The First Jasmine (莫离) Ending Explained: Is It a Happy or Sad Ending? What Happens to Ye Li and Mo Xiuyao

Quick answer: The First Jasmine (莫离, Mò Lí) has a happy — or more precisely, a peacefully bittersweet — ending. Ye Li (叶璃, Yè Lí) and Mo Xiuyao (墨修尧, Mò Xiūyáo, the Prince of Ding) end up together. They join forces, put the young emperor firmly on the throne, and dismantle the successive plots of the Marquis of Muyang and the Prince of Li. Then — instead of seizing power for themselves — Ye Li lets go of the eight-year hatred that has driven her, clears her family's name, and the two withdraw from court to reopen a mountain academy (离山书院, Líshān Shūyuàn) and live quietly. Not a triumphant power-grab; a deliberate choice to stop fighting and start living. The 40-episode drama aired its finale on June 28, 2026.

Full spoilers for the finale follow.

How the finale actually plays out

For most of its run, The First Jasmine looks like a revenge machine. Ye Li — a transmigrated modern soldier locked into the body of a Lishan descendant confined for eight years — marries the "useless," leg-crippled Prince of Ding by imperial decree, and the two wary strategists circle each other, each carrying private plans and private wounds. The drama's title is a three-part vow that the story keeps returning to: 莫问、莫疑、莫离 (mò wèn, mò yí, mò lí) — "don't ask, don't doubt, don't part." It maps their arc exactly: guarded silence → mutual testing → life-and-death trust.

By the endgame, that trust is total. On the night of the palace coup, Ye Li grips the military tally (兵符, bīngfú) and tells Mo Xiuyao the line that gives the drama its name:

今夜之后，不管成不成，你我都莫离。 Jīnyè zhīhòu, bùguǎn chéng bù chéng, nǐ wǒ dōu mò lí. "After tonight, win or lose, you and I will never part."

Together they support the boy emperor (小皇帝, xiǎo huángdì) and crush the two great conspiracies threatening the throne — the Marquis of Muyang (沐阳侯) and the Prince of Li (黎王, Mo Xiuyao's scheming half-cousin Mo Jingli). The realm stabilizes; the young emperor keeps his power.

Do Ye Li and Mo Xiuyao end up together?

Yes. And the way they do is the point of the whole ending.

Ye Li's defining wound is a trauma-fractured psyche — an alter personality, 青霜 (Qīngshuāng), born of eight years of confinement and grief. In the finale, Mo Xiuyao doesn't "cure" her; he simply promises to stand where the fear used to:

让青霜回家吧，以后有我陪着你。 Ràng Qīngshuāng huí jiā ba, yǐhòu yǒu wǒ péizhe nǐ. "Let Qingshuang come home; from now on, I'll be by your side."

Rather than take the throne they've just secured, the couple retire to the mountains and reopen 离山书院 (Lishan Academy), the school tied to Ye Li's clan — teaching, farming their own quiet, finally free of the court. One reviewer summed up the tone with a line from the finale itself: 日子越过越好也挺好的 — "their days just keep getting better, and that's a fine thing." It's an understated close by costume-drama standards, and that restraint is deliberate: the arc is internal, from bound by hatred to at peace.

There's a gut-punch on the way there. Around episodes 31–32, Mo Xiuyao's hair turns white overnight (一夜白头, yí yè bái tóu) and Ye Li, believing her home mountain has been emptied, hits her lowest point — the darkness that makes the reunion land.

Bai Lu closed the run by quoting the drama's final narration, which is really the thesis of the ending:

夜再长，也长不过人间那盏不肯熄灭的灯……直到某天，破土而出，迎来新生。 Yè zài cháng, yě cháng bùguò rénjiān nà zhǎn bùkěn xīmiè de dēng… zhídào mǒu tiān, pò tǔ ér chū, yíng lái xīnshēng. "However long the night, it cannot outlast the one lamp on earth that refuses to go out… until one day you break through the soil into new life."

What happens to the villains?

The Muyang and Li conspiracies are both defeated, and the court is purged of them by the finale. On the precise on-screen fates of the Empress Dowager (太后) and the Princess (长公主) — the two court schemers orbiting those plots — the coverage is thin, so we'll leave the exact deaths unstated rather than guess. The takeaway that matters: none of them keep their grip on the throne, and the young emperor emerges in genuine control.

How the drama differs from the novel 《盛世嫡妃》

The First Jasmine is adapted from 《盛世嫡妃》 (Shèngshì Dí Fēi, "Noble Consort of a Flourishing Age") by Feng Qing (凤轻), and the novel's ending is where book-readers and drama-viewers part ways.

• The novel is also a happy ending, but a dynastic one. Mo Xiuyao helps pacify the realm and marries only Ye Li his whole life (此生只娶叶璃一人). Their eldest son, Mo Yuchen (墨御宸), inherits the Prince of Ding title at 15 and ascends the throne at 30, founding a dynasty named "璃" (Lí) in Ye Li's honor. They also have a daughter, Mo Yuya (墨毓雅). Mo Xiuyao eventually hands off power and roams the jianghu with his wife.
• The drama drops the imperial arc entirely. The leads reject the throne, the young emperor keeps his crown, and the couple retreat to run an academy. No son-becomes-emperor, no new dynasty — just seclusion.

So: same destination (the two together, at peace, out of the palace), but a very different mechanism. If you loved the novel's "and their bloodline ruled for generations" payoff, the drama's quieter exit will feel like a rewrite; if you were rooting for two exhausted people to simply get out, the drama gives you exactly that.

The idioms behind the ending

A few chengyu capture the shape of Ye Li's arc better than any recap:

• 卧薪尝胆 (wò xīn cháng dǎn) — "sleep on brushwood, taste gall": to nurse a long purpose through years of hardship. Read the full story of 卧薪尝胆. It's the engine of the first 30 episodes.
• 藏锋守拙 (cáng fēng shǒu zhuō) — "hide the blade's edge, feign dullness": Ye Li's early palace survival strategy, playing weaker than she is.
• 破土而出 (pò tǔ ér chū) — "break through the soil and emerge": new growth after a long dark season. It's literally the image the finale narration ends on.
• 生死与共 (shēng sǐ yǔ gòng) — "share life and death together": the 莫离 stage of the leads' bond, once the doubting is over.

For the lines that fans actually screenshotted, see our companion piece on The First Jasmine's famous quotes explained. New to the drama? Start with the cast, plot, and where to watch, or the idioms behind its revenge-and-palace-intrigue premise.