Little Pink Starfish

“Boss, did you pick up any money today?” Liu An asked.

“No, why do you ask?” Yuan Yuanyuan said while gnawing on a bone.

“Because today’s meal… isn’t it a bit too fancy?” Liu An asked.

“How is it fancy? You have to eat meat to have strength,” Yuan Yuanyuan said, showing off her muscles a little.

Yuan Yuanyuan was afraid she wouldn’t have enough strength if someone came to fight her. She was even more afraid she might get scared and back down. So she prepared a whole table full of meat to boost her morale and energy.

She thought the family head coming this time should be about the same level as the Li Family head she met before. But after waiting for an entire day, there was still no sign of anyone.

On the afternoon of the second day, while Yuan Yuanyuan was sitting alone in the yard thinking about life, the woman in white came back and said in a very apologetic tone, “I’m really sorry… the Lan Family head does things a little slowly.”

“Go ahead!” Yuan Yuanyuan said excitedly, like a patient suddenly going manic. She threw the mirror out, watched it get run over by a car, then silently picked it up again.

Crazy.

As for what kind of person the family head was, Yuan Yuanyuan waited a whole day without even seeing a shadow. All she knew was that his last name was Lan and he was super slow. Nothing else.

Later that night, she sat alone in her house thinking. She genuinely thought this person was scary. They hadn’t even done anything, but she had been worrying for over a day. She even lost sleep the night before.

Although it wasn’t really the Lan guy’s fault — it was more Yuan Yuanyuan being overly sensitive — she still threw all the blame on him and then cooked herself another pot of ribs.

After eating ribs for two days, Yuan Yuanyuan casually locked up the shop and went home by herself.

No more waiting. Whatever happens, happens. Even if they were coming to kill her, they could come next week instead.

“If someone comes, you know how to hide, right?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked Liu An before leaving.

“I know!” Liu An said.

“Good.” Yuan Yuanyuan carried her bag home, shut the door, lay on her bed, and started spacing out.

“I’m thinking of going home in a few days. My wounds are almost healed, and lately no one’s looking for trouble,” Fat Cat said as he sat down heavily on Yuan Yuanyuan’s pillow.

“Don’t just barge into my bedroom,” Yuan Yuanyuan said.

“I’ll send you my rent after I go back,” Fat Cat said. “And I’ll leave you a few books to read.”

“Nice!” Yuan Yuanyuan immediately lifted her head.

Her love for studying shocked Fat Cat. Since he came here, he had said that Yuan Yuanyuan was one of the most studious monsters he had ever seen.

Yuan Yuanyuan thought it was because monsters didn’t need to study much — they relied on talent to secure a place in society. Their social status was more fixed than humans’. So most monsters didn’t bother struggling. There wasn’t much point.

For example, dung beetle monsters — even if they trained like crazy, how strong could they get?

Ultimate dung ball?

Although in recent years monsters started sending their kids to human schools, they still hid among humans. There were no monster-only schools, no compulsory education. Only a small number of monsters went to human schools.

That didn’t mean monsters who didn’t go to school were bad. Some had private tutors or learned from their parents. Yuan Yuanyuan wasn’t sure how to explain it, but in her heart, monsters just naturally seemed that way. She never felt anything was wrong.

But when she thought about it carefully, she realized there might be some real problems hidden inside.

Yuan Yuanyuan felt she was overthinking. That was work for sociologists, not engineering students like her. Still, she thought, if a half-monster sociologist wrote a paper comparing monster and human societies, it would be pretty interesting.

“Are you free the day after tomorrow?” Fat Cat said. “If you are, take me to the train station.”

“Once you leave, are you coming back?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

“Of course. I just need to pack some things. I’ll be back,” Fat Cat said. “This place is too fun. I have to drag Faning over here too.”

Yuan Yuanyuan lay in bed and smiled kindly. “I freaking knew it…”

“Knew what?”

“Knew you’d end up like this,” she said, picking up her phone.

Fat Cat grabbed her clothes like a little kitten begging for something. Yuan Yuanyuan rolled her eyes and tossed him the phone.

Fat Cat immediately grabbed it, sat on it, and started pawing at it with his little claws.

Just like Pavlov’s dog. Given a little self-awareness, they started grabbing their phones naturally. Ji Qiu had trained them like this. It was Saturday, another update day, and not just for them — there were others too.

“You said Fat Cat asked about the next update?”

“Faning?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

“No, probably someone else,” Fat Cat said. “Someone new.”

“Someone new? Who?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

“In the next Yao Ji update, Faning will appear less and less on the covers,” Fat Cat said, swishing his tail. “The real protagonist was never Faning. He was just a placeholder. Ji Qiu will seriously introduce new characters now. The earlier ones were just tests. Now it’s serious.”

“How do you know Ji Qiu is serious?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

“Because Yuan is serious. He showed up recently,” Fat Cat said. “Yuan is an important signal for Ji Qiu. If Yuan moves, Ji Qiu is moving too.”

“Why is Yuan an important signal?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked.

“Because Ji Qiu clearly wants to use Yuan as a trigger. I think they even have a secret connection outsiders don’t know about,” Fat Cat said. “Want to bet on it?”

“Forget it.” Although Yuan Yuanyuan felt a little upset, she didn’t dare bet.

She refreshed DreamMan comics a few times. When the new cover finally loaded, she froze.

Holy crap! Holy crap! Holy crap!

Yuan Yuanyuan almost jumped off the bed. Beside her, Fat Cat stared at the cover, his cat face wrinkling up.

This guy!

“This guy…” Liu An stared at the cover for a long time, so long his eyes hurt.

When he finally recognized who it was, he jumped up from his chair, making a loud screech.

“What’s wrong? Can’t you focus?” a big monster slammed the table nearby.

Liu An was startled and quickly apologized, grabbing a leaf to start writing down the corpse information. It was his daily work.

But he had never wanted to quit his job so badly.

This guy… was actually connected to what happened back then!

Liu An always thought he was just a simple side character. Even though he never showed up before, Liu An still thought he must be harmless.

But now he realized it wasn’t true. This guy might have been from the same era as Yuan.

Because this chapter was titled — “Some Stories from Back Then.”

At that moment, Liu An suddenly realized: his boss was a terrifying big shot — much scarier than he ever imagined.

Because he remembered — this guy visited their shop during New Year’s and gave a gift to the boss.

It was him!

A monster from that generation, visiting the boss on New Year’s!

And Liu An hadn’t even recognized him at the time, probably because he acted so obediently in front of the boss.

Which meant… their boss was definitely no ordinary person.

Yuan Yuanyuan stared at the screen, sweating. Fat Cat shook his head beside her.

“See, I told you they’d bring in an important character. This guy finally showed up… he’s been hiding deep. I think he and Ji Qiu have some shady deal. Yuan is too stubborn to make deals, so he keeps getting used as a punching bag.”

Yuan Yuanyuan ignored Fat Cat’s nonsense and stared at Si Qun’s face on the comic page. Honestly, Si Qun and the Li Family head looked way too similar in real life, easy to confuse. But in the manga, it was easier to tell them apart.

Just like some manga where changing a hairstyle means it’s a new character — readers were used to that. As long as their personalities were different, it was fine. But this was rare in Yao Ji, so Yuan Yuanyuan figured many readers would notice.

To be honest, Si Qun’s manga face looked sharper — a typical ice-cold beauty. The Li Family head’s face was softer, with a fox-like smile and a sneaky vibe.

Yuan Yuanyuan stared left and right at Si Qun’s face for a long time before thinking — holy crap, so handsome.

No way this is Si Qun… since when was he this good-looking?

She flipped the page and immediately saw Faning sitting alone on a chair.

In front of him was a thick pile of books, all filled with dense handwriting.

“There’s so much in common between monster arts and human magic,” Faning muttered while writing.

“Faning, what are you doing? Hurry up!”

“Oh! Coming!” Faning quickly closed his notebook and ran out.

He saw some rough-looking monsters at the door and sighed quietly, rushing over to help them.

Because of the dark nature of his workplace, slightly stronger monsters really mistreated the little monsters. As long as they didn’t die, they would be worked to death.

“Monsters are such bullies,” Faning thought.

But maybe it wasn’t bullying — it was just a strong sense of hierarchy.

“It’s not bullying,” one monster friend said with a smile. “It’s just that their sense of hierarchy is very strong.”

“Hierarchy?” Faning asked. “I kind of get it, but it sounds awful.”

“For example, big monsters have their hierarchy, small monsters have theirs,” the friend said. “It’s hard for the two sides to be equal.”

Faning suddenly didn’t know what to say. He wanted to say humans had similar issues too… but he held back.

Still, it was true — monster hierarchy was much stronger than among humans. Faning never felt anything wrong about it before.

“In the past, big monsters and little monsters making friends almost never ended well,” the friend said. “Want to hear a story about it?”

“Eh? You’ll tell me a story?” Faning perked up, grabbed a small stool, and moved closer with his notebook.