Little Pink Starfish

Hua Rongyue ran straight toward West Street — specifically, the West Street of Shibatting. When she arrived, she was surprised to find it wasn’t far from where Master Wu the painter lived.

But now wasn’t the time to be surprised. Going door to door wasn’t practical — it would be better to ask someone who was familiar with the area. Hua Rongyue looped around and ran directly to Wu the painter’s small shop.

She pushed open the door forcefully, startling the painter.

“It’s you… What brings you here today?” he asked after a moment of confusion.

“Do you know where a man and a woman who just moved in nearby live?” Hua Rongyue asked, panting.

“Oh… them? Should be further inside the alley,” Wu the painter said, pointing the way.

Hua Rongyue didn’t have time to make small talk. As soon as she got a concrete direction, she rushed off again, leaving Wu the painter alone in his shop, paintbrush in hand.

After a while, he chuckled softly.

“She seems… a little different than last time.”

Hua Rongyue felt a little foolish for what she was doing — even if, in her own view, it was entirely justified. Now that she thought about it, though, it probably exceeded the social norms of this era.

There were unspoken rules everyone followed. If you broke them, people would think you were either mad or foolish. Hua Rongyue wasn’t exactly bold enough to challenge those rules — it’s just that, in her heart, a human life still held a lot of weight.

She had assessed the risk before coming — she figured the crazy man in that couple likely wouldn’t be stronger than her.

After all, Yi Linglong was the world’s number one lunatic, and Hua Rongyue had trained under him. No matter how insane this guy was, he couldn’t be more insane than her… right?

With that mindset, she arrived at the house. The door was tightly shut. From the outside, it looked lifeless and bleak — a cramped house with a messy fence.

Hua Rongyue knocked twice, and when no one responded, she decisively kicked the door open and went inside. A pungent stench hit her immediately.

Still, she continued into the house. The first thing she saw was a cold, lifeless corpse.

Her brows furrowed slightly.

She scanned the room — rundown, narrow, with only a few belongings remaining. She walked to a small wardrobe and said toward the back, “Come out.”

…

Meanwhile, Wu Ci had been feeling uneasy ever since his slip of the tongue earlier. Though he hadn’t meant it, his conscience gnawed at him.

Seriously, what kind of idiot says something like that to a lunatic? That glance Hua Rongyue gave him before leaving — full of shock — made him feel even more uncomfortable.

He had said something rational and normal. Even the Songshan Sect people had given up on the girl. And yet Hua Rongyue had run off. Wasn’t that crazy?

He’d heard before that Hua Rongyue was meticulous and serious — even obsessive. He’d never really understood what that meant until now. It was clear to him that Hua Rongyue had taken this personally — and nothing could stop her.

And to take something personally in a situation like this… ugh. Wu Ci already felt a headache coming on.

He didn’t care about meddling in Songshan Sect matters, but he did feel guilty about Hua Rongyue running off alone. If he hadn’t said that, maybe she wouldn’t have gone.

Plus, after he said it, she had turned and looked at him with such confusion in her eyes.

And that’s when Wu Ci suddenly realized — wait, this person… is a lunatic. No matter how normal they look, they’re still a lunatic.

After wrestling with himself for a while, Wu Ci also ended up heading toward West Street. He wasn’t even sure why — just that he couldn’t help himself. Even he thought his actions were baffling.

— Go take a look, he told himself. After all, she is possessed. What if something happens?

…

Hua Rongyue looked at the girl hiding behind the wardrobe. Her face was full of terror. Her whole body was trembling. Then she glanced at the corpse lying on the ground.

It was a man, with a bright red mole near the corner of his eye.

…So the girl had killed him?

Hua Rongyue entertained the idea for a moment, then dismissed it. The girl looked too frail.

She pulled the girl out, but when the girl saw the mole near Hua Rongyue’s own eye, she seemed so frightened she recoiled even further.

Hua Rongyue gently pulled her out while softly saying, “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

A phrase she rarely used — and rarely cared to. Life, as it turns out, is unpredictable.

That devastatingly beautiful face worked in her favor. At least, it got the girl to follow her out. Hua Rongyue led her to the outer room. She didn’t fully understand what had happened, but it was clear that the girl was on the verge of collapse. One wrong move, and she could completely break.

While moving the body, Hua Rongyue noticed the wound on the man’s neck, and the blood on the ground. She paused, her eyes flicking between the man and the girl. In the end, she dragged the body aside.

So when Wu Ci finally caught up and saw the door wide open, he was momentarily confused. Then, hearing a woman’s sobbing from inside, he hurried in — only to find Hua Rongyue sitting beside the crying girl.

Wu Ci froze. She was still alive?

He looked at Hua Rongyue, who was sitting silently beside the girl, head lowered, staring ahead blankly — as if lost in thought.

The girl, though disheveled, was beautiful and refined. She had light calluses on her hands — the kind that come from sword practice. She had to be the Songshan Sect junior sister.

Wu Ci didn’t understand why she was alive — or why she was crying so hard. He wanted to ask Hua Rongyue, but he still felt awkward around her, so he tried speaking to the girl instead. Thankfully, Hua Rongyue had said nothing since he arrived — not even acknowledging him.

Her silence was already strange, but Wu Ci didn’t think too much of it at the time.

He smelled the strange odor in the room and followed it to a neighboring one. There, in the middle, was a lump under a cloth. He lifted the cloth — and jumped in fright.

He quickly covered it again.

Was this… Hua Rongyue’s doing? he wondered. Did she take care of it when she arrived?

No… No, wait. If the man had just died, his body wouldn’t be that stiff…

Wu Ci leaned closer and realized, like Hua Rongyue had before him, that the man’s neck bore a wound — and that his hand still gripped a bloodied blade.

He had been dead for a while, so the grip had loosened. The dried blood on the blade… it wasn’t someone else’s. It was his own.

He must have taken his own life.

From the moment Hua Rongyue saw the scene, her mind had been a tangled mess — like a voice chattering endlessly in her head. She’d experienced this before. Such voices usually brought hallucinations, and she’d learned to suppress them — urging them to quiet down.

She didn’t know if it was the shock of the scene that triggered it, but she kept her head down, trying not to lose control.

Wu Ci stumbled out of the room, dazed, and looked at Hua Rongyue. Then he noticed something off — her hand trembled.

That tremble struck him like an alarm bell in his brain.

Forgetting the awkwardness, he rushed over and asked, “Wh-what’s wrong?”

Just a day ago, the idea of standing this close to a lunatic would’ve terrified him.

But now, he asked instinctively. Only after reaching out did he realize how scared he was.

When he touched Hua Rongyue, she jolted — like waking from a dream. She whipped her head toward him, and for a moment, he thought he saw a flash of red in her eyes.

He reflexively gripped her shoulder — hard — bringing her back from the edge. In that moment, her body broke into a cold sweat.

Thank God… Hua Rongyue exhaled, relieved.

She leaned against the wall, groggy and dazed, only vaguely hearing the conversation beside her.

Wu Ci gently asked the girl, “The man in the other room… the one you ran off with… did he… take his own life?”

After a pause, the girl rasped out, “…Yes.”

Hua Rongyue heard the voice in her mind stir again. She forced it down.

Suddenly, she stood up and ran from the house.

“Hey, where are you going?” Wu Ci shouted behind her.

But Hua Rongyue was already gone.

By the time he opened the door, the street outside was empty.