Till The End Of The Moon (长月烬明; Chángyuè Jìn Míng) is a 2023 Chinese xianxia romance based on the novel Black Moonlight Holds the BE Script (黑月光拿稳BE剧本) by Teng Luo Wei Zhi.
The series is available with English subtitles on YouTube
and Viki.
The protagonist Li Susu is the daughter of the Hengyang cultivation sect's leader. Her sect falls to the powerful Devil God Tantai Jin, who is looking for the Mirror of the Past, a special artifact that allows the user to travel back in time. Instead of giving it to him, Li Susu uses it to travel back in time to 500 years ago, in the hopes of killing Tantai Jin before he comes into his powers.
Unfortunately for her, she winds up stuck in the body of Ye Xiwu, Tantai Jin's abusive wife from before he awakened as the Devil God. And the more she sees of the cruel treatment that caused Tantai Jin to become the Demon God, the more she questions whether killing him would be the right thing to do at all...
Till the End of the Moon contains examples of the following tropes:
- Aliens Made Them Do It: Tantai Jin tells a horrified Li Susu that they were forced to marry after Ye Xiwu accidentally drugged both of them with an aphrodisiac, and servants found them in bed together.
- Arranged Marriage: Ye Xiwu and Tantai Jin were forced into marriage when Ye Xiwu's father hastily arranged their marriage to avoid the scandal from them falling into bed together.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tántái Jìn sacrifices himself to save the world. However, the epilogue shows him alive in another dimension watching over his wife and daughter, implying that he'll be reincarnated and reunite with them.
- Blood from the Mouth: All the characters have the tendency to spit up blood whenever something goes wrong, whether it's a problem with their powers or poison.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Many of the important characters tend to have a reliable colour scheme for their outfits, and opposing armies are shown with clearly contrasting armour so that the battle scenes are readable.
- Creepy Child: Tantai Jin spooks the two women looking after him, starting from when he required blood instead of milk to nurse. Later he grows into a stoic child who asks questions like whether he's allowed to kill people.
- Emotion Suppression: Played with for Tantai Jin. While both he and other characters often claim he was born without a proper understanding of emotions, it's fairly obvious from his behaviour―crying, sarcasm, getting back at people who hurt him―that he does still feel at least some of them. And how much of his detachment is due to his demonic nature versus the circumstances he grew up in is anyone's guess.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Nian Baiyu has what appears to be a single, beautiful scar on his face that highlights the curve of his cheekbones. In contrast, Tantai Minglang has a huge burn scar that takes up much of his face from an accident with a brazier.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Jing Lan'an betrays Tantai Jin to his brother, but while Tantai Minglang is Obviously Evil, it's hard to say whether Tantai Jin really counts as a "good guy" by that part of the story. Her decision to betray him is also partly due to how casually Tantai Jin poisoned the other servant who looked after him once *she* betrayed him.
- Parental Favoritism: Part of the reason Ye Xiwu is such a monster is because her father and grandmother dote on her excessively in comparison to her sister and one of her brothers. Ye Qingyu retains a lot of favour compared to his brother as well.
- Sibling Rivalry: Ye Xiwu was deeply jealous of Ye Bingchang for having Xiao Lin's affections before Li Susu took over Ye Xiwu's life, and made her sister's life hell because of it.
- The Dog Bites Back: Tantai Jin orchestrates a flock of crows that attack a list of people who have been cruel to him while he's a hostage.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Tantai Jin's backstory is stuffed full of suffering, abandonment and betrayal.
