Little Pink Starfish

The candle in the room was suddenly extinguished.

Yuan Yuanyuan’s vision was plunged into darkness, the only thing left in her sight was the blackness left behind by the extinguished flame.

There came the sound of chairs being kicked over—chaotic and sharp. The people who had burst in were clearly well-trained. The room was eerily silent aside from the occasional faint tearing sound—“tzla,” “tzla.”

After a long time, the room gradually calmed down. A faint blue light began to glow, illuminating the living room.

Inside the room were several people dressed in black. Their faces were hidden beneath brown hoods, stained with what looked like blood. The blood formed jagged, torn patterns across the fabric.

They exchanged glances, all looking at the scene in the living room.

The man in black was gone. So was the girl in the school uniform.

All that remained were a few smashed-up chairs and a table marked with burn scars. Nothing else.

On the floor were the sunflower seed shells Yuan Yuanyuan and Tang Shi had been eating earlier, now mixed with spilled water from a broken cup—a chaotic mess.

Yuan Yuanyuan was crouched in a corner, one hand clamped over Tang Shi’s mouth, watching the group of black-clad intruders.

Tang Shi was breathing heavily under her hand. Yuan Yuanyuan reached out and ruffled her hair.

She was a little shaken herself—those black-clad men had stormed in with terrifying force—but she managed to keep calm. She was mostly confused about why they had come.

“Where are they?”

“Gone. No sign of them.”

“No way he escaped, right?”

“Impossible. He still had a girl with him. He can’t have gone far. He’s not what he used to be.”

Yuan Yuanyuan, still covering Tang Shi’s mouth, slowly led her toward the stairs. On the second floor, she spotted an open window. She leapt out of it with Tang Shi in tow. For a demon, that height was nothing.

They landed in the courtyard. Yuan Yuanyuan was startled again—about a dozen more men stood guard at the entrance, all dressed the same in black and wearing brown blood-stained hoods. Her little yard was completely packed, not a single gap left.

What the hell? So many people stormed in, did C City’s security force just drop dead? Yuan Yuanyuan grumbled internally while guiding Tang Shi through the narrow gaps between them.

Just as the men burst into her house earlier, Yuan Yuanyuan had been straining her ears to listen to outside movements.

The sounds were strange, faint—so she’d activated her self-named “Chessboard Technique.” She could hear a lot of disordered heartbeats, but without an oil lamp, the clarity wasn’t great.

She was just wondering whether to light up her poorly burning pipe when her window was suddenly smashed open and the group barged in.

In that instant, a thousand thoughts raced through her mind.

Her first instinct was to use Heavenly Gang Earth Fiend to escape—it was one of her moves. But when she saw Tang Shi beside her, that thought was immediately dismissed.

No way… Tang Shi couldn’t escape. Even if she used Heavenly Gang Earth Fiend, she couldn’t bring someone with her.

In the blink of an eye, the candle in the living room was snuffed out. In that moment of darkness, her mind went blank, and as if possessed by instinct, she cast a demon technique—

That instinctive move was what saved both her and Tang Shi.

Yuan Yuanyuan held onto Tang Shi, quietly moving forward. The black-clad men around them acted like they couldn’t see them at all. Yuan Yuanyuan felt her demon energy rapidly draining and picked up speed, slipping out of the courtyard in no time.

She felt a small sense of admiration for herself—casting One Leaf Blindness instinctively like that had totally worked. Thinking about it now, she was kind of amazed at her own reaction speed.

Tang Shi probably hadn’t even realized they’d actually escaped. The moment they stepped outside, she took a deep breath—almost choking on it.

Yuan Yuanyuan also exhaled once they were out. She grabbed Tang Shi’s hand and ran nonstop, putting several streets between them and her small home.

“Holy crap… that scared the life out of me,” Tang Shi gasped once they finally stopped. “Boss, who were those people?”

If I knew that, do you think I’d be standing here looking just as confused as you? Yuan Yuanyuan thought, but didn’t say it aloud. The kid beside her clearly had been scared stiff. She figured it was better to stay calm.

She’d been the same when she was a kid—if the adult she was with panicked, that would only make it worse.

Even now, though she considered herself an adult, looking back, she realized she was still pretty young.

So even if she was scared, she couldn’t show it.

Yuan Yuanyuan squeezed Tang Shi’s hand and softened her tone as much as she could.

She said, “Look at you, such a scaredy-cat. What did you do from start to finish? I’m the one who got us out of there, and you’re the one looking like a wreck.”

Tang Shi had been panting heavily, but the moment she heard Yuan Yuanyuan’s teasing tone, she froze.

She’d been terrified just moments ago, but now that she heard that calm voice, her attention shifted.

“I wasn’t scared,” she retorted. “But seriously, boss, why the hell would someone bust into your clothing shop with a machete? How many people have you pissed off?”

“Mmm, now that you ask… I kinda forgot.” Yuan Yuanyuan’s voice was completely nonchalant.

Hands in her pockets, her expression was unreadably calm.

Tang Shi rolled her eyes silently.

*Seriously… how many people *have* you ticked off? Who knew a salted fish like you had this kind of nerve?*

Just as Yuan Yuanyuan expected, changing the topic helped. Tang Shi wasn’t dwelling on the masked attackers anymore. At most, she’d just speculate a bit about where they came from.

Yuan Yuanyuan asked where her house was and offered to take her home. Tang Shi hesitated, then said, “Boss, why don’t you come hide at my place for a while? It’s really safe—they won’t find you.”

Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t reply. She walked Tang Shi home but didn’t accept the invitation. When Tang Shi asked why, she said, “I… need to at least go back and see what kind of mess they made of my place.”

She wasn’t really going back for revenge. She just remembered—Liu An hadn’t come back yet. He usually returned around midnight. If he walked into that yard unaware…

That scene would be way too beautiful.

So Yuan Yuanyuan figured she’d leave a hint—like spilling some blood at the gate… That way Liu An would know to run.

…

“Why did you let them in? What the hell is the security team doing? Didn’t they notice anything?”

In another room, an elderly man slammed the table in anger. Around him stood many prominent figures from C City.

“We only got the news after they reached the juvenile area,” said a woman in white. “The intel came too late.”

“The security team’s been stretched thin lately. It’s almost the end of the year—we just don’t have the manpower.”

“Ah… if only it were the old days,” someone else muttered. “If they’d made a move fifty years earlier, there’s no way they could’ve stormed in like this.”

“Enough,” a man leaning against the door interrupted, voice low and calm. He swept a glance around the room, then looked down again.

“So what are we doing now? Why aren’t we helping him?” a stern-looking middle-aged man asked.

“We can’t help—not right now,” the old man replied.

“Why not?” The middle-aged man was growing angry. “Just because we’re still trying to keep nice with that so-called Head of the Hundred Demons? Is this what ‘getting along’ looks like? We just paid tribute, and now they’re turning around to slaughter our demons?!”

“Master Tie, please calm down,” said the man at the door again, voice soft and smooth. “Lord Yuan might not necessarily die. If something really goes wrong, Lord Ma won’t sit still.”

“So… we really can’t do anything now?” the woman in white asked.

“At least not yet,” the man at the door answered.

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” The man scratched his head, sounding helpless. “Because… we can’t beat them. Not yet.”

Someone in the room coughed lightly, and the man shut his mouth, folding his arms again with a relaxed expression.

He said no more.

“Alright. Let’s talk about something else,” the old man said.

Besides… not every demon in this room wants him alive.

The man leaning against the door smiled faintly to himself. He turned to the window, where the full moon hung, brilliantly beautiful.

…

When Yuan Yuanyuan returned, the intruders were still there. Her little building was bathed in eerie blue light. Someone was standing by the second-floor window, looking outside. They had likely noticed the open window.

The black-clad figure at the window stared for a while, then shut it. Instantly, his silhouette blurred behind the frosted glass.

For some reason, Yuan Yuanyuan, watching from below, was suddenly struck by a hazy vision.

It was as if… someone had once stood behind that frosted glass, looking at her from the same spot.

She blanked out for a moment, then snapped back quickly. It wasn’t uncommon. Sometimes you’d see a scene or hear a phrase that made you feel like it had all happened before. According to some random public WeChat science article she once read, this was just a glitch in the brain—a kind of illusion.

She didn’t think much of it. She listened closely to the sounds inside the house and frowned slightly.

There were still a lot of people in there.

Yuan Yuanyuan’s interest was piqued. She used the Heavenly Gang Freedom Technique and slipped underground. The moment she did, the sounds in her ears became far clearer.

Everyone knew that sound travels better through solids than air. That’s why Yuan Yuanyuan could often use underground hearing to judge her surroundings.

She quietly crept toward a spot where the sounds were most chaotic—likely the center of the living room. There, the voices became distinct.

“He really dared to run? Unbelievable.”

“Yu Wu already came back. Why won’t he return?” said a deep voice. “I don’t see how running is a smart decision.”

“Why are people still afraid of him?” someone sneered. “Ever since he came back from Red Sand Well, he’s just a cripple. What’s to worry about?”

“True… I don’t know what people see in him. Makes no sense,” another voice added. “Everyone’s thinking too small.”

Yuan Yuanyuan crept to about ten meters underground, near the courtyard, and retrieved her dagger.

Inside the house, the demons were still talking. One of them suddenly noticed a faint black figure standing nearby—like a phantom, but not quite.

He squinted to look closer… then suddenly realized something was wrong with his field of vision.

Huh? Why can I see my own back?

That was the last coherent thought of his life. Just as he spotted the flickering black figure in the distance, he suddenly understood—

Oh. I’ve been killed.