Till the End of the Moon: Kill Her Fated Lover

When gods fail to stop evil, they send a mortal woman back in time to change fate. But what if the villain she's meant to kill is the man she's destined to love?

In Till the End of the Moon, fate is a battlefield—where love, betrayal, and memory collide. The heroine must enter the past, play bride to the future Demon King, and stop him before his darkness devours the world. But every step closer to his heart is one further from her mission.

Because stopping the monster might mean destroying the man.

The Demon in Disguise (Episodes 1–10)

The world ends in fire. Five centuries ahead, the Demon God Tantai Jin, born of the cursed Evil Bone, incinerates humanity. Desperate, the gods hurl Li Susu—a cultivator forged in celestial discipline—into the body of Ye Xiwu, a noblewoman whose cruelty once scarred the exiled Sixth Prince, Tantai Jin. Her mission is clear: kill him before the Bone awakens. But the past is a mirror cracked. The boy-prince she finds is not a monster but a ghost in chains, starved and beaten, his wrists raw from shackles even his bride once tightened.

Li Susu's first act as Ye Xiwu is a silent rebellion. At a banquet where the original hostess humiliated Tantai Jin by dousing his threadbare robes in wine, she slips him a bowl of congee, still warm. He stares at it as if it were poisoned—perhaps it is, in a court where his brothers lace his tea with fever-inducing serpent venom. Yet when he collapses days later, sweat-drenched and trembling, she nurses him with a zither's lullaby, its melody an echo of her childhood. Half-delirious, he whispers a rhyme his mother sang before the King ordered her execution. Their songs entwine, a fragile bridge between two liars.

Compassion becomes a blade with two edges. When assassins ambush Tantai Jin during a hunt, their daggers tipped with the King's signature venom, Li Susu deflects the killing strike. She cites a rebel faction's tattoo, plucked from future histories, to mask her foreknowledge. The King rewards her cunning but the Crown Prince's smile sharpens. Later, framed for poisoning guards with Wujian—a toxin exclusive to the Western Queendom—Tantai Jin faces execution until Li Susu exposes the Third Prince's coded ledger. Gratitude flickers in the prince's eyes as he presses a jade token into her palm, its surface carved with a prayer for peace. His mother's last relic, it hums with latent magic, shielding Li Susu from a spectral attack that night.

The token is not the only relic awakening. Kidnapped by Queendom assassins sent to strangle the Demon God in his cradle, Li Susu triggers a trap that engulfs their prison in black flame. Tantai Jin's eyes bleed crimson as raw power erupts, incinerating their captors. He stares at his ash-stained hands, voice breaking: "I'm…not human, am I?" She lies smoothly, blaming cursed talismans, but in the silence between heartbeats, the shadow of the Evil Bone unfurls behind him—a jagged silhouette only she can see.

Their dance grows perilous. At the Moon Festival, they perform a ceremonial sword dance, their proximity sparking court whispers. When the Third Prince sabotages Tantai Jin's blade, causing it to shatter—a crime punishable by death—Li Susu spins a tale of phoenix rebirth through fire, her words honeyed to the King's superstitions. That night, Tantai Jin kneels in the garden, retrieving her hairpin from a well. His palms blister from the cursed water, yet he hides the burns behind silk. "Your stories," he says, "make me wish for impossible things."

But destiny strikes crueler. A divine vision warns Li Susu: the Evil Bone feeds on despair, yet her kindness has become its shackle. Testing this, she coldly rejects him, provoking a surge of destructive energy. Yet when a tear slips down his cheek—the first he's ever shed—the Bone's aura dims. She relents, pulling him into an embrace, her whisper—"I'm here"—a lifeline thrown into an abyss. The jade token cracks in her sleeve, its magic fraying as his fragile hope grows.

By the tenth dusk, lines blur beyond recognition. Li Susu's lies curdle into truths; Tantai Jin's gratitude twists into a hunger that terrifies them both. He is both the boy who flinches from touch and the shadow that devours flames. She came to sever a thread of fate but now clings to it, for the Bone stirs only when he believes himself unloved. To kill him, she must first make him trust her. To save him, she might have to let him burn.

The apocalypse looms not in firestorms but in quiet moments: a shared song, a bowl of congee cooling between them, a jade shard cutting her palm as she holds tighter. The gods whisper of sacrifice, but in the dark, Li Susu wonders—what if the true evil is not the Bone, but the world that carved it into a starving boy's spine?

The Devil You Raise (Episodes 11–20)

Li Susu came to kill a demon. Instead, she cradles the flickering soul of a man.

In Zhao Kingdom's court, where every glance cuts and every word conceals a blade, Crown Prince Consort Tantai Jin is a pariah in royal robes—scapegoated for droughts, smeared as a harbinger of doom, and dangled by Queen Cheng as a pawn in palace power games. Yet Li Susu, inhabiting the role of Ye Xiwu, becomes his reluctant shield. She fends off poisoned wine, spins alibis, and places herself between him and death—not out of affection, but fear. For the boy spurned by kindness now clings to it like a dying ember.

As the land withers, the court demands sacrifice. At the altar, priests chant and crowds clamor for Tantai Jin's blood. But Li Susu slashes her palm, letting her blood mix with his. "Let heaven judge us both," she declares, invoking an ancient marital vow. Rain falls—not by fate, but by her talisman's concealed magic. Yet Tantai Jin, trembling, believes it divine mercy. Her fingers brush his, and he mistakes strategy for salvation.

Nightmares dog their days. Tantai Jin dreams of a throne of bones, a crown of fire. Li Susu recalls a future ruined by his hands. Wounds bloom and vanish on his skin. When assassins strike in the ancestral temple with dreamroot poison, he snaps a man's skull with shadow-wreathed hands. "It's the poison," she lies—but she knows the Evil Bone within him has begun to stir.

Love, too, betrays them. In moonlit gardens, he presses a trampled peony into her hand. "You see me," he whispers. Her mission begs her to pull away, but she lingers, grazing his wrist. His confession pierces her: "If you ever leave… take this heart with you." But his heart, devoured by the Bone, is no longer his to give. The Bone twists longing into chains.

At the Chrysanthemum Feast, betrayal blooms. The Second Prince rigs a duel to frame Tantai Jin. But dark power erupts, and Jin drives the blade into his brother's chest. The court flees, but he turns to Li Susu with blood on his hands and tenderness in his eyes. "Did I frighten you?" he asks. She sees the truth—he killed not for ambition, but to protect her.

By the Lantern Festival, the Bone's whispers howl. Assassins descend; shadows explode from Tantai Jin like wings, turning men to ash. His eyes are obsidian now—no trace of the boy who once trembled under her gaze. "You should fear me now," he says, stepping back. Even Queen Cheng recoils.

And Li Susu understands the cruelest truth: the Evil Bone did not corrupt Tantai Jin. It fed on a world that hated him. Her compassion, however sincere, only slowed his descent. Every act of care became another blade sharpening the monster he was destined to become.

When she lifts the dagger meant for his heart, her hand is steady—but her soul trembles. To kill him confirms the prophecy. To spare him risks apocalypse. Somewhere between the boy and the beast, a truth flickers: monsters aren't born. They're carved by cruelty and crowned by fear.

The blade falls.

Thunder rumbles.

Tantai Jin kneels and gathers her close—a conqueror, gentle with his only fragile thing. Li Susu's tears soak his robes, mourning both the man she couldn't save and the demon she can't condemn. The road to ruin, she realizes, isn't paved with good intentions. It's built from the lies we tell to survive—and the love we dare to believe can save us.

The Demon God rises.

But first, he loved.

When Love Wounds First (Episodes 21–30)

The chrysalis cracks. The moth emerges—winged, ravenous, and crowned in shadow. Tantai Jin, once a prince of fractured hopes, now walks the halls of Zhao Kingdom as a god in the making. The Evil Bone pulses beneath his skin, a second heartbeat synced to his unraveling fate.

In Episode 21, the last illusions crumble. After surviving an ambush meant to pierce his cursed core, Tantai Jin unearths a forbidden scroll. A blood ritual unlocks visions: Li Susu, not Ye Xiwu, swearing before celestial elders to kill him. Her laughter, her tears—rehearsed. His hands bleed over the scroll, ink and blood merging into a truth that sears: she was never his.

But he doesn't confront her with fury. Instead, he offers a hairpin she once "lost"—jade carved into a lotus, rimmed in gold. "Wear it," he says. "So I may always find you." She hears the unspoken threat. That night, she finds him burning offerings to his murdered mother. "Did you ever mean it?" he asks without turning. Her silence is answer enough. The candles gutter out, and she is left in darkness.

Then, war. Demonic cults rise, whispering his name as prophecy. In Episode 24, he razes Lin City not with armies but with shadow. Tendrils split the earth, consuming soldiers and innocents alike. Li Susu finds him atop the city gate, silhouetted by bloodied skies. "Watch closely," he says. "You'll want to remember how it ends." Below, a child's doll smolders in the rubble.

Yet some ghost of the boy lingers. Episode 26 finds him alone in the palace conservatory, the jade hairpin clutched in frostbitten hands. "Why did you let me hope?" he asks, voice stripped bare. She reaches out, but he freezes the tears on her lashes. "Go. Before I forget to hate you."

In Episode 27, betrayal strikes again—from above. A celestial assassin, once Li Susu's disciple, attacks during the Rain Rite. Meant to shatter the Evil Bone, the divine prism is hurled—but Tantai Jin shields Li Susu, taking the blow to his chest. The blast incinerates her mortal form. When the light fades, he cradles her ashes and howls—an inhuman cry that splits the sky. The Bone erupts. The assassin is devoured.

By Episode 28, the prince is myth. Reborn as Ming Ye, he storms celestial temples, reduces marble towers to slag, and forges pacts with horrors: dragon skeletons, soul-eating wraiths, creatures older than stars. Even Queen Cheng kneels. But in his private chambers, relics of another life remain—a cracked zither string, a dried peony, a jade hairpin laid on stained silk.

Li Susu awakens in the celestial realm, spirit frayed and scorned. Months have passed. The elders call her a failure. Visions haunt her: Ming Ye, standing atop divine corpses, his smile a mockery of warmth. She descends again, cloaked in starlight, and finds him in the ruins of their former chamber. He has rebuilt her lantern, etched with their initials—only to watch it crumble. "Love is a ghost," he says. "It lingers only where it's buried."

Episode 30 brings no redemption. On the Scarlet Plateau, celestial battalions face Ming Ye. He raises a hand—sky splits, soldiers vanish into demonic fissures. Through the carnage, Li Susu mouths his name. He touches the scar she left over his heart. For a heartbeat, everything stills. Then he turns and walks away.

That night, Li Susu kneels in ashes, clutching the hairpin she reclaimed. Its gold is tarnished, its petals chipped. The elders call for war. Mortals pray for salvation. But she wonders: is he tragedy or reckoning? The boy she couldn't save, or the god they created?

The answer lies in her palm, where the lotus edge draws blood—a mirror to the wound they share. To mourn him is to mourn the world that made him. To kill him would be mercy. But the gods have never been merciful.

Love's first wound never heals. It festers. It transforms. And in the end, it devours.

The End Burns Bright (Episodes 31–40)

The world ends not with a roar, but a whisper—the soft exhale of a demon kneeling in ash. Tantai Jin, once a prince of fractured light, now reigns as Ming Ye, sovereign of scorched earth and shattered skies. Cities crumble beneath his tread, temples turn to dust under fingers laced with darkness. Yet between conquests, he lingers at garden ruins, tracing the phantom warmth of a woman lost to fire and time.

Li Susu returns to a world unrecognizable. The celestial realm calls for war; mortals kneel in fear. But she no longer wears Ye Xiwu's face or the armor of a heavenly warrior. Clad in starlight and scars, she walks into his storm alone.

Their reunion is not on a battlefield, but in the ruins of Sheng Palace, where their marriage began. Vines claw through stone; a broken zither lies beneath the rubble. Tantai Jin—now Ming Ye—sits atop a throne of blackened jade. "Come to kill me at last?" he asks, voice smooth as poisoned wine. She kneels—not in submission, but in surrender—and lays the lotus hairpin between them. Melted gold, charred jade. "I came to thank you," she says. "For proving destiny is a lie told by cowards."

The truth unfolds like a blade. In the celestial archives, Li Susu uncovered the curse's origin: the Evil Bone was no accident, but punishment. Millennia ago, a mortal king defied the gods. They cursed his line, grafting the Bone into their blood. Tantai Jin wasn't born evil—he was bred to fall. "They made you their monster," she says, touching his chest, where the Bone pulses like a caged star. "But you don't have to die as one."

War erupts, not between realms, but within him. Demonic hordes rise; celestial armies descend in fury. At the center, Ming Ye devours both. But when Li Susu takes a celestial arrow meant for his heart, everything stills. Her blood soaks the soil where they once buried a peony. "Why?" he chokes, shadows cradling her wound. "You owed me nothing." She smiles. "Love isn't a debt."

In the calm that follows, they forge a pact. The Bone must be destroyed—but it's fused with his soul. Only one weapon can cut it free: Chenqing, a sword forged from his tears and her celestial light. At Mirror Lake, where their reflections once danced, she unravels her golden core. He carves their names into the hilt. "Will you hate me," he asks, "when I'm no longer this?" She kisses the Demon God's mark on his brow. "I'll mourn the boy who loved me. But I'll cherish the man who let go."

The final battle is against the curse itself. At the Heavenly Pillar, where the Bone festers, they ascend. The gods strike—thunder, illusion, pleas—but together they stand. Chenqing sings with memory: her laughter skipping stones, his hands braiding her hair, the winter they shared beneath falling snow.

In Episode 39, the Bone fractures. Reality shatters. As the Pillar collapses, Tantai Jin, glowing with golden cracks, pulls her close. "You were my first sunrise," he murmurs, placing the hairpin in her palm. "Let me be your last dusk." And with a roar, he drives Chenqing into his core. The Bone breaks.

His body unravels slowly, gently. As the light consumes him, the boy resurfaces—wide-eyed, unburdened, smiling. Li Susu cradles him, her tears carving his name into the air. "Thank you," he whispers, "for making me human."

The epilogue is quiet. The realms heal—not through divine decree, but through mortal resilience. Li Susu tends a sapling where the Pillar fell—a peony, petals brushed with gold and onyx. In the celestial records, Tantai Jin is erased, his name reduced to myth. But on windless nights, when stars tremble, a melody drifts through the ruins of Sheng Palace: a zither's lullaby, half-remembered, half-invented.

Love did not conquer. It did not save. But in the end, it burned bright enough to light the way home.