life. They make him stamp it, and immediately after he stamps it with his thumb, they kill him and leave the premises with the contract. Even before he stamped the confession, our female lead realized that they were not perhaps after protecting her or not, but rather they wanted to punish the Chancellor for a grudge.

And you would be shocked because this is 2024, and she probably shouldn’t be able to do this, but our female lead follows the assassins closely behind. Somehow, these people, who were at least talented enough to be sent on such an errand, didn’t notice this young woman trailing behind them.

She follows them to a building where they meet their master, whose face she cannot see, but she hears them talking. Then, while she’s trying to get a closer look, they notice that she is at the window, and a fight starts. However, because she’s so skilled in fighting and martial arts, she’s able to overpower all of them.

One masked fighter, in particular, who appears to be on her side, drags her to a corner. After showing each other their martial arts skills in a very funny way, they are distracted by more assailants coming towards them, and then they keep on fighting. 

The scene then pans to those two other people we were introduced to earlier, and it seems they’re looking for someone because now the lizard is responsive. We learn that his female companion is skeptical about the lizard helping them find who they are looking for.

The second son then goes to tell his mother about what went down the previous night. We learn that the two men who had killed the son of the lord earlier have disappeared. While he’s worried about their disappearance, he isn’t too worried about them ratting him out because he has their family.

On the fourth son’s side, his guard tells him that he was able to chase down those two assailants, but they didn’t want to be caught, so they committed suicide. The marriage of our female lead was terminated under very unfortunate circumstances, and she has lived an even more unfortunate life because many things have happened to her.

The bodyguard tells Li Ge that our female lead is a very normal, down-to-earth, very simple person, but our male lead says that his guard is incorrect because he could see that the female lead was clearly very skilled, so there has to be something else there.

The next thing we see is a scene between those two strange people with the reptile. Now we find out that they are actually bounty hunters, and it seems they’ve been sent to find our female lead. They have a little conversation, but then we move on from them, and nothing really happens. I might be wrong, but something tells me that this could easily turn into a love triangle/love square type of situation.

A maid then runs to tell our female lead’s stepsister, Xi Er, about the death of the son of the lord the previous night. This is where we know for sure why her stepsister has been acting crazy because she’s worried that our female lead might have a chance of being involved in the selection.

Meanwhile, our female lead is still thinking about where she can find that dagger. While she is lying down and running through the possibilities, her stepsister comes in to mock her about her fiancé’s death and also to remind her that she absolutely stands no chance in the consort selection. 

Zi Qing is annoyed at this and tells her stepsister that she has been provoked, so she’s going to make sure that she enters the selection. This is when our female lead’s stepsister reveals her nastiness again, telling her maids to take away our female lead’s clothing, but this isn’t even a big deal to our female lead.

The selection day finally comes, and our female lead’s stepsister is as poised and arranged as possible. Everyone keeps whispering that her marriage to the prince is already guaranteed. Then, when everyone falls in line, our female lead comes in looking disheveled and in a poor state, and her parents try to stop her.

Li Ge then makes his entrance, and everyone is focused on him. He walks up to our female lead’s stepsister, asks her a question about her talent, and then asks her if she can kill a person. She is bashful and says she could never do that. He doesn’t respond to that and then walks over to our female lead, who at this point is trying to jog her memory about where she recognizes him from.

He then asks her about her talent. She tells him that she doesn’t have any talents, but he says that’s not possible because she must know how to do one thing, whether it’s floral arrangements, cooking, or something else. She tells him that her family has never taught her anything. Her sister and parents are happy about this because they feel like she is embarrassing herself, and so the prince will absolutely dislike her, but I can tell that our prince loves a woman who can challenge him.

With everything that goes down, imagine my surprise when the prince announces that he has chosen our female lead as his wife. Everyone else is just as shocked. Eventually, a eunuch runs over to advise the prince to withdraw his declaration because our female lead is an illegitimate daughter. 

The prince refuses, and the eunuch tells him that if he does marry her, especially since this is a royal marriage and should be something thought over and deliberated about, he will become a laughingstock. He counters this by saying that since he has already given his word, he can’t possibly go back on what he has already said.

All through this, our female lead is very quiet, but inside, she keeps thinking about how she really doesn’t want to marry the prince, but the arrangement has been made without even asking for her opinion. Then, they continue like that. He even takes her hand in his, and she grabs it back, but not before noticing the dagger she has been looking for attached to his belt.

Her attitude does a full 180 as she realizes that she needs to get close to him if she wants to get that dagger. She agrees that they should get married, and immediately the word spreads around the whole town, and everyone starts jubilating. At this point, she only wants to get her dagger, while he is very curious about her because really, how did she survive after taking that deadly poison?

Now, I might be wrong, but usually men and women do not fraternize so easily in ancient China, so I was a little surprised how he took her straight from the selection banquet to his house. However, he wasn’t able to escort her inside because when they got to the doorstep, a eunuch informed him that the king wanted to see him, so he left after commanding that nobody should allow our female lead to leave.

Since Li Ge didn’t have the opportunity to escort her into the house, he didn’t witness how his maidservant treated her absolutely horribly. She says a lot of nasty stuff, basically telling our female lead that the prince doesn’t like anything that has been used. However, our female lead deflects that jab smoothly before entering the west wing, which is where she has been assigned to.

Remember those two sneaky bounty hunters from before? Well, they find out that our female lead has been engaged to the prince, and they follow her to his mansion. Then the male bounty hunter says that they should take it slow since the posture of our female lead shows that she knows martial arts.

Right now, my questions are who these people are and who sent them to find our female lead. Also, what type of life did our female lead (the actual person whose body she’s living in now) live, because why are bounty hunters tracking her down?

Unlike what we’ve been told—that she was a pushover and a very docile person—it seems there is a little bit of drama in her life, and she might have been doing some things in the background.

On the other hand, Li Ge finally gets to the palace to meet his father, and the first thing he does is reprimand the eunuch, whom he believes ran to spill the details about his new engagement to his father. But surprisingly, his father is jovial and invites him to play a game of Go.

The episode ends with them playing the game, and I predict that even though his father might not be too happy about the new engagement, he might not rush to oppose it, especially since marrying this unfavored daughter means that our male lead isn’t trying to pose any threat to the king’s throne.

I might be thinking a little too far ahead, but then again, there have been many Chinese dramas where parents have turned on their own children and children have turned on their own parents because of securing royal power. I wouldn’t be surprised if his father fears removal because of this singular act.

It remains to be seen what will happen, but I am definitely going to watch the next episode to see how things turn out. Let me know if this is a drama that you are watching or if it’s something that has been on your watchlist, and we can talk some more.

I am recapping every episode of Fateful Love, and here is a page with all the necessary details and links to recaps of every single episode as they are released.

Don’t forget that you can let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I am also recapping No Gain No Love, and if you’d like to know whether I’m enjoying it or not, check out my recap of the very first episode.