I am NOT a Demon Queen!

Li Xiu arrived at the apartment fifteen minutes later. Her expression was a blend of anxiety and embarrassment. She stood in the doorway, her eyes darting from Su Yao’s impassive face to the ancient book on the table.

“Look,” Li Xiu began, before Su Yao could even speak. Her words tumbled out in a frustrated rush. “Why are you even reading that? It’s embarrassing. My great-great-great, I don't even know how many ‘greats’, grandmother wrote it because she was bored one day.

“She was stuck in the family compound after the whole, city-sinking thing, and she decided to write some self-insert fanfiction about being a celestial maiden to pass the time. It was a hobby! She had no idea people would take it so seriously centuries later!”

Su Yao stared at her. The razor-sharp fury she had been cultivating was momentarily blunted by sheer, staggering absurdity.

“...Boredom?”

“Yes! Boredom!” Li Xiu repeated, throwing her hands up. “She was a noble lady with too much time and a wild imagination. The local printers thought it was a fun romance, and it sold a few copies. That was it. Then a few decades later, some cultists latched onto it and decided it was divine scripture.”

Su Yao looked from Li Xiu’s genuinely mortified face down to the book, the source of so much cosmic strife. It was a masterpiece of fraud, born from, aristocratic ennui.

The most terrifying enemy was a chain of accidents, amplified by time and human credulity. And a very, very bored woman.

Su Yao stared at Li Xiu. The pieces clicked into place with an almost audible snap. So it’s another Crimson Calamity Queen situation again.

A work of fiction, born from mundane human impulse, had spiraled out of control and warped reality itself. The sheer, ridiculous parallelism was enough to make her want to laugh, if she weren't so annoyed.

Old Duwang’s sinking was likely a natural disaster or a separate cultivator conflict. The novel was just a creative byproduct. And the Li family? They were just unlucky heirs to a literary accident that went viral in the worst way.

“You're telling me,” Su Yao said. Her voice was dangerously calm. “That centuries of celestial misinformation, a potential three-way shadow war, and a dragon attack on my afternoon can be traced back to your ancestor’s tedious afternoon?”

Li Xiu winced. “When you put it like that, yes? But we never meant for any of this to happen! It’s just a story!”

“A story that Yamato and who knows how many others are using as a playbook,” Su Yao countered, picking up the book and weighing it in her hand. “And this ‘disciple’ who supposedly betrayed the Maiden, he’s based on this too?”

“I have no idea!” Li Xiu exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “The novel has a villainous disciple character, but he’s entirely fictional! If someone is acting like him now, it’s because they're insane!”

Unbelievable, Su Yao thought. She looked back at Li Xiu. “You and your family are going to help me contain this. We're going to issue a retraction.”

“A retraction?” Li Xiu looked horrified. “It’s a 400-year-old novel! You can't just retract it!”

“Watch me,” Su Yao said. Her eyes glowed with crimson light. “We're going to write a sequel. In this one, the Jade Purity Maiden comes back and beats the sense into everyone who believed this nonsense.” She grabbed Li Xiu’s arm. “You're going to help me draft it. Consider it family penance.”

Li Xiu sighed, defeated. “Fine. But can we at least make it a comedy this time? Our family could use a laugh.”

Su Yao’s lip curled. “We'll see. First, I need to stop that fool’s ‘purification campaign’ before this cosmic phenomenon hits. Whatever he’s actually planning under that cover, it’s timed for the eclipse.”

She pulled out her phone. Her fingers flew across the screen as she pulled up the public schedule for the false Seimei’s events. “He’s holding the main rally at the old port tonight, the epicenter of the sunken city.” She looked at Li Xiu. “You. Get me everything your family has on the port’s layout from the Ming era. Every sewer, every collapsed tunnel.”

Li Xiu blinked. “Why?”

“Because if he’s using a cover story written by your bored ancestor, he might be using the stage she wrote about,” Su Yao said. Her voice dripped with scorn. “Now go, I have a campaign to crash.”

Su Yao phased directly into the center of the old port square. The false Seimei stood on a makeshift stage draped in white banners. His voice was amplified by a spiritual array as he preached about “cleansing the city’s spiritual pollution.” A crowd of fervent followers hung on his every word.

Su Yao landed on the stage in a swirl of white hanfu. Her fist was already connecting with his face. The impact echoed through the square, silencing the crowd instantly. He staggered back. Blood trickled from his lip.

“You,” he snarled, wiping his mouth. His eyes were wide with shock and rage. “You dare interrupt the will of heaven?”

“Your ‘will of heaven’ is a plagiarized manuscript from a bored noblewoman,” Su Yao stated. Her voice cut through the murmurs of the crowd. Without waiting for a reply, she closed the distance between them. Her movements were a blur of precise strikes.

He raised a hand, summoning a golden barrier, but Su Yao shredded through it like paper. She grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his feet. “Where’s your will of heaven now?”

A sudden tremor shook the ground. The sky began to darken as the lunar eclipse started. Cultists emerged from the shadows of the ruined port buildings, eyes glowing with malevolent energy. They chanted in unison. Their voices wove a complex spell that resonated with the eclipse.

Su Yao dropped the impostor, turning her attention to the cultists. “So that’s the real plan. Using the eclipse to power a ritual.”

The false Seimei coughed, scrambling to his feet. “You're too late! The convergence has begun!”

“The time of pruning has come!” the lead cultist intoned. His voice resonated with the eclipse’s energy. The other cultists joined in. Their chanting grew louder as the sky darkened further. A complex array began to glow beneath their feet, spreading across the square like a sinister web.

Su Yao rolled her eyes. A memory flashed in her mind from a late-night anime binge with Kayo.

They're plagiarizing the culling game from Jujutsu Kaisen now? she thought, recalling the episode where characters were forced into a deadly battle royale. How unoriginal. At least come up with your own apocalyptic scenario.

Without hesitation, she summoned her Void-Severing Glaive. The blade materialized in a flash of crimson light. “If you're going to steal ideas, you could have picked something with better writing,” she mocked, leaping into the air.

The false Seimei laughed maniacally. “You can’t stop the pruning! The unworthy will be culled, and a new order will rise!”

“Boring,” Su Yao retorted, swinging her glaive in a wide arc. A wave of spiritual energy sliced through the chanting cultists, disrupting their formation. But the ritual had already gained momentum. The eclipse’s power was fueling the array, and shadows began to twist into monstrous forms around them.

Su Yao landed gracefully. Her gaze swept the chaos. I need to break the core of the array before it fully activates. She focused on the lead cultist, who was now hovering at the center. His body glowed with stolen celestial energy. “Time to cut this culling game ripoff short.”

Just then, the false Seimei shouted over the din, “Fool! You think we sought to elevate the masses? Our initial plan was to use the eclipse’s energy to awaken spiritual powers in every citizen and create a utopia of cultivators! But why share such power with the unworthy? After tonight, Duwang will be purified, home only to those with true power!”

Su Yao stared at him. Her expression was utterly deadpan. “If you kill everyone without spiritual power, who will grow your food, maintain your infrastructure, or worship you? You'd be left with a city of arrogant idiots with no one to boss around. That sounds like a management nightmare.”

The cultists ignored her, bodies surging with celestial energy. Their eyes glowed white, and they moved with enhanced speed and strength, surrounding her. The lead cultist pointed a finger, and a beam of condensed moonlight shot toward her.

Su Yao sidestepped effortlessly. Her glaive hummed with power. “Fine. If you want a pruning, I'll give you one.”

She dashed forward. Her movements were a blur. The glaive cut through the first cultist, whose body dissipated into motes of light. But two more took his place. Their attacks were coordinated.

“They're drawing power from the eclipse directly,” Su Yao muttered, parrying a strike from a cultist wielding a spectral sword. “I need to disrupt the array’s anchor points.” She recalled the Ming-era maps Li Xiu had sent her. The old port had several spiritual ley lines converging here.

She noticed the false Seimei channeling energy into a central orb on the stage. That must be the ritual’s focus. She kicked a cultist away, sending him crashing into his comrades, and leaped toward the stage.

“With this energy, I will become a god!” The false Seimei taunted, raising the orb high.

“God of what? Bad decisions?” Su Yao quipped, landing before him. She thrust her glaive at the orb, but a barrier of celestial energy repelled her.

The cultists regrouped, now forming a circle around her. Their chants intensified. The eclipse reached its peak, the array flaring brightly. Waves of energy pulsed outward, and Su Yao could feel the city’s non-cultivators weakening. The ritual was starting to affect them.

Su Yao parried a blade of condensed moonlight. The impact sent shivers up her arm. Empowered by the ritual, the cultists were faster and stronger. Their forms flickered with borrowed celestial power. But power without skill was just noisy electricity.

They're conduits, she realized between their strikes. The array is using them as batteries and amplifiers. Breaking one just frees the energy for the others.

Her eyes darted to the pulsating lines of the array on the ground, then up to the eclipsed moon. The Baiyue calendar’s carvings flashed in her mind: the tidal cycles, the specific alignment of stars.

This was a perversion of a specific, ancient formula. Like any formula, it had a weak point.

She disengaged, leaping back to gain a vantage point. The cultists surged forward, but she ignored them. Her gaze locked on the pattern of the array. It was a twisted mirror of the Baiyue rituals meant to harmonize with the land.

“The Baiyue sought balance with the cosmos,” she called out. Her voice cut through their chants. “You're just parasites sucking on a power line you don't understand.”

The lead cultist laughed, a hollow, echoing sound. “We understand its might! That is all that matters!”

“Wrong.” Su Yao landed at a specific intersection of glowing lines, a node the Baiyue would have considered sacred for offering. She plunged the blade of her Void-Severing Glaive into the ground with precise disruptive intent, channeling her own energy into the array’s structure following the original Baiyue blueprint she'd memorized.

The array flared, then stuttered. At once, the cultists’ movements faltered. Their unified glow flickered erratically. She wasn't fighting their power. All she did was introduce a command into their system based on the original, purer design.

“The land rejects you,” Su Yao stated. Her voice was cold and absolute.

Beneath the cultists, the ground ruptured with a deep, groaning heave as the latent spiritual energy of the old port that had been dormant for centuries recoiled against the unnatural ritual. The celestial energy tore back through the cultists, overloading their fragile conduits.

One by one, they screamed as the power they coveted violently abandoned them, leaving them as empty, crumpled forms on the broken ground. The false Seimei stared. His orb dimmed. “Impossible,” he whispered.

Su Yao ignored the false Seimei’s sputtered protests. Her focus shifted to the fading array beneath her feet. The eclipse’s energy still lingered in the air, a vast, untapped resource. The cultists had perverted the Baiyue ritual into a weapon, but its original purpose was to harmonize with the celestial cycles and awaken the latent spiritual potential within the land and its people.

If they wanted to give power to the masses, I'll give them a real demonstration, she thought.

A plan formed with crystalline clarity.

She raised her Void-Severing Glaive as a conductor and began to recalibrate the array. Her movements were fluid and precise. She traced the lines of energy with the tip of her blade, weaving her own ancient power into the pattern, correcting the corruptions and restoring the Baiyue intentions she had seen in the stone calendar.

“The Baiyue shared power,” Su Yao declared. Her voice was amplified by the ritual’s energy, carrying across the square to the terrified and confused citizens who had been watching the chaos. “This eclipse was meant to be a tide that lifts all boats.”

The array flared back to life, but this time with a gentle, golden light that spread outward like a warm breeze. Where the cultists’ ritual had felt oppressive and malevolent, this energy felt invigorating and hopeful. The dark shadows twisted by the false Seimei’s version dissolved, replaced by a soft luminescence that touched everyone in the square.

“What are you doing?” The false Seimei stared in horror. “You'll waste it all on these mortals!”

“Silence,” Su Yao commanded without looking at him. “You had your chance to be a god. Now watch what a real celestial being can do.” She channeled the eclipse’s power through the array, focusing it not on a select few, but on the entire city.

The energy washed over the crowd. People gasped as they felt a strange warmth spreading through them. Some clutched their chests, others looked at their hands in wonder as faint spiritual auras flickered around them.

It was a seed, awakening dormant sensitivities and granting a touch of spiritual awareness to those who had none.

A child pointed at the sky, where the eclipse was beginning to wane. “I can see the stars better now!” he exclaimed. His eyes shone with newfound perception.

An elderly woman smiled, tears in her eyes as she felt a long-forgotten sense of vitality. “It’s like I'm young again.”

Su Yao lowered her glaive. The ritual was complete. The array faded, its purpose fulfilled. She turned to the false Seimei, who was kneeling on the stage. His orb was now dark and inert.

“You see?” she said. Her voice was calm but carried an edge of triumph. “Power is meaningless if it’s not used to elevate others. You wanted to be a god? True divinity isn't about control; it’s about empowerment.”

The crowd began to cheer. Their fear turned to joy and admiration. The name ‘Jade Purity Maiden’ was whispered among them, but this time with genuine reverence.

She allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. Let them have this. It might make dealing with their future stupidity slightly more tolerable. Then she grabbed the false Seimei by the collar. “As for you, we're not done yet.”

Su Yao tightened her grip on the false Seimei’s collar. Her eyes glowed with crimson energy as she forced her way into his mind. He struggled, but her will was an unstoppable tide, shredding through his mental defenses. Images and memories of a life in Japan, recruitment by a shadowy group, and the grand, insane plan flashed.

His true name surfaced first: Kobayashi Akihito. Su Yao stored that away for later. Then, the deeper layers unraveled, revealing the masters behind the Wild Hunt: the Chi You Men cartel, a network of cultivators and criminals obsessed with ancient power.

Their goal? To revive the Qing Dynasty and resurrect the war god Chi You to lead them in a new era of conquest.

Letting him collapse in a heap, Su Yao ripped herself out of his mind. She stared down at him. Her expression was a mix of disgust and utter bafflement.

“Kobayashi Akihito? And the Chi You Men want to revive the Qing Dynasty?” she said aloud. Her voice was flat. “What in the nine hells is wrong with them? Life during the Qing was a bureaucratic nightmare filled with corruption, famine, and foreign humiliation. No sane person would want that back unless they have a severe nostalgia for dysentery and being told to kowtow.”

She paced for a moment, then stopped. A thought struck her. “Is this some twisted interpretation of that mortal saying ‘hard times create strong men'? So they want to engineer a hard time to breed strong followers? That’s like burning down your house to teach your children about fire safety. It’s self-defeating and stupid.”

Kobayashi groaned, looking up at her with wide, fearful eyes. “You don't understand, Chi You’s power will—”

“Chi You was a brute who lost to the Yellow Emperor,” Su Yao cut him off. “And resurrecting him won't change the fact that the world has moved on. You can't just drag a prehistoric war god into the 21st century and expect him to understand tax law or international sanctions.”

Su Yao kicked him lightly in the side. “So, where are these Chi You Men executives now? Don't tell me they're hiding in a museum.”

Even as the words left her mouth, she knew it was pointless. From the mental probe, she had seen the truth. Akihito was a disposable pawn, kept in the dark about the higher-ups’ locations. He knew only their insane ideology.

Her phone buzzed insistently in her pocket. She pulled it out, saw Zhang Wei’s name, and answered with a curt, “What?”

“The eclipse energy surge just registered on our sensors,” he said. His voice was tense. “And the public is reporting spontaneous spiritual awakenings. Did you,?”

“I redistributed the power,” Su Yao interrupted. Her eyes were still on Akihito. “The false Seimei is neutralized. He’s just a puppet for a group called the Chi You Men. They're obsessed with reviving the Qing Dynasty and resurrecting Chi You.”

A stunned silence came from the other end. “The Qing Dynasty? Why would anyone want that back?”

“Ask them when you find them,” Su Yao said. “I'm sending you Kobayashi Akihito’s location. Have your team pick him up. He might not know much, but he’s evidence. See if you can trace any financial or spiritual links to the Chi You Men cartel.”

“On it,” Zhang Wei replied, already sounding overwhelmed. “But what about you?”

Su Yao glanced toward the city skyline, where the eclipse was fading. “I'm going to find out who’s really pulling the strings. If they think the Qing Dynasty was a good idea, I'll give them a personal taste of ancient suffering.”

She ended the call, then grabbed Akihito by the collar again. “Time for you to take a nap in a government cell.”

All it took for Su Yao to knock him out was a precise tap to the forehead. She then left him in a heap for retrieval