Little Pink Starfish

Despite the recent chaos in the demon world—and the shocking incident in C City just one day before the latest update—Demon Chronicle still followed its usual rhythm.

After all, its protagonist was still a human, and with the usual delay in production, the Saturday update didn’t feature anything directly related to the C City incident.

Currently, the story still followed Fa Ning diligently exorcising demons and upholding his personal ideals and values. Readers really enjoyed this kind of plot. No matter how outrageous the side characters were, the protagonist was always the one readers projected themselves onto. As long as the main character’s power-up arc was satisfying, readers would stay hooked.

In the most recent issue, Fa Ning discovered a place where he could take on random, chaotic assignments—places that, according to the manga, were a dime a dozen.

For freelance Taoists, as long as they held proper identification, they could earn money through these places.

The manga explained that this whole system had developed into a kind of industry. Some commission offices even helped “package” the Taoist—renting out robes and props, arranging transportation, and researching where exorcists might be needed—haunted houses, weird occurrences, or even working with official authorities to resolve supernatural cases. Anything and everything.

So if a robed Taoist suddenly showed up at your door asking, “Need an exorcism?”—chances are, they were from one of these commission offices.

Yuan Yuanyuan was stunned when she read this part. In a way, wasn’t this exposing the dark side of the whole system?

The office’s motto was:

“We only find people who need help—whether or not you can handle the job is your own fate.”

Fa Ning had never taken on jobs like this before, but he’d heard his seniors talk about it back in the sect. Even the sect-trained Taoists would occasionally take jobs from these places to earn some pocket money when they went out into the world.

His current missions?
Kill one demon.
Kill two demons.
Kill three demons.
…Basically, demon-hunting in various forms.

The demons he faced were still low-tier ones. He didn’t dare take on anything too high-level. In fact, the ones he was killing now—Yuan Yuanyuan even recognized their types.

For example, in the newest issue, he defeated two demons that looked suspiciously like dried fish. Because… they were salted fish demons.

In the realm of aquatic demons, they were as basic as you could get. Back when Yuan Yuanyuan was still running for her life, she wouldn’t even bother to be afraid of demons like those.

Clearly, this chapter was trying to show human readers more about the relationship between humans and demons. So everything Fa Ning experienced during this period was laid out in detail.

For demons, this kind of thing was boring. But for humans, these odd little demons were fresh and interesting. After all, they’d never seen them before.

To the protagonist, even these weaklings could be a handful in large numbers, so the fight scenes still had some flair, and the story dropped plenty of Taoist-related info for the audience.

Fa Ning’s sect was among the top-tier sects, so the recent incident involving them had shocked the human world. This wasn’t just a simple case of a sect being wiped out—it was a major slap in the face for the Taoist community. Even while doing assignments, people would occasionally throw shade at him.

For example, he’d often overhear:

• “The Sanqing were almost wiped out last time… wonder how they’re doing now.”
• “They used to take the most commissions every year. Not sure what will happen by year-end now.”
• “They’ve barely had any activity the past two months. I heard their sect leader’s seriously injured. They might get knocked out of the top-tier soon.”

Every time Fa Ning heard this, he’d quietly continue taking and finishing jobs, growing more and more withdrawn…

This arc unexpectedly earned Fa Ning a wave of “protective mom” fans.

He used to be the passionate, impulsive type—but recent repeated blows had silenced him. The manga described it like this:

“That day, he didn’t say a word. His eyes were shadowed, like clouds hung over his heart.”

With his brooding aura and that earnest, righteous baby face—it made for an unexpectedly attractive combo.

By the second volume, he’d already changed quite a bit. Kind of like how Kurosaki Ichigo from Bleach went from dorky to ultra-cool, and the art style just kept evolving. By the late chapters, you could barely recognize him from his early days.

If an artist wants to torment a character, it’s easy. Just throw in friendship, bonds, obsession, One Piece-style emotional overload…

Yuan Yuanyuan sat in her shop, looking out at the eerie blue glow that still hadn’t faded even after a full day. After learning about what it was used for, she found it even harder to accept.

This was apparently something used during wartime. It could completely seal off C City. For now, demons could leave—but they wouldn’t be able to return.

As she squatted at her desk reading manga, that glow got more and more annoying. Finally, she pulled the curtains shut.

“What kind of demon is this one supposed to be?” asked Qiu Ling, who’d been reading next to her.

Yuan Yuanyuan glanced over. “That’s a salted fish demon…”

Yin Zhu, nearby, rolled her eyes. “Boss, if you don’t know, don’t make stuff up. That’s obviously just a fish demon…”

Final exams were coming. These two girls were staying up late studying every night. High schoolers didn’t get much of a winter break—maybe half a month at most. Once exams were over, New Year’s wasn’t far off.

Last year, Yuan Yuanyuan had bought a bag of frozen dumplings for New Year’s and didn’t even have time to make any. This year, she was determined to make a proper batch with expensive leeks and shrimp.

To save up for this “grand” meal, she’d been eating plain noodles for two days straight. Leeks, shrimp, and pork weren’t cheap in winter.

She spent all day browsing the demon student site, only realizing at the end of the day…

They talked about everything. From detailed power analyses of major demon clans to breakdowns of Taoist sects—like a bunch of little Sherlocks.

The site had it all—from theories about the latest Western TV shows to homework sharing. These students were totally up to date, the exact opposite of the rigid, outdated older demons.

Take Li Zi Jie, for example—she couldn’t even accept smartphones. Only the young ones from the youth district seemed comfortable with this stuff.

Honestly… Yuan Yuanyuan was barely older than these students.

The video from the other day had been played countless times. Most of the replays were by Qiu Ling and Tang Shi, who often dragged Yuan Yuanyuan to watch with them.

Because the video was so shaky—and there were a lot of demons present—plus Yuan Yuanyuan had been high above the ground, you couldn’t see her face clearly. Otherwise, those two girls might’ve realized that the black-clad demon “Yuan” in the video looked exactly like their shop owner…

Yuan Yuanyuan slumped on the table, watching them bang excitedly on the desk as they replayed the video.

The forum had strict rules: no sharing with outsiders, no reposting on other websites or social platforms. Rumor had it that a spell had been cast on the site, and violators would be seriously unlucky.

If not for those rules, Yuan Yuanyuan was sure the two of them would’ve posted the video everywhere—with dramatic captions, too.

Today, Yuan Yuanyuan had one lingering thought:
Was the Ghost War Dance really that hard to learn?

She honestly hadn’t found it difficult. It had felt smooth and natural. If not for everyone going on about how insanely hard it was, she wouldn’t have thought so at all.

Even now, the idea that it was difficult still felt abstract to her.

She glanced at Tang Shi, who was deep in exam prep. Aside from the usual math and science, she also had to study demon-only subjects. One of her textbooks was a leaf—yellowed and covered in golden symbols. Very mysterious-looking.

“What’s this?” Yuan Yuanyuan leaned over curiously, flipping through another black-patterned leaf.

“That one’s on curse-breaking. My idol Fang Yingchuan wrote it. The one you’re holding is a stealth arts book. I gave up on it—I can’t understand it at all,” Tang Shi replied.

“What do you even learn in class…?”

Yuan Yuanyuan infused some demonic energy into the book. Qiu Ling watched curiously from the side. She had spiritual energy but couldn’t read demon books, so she could only look on longingly.

Yuan Yuanyuan scanned the first page—and immediately frowned.

“Those who master this book shall soar through heaven and earth, seeing armies as nothing.”

That line… sounded familiar.

It reminded her of a phrase from the Blood Jade Demon Manual.

This… this was giving her déjà vu.

Though the phrasing was different, the tone was just as grandiose. The Blood Jade version was:

“Heaven and earth are at your command—nothing is impossible.”

“Just a bunch of weird stealth arts,” Tang Shi said, lazily twirling her pen. “It’s a pretty famous book. Basically the standard textbook now. Most demons these days learn from this. You’re probably too old to have studied it… We’ve used it since middle school. But I suck at stealth—never passed a single stealth class.”

Yuan Yuanyuan kept flipping through—and the more she read, the more familiar it felt. So many of the techniques had clear overlap with the Blood Jade Manual. That book had many aggressive spells, but this one…

Every single spell was devious, sinister, and ruthless.

It was like someone had distilled every shady trick from Blood Jade, then organized and refined them into one master volume.

It covered illusions, charm techniques, assassination skills… everything.
The sneaky stuff impressed her.
The nasty stuff made her scalp tingle.

She cleared her throat. It was starting to feel a little too on the nose…

When she reached the end of the book, she had a suspicion.

Could the author be connected to the Blood Jade Demon Army?

So she casually asked, “Who wrote this?”

“Um… anonymous?” Tang Shi tilted her head. “The book doesn’t say. There’s just a date at the end. No author name. I’ve got no clue.”

Yuan Yuanyuan turned to the back—and there it was, just like Tang Shi said. A small mark, and two lines of tiny Arabic numerals:

1917.10. 17

Her hand paused.

October 17, 1917.

The “10.” had run out of room, so the “17” was placed on a new line.

But that single line of “17” made her palm go cold.

That style…

That standalone ‘17’…

Yuan Yuanyuan slowly closed the book. A storm was churning in her chest.

“Boss?” Tang Shi waved at her, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Can you tutor me in stealth arts? You’re a big-shot demon—you’ve gotta be better than my dad at this, right?”