Emperor Gaojun ascends to the throne by seizing power from the empress dowager who had his mother killed, resulting in him being disinherited. Shortly after claiming his rule, he approaches the Raven Consort Shouxue inquiring about the owner of a jade earring was apparently dropped by a spirit, but she summarily dismisses him. Upon further persuasion Shouxue agrees to help, using mystical powers to reveal the spirit of a court lady who died from strangulation.

Shouxue learns the owner of the earring was Ban Yingnü, whose spirit remains unable to rest in peace. With Jiujiu now appointed as her lady-in-waiting, the two head to the wash house where Ban Yingnü's former maid, Su Hongqiao, now resides. Despite having her tongue cut out, Hongqiao manages to explain, in writing, how Ban Yingnü had been falsely accused, and hence she subsequently hanged herself in despair. The real culprit is actually the Empress Dowager, who killed the Third Consort due to the latter's pregnancy, giving Gaojun the evidence he wanted.

Shouxue recalls how her mother was murdered trying to protect her, and she was sold into slavery before being found by the previous Raven Consort. Since then, she has dyed her hair black to prevent herself from persecution, although Gaojun promises her he will not kill her.

In the morning, the highest-ranking concubine of the inner palace, Yun Huanniang, pays a visit to Shouxue, curious about Gaojun's frequent visits. Jiujiu informs Shouxue how Huanniang is known not merely for her position as consort and childhood friend of the emperor, but also for how she wears a flower flute perpetually around her sash, with such flower flutes being traditionally hung at the end of winter to mourn for the dead. It is then said the dead return with the spring wind and sound the flute.

Jiujiu, feeling pity for the ghost of a skylark, asks Shouxue help it pass on. Shouxue investigates Princess Hibari, a former member of the inner palace and a sickly, isolated princess known for her pet skylark. Being inexperienced with social interaction, Shouxue mistakenly believes some small talk from the maids for a consort's palace to be considered a good place for work, their workers must receive fine clothes. Her attempt to gift Jiujiu clothes though, only angers the latter. Returning to the case, Shouxue learns of Princess Hibari's close relationship with a court lady Yang Shiniang, who returns to the river where the Princess had drowned to lay flowers frequently.

Yang Shiniang explains she does so out of guilt, for the day the Princess drowned had been the day they had had an argument, and even as the Princess's skylark called for her to help she had chosen not to return. Shouxue deduces the Princess, due to her condition, was knowledgeable in medicines and had been trying to harvest fritillaria, a plant which could drive off Yang Shiniang's seasonal cough, only to fall into the river. Using the sculpture of a swallow made by Gaojun, Shouxue brings it to life to guide the skylark's ghost to paradise.

Gaojun awakens from a nightmare about Ding Lan and his mother appearing in front of him in his bedroom. When Wei Qing suggested he should ask Shouxue about it, he tells him not to. Gaojun comes to Ye Ming Palace, anyway, and asks Shouxue about a ghost with silver hair haunting the inner palace, under the willow tree south of Huaniang's palace. Shouxue thinks it is Luan Bingyue, the grandson of the previous emperor known for his skills in sorcery. It is around this time that Qing snapped at Shouxue for how she speaks with Gaojun, even going as far as warning her that he also knows of her secret. The next day, Dan Hai reports to Gaojun about Luan Bingyue's adopted father Feng Yixing, a sorcerer. Qing volunteers to help look into the matter.

Meanwhile, Shouxue finds out that the unsettled spirit under the willow tree is not that of Bingyue, but that of a woman with an agate ornament. Gaojun granted her permission to check the storehouse for something similar, and in secret, as only eunuchs and the Emperor are allowed inside it. Qing found himself in the red-light district looking for Yixing, where he faced his past. He runs away from the place and eventually going back to Emperor Gaojun's palace, where he sees him facing the ghosts of Ding Lan and his mother. After Gaojun asks him to make some tea, he reports that he was unable to find the sorcerer. Gaojun says he's done enough. The next day Qing comes to apologize to Shouxue, though she apologizes herself. It is here that Qing asks for help about the apparitions haunting Emperor Gaojun in his bedroom. And on her way to the storehouse in Ningguang Palace, she smells something familiar.

• This episode also reveals Qing's sorrowful and tormented past. After his mother committed suicide, he decided to become an eunuch, but was tricked into becoming a male prostitute. escaping the brothel where he was, he met a young Gaojun, who sheltered him and appointed him as his assistant, as well as giving him his current name and surname.

Yuyi, the storehouse keeper, shows her a red jade pendant, that of Princess Mingzhu, the beautiful second princess of the former dynasty, which is the same pendant she saw on the ghost under the willow tree. According to Yuyi, she refused to be taken alive by imperial guards wanting to kill her by committing suicide under a willow tree. Yuyi also shows the dagger Mingzhu used to kill herself, and a portrait of Mingzhu beside that of Luan Bingyue. Shouxue notices a glass comb on the portrait which, according to Yuyi, was never found. Gaojun is informed of this. He also thinks Qing told her of the apparitions in his bedroom, but Shouxue lied her way through by saying its because of a strange odor coming from his bedroom. After asking Xue Yuyong about a document containing information related to the Raven Consort, written by a certain Baiyan, which is falsified by the first Luan Emperor, Gaojun demands the truth, and finds out that there's another "shuangtongdian" (historical records) passed down from one emperor to another which contains the one true origins of the Raven Consort.

After disarming the shard out of the possessed Jiu-jiu's hands, Shouxue tears Bingyue out of her and almost exterminated him with her powers when Gaojun stopped her, and eventually listened to what he says. Bingyue asks for Shouxue's help with the ghost of his aunt Mingzhu, his lover (because they are of different fathers). When he was beheaded by Yandi during the Luan purge, he was doomed to wander as a ghost. He sees the ghost of Mingzhu, but as if she can't hear him and can't talk to her, preventing her from sending her to Paradise. Failing to find his master Feng and Yandi, he possessed many sorcerers in an attempt to communicate with Mingzhu until he hears there is a new Raven Consort and a Luan at that. On the way to the willow tree, Shouxue asks Bingyue about a glass comb, which he says is a symbol of his engagement to her, and that it's lost. Shouxue finds the comb buried under the willow tree, probably buried by Mingzhu herself. Through Shouxue's powers, she returned the comb on Mingzhu's hair, and that enables Bingyue to talk to her, and goes into Paradise together.

After a mysterious veiled woman with a scent worn by a mourning person came to Shouxue asking in vain if she could resurrect someone, a Hadan eunuch named Yi Siha came to ask for help about a ghost that appears at Feiyan palace, that of a young eunuch. Siha came to Shouxue as a last resort since no one would believe him, and also caused him to be caned. She paid a visit to the palace, dropping by the scaredycat Swallow Consort Chang Huangying for permission, careful not to scare her. The ghost, standing on a bridge, seems to be apologizing with a blue feather in hand. Sensing the sadness in the ghost, she wondered if Siha's master knows of something. She caught Kang Lang, Siha's master, caning Siha, for simply saying he saw a ghost. She then asks him about a Hadan eunuch who died at Feiyan Palace and whose ghost is roaming around the place. Denying it at first for fear of upsetting the Swallow Consort, he said something out of fear when he saw something in Shouxue's eyes. It is about a eunuch who fell in love with a consort. She then scolded him for using harsh punishments.

She asked Gaojun about it that night, as well as the dead eunuch's master; and talked to him about the harsh punishments doled out to erring new eunuchs. It is later revealed that the ghost is that of Yuisha, an executed eunuch. His friend Shiyan reveals the details: Yuisha offered a blue swallow's feather to the consort of Feiyan Palace, which was periodically followed by more but the consort got bored of it. Obsessed, Yuisha began to pluck every bird he caught in his traps. A blue swallow accidentally died in one of his traps, which is punishable by death if it happened within the palace walls.

During dark, moonless nights, it is usual for Shouxue to sleep in tearing pain as she is unable to keep Niao Lian within her body. On that same night, after seeing Niao Lian flying in the sky, Feng Xiao Xue, a student of Master Feng Xiying, wanted to go to the inner palace. He promised to introduce him to a connection, not knowing that Xiao Xue has plans to kill the Raven Consort. Meanwhile, as she recovers from that night by teaching Yi Siha, her new stead, how to write, Gaojun gets suspicious about the reason why she forbade him from visiting that night, and asks Xue Yuyong about her.

The next night, a court lady named An Huilan comes to ask Shouxue help about hearing voices from within the water, that of Xi Wanlin, dubbed the Magpie Princess, and the consort she once served who, on the day before the emperor is to visit her, she finds her slippers by the lake and assumed that she drowned in it, and that she started hearing the voices after being sent to the wash house as a laundry woman. After a little background investigation of her own, Shouxue visits Quechao Palace, and finds Huilan at the edge of the lake. She says that Huilan did not really like Wanlin because of what really happened: Huilan's lover, a young visiting bookseller, broke into her room, was arrested, and beheaded on the spot.

News of a cursed cloth mask which enables a person to see a ghost that turns around with the sound of a five-stringed lute comes to the attention of Gaojun through a scholar named He Mingyun, just as he hears of news from Chancellor Yun Yongde that a eunuch from Feiyan Palace (which could probably be Yi Siha's former master, after seeing that "monster" in her eyes) claims to be cursed by the Raven Consort. Gaojun leaves as Yongde warns him about associating with the Raven Consort. Meanwhile, Yue Yuyong comes to tell Shouxue of not doing as she is told, though she defends herself, saying it's not as if she likes it.

That night, Gaojun comes to show the cursed cloth mask, which he purchased, to Shouxue. She did a little investigation, which involved asking Wen Ying to summon the Red Sparrow troupe, but they already left the capital. Gaojun, however, says that there's a five-stringed lute in the imperial archives, handled by a musician named Zuoqiu Yao. He identified the ghost as that of Qifu Shicui, a musician obsessed with the five-stringed lute who got less and less performance requests due to his selfish behavior. He then spent his days playing in the Baoer Workshop until he grew emaciated and his fingers bleeding from playing it. Yao had stopped him by taking his lute away and locking him in, only to find him dead hanging from the ceiling the next day. The sound of his lute was heard even after his funeral, which stopped when he burned the lute.

A court lady runs for her life, away from an unknown creature that killed her later. The next day, news of the dead woman on the foot of a fallen tree, that of the court lady from Quechao Palace, reaches Shouxue, and, after asking Dan Hai, deduced it was a human who did it. Meanwhile over a board game, Gaojun talks to Xue Yuyong on how to break the Raven Consort's constraints when Shouxue, in eunuch garb, arrives, and knows of Yuyong's plans to retire from his position. When she asks Gaojun about the slain court lady, Wei Qing mentions the name Xue Cheng, which leads to the Magpie Consort, who has been mourning the loss of her brother, and Gaojun is considering sending her back to her parents, but hesitates because of the politics behind it. After words of warning from Yuyong not to be too friendly with the Emperor, Shouxue asks Wen Ying to look into the Magpie Consort.

After helping Xue Cheng's ghost to cross into paradise, Wen Ying comes to report, and finds out that the Magpie Consort is bedridden and allows no one but a chosen eunuch and certain person to enter. Shouxue is shocked to find out that the person is that "owl" she saw on the night Niao Lian roamed freely, and knows of his name. Qing also reports of strange slurping, groaning noises coming out of the Magpie Consort's bedchamber. Asking to be alone, she knows the "owl" is out there, ready to kill her, and is causing her to feel down, even with Huanniang coming to visit, offering her support.

Shouxue came to return the shawl to Qin Huiyao, the Magpie Consort, as Feng Xiao Xue simply vanished into a room. According to her, after failing to ask that favor from Shouxue, Xiao Xue appeared before her and allegedly was able to fulfil her wish of bringing her dead elder brother to life by the use of some sorcery involving a bit of her brother's hair and some dirt. Searching for the clay doll which Huiyao thinks is her brother, they enter a room and come across buckets of what looks like human blood; and find Wen Ying inside, unconscious but alive. Huiyao tries in vain to stop them simply because she's weak and Shouxue can smell him, or rather his clay doll zombie. The zombie appears, nearly attacking Shouxue, but Ying and an entering Dan Hai try to subdue it. It's actually going berserk because, according to Huiyao, it will return to a clump of dirt if not given human blood, which Huiyao readily gives it by slashing her arm and allowing it to suck her blood, and the reason why she is weak and emaciated. Huiyao later admits that it was her "brother" who attacked and killed the court lady who was found dead in the forest after she came across them by accident on the night when it went full berserk. Shouxue says Xiao Yue didn't bring him to life, but merely created a soulless moving clay doll. Further denial costs her her life when the zombie bites her in the neck. Shouxue uses her powers to stab the zombie with a magical arrow and pulls the clump of hair from the clay doll, which promptly crumbles afterwards.

Dan Hai later reports to Shouxue that Xiao Xue is nowhere to be found. Gaojun promises Shouxue to find him. On the way back to Ningguang, Gaojun suddenly turns around and returns. The reason: at that time, Shouxue goes to confront Xiao Xue, or rather, his vessel. The vessel was actually sent by the real Xiao Xue from The Palace of Seclusion, from the land across the sea where the gods are said to reside, as an executioner of the "thing" inside of Shouxue (referring to Niao Lian), and is here to execute his "sister", namely what is inside of her. He also introduces Simalu, said to be the Raven's original niaobu (familiar). He is actually watching her for a long time because any direct interference on that island, a place where those banished from the Palace of Seclusion are exiled, by him is forbidden. He also says that the Owl and the Raven were originally one but split in two from a bubble, one became the Executioner and the other became the Guide for the Spirits of the Dead. Apparently the guide was tempted by the dead to call a soul back to the mortal world and revive it, which is a grave sin. He waited for a thousand years to find the perfect time to slay the Raven and finds it, but this means killing the vessel (Shouxue).

Shouxue fainted after the encounter with Xiao Xue, where Gaojun had a light scratch after saving her. While unconscious, Xiao Xue appeared, telling that she's already halfway to becoming the Raven, and about the "poisonous" flowers Xiang Qiang had been feeding them. She awakens when Yi Siha appears calling her a "monster," and Xue Yuyong repeating his warning to her. Before leaving, Gaojun gives Shouxue a wooden replica of the fish amulet to stand by as a substitute. As Xing-Xing returns, Shouxue remembers the name Xiao Xue mentioned, implying that Xing-Xing was once called "Halala." As they mourned the death of the Magpie Consort at Quechao, Gaojun asks Huaniang to look after the other consorts, so that it will never happen again.

Later, at Ningguang, Wei Qing returns to report to Gaojun about Xiao Xue's collaborator. Gaojun is shocked to find out his identity, as eunuchs looked for him at Xianghao. At the same night Xue Yuyong goes to Ye Ming to chat with Shouxue. After reminiscing his days with Li Nang, Shouxue asks when will Yuyong draw the blade he's been hiding—Yuyong came to Ye Ming to kill her. She is bracing for the stab when Emperor Gaojun grabs him from behind, revealing that he is the collaborator who snuck Xiao Xue's animated clay doll into the inner palace. But Yuyong says it is not for him to decide, but rather it is fate that dictated him to kill her, even if Gaojun says she saw him as a friend. He eventually reveals part of the reason why he wanted to kill her, and that is because of his jealousy towards Shouxue, who is blessed with companions, unlike his best friend Li Niang, the previous Raven Consort. Emperor Gaojun corrected his claim of Li Niang spending her days alone, because, with Shouxue around, she really was not. Gaojun allowed him to leave as a retired person.