Where the Mask Ends episode 2 recap: A Chou takes her place

In short

Wei Heng'e saves A Chou, a poor girl with the same face, from execution and pays her to marry Lu Zhuo. On the wedding night, he wakes up.

What happens in episode 2

A Chou washes clothes and carries night soil to support a sick mother, a younger brother and sister, and a gambling father. Her father sells her to a creditor. When the man threatens to sell her and her sister to a brothel, she kills him, and without money for a defense she is sentenced to death.

Wei Heng'e sees her in the street, notices the resemblance and buys her out. A Chou bargains hard: money, and a safe place for her mother and siblings. Guo Yufeng finds out and goes along with it, but secretly checks an old governess's room for something buried long ago. What she finds there settles her nerves for now.

A Chou enters the Duke of Ying's house wearing a gold hairpin crown and crimson robe granted by the palace. The girl she replaced is renamed Jun Dai and hidden at a hot-spring villa. A Chou's mother escapes with the children; her father is killed by the Wei family's men.

On the wedding night, the dying groom opens his eyes. The household calls it a miracle. A Chou only notices that he looks at her as if he wants to kill her.

Why it matters

The title's gold hairpin (金钗) is the crown she wears to the wedding, and the episode quietly hints that A Chou's resemblance is no accident.

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