LayarHijau – Tencent has released the final episode of the costume drama The Princess’s Gambit (桃花映江山), delivering an emotional, romantic ending that left viewers in tears. The final scene, where Liu Xueyi and Meng Ziyi embrace under a rain of peach blossoms, has gone viral, while the drama maintains a strong showing in Netflix Taiwan’s rankings, placing 8th as of July 14, 2025.
⚠️ This article contains major spoilers for the final episode of The Princess’s Gambit.
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In the finale, the powerful Daqi minister Shen Zaiye (Liu Xueyi) joins forces with Princess Jiang Taohua of Beiyuan (Meng Ziyi) and the Fourth Prince (Bian Cheng) to dismantle the political conspiracy led by the ambitious Third Prince (Gao Han) and the manipulative Empress Lü (Huang Mengying). On the day of the Third Prince’s wedding to Empress Lü, their plot is exposed and the emperor is safely rescued. In a shocking twist, Empress Lü abandons the Third Prince during their escape and sets him ablaze, fleeing alone back to Beiyuan to seize power.
With pressure from Shen Zaiye and the Fourth Prince, the emperor finally clears the name of Shen’s family, which had been wrongly exterminated. Shen then travels with Jiang Taohua to Beiyuan to help her brother, Jiang Changjue (Zhan Yu), ascend the throne. But peace comes at a cost—Shen Zaiye falls into a coma after secretly testing a deadly poison meant for Jiang Taohua, severely damaging his body in the process.
Desperate to save him, Jiang Taohua prays for a rare moonlit flower, which is needed for the antidote. She devotes herself to caring for him, waiting in silence for days. Just as the peach tree outside begins shedding its blossoms, she reaches out to touch one—only for another hand to join hers. It’s Shen, awake at last, smiling at her. In the drama’s emotional final shot, the two embrace beneath the falling petals, their love story finally finding peace.
Liu Xueyi and Meng Ziyi’s electric on-screen chemistry has driven much of the drama’s emotional pull. One particularly talked-about moment—an intense bedroom kiss scene—sparked buzz online, especially after the actors watched the scene together in a livestream. Meng Ziyi’s visibly flustered reaction delighted fans and spread widely on social media.
According to a report by Upmedia, The Princess’s Gambit received more mixed reviews compared to the more tightly structured A Dream within A Dream (书梦), but nevertheless achieved significant commercial success. A magazine featuring Liu and Meng reportedly sold over 6 million copies within just one hour.
Before The Princess’s Gambit, Meng Ziyi had already drawn attention with her leading role in Blossom (紫川九层), a drama in which she starred alongside Li Yunrui. The two are set to reunite again in the upcoming period drama Tigers Sniff the Rose, expected to begin filming this September. With a string of well-received performances, many netizens now refer to Meng Ziyi as the “goddess of Chinese dramas.”
