Little Pink Starfish

For Faning, this winter felt especially cold.

He often wondered if… maybe he wasn’t really cut out to be the protagonist type after all.

Sitting on the steps, he stared up at the overcast sky. In the distance, the sky was a dull gray.

In comics, male protagonists were always positive, sunny, or at least resilient types. No matter who they were, there was always a glimmer of something noble in their character.

But now, he couldn’t find that glimmer in himself.

He walked along a long, empty street, with no idea where he was going or what his destination even was.

…

Yuan Yuanyuan sat inside, counting the little money she had left. Tang Shi came over and asked what she was doing. She replied, “I’m thinking… maybe I should find a little monster to help me watch the store. I feel like as long as I’m here, no one dares to come in…”

“Can’t I do it? With the way you are now, what kind of employee are you hoping to hire?” Tang Shi said.

“I’m not shameless enough to make a high schooler work for me. You should focus on studying your English,” Yuan Yuanyuan replied. But she really was thinking about hiring a little monster.

Young monsters like Tang Shi didn’t fully understand the situation, but Yuan Yuanyuan figured that in this city, it wouldn’t be too hard to find a small-time monster who was just scraping by and would be willing to work here for food and board.

Back in the day, she herself would’ve taken that deal.

Sure, it sounded a bit exploitative… but let’s be honest—Yuan Yuanyuan was basically a peasant.

She really felt bad seeing the place stay empty. Originally, she’d planned to make and sell clothes for a bit of cash. But after two huge outbursts of demon energy, none of the neighborhood monsters dared come near her shop.

According to the rumors Tang Shi brought back, people were saying there was a child-eating monster living inside—described as evil-looking, ominous, and fond of capturing young monsters to secretly train in some bizarre dark arts.

Now, Yuan Yuanyuan was getting the same level of respect around here as a legendary general—babies stopped crying just from hearing about her.

Still, Yuan Yuanyuan really did know how to sew. Even if no one bought anything, she couldn’t stand seeing the shop completely empty. A clothing store with no clothes at all? Her professional pride wouldn’t allow it. So she kept sewing.

And sewing meant needing fabric. And fabric meant spending money…

At this point, Yuan Yuanyuan had made enough clothes to fill the shop completely. So lately, she’d stopped sewing. Now, her biggest concern wasn’t making enough—it was whether the clothes would sell before the bugs got to them.

“When is that damn blue dome outside going to come down? It’s so ugly, I’m going crazy!” Yuan Yuanyuan flopped onto the table like a salted fish.

“It’s coming down in the next couple of days. Why are you so impatient?” Tang Shi rolled her eyes at Yuan Yuanyuan’s dramatic thrashing, pulled the curtains shut, then went back to her demonology textbook.

Yuan Yuanyuan stopped flopping and started stretching out across the table instead.

“I don’t get you,” Tang Shi said. “Your clothes are actually pretty cute, but then you keep leaking demon energy all over the place, and you won’t even tell people that you’re the one protecting the juvenile zone. Now even my monster classmates avoid this place like the plague…”

“You should just put a sign on the door—right next to your usual ‘shop owner present’ one—saying that you’re the big-shot monster. I guarantee your clothes will sell out in a day.”

“Sigh… Sometimes, things aren’t that simple,” Yuan Yuanyuan muttered from the table, still in her fish pose.

“…Are you about to give me the whole ‘the adult world is complicated’ speech? C’mon. We’re just talking about selling clothes. I may be young, but you adults really do love messing with us.” Tang Shi rolled her eyes.

Yuan Yuanyuan thought to herself, So you do know we keep messing with you, huh…

“Help me figure this out, will you? I don’t really get this part…”

Yuan Yuanyuan slid her head over, still in her flopped-over posture, and stared at Tang Shi’s notes. She looked for a moment, then moved her head again. “This sentence here…”

For Yuan Yuanyuan, after reading the previous comic chapter, this week was basically wrapped up. The internet was still buzzing about it, but she felt like the last chapter hadn’t shown anything too troubling.

Except for the art style…

Just thinking about that art style gave Yuan Yuanyuan a headache. A comic that depicted every little movement down to the tiniest detail was just too much. It made her super uncomfortable.

It was basically like a reality show, with her every move on display.

During the battle scene, she’d deliberately kept her face hidden and her moves subtle, trying not to let anyone see too much. But in the comic, all that effort was for nothing—everything was laid bare.

“Shopkeeper, what have you been up to lately? Every time I see you, you’re in full-on slacker mode. You look exactly like an unemployed slob just eating, sleeping, and waiting to die,” Tang Shi said.

Yuan Yuanyuan gave her a look. She wanted to say that her real schedule involved working late shifts at the tavern while studying, with only a few hours of sleep during the day.

So yeah, during the daytime, in Tang Shi’s eyes, she probably did look like a total deadbeat. Tang Shi had even once complained that it was unfair someone this lazy could become a great monster. She said she’d start training to become one herself.

Yuan Yuanyuan punched her for that.

Now she lay across the table, focusing.

Recently, she’d been revisiting an old technique she’d started learning a while back. For her, the art of Yiye Zangmu—the “Leaf Veil Illusion”—only grew more and more complex. She’d barely scratched the surface, still fumbling to understand.

It was only three lines long, but she had already filled up three notebooks with notes on it.

Tang Shi watched as the shopkeeper straightened up slightly—only slightly, still leaning against the wall.

He gently picked up a teacup, blew on the half-cold tea, and the leaves inside stirred with his breath.

Outside, the bitter wind suddenly died down—like a curtain had dropped over it.

The howling, demonic roar of the wind just… stopped.

The silence was instant and shocking, like someone had slammed the brakes on a speeding world.

The change was so abrupt, Tang Shi instinctively turned her head multiple times to look at the shopkeeper, wondering what kind of sorcery he was up to.

But the shopkeeper didn’t do anything dramatic. Three seconds later, a soft scent of tea began to spread throughout the house.

It spiraled gently from the first floor to the second, then floated out into the courtyard.

The scent filled the air.

Out front, the courtyard’s dried-up tree suddenly sprouted a hint of green.

In the blink of an eye, it burst into countless tender leaves, blooming from the top down like a flower in full bloom.

Tang Shi stared out the window, dumbfounded. The tree looked like a spring blossom exploding in the dead of winter.

It was like fireworks—“bang”—erupting against a black sky, blooming brilliant and wild.

Even the tree sparkled faintly with green light. In the pitch-dark night, it was impossible not to stare.

Snow was still falling, but inside the courtyard, it drifted gently, like tiny fairies landing softly on the new leaves.

A thin layer of green leaves scattered on the snow-covered ground, so beautiful and surreal it looked like something out of a fairytale.

Tang Shi turned her head, face flushed with excitement. Just as she was about to ask how the shopkeeper did it, she noticed…

He’d slumped completely in his chair.

Head tilted, back against the wall, totally passed out. His breathing was soft and even—she didn’t even know when he’d fallen asleep.

…

Ever since the tree was “created” that day, the illusion in the courtyard had never been removed.

Every time a monster passed by on their way to school or work, they’d do a double take at the tree, then pretend nothing was wrong and move on.

Tang Shi had been so excited about the tree, she even wanted to take off her puffy winter coat, put on spring clothes, and climb it. Yuan Yuanyuan stopped her immediately.

Seriously. The whole thing was an illusion—a trick for confusing enemies. Even if this tree wasn’t exactly threatening, it was still a trick.

If Tang Shi wore spring clothes up that tree, Yuan Yuanyuan was sure she’d meet the same fate as the little match girl—dead in a beautiful illusion of warmth.

Yiye Zangmu—Leaf Veil Illusion—only needed a single leaf to activate.

Well… tea leaves counted too. Different types of leaves could create different illusions.

Inside the courtyard, it really did feel like spring. But none of it was real. If someone ran around in spring clothes and then left the courtyard’s illusion field, they’d instantly realize how freezing they were—or just straight-up freeze to death.

Yuan Yuanyuan found the technique kind of… sinister. If any monster caused trouble, she could just let them into the courtyard, have them sit for a bit, and wait for them to freeze.

The dome over City C was finally about to be lifted. On the day of the announcement, Yuan Yuanyuan went wild with joy. She even ate the long-coveted osmanthus cake she hadn’t touched in ages… okay, it wasn’t from her—it was from the tavern.

The blue dome above finally vanished. Yuan Yuanyuan wanted to shout her happiness to the world. She’d spent so long under that blue shell, she was starting to go colorblind.

She decided to clean the courtyard to express her joy.

“…Hey, Shopkeeper, can’t you just remove the temperature from the illusion? It’s so warm inside, but we still have to wear winter coats,” Tang Shi said, leaning on the window and watching Yuan Yuanyuan outside, her face full of disbelief.

“I—I don’t know how!” Yuan Yuanyuan wiped the sweat from her forehead and kept scrubbing, even pulling her hat down tighter in fear of catching cold…

“…You’re doing this to yourself,” Tang Shi muttered, too speechless to respond, and silently judged her.

While they were both deep in their spring cleaning, they suddenly saw someone staggering down the street.

Yuan Yuanyuan paused mid-wipe and turned to look. Tang Shi looked too. They moved in perfect sync.

Why so coordinated? Because they were both deeply interested in why someone would be wandering around in a hospital gown in this weather.

The man stepped onto their street, dazed. He glanced at Yuan Yuanyuan’s courtyard, mumbled something, then collapsed.

Just before he hit the ground, they both heard what he muttered.

It was sharp. Deadpan. And totally on point.

“…What is this place? Why… is there a tree here?”

Thud.

Yuan Yuanyuan stared at the man who had collapsed right in her yard and stayed silent for a moment.

Dude… you really don’t have the right to be roasting me right now.