Little Pink Starfish

Yuan Yuanyuan felt completely lost.

She never expected things to turn out like this.

She had originally modeled her character on the classic “cold, aloof guy” archetype — a well-established template in the world of fictional characters. But now, the version of her shown in the manga… she couldn’t think of any similar character at all.

The only vaguely similar examples… had all been criticized for being too effeminate.

And once a male character gets called effeminate… well, it’s pretty much guaranteed that a chunk of people will dislike him. Whether the rest like him or not depends entirely on what kind of effeminate he is.

Yuan Yuanyuan stood in front of the mirror and tried a few poses. She felt they looked totally normal.

But she knew this was probably just her own illusion. Because what showed up in the manga was… that.

Oh god…

This feminine vibe — it’s not my fault! If anything, it proves I’m normal!

She had imagined many different character traits, carefully stacking them to form a solid two-dimensional persona. But now, with the most important trait gone sideways, she no longer dared to add anything else to the pile.

Yuan Yuanyuan had learned watercolor painting as a child. Her teacher once told them there was something called a “mud color” — it came from mixing too many pigments together. Done wrong, it turns into a dirty, unpleasant color.

Same with character design. You can’t just pile stuff on. If it’s inconsistent, incoherent, and full of contradictions, the whole thing becomes laughably ridiculous.

Yuan Yuanyuan found herself in a surprisingly tricky situation. She forced herself to calm down — she’d take it slow from here on out and analyze things step by step.

She wasn’t aiming for speed — she just wanted stability.

…

Yuan Yuanyuan carefully arranged the warmed sake on a tray. Today’s tray and flask were unexpectedly beautiful, decorated with intricate plum blossoms — a complete matching set.

She didn’t know how much the set was worth, but she handled it very delicately.

…She had a feeling that if she so much as chipped it, she’d be working here for the next 20 years for free.

The restaurant was especially busy today — apparently, a very important figure had arrived. Yuan Yuanyuan had no idea who that was, but it didn’t really matter. Whoever it was, she wouldn’t be seeing them anyway.

Actually, this job was pretty chill. All she had to do was warm sake, work in the evenings, and during downtime she could even scroll through her phone. Easy.

Yuan Yuanyuan opened her phone, still obsessively refreshing the comments under Demon Chronicles on the Meng Man app, checking how readers were reacting.

From last night to now, she’d been doing this nonstop. Every new comment — she’d read it, analyze the reader’s mindset, try to understand how people were perceiving her.

She figured even Ji Qiu wasn’t this invested.

The comments were fascinating. A lot of readers were speculating: What kind of person is this “man in black”?

His first few appearances had been rather pure — even heroic, saving humans. But in the latest chapter, he’d startled everyone.

Some readers started wondering if they had misjudged — maybe this wasn’t a side character after all, but the main villain…

Fair enough — a lot of villain bosses these days were seductive troublemakers.

Yuan Yuanyuan knew she didn’t have the chops to be a villain boss. She didn’t have the power. And nowadays, if you can’t at least threaten the end of the world, how do you expect to compete as a villain?

Others were guessing what kind of creature the man in black really was. The guesses ranged wildly — and some were downright weird.

The most basic guess? A fox spirit.

Yuan Yuanyuan: No, thanks.

Then came the bizarre ones — people guessing he was an object spirit, like a hair comb used by a woman, a hairpin used by a woman, a—

…Let’s not even talk about those words. Yuan Yuanyuan simply thought: If that thing could turn into a demon, it’d have to be a national treasure. If I were really that, I wouldn’t be living like this.

【OMG! OMG! Ji Qiu’s art is incredible. It feels real, so emotionally powerful!】
【Wait what? This character’s style is totally different from what I imagined… but why the heck is it… strangely captivating??】
【You find it captivating? Sounds like someone’s about to bend.】
【They’re drawn so beautifully… but honestly, I didn’t pick up on that vibe before. I thought seductive troublemaker types were supposed to be more calculating?】
【Nah, I wouldn’t call this one seductive — more like an androgynous pretty boy, kinda gives off bottom energy.】

Yuan Yuanyuan scrolled past a few of what might have been compliments, then suddenly spotted another comment thread.

【Whoa, so this is the character’s real personality? I didn’t see that coming. I thought he was an ice-cold guy — turns out Ji Qiu’s playing with expectations!】
【This is kinda weird though. He didn’t have that vibe at all in previous chapters. Why the sudden change?】
【Yeah, I thought when he was in the taxi talking to the ghost lady, he was just a reserved guy with a secretly silly side…】

“…Who’s here today? Why’s it so noisy outside?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked while still half-focused on her phone.

“I heard a bigshot from another district came over. Staying here for a while. Apparently someone important,” said Li Zi Jie while munching sunflower seeds.

“Oh.” Yuan Yuanyuan asked casually.

Whoever it was, had nothing to do with her anyway — they probably wouldn’t even meet.

…

Yuan Yuanyuan was actually quite curious about the protagonist. She really wanted to know what kind of person he was.

Originally, she’d wanted to craft a persona — but now that it had gone off the rails, she figured the problem came from her own vibe.

No matter how hard she tried, a girl turning into a guy just wouldn’t act exactly like a real man. There would always be weird little details.

She couldn’t naturally perform a lot of typically masculine gestures. As harsh as it was to admit… she had to face reality.

She was who she was. And the version of her shown in the manga? It would most likely always reflect that.

By the time she understood this, three whole days had passed.

Yuan Yuanyuan was genuinely worried. She had a bad feeling…

Because seriously — she’d tried so hard to be cool, and still ended up looking like a shy bottom. The longer the series went on, the more she’d be exposed.

She wanted to kneel before the readers and say:

Actually…

That timid little uke you saw that day? That’s not the real me.

I’m not even that classy.

In truth, I’m exactly what that one reader said — just your average hot mess of a loser.

This time, Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t dare fake anything anymore. Because if you fake it badly, it leaves a terrible impression. She flopped around like a salted fish, imagining how mortifying it would be if her useless otaku daily life were ever shown to the readers…

“How come these people haven’t left after so many days?” she asked, cleaning glasses with practiced ease. “Weren’t they supposed to leave soon? Won’t the boss be mad they’re staying this long?”

“Huh? You didn’t know?” Li Zi Jie said. “They’re here looking for someone. They won’t leave until they find them.”

“Looking for who?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked offhandedly as she kept washing glasses.

“The man in black, of course.”

“?” Yuan Yuanyuan froze and turned toward Li Zi Jie.

Li Zi Jie, totally unaware of the shock she just dropped, kept calmly snacking on seeds.

“W-wait, what did you say?” Yuan Yuanyuan stammered, digging at her ears as if she misheard.

“The man in black,” Li Zi Jie repeated calmly. “You know, that guy from Demon Chronicles.”

“De-de-de-Demon Chronicles?!” Yuan Yuanyuan almost stuttered herself into a stroke.

Her face went pale. She could hear Li Zi Jie asking why she looked so unwell.

Yuan Yuanyuan knew very well — Li Zi Jie was an actual old-school demon.

Apparently, she had been active since the Republican era.

Back then, she’d been a well-known beauty. Even now, she still wore qipaos.

Yuan Yuanyuan was the youngest here, and only got the job thanks to her connection to Sister Xue. Li Zi Jie, being a friend of Sister Xue, had been looking out for her.

Li Zi Jie didn’t even use smartphones — so how the heck did she know about Demon Chronicles?!

For the first time in her life, Yuan Yuanyuan felt the sheer consequences of being behind on the news.

“You don’t know about the man in black? Aren’t you a half-demon? I thought you’d be pretty familiar with human stuff,” Li Zi Jie said, pouring her a cup of water. “It’s a popular comic among humans. No one knows which big-shot demon is drawing it, but they’ve been turning real events from our side into stories.”

She even sighed and reminisced, “It reminds me of when I was a dancer in Shanghai. Back then we had these storybooks — written by a demon with too much free time. Lots of famous events from the demon world were in there too…”

“W-wait.” Yuan Yuanyuan cut her off, looking dumbfounded. “Why… why do you all talk about this so casually?!”

“Huh? What’s the problem?” Li Zi Jie blinked at her, clearly not understanding Yuan Yuanyuan’s internal screaming.

Yuan Yuanyuan waved her hand dismissively and buried herself in cup-washing, trying to forget reality.

Oh crap… oh crap…

She hadn’t even finished processing this when Sister Xue casually dropped another bombshell:

“That bigshot who showed up recently? Apparently he was drawn in that comic too. I went to check the book the other day — yeah, he’s super handsome, no wonder he got drawn. I forget his name in the story though. I heard his family’s been trying to track down the artist to make them stop… Wanna sneak over and take a look?”

Yuan Yuanyuan stood there, stunned.
“…What?”