Little Pink Starfish

While Yuan Yuanyuan was washing glasses, Li Zi Jie asked, “Why did you suddenly run out last night?”

“Uh…” Yuan Yuanyuan said, “A friend from out of town came to visit C City. I went to pick him up.”

“Visiting C City, huh?” Li Zi Jie said. “If he’s here to sightsee, bring him around sometime. I’ll show him a few spots—our city does have a few decent places.”

Yuan Yuanyuan smiled and politely declined. No way was she letting Fat Cat meet people—unless she lost her mind.

She hadn’t slept all night yesterday, and had been boiling bone broth for Fat Cat, running errands all day. Now, she was starting to feel drowsy.

She yawned lazily. Even though she couldn’t nap just yet, her head was starting to ache.

She’d originally thought that even if the demons from M City didn’t come after her, the higher-ups from S City might. She’d been waiting all day for some sort of message from them, but nothing came.

She started waiting in the morning, and by nightfall, she still hadn’t heard a thing. Now she was starting to feel oddly uneasy.

It was like this: you mess up, and the teacher says, “We’ll talk when we get home.” If your mom then greets you with kindness, smiling while handing you snacks—you start wondering if those snacks are laced with poison. Maybe your mom’s planning on replacing you with a younger sibling.

Fat Cat had lost his phone last night. When Yuan Yuanyuan asked where, he said he didn’t know. He had been chased so hard, even his fur got burned off. He had no choice but to revert to his original cat form.

At the time, the demons in M City were all hunting “Yuan.” Once Fat Cat turned back into a cat, he managed to survive, since no one took a scruffy little stray for the infamous Yuan—just a lowly, pitiful creature.

You could also say Fat Cat was just so pathetic in that state that no one could imagine he was the same one who caused chaos in M City.

Pretty much every major demon in M City had mobilized… all converging in one area. Some had seen Fat Cat, but none had cared to deal with a scrawny little runt.

But if he’d stayed any longer, they likely would’ve done a more thorough search. Yuan Yuanyuan was pretty sure of that—once they couldn’t find Yuan, they would’ve started killing anything suspicious. Better to kill wrongly than let one get away.

They’d clearly been furious. Who knew what Fat Cat had done to piss them off that badly—it had to be something more than just mischief.

Since his phone was gone, Yuan Yuanyuan had to buy him a new one. A cheap refurbished one for five hundred yuan. When she handed it over, he was already chatting away with “Black and Red.” That guy hadn’t checked the chat last night and freaked out when he finally did. Thankfully, Yuan Yuanyuan had messaged him to say things were fine.

When she opened the phone, Fat Cat was in full meltdown mode. His messages had the whole screen flooded in red, thanks to the bright red chat bubble he’d chosen—completely over the top.

[Fat Cat: IT’S GONE!!!]
[Fat Cat: GONE!!!]
[Fat Cat: I LOST IT!!]
[Fat Cat: AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!]

Yuan Yuanyuan twitched. What the hell was wrong with this cat now? She glanced at her title in the group chat… still group admin. Fat Cat had randomly handed her the role during last night’s panic. Now, she was the new group owner.

She silently considered: should she mute him? And for how long?

[Fat Cat: IT’S GONE! I’M DOOMED!]
[Circle: …What did you lose? Didn’t I buy you a phone?]
[Fat Cat: Not the phone… Something way more important…]

Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t know what could possibly be more important than his phone, but Fat Cat suddenly grew serious.

[Fat Cat: I have to leave. I have to go now. If I stay, I might get you involved.]

[Circle: Hey—wait a sec! Didn’t you just say you weren’t leaving yesterday?]
[Black and Red: What the hell did you do? Why are you panicking?]

[Fat Cat: …I took something from M City.]
[Circle: …What’d you take?]
[Fat Cat: Something extremely, extremely important. I’d hidden it… but now it’s gone!]

Yuan Yuanyuan thought, If that thing was left outside somewhere, and someone finds out… he’s gonna get beaten within an inch of his life. No one forgives a thief.

[Don’t move around recklessly.] Yuan Yuanyuan sent him a message. [You’re still injured. Even if you want to leave, wait until you’ve healed a bit.]

[But what if someone comes for revenge?] Fat Cat replied. [I don’t want to drag you down. How about lending me some money so I can stay somewhere else?]

[What exactly did you take?] Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

[It belonged to Yuan.] Fat Cat answered.

……

[Don’t leave.] Yuan Yuanyuan said. [I’ll go stay somewhere else. You just rest and recover at my place.]

She closed the chat, feeling weirdly hopeless. Somehow, Fat Cat had managed to steal something from her without even her noticing.

He was way too used to this kind of thing.

She shook her head and glanced at the time. Almost midnight. She brewed some tea and grabbed some leftover pastries from a customer’s table, ready to relax with snacks and tea.

Just as she sat down, Li Zi Jie walked in, holding a phone in one hand and a cup of tea with red dates and goji berries in the other.

At first, Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t think much of it. But a second later, her head snapped around so fast she nearly sprained her neck.

She stared at the phone in Li Zi Jie’s hand—it was high-end. But clearly, she didn’t know how to use it. She was just aimlessly poking at the screen.

Li Zi Jie waved her over. “Yuanyuan, help me figure this out. It’s that comic app you always look at.”

Yuan Yuanyuan wasn’t even sure what face she was making at this point.

She walked over and helped set everything up, thinking: This must be the highest form of fangirling.

After she got everything sorted, it was past midnight. She even explained how the DreamMan app worked and added Demon Chronicles for her.

When she checked the latest update, this issue focused on Fa Ning. He wasn’t just learning about demons anymore—he’d begun investigating something mysterious.

—He was secretly searching for clues about a war from the past.

At that moment, it was like the heavens sang Hallelujah.

Yuan Yuanyuan stared blankly at the screen, feeling like a massive, terrifying FLAG had been raised above both Fa Ning’s and her own head—ready to come crashing down and crush them both.

Damn it! Why now?! Why start digging up that stuff!?

It was over… that kind of thing was not supposed to be found. Nothing good ever came from poking at the past.

It all started when Fa Ning became deeply curious about the “great demons” ever since the Hundred Demons Festival. That day, when he saw the Night Parade, he found it fascinating—not out of envy, but out of genuine curiosity: How had Taoist priests managed to defeat demons like that?

As far as he knew, both humans and demons declined after that war. That’s what he had learned on the mountain. But after coming to the city, he noticed things weren’t adding up.

Say what you will—but during the Hundred Demons Festival, if a priest had tried to intervene, a lot of people would’ve died.

And yet, humans had won that war.

Fa Ning now suspected… something about that story didn’t add up. Something had been hidden. By both sides.

Yuan Yuanyuan didn’t know what humans were hiding—but she did know what the demons were.

Fa Ning seemed to have sensed something. That made Yuan Yuanyuan uneasy. She instinctively grabbed her notebook, scribbled a few words in it, then set it aside.

“What are you writing?” Li Zi Jie asked.

“Nothing really. Just curious about the great demons… I mean, I never get to meet them.” Yuan Yuanyuan smiled.

“Eh? That comic… it’s that up-to-date? It even shows stuff that happened yesterday?” Li Zi Jie asked.

“Huh? Yesterday?” Yuan Yuanyuan froze, at first thinking of Fa Ning—but quickly realized that wasn’t it. Fa Ning hadn’t stirred up any trouble recently.

Then it hit her.

No way… Ji Qiu, don’t do this. Do you have to cram Yuan into every single issue? Afraid the readers will forget him or something?

She flipped to the back. Sure enough, Ji Qiu had drawn a bunch of Fa Ning early on… then slipped in several pages of Yuan at the end.

Those few pages showed a scene from what looked like someone else’s point of view. At first, it was a flat area with a tall pedestal. On top of the pedestal sat a small box.

Demons crowded around the pedestal, tightly packed with no gaps.

[“He’s not coming, right?” one demon whispered.]
[“Can’t let our guard down… he threatened us a few days ago. He could show up anytime,” another said.]
[As they spoke, a scream came from the front.]
[“He was here! He took it!”]
[The crowd plunged into chaos, and through the mess, a shadow in a black trench coat flashed by…]

Yuan Yuanyuan stared at the panels, stunned.

After a moment, she finally realized—

The “Yuan” drawn here… was probably Fat Cat.
This must have been something he actually did last night.