Little Pink Starfish

Yuan Yuanyuan wasn’t really a fan of gloomy or dark things, but somehow, everything she had seen so far about Yi Qi had put her in a bad mood.

She stared at her phone for a while, then suddenly tossed it aside.

“What the heck? What’s with the store owner? Why so pissed?” Tang Shi walked in just in time to hear the bang of Yuan Yuanyuan slamming her phone on the table and jumped in surprise.

Right after she threw it, Yuan Yuanyuan immediately realized what she’d done and rushed over to pick it up again, gently dusting it off with a look of deep concern.

Tang Shi was speechless at her reaction. She handed over a heavy envelope and said, “My dad asked me to bring this—it’s your pay for the month.”

Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t even look at the envelope, continuing to wipe her phone without turning around. “What’s the point of getting paid if you don’t study? You’re like the ultimate example of a spoiled brat.”

Tang Shi walked over. “Come on, I am studying. I reread that book on trick techniques recently—memorized the whole thing—but I’m still not good at using them. Besides, no one in my family’s ever been good at this stuff. My dad’s just jealous of other people. Compared to my mom, his skills totally suck.”

“I can see that… Your family doesn’t look like they’d be good at trick techniques anyway. All big brows and wide eyes—like Zhu Shimao,” Yuan Yuanyuan said, putting down her phone. “Come on, I’ll teach you again. If you still can’t learn it, I really don’t know what to do.”

The two of them headed into the courtyard, leaving the phone on the table behind.

On Monday, the new issue of Demon Notes was released, and readers were collectively about to explode with excitement. Everyone had been dying to see whether Ji Qiu would continue the storyline about Yuan, because they really wanted to know what happened next.

The previous issue had left behind so many questions—like the biggest one:

What exactly happened to Yuan back then?

In the Demon Notes comic, most human readers didn’t have a clue about the complex background. Up to this point, everything had been pretty surface-level.

First, all they really knew was that Yuan was ridiculously good-looking. When he first appeared, he saved a girl in a dazzlingly handsome way—and Faning witnessed the whole thing.

At the time, readers thought Yuan was just your typical hot secondary character, probably meant to serve as some eye candy or a pseudo-romantic foil to the protagonist. Especially when he suddenly got connected to “Ran Niang”… Holy crap, that arc had readers in a frenzy. CP fans were practically melting down in the comments section.

There had even been major flame wars back then. But who knew Ji Qiu would drop a bomb by casually mentioning the term Blood Jade Demon Army in Volume 1? No one really paid attention to it at the time—everyone was more focused on the demon techniques that required blood to cultivate.

Now, though, readers were realizing it had been a massive piece of foreshadowing.

Human readers were totally in the dark. They didn’t understand a lot of what was going on, and they definitely didn’t know that the Blood Jade Demon Army was a famous elite unit in the demon world—one that even demon children memorized like characters from Water Margin. They knew the top generals by heart, and those with more knowledge understood even finer details.

Ji Qiu had only ever drawn one scene of Yuan being executed as “Ran Niang.” Readers knew Yuan had originally been someone who shouldn’t have survived, but somehow had. They’d always guessed that he must have betrayed someone and barely escaped with his life.

And honestly, that assumption wasn’t weird—because that’s all they had to go on. Most of what they knew came from other characters’ dialogue. There was that line from Yu Wu calling him a “traitor,” and some comments from minor demons. That was enough for readers to draw conclusions.

But after the latest issue, some readers were absolutely losing it.

Wait a second—didn’t he get dragged to the tribunal? No one knew exactly what the tribunal was, but it seemed like the demon world’s equivalent of a court.

He was tied up so tightly—how the hell did he escape? What were all the other characters even doing?

Then, connecting the dots, it became clear: Yuan had violated military orders during a war and was taken to the tribunal. That’s why so many people were calling him a traitor. It all suddenly made sense.

So what the readers originally saw was actually a “fake execution.”

Back when Ran Niang was shown being “executed,” everyone had assumed she was just another disposable background character. The scene looked like something out of a typical violent demon-world battle, nothing unusual.

But going back now, readers were spotting odd details.

Her death pose… was weird.

These were subtle things—mostly unconfirmed—and circulated in small online groups. There had been no official clarification, so only a few fans were even aware of them.

And in this latest issue, when readers opened the comic and didn’t see the scene they were hoping for, the internet collectively wailed in disappointment.

Yuan Yuanyuan flipped through the comic and actually felt relieved. It was like she’d been given a new lease on life. Only she knew just how nervous she’d been when opening the chapter today.

Beside her, Tang Shi slapped the table in rage. “They didn’t draw Yuan!”

“…Be kind, will you? Stop airing people’s dirty laundry…” Yuan Yuanyuan blurted out while sipping tea, then noticed Tang Shi turning to look at her, puzzled.

Yuan Yuanyuan immediately felt like she’d said too much.

This morning, while reading a school-romance manga with Tang Shi, she’d been complaining about how the artist had no idea how to build suspense—not even fleshing out the male lead’s backstory. Totally clueless about fan service…

She inexplicably felt her face flush. She cleared her throat and looked back at her phone.

This issue had shifted the plot back to Faning, which Yuan Yuanyuan thought was reasonable. After all, Faning was the protagonist. The last issue had probably just been the opening act of something much bigger—it couldn’t keep following that one thread endlessly.

Stuff from hundreds of years ago… it had to be introduced gradually. From a narrative standpoint, all that background was just setting the stage for Faning.

Yuan Yuanyuan shook her head, trying to dispel the odd thoughts swirling in her brain. She’d been in a funk all day, and her imagination had been running wild.

To be fair, she normally wasn’t the type to overthink things.

She scrolled through her phone. The cover this time featured Faning, and it immediately caught her eye.

In Yuan Yuanyuan’s mind, Faning had always been a bright and confident figure. Ever since they first met, he’d had a textbook image of a traditional Taoist hero.

She used to think he’d be a classic sunny protagonist, someone who might even become a Luffy or Naruto type over time. But this issue’s cover completely shattered that image.

When she saw his new look, Yuan Yuanyuan involuntarily went, “Huh?”

On the cover, Faning wore an oversized button-up shirt—grayish-white and clearly a bit too big.

But Ji Qiu had drawn him with such… appeal. How to put it? He looked like a beautiful mess—a bit unexpectedly melancholic.

His hair was loose and messy, reminiscent of a style from Japanese manga. Previously, his hair had a bit of a tousled look. Now, it had clearly grown out and hung down smoothly.

That small change gave his entire vibe a much darker, more brooding tone.

What the heck… What happened? Ji Qiu’s been going off lately.

The cover totally caught Yuan Yuanyuan off guard. For the first time, she genuinely got why people thought Faning was handsome.

What the hell? Why is he suddenly this hot? That’s not fair.

[Faning is now living in the home of the person who saved him.]

[It’s a small, peaceful courtyard, full of blooming red spider lilies.]

[He’s been there for over a week. The homeowner had kindly taken him in so he could rest. Every day, Faning cleaned the house and worked part-time jobs.]

[The homeowner was a man with a strikingly elegant presence.]

[One day, Faning was heading out in his oversized shirt when he suddenly heard soft footsteps behind him.]

[He turned to see a man descending the stairs.]

From Faning’s perspective, Yuan Yuanyuan followed the panel and saw the man who had taken him in.

He wore jeans and a bright red sweater. His face was pale—so pale it looked like paper.

Honestly… the first thing that caught the eye wasn’t his face, but that sweater.

The color was so bold—like a flame—it completely stole the spotlight.

Yuan Yuanyuan rarely bought clothes with that kind of color, but she had to admit: people who could pull it off had her total admiration.

As she read, she absentmindedly picked up an apple and began to peel it. She was so absorbed that she accidentally nicked her finger with the knife.

She hissed softly, looking down to see a bead of bright red blood welling up on her thumb.

It was shockingly vivid against her pale skin.

She pressed down on it, squeezed out the blood to stop the bleeding, and kept scrolling through the comic.