Where the Mask Ends episode 14 recap: The gold ring under the stove

In short

A Chou learns the girl her mother raised died as a toddler, and the clothes and gold ring of a lost noble child are buried under the family stove.

What happens in episode 14

Huo Jue traces A Chou's past: sold by her father to a family who wanted to bury her with their dead son, she survived by playing dead, then slept in a sheep pen and worked a mill in winter for the lowest pay.

Jun Dai gets poison from Wei Heng'e, lets Huo Jue think she plans to poison Lady Shou'an's soup, then drinks it herself so he feels guilty. Meanwhile Consort Li's people track down A Chou's mother and siblings. A Chou's guards give the palace men tea that sends them running for the latrine and get her family out.

Twins at the training ground make A Chou wonder about her own birth. She gets an old neighbor drunk and hears how her mother once fetched her back from the mountains with a wolf bite on her arm. Then she stages a fire at night: her mother runs to Hong Xian's room, not hers.

Her mother confesses. Her own A Chou died on the mountain at two. She found a living little girl in fine clothes and kept her, hiding the clothes and a gold neck ring under the stove because the Wei family had reported a lost daughter. A Chou sits frozen in front of the stove for half an hour. Lu Zhuo breaks it open for her and says there's someone she should meet.

Why it matters

A Chou now has proof she isn't her mother's child. The next step is proving whose child she is.

Based on the episode synopsis, summarized in our own words: TVmao (电视猫) episode synopses, cited by Baidu Baike Baidu Baike: official synopsis, episode synopses, cast and 追剧日历