Little Pink Starfish

Gao Ling shivered slightly. Although a sudden and inexplicable sense of foreboding crept over her, she thought about it for a while and still couldn’t figure out what might be wrong.

She was wearing a tank top, enjoying the air conditioning, with a plate of chilled watermelon in front of her. She had just taken a shower—there wasn’t a single part of her body that felt uncomfortable.

What kind of feeling was this…? Gao Ling tried to recall it again. No matter how she thought, she couldn’t understand. It was the first time she’d ever experienced something like this—pretty strange, almost like a sudden inspiration.

Even though she had a sense that something bad might happen, she couldn’t figure out what exactly it was. She thought it might be better not to go out for a while and just stay home safely.

On the screen in front of her was a fan comic about Yuan, specifically depicting the things that happened back when Ran-niang was around. Gao Ling thought the way this “Ran-niang” was drawn really looked like the lady in red. She didn’t understand why no one seemed to be making that connection.

But then again, who would think the official creators would actually draw it like that—unless they’d gone insane?

Gao Ling complained a little as she browsed through more fan works. Outside, the wind started to pick up.

Soon after, dark clouds gathered, and faint flashes of lightning began flickering through the clouds.

Yuan Yuanyuan stood facing the wind, looking into the distance. She thought, It should be happening now… The message clearly said it would be now—so why hadn’t anyone arrived yet?

Thanks to some intel provided by Yuan Yuanyuan, the others had finally roughly determined where the weapons were being transported. Yuan Yuanyuan felt pretty exhausted—mentally.

She couldn’t say everything too clearly, because if she did, people would start to question how she knew so much. At the same time, they were racking their brains trying to figure out how to deal with the looming threat of the anti-war organization.

She had to look cool and dashing on the outside while subtly signaling her true position… Yuan Yuanyuan recalled a scene from the days she’d been rewatching Naruto and Harry Potter recently—when Professor Snape had become acting headmaster, and McGonagall came to challenge him. He drew his wand and fought back, and during the duel, the spells rebounded and accidentally injured a group of Death Eaters nearby. That little detail in the movie was kind of cute—it really highlighted Snape’s repressed, broody charm.

Yuan Yuanyuan wasn’t as broody as Snape, but if she had the chance to screw over the Mask Organization’s monsters in secret, she was definitely tempted.

Why? Because the ones who came with her this time weren’t just nobodies—they were actually quite powerful.

Because she had spaced out for a bit too long, one of the monsters wearing a fox mask who had come with her walked over and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“…Nothing,” Yuan Yuanyuan shook her head. “Just suddenly not feeling quite right.”

The fox-masked monster didn’t say much. He nodded and left. From his perspective, nothing was likely to go wrong. Yuan being called over was mostly symbolic—a mascot at best. Right now, the atmosphere in the organization was weird, and the real leader wasn’t willing to hand such an important task over to Yuan. It was just that most of the ones sent over this time were illusionists, so they had no choice but to bring Yuan too.

Yuan Yuanyuan thought it was dangerous. With Jiuqiu’s paint-what-you-think attitude, she could easily end up being drawn into something—and if she accidentally let slip anything problematic, her reputation would be ruined in an instant.

Just as Yuan Yuanyuan was overthinking things, she suddenly heard a faint noise across from her. She instantly perked up.

“What was that?” The fox mask next to her suddenly raised his head, alert.

“I’ll go check it out,” Yuan Yuanyuan said, suppressing her excitement.

She stood up, took out her dagger, and walked toward the sound. That area had a thicket, dense and lush due to midsummer—perfect for hiding.

“Be careful,” the fox mask said. He wasn’t too worried about Yuan Yuanyuan. From his point of view, no matter who the intruder was, they probably weren’t stronger than “Yuan.”

Yuan Yuanyuan walked past the thicket and silently formed a demon hand seal. The grass around her instantly bent with the wind, flattening the whole patch. The area was completely empty.

It really looked like no one was there.

She took out her dagger again and flipped it in her hand, then swiftly hurled it into the bushes. A soft “thunk” sound followed, as if the blade had struck something.

“Still not coming out?” Yuan Yuanyuan muttered. After thinking a moment, she pulled out another dagger. Suddenly, her demon energy surged to a new peak.

The bushes ahead stirred slightly. After a moment, someone stumbled out awkwardly.

A grin suddenly spread across Yuan Yuanyuan’s face. She let out a long whistle, signaling “enemy attack” to the Mask Organization in the distance.

Instantly—

Yuan Yuanyuan had originally planned to act this out with a few of her own allies to make the play more convincing. But later she felt that was just too insane—better not to screw over her own people. Then again, most of the ones sent over this time were monsters from that organization.

If the infiltrators had all been from the Mask Organization, that’d be tricky—they’d easily expose each other. But what made Yuan Yuanyuan want to cry was that these spies were from everywhere… When she saw the list, she almost burst into tears. It had been so hard to gather them.

Several of the spies came from different groups, and they didn’t even recognize each other. They all thought the others were loyalists.

Yuan Yuanyuan thought, You’re all so naive. You think you can target the main character? Where’d you get that kind of courage?

The first one she attacked was apparently a spy from a human organization. Even within human spies, there were internal divisions—plenty of people just wanted to slip through unnoticed. So she took him down first. Anyway, her plan from the start had been to use this event to clean out the infiltrators in the organization—she just hadn’t had a good chance until now.

As Yuan Yuanyuan closed in step by step, the heavily wounded man backed away. He was feeling pretty miserable. Even though he was a spy, he had to act loyal under those circumstances. To avoid exposing the main force, he had no choice but to step out. Now he’d been directly targeted by Yuan.

He looked at Yuan Yuanyuan and thought he might need to secretly approach her later and try to talk… There was no way he could beat this person. Better to come clean early.

The others had already slipped past Yuan and were trying to escape into the back. He saw the chance and was about to whisper to her—but before he could speak, Yuan Yuanyuan suddenly darted forward. He felt a dull thud in his chest.

“Oh, a human, huh?” he heard the other party say with interest.

In the final second before his vision went dark, he saw Yuan lean down and—shockingly—lick the blood flowing from his wound.

…

Yuan Yuanyuan looked at the now-unconscious person before her and smacked her lips. Honestly? Not bad.

She was a bit worried. If she weren’t a half-demon, what kind of monster might she have become? Probably would’ve gotten killed on the street right after she started cultivating—then game over.

Since she was playing the villain anyway… yelling a few lines and then immediately getting knocked out was too lame. Readers wouldn’t buy it—especially not Seventeen, who was well known for being smart.

Yuan Yuanyuan wasn’t a bloodthirsty person. If this were a normal story, now would be the time for a massacre. Like how Itachi had gained trust by killing his entire clan. But Yuan couldn’t bring herself to do that. So she spent three days thinking and decided: If I can’t use slaughter to intimidate, I’ll use… grotesqueness.

And what’s more grotesque than drinking human blood?

There was still a trace of blood at the corner of her mouth. She reached up and wiped it away, then turned to look behind her.

Behind her was a massive army charging toward the weapon cache.

The two sides clashed almost immediately. Yuan Yuanyuan walked forward unhurriedly, exuding the air of a true boss.

She knew there would be casualties this time—but she made no move to stop the chaos behind her. She stared into the dark mass of human fighters, trying to spot Fan Ning.

He had come this time too… Where was he now? She needed to lose to him.

Monsters and humans battled fiercely in the sky. Yuan Yuanyuan’s eyes scanned continuously, and finally—she found him.

All the way in the back.

The rear was basically a meat grinder. Yuan Yuanyuan spun around and charged in, killing every familiar face on her spy list along the way—cutting a bloody path and looking quite dashing doing it.

Everyone—human or monster—perked up at the sight of her. Nobody wanted to be targeted by Yuan. She killed slowly and methodically. Anyone she locked onto never escaped.

Eventually, Yuan Yuanyuan reached the weapon stash. It had been disguised with an illusion spell, but now that the spell was broken, everyone could see the full stockpile—and gasped in shock.

War… was really just about a few basic things—cutting off supplies and weapons. As long as those could be found. Yuan Yuanyuan was no expert, but she pretended not to understand.

She came face-to-face with Fan Ning. He was covered in blood. Almost all the monsters that had come with Yuan Yuanyuan had been wiped out—she was the only one still standing.

Fan Ning’s expression was grim. He looked at Yuan, knowing full well that this one demon alone might be more dangerous than all the others combined.

Yuan Yuanyuan looked at the blood on him and thought, This guy’s gotten a lot stronger since last time… Is Seventeen’s spell technique really this good?

Ah, speaking of that spell technique… Yuan instantly slipped into character, staring at Fan Ning and saying, “This spell of yours… seems pretty interesting.”

Fan Ning looked back at her. “Did you forget? This is one of the spells you wrote yourself.”

“A spell I wrote?” Yuan Yuanyuan twirled her dagger. “Let me think… Sorry, I’ve written so many things—I kind of forgot.”

…

Gao Ling, bored, decided to open the window for some fresh air. The rain had just stopped. From the dark clouds outside, rays of sunlight faintly peeked through.

She walked over to the window, just about to push it open, when something small drifted into her vision, like a falling leaf.

Huh? What was that? Gao Ling froze for a moment.

The fiery sunset clouds spread across the sky like autumn maple leaves.