Little Pink Starfish

Four days before Lunar New Year, Fat Cat gave Yuan Yuanyuan a special call—just to check in on her, since she clearly didn’t have the money to properly celebrate the holiday.

Yuan Yuanyuan had already been on break for a day, staying at home. The bar had closed for the holiday too. The part-time little monsters were starting to pack their bags and head home.

Of course, anyone who didn’t want to leave didn’t have to. Yuan Yuanyuan had asked around—turns out, any little monsters who didn’t have a place to go could stay and celebrate with the bar crew. Li Zi Jie and Si Qun had left early, but there were still plenty of monsters at the bar. With the front doors closed, the place still felt lively.

These were some of the coziest days at the bar, reminding Yuan Yuanyuan of the quiet afternoon after her college finals. On the day she left, all the cups in the back had been cleaned and packed away, except for a few dozen butterfly-patterned ones—left out for the monsters of the bar.

When Yuan Yuanyuan got Fat Cat’s call, her feelings were complicated. After all these years, the only one who had thought to call and check on her was… a crazy cat.

Still, she thanked him. Clearly, Fat Cat had sensed that her situation wasn’t great. The fact that a rich second-gen like him even thought to ask whether she could make it through the holidays—it was kind of endearing.

These days, Yuan Yuanyuan had been asking around a lot about the situation over in the Youth Zone. She was worried someone might have wrecked her tiny shop. But days had gone by, and to her surprise, everything over there was calm.

So, before the New Year, she decided to go clean it up a bit. Tradition says you should sweep the house before the holiday, after all. Late that night, she quietly used her Tiangang technique to teleport straight from home to her little shop in the Youth Zone.

She materialized one street away from the shop and started walking. From a distance, she could already see the tall tree glowing green in the dark.

Yuan Yuanyuan pulled out her key, ready to open the door—when she suddenly noticed something stuck in the crack under it.

She crouched down and pulled out a rolled-up strip of silk cloth.

“Greetings, Lord Yuan.”

A voice spoke from behind her, slow and calm. Black smoke billowed behind her, coalescing into a cloaked figure, who knelt on one knee before her.

Yuan Yuanyuan was still inspecting the silk cloth when she turned around and blinked in confusion.

The black-robed man behind her had dropped to one knee in a perfect old-school kneeling pose. It was kind of… impressive.

Wow, you still see this kind of thing these days? He looks like a guard from ancient times. Very aesthetic.

That narrow waist… those long legs… and the retro outfit. Yuan Yuanyuan was quietly admiring him when he said, “I am a subordinate of Bai Yaoling, the current monster leader of City C. My lord sincerely hopes you would be willing to meet with him.”

That leg… Wait, what?

Yuan Yuanyuan finally processed what he was saying. She mentally reviewed everything she knew about the big names in City C.

For a little monster like her, the highest-ranked person she’d ever interacted with was her own boss. For a while, she’d even assumed the leader of City C was her boss.

But she eventually realized that wasn’t the case. Her boss was always called “Boss” by the lower-level monsters, but he clearly only managed a part of the city.

City C itself was a whole. Her boss, that white-robed woman, and some others each oversaw their own zones—they didn’t interfere with each other. For a city this size, that was pretty wild.

There had to be someone above them. Yuan Yuanyuan had a hunch that person was “Bai Yaoling.”

That name sounded very elegant… Like something out of a myth. Probably based on some ancient ginseng from the mountains of Jilin or something.

Yuan Yuanyuan twirled her key once and opened the door. She had no idea how long the black-robed guy had been squatting out here, just waiting for her to show up. His robe was exactly like the ones worn by those other cloaked visitors she’d seen.

If she hadn’t been on alert, always running the Chessboard Technique, she might’ve gotten scared out of her skin.

“So… what do you say?” the man asked.

“Sure. But when?” Yuan Yuanyuan replied. What she wanted to say was, Can we do it fast? It’s almost New Year’s.

“During the Hundred Demon Festival,” the man bowed. “I’ve already delivered the invitation. Farewell.”

With that, he turned into a wisp of black smoke and vanished into thin air.

Yuan Yuanyuan turned back, pushed open the door, and walked in. She couldn’t stop thinking about the move that guy had pulled—appearing and disappearing in midair like that.

The distance he traveled wasn’t that far, though. Just barely useful.

She glanced out the window, shook her head lightly, then lowered her gaze and picked up a rag.

Looks like this time… she was about to meet a real big shot. She’d better be ready. Worst case, she’d bolt.

But before that, there was something she had to figure out.

…

[Quan Quan]: Hundred Demon Festival… how are you planning to spend it?
[Meh, nothing special.]
[Black & Red]: I’ll see. If the top-ranking monster around here is celebrating, I’ll go. If not, I’ll skip it.

Yuan Yuanyuan hadn’t meant to ask how people spent the Hundred Demon Festival. She actually just wanted to know when it was. But that would’ve been a weird thing to ask directly, so she changed the wording.

She had a suspicion. She remembered one New Year’s night, looking up and seeing a parade of a hundred ghosts in the sky. That wasn’t unusual in itself. The weird part? She saw three different parades that night.

Those parades were elaborate—having just one was rare enough, let alone three. She’d always thought that was strange. But if that had been a festival… the grandeur would make sense. The only thing was, she couldn’t remember the exact date. Just that it was around the fifth or sixth day of the New Year.

She didn’t get the answer she wanted from the chat, but then remembered another possible source.

——Qiu Qiu.

She realized Monster Chronicle was surprisingly useful when it came to monster lore. Since it was made for humans, the comic explained everything in much more detail than other monsters ever had.

Like that whole gift-giving custom between monsters—Qiu Qiu had gone into way more detail than any real monster had ever told her.

When’s the next update? Yuan Yuanyuan counted on her fingers—it landed on New Year’s Eve, right at midnight.

She wondered if the artist would take time off. If Qiu Qiu didn’t, she could stay up for the New Year while waiting for the new comic.

And if he did draw something… he wouldn’t skip such a huge event, right? There had to be some kind of narration or background info.

Yuan Yuanyuan ran through her logic three times. It seemed solid. Then she ran through it three more times… and suddenly felt like a lunatic.

She buried her head in her pillow and rolled back and forth.

Ugh… this sucks.

On her desk were a few small stones, each labeled with symbols. She had tied tiny knots around them and attached big tags to avoid losing them.

Being broke really, really sucked.

…

Liu An looked at the girl across from him—she had come again.

But this time, it wasn’t to snatch a corpse. In fact, she had come to apologize… and even brought a gift.

Liu An accepted the gift and thought: Shit. Monster Chronicle is gonna explode next week.

The girl sat for a bit after delivering it, then quietly left. She barely said ten words.

This time… she actually seemed like a nice person.

He unwrapped the gift—it was beautifully packaged. Inside was a thick coat, stitched with care.

He lifted it up. The lining was warm and soft to the touch.

The girl left the cremation site and crossed two streets. Then she suddenly turned and glanced back.

Her face dropped in disappointment.

“Why didn’t he react at all? That’s not how it’s supposed to go…” she muttered, biting her lip.

She pulled a black hair tie from her pocket and tied her loose hair back. Then she went into a shop. Twenty minutes later, she emerged completely transformed.

Now she wore a black shirt, a sleek skirt, and immaculate makeup—totally different from earlier.

She lowered her head and looked at her phone.

“Li Zi, hurry back. Your grandpa’s looking for you.”

“Stall him,” she texted back.

“How? Your teacher doesn’t want to deal with you anymore. She’s yelling at your grandpa right now. What did you do to her?”

“That old woman.” The girl replied. “So annoying. Always trying to teach me. I didn’t want to learn, so I got my grandpa involved. She keeps tattling on me. It’s laughable. I’ve driven off so many teachers—why should I be scared of her? Who does she think she is?”

“What are you planning to do? If this keeps up, your grandpa is going to beat you.”

“Let him. Might as well beat me to death. I didn’t ask to be born. It’s my dad’s fault.”

She hung up angrily.

Stuffing her phone in her pocket, she slinked down the street like a runaway.

Elsewhere, Yuan Yuanyuan sat at her table, staring at her little collection of marked stones and feeling more and more defeated.

She had bought those… and was still struggling to memorize them.

Ugh… Why can’t someone decent just show up and teach her properly?

Ever since she became a monster, she realized how great nine years of compulsory education really was.

Back in high school, her biggest worry was finishing workbooks. Now? If someone put a workbook on monster arts in front of her, she would’ve devoured every question.

She fiddled with the white jade pendant hanging from her neck.

…Maybe she could save some money. Cut her dinner budget in half. Get a new one.