The East Palace

The East Palace, also released as Goodbye My Princess, is a 2019 Chinese historical romance television drama adapted from Fei Wo Si Cun’s novel Dong Gong. Directed by Li Muge, the 52 episode series premiered on Youku in February 2019 and concluded in April. It centers on Xiao Feng, the spirited ninth princess of Western Liang, played by Peng Xiaoran, and Li Chengyin, crown prince of the Central Plains kingdom, played by Chen Xingxu.

The drama begins with a political marriage meant to secure relations between Western Liang and Li Chengyin’s court. Yet its romance is shaped by events that occurred before the wedding. While traveling beyond the palace, Xiao Feng meets a young man called Gu Xiaowu. He is actually Li Chengyin using another identity, and their relationship develops amid his dangerous political mission. Chen Xingxu’s character therefore occupies two emotional positions in Xiao Feng’s life: beloved traveler and later the husband she cannot trust.

A defining element is the Wangchuan River, also known as the River of Forgetfulness. Xiao Feng and Li Chengyin enter its waters after traumatic events, losing memories of their earlier bond. When they meet again inside the imperial palace, their marriage proceeds without that shared past being consciously available to them. The plot uses this loss of memory not as a detached fantasy device, but as the basis for the painful contrast between Xiao Feng’s former happiness and her increasingly constrained life at court.

Wei Qianxiang plays Gu Jian, Xiao Feng’s childhood companion and a major figure in the story’s conflict. The court narrative follows Li Chengyin’s struggle for power and the consequences of alliances, rivalries, and violence behind the succession. Xiao Feng is not merely an observer of these decisions: her position as a foreign princess makes her personal relationships inseparable from diplomatic and dynastic pressure.

The series drew attention for Peng Xiaoran’s portrayal of Xiao Feng’s movement from open, horseback riding princess to a woman confronting betrayal and palace isolation. Chen Xingxu was likewise closely associated with Li Chengyin’s morally conflicted portrayal, since the character combines romantic intimacy with ruthless ambition. Costumes, desert settings, and Western Liang’s borderland culture give the drama a visual contrast with the formal spaces of the capital. Its tragic reputation comes directly from the central relationship: love, forgotten and then rediscovered under radically changed circumstances, cannot be separated from the political acts that caused the couple’s suffering throughout.