diff --git a/contrib/epee/src/parserse_base_utils.cpp b/contrib/epee/src/parserse_base_utils.cpp
index 923dde424..5dbd03fe5 100644
--- a/contrib/epee/src/parserse_base_utils.cpp
+++ b/contrib/epee/src/parserse_base_utils.cpp
@@ -129,18 +129,31 @@ namespace misc_utils
             case '/':  //Slash character
               val.push_back('/');break;
             case 'u':  //Unicode code point
-              if (buf_end - it < 5)
               {
-                ASSERT_MES_AND_THROW("Invalid Unicode escape sequence");
-              }
-              else
-              {
-                uint32_t dst = 0;
-                for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)
+                auto read_hex4 = [&]() -> uint32_t {
+                  CHECK_AND_ASSERT_THROW_MES(buf_end - it >= 5, "Invalid Unicode escape sequence");
+                  uint32_t v = 0;
+                  for (int i = 0; i < 4; ++i)
+                  {
+                    const unsigned char tmp = isx[(unsigned char)*++it];
+                    CHECK_AND_ASSERT_THROW_MES(tmp != 0xff, "Bad Unicode encoding");
+                    v = v << 4 | tmp;
+                  }
+                  return v;
+                };
+                uint32_t dst = read_hex4();
+                // combine a UTF-16 surrogate pair into a single code point; reject lone surrogates
+                if (dst >= 0xd800 && dst <= 0xdbff)
                 {
-                  const unsigned char tmp = isx[(unsigned char)*++it];
-                  CHECK_AND_ASSERT_THROW_MES(tmp != 0xff, "Bad Unicode encoding");
-                  dst = dst << 4 | tmp;
+                  CHECK_AND_ASSERT_THROW_MES(buf_end - it >= 3 && *(it + 1) == '\\' && *(it + 2) == 'u', "Invalid UTF-16 surrogate pair");
+                  it += 2;
+                  const uint32_t low = read_hex4();
+                  CHECK_AND_ASSERT_THROW_MES(low >= 0xdc00 && low <= 0xdfff, "Invalid UTF-16 surrogate pair");
+                  dst = 0x10000 + ((dst - 0xd800) << 10) + (low - 0xdc00);
+                }
+                else
+                {
+                  CHECK_AND_ASSERT_THROW_MES(dst < 0xdc00 || dst > 0xdfff, "Invalid UTF-16 surrogate pair");
                 }
                 // encode as UTF-8
                 if (dst <= 0x7f)
@@ -160,7 +173,10 @@ namespace misc_utils
                 }
                 else
                 {
-                  ASSERT_MES_AND_THROW("Unicode code point is out or range");
+                  val.push_back(0xf0 | (dst >> 18));
+                  val.push_back(0x80 | ((dst >> 12) & 0x3f));
+                  val.push_back(0x80 | ((dst >> 6) & 0x3f));
+                  val.push_back(0x80 | (dst & 0x3f));
                 }
               }
               break;
diff --git a/tests/unit_tests/epee_serialization.cpp b/tests/unit_tests/epee_serialization.cpp
index 2cafc0e80..0502ab605 100644
--- a/tests/unit_tests/epee_serialization.cpp
+++ b/tests/unit_tests/epee_serialization.cpp
@@ -202,3 +202,44 @@ TEST(epee_binary, any_empty_seq)
   EXPECT_TRUE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_binary(i, epee::span<const std::uint8_t>(data_empty_object)));
   EXPECT_EQ(0, i.x.size());
 }
+
+namespace
+{
+struct ObjOfString
+{
+  std::string x;
+
+  BEGIN_KV_SERIALIZE_MAP()
+    KV_SERIALIZE(x)
+  END_KV_SERIALIZE_MAP()
+};
+}
+
+TEST(epee_json, unicode_escape_surrogate_pair)
+{
+  // 😀 is the UTF-16 surrogate pair for U+1F600, which must decode to
+  // the 4-byte UTF-8 sequence F0 9F 98 80 (not two 3-byte encoded surrogates).
+  ObjOfString o{};
+  EXPECT_TRUE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_json(o, "{\"x\":\"\\uD83D\\uDE00\"}"));
+  EXPECT_EQ(std::string("\xF0\x9F\x98\x80"), o.x);
+
+  // Highest valid code point U+10FFFF.
+  ObjOfString o2{};
+  EXPECT_TRUE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_json(o2, "{\"x\":\"\\uDBFF\\uDFFF\"}"));
+  EXPECT_EQ(std::string("\xF4\x8F\xBF\xBF"), o2.x);
+
+  // A basic multilingual plane escape is unaffected.
+  ObjOfString o3{};
+  EXPECT_TRUE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_json(o3, "{\"x\":\"\\u20AC\"}"));
+  EXPECT_EQ(std::string("\xE2\x82\xAC"), o3.x);
+}
+
+TEST(epee_json, unicode_escape_bad_surrogate)
+{
+  // A lone high surrogate, a lone low surrogate, and a high surrogate not
+  // followed by a low surrogate are all invalid and must fail to parse.
+  ObjOfString o{};
+  EXPECT_FALSE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_json(o, "{\"x\":\"\\uD83D\"}"));
+  EXPECT_FALSE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_json(o, "{\"x\":\"\\uDE00\"}"));
+  EXPECT_FALSE(epee::serialization::load_t_from_json(o, "{\"x\":\"\\uD83D\\u0041\"}"));
+}