Empty Branches Reflecting Shadows, Frost Falling from Beaks

Long ago, Gonggong fought Zhuanxu for the throne of the Celestial Emperor. Gonggong lost and, in his fury, smashed into the sacred Mount Buzhou.

Yet the towering sacred mountain had endured since the dawn of chaos. It held up the pillar of heaven and governed the sun and moon. Now it had been shattered, and the Nine Heavens had fallen into ruin.

To punish Gonggong for his crime, the gods ordered his son to lose his memories and senses, take the form of a pine tree, and remain imprisoned on Mount Buzhou.

The spirit of the sacred mountain was badly wounded at first and knew nothing of what had happened. Later, when she saw him growing there, she thought of the loneliness of being left all alone. Day after day, she used what remained of herself to nurture his spirit, hoping he would take human form as soon as possible.

Little did she know that Heaven would not allow it. She was punished by being cast into the cycle of reincarnation, condemned to die young in every life and never meet a good end.

After taking human form, he entered the mortal world in search of an old friend. He had no idea that the curtain had already risen on an old grudge, and that the victorious god had long been waiting for him to step into the trap.

In her first life, she was born into a family renowned for its mechanisms for a hundred years. Beneath her dazzling glory, she bore the burden of a foolish ruler's greed for another country's homeland. Then word spread from a foreign land of a divine bird that had descended from the heavens. Carrying a secret order, she set out with her friends and family. Along the way, demons and even gods tried to stop her, while the Rong clan, unwilling to become a weapon of conquest for the dynasty, made its choice...

In her second life, she was a court musician who could command every beast. But a plan that had lain dormant for more than a decade dragged her once again into a struggle against Heaven, using the dazzling peach blossoms inside and outside the palace walls. Children's heads hung in clusters from the branches in Spring Garden; sinister ghostly shapes loomed in the mass grave; a fragmentary White Marsh Atlas was waiting to be completed... Across the Nine Provinces, the song of fate began to ring out once more...

In her third life, she was a feng shui prodigy rare even in a century. A message with no known sender drew her into the ancient entanglements of the tomb of resentful spirits, where grudges had festered for tens of thousands of years. Heaven had once forced the heroic spirits to gather resentment, and now it sought to cut off her path to survival here as well. Yet the moments she had lived as a human across ten thousand years were about to be called to mind. Could the formation opened by the spiritual essence of her original form help her fight Heaven?

On the sacred mountain, she helped him take human form. In the mortal world, he repaid her with a spirit branch.

When the three spirit branches are gone, all things return to dust...

First-life character quotes:

Rong Yu: I promise you this: for all eternity, as long as I remain in the cycle of reincarnation, I will purge the world and restore the order of Heaven. This vow shall stand, unbroken and never-ending.

Jiang Hemian: I cannot remain by your side every moment to protect you. So I hope you will become a towering tree of your own, guarding your peace through wind and rain. Let others be flowers that add to your beauty, not coal brought to you in the snow.

Shen Qingyao: Mortals may be weak, but we can understand propriety and justice, and distinguish right from wrong. The gods may be powerful, yet your kind repeatedly commit vile acts and drag the innocent into them. In the boundless Three Realms, among all living beings, there are the loyal, righteous, filial, and dutiful, as well as the treacherous, corrupt, wicked, and monstrous. How are they any different?

Rong Yan: As long as my clan survives, I am willing to spend the rest of my life atoning for my sins. When I die and my soul returns to the underworld, I will gladly fall into the deepest hell forever, using my own blood and flesh to plant the Lotus of Deliverance, until my soul has faded from the Three Realms...

Rong Yuan: I want to tell you that no matter what becomes of our family or our country, my heart will always be with you.

Second-life character quotes:

Rong Yu: I'm tired of the same scenery day after day, and of a life that never changes. If changing things means paying with my life, then so be it.

Theme: Refuse to be controlled by fate. Dare to stake your life against Heaven.