Chapter 37: Demon Queen Fan Club Meeting
The world, against all of Su Yao’s weary expectations, stubbornly refused to end.
She woke up in her own bed. Sunlight, ordinary and infuriatingly cheerful, streamed through the window. The forms for the factory tour were still moving their way through the Li Group’s complex approval process. The bureaucracy was a beast with a digestion slower than a geological epoch.
Lying there, the faint trace of her link with Xiao Ling still lingered, giving her a curious sense of steadiness. The despair had passed, replaced by a gritty, pragmatic resolve. If the system forced them to wait, then they would use the time.
Another, more immediate fire needed putting out: Jinse and Kitty.
She swung her legs out of bed. The clone, Mizukume, was already in the living room, having apparently transcended the need for sleep and now simply existing in a state of perpetual, analytical observation.
“The paperwork persists,” Mizukume stated without looking up from a textbook on modern logistics she’d procured from somewhere.
“I’m aware,” Su Yao said, her voice rough with sleep. “Which means we have time to stop two other idiots from getting themselves permanently erased.”
“The goddess and her messenger. A futile endeavor, given their head start and demonstrated lack of foresight.”
“Probably,” Su Yao agreed, pulling on a jacket. “But if the Yamato capture Jinse and fully consume her power of contracts, whatever they’re building next will be unbreakable. And I’m fond of Kitty. She’s the only one who never slanders my name.” She paused. “Mostly because she’s usually trying to claw my eyes out, but the sentiment stands.”
The problem was location. No one knew where they’d gone. Zhang Wei’s networks had gone dark. The government’s satellites saw nothing. They had vanished into the vast, hidden world of the supernatural.
“So,” Mizukume closed her book. “You intend to find a single, bodiless goddess and a recently deceased feline spirit somewhere on the planet, with no leads. What an expeditious use of our mandated waiting period.”
“They’re going to the Yamato’s heart looking for a big fight,” Su Yao said, striding toward the door. “I’m the only one here who’s old enough to remember where all the ancient, powerful things like to nest. I know the old places and the hidden seams in the world where power gathers.”
She stopped at the threshold, looking back at the clone. “You’re a fragment of a Japanese legend. Any nostalgic feelings about ‘the old places’ you might want to share?”
Mizukume’s doll-like face remained impassive. “My memories are of courtly intrigues and poetic duels. But,” she tilted her head. “The rage of a betrayed goddess isn’t a subtle thing. It will leave a stain, a tear in the spiritual ambiance. You are looking for a wound.”
Su Yao nodded once. That was something. Finally, a direction.
“Then let’s go sightseeing,” she said, stepping out into the morning. “Let’s hope we find them before they become a permanent part of the Yamato’s art collection.”
The factory and its forms could wait. First, she had to go fishing for a cat and a goddess in the ocean of the unseen world.
Su Yao paused by the door, her hand on the frame. She glanced back at the clone, who sat serenely amidst the mundane clutter of the living room. Her schoolgirl form was a stark contrast to the domestic setting.
“You know,” Su Yao remarked. Her tone was conversational but edged with sharp curiosity. “I can’t believe you haven’t tried to kill everyone again. Or tried to possess me fully. You’ve been disturbingly civil.”
“What makes you so sure I haven’t?”
The air in the room chilled by a degree.
“Echo or not,” Mizukume continued. Her voice was that same flat, haunting monotone. “I am a part of Japan’s Three Great Calamities. I embodied a concept older and greater than rage or petty malice. Do you know what it was?”
Su Yao said nothing, her eyes narrowed.
“Inevitability,” the clone whispered. Her word seemed to suck the sound from the room. “I am the landslide that buries the village, the winter that starves the harvest, and the betrayal that topples the kingdom. I was the certainty that it would occur. The end that was always coming.”
She finally lifted her gaze. Her doll-like eyes were bottomless. “So, ask yourself, landlord. Why would I need to ‘try’ to kill anyone? Why would I need to struggle for control? The landslide does not ‘try’ to fall. It simply does when the conditions are right.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Su Yao challenged. A flicker of her old fire returned. “What’s your ‘win condition’? Because from where I’m standing, you’re sitting in my apartment reading about supply chain management. That doesn’t look like winning.”
Mizukume’s lips curled into the faintest, most chilling smile. “Winning?” she repeated, as if tasting a rare fruit. “My win condition is very simple. It’s the same as it has always been.”
She leaned forward slightly. The textbook was forgotten.
“Not losing.”
She let the phrase hang in the air, simple and absolute.
“You see victory as a positive action whether through conquest, discovery, or triumph,” she elaborated. “I see it as a state of existence. I am here, conscious. I am, for the first time in centuries, free to observe, learn, and exist in a world far more fascinating than the one I left.
“Every second I continue to be is a victory. Every breath this clone takes is a defeat for those who would see me gone. You are rushing toward a finish line you have defined. I am simply not falling behind. I have already won. The rest is commentary.”
Su Yao stared. Understanding dawned with a cold, creeping feeling. The echo had already achieved its primary objective: existence.
Everything else was just background noise to a being whose very nature was endurance.
“So you’re just along for the ride,” Su Yao summarized. A strange mix of relief and unease settled in her gut.
“Precisely,” Mizukume said, picking up her textbook once more. “And it’s a most entertaining ride. Now, shall we go find your lost cat? The inevitable outcome of that search promises to be quite dramatic.”
The realization struck Su Yao with the force of a delayed spiritual backlash. She stood frozen in the doorway. The morning sun felt suddenly cold on her skin.
My mind had been unraveling. Despair threatened to consume me. Existential dread twisted my sense of identity, and an overwhelming urge to simply, stop lingered. Everything felt foreign, like mold growing on my own thoughts, feeding on my fears.
She turned slowly. Her gaze sharpened on Mizukume, who was now calmly sipping tea from one of Auntie’s best ceramic cups.
“You,” Su Yao said. Her voice was low and dangerous. “What did you do to me?”
Mizukume lowered the cup, placing it on the saucer with a precise click. “I have done nothing to you, landlord. I have simply, been here.”
Her hollow eyes met Su Yao's. “You are a candle. I am the wind. Do I need to blow you out? I simply need to exist, and my nature creates a draft. Your flickering is your own reaction to my presence.”
She gestured vaguely around the room, a gesture that seemed to encompass Su Yao’s very soul. “You are a being of immense, focused will and fiery passion. I am a manifestation of inevitability. My mere presence in your spiritual orbit introduces a thermodynamic tax and a constant pull towards the conclusion known as the end of all struggles.”
“So you are affecting me,” Su Yao accused.
“Is the moon ‘affecting’ the tide? it’s simply gravity, a natural law.” Mizukume tilted her head. “Your spirit is burning fuel at an accelerated rate just to maintain its integrity against my ambient nature. It breeds fatigue and lowers resilience, making the abyss look, reasonable.
“I have not planted a single thought in your mind. I have only made the soil so barren that the darkest seeds you already carried could sprout with terrifying vigor.”
She took another sip of tea. “It is an environment. And you have been living in it.”
Su Yao finally understood. The echo very existence was a passive, spiritual pollutant, a cognitive depressant that amplified every negative thought, every shred of weariness, every hidden doubt until they felt like undeniable truths.
Her breath caught. A sharp and cold memory of the witch Xie Jing, standing in the shadows, her presence a slow poison surfaced. “So it’s the same ability as Xie Jing,” she said, her voice hushed. “The Witch of the Abyss. She simply exists, and hope withers around her.”
“And knowing this changes what?” Mizukume asked. A flicker of genuine curiosity shone in her dead eyes. “Will you evict me? And send this fragment of cosmic inevitability back into the void inside your own head? That will be a risky procedure. Or will you continue to host me and simply bear the draft?”
Su Yao’s jaw tightened. The options were terrible. Keep the corrosive influence in a separate, manageable container, or re-absorb it and let it poison her from within.
“Noted,” Su Yao said finally. Her voice was stripped of emotion. She turned back to the door. “Let’s go. And try not to drain the will to live from everyone we meet. It’s bad for morale.”
Mizukume gave a slow smile. “I make no promises. Despair is, after all, inevitable.”
They spent the day cutting a swath through the city’s hidden underbelly. Using a combination of Su Yao’s ancient knowledge, Mizukume’s eerie senses, and Zhang Wei’s hacked government databases, they hit every known or suspected Yamato safehouse, warehouse, and clandestine meeting place.
Only to found nothing.
The buildings stood empty, its floors swept clean. Dust bunnies clung to the corners of a rented office beside a forgotten potted plant. Damp concrete and neglect hung in the basement, untouched and abandoned.
“It’s a ghost town,” Su Yao muttered, standing in the middle of a vacant warehouse on the industrial outskirts. “They’ve completely pulled out. Or been pulled.”
Mizukume, who was gliding silently across the grimy floor, stopped near a faint scuff mark. “It was a clean move, nothing felt forced.”
She knelt, hovering an inch above the ground. “They knew we were coming. Or something else prompted a full strategic withdrawal.”
“Jinse and Kitty,” Su Yao realized. “They spooked them. The Yamato wouldn’t abandon all their assets unless they were consolidating forces. They’re gathering everyone to deal with the two of them.”
The thought was equal parts reassuring and terrifying. It meant Jinse and Kitty were causing enough trouble to be taken as a serious threat. It also meant they were walking into a fortress being prepared specifically for them.
“Or,” Mizukume offered, standing up. “This is the final stage of a harvest. The crop has been gathered and the fields are left fallow.” Her doll-like eyes scanned the vast, empty space. “They have taken the souls, the children from the orphanage, the resources, and the Li family’s industrial capacity. There’s nothing left for them here.”
Silence followed, heavy with meaning. The Yamato were finished with Duwang. Whatever their larger design was, this city had been only a step along the way. The man in the mask had already moved on, leaving behind a hollowed shell and a trail that now led elsewhere.
“So we’re looking for their new headquarters,” Su Yao concluded. The scale of the hunt expanded once more. “The central hub where they’ve taken everything, including a very angry goddess and her cat.”
She pulled out her phone. The indestructible screen glowed in the dim light. “The only solid lead we have left that’s connected to them is that plastic factory.”
The bureaucratic nightmare of Form V-7 now seemed less like an obstacle and more like the last lifeline.
“Then it appears,” Mizukume said. Her voice was a haunting whisper in the emptiness. “That our destiny is currently held up in the Li Group’s logistics department. How modern.”
Su Yao nodded, a grim set to her jaw. The empty bases were a dead end, but they were a message telling the endgame was elsewhere. Their ticket to it was a piece of paper waiting for a stamp.
“Let’s go check on that form,” she said, turning her back on the void. “Before someone else decides to give away another apocalyptic artifact as a free gift.”
Su Yao’s phone buzzed with an unknown number. Again. She answered it with a sigh, expecting another cosmic crisis.
A frantic, tearful voice she hadn’t heard in a while screeched from the speaker. “Xiao Ling! What did you do?! Why am I in jail?!”
It was Wong Lei. She sounded utterly, completely herself as the insecure, occult-obsessed classmate.
Su Yao held the phone slightly away from her ear. “Explain, slowly.”
“I just woke up! In a cell! With a nekomimi cosplayer who keeps hissing at the walls, and a bunch of grumpy-looking guys in old-fashioned robes who keep muttering about a ‘demon queen’! This has your name written all over it! Get me out!”
Su Yao processed this. Wong Lei was free from Jinse’s possession. Jinse was who knew where but Kitty was there, apparently. Along with the Vanishing Moon Pavilion cultivators who’d tried to exorcise her and ended up arrested as her cellmates.
“Where are you?” Su Yao asked. Her voice was flat.
“The city’s supernatural holding facility! The one under the police headquarters! They said something about ‘collateral spiritual contamination’ and ‘pending entity identification’! You have to fix this! I have an important job interview next week!”
Mizukume, who had been listening, murmured, “The bureaucratic net ensnares all, even the innocent bystanders and cosplaying divine messengers. How relentless.”
“Stay put,” Su Yao ordered, unsure why she was bothering. “Don’t antagonize the cat. Or the cultists. We’re coming.”
She ended the call and looked at Mizukume. “Change of plans. We’re springing a weeb, a cat, and some would-be exorcists from supernatural jail.”
Mizukume’s showed a flicker of interest. “A retrieval mission, it is. The logistics of breaking a divine messenger with a probable concussion and several incompetent cultivators out of a government facility are novel. Do we bribe the guards, or simply dissolve the building’s foundation?”
“We’re going to do it the legal way,” Su Yao said. The words tasted like ash. “We’re going to use Director Hao’s authority to get them released into our ‘custody’.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “The paperwork for this is going to be even worse than the factory tour.”
“A compelling argument for the dissolution approach,” Mizukume noted.
“No. we need Wong Lei. Her body was Jinse’s vessel. There might be a residual connection, a trail we can follow. And we need Kitty coherent.”
She started walking. The weight of yet another administrative nightmare settled on her shoulders. “Let’s go. Our apocalypse-hunting team now officially includes a terrified weeb. This can only go well.”
Mizukume fell into step beside her. A silent, menacing shadow in a sailor uniform. “The party grows. How festive.”
The heavy reinforced door of the supernatural holding block hissed open as they reached their destination. Su Yao strode in first. Her expression was one of boredom. Mizukume glided in behind her. The lights made her desaturated schoolgirl uniform and hollow eyes look even more unnerving.
Directly opposite the reception area stood the cell holding the Vanishing Moon Pavilion cultivators. The moment they saw Su Yao, they recoiled as one, pressing themselves against the far wall.
“Demon Queen!” one of them gasped. His face was pale.
Then their eyes landed on Mizukume. Their panic escalated into pure, unadulterated terror.
“T-T-Two! There are two of her!” another stammered, pointing a trembling finger. “A clone! A doppelgänger! This is a nightmare!”
Su Yao watched their meltdown with a flat stare. A truly wicked, petty part of her stirred. If two of me freaks them out this much, I wonder about three.
She imagined calling Mei and having the Crimson Calamity Queen herself, in full glory, show up just to wave. That would probably give them a collective heart attack.
And Yumi. These idiots had mistaken her, a Heavenly Fox, for a demon queen. An actual Gumiho, a creature that literally ate livers, would undoubtedly qualify in their hysterical minds. She could probably just walk in, and they'd kneel.
Four ‘demon queens.’ The paperwork for the mass spiritual breakdown would be hilarious.
She felt the impulse, the desire to lean into the farce and watch their minds break completely. It was tempting. So very tempting.
But then her gaze shifted to the adjacent cell. Wong Lei was clutching the bars, her face tear-streaked and desperate. Next to her, Kitty was aggressively sharpening her claws on the concrete bench, glaring at the Vanishing Moon cultivators as if planning which one to dismember first.
Priorities, Su Yao reminded herself with an internal sigh. Just because you can break them, doesn't mean you should. Yet.
She ignored the babbling cultivators and approached the duty officer, who was watching the scene with a kind of professional, shell-shocked resignation.
“We’re here for the collateral damage,” Su Yao said, jerking a thumb towards Wong Lei’s cell. “Director Hao’s orders. Release them into my custody.”
As the officer began fumbling with a release form, Mizukume drifted closer to the cultivators’ cell. Her head was tilted. Their babbling ceased instantly, replaced by petrified silence.
“The human psyche is so fragile,” she observed. Her monotone echoed in the quiet. “It seeks patterns, even in its own terror. One demon queen is a threat. Two is a system failure. I wonder what the critical mass for total cognitive dissolution would be.”
Su Yao watched as Wong Lei’s cell door clanked open. The grateful girl practically stumbled out. Her fun could wait. She had a weeb to collect and a cat to return to its goddess. The demon queen fan club meeting was adjourned.