List of Against the Tide episodes

After gathering all the evidence, Jianfeng realised that Xueqing was the mastermind, she killed Jingxuan. Heartbroken, Jianfeng gave Xueqing a chance to turn in. Dingkang suddenly appeared, capturing Xueqing and Di Yao. He wanted Di Shen and Xueqing to pay the price for killing Jingxuan. Then, a fierce fight began…

In detail:

• Xueqing plots revenge

Xueqing (Rui En), sitting alone in the balcony in Di Shen's room, begins to overturn the items in the box, and pulls out a pistol.

• Di Yao/Scarlet suffers a schizophrenia relapse

Late at night, Scarlet (Carrie Wong), who appears to have reverted to her own hairstyle, is seen to return after shopping for clothes. The next day, Jianfeng (Desmond Tan) helps Yongjun (Qiu Wen) at the provision shop and have tea, recounting his childhood memories. Scarlet, in her own room, receives a call from Xueqing in her service centre room, only to be accused of the murders of He Hailiang and Zhang Jingxuan. Xueqing utters "Conscience Unleashed", unlocking the cage Di Yao (Carrie Wong) was trapped in and ensuing a struggle between Di Yao and Scarlet in her conscience, and causing her in the real world to suffer a schizophrenia relapse, attracting the attention of Di Shen. When he came into her room, Di Yao asks why she is not in the mental hospital, but Scarlet in Di Yao's body rushes to get a kitchen knife with the intention to kill Xueqing. Di Shen gives chase, but Scarlet injures Di Shen's hand. Both of them separate at the back alley, with Scarlet hiding in the corner, but the latter gets a relapse again. Jianfeng meets Xueqing at the service centre and goes out together; the latter being targeted by Dingkang (Zhang Zhenhuan).

• Xueqing admits her murders; gets kidnapped by Zhuo Dingkang

While Di Shen is looking for Xueqing, Jianfeng and Xueqing return to the crime scene of He Hailiang's death. Jianfeng deduces that Jingxuan is not Shadow Walker, and concludes Xueqing murdered He Hailiang (Zhang Wen Xiang), revealing that he still has Jingxuan's recording Xueqing has deleted. He wants her to surrender, but Xueqing, when she was hugging him, snatches his gun from the back, trying to shoot him. She could not bring herself to do so; Jianfeng lowers the pistol down, and comforts her. Jianfeng travels Xueqing to the police station, promising to find evidence to accuse Di Shen of killing Qiu Gangzheng, but Dingkang crashes his car, bringing Xueqing to his car. He implicitly warns Jianfeng not to follow, otherwise he will kill Xueqing, and drives off. Dingkang gives a call to Di Shen, revealing that he kidnapped Di Yao and Xueqing, and give him an hour to find Hong Qiming (Ding Sen Yan), who was suspected of killing a 24-year-old woman a year ago but was acquitted.

• Di Shen punishes Hong Qiming

Dingkang accuses Xueqing of killing Jingxuan, who he loves and wants to spend his life with. He went outside and vents his sadness. It was revealed that Jianfeng had an internal injury from the car accident earlier; Di Shen told him not to send reinforcements in order not to harm Xueqing and Di Yao even more. Di Shen finds Hong Qiming and traps him to the boot of his jeep, and was ordered by Dingkang to be brought to the scene of the kidnap in 20 minutes. Jianfeng, who has just arrived, gives him his bulletproof police vest and his pistol. Di Shen brings Hong Qiming to a vacated room in the scene of the kidnap, where Shadow Walker (Dingkang) announces the live recording of Hong Qiming's punishment, with Di Shen and Hong Qiming appearing in the recording, with the intention of framing Di Shen as Shadow Walker. Hong Qiming gets two shots by Di Shen - first on his left shoulder, then on his chest. A still-injured Jianfeng arrives shortly after, and frees Hong Qiming, who survived wearing Jianfeng's bulletproof vest.

• Di Yao gets comatosed; Jianfeng kills Dingkang before he dies

Di Shen barges into where Xueqing and Di Yao were kidnapped. Dingkang orders Di Shen to put his revolver down, and wants him to choose between Xueqing and Di Yao. Under pressure, Di shen chose Xueqing. Dingkang initially wants to kill Xueqing, but regrets his decision, and targets Di Yao; Jianfeng suddenly captures Dingkang, and gets into a gunfire struggle. In this ensuing struggle, Di Yao is being thrown to the ground level, and Jianfeng shoots Dingkang. Jianfeng then collapses, vomiting a pool of blood, and truly expresses to Xueqing that he still loves the good Xueqing before he dies. In the aftermath, Di Yao is sent to the hospital where she is hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit due to her being diagnosed comatose.

• The final battle

At night, Xueqing is sitting alone in Di Shen's room when Di Shen returns back. She admits that she intends to seek revenge by killing everyone associated with Di Shen and leaves him with his own problems, and makes it clear that Di Yao is not innocent since she is responsible for the murder of He Hailiang. She wants to kill Di Shen using a pistol but cannot bring herself to do so as they remembers the times they shared together. After she recites Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote of "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, hate cannot drive out hate, only love can", she tries to commit suicide by pulling the trigger...

• Di Shen and Xueqing reunite

The plot goes back to 7 years ago, where Di Shen went into Qiu Gangzheng's funeral and apologized to Xueqing. He is sentenced to jail; writing novels during his jail term. Upon his release, he went to the bookstore to read his own novels that were published, and meets Xueqing there. This is the ending of Di Shen's latest and final novel The Burning Snow, and reads the story firsthand to the comatose Di Yao whom he had brought back home, in hopes of waking her up. Xueqing is seeing consultations with a counselor, revealing to have lost her memory since that incident, and is gradually accepting who she is. As Di Shen walked out of his house in white, Di Yao's eyes opened for the first time. At the venue of Di Shen's book event, Di Shen and Xueqing pass by each other. It was revealed that Xueqing had survived the gunfire by being saved by Di Shen, but fell down the pool. Di Shen and Xueqing stopped in their tracks, look at each other and smiled.