Beauty Along the Great Dao: Qi Fan's Three Thousand Romantic Encounters

Beyond the nine heavens, the road to the Dao stretches on. All living beings are trapped by the word "one": some cling to a single path, others are bound to a single person. Yet the cultivator Qi Fan is determined to break free of this cage.

He begins in the robes of a Confucian scholar, cultivating the all-embracing Great Dao and nurturing a gentle, clear-sighted nature. He treats others with the warmth of a spring breeze brushing willow branches. Even when powerful foes come looking for trouble, he can wield reason like a sword and dispel their hostility. When teaching his disciples, he sheds the aura of an immortal master and becomes more like a neighborly mentor, patiently guiding them with a touch of mischief hidden beneath his words. "When in doubt, kiss a beauty," he says, revealing the subtle ties between love and the Dao.

And yet he is no saint who sits in seclusion, detached from the world. A hint of roguish charm lingers in his eyes, and there is a devil-may-care edge to his speech. "In this little town, there are three thousand young ladies, and I, Qi, shall court them all." It sounds like a joke, but beneath it lies the iron resolve to shoulder the fate of all living beings. "The Great Dao should not be so narrow, and a Dao companion should not be so few." His words reveal his longing for a boundless world and his cherishing of love in all its forms.

His Dao companions are all extraordinary women of peerless talent: an imperial princess of the underworld who commands reincarnation, a sacred daughter of the Phoenix Clan who soars through the nine heavens, and an Immortal Venerable of the Healing Dao who lives hidden among ordinary folk... They stand alongside him, discussing the Dao beneath the stars or riding through an age of chaos. Together, along their long journey, they weave legends in which romance and the fate of all living beings intertwine.

Qi Fan's path is a journey of cultivation that embraces both Confucianism and the Dao, a chivalrous road devoted to all living beings, and a romantic journey through mountains and seas with his confidantes. Watch as he, with his gentle nature and a bevy of beauties at his side, breaks every fetter of Heaven and Earth and attains the supreme realm where "the Great Dao is boundless, and true love is beyond compare."