The laws of the Three Realms are merciless, yet he insists on proving the Dao through compassion.
The day Yang Jian split open Peach Mountain, his mother scattered into fragments of spirit in his arms. She had willingly given her life to protect all living beings, leaving the boy a single verse: “The word ‘love’ can make an immortal fall to the mortal world, and it can also make a mortal a sage.”
From then on, his path would be bound to love for ten thousand years.
He cuts down his benevolent corpse in the Hall of Justice, tenderness hidden beneath an ironclad face; he cuts down his wicked corpse on the battlefield of the Four Realms, compassion shining through the killing. Fragments of his primordial spirit enter reincarnation, reborn as Guan Longpang, Yi Yin, Li Bai... Every death brings back insight gathered through a life in the mortal world. He experiences the loyalty of sworn brothers and the heart-piercing anguish of tangled, ill-fated love. Once the coldest god of justice in Heaven, he personally writes the first law in the Three Realms with a human touch.
When demons from beyond the realms devour the heavens by feeding on the negative emotions of all living beings, he takes himself as the seed and brands the Great Dao of Compassion onto the origin of Chaos
At that moment, his heavenly eye becomes the moon, shining only where love and loyalty dwell.
The Three Realms ask: What is eternity?
He points to the cooking smoke rising over Guanjiangkou, the children next door, and the wife waiting beneath the moon, and smiles without answering.
The Great Dao, it turns out, is not in the highest heavens, but in the everyday warmth of the mortal world. Eternity, it turns out, is not living forever, but making every moment of love immortal.
This is an epic of Eastern mythology, and also the ultimate answer to the question of what it means to protect others.
