Li Ji Legend 骊姬传奇

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The Jin princes Zhong Er and Yi Wu, having lost their way while hunting, strayed into the enemy kingdom of Lirong and were captured as spies. The old Jin king, who had long harbored ambitions of annexing Lirong, used this as a pretext to send troops and seize Lirong — unaware that the two princes had already escaped danger with the help of the Lirong princesses Li Lan and Li Duo, and that deep feelings had already grown between them. On the brink of the kingdom's fall, only the fierce protection of Zhong Er and Yi Wu saved the sisters from being killed.
After the sisters were brought back to Jin, the king, for the sake of his sons' futures, firmly opposed Zhong Er and Yi Wu marrying princesses of an enemy kingdom, and repeatedly sought to put them to death. Only because of Zhong Er and Yi Wu's interference did the sisters escape death again and again. But when the king saw Li Lan and Li Duo, he was struck by their beauty and decided to take both sisters as concubines. This move not only met with fierce opposition from Yi Wu, Zhong Er and the heir prince Shensheng, but also plunged the sisters into unbearable agony. Only because they could not forget the hatred of a fallen kingdom and their family, and because of the guidance of the attendant You Shi, did they fail in their suicide attempt and were forced to marry the aged Jin king. The sorrowful and despairing Yi Wu, seeing no way to change matters, planned to elope with the younger princess Li Duo, but the king found out; in a rage he stabbed Li Duo to death and banished Yi Wu from the palace to guard the frontier at Qucheng.
The cruel death of her sister dealt Li Lan yet another devastating blow — she fainted away weeping at the grave. You Shi, who had originally planned for Li Lan to bear a son so that he might one day inherit the throne and thus achieve revenge and restore the kingdom, took advantage of her unconsciousness and raped her. Zhong Er arrived too late to discover the crime, but grew suspicious. To fulfill his wish of remaining long in the Jin palace, You Shi asked to be castrated and became a eunuch. Perhaps it was the will of heaven — Li Lan did conceive and bore a son. The king, thinking it was a child of his old age, was overjoyed and feasted his ministers; only Zhong Er and his good friend Jie Zi-Tui knew that the boy named Xi Zi was of uncertain origin. Li Lan, who loved only Zhong Er, after giving birth felt she had wronged him, yet under You Shi's constant urging she pressed ever harder to carry out their plan of revenge.
When word reached the capital that the deeply shaken Yi Wu had been gravely wounded in Qucheng by a Lirong woman, Zhong Er immediately set out for Qucheng to visit him. Taking advantage of Zhong Er's absence, You Shi set a romantic trap, and the honest, good-natured Shensheng, unaware of the scheme, walked step by step into the snare. The king, mistakenly believing that Shensheng had molested Li Lan, in a rage, against the objections of his wife and the entire court, exiled Shensheng to Quwo. On the way, under pressure from the treacherous minister Liang Wu, the despairing Shensheng hanged himself in a country inn.
The Jin queen poured all the grief of losing her son onto Li Lan: after a savage beating, still unsated, she ordered the returned Zhong Er to stab Li Lan to death, but because his feelings for her still lived, Zhong Er could not bring himself to do it. The narrow-minded queen not only failed to kill Li Lan but was herself destroyed by her — and Li Lan got her wish, becoming the Jin queen.
Because the king also had doubts about Xi Zi's origins, he did not make him heir. When Yi Wu learned of the upheavals in the palace, he immediately returned to the capital; having been wounded by a Lirong woman, he hated the Lirong people to the bone and vowed to eliminate Li Lan and her son and help his elder brother Zhong Er ascend the throne. But because Zhong Er opposed his recklessness and disrespect toward their father, the two brothers became enemies. Yi Wu turned to seeking the throne for himself: seizing Xi Zi, he forced his father to abdicate, but Zhong Er shattered his plan, and Yi Wu had to flee to the state of Qin.
Because Zhong Er saved Xi Zi's life again and again, and after many encounters with life and death, the feelings between Li Lan and Zhong Er deepened further. To show her love for Zhong Er, Li Lan was even willing to kill her son and abandon the plan of revenge. Though she could not bring herself to do it, Zhong Er was deeply moved. At last he could no longer restrain himself and fell at Li Lan's feet.
Their passion, surging forth like a river beyond all restraint, not only alarmed You Shi but also aroused the king's intense displeasure. To avoid the fate of being driven out by his father, the deeply remorseful Zhong Er had no choice but to leave the kingdom with Jie Zi-Tui and a dozen attendants, embarking on a life of exile with no country to turn to and no home to return to. Several years later he was forced to settle in Chu and took the Chu princess Cheng Yu as his wife.
The Jin king naturally hoped to pass the throne to Zhong Er; because his son repeatedly refused to return, he fell into melancholy and illness, and in the end, aged and stricken, he collapsed from a stroke. You Shi, who had suffered humiliation ever since entering the Jin palace, immediately saw hope for revenge. Colluding with Liang Wu, he used eight highly skilled Lirong women he had recruited from Lirong to seize control of the palace and kill the Jin king. Only because Li Lan opposed Xi Zi's succession did You Shi have to keep the news of the king's death strictly secret. Li Lan tried to send word outside the palace so that Zhong Er would return home at once, but her plan was foiled by You Shi. To put his son on the throne as quickly as possible, You Shi did not shrink from threatening to burn Xi Zi alive; to save the boy's life, Li Lan was forced to bring her son to the hall, announce the king's death and install her son on the throne.
The Chu king told Zhong Er the news and forced him to return home to seize the throne. What You Shi and Liang Wu feared most was Yi Wu and Zhong Er returning to contest the throne, and they had long since set an ambush. After beating back Yi Wu, they nearly killed Zhong Er as well; only the aid of the great general Li Ke saved his life. Li Ke returned to the capital, contacted the ministers at court, gathered men, first executed Liang Wu, then led troops into the palace and killed You Shi and that "Jin king" of uncertain origin; he was about to kill Li Lan too when Zhong Er returned to the palace and saved her. After ascending the throne, Zhong Er could not forget his old love, but for the sake of his reputation and the kingdom, Li Lan had to part from him in pain and quietly returned to Lirong. Zhong Er pursued her to Lirong but could not have his wish.