Little Pink Starfish

Yuan Yuanyuan was down with a fever for an entire day, and she spent that whole day lying around like a corpse in the tavern.

Whenever she wasn’t sleeping, she just lay there staring blankly at the ceiling, and left it to Liu An to bring her meals.

No one came to bother her during that time. All she did was eat, sleep, use the bathroom, and sleep again—on loop—until the morning of the fourth day of the New Year, when her fever finally broke and she managed to crawl out of bed.

And then… she got dragged into a Very Serious Conversation by Liu An.

“Boss, be honest—what exactly happened the night before last?” Liu An stared at her, dead serious.

Yuan Yuanyuan sat on the bed sipping congee and shook her head. “…I have no idea.”

“Okay, let me put it more simply,” Liu An said. “Did you offend someone important? Is our shop in danger?”

“…I’ve offended lots of important people,” Yuan Yuanyuan replied.

“Why did the head of the Li family come looking for you?”

“Hmm… from what I vaguely remember… maybe, probably, possibly… because I seduced his daughter?” Yuan Yuanyuan answered, looking conflicted.

Liu An was silent for a moment. Then he asked again, “So Boss… have you actually flirted with any girls recently?”

“Hey! Funny you ask—I’ve been thinking about that all day and I finally came up with a pretty solid theory,” Yuan Yuanyuan said, perking up excitedly.

Just as she was about to share her grand deduction, she saw Liu An silently cover his face.

Her enthusiasm deflated instantly. She slumped back into the bed, utterly dejected.

…

Truth be told, Yuan Yuanyuan really did want to talk to Liu An about it.

She’d spent three days thinking it through, eliminated all the other possibilities, and came to one likely conclusion:
That girl—the one who came into their tavern the other day and glared at her several times.

As Sherlock Holmes once said: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Looking at all the female creatures who’d entered the tavern recently—excluding herself, Tang Shi, and Qiu Ling—only that girl remained.

And if Yuan Yuanyuan added what she already knew—that the girl was the eldest daughter of some big family—everything suddenly made perfect sense.

The only thing Yuan Yuanyuan couldn’t confirm was the girl’s attitude.

She said… she liked the tavern’s owner? But when she came in that day, the one she was obviously chasing was Liu An.

Yuan Yuanyuan glanced again at Liu An. She was sure she hadn’t misread the way that girl treated Liu An versus how she treated herself. So she figured there were two possibilities:

1. The girl was lying.

This wasn’t impossible… but honestly, it seemed more likely that Yuan Yuanyuan had simply mistaken who the girl liked.

2. The girl’s father got it all wrong and assumed his daughter liked “Yuan,” so Yuan Yuanyuan ended up taking a hit on Liu An’s behalf.

She looked at Liu An again—he was still clueless, face-in-hands, looking like he’d been cursed to follow the world’s most unreliable boss.

Yuan Yuanyuan watched him for a moment, then suddenly reached out and grabbed his cheeks, yanking them sideways.

Tsk, tsk…

Here she was taking a bullet for him, and he still had the nerve to look this disgusted.

Still… what if—just what if—that girl really was the Li family head’s daughter?

Yuan Yuanyuan got up and walked outside.

What if—just if—some girl, somewhere, was secretly harboring a crush on her?

…

The fifth day of the New Year marked the start of the Hundred Demon Festival. Yuan Yuanyuan got dressed and wobbled downstairs on shaky legs.

While lying in bed yesterday, she’d thought: If another big shot shows up, I’m toast.

But now that her fever had broken and no one else had come by… she figured she’d made it through.

So for tomorrow’s Hundred Demon Festival… where should she go? She held her head, headache setting in. Maybe she should just skip it.

But would skipping it piss off the City Lord? Probably not… She vaguely remembered the two people from last night mentioning the “City Lord”—so they must’ve been his people.

Everything that happened yesterday must have reached the City Lord by now. If “Yuan” acted a little sulky and skipped the festival, it wouldn’t be that weird.

In fact, after everyone left last night, Yuan Yuanyuan had collapsed in her chair, unable to get up. Her whole body was cold, like a chill wind had passed right through her.

She had trembled all over. Just because someone looked fierce in the middle of a confrontation didn’t mean they were calm inside. At least for Yuan Yuanyuan, she felt like she’d overdone it.

A lot of things she said… were things the real her would never say.

She went to the backyard, opened the massive box from the Li family, and started pulling things out.

“Boss… what are you doing?” Liu An asked, stunned, holding a huge gold ingot she had just shoved into his hands, then watching as she kept pulling out more.

“Year-end bonus. Work hard next year,” Yuan Yuanyuan patted his shoulder. “Your illusion spell’s not bad—next time you see strangers coming, use it again and hide.”

She stuffed the rest into a bag, used the Tiangang Technique, and teleported home.

Screw it—she was gonna spend all that money. Not a single cent for that scumbag.

“Backstab your brother-in-law and don’t even have the decency to reflect on it,” she muttered, hurling a pouch into a drawer.

“And betray your own wife too—filthy piece of crap,” she said, tossing in a beautiful jade pendant.

“Call me vicious and devious? You little—” Yuan Yuanyuan dumped the entire bag in with a huff. “Who’s more vicious than you? If Yi Qi were here, he’d probably keel over with heart failure just watching this.”

“Shameless bastard.”

She stood alone in the middle of the room, staring at the pile of treasures, chest heaving with emotion. Then came a burst of firecrackers from outside.

“Now what?” she muttered.

She opened the balcony window and—bam!—a person was hanging upside down outside.

“Holy crap!”

“What’s the matter, Yuanyuan? Why are you hiding inside? Not coming out to play?” said the figure—none other than her long-lost friend Xue Jie.

“Yuanyuan, are you going to the Hundred Demon Parade this year?” she asked.

“Whose parade? The boss’s?” Yuan Yuanyuan replied.

“Yeah. We didn’t invite you last year ‘cause you had just arrived.” Xue Jie flipped gracefully into the room. “If you’re coming, wear something nice. Be downstairs by 7 tomorrow night. Once you see our boss’s car, follow along.”

“Uh… I’ll think about it,” Yuan Yuanyuan said. “Honestly, I kind of like spending the New Year at home.”

“I get it—you’re a half-demon,” Xue Jie said. “But you still need to start getting used to demon life.”

Yuan Yuanyuan thought she had a point, and she smiled awkwardly to show her thanks.

Once Xue Jie left, she sat alone in her room, spacing out again.

Getting used to demon life…

She felt like she had gotten used to it.

Demon life was, how to put it… definitely more intense than human life. And it had a certain dreamy quality.

Some days felt like something out of a fairy tale. But when that fairy tale happened to you—it didn’t feel so magical anymore.

That was something Yuan Yuanyuan had come to realize after living here for a few months.

She lay on her bed as the fireworks thundered outside, and opened her phone.

She hadn’t touched it all day due to the fever.

Once it powered on, she checked her usual apps. No one messaged her on WeChat or called, but the QQ groups were still buzzing like always.

Tang Shi had sent her a message:
“Boss, what happened at your place? It looked all dark and foggy from the outside.”

The timestamp was from early the day before yesterday. Yuan Yuanyuan hadn’t seen it then. She replied,
“I’m fine, don’t worry,”
and left it at that.

Then she opened the group chat with Fat Cat and the others.

[CircleCircle]: I’ve been sick all day, just barely crawling back online. Fat Cat, give me a red envelope to cheer me up!

[Group Leader]: You were sick all day? That’s rough. You still going to the Hundred Demon Festival tomorrow?

[CircleCircle]: Probably… not.

[BlackRed]: How’d you get sick? Scared or something?

Yuan Yuanyuan laughed sarcastically at that one.

[CircleCircle]: Haha, scared of what? Come on, be real. When have I ever been scared?

[Group Leader]: We heard about what happened in C City. You guys surrounded Yuan the night before last? Did that freak you out?

[CircleCircle]: Huh? What??

[BlackRed]: Heard Yuan didn’t even look at you guys—just sat there smoking by the window… LOL. That’s badass and hilarious.

…

[CircleCircle]: …What??

[Group Leader]: Apparently Yuan just kept smoking and even did his makeup. At first everyone was ready to confront him, but when they saw him all made up, they got cold feet and didn’t go in.

[CircleCircle]: …What???

Yuan Yuanyuan read through the chat history for a long time.

It became clear they were talking about that night. She started calculating something in her head.

—Fat Cat and BlackRed were in two completely different cities: one in China’s far south, one in the central plains.

Yuan Yuanyuan lived in the northeast.

And yet, in less than a day, they were already talking about what happened in C City like they’d seen it with their own eyes.

Fat Cat even described little details that Yuan Yuanyuan had already forgotten—like how the streets were completely empty that night because the area had been sealed off.

She thought back—yeah, she hadn’t seen a single soul that night.

[Group Leader]: No one dared to go in. They just stared at him through the window while he did his makeup. When he started brushing his hair, everyone backed away at once.

[BlackRed]: Damn… I wish I had that kind of rep.

[Group Leader]: I also heard something even crazier—Yuan probably knew people were outside. So he deliberately opened the window and looked out, and everyone jumped back again, LOL.

[BlackRed]: So cowardly, lol. And then Yuan just went back to doing his thing, totally ignoring them. The folks outside must’ve been so embarrassed.

Fat Cat and BlackRed were having a blast recounting everything. To them, it was all so entertaining—like one legendary story after another.

And honestly… listening to them talk like this… Yuan Yuanyuan almost forgot that she was the person in those stories.

They were funnier than she remembered.

Funny enough to sound like myths.

—Like the kind of legends Yuan Yuanyuan herself used to love listening to.