Little Pink Starfish

Yuan Yuanyuan looked at the two inexplicably intruding girls and felt that the past couple of days had been nothing short of cursed.

With just a sniff, she could tell the two across from her were human… Lately, more humans than monsters had been showing up here, and she was starting to question who exactly this shop was even meant for.

What the hell…

Yuan Yuanyuan lowered her head and spread the leaves in her hand out across the table. With customers coming in—humans no less—she didn’t dare mess around with this stuff anymore.

She really didn’t recognize that one of the girls was someone she’d saved before. Yuan wasn’t great at remembering faces, and she hadn’t paid attention to what the girl looked like when she was rescued.

“Shopkeeper, how much is this outfit?” Gao Ling’s best friend pointed at a piece of clothing and asked.

Yuan Yuanyuan glanced at the item and internally groaned. Slowly, she replied, “That outfit isn’t for sale. I can’t sell it to you.”

The outfit the girl had pointed at just happened to be the one Yuan had recently finished—complete with buttons made from rhinoceros horn. Selling it to her? That image was too ridiculous; Yuan didn’t even want to imagine it.

“Why not sell it? You’re displaying it here, aren’t you?” the girl complained. Gao Ling tugged at her hand and pulled her away.

Yuan Yuanyuan lay down on the table and lazily yawned. She’d stayed up all night, and then came straight over to practice her demon arts. She was beyond exhausted.

Gao Ling turned her head and quietly peeked at the shopkeeper. He was lying on the table with his face buried in his arms.

A red string hung from his neck, slipping down and out of sight.

Gao Ling glanced several times, and suddenly felt like what she was doing wasn’t very appropriate. She turned her head back around.

On the way home, she had one more bag in her hand—inside was the piece of clothing she had just bought.

“Why are you spending money again?” her best friend scolded, “Didn’t you just quit your job? You’re living off what you earn from drawing online—spending recklessly like this, what’s the point of buying something like that?”

“I just wanted to…” Gao Ling replied.

Back home, she sat in front of her computer and stared at the blank canvas. Slowly, she began to draw.

At first, the screen was a deep, vivid red, as if a blazing fire had erupted across it.

…

Recently in City C, it had often been cloudy. No one knew why—even the weather forecast was sometimes off.

People online started speculating whether it was due to global warming, and then arguments erupted… Yuan Yuanyuan lay in bed, staring at her screen and analyzing the latest developments in Demon Chronicles.

Fa Ning and his sect were finally about to make a move… Lately, their sect had been constantly welcoming all sorts of unusual guests—individuals coming to seal a powerful demon.

Yuan Yuanyuan saw all sorts of strange people: elderly doctors wielding golden needles, monks with shaven heads and burn scars, women in pure white clothes… A colorful cast.

These odd folks weren’t Daoists, but they were all from long-standing traditions—like martial arts clans passed down through generations, high-level monks, or family-line spirit mediums, AKA… ritual dancers.

After all, with five thousand years of history, humans had passed down plenty of things. Their pace of development was fast—who knows, maybe in a few years, even scientists would get involved.

The scene was so grand that Yuan Yuanyuan wanted to see it for herself. She looked at the two-dimensional panels in the comic and imagined what that would look like in the three-dimensional real world.

It had to be… incredibly epic, right?

Fa Ning had always felt like a silly, sweet character, but lately he had changed—he’d gone from “rusty musket” to “machine gun.”

The Sanqing Sect required disciples to wear Taoist robes. When Fa Ning stood there in his snow-white robe, Yuan Yuanyuan was momentarily stunned.

Damn, clothes really do make the man, just like gold makes the Buddha.

Fa Ning had always looked decent, but his previous outfits were horrendous—rough cloth or cross-dressing disguises. Compared to other male characters, he seemed rather weak. But this new outfit completely changed things, and Yuan’s expression became… complicated.

She flipped back through previous chapters, found a special feature from before, and looked at the battle illustrations.

Demons and humans stood on opposite sides. The demons looked wild and eerie, while the Daoists radiated righteousness.

Yuan Yuanyuan examined the leaders on the Daoist side. A few of them had such comforting auras, she thought if drawn properly, they’d surely be fan favorites.

Now, with Fa Ning properly dressed, shedding his old outfit, he was finally starting to fit that mold.

Though Fa Ning still lacked in the finer details… he couldn’t help but radiate that silly-sweet vibe. Yuan felt like if he just stood still and didn’t speak, he could totally pass for a leading man.

She looked at the reader comments:

[“Fa Ning finally… looks like a proper human being.”]
[“Hey! What do you mean ‘proper’? He was always good-looking, he just didn’t know how to dress!”]
[“By the way, what’s up with Ji Qiu? Suddenly disappeared… I’m worried.”]
[“Yeah, and that white-robed guy too. Feels like Fa—”]

…Two damn palace wars.

Yuan Yuanyuan complained about the phrase “two palace wars.” She didn’t get why, even though these characters hadn’t shown up in forever, they were still being shipped together. They weren’t even in the same scene as Fa Ning—pure crack ships.

She figured it must be that mysterious guy Yuan and the white-robed one—thus, the ultimate big CP…

CP (coupling) fandoms are often like that. Even if two characters had no real connection, if their faces matched, it was enough.

Demon Chronicles had been building up lots of subtext. Casual readers might not notice, but Yuan could see it—hints about Yuan, the human-demon war, even that Si Qun… there was a lot left to draw. But she wasn’t entirely sure what it all meant.

She had a hunch that Ji Qiu wanted this manga to be full of foreshadowing. It might look like a silly-sweet slow burn now, but later… who knows? Maybe a shocking backstory would explode, flipping the whole story. At that point, all the side characters—especially Yuan—would be revealed one by one…

If it came to that, they’d all be major players in their own right—especially her.

She understood her role in the story very clearly. She just didn’t know if she was a “Aizen,” “Itachi,” or “Snape.”

She had a bad feeling… none of those guys had happy endings.

While she stayed quietly in her house, something big was happening at the downtown shop. Many demons were peeking outside, but no one dared to step onto the street.

In the center of what used to be a bustling street, a massive transparent barrier had suddenly appeared—like half of a clear eggshell.

Humans who were supposed to walk down that street all turned without realizing and went a different way.

None of them noticed anything strange.

The area was eerily silent. No humans in sight.

A few demons inside the barrier were collecting things. On the ground was a shattered demon corpse, unrecognizable, only blood everywhere.

“Who did this?” one of them asked in a low voice.

“No idea… seems like an outsider demon,” another replied.

“What about his underlings?” a third asked.

“There are plenty of big demons in C City. One dies, another will show up. As for the small fry, they’re nothing,” said one demon cleaning up. “Still, we should report this—headquarters might not know yet.”

“Any other big demons nearby? I remember this was always a little demon zone—just one big guy who’s been quiet for years. Who’d have thought someone would actually kill him today?”

“Wait… I remember a big demon came through here a few days ago,” one suddenly said, pulling out a small pendant. “Saw this when digging around. Think that guy might help…?”

He looked at the writing on the pendant. “Clothing store next to Experimental Middle School… A clothing store? There’s one there?”

“I thought that place used to be empty…” another demon said quietly. “Wasn’t that house a former residence of a big demon?”

“Let’s check it out.” The group of demons discussed, then got up and headed out.

Back in the shop, Yuan Yuanyuan had just returned and was about to nap on the desk when a knock came at the door.

“Who is it?” she walked over and opened it—only to see a group of demons standing there.

They exchanged confused glances.

“Is this really the clothing store? And it’s run by a big demon?”

“Never heard of this place. Are big demons like this now?”

“…Doesn’t feel reliable.”

“Just knock already.”

The door opened, and a man in black stepped out. He looked at the demons and frowned slightly. “What do you want?”

“We…” one demon began, but another suddenly stammered like crazy, finally letting out a shout:

“Yuan—Yuan—Yuan—!”

His brain felt like it was melting.

He’d heard a big demon lived here, but no one said it was this guy! If he’d known, he wouldn’t have come even if someone paid him!

“Yuan what?” another demon rolled his eyes at him and turned back. “There’s a dead demon nearby… we’d like to ask if you could report it to the higher-ups?”

“…Fine.” The man raised an eyebrow slightly, glanced at the others, and then slowly replied.