General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Kill My Sins (掌心)

Kill My Sins (掌心, Zhang Xin) is a 2025 Chinese historical suspense television series directed by Bai Shan and written by Zhou A Zi, starring Liu Shishi and Shawn Dou, that aired in 30 episodes on Youku beginning February 7, 2025¹. Set in a fictional dynasty modeled on the Tang court under a reigning empress, it follows the physician Ye Ping'an, who returns to the capital under a false name to pursue an eighteen-year revenge plan, and the ambitious Dali Temple official Yuan Shaocheng, who frames her for a murder he is investigating¹. The series is an original script rather than an adaptation².

Key fact	Detail
Chinese / English title	掌心 (Zhang Xin) / Kill My Sins¹
Format	30 episodes, about 45 minutes each; historical suspense¹
Broadcast	Youku exclusive from February 7, 2025; ended February 25, 2025¹^•³
Director / screenwriter	Bai Shan / Zhou A Zi¹
Leads	Liu Shishi as Ye Ping'an; Shawn Dou as Yuan Shaocheng¹
Setting	The Sisheng era of a Tang-style dynasty; the divine capital Luoyang¹
Douban score	6.4 as reported in March 2025; another account gives an opening score of 6.3 from more than 60,000 raters⁴^•⁵

Spoilers

Premise

The story is set during the Sisheng era of the Tang dynasty. Gu Qing, the surviving orphan of a medical family, returns to the capital under the alias Ye Ping'an, establishes a "Mind Healing Clinic" (心病醫館), and uses her own life as bait to lay out a revenge plan spanning eighteen years¹^•⁶. Her target is the truth of the old "censor case" (御史案), in which powerful nobles had exploited young women; she was used in her childhood as an accomplice who lured victims, and her parents died as a result⁴.

As a wandering physician in Luoyang, Ye Ping'an gains a reputation as a witch doctor because of a series of strange house calls, and residents try to drive her out of the city¹^•⁷. When a prominent official is found dead in his home after summoning her to treat a heart condition, with her the only person present at the scene, Yuan Shaocheng takes charge of the investigation. Although he senses inconsistencies, he frames her for the murder as his "pledge" for advancement¹. What looks like a scapegoat's position is in fact the first move of her calculated game⁷.

Yuan Shaocheng. Her antagonist and eventual uneasy ally is a deputy minister at the Court of Judicial Review (Dali Temple) who grew up in a slum district and is disparaged as a "dirty rat" despite his abilities; he is ambitious and ruthless in seizing chances to climb¹. The drama runs the two leads as parallel lines, pairing female awakening with the struggle of a man of low birth against the class system⁴.

Ending

In the finale, Ye Ping'an, unwilling to keep serving as the Empress's instrument that "holds other people's hearts" while her own is controlled, escapes by faking her death¹⁶.

Cast

Liu Shishi as Ye Ping'an (葉平安), the wandering heart-physician and avenger¹
Shawn Dou as Yuan Shaocheng (元少城), the Dali Temple official¹
Zheng Yecheng as Wu Ankang (伍安康)¹
Xuan Lu as Lu Danxin (陸丹心), Ye Ping'an's martial ally¹^•⁸
Xu Jiao as Wu Xian'er (伍顕兒)¹
Zhang Yuxi as Ni Chang (霓裳), a courtesan of Wanguoxiang who was once trafficked¹^•⁸
Chen Jin as the Empress; Wang Zhifei as Wu Youjing; Huang Haibing as Hai Yiping; Lan Xi as Gu Erniang¹

Setting and historical model

The dynasty in the drama, Kang Zhou, is fictional, but it is modeled on the Tang and the Wu Zhou period of Empress Wu Zetian: a woman reigns as emperor, the state name uses "Zhou", and the court institutions, including the Dali Temple that handles major crimes and trials and the censors (yushi) who investigate official misconduct and report to the emperor, existed in the Tang. The characters, the Wu and Li clans, and the censor case itself are the drama's own inventions⁹. A contemporary review likewise describes the setting as an obvious imitation of the Tang, with the reigning empress corresponding to Wu Zetian¹⁰.

Production and broadcast

The series was produced for Youku by Shengxi Huashi (晟喜華視), the studio behind the 2024 hit In Blossom, and its director had previously worked on Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty⁴^•¹¹. It premiered on Youku on February 7, 2025¹. Internationally it streams on Viki with English, Spanish, Romanian, and other subtitles, rated PG-13¹². In Japan it airs on Channel Ginga from January 5, 2026, weekdays at 23:00, under the title 掌心～宮廷に響く復讐の鈴音～¹³. Taiwanese platforms list it with rights through February 7, 2030⁶.

Reception

First-day performance. On its premiere day the drama topped Youku's internal heat chart, ranked first on the Weibo drama influence chart, and led weekly measures of effective plays per episode on Maoyan, Lighthouse web-drama play volume, and the Vlinkage index⁴.

Critical response was divided. A March 2025 review praised the all-female alliance against the powerful, the morally gray heroine who is both perpetrator and avenger, and the layered villains such as the Minister of Personnel Hai Yiping, calling the series a new model of "her power" in costume drama; it reported a Douban score of 6.4⁴. A Southern Media critique argued the script fell short of its promising premise of a female revenge ensemble, though it credited Liu Shishi with visible improvement, including more deliberate eye work and her first use of her own voice in a costume drama¹⁴. The use of her live voice rather than a dubbing actor, a first for her in the genre, drew split reactions: some viewers praised the clear diction and the mid-low register as fitting the character, while others found the emotional delivery lacking in climactic scenes¹⁵. A later account gives the Douban opening score as 6.3 from more than 60,000 raters⁵.

Long-tail standing. Despite the controversy during broadcast, the series continued to be recommended by viewers across platforms and has been described as having lasting word-of-mouth value¹⁵.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Iv to My

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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