The Nine-Headed Ballad: Starfrost Sweet Medicine Shop

The nine-headed demon Xiang Liu, who had slept beneath the sea for a hundred years, was reborn.

This time, he had a plan:

First, help his adoptive father transform the Chenrong army into a seafood delivery company (“That’s called supply-side reform!”),

then get his nine heads under control (to avoid infighting),

and finally “run into” Xiao Yao, who was always sneaking bites of poisoned snacks.

But the script for his rebirth wasn’t going quite right:

His staged first encounter was seen through (“All nine heads taking turns coughing blood? Even scammers have to up their game these days?”),

he was caught on livestream in his drunken true form (Head Three sang “I Surrender,” while Head Five sobbed about being single for a thousand years),

and his alter-ego, Fang Feng Ye, kept “running into” Xiao Yao, too (how well can you play rock-paper-scissors against yourself?).

Xiao Yao thought there was something wrong with this demon:

How did he know I loved sneaking spicy snacks at midnight?

Why did he give me a parrot that calls Xiang Liu an “ugly monster”?

Most suspicious of all,

he even turned the wedding-crashing scene into a “reunion with eight younger brothers”!

When the secret of his rebirth is revealed,

when the rifts between the three realms open again,

Xiang Liu and Xiao Yao roll around in a sea of cream,

rule over a zombie apocalypse,

and pilot nine-headed mechs among the stars,

then finally discover:

The sweetest poison of all

is the heartbeat that instinctively draws them together, even after a thousand cycles of reincarnation.

**, “You’re asking how nine heads can kiss you? Get in line. One at a time.”**