WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Kung Fu Season 1, Episode 7, "Guidance," which aired Wednesday on The CW.
Kung Fu's midseason finale ended with a rematch between Nicky Shen and Zhilan, the woman that killed her mentor Pei-Ling before stealing an ancient jade sword with mystical properties linked to seven other weapons. Zhilan was revealed to be Pei-Ling's younger sister, who shocks Nicky that Pei-Ling had killed their father. And as Zhilan continues to face her own familial history, Nicky faces some surprising secrets about her own lineage and martial arts destiny.
Nicky is discovered by Evan Hartley, who helps her and takes her away from the scene as Nicky contemplates the bombshell revelation from Zhilan. As Henry is forced to watch from the sidelines, Evan and Nicky seek refuge at Evan's hideaway just outside of the city. As the former couple shares a tender moment, Evan decides he needs to check up on his girlfriend Sabine, leaving Nicky to angrily confront a vision of Pei-Ling and demand the truth.
Zhilan begins to recall her own memories of Pei-Ling, with flashbacks revealing that their father clearly favored her as a child, making Pei-Ling visibly jealous as she cared for her. Zhilan remembers that ancient text that her father was studying matched text scarred into Nicky's hand from the mystical, jade sword. While Zhilan reconnects with her uncle, she remembers the childhood trauma that set her apart from her sister forever: When their father attempted to sell the jade sword, a weapon passed down through generations of the family for the women to safeguard, a scuffle between him and Pei-Ling leads to him accidentally being stabbed to death as Zhilan watches. Blaming Pei-Ling for the death of her beloved father, Zhilan broke off her familial relationship with her as a heartbroken Pei-Ling takes the sword and departs.
While Ryan advises Nicky to refrain from training and fighting to give her body a chance to heal from injuries endured during the fight against Zhilan, Henry and Nicky are approached by a young man with concerns about his sister Phoebe's martial arts mentor Master Drake and his violent methodology. Investigating the matter for herself, Nicky is invited to participate in Drake's trials, a series of illegal fights that he quietly profits from. Althea hacks into a livestream of the fight to monitor the trials and expose this operation while Nicky learns she will be fighting Drake himself, who wants to publicly assert his authority over a bonafide Shaolin fighter. Though Nicky endures a nasty blow to her ribs, she rallies and humiliates Drake before his students as Evan and Althea work together to bust his operation.
After Zhilan recalls her last conversation with Pei-Ling, two years before their fatal showdown, she learns that her uncle was secretly receiving money from Pei-Ling to raise her all along. Feeling betrayed, Zhilan angrily confronts him while revealing she was the one that murdered Pei-Ling before forcing him to tell her where his research on the weapons is located and that the ancient text her father studied has been sold to the powerful Tan family in Taipei. Zhilan intercepts Kerwin Tan, one of the family's affluent sons, with a proposed alliance which he agrees to take her up on.
In the aftermath, Henry admits he watched Nicky and Evan depart from the art gala without knowing where they went off to; until Nicky can resolve her lingering romantic feelings for Evan, he moves to pause any progression in their own romance. And as Nicky returns home, she learns that her mother Mei-Li secretly watched her daughter battle Drake and saw firsthand that she has claimed her martial arts destiny, revealing Nicky is fated to reclaim the jade sword as she is evidently linked to Pei-Ling and Zhilan as a long-lost family member, which makes the inevitable rematch all the more personal.
Executive produced by Christina M. Kim, Martin Gero, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Ryan Berens and Warner Bros. TV, Kung Fu stars Olivia Liang, Tzi Ma, Kheng Hua Tan, Tony Chung, Jon Prasida, Shannon Dang, Eddie Liu and Vanessa Kai. The new episodes air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.