Little Pink Starfish

Gao Ling looked at the comic she had just published. Surprisingly, the numbers were really good. She took a sip of tea and glanced at the sky outside.

Ever since that day she saw the sky filled with red light… she’d been feeling a little uneasy. She’d discovered she could suddenly see some “strange” things—and there were many of them.

For example, spirits floating through the air… or humans who looked just a little too strange. Before that night, she’d walked the streets without noticing a thing. But after she got back, she started seeing strange things clinging to certain people.

A boy in sportswear passed her by with a pair of sharp ears sticking out of his head; a woman in an ornate dress, skirt huge and flowers all over it, walked by like it was normal—but nobody else even looked at her.

Now, Gao Ling had learned to act like she didn’t see anything. She could walk through the streets looking perfectly natural.

She looked at her comic on the screen. A classic shoujo-style fan comic… it depicted the scene where she had been saved by Yuan.

Hero saves beauty. Demon and human. Just this setup alone was enough to fuel endless imagination.

Back then, Yuan hadn’t even been called “Yuan” yet—just “the man in black.” And she, back then, couldn’t see anything unusual. She didn’t even bother to pull down her curtains at night.

She scrolled through the comments—tons of readers were going, “Aaaah! Sensei, your art is amazing!” Her face lit up with a satisfied smile.

She had drawn Yuan completely from her own memory. Her memory of Yuan matched the comic version closely, but also not quite—it had its own unique feeling.

Everyone perceives others differently. This was her version of Yuan, drawn from how she remembered him. Maybe because this wasn’t a made-up plot, but something that had really happened—everything Yuan did that night had been seared into her memory. That made this version of Yuan particularly vivid.

She remembered his hands from when he saved her—pale, well-defined joints, clean nails. She drew those in.

There were other details that stuck with her—his voice when he spoke, the look in his eyes as he faced off with a monster, the messy hair, and the kind of otherworldly face that didn’t look human at all.

Maybe she drew Yuan too sexy in the first issue… which was probably why so many people now thought this was a romance comic.

Yeah right, Gao Ling thought. In typical manga fashion, this should be a fantasy battle manga. But for her, this was more like a diary comic. Like how elementary school teachers had them draw the growth cycle of a morning glory.

If there was any sex appeal, it came from memory. The looks too—it was all from what she remembered. As for the romance… people were really overthinking it.

“It’s like Yuan jumped out of reality,” one comment said. “He’s way too damn hot. Sensei, more please!”

Gao Ling looked at the comment and quietly put her drawing tablet away.

She was done. It had always been a short story in her mind, and her mental script didn’t go beyond that. Even though the beginning looked like the setup for a full-on romance manga.

Let it stay a one-shot.

She could always draw something silly later—like some ridiculous shoujo-style parodies. Demon Chronicles was pretty easy to parody. There were tons of characters to pair up: the unnamed man in white, Yuan… endless CP options.

And then there was the most beautiful female character so far—Ran Niang. Her appearance instantly overshadowed all other female characters, making the protagonist’s ambiguous love interests look like background extras. Male readers were devastated, angrily asking why Ji Qiu didn’t have Fa Ning put her in the harem instead of killing her off so early.

Ran Niang had the kind of looks that even straight girls would soften for. Gao Ling thought about her backstory and, on a whim, decided to give her a better alternate-universe ending. Even though Ji Qiu hadn’t shown much of it yet, Gao Ling could feel that Ran Niang probably died pretty tragically.

Alright. She’d draw a White Robe x Yuan fic, and then a happy alternate ending for Ran Niang…

Gao Ling made her decision with delight, completely ignoring the fact that she was burying her readers alive in a pit of unfinished stories.

Meanwhile, Yuan Yuanyuan was at home carefully picking out clothes. She chose a plain black outfit. She wasn’t as reckless now as when she’d burned her dad’s trench coat in a panic. After all, there were a lot of times she had to show her face now. She couldn’t afford to keep burning things. She was still broke.

She was picking out her outfit for the night of the duel. She hadn’t realized it, but the duel was just one day away—and she suddenly realized she needed to get ready.

In truth, only one thing mattered most. The rest was trivial. She quietly held clothes up to her body, feeling that this outfit was fine, and snipped off the label with scissors.

While digging through clothes, she saw her old red cosplay costume crushed at the bottom. She seriously considered wearing it for ten seconds… but in the end, didn’t dare go that far.

She didn’t know why, but red—especially that vivid, traditional red—was something she never wore unless she had to for work. She just never bought red clothes for herself.

While she was busy preparing, others were working just as hard—some even more anxiously than she was…

[The duel is in the suburbs. We should go early that day and get a good spot.]

[If you think your skills are weak, don’t go. This isn’t a joke. One slip and you could die.]

[The great demons of that era… I always heard stories about them as a kid. And now people are saying they’re real. It feels like meeting a historical figure.]

[Yeah… it’s weird. Like I’m about to interact with someone from a textbook. Even though I know they’re alive.]

“I checked,” said someone excitedly in Yuan Yuanyuan’s apartment. He had pulled out his camera and a bunch of random gear. “That mountain’s pretty far. We should leave early. Maybe even pitch a tent the night before.”

“Wait… I’m not going with you that day. I have plans,” said Yuan Yuanyuan, waving her hand.

“You’re not going?” Jixiangyu looked stunned. “But I don’t know the way! What if I die halfway there?”

“…Fine. I’ll take you there, then I’ll leave. That work?” Yuan Yuanyuan said.

She looked at Jixiangyu fiddling with his camera and asked, “Didn’t expect you to bring all this… Seriously, I still don’t get it. You came all this way just to watch a two-person fight? Is that fun?”

“You don’t understand,” Jixiangyu said as he adjusted his camera. “To me, every person who fought in that war and died for the demon race is a hero. I want to see for myself what people from that era were really like.”

His voice was calm, with a strange rhythm to it. He was as quirky as ever. “Born a demon, fighting for demons, dying for demons. And after death, having their name engraved on a tombstone… That’s an honor. Every demon from that era was a hero.”

Yuan Yuanyuan propped her chin on her hand and suddenly asked, “Even Yi Qi?”

“Even Yi Qi.” Jixiangyu hung his camera around his neck and stood up, coughing a few times. “That’s just my opinion, though… Don’t say that in public—you might get beaten up.”

“Yi Qi’s name wasn’t engraved on a tombstone?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

“No. A lot of people opposed it at the time. His name’s barely even in the history books. My nephew had to memorize a list of generals growing up, and Yi Qi wasn’t even on it. The reason for his death is complicated—I’ve studied it for years and still haven’t figured it out,” Jixiangyu said. “But I’ve always felt that a lot of people wanted him dead… He was loyal, I don’t know why he ended up that way.”

Yuan Yuanyuan listened and looked up at her dim yellow lamp.

“A spy’s death usually comes from either being exposed… or knowing too much,” she said out of nowhere, sounding surprisingly cool.

“A spy who’s exposed… isn’t a spy anymore.” Jixiangyu nodded. “My best guess right now is that Yi Qi’s victory cost too many people too much. He was famous. He was about to become the brightest star in that war. People feared he’d threaten their power, so they took him out.”

“…Dude, you actually have a solid theory. Why were you pretending just now like you didn’t know anything?” Yuan Yuanyuan looked at him, deadpan.

“Just pretend I was sleep-talking. I still want to live a few more years,” Jixiangyu said, waving as he coughed and walked back to the guest room.

On the morning of the 15th, Yuan Yuanyuan packed a huge bag full of food, picnic cloth, snacks, cards, tent, camera, kite—you name it.

Jixiangyu, being from a noble family, was loaded. He bought all the camping gear and camera stuff after he arrived and told Yuan Yuanyuan he’d leave everything to her except the camera when he left.

They found a hilltop to set up. As Yuan Yuanyuan flew a kite, she suddenly felt the whole scene was kind of surreal.

Wait… wasn’t she supposed to be one of the duel participants?

She shook the thought away and kept flying the kite with Jixiangyu.

By evening, the mountain air was thick with demonic energy. Blood-red sunlight bathed the hillside. Yuan Yuanyuan reeled in the kite, turned to Jixiangyu, and said, “I’ve got to go. If I’m late for work, I’ll get in trouble.”

“Go on. Cough cough. Don’t forget to pick me up tomorrow,” Jixiangyu replied.

Yuan Yuanyuan walked down the slope. When she looked back, a large swallow-shaped kite floated in the sky.

She grabbed her small backpack, went into a gender-neutral bathroom at the base of the hill, and changed into all black.

When the moon rose high, a figure in black quietly walked toward the tallest peak.

Demon Chronicles updated.

A girl in red stood quietly beneath a plum tree, smiling behind her sleeve as she gazed at the blossoms.

[“Ran Niang? Where are you going this time?”]

[“To the exorcist’s place,” the girl in red smiled behind her sleeve. “It’s my duty—I’m carrying tens of thousands of demon lives on my back.”]

[“Be careful… I know you’re used to acting like a girl, but don’t let some human boy actually fall for you.”]

[“Not a chance.” Ran Niang smiled again, eyes rimmed with red. She waved her sleeve and disappeared under the plum tree.]

…

The scene shifted.

A man in black stood silently under a plum tree, looking up at the moon.

His pose mirrored Ran Niang’s exactly. Only the face was different—his face glowed like white jade in the moonlight, his features so exquisite they could’ve belonged to a girl.

But he was, unmistakably, a man. A man readers were very familiar with.

This kind of time-jump visual technique in manga always hinted at something deeper… and gave readers the eerie sense of crossing through time.

…

Every reader who saw this issue looked completely dumbfounded. Expressions blank, as if they’d lost all IQ—classic “Where am I? Who am I? What’s happening?” faces.

What the hell…

This… this is Ji Qiu absolutely losing his mind.

Back on Yiquan Mountain, Yuan Yuanyuan looked at the plum tree in front of her.

Whoa. Impressive.

Even blooming plum blossoms in this weather… The organizers really went all out.