From Chang'an to Yashan: Nine Stars Seal the Demons, Guarding Three Centuries of the Tang and Song

At the end of the Sui dynasty, a black fissure split open beneath Chang'an, and Yuwen Huaji assassinated the emperor in a single night. No one knew that the "Star Eaters" of the demon realm had already chewed through his soul.

The Jade Emperor panicked and sent the Nine Stars of the Big Dipper down to the mortal realm!

But no one expected things to go wrong as soon as they arrived.

The Greedy Wolf Star possessed Fang Xuanling and calculated the entire splendor of the Zhenguan era, yet failed to foresee that his lust for power would nearly lead him to demonic corruption in his old age.

The Literary Star possessed Li Bai, who wrote poetry in a drunken haze to suppress demons, yet was banished to Yelang over the line "How can I bow and scrape before the powerful?" His star core shattered along the Shu Road.

The worst fate befell the Breaking Army Star, who possessed An Lushan and was controlled by a demon to unleash the An Lushan Rebellion. By the time he awakened, he was half-paralyzed, kneeling beneath Chang'an's city walls and weeping: "I wasn't trying to rebel against the Tang!"

From Xuanwu Gate to Mawei Slope, from Kaifeng Prefecture to the sea at Yashan,

they drew righteous energy from Wei Zheng's remonstrances, used Bao Zheng's tiger-headed guillotine to cut through demonic obstacles, gathered righteous souls with Yue Fei's "Man Jiang Hong," and even found clues to the star cores hidden throughout Li Qingzhao's "Sheng Sheng Man."

But three hundred years was a long time. The star cores shattered and were pieced back together, and fallen comrades were reborn again and again.

The Prosperity Star watched helplessly as demons killed his family to protect the imperial treasury. The Integrity Star possessed Yue Fei, who did not die on the battlefield, but at the hands of his own people. Even Yuan Tiangang, the Left Assistant Star, had to hide on Mount Hua and sleep for a hundred years before daring to emerge and search for the core.

Then, on that night at Yashan, Wen Tianxiang wrote "Song of Righteousness" in blood, and the Nine Stars finally gathered their scattered cores.

"I offer up my divinity in exchange for righteousness in the mortal world!"

Nine beams of starlight crashed into the sea, the fissure closed, and the Dark Yin Devourer screamed as it was sealed away.

No one knew that a thousand years later, beside West Lake in Hangzhou, a little girl would point at the sky and laugh. "Grandpa,