Spoiler warning: this article reveals the ending of Pull Strings, including the outcome of the Great Tribulation, Yunxiao’s sacrifice and Li Changshou’s final scene.
The ending of Pull Strings is bittersweet rather than tragic. The final episode reveals that the 500 years of peace enjoyed by the characters were made possible by a sacrifice that crossed time. Li Changshou had fought for 3,600 years and erased his own existence to stop the catastrophe. Yunxiao travels into the past and changes that outcome, saving him but taking his place.
Although Yunxiao is left sealed beneath the ocean, the finale preserves a fragment of her soul and gives Changshou a reason to keep searching for her. The closing message, “To Be Continued,” leaves their story open rather than presenting her sacrifice as the end.
Why Yunxiao is the only one who remembers Changshou
In the present, everyone has forgotten Changshou except Yunxiao. Their spiritual bond allows her to sense that someone important has been erased from the world. She gathers the Dragon King, Ao Yi, Yue Lao, the Celestial Emperor, Qi Yuan, Ling’e and Youqin Xuanya at the Dragon Palace, where the gaps in their memories become impossible to ignore.
Yunxiao then uses the Chaos Bell, hidden as Ling’e’s pendant, to travel 500 years into the past. There, she forges a new Sea-Calming Pillar from the remains of the Witch clan and confronts the Demon Emperor before the disaster can unfold as it did in Changshou’s timeline.
Yunxiao’s sacrifice in the final battle
During the confrontation, both the pillar and the mountain’s core begin to collapse. Changshou leaps into the abyss to save Yunxiao, but she pushes him back to the surface. She chooses to remain at the bottom of the ocean, containing the evil below, and tells him to live on and protect the world.
The two Great Tribulations and Changshou’s fate
Back on the surface, Changshou destroys the corrupted Jin Chan. Before disappearing, Jin Chan reveals that there are two Great Tribulations: Yunxiao became the sacrifice of the first, while Li Changshou is destined to be the central figure in the second.
With the immediate threat over, the Celestial Emperor offers Changshou the position of Water Deity. He refuses and does not return to the Duxian Sect. The Emperor then reveals the detail that keeps the ending hopeful: a fragment of Yunxiao’s soul survives inside a handmade straw dragonfly.
Changshou withdraws to the East Sea and watches over the place where Yunxiao’s body rests. Instead of returning to his former life, he devotes himself to learning the spell that could recreate her physical form. Her sacrifice therefore separates the couple, but does not close the door on their reunion.
What the “To Be Continued” ending means
In the last scene, Changshou looks out over the sea as Ling’e, Qi Yuan, Youqin Xuanya, Ao Yi and Bian Zhuang run toward him along the beach. Their memories have returned, and the group embraces him in a reunion that ends his isolation.
Changshou then reaches toward a beam of light descending over the ocean, and the words “To Be Continued” appear on screen. The moment signals that the story is not over and points toward the Investiture of the Gods phase, associated with the second Great Tribulation.
It also establishes the two unresolved threads for a possible continuation: Changshou’s role in that conflict and his attempt to bring Yunxiao back.