Little Pink Starfish

Yuan Yuanyuan entered her house and, as usual, checked to see if anyone was hiding inside. Once she confirmed it was all clear, she dashed up to the second floor, grabbed the box Tang Shi had left her, found a small knife, and sliced it open.

Inside the box… was a stack of textbooks.

Yuan Yuanyuan stared, stunned.

WTF… What the hell? Her first New Year’s gift was this?

She picked up the pile of papers—each page covered in a variety of runes and markings.

…

“I gave my textbook to Boss,” Tang Shi said on the phone to Qiu Ling.

“Pfft… Why would you give her your textbook?” Qiu Ling asked.

“Just messing with her. Don’t you think this is kind of like giving someone a workbook as a birthday gift?” Tang Shi replied.

“I think… Boss might actually take it seriously…” Qiu Ling said. “She really does like reading.”

“I don’t know why she always reads my textbook,” Tang Shi muttered. “Maybe she never had one when she was younger and finds it novel now.”

…

Yuan Yuanyuan thought about it and realized that Tang Shi must’ve seen her constantly flipping through the textbook before. So now she just went ahead and gave her one. Yuan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. To be honest, most of the stuff in here was already covered in her Blood Jade Demon Arts manual. The real reason she’d been skimming through it before was to look for that “17” signature hidden in the back.

But since Tang Shi had gifted it to her now, she might as well take a look. While most of the content was familiar, she was genuinely interested in the sections on different demon species. That part was rarely found in the Blood Jade manual.

She flipped to the end and, sure enough, there was that familiar “17” mark.

Back in those days, a demon using Arabic numerals was unheard of—whoever “17” was, they were clearly ahead of their time. If they’d been human, they probably would’ve been one of the first to study abroad.

Yuan Yuanyuan felt an odd sense of admiration.

She sat in her chair waiting. Truthfully? That “Jiang Taigong fishing” thing only works if you’ve got confidence. Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t.

She had confidence before she came here… but it was already the second day of the New Year, and she hadn’t seen a single shadow of anyone. That little confidence had long since been chopped into pieces.

She looked up at the sky. Things were even livelier today—more and more little demons were out, holding tiny lanterns in their hands.

From a human’s perspective, the whole street looked like a chaotic cosplay event. Yuan Yuanyuan turned away, picked up her phone, and opened DreamComics to check that night’s update.

She wasn’t expecting much. Last week’s update had been packed with jaw-dropping twists—this one was bound to be more lowkey. She figured Ji Qiu would probably shift focus back to Fa Ning.

While waiting, she scrolled through the comments on last week’s chapter. As always, the diversity of human thought was on full display.

Most readers were still speculating about who had dragged Yuan to the tribunal. Who was the one that grabbed his hair?

Yuan Yuanyuan suspected it was someone he knew—very likely his brother-in-law.

And that line—“For loyalty”… Even now, Yuan couldn’t make sense of it. For loyalty? Why was everyone so sure of that? Could it be… had Yi Qi really done something disloyal back then?

Didn’t seem likely… If Yi Qi had actually betrayed anyone, she honestly wouldn’t know how to process that. After everything he’d done for the demon realm, how could that be betrayal? Betrayed whom, exactly?

It didn’t add up. Everything about it felt off. Yuan didn’t think her logic was top-tier, but she knew some basics.

Like—if someone truly gave their all for a group, why would they turn their back on it?

She was confused. Maybe she was the one who didn’t get it. The commenters had a different take. According to the popular theory, Yuan had committed some act of betrayal and got caught.

A small minority of readers thought maybe he’d already been “redeemed,” and that the betrayal had been a misunderstanding. But Yuan Yuanyuan knew it wasn’t…

One major demon might say it, two might say it—but when even the elder demons echoed it… This wasn’t some fictional fantasy comic. In a way, this was reality. How could everyone be so unanimously convinced that he was a traitor?

Two truths were very clear from the comment section.
First: at least everyone was talking about Yuan’s betrayal.
Second: there really weren’t many demons online.

[Maybe he just favors humans?]
[Obviously. That was pretty clear in the last few chapters.]
[Hmph… he seems like someone who just does whatever he wants. Kinda love that about him.]
[Yeah, he doesn’t seem to care what other demons think. If he hadn’t been taken down in the war, who knows…]
[Winners write history. Betrayal isn’t new. Still, I love how shameless he is—even after getting exposed, he’s still living his best life. Can’t say I don’t admire that.]
[You know he’s scummy and still like him? Guess you’re pretty scummy too.]
[Hey, chill with the insults! What’s your problem?]

Yuan noticed that the character of Yuan was incredibly polarizing—he had a weird tendency to spark drama. She wasn’t sure why, but the comment section was constantly blowing up over him.

Among all the fictional characters she’d seen across anime and comics, Yuan was definitely one of the most controversial. These kinds of characters always had complicated backstories and ideologies.

Yuan Yuanyuan had gotten into her own fair share of flame wars over characters like this. They were walking argument magnets. She never expected Yuan to become one of those.

And, well… her feelings were complicated.

Soon enough, the new chapter dropped. She set aside her stuff and clicked into the comic.

The cover returned to something more normal—this time, it was a picture of Fa Ning. Compared to his gloomy, gray-clad look from the last issue, he’d evolved a bit.

This time… he had demon markings.

Huh?! What was going on?

Yuan stared, thinking she’d missed something. She quickly flipped through the pages and finally let out a breath of relief.

Turns out, Fa Ning had drawn them on himself.

Feeling out of place among demons, he’d painted demon markings on his own face.

The move reminded Yuan Yuanyuan of her own antics back in the day—she used to paint big, dramatic designs on her face too.

Before drawing, Fa Ning had tried to recall all the demon markings he’d seen. Even though he was a rising star from the Sanqing Temple, he was still a newbie. In his first twenty years, he hadn’t met half as many demons as he had in just the last two months.

So he hesitated for a bit, then began sketching based on his memory of one specific demon.

Yuan Yuanyuan watched him draw two little crescent moons, then add a bunch of random scribbles. As she watched… she slowly covered her face.

That… was her demon mark.

After finishing, Fa Ning stared into the mirror for a long while, then muttered, “Why do I look so girly?” and walked out the door.

At that moment, a massive firework exploded outside—one that lit up the entire sky in brilliant blue.

Yuan Yuanyuan turned her head. Another convoy of carts was rolling past her window.

She instinctively pushed the window open and stepped out. But the moment she did, something felt… off.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of shadow at the edge of the fireworks.

Her mind blanked.

Wait… was that someone?

She immediately activated the chessboard technique and scanned her surroundings—but to her surprise, there were no signs of life.

No way… something felt wrong.

She scanned again, more carefully this time. The feeling of unease deepened, though she still couldn’t put her finger on exactly what was wrong.

But she’d seen a moving shadow. She was certain. Her eyesight wasn’t that bad.

Had she been mistaken?

Yuan Yuanyuan leaned out the window, pretending to pluck one of the illusion-generated leaves nearby.

Then suddenly…

“Clatter!”

A sweeping sound echoed around her.

It was almost theatrical. She watched as the entire “black sky” peeled back in a wave, revealing the starry night behind it.

She blinked.

Holy crap. She’d been wondering why it was so dark out. She’d thought it was a cloudy night—but no, it was clear.

There was a moon!
There were stars!

In that instant, she remembered seeing Liu An sitting under the tree… and realized—someone had cast an illusion to shroud the area.

Dammit… this chessboard technique is so unreliable.

Yuan Yuanyuan cursed herself for not realizing sooner. She scanned again, trying to sense how far the illusion had spread—and maybe estimate how many demons were hiding within.

All she saw… was black.

Just moments ago, the illusion had slipped up and exposed itself—why were they still hiding now?

Was there some purpose she wasn’t aware of?

Her hand trembled. She yanked a leafy branch from the nearby tree, feeling a sudden pang of guilt for hurting her poor tree, and retreated back inside.

There was something she wanted to say… but she figured profanity wasn’t very classy. So she swallowed it.

Now what?
Maybe… play some card games to calm the nerves?

Truth be told, modern humans have a way of dealing with fear—they grab their phones.

Yuan thought if she weren’t being watched, she definitely would’ve pulled out her phone by now. But with a crowd of hidden onlookers outside, even she felt like that’d be a bit shameless. Like she was inviting them to come after her.

So… what to do?

Unconsciously, she fidgeted with the branch, twisting it into a ring.

When she came to, it had become a small crown.

The illusion-spawned branch was extra beautiful, and since the illusion hadn’t dispersed yet, the crown she’d made was surprisingly lovely—delicate, adorned with soft little sprouts.

She stared at it for a while… then quietly placed it on her head.

Outside, the “black sky” rippled ever so slightly—but then returned to silence.