Little Pink Starfish

Reading danmei really is… inexplicably addictive.

Yuan Yuanyuan sighed to herself as she stepped outside.

Of course, this kind of thing was fine to read in secret, but if Liu An saw his “male-oriented” boss reading this kind of manga… yeah, that’d definitely be awkward.

As she pushed the door open, she was startled to find a very familiar figure standing outside. Someone she hadn’t seen in a long time—so long that his sudden reappearance felt surreal.

Standing there was the black-robed man, still dressed in his usual dark attire. Yuan Yuanyuan froze for a moment at the sight of him, then quickly stepped aside to let him in while silently guessing what had brought him here.

The two of them still maintained a sort of ambiguous relationship. This strange dynamic had always defined their interactions.

If you said they weren’t close? Not quite true—after all, the black-robed man had helped her several times. But if you said they were really close? That didn’t seem right either. Like when all the monsters in C City came for “Yuan”… he never showed up even once.

As usual, Yuan Yuanyuan made tea for him. He took a sip and then said:

“Has Li Wangzhu contacted you yet?”

“…Ah,” Yuan Yuanyuan muttered vaguely. Inside though, she was panicking—Who the hell is Li Wangzhu?

“Did you already retrieve the item from M City?” he asked. “It’s already circulating out there that your next target might be U City.”

“U City?” Yuan Yuanyuan blinked.

Right… that was one of the cities neighboring C City. Fat Cat had mentioned it used to be one of C City’s subordinate cities—until it eventually rebelled.

She knew a lot more now than she used to. Things were… different. So when she looked at the man in front of her again, she couldn’t help but feel something was off.

This man… he must’ve been close with Yi Qi, right?

What was their relationship, exactly? War comrades? Battle buddies? Did they fight side by side?

Was he part of the “evil” camp, or the “justice” camp?

Did he know Yi Qi was against the mass killings back then? And when Yi Qi got arrested… what was he doing?

Yuan Yuanyuan’s head was full of these thoughts. Before, she’d only looked at this man as a role he played. But now, from a third-person perspective, his connection with Yi Qi suddenly seemed… novel-worthy.

You know what they say: birds of a feather. Anyone who ran with Yi Qi must have been a big shot too. Without this whole incident, a small fry like her would never have even crossed paths with someone like him. She still didn’t even know his real name, or what he really looked like.

The black-robed man sat there for a moment in silence. Then, he suddenly said something that caught her completely off guard.

“Are you planning to challenge them all, one by one? Just you, alone?”

Yuan Yuanyuan thought, Challenge who? Wow, do I sound that badass now?

Even though she was thinking all that, she didn’t dare joke out loud. Instead, she said, “I… haven’t decided yet.”

“Then keep thinking,” he said as he poured himself more tea. “If you haven’t made up your mind yet, don’t rush. Wait until you’re sure.”

“…Didn’t you,” Yuan Yuanyuan suddenly interrupted him, “didn’t you want me to go stir things up with them?”

The black-robed man went quiet.

Yuan Yuanyuan looked at him and fell silent as well.

“At the very least,” he said after a long pause, “you should be prepared, right? Ever since you came back, you’ve done a lot of reckless things. I’m not saying you’re wrong… but…”

“But I wasn’t like this before, right?” she asked.

“Right,” he replied.

“What was I like… before?” she asked.

“You used to think things through more,” he said. “You considered useful things, useless things, even tiny details that I thought were completely unnecessary… You were exhausting to watch sometimes.”

“Well, now I don’t think about that stuff anymore,” she said.

“But now you’re reckless,” he replied. “And recklessness isn’t always bad—but for you, it doesn’t fit. If it were someone like Yu Wu, I’d understand. But you’re not like that. You’re not the type to throw everything away.”

“You act like you’re not planning to live past tomorrow.”

After that, he stood up, shoved his chair back into the table with a loud bang, and walked out the door.

The room fell into dead silence. The sound of the chair scraping still echoed in her ears.

Liu An cautiously approached and whispered, “Boss… was that a friend of yours? If so… maybe you should listen to him.”

Yuan Yuanyuan stood there for a moment.

Then finally muttered, “…What the hell just happened?”

Because honestly? Despite her cool back-and-forth earlier…

She didn’t understand any of that.

Liu An looked even more confused than she was—his face was a perfect mix of bafflement and blankness.

Yuan Yuanyuan patted his head as she walked back into the house.

Sigh… I’ve gotten used to this kind of thing, huh? Big shots always talk in riddles. Never just say what they mean. Is that what makes them big shots?

---

Meanwhile, in the “Human-Demon Borderline” group chat…

This was a small, self-organized online community. Gao Ling had some spiritual sensitivity, but it was acquired later in life. After joining this group, she learned all kinds of things she’d never known before.

Many of the members were born with strong spiritual senses. Some even had actual demon friends. Their connection to the demon world ran deeper than average.

The group’s admin was a girl who had a demon friend. Those weird flyers she put up? Her demon friend had helped her make them, using special demon “paper”—basically a giant leaf.

Gao Ling hadn’t realized that at the time. Later, someone in the group told her demons often used stones or leaves to send messages, and she found it kind of cool.

The group was currently planning an event. The pinned message was tagged @everyone and read:

“Meet the characters of Demon Chronicles—BIG PLAN!!!”

Yeah. Three exclamation points. Serious otaku energy.

Gao Ling burst out laughing when she saw it. Y’all are nuts.

But then… they started trying to rope her in, and honestly? She was happy to join in on the madness.

They even started budgeting for plane tickets and hotel stays. Some were planning to turn it into a mini vacation.

“Before you go, wear the charm I gave you.” the admin posted.
“It’ll help mask your spiritual energy.”

That reminded Gao Ling of something from a few days ago—when she’d met the owner of a clothing store who smoked a pipe and said lazily, “You’ve got some serious spiritual power. You keep walking down this road, you might run into trouble.”

So she DM’d the admin her address and asked her to mail over one of those charms.

“Wait—we live super close,” the admin replied.
“It only takes me thirty minutes to get to your place.”

“You live in C City too?” Gao Ling was surprised.

“Yeah, I go to Experimental High. I live right by it.”

…A high school student? Gao Ling was shocked.

Apparently, this entire community was started by a high school girl.

“I’ve had help from a lot of friends,” the admin added.
“One of them’s my classmate—she’s helped me so much.”

Gao Ling thought, Oh… that classmate must be her demon friend.

“I just think something’s not right…” the admin wrote.
“Ji Qiu drawing this manga out of nowhere—makes me uneasy. I want more people to know this isn’t fiction. It’s real.”

Gao Ling was stunned. Look at this girl’s conviction. Here I am just vibing and drawing stuff, and this kid’s out here trying to save the world.

Turns out, they’d been planning this “meet the real characters” thing for a while. They’d mapped out all the manga’s real-life locations, even talked to some reliable demons to compile a list.

Their motto? “Even if we don’t see them, it’s still a fun trip.”

That night, unable to sleep, the group got to chatting.

“If you could meet one character, who would it be?”

“White Robe Guy! He hasn’t shown up in ages!”

“White Robe Guy doesn’t even have a name!”

“I want to meet Fa Ning. He’s literally humanity’s representative.”

“No one wants to meet Yuan?”

“Of course we do. Someone even said they’d read smut to his face—but he’s hard to find. Even harder than Fa Ning.”

“No he isn’t! He’s in C City! Our admin lives there! Let’s go!”

“But just knowing where he is doesn’t mean you’ll find him. That’s like saying you’ll find Orochimaru just ‘cause you know he’s in the Sound Village…”

“Okay but… if we do find them, what are you guys actually gonna do?” Gao Ling asked. “Read your smut fanfic out loud?”

Silence.

Then someone said:

“Of course not. We’d just… look from afar. See if they’re as hot as in the manga. Maybe take some pics.”

“If I could, I’d give him a hug…”

“NO MA’AM. DO NOT. BAD IDEA.”

“Seriously. This isn’t some wholesome anime character. You hug him, he’ll literally suck you dry.”

“Let’s make a rule: if we go, we keep it chill. No drama.”

Gao Ling shook her head, chuckling. So you’re all just winging it too, huh?

She glanced at her drawing tablet, paused for a while, then whispered to herself—

“If I saw Yuan again… would I draw him more true to life?”

---

Meanwhile, Yuan Yuanyuan shook the red liquid in her container.

She was practicing Blood Jade Demon Arts again—and suddenly realized:

This is definitely a dark art. It uses human blood to cultivate power… There’s no way this counts as a righteous demon technique.

And yet… this very un-righteous technique had been standard-issue for elite demon soldiers for decades.

That alone… said a lot.

Only recently had she started noticing these things. She shook her head, wondering:

Who invented this art, anyway? And what the hell were they thinking?

She flipped open a thick old book—not a demon history book, but a human one. Since the demon side erased everything, why not try the human side for clues?

She skimmed through it. No sign of that lost history—just a bunch of weird folktales like “Lady Ding Crossing the River” and “The Clerk of the East Sea.” All in classical Chinese too, which made her head spin.

She scanned the contents:

Object demons, flower spirits, tree spirits, dragon spirits, tiger demons, fox seductresses, snake demons, livestock monsters, insects, water spirits…

After reading for a while, she forgot what she was originally looking for.

What even am I? Been transformed this long, still don’t know what kind of demon I am…

There were vines on her back… probably a tree spirit, right?

Yeah, let’s go with that. I’m a tree spirit. Officially decided.

Feeling satisfied with her self-labeled identity, Yuan Yuanyuan kept flipping pages and jotting notes, determined to uncover that long-buried history.