A Ten-Thousand-Year Plot for Splendid Lands

The Great Emperor is benighted, and sycophantic ministers Li Jing and Sikong Zhen hold sway. The Central Domain teeters on the brink of disaster. The Crown Prince, Gou Yue, is calculating and cold, with a mind as deep as a frozen abyss. Fortunately, he has his closest friend, Mo Shang, at his side: the Great Emperor’s adopted son and a brilliant strategist at court. Together, they contend with petty schemers under the corrupt, foolish emperor, advancing step by step through turbulent and treacherous times. Hua Zhuo, mistress of the Burning Passion Palace and the Flower Fairy who has brought peace for ten thousand years, was meant to bless all living things. But a shocking upheaval struck, and she lost her entire family. With murderous fury soaring to the heavens, she swore to use the blood of treacherous ministers to honor the dead and restore a just world. The tyrannical, ruthless lord of the Demon Domain seeks to make the stars fall, while the ambitious and far-sighted Empress of the Frozen Domain vows to unite the stars.

War fires blaze across the land, and the turbulent age is a furnace. The battles are vast in scale, and the characters are vividly drawn. Using the Jixia Palace of Qi and Lu as the source of its strategies, this book brings to life the flourishing debate among the Hundred Schools of Thought in the pre-Qin era through the words of the sage Dongfang Hua and his many disciples and students. When Gou Yue ascends the throne over mountains of corpses, becoming the Gou Yue Emperor who commands awe throughout the cosmos, the final mystery remains shrouded beneath the splendor of a unified world. What fate awaits the Great Emperor’s treacherous ministers? And where will his trusted right-hand man, Mo Shang, go from here? Spanning 630,000 words, the novel weaves the intellectual tradition of Jixia and the wisdom of the East into a xianxia fantasy tale, where political intrigue flies alongside fervor, and love and hatred intertwine with devotion to the realm. This is not only an epic of xianxia fantasy, but also the ultimate struggle between letting go and holding on.