[23] It was later confirmed to be a television series produced by Bandai Namco Pictures and directed by Chizuru Miyawaki, with Satomi Ooshima overseeing the scripts, Shinji Takeuchi adapting Ayuko's character designs for animation, and Asami Tachibana composing the music.

[25][3] 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

She paid a visit to the palace, dropping by the scaredycat Swallow Consort Chang Huangying for permission, careful not to scare her.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.