Background & setting
The Tang miscellany Youyang Zazu records Wu Gang in its Tian Zhi section, among accounts of the moon. The brief text gives a man, a fault and a punishment, but does not explain a detailed heavenly trial or romantic plot.
The story
A great gui tree stands on the moon, and a man constantly chops it. Wherever the axe cuts, the wound closes again. The tree defeats ordinary expectations of labor: repeating the action brings no lasting accumulation of results.
The man is Wu Gang, from Xihe, punished for a fault while studying immortality. His work remains suspended between endurance and futility. Later moon stories place him near Chang’e and the rabbit, but this account does not require all three to share one storyline.
How to read it
The scene can suggest punishment, time or unending effort. Its unresolved action leaves room for more than a simple lesson about perseverance.
Where this telling comes from
Duan Chengshi, Youyang Zazu, Tian Zhi. Gui is conventionally rendered as cassia or osmanthus in lunar imagery; the passage is not botanical identification.
- Youyang Zazu: Tian Zhi ↗
Duan Chengshi’s short Tang account of Wu Gang and the self-healing lunar tree.
An original introductory retelling · Sources consulted October 10, 2026.