[SPOILERS AHEAD] Against the Current 兰香如故 has completed a very successful run, hitting over 33000 heat index on Tencent, the highest on the platform in 2026. Given all the attention, it’s also the most-spoiled drama with the rumored ending trending several times as it was airing. And now that the finale is here, turns out all those spoilers were actually TRUE. Unlike the novel, where the main couple get their happy ending, death has separated our drama couple. Lin Jinqi (Liu Xueyi) passed away from illness at the age of fifty while the heroine Xu Lanxiang (Tan Songyun) lives until her eighties.
The villain Du Cuique (Zheng He Hui Zi) dies pretty early. Working with pirates after faking her death, she sees her sinister plans foiled and dies after being set ablaze. The widowed Lin Xiuru (Ma Fanding) gets her revenge. By the finale, it’s the New Year’s but Lin Jinqi who has retired from his post has not yet returned. The royal court once again reveals its ruthless side through Han Liang’s (Niu Junfeng) tragic fate. Having offended the Grand Emperor, he is ordered to wait outside on a snowy night and ultimately freezes to death.
Time skips to six months later and Lin Jinqi is finally reunited with Lanxiang and their two kids. After a few happy scenes, years pass and their daughter is now sixteen. However, it’s clear that Lin Jinqi has reached the end of his life by then due to old injuries. He takes out a red thread and wraps it around both of them saying that whether she’s Shen Jialan or Xu Lanxiang, she’s always been the same person and they must meet again in their next lives.
After losing the man she loves, Xu Lanxiang takes charge of the Lin family and we see the time skip to her as a grandmother. Everyone around her has passed, but their stories remain. Her granddaughter walks up to her and we learn that Xu Lanxiang has continued writing plays to preserve the truth of what happened to the Shen family. In the end, she dies peacefully in her sleep. It is not until a hundred years later that the Shen family is exonerated and their case officially overturned.
