Nine Lives Ballad: The Princess's Scheme

The realm had only just been pacified, yet dark currents were already stirring.

She was Haoling Jiuyou, princess of Haoling, and also Wen Xiaoliu, a girl who had grown up among ordinary folk. She had tasted every kind of hardship and warmth the world had to offer, honing her skills in medicine and poison. He was Tushan Jing, young lord of Qingqiu, and also Ye Shiqi, a man living under an assumed name. He had fallen from the clouds into the mud, only for her to save him. They first met in Qingshui Town: she laughed and teased, while he watched over her in silence. Fate took them on winding paths. She reclaimed her throne, and he took charge of his family.

Yet power and conspiracy never stopped pursuing them. The remnants of Chishui plotted in secret, and forbidden arts from a bygone dynasty resurfaced. A shocking conspiracy centered on the “Xiling bloodline” gradually came to light. Poison was hidden in a wedding gown, bones were buried in the mines, and old grudges became entangled with the loves and hates of the present. Tushan Jing took a strange poison protecting her, turning white-haired overnight. She scaled cliffs and broke into forbidden places for him, risking her life to test the medicine.

“You once told me that wherever I was, that would be your way home.” She clasped his icy hand. “Then you have always been the only way home for me.”

From relying on each other to survive in Qingshui Town to standing together through life and death at the pinnacle of power. When vows from the past collide with duty to the realm, and unwavering love runs up against the cruel twists of fate, the sharpest blade in this world is the deep love hidden beneath tenderness, and the deadliest poison is a longing etched into the bones.

“I pledge you mountains and rivers, and seal my promise with these dark locks. What lies between us was never a calamity, but salvation.”