Little Pink Starfish

The Princess Said, “Scared Me to Death!”

The monster threw the short-feathered arrow to the ground and began walking toward Gu Xinglang—not quickly, but with clear purpose.

Xiao Zhuang panicked when he saw the monster heading straight for his prince consort. He bent down, ready to pick Gu Xinglang up and run.

But Gu Xinglang just gritted his teeth and pulled another short-feathered arrow from his quiver.

“Your Highness, arrows don’t work on it!” Xiao Zhuang shouted in desperation.

“Don’t panic. We can’t outrun it anyway,” Gu Xinglang said calmly.

Xiao Zhuang glanced at the monster drawing ever closer. The bailiffs standing with them were already retreating. With veins bulging on his hand gripping the blade, Xiao Zhuang prepared to fight to the death.

Gu Xinglang beckoned to a bailiff holding a torch.

Trembling, the bailiff reluctantly approached. The monster was heading right toward them—he felt like he was walking straight into his grave.

Gu Xinglang held the arrowhead to the flame, lighting it. He aimed once more for the monster’s left eye—the one already missing its eyeball.

The flickering firelight made the monster hesitate, halting its advance.

The flaming arrow flew into the monster’s empty eye socket, the same one that had been oozing worms.

“Set that damn thing on fire!” Xiao Zhuang shouted.

The bailiffs, seeing that the monster paused after being hit, and spurred on by Xiao Zhuang’s order, began mimicking Gu Xinglang—lighting their arrows and shooting them at the monster.

Gu Xinglang remained seated in his lounge chair. At that moment, not a trace of panic could be seen on his face.

Xiao Zhuang, eyes unblinking, gripped his sword tightly as he watched the monster just meters away.

The monster caught fire, and within moments, it turned into a humanoid torch.

“Don’t let those worms bite you!” Gu Xinglang reminded everyone. “Burn them with fire!”

The bailiffs scrambled to torch the ground, burning up the worms that had scattered everywhere.

With a loud bang, the monster fell backward to the ground.

“Its head cracked open!” a Ministry official cried out in horror.

Gu Xinglang saw it too. Amid the flames, a mass of blood-red worms rolled out of the head wound, writhing toward the edge of the fire. Snatching a torch from a nearby bailiff, Gu Xinglang hurled it directly into the wriggling mass.

The flames surged, quickly burning the worm cluster down. A small, completely black worm in the center—the one seemingly protected by the others—was also incinerated, vanishing into ash.

Xiao Zhuang took one look at the courtyard now almost entirely engulfed in flames and didn’t even ask Gu Xinglang’s permission. He grabbed a bailiff, and the two of them lifted the reclining chair and carried Gu Xinglang toward the courtyard exit.

By the time Yu Xiaoxiao and Xiao Wei reached the outer gates of the Ministry of Justice, the courtyard inside was ablaze, fire lighting up the night sky.

Xiao Wei stumbled. That monster could start fires too?

Yu Xiaoxiao called out for Little Gu and flipped over the wall into the Ministry grounds.

Xiao Wei followed her over and saw several bailiffs fumbling with the main gate. He immediately shouted, “Don’t open the gate!” What if the monster escaped into the streets?

Though they didn’t know who Xiao Wei was, the bailiffs were scared and directionless. Hearing his warning, they all stopped.

Xiao Wei turned and chased after Yu Xiaoxiao. Spotting a discarded blade by the roadside, he bent down, picked it up, and ran after her again.

Gu Xinglang now sat in an open area outside the courtyard. Since the monster had first been discovered near a flowerbed, no one from the Ministry dared go near any bushes or dark corners anymore. Everyone stayed where the torchlight reached, terrified something might jump out of the shadows.

“Little Gu—!”

Gu Xinglang heard Yu Xiaoxiao’s voice coming closer. A moment later, he saw her tiny figure running toward him at full speed.

When Yu Xiaoxiao saw Gu Xinglang sitting safely in the open, his clothes intact, no blood on him—just fine and uninjured—her wildly beating heart finally began to settle down.

“Princess,” Gu Xinglang looked up at her and smiled.

Yu Xiaoxiao let out a deep breath and sighed, “You scared me to death!”

“Princess, me too!” Xiao Zhuang said. “You don’t know, that thing was really a monst—”

Halfway through his sentence, Xiao Zhuang saw the princess throw herself into the prince consort’s arms right there in front of everyone. His eyeballs nearly popped out of his head.

Gu Xinglang froze for a second, but then wrapped his arms around his wife. “I’m fine,” he whispered.

“You scared me to death!” Yu Xiaoxiao repeated, burying herself in his chest.

Gu Xinglang gently patted her back. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I was scared the monster bit you,” Yu Xiaoxiao said, still rattled.

“I didn’t go near it,” Gu Xinglang said. “Xiaoxiao, I’m not an idiot.”

Yu Xiaoxiao took a deep breath in his embrace, inhaling his familiar scent.

“I’ve got you,” Gu Xinglang said, noticing Xiao Zhuang with his back turned and everyone else too stunned to react. He leaned in and gently kissed Yu Xiaoxiao’s hair. “How could I go and die when my wife’s right here?”

Yu Xiaoxiao looked up, thought for a moment, and said, “If you die, I’ll go find another man!”

Gu Xinglang froze again, then remembered who he was married to. He chuckled and said, “I won’t be with another woman in this lifetime.”

Yu Xiaoxiao was pleased. “What about if I die?”

Gu Xinglang touched her dusty lips with a finger and said, “Then I won’t be with anyone else either.”

Yu Xiaoxiao thought it’d be pretty selfish to haunt him even after she died. “If I’m alive, sure—but if I die, go find true love. Living all alone is boring.”

So she was worried he’d be lonely? Gu Xinglang smiled, showing his teeth. “Then just don’t die.”

Yu Xiaoxiao thought he had a point. She was such a badass—how could she die young? This world didn’t have zombies anyway. Well… maybe no zombies, but it did have monsters. Thinking of that thing again gave her a headache. No matter what world she landed in, she was fated to battle with inhuman horrors.

Meanwhile, Xiao Wei saw Gu Xinglang holding Yu Xiaoxiao, but didn’t stop running. He rushed straight into the burning courtyard.

There were several charred corpses on the ground, their bodies still burning. The air reeked of rotting flesh. Bailiffs still in the courtyard were torching the long worms that had crawled across the entire yard.

Xiao Wei heard a faint rustling near his feet. Looking down, he saw a burning ball of worms had rolled right up to his shoes. He didn’t dare stomp on it—that’d just put the fire out. Instead, he used his blade to flick it into a nearby blaze. Only after watching it burn to nothing did he turn and leave the courtyard.

The moment Xiao Wei exited, the courtyard wall collapsed with a deafening crash.