Long ago, during the Great Qi era, there was a legend about a maple forest:
It was said that the seventh ruler of Great Qi, Xiandao Zhang, was dull-witted and terribly ugly by nature. His father, Emperor Wei, even considered stripping him of his position as crown prince. But everything changed when he was seven.
That year, Xiandao Zhang followed his father, Emperor Wei, to hunt on Qingfeng Mountain. Passing through a maple forest, he was captivated by the fiery red trees and wandered inside. Then, mysteriously, he vanished for a whole year.
During that year, Emperor Wei sent forty-two separate teams of shadow guards to search for him. Not one found anything.
Even stranger, whenever a team entered the maple forest, a dense fog would descend. Once it cleared, one of the shadow guards would always be missing. At first, Emperor Wei thought it was a coincidence. But after the same thing happened to several teams in succession, even Emperor Qi Wei could no longer explain it away as mere chance.
A year later, just as the ministers were urging Emperor Wei to name a new crown prince, Xiandao Zhang suddenly appeared outside Xuanwu Gate in the imperial city. He was gravely ill and on the brink of death. Emperor Wei immediately sent someone to escort him back to the Eastern Palace.
After returning to the palace, Xiandao Zhang's skin grew as hot as if it were being scorched by fire each day. At last, it began to crack and peel away, bit by bit. Strangely enough, once his skin had peeled, his illness vanished. He seemed reborn, growing more handsome and more intelligent by the day.
When Emperor Wei asked what had happened to him during that year, Xiandao Zhang said he remembered nothing. It all felt like a dream, though a year had passed in the human world.
From then on, rumors spread that Crown Prince Xiandao Zhang had become entangled with a demon...
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I still prefer to watch it in Jinjiang😄