Zetian questions her young maidservant, Shangguan Wan'er, learning that Qin Zheng deliberately chose newly hired servants without Gao loyalties. Wan'er reveals Qin Zheng's belief in 'laborism'—the doctrine that workers deserve the fruits of their labor and landlords are exploitative—and urges Zetian to use her position as empress to advocate for the peasantry. Suspecting a possible test, Zetian instead launches her own gambit: she refuses to eat until Qin Zheng returns her spirit armor and admits her into council meetings.

Days pass with Zetian wasting away, ignoring Wan'er's pleas. Qin Zheng eventually storms in, refusing the armor demand. Zetian counters that breaking his public promise to make her empress will undermine his image. He threatens Yizhi's life, having seen their relationship in her memories, and hints he has seen Yizhi behave in ways inconsistent with her impressions. Zetian refuses to let Yizhi be used as leverage, declaring she'll consider him already lost if Qin Zheng moves against him. Qin Zheng leaves frustrated, vaguely conceding she may roam later.

Continuing her hunger strike, Zetian hallucinates Shimin comforting her at her bedside. The vision is interrupted by a real attack: Liu Che, the boy pilot of the Azure Dragon still stranded in Chang'an, breaks in with a sword, having killed her guards. Zetian improvises—soaping the bathroom floor and tangling his sword in a towel—then flees into the hallway, where he catches and pins her.

Qin Zheng arrives with an entourage including Yizhi, now dressed in top-ranking purple official robes. Zetian and Yizhi exchange a charged but silent look; Yizhi is horrified at her starved state. Qin Zheng covers her with his cape, then brutally punishes Liu Che by snapping off his finger with Water qì for calling Zetian a 'whore,' a slur tied to Qin Zheng's mother. He then publicly decrees that Wu Zetian will be crowned Empress of Huaxia on the first day of the fourth month, declaring her vital to the war effort. Carrying her back to bed, Qin Zheng concedes she has won this round, and Zetian extracts the implicit acknowledgment that withholding her armor endangered her. She passes out.