Little Pink Starfish

Not long after Yuan Yuanyuan’s last conversation with the tavern owner, the Mask Organization made a move. One day, while she was out buying eggs, someone suddenly called her over — and she had a hunch that something was about to happen.

Many things don’t just happen overnight; it’s only after countless undercurrents stir beneath the surface that they slowly come to fruition.

Yuan Yuanyuan had a vague sense of premonition, so when she met the old geezer again, she was unusually calm. Even the sight of that eye-burning mask didn’t faze her anymore.

“You know why I’ve called you, don’t you?” the old geezer asked.

“I do,” Yuan Yuanyuan replied.

…Though, to be honest, she only vaguely understood it — not that clearly.

“So, are you agreeing or not?” the old geezer asked.

“I agree,” Yuan Yuanyuan said.

Then she calmly walked out, went home, cuddled Fat Cat, watched TV, and slept. It wasn’t until the following Monday that she saw the news in Yao Ji (Monster Chronicle).

The Mask Organization had successfully pushed Yuan into the spotlight as the scapegoat. The old geezer had vanished behind the scenes, and now, officially, the “leader” of the Mask Organization was Yuan.

The true identity of the Mask Organization’s leader had never been confirmed. To the outside world, the Mask Organization was extremely mysterious, and there had never been a clearly acknowledged boss.

Only recently did news finally break — after a period of internal power struggle, one individual had emerged victorious.

—That person was Yuan.

…

When Yuan Yuanyuan saw this news, she paused mid-sunflower seed, then said, “So that’s what all his hemming and hawing was about lately… turns out he was planning this.”

She blinked and thought this was way better than she’d expected. She had assumed the Mask Organization was going to suddenly declare war without warning — but now it seemed far more measured than she had feared.

When she went out, she saw Fat Cat staring at his phone. She walked over and pet him, asking, “What are you up to?”

“Reading manga,” Fat Cat said, looking up. “I’ve been thinking about going to find Yuan… want to come with me?”

“What for?” Yuan Yuanyuan asked. “There’s no need.”

“Before, he was impossible to find, but now there’ll probably be a lot more chances to see him.” Fat Cat pointed at the screen. “The Mask Organization finally put Yuan out in the open.”

“Ah… so it really is like that. You’re quite observant, Fat Cat,” Yuan Yuanyuan said.

She continued mulling over the recent string of changes around her. First, the upper levels of City C… the higher-ups were probably going to change their stance toward her. She wondered if Yuan’s name would be deleted from that official registry in City C, and whether she could still collect her team leader’s pay.

Sure enough, when she went to check later, it seemed she could no longer access the upper-level offices. She looked in on her own shop — surprisingly, it hadn’t been shut down, but it looked overgrown and abandoned. She didn’t dare go in, afraid it might be a trap.

The next time she visited the Mask Organization, the entire place treated her as if she were the old boss. The previous “old geezer” had suddenly disappeared, no one knew where he went, and as Yuan Yuanyuan walked through, everyone parted to make way, silently watching her enter.

She was wearing a newly made black robe that had a strange scent.

She lowered her head and studied it for a while — the scent came from the robe itself, and she couldn’t figure out what material it was made of.

Heavenly silkworm silk? Or something even more exotic?

The room had already been cleaned out. In the center stood a massive chair — clearly designed for comfort. Not only could Yuan Yuanyuan sit in it, she could practically lounge in it.

Wearing her robe and sitting in that chair, for a moment, she suddenly felt like a demonic cult leader…

A long black robe, a cold expression, seated atop a tall throne, with blood dripping below — all the blood of the defeated…

Ah… this feeling…

It was true — this was the classic “demonic cult leader” script. Internal power struggles, finally rising to the top — it was inspirational in a twisted kind of way. From the outside, the story of her becoming the Mask Organization’s leader didn’t seem honorable — many assumed she had used some underhanded tactic to steal the position.

Just based on outside speculation, Yuan Yuanyuan felt she could write an entire novel. The wild theories people came up with were over the top — and yet no one guessed the truth: that she wasn’t the real leader. The real one had gone into hiding.

Yuan Yuanyuan lounged on the chair lazily, half-asleep as people came in to report updates. Next to her was a plate of grapes; she ate while dozing off.

Truthfully, she barely understood what they were saying, but at least she was physically present.

“Leader, you…” The speaker hesitated.

Yuan Yuanyuan waved her hand, signaling that she understood and that he could leave. He quickly bowed and backed out of the room.

Their internal security was truly top-notch. Everyone believed she had eliminated the previous leader and successfully ascended to the throne. Yuan Yuanyuan sometimes didn’t even have to say a word — just one look from her would make them tremble. She had become an untouchable presence.

Lately, Yuan Yuanyuan had suddenly become very busy. Although all the truly crucial matters were still being handled by the real leader, much of the day-to-day burden still fell to her.

Even though she didn’t want that kind of decision-making power — most of it was long, tedious, and of no real use to her — she could only leak small bits of info now and then. She didn’t dare do more, afraid she might expose her identity.

In this situation, even if she wanted to take a break and relax, there wasn’t much time. One day, she finally got a bit of free time, so she casually flipped through the latest chapter of the manga featuring herself. She nibbled her finger while admiring the new art style.

“This art style… is fire,” Yuan Yuanyuan said, looking at the drawing of Yuan in the manga. He now had that evolved, final-boss Aizen vibe. That new black robe was killer — it really gave him presence.

But in Yuan Yuanyuan’s biased opinion, it was still her own illusioned face that looked the most handsome — just perfect for that outfit. An average face wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

You needed both a good figure and high-level looks to really rock that badass vibe. Otherwise, it would just look like tacky country cosplay.

After analyzing the manga for a while, she went home and pulled out her eyeshadow palette. Using gray and dark brown, she added shadows around her eyes. Sure enough, in the next manga update, she looked even more powerful — darker, gloomier, and ready to shout, “Take them out and beat them to death!”

Later, Yuan Yuanyuan noticed a bunch of comments under the manga like:

[I suddenly think the villain in Yao Ji is kind of hot, but I don’t dare say it. I’m afraid of getting attacked by the protagonist stans…]

[Me too…]

These comments left Yuan Yuanyuan feeling thoroughly satisfied.

This kind of stuff… no need to overthink it. As long as the face looked good, she was happy. Who cared about morality?

That day, she continued trying out new poses in the Mask Organization HQ. Right now, in her otherwise dull villain life, the only thing that brought her joy was styling. After perfecting her look, she’d check out her panels in the manga — if they looked cool, she’d feel much better.

Yuan Yuanyuan thought her life was a bit boring lately, but she didn’t realize that to outsiders, this past month had been full of storm and fury. According to rumors, she was out killing several people every day — couldn’t sleep if she didn’t.

That was the image outsiders had of her. In the eyes of Gao Ling and her group, Yuan Yuanyuan’s month had been equally dramatic — though in a very different way.

They figured Yuan Yuanyuan must be emotionally torn up this whole month. On one hand, trying to imagine what Yuan must be feeling under such circumstances, and on the other, picturing the battles, the intense drama, blades flashing…

Of course, what they cared about most was Yuan’s internal world. The group chat had become a monster psychology discussion board — everyone was analyzing the tiniest manga details to guess Yuan’s mental state, and writing loads of fanfics based on that…

So in summary — while Yuan Yuanyuan herself found everything rather boring, everyone else was having a great time making stuff up.

Although the past month wasn’t particularly fun for her, it also wasn’t stressful. Surprisingly, despite all her earlier worries, nothing went wrong. Everything unfolded smoothly — so smoothly that it felt like someone was quietly guiding it all from the shadows.

Then came the first day of the next month. That day, the manga updated again. Yuan Yuanyuan had been too busy to read it immediately, so she heard the news from someone else.

“What? What? WHAT?” Yuan Yuanyuan stared in disbelief. “Yuan is Seventeen? You just saw that in the manga?”

“Yes! Sister Yuan, go look! Oh my god, it’s so intense! So now is Fa Ning and Yuan a tragic master–disciple romance arc?! I’m dying here…” Ying, who had just received her college acceptance letter, blurted a string of excited nonsense over the phone.

Yuan Yuanyuan couldn’t believe that they would drop a bombshell like this right now, so she rushed to check it out.

Sure enough, the manga showed — clearly and unmistakably — that Seventeen was Yuan. It even included details that Yuan Yuanyuan herself didn’t know.

In the manga, she saw exactly what kind of situation Seventeen had been in when he created that first spell or demon technique…