Synopsis
A thousand years ago, the demon emperor Su Heng was a ruthless killer who stirred up turmoil across the Three Realms, leading the demon race into battle. But during a clash in the northern desert, he was moved by the courage of the human general Li Wanrou and her dying words, “Protect our home.” He laid down his sword and used a secret technique of the demon race to preserve her body for eighteen days. After witnessing the warmth of human life, he finally understood what it meant to protect others.
Over the next three years, he traveled the human world and experienced its everyday joys, gradually shedding his violence and helping bring about peace between the two races. He signed the Treaty of Peaceful Integration and swore to protect Li Wanrou’s reincarnation for a thousand years, only to become trapped by the fate of being a “replacement” and the gulf between their lifespans. From his quiet companionship with the constable Li Yirou at Zhenbei Pass to his tangled love and hatred with Li Wanqing, an inspector of demon hunters in Jiangnan, he refuses to use his demonic power to save himself from death, choosing instead to protect peace between humans and demons, but the woman he loves loses all her memories. To resolve the thousand-year grievance of a red-clad vengeful spirit, he joins her in a deadly trial and finally comes to understand his true feelings: the one he protects is not an illusion, but the vibrant, living Li Wanqing herself.
But humans and demons are worlds apart, and the gulf between a few decades of life and a thousand years of solitude is impossible to cross. Even as smoke rises from the kitchens of both races and they live together in peace, he and she can only share the snow as a false substitute for growing old together. Su Heng spends half his life atoning and the other half protecting, standing silently atop Wangrou Peak as he watches the misty rains of Jiangnan and the warmth of everyday life. He honors a bond that reaches across reincarnations, while bearing the eternal regret of a love that can never be fulfilled.
Interweaving slaughter and redemption, hatred and reconciliation, fate and deep devotion, this story unfolds against the grand backdrop of fantasy and immortal cultivation. It portrays the struggle for peace between different races and a silent love spanning a thousand years, revealing both the weight of the word “protection” and the beauty of its accompanying regret.
