Tear Jerker / The Vow

• When Lianne first arrives in Gongmen City, she is behind her dignified and unemotional façade lonely and sad for being separated from her mother, just for calling her father out of pressuring her into marriage. Her father's lack of affection touches even Shen.
• Lianne's anguish over her mother's death.
  • No matter what you may think of Lord Chang, he is also sad about it.
  • Lianne's confrontation with her father in Shēnghuó implies that he was hurt when she said he's no longer a father to her during the argument that led to Lianne's banishment in Gongmen City.
  • For extra sadness, Lady Amelia passed away with the feeling that her only child has found her significant one, not knowing what sadness Lianne would go through before she is able to live with her beloved.
• The happiness of Lianne, Shen and his parents is destroyed when Shen massacres a village of innocent pandas and the crime is exposed in the middle of the wedding. After Shen has been exiled instead of executed on Lianne's begging, neither Lianne, Lord Goa or Lady Jing are the same after that. Shen's parents eventually die out of sadness, and while Lianne rules Gongmen City competently, she remains privately sad.
  • For ten years, Goa and Jing are able to somewhat continue living thanks to the news provided by Lianne's spies that their son is alive somewhere. However, when Shen goes into hiding and there's no news about him for years, Jing eventually passes away and Goa follows soon after. This makes Shen's indirect example of a Self-Made Orphan worse.
  • Despite the fact that Shen brought his exile onto himself, his last moment with his parents includes his father disowning him coldly as well as his mother crying out of shame and saying nothing to him. For the following three decades, Shen deludes himself into thinking that his parents hated him.
  • The Far Longer Than Forever - Piano video of Calikokat1ab is recommended to be listened during the wedding. It suits the atmosphere so beautifully right until Lang arrives.
• The reactions of Masters Ox and Croc (as well as Lianne's) over Master Thundering Rhino's death.
• Lianne tries repeatedly to reach Shen's old self after he has taken over Gongmen City, like during their conversations after two days of his return and after the destruction of the Tower of the Sacred Flame. The results of the latter case leaves her fearing if Shen is really irredeemable.
  • Not even Lianne confessing her feelings of guilt over Shen's banishment and his forgiveness of it or their night together make him give up his goals.
  • The sad video Lord Shen/Lianne - I Know Those Eyes/This Man Is Dead made by the author is based on their first talk after Shen's return, with Lianne being portrayed as Odette in her swan form and the music being from Wildhorn and Murphy's musical version of The Count of Monte Cristo. The song includes some of the lines used in that conversation.
• Zhan's feelings of being betrayed when Jade is caught as a spy and her confession of her genuine fondness toward him. He decides to sever their ties and send her away from the city, threatening to kill her if she returns.
• Shen's canon act of releasing the Soothsayer is reinforced by him calling her by her real name for the first time in years and saying that for the moment on, they're complete strangers without any good or bad memories between them.Later this seems to be truly the final interaction between Shen and Ah-Ma, since she doesn't appear in the epilogue, making it likely that she's never told of Shen's survival and imprisonment in the secrecy of the Shan Palace.
• Lianne's Heroic BSoD after Po's apparent death.
• The ending of the 23rd chapter through and through.
  • When Shen and Lianne are about to be married for a second time, he suddenly interrupts the ceremony and tells her to go, having realized that he values her happiness more than his future. He insists that he can't be redeemed, despite her pleas. He prepares to hear her leaving, his heart overwhelmed with pain.
  • That realization is caused by Lianne telling Shen that if he had simply asked her hand anytime, she would have accepted it.
  • After Lianne finalizes their marriage and gives Shen The Big Damn Kiss, he finally bursts into tears along with her, and they give their Vows of everlasting love. Before she leaves, she promises to always wait for him. After she has left, Shen notices how his tears are white, fulfilling Ah-Ma's prophecy of his marriage with Lianne happening "beneath tears of snow".
  • The author recommends the reader to start the tune "Pastorale" of Secret Garden (an Irish-Norwegian music duo) when The Big Damn Kiss mentioned above starts.
• Shen's Villainous BSoD and everything he wonders during it in the 24nd chapter.
• After thirty years of estrangement, Lianne and her father make peace with each other before he passes away.
• Lianne and Zhan's respective reactions to Shen's apparent death and Lianne's Heroic BSoD that follows.
• The reunion between Lianne and Shen at the end of the 25nd chapter. That scene is recommended to be listened with the Far Longer Than Forever - Piano tune when Shen appears.
• Alicia Donovan's (now deleted) music video Shen/OC - "Coming Back To Me". The author chose "It's All Coming Back To Me Now" of Céline Dion because she felt it to suit the story perfectly.