Tales of Heartbreak: A Tribulation of Love

At its core, this work explores the divide between gods and mortals, immortals and mortals, and humans and demons. It creates a fantasy world in which spiritual power, divine power, immortal energy, and demonic power each have their own lineage. Cultivators and Buddhist practitioners cultivate spiritual power; gods establish themselves through divine power imbued with fragments of the laws of the universe; immortals attain the Dao through immortal energy; and demons grow through demonic power and inherited bloodlines.

Between the human and demon realms stands a mysterious ancient divine tree called the Tree of Bitter Love. It was formed from the seed of an ancient true god’s heart and its threads of affection. Mortals mistakenly call it the Tree of Marriage, while the tree of marriage kept by the Old Man of the Moon is merely one of its branches, recording unions. This tree exists beyond the laws of Heaven. Any living being seeking to continue a bond in the next life must exchange something precious, yet no one knows its exact location.

Behind the story is an immortal on the verge of ascending to become an ancient true god, who wagers with the Heavenly Dao on whether gods and immortals can be outmaneuvered or moved by beings they regard as “ants,” and on whether peace among the Six Realms matters more than love. The fates of several couples become entangled in the formation sealing the Yanjie Clan. They fall in love across the boundaries between their races, but the laws of Heaven, racial prejudice, and the twists of fate lead them all toward tragic endings. At last, the Tree of Bitter Love appears, laying the groundwork for the third installment.