Little Pink Starfish

“Here, take this,” Gao Ling said before leaving.

She pulled out the talisman from her chest and stuffed it into a boy’s hand.

“This is…”

“I’m going home. I’m not going out for the next few days,” Gao Ling said. “You go to the group leader and get a new one, then return this to me.”

“Oh…” The boy nodded. Gao Ling turned to head upstairs, but after glancing at a girl standing stiffly to the side, she walked over and patted her on the shoulder. “Hey, relax. It’s all over now. You’re fine.”

“Boss…” the girl finally spoke. Her voice was hoarse.

“Alright, alright,” Gao Ling interrupted, “Everyone’s exhausted today. Go get some rest first. Once we’ve all recovered, we’ll sit down and have a proper talk.”

Finally, the others slowly made their way upstairs to the hotel. Gao Ling looked around, tightened her coat around herself, and quickly ran home. Fortunately, her house wasn’t far; she had picked the hotel herself, and it was just one street over.

This time, she reminded them over and over again to wear the talisman properly. One of them immediately promised to even wear it while sleeping, not taking it off at all.

Gao Ling ran back home, keeping her head down the whole way, hiding her face in her coat. When she opened the door, her mother was sitting on the sofa, knitting while watching TV. Seeing her come in, she looked surprised. “Didn’t you bring your friends back with you?”

“No, Mom, I…” Gao Ling started to say something but quickly changed her tone, “I’m just really tired from today… I want to sleep.”

“Sleep… Well, then go sleep. Isn’t it a bit early though?” Her mom looked at the clock. “Go eat first, then sleep. I made some bone broth—it’s in the pot. Just heat it up, and there’s rice too.”

Covering her face, Gao Ling hurried into the kitchen, turned on the induction stove, and started heating up the food while trying to calm her breathing.

After about five minutes, she pulled out her phone and checked the group chat—it had exploded with messages.

All because about half an hour ago, someone anonymously posted a message in the group:

[We ran into Yuan at the comic con.]

The message was anonymous and likely sent by one of the six of them.

Gao Ling herself hadn’t posted anything. As she scrolled, she saw the group was in chaos, with everyone frantically asking what had happened and whether everyone was safe.

[Yuan?! At the con?! Did you really see him? What does he look like??]

[Oh my god… are you guys okay? Did you make it back to the hotel safely? Was it really Yuan or just someone pretending? How did you recognize him?]

[Don’t be stupid and get close! If it’s really him, don’t let random gossip fool you into getting careless.]

[Right, is the boss with you guys? What did she say? Is she okay?]

Gao Ling wiped her face again while looking at these messages.

The message had been posted during the time they were still hiding in the bathroom.

Meaning, while they were chatting inside, someone had secretly taken out their phone and sent that anonymous message… No one knew what that person was thinking. Even while surviving a near-death experience, they still remembered to send a message.

But because everyone was stuck in the bathroom at the time, no further messages followed—the chat had been eerily silent until now. Only now were the others in the group going wild, but none of the six people involved had appeared yet.

Later, after they finally made it out of the bathroom, everyone realized the situation was even worse than they had thought. Some of them were so terrified they just froze on the spot. Honestly, for some of them, the fright afterward was even worse than the initial encounter.

Eventually, a boy spoke up, “Since they didn’t come after us… that means they don’t plan to do anything to us, right?”

The ones standing in the bathroom finally snapped out of it. They looked at each other, then bolted like mad, grabbed a taxi, and rushed back to the hotel.

That was why the conversation in the group had been cut off so abruptly. Nobody wanted to talk about it anymore. Even the one who had initially been eager to gossip suddenly lost their nerve.

Back in her room, Gao Ling watched as the others who had returned to the hotel started checking the group messages. Someone asked:

[Who among us sent that message?]

[No idea…]

[Seriously… we were in that kind of situation and someone still had the heart to message the group?!]

[Who was it? Come out! If you’re brave enough to send it, you should be brave enough to admit it!]

Gao Ling scratched her head. It was clearly about to turn into a full-blown fight, but she didn’t care anymore.

Anyway, she had already decided she’d never stick with them again.

Well… they were really kind of dumb. But now that they were back at the hotel, they were more or less safe—as long as Yuan didn’t come looking for them.

…So if they wanted to fight, let them fight.

Turning away, Gao Ling pulled out her notebook and started doodling.

Her pen moved intermittently across the page. She drew for a while, stopped, then drew some more.

The comments under her recent posts were along the lines of:

[Boss, this is awesome!]

[Hurry up, I want to see Yuan wreck those guys!]

[Yeah, the boss’s stuff is great… but was this how Jiuqiu originally planned it? The more I read, the more I feel Yuan is actually a tragic figure…]

[Not sure… Jiuqiu hasn’t drawn the later parts yet. Even though the boss’s theories seem convincing, I’m worried she might end up getting proven wrong.]

Gao Ling read through all the comments, one by one. By the time she finished the last one, an hour had already passed.

She adjusted her desk lamp to make it a bit brighter, then pulled out another notebook and started jotting down more notes.

At the top of the notebook, there were already several phrases written in sequence—like a rough outline.

The very first line was something she had written long ago, when she first learned about the inside story behind the comic:

[There’s more to the story of killing the humans than it seems.]

The date next to it was 8/13.

Below that, there were more notes with different dates:

[Yuan might make a big move later on… not sure what exactly, but likely involving the upper ranks.]
[10/25]

[The chaos among the demons likely stems from class conflicts… and possibly other unknown factors.]
[2/13]

And more.

Gao Ling opened a new pen and added today’s note:

[Yuan might be seriously injured, possibly from an old, untreated wound.]
[3/27]

…

Meanwhile, in the group chat, the fight raged on from 10 PM until almost 2 AM. The next morning, Gao Ling looked through the chat history and was shocked. She thought to herself, These people were kneeling for half an hour straight—where did they get the energy to fight like this afterward?

Then she thought about it again. Maybe it was a form of emotional release… like a trauma response?

Anyway, by the end, the only ones still arguing were the original five or six involved. Everyone else in the group didn’t care about the infighting anymore—they were more concerned about what had happened that night.

[So you guys really saw that Yuan was injured? Seriously injured?]

[Uh… it wasn’t me who saw it—it was the boss and Yan Ming who saw it… We saw them both stunned outside the bathroom, and later they told us about it.]

[But we did see the trash can full of bloody tissues… there were a lot, and it looked pretty scary.]

[…Actually, I took a ball of them back as a souvenir.]

[…]

[…Are you insane?! That’s the blood of a great demon! Their sense of smell is insane—what if they track you down?!]

[It’s fine.] That person confidently replied, [I smoked it overnight with mosquito coils… probably no smell left now.]

[…You’re the idiot who burned mosquito coils in the dead of winter?!]

[I was wondering which moron it was! I almost brought a knife upstairs—turns out it was you!]

The conversation derailed for a bit before finally returning to the main topic:

[So the boss saw Yuan for the longest time? As expected of the boss…]

[Where is the boss now, anyway?]

[No idea. Didn’t see her all night…]

[Probably avoiding your drama… see how calm she is.]

[At that time, the boss was washing her face at a sink, and Yuan was at the sink right next to hers, both washing side by side…]

[…Wow. Boss.]

[…If it were me, I’d have died of fear.]

As the conversation went on, someone suddenly raised a doubt:

[How come Yuan was so badly injured just from saving a few of you?]

Others chimed in:

[Yeah, it doesn’t make sense… He didn’t even really make an appearance, did he? How could he be injured? Could you guys have been mistaken?]

[No way! I saw the blood-soaked tissues myself. Definitely not mistaken!]

[That’s weird then.] Someone said.

[Unless…]

[Unless… he was already injured before this?]

[Makes sense… but when did he get hurt? Was it from the higher-ups?]

[Actually… probably not.]

The girl who had seen Yuan alongside Gao Ling, with the username [Yan Ming], suddenly spoke up.

[I have a theory… but after getting roasted last night, I’m too scared to blurt it out now (staring at the sky). I’ll just play dead.]

She sent a “playing dead” emoji.

[Come on, spit it out! We’ll help you analyze it!]

[Yeah, say it! We want to hear it!]

…

Meanwhile, Yuan Yuanyuan pushed open the door, tossed her keys onto the table, and headed into the bathroom for a shower.

Water flowed over her body, turning red, then slowly clearing after a long time.

As she showered, Yuan Yuanyuan suddenly froze.

She looked down at her chest.

She slowly walked to the mirror and stared at herself for a long while.

There was a clear bruise on her skin, torn open. And beneath the exposed skin, there was a large patch of deathly white.

What… the hell… is this?

Frowning, Yuan Yuanyuan gently tugged—and a huge chunk of skin came off.

“Hiss—”

She stared at the palm-sized piece of skin in her hand.

Ah…

And then, half-naked, Yuan Yuanyuan just stood there in front of the mirror…

…and silently crumbled away.