Where the Mask Ends episode 1 recap: The banquet and the poisoned arrow

In short

The girl raised as Wei Rao shows how cruel she is, Lu Zhuo decides to break the engagement, then comes home with a poisoned arrow wound, and she plots to send someone else to the wedding.

What happens in episode 1

At the Grand Princess's banquet, the Wei family's fourth daughter, known as Wei Rao, has a rival's maid beaten for gossiping about her mother, slaps Xie Hualou and pushes her off a pavilion. Lu Zhuo catches Xie Hualou mid-fall.

Wei Rao claims she was the one attacked and shows a cut palm. Lu Zhuo has seen enough battle wounds to know it is self-inflicted. He privately decides to end their engagement when he returns from the front. At home she tells the family the opposite: that he plans to propose.

Then the news arrives. Lu Zhuo won his battle but was hit by a poisoned arrow and may not live. His family asks for the wedding in five days to bring him luck, a custom called chongxi, and gets an edict from the Empress Dowager. If he dies, the bride may leave.

Wei Rao refuses to marry a dying man. She quietly suggests a stand-in bride to her doting aunt, Wei Heng'e, who promises to find a girl with her face.

Why it matters

It sets up the whole show: the cruelty Lu Zhuo remembers belongs to the real fiancée, not to the woman who will wake up next to him.

Based on the official episode synopsis, summarized in our own words: Baidu Baike: official synopsis, episode synopses, cast and 追剧日历