Love Song For Illusion – K-drama Episode 4 Recap & Review

The Murder of King Sajo Seung

Episode 4 of Love Song For Illusion starts where we left off, with Gye-ra and the Crown Prince/Ak-hee meeting at night after the Bonghamsal ritual and Gye-ra returning her memories. Although she feels rage and wants to stab him, she does not but instead chooses to pretend like she still has lost her memories.

In a flashback, we learn that Chung Ta changed the ritual to locking up Ak-hee and not the Crown Prince, but we are still not sure whether the person we see is the Crown Prince or Ak-hee after the ritual. Chung-ta runs into Eunuch Neung and tells him about the ritual, but when Neung enters the Crown Prince’s room, he responds like Ak-hee, making Neung terrified. 

Gye-ra decides to stay at the Palace until she gets her revenge and kills Sajo Seung. That night, she secretly enters the King’s bedchamber and witnesses his nightmares, in which Gye-ra’s mother haunts him. Eunuchs, the Grand Prince, the Crown Princess, guards, and physicians enter the room when the King becomes delirious, and Gye-ra aborts the mission. She heads to the secret base but is afraid to face Ha-rang and Jae-yi since she failed the mission.

Gye-ra heads back to the Palace and accompanies the Crown Prince to see the King the following day. Her knowledge of medicine helps the King, and she earns the Crown Prince a favour in the King’s eyes. After they leave the King’s chamber, on the way back, the Crown Prince notices Gye-ra’s confusion about whether the person in front of her is Ak-hee or Sajo Hyun.

When he asks her about it, she says that she knows about the evil spirit and that sometimes the Crown Prince is as cold as ice and other times extremely hot. However, when she touches the one next to her now, he is neither hot nor cold, so she cannot tell who he is. Regardless, Gye-ra has a grudge on both of them; Ak-hee for erasing her memories and Sajo Hyun since he is the son of his sworn enemy.

Later that day, while walking, she runs into Sajo Yoong, and he drops a tablet. She picks it up and realises that Sajo Yoong tried to kill her, and she wonders who is by her side. 

The Crown Prince visited Chung Ta, and we learned that the ritual was successful. Chung Ta locked up Ak-hee, and the one who came out was the Crown Prince. He wants to know why Ak-hee erased Gye-ra’s memories, but Chung Ta is sworn to secrecy, so he does not reveal it.

After leaving Chung Ta’s mountain, Chung Ta sends him a note telling the Crown Prince to stay away from Gye-ra. Eunuch Neung tells him that Gye-ra might have feelings for Ak-hee since he treated her better, and the Crown Prince wonders if Gye-ra is Ak-hee’s woman. 

 The Crown Prince swears he will be better than Ak-hee and not show weakness. He starts by attending the assembly and giving the King a suggestion on how to deal with the issue of increased theft and arson by people experiencing poverty in the capital. He suggests they make them work in the fields as punishment and take a percentage of the harvest.

King Sajo orders the officials to follow the Crown Prince’s suggestion and breaks the assembly. Sajo Yoong is surprised by the Crown Prince’s appearance and asks that the next time he wants to attend the assembly, he should tell him so he can prepare a space.

However, the Crown Prince reminds him that he and the King are supposed to lead the assembly. Therefore, the Crown Prince does not need his permission, which makes Sajo Yoong furious. Later that night, he meets up with his secret army, and Gye-ra secretly follows him.

Consort Cheong Myeong informs Crown Princess Geum-hwa about Gye-ra’s disappearance into the woods during the day and her return looking dirty. We learn that Gye-ra looks for medicinal herbs to prepare concoctions for His Majesty. Consort Cheong tells Geum-hwa about the aroma of herbs coming from Gye-ra chamber, and the following day, Hong Goon finds the concoctions they left boiling on the stove knocked over.

However, Gye-ra is unsurprised since she anticipated it and spent the whole night preparing the medicine. She sends a letter to the Crown Prince asking him to meet her outside the King’s Chamber. The King refuses to take the medication, fearing that it might lead to his death, but the Crown Prince defends Gye-ra. He shows Gye-ra’s hands and tells him she spent the whole day looking for medicine in the rough mountains.

Therefore, if the King will not take it, the Crown Prince will. The King says that the Crown Prince is head over heels in love with Gye-ra and thinks he might be meeting his grandson soon. The news about the King’s comment reaches the Crown Princess. 

The King appreciates Gye-ra’s medical skills and requests the Crown Prince to allow him to call her occasionally for medical consultation. Gye-ra agrees after the Crown Prince asks if she will accept the request. Suddenly, Sajo Yoong arrives and informs the King about a wolf and boars migration the following day. They agree to go on a hunt, and the Crown Prince says he will join them.

Later, Gye-ra finds the Crown Prince practising at the indoor arena and asks why he does not shoot arrows outside. At first, he is rude and asks Gye-ra to leave, but then he opens up, saying that he dislikes the sound of slashing through the wind. Gye-ra gives him some pointers on how to silence the sound of the wind, which helps Sajo Hyun shoot on target. However, he still asks Gye-ra to leave since he will never be at peace as long as she is around.

During the hunt, the Crown Prince recalls Gye-ra’s words and can concentrate but still chooses not to kill the boar. However, Sajo Yoong kills it and pretends that the Crown Prince did, but Sajo Hyun does not agree to take the credit. When King Sajo arrives, he tells him it was Yoong’s Kill. The King shoots an arrow piercing the tip of Yoong’s ear and tells him that if he dares mock his son again, the next time, the arrow will go through his head. 

The day of the hunt coincides with the death anniversary of Sajo Hyun’s mother. We learn that his father had her poisoned to death because she was against King Sajo’s seizure of the throne and the massacre of the royal family.

Sajo Hyun tells Gye-ra that nobody knows about his mother’s death because nobody is supposed to remember her. Hyun tells Gye-ra about the hunt, that it did not go well, and that he is back to square one. He also tells her that Ak-hee has been sealed away but says she can blame him for Ak-hee’s actions since his weakness allowed Ak-hee to take over his body.

Sajo Hyun opens up to Gye-ra about the trauma that followed after he witnessed the massacre when he was young, and that is why he hates the sound of ripping through the wind. He remembers the young girl he could not save, just like he could not keep his mother.

The eyes of the little girl are vivid in his mind, especially when he hears the slashing of the wind. Hyun believes that the heavens punished him due to the massacre, and an evil spirit possessed his body. Gye-ra gets emotional to hear that Sajo Hyun remembers the day her family died, and it became a wound for him, just like how it was for her. She hugs him, allowing his tears to fall, and he hugs her back. 

Sajo Yoong helps the King back to his chamber, and King Sajo tells him to be content with what he has and not try to overtake his son. The King says he has bastard sons all over the country, and his only real son and the heir to the throne is Sajo Hyun. Sajo Yoong reminded the King of when he wished Hyun and Yoong were switched, and Yoong was his real son, the heir, and the Crown Prince.

King Sajo laughs sarcastically that Yoong believed his words when the King was only trying to provoke his son. Yoong asks King Sajo how much effort he needs to display for the King to see him as his son, but the King shares an astounding revelation: Sajo Yoong is not even his real son. The King tells him that taking him in and making him a Grand Prince when he is not even his blood is generous enough. 

As Sajo Yoong furiously walks out of the King’s Chamber, we see flashes of the past when he was younger and he saw his mother with another man. Sajo Yoong’s saddle gets loose, and he realises that he has lost his tablet and that Gye-ra has it. He decides to expose her by sending a note to the Crown Princess’s father with a drawing of the dagger that will show that she is Yeong Poong-hak’s daughter.

The Crown Princess barges into Hyun’s room when he rehearses how to ask Gye-ra to stay and shows him the note asking him to search Gye-ra’s pavilion immediately. At this time, Gye-ra is with the King, and she is contemplating killing him. However, she does not for Sajo Hyun’s sake and decides to leave the Palace. 

Gye-ra and Sajo Hyun meet outside the King’s chamber, and she tells him the truth about who she is and her intentions at the Palace. She also tells him that her memories returned and asks that she leave the Palace. However, a guard reports that King Sajo is dead, and when they go back to the chamber, they find a needle sticking out of his throat. At the end of the episode, Sajo Hyun confronts Gye-ra, who says that she did not kill him. 

The Episode Review

This episode suggests that Sajo Yoong wants the throne and is willing to do anything to get it. Did he kill the King to frame Gye-ra? So much happened after he realised that Gye-ra had taken the tablet he lost and she might know about his secret army. However, how will killing the King get him what he wants? With the King dead, the one to become King is Sajo Hyun. Probably, Yoong has plans to kill him, too, or start a coup.

What will happen to Gye-ra? Will Sajo Hyun believe that she did not kill the King? At this point, it is hard to tell whether the show is about Gye-ra’s revenge, romance, or power struggles within the court. Will Ak-hee escape from Bonghamsal? What is Ak-hee’s relevance in the story?