Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Bong-hwan's recovery brings an unsettling change: So-yong's memories and feelings keep interrupting his thoughts. He tries to resist them, unwilling to surrender his identity inside her body. Cheoljong visits the queen at her family home, where the encounters between them are complicated by Byeong-in's feelings for her. Byeong-in makes his hostility toward the king increasingly plain, treating Cheoljong as someone from whom So-yong needs protection.
The house also contains traces of a childhood that connects Cheoljong, So-yong and Hwa-jin. Seeing the well distresses the king, and the queen helps steady him while Hwa-jin fears what he might remember. Bong-hwan challenges Hwa-jin about the past, calling her claim to So-yong's place into question. Back at the palace, the Queen Dowager gives Hwa-jin a jade hairpin, drawing her further into the struggle between the court's rival women.
Cheoljong secretly searches the house and encounters the scarred eunuch, whose arrival turns the quiet rooms into a fight. Bong-hwan intervenes but strikes the king with a ceramic pot while trying to help him. With Byeong-in approaching, Cheoljong and the queen cover their dangerous situation by kissing. The display stops the immediate intrusion, yet it also draws on feelings Bong-hwan is finding harder to separate from So-yong's own.