I am NOT a Demon Queen!

A ruthless conclusion settled in her thoughts. Her original purpose in Macau was to prevent the black robes from recruiting an army from the newly empowered. The best way to do that was to systematically deny the black robes their potential recruits. She would recruit them first.

She watched the three dejected cheaters shuffle away, government cards in hand. They were a pilot program, a proof of concept.

The black robes hunt in the shadows, offering power and purpose to the disenfranchised, she mused. Her gaze swept across the casino floor, now seeing it as a talent pool. But I can offer something far more compelling like stability, a paycheck, and the chilling certainty that refusing my offer places them in the ‘liability’ column.

It was a pre-emptive strike, fought with HR paperwork and pension plans. The sheer bureaucratic audacity of it appealed to her.

Su Yao began to move through the casino with a new purpose, headhunting. She identified a young woman whose spiritual aura was causing slot machines to pay out in cascading jackpots and appeared beside her as the machine lit up and sang.

“Your talent is being wasted on petty larceny,” Su Yao stated. The woman jumped, clutching her bucket of tokens. “The government requires individuals who possess your specific aptitude for statistical manipulation. We offers a starting salary that is significantly higher than your current average haul. Additionally, the risk of being vanished by a rival occult faction is substantially lower.”

She handed over another business card. “Call this number and mention Xiao Bai.”

Then she found a man in the restroom using a minor hydrokinesis gift to cheat at the sink-side ‘Who Will Fill the Cup Fastest’ novelty game. “Pathetic,” Su Yao said, making him spill water all over his shoes with a twitch of her will.

“You have the potential to detect spiritual contaminants in a water supply, and you use it for this. Here.” A card was slapped onto the wet counter. “Redeem yourself, or don’t. The black robes recruit the desperate. I’m giving you a less desperate option.”

This was her new strategy. Every empowered mortal she encountered was a potential asset she could secure for the state, thereby stripping it from the enemy’s board. Su Yao was beating the black robes at their own game using the modern world’s most powerful weapon: a stable career path with benefits.

The sniper, Gao Shun’s web, and even the hidden fox were secondary objectives. This was the primary mission, to turn Macau from a recruiting ground for a hidden enemy into a job fair for Stabilization. It was, she decided, the most insulting form of warfare she could possibly wage.

Gao Shun approached her as she finished ‘recruiting’ a young man who had been using enhanced hearing to eavesdrop on card games. “Xiao Bai,” he said. His voice was low. “My people have secured the sniper’s nest. There’s something you should see.”

Su Yao dismissed the newly minted government asset with a flick of her wrist and turned to Gao Shun. “Lead the way.”

They left the casino through a service elevator, ascending to a rooftop across the street. The nest was a meticulously chosen spot. It was a dusty maintenance room with a perfect sightline to the casino entrance. Gao Shun’s guards stood watch outside as they entered.

The room was empty save for a single spent cartridge and a faint, lingering scent of gun oil and ambition. On the windowsill, placed neatly beside where the rifle had been, was a small square of red paper. On it, written in crisp, traditional hanzi, were three characters:

猫头鹰

Gao Shun picked it up, frowning. “Cat-headed eagle? What is this, a children’s riddle?”

Su Yao plucked the paper from his fingers. Her lips curled into a cold smirk. “It’s an owl. A literal translation, but the meaning is clear, owl.”

She let the word hang in the air. Her mind raced through associations. Owls were hunters. They were often symbols of wisdom, but in certain contexts, they represented messengers or watchers.

“An owl,” Gao Shun repeated. Skepticism dripped from his tone. “Is this meant to intimidate? Or is it a joke?”

“Neither,” Su Yao said, dropping the paper. “It’s a signature, a boast. The sniper is claiming a level of sophistication. An owl is silent and deadly.”

She scanned the room again. Her senses extended beyond the physical. This was purely mortal work, but with a theatrical flair. A calling card? How quaint. It reeked of someone trying to create a mythos around themselves.

“Owls are also associated with Minerva in the West. In some Eastern folklore, they are harbingers of death,” she mused aloud. “But here, in Macau, it’s more likely a reference to a local faction or a new player styling themselves after the concept.”

Gao Shun crossed his arms. “So what now? We have a bird as our only lead.”

“Now,” Su Yao said, turning to leave the room, “we use this. Spread the word that ‘Xiao Bai’ is unimpressed by avian theatrics. The owl missed its prey and left nothing but a feather. Let them hear that their symbolism is as ineffective as their sniper rifle.”

She paused at the door, glancing back at the calling card. “Have your people dig deeper. Look for any new groups or individuals using owl imagery. Check if any of the newly empowered have taken an interest in ornithology. Someone is trying to establish a brand. And I excel at—”

Crack.

Another shot followed, and this one struck her squarely in the center of her forehead. The impact snapped her head back slightly. A neat, round hole appeared between her brows. A trickle of blood, dark and precise, welled up and began a slow path down the bridge of her nose.

Su Yao went utterly still for a fraction of a second from sheer, incandescent indignation.

That, she thought, is just rude.

Gao Shun and his guards dropped into defensive positions, scrambling for cover. Su Yao remained standing in the open service corridor. Her expression shifted from analytical to annoyed. She reached up, plucking the flattened, spiritually-laced round from the bone of her forehead as if removing a stray eyelash. The wound sealed itself before the blood could drip past her chin.

“They upgraded their ammunition,” she noted. Her voice was flat as she examined the bullet. “A low-grade spirit-piercing core, how pedestrian.”

She locked her gaze on the new trajectory, calculating the origin point. It was a different building, farther away. Either the owl was learning, or there was more than one.

“They are testing your resilience,” Gao Shun said from behind a concrete pillar. His voice was tight.

“They are interrupting my briefing,” Su Yao corrected, dropping the bullet. It clinked on the floor. “It’s a failure of etiquette.”

Without another word, she phased from the corridor, leaving behind only a kingpin staring at a bullet on the floor. She reappeared mid-air outside a luxury hotel suite. Her form solidified just as she passed through the glass balcony door.

Inside, a sniper was already sweeping her rifle from the window, having seen her approach in her scope a second too late. She never stood a chance. Su Yao halted in the center of the room, her feet hovering an inch above the carpet.

Her gaze locked onto the sniper, a professional with a cold, focused aura, now frozen in the act of reaching for a sidearm. “The spirit-piercing round was an improvement,” Su Yao stated. Her voice was devoid of warmth. “But your timing is insulting.”

She willed the air around the sniper to solidify. It happened instantly. The atmosphere turned to a transparent, diamond-hard prison, crushing her rifle to scrap and pinning her arms to her sides. She gasped, unable to move, unable to breathe. Her eyes were wide with a terror that was entirely physical.

“An owl uses its own claws,” she said. Her voice was soft as she stopped before the immobilized sniper. She recognized her as Xiao Ling’s former history teacher, a detail that did nothing to soften her expression. “You’re merely a tool, a disrespectful one.”

Inwardly, the certainty cracked. Is everyone around Xiao Ling hiding a second life, a government asset like Zhang Wei or an assassin like Miss Yang, waiting their turn to reveal it?

Su Yao leaned closer. Her hovering form cast no shadow in the dim room. “Who hired you?” she asked. Her voice was calm but left no room for evasion.

The sniper, straining against the invisible bonds, managed to choke out a name between gasps. “Rodrigo Tortilla.”

Su Yao’s brow furrowed slightly. Rodrigo Tortilla? The name sounded Portuguese, which fit Macau’s colonial history, but it meant nothing to her. She had no dossier on anyone by that name. It was likely an alias or a minor player. Another thread in the tangled web of Macau’s underworld.

“An unimpressive patron,” Su Yao commented, dismissing the name for now. She studied the sniper. She was a professional. Mortal, but highly skilled. Such precision could be useful, especially if the black robes started recruiting mundane assets.

“The government is hiring,” Su Yao said. Her tone shifted to one of clinical recruitment. “Stabilization division. The pay is excellent and the benefits include full medical. Occasionally, they pay you just for pretending to work for them. It’s a significant upgrade from being crushed to death in a hotel room for a man named after a flatbread.”

She relaxed her will slightly, allowing the sniper to breathe more easily but still held fast. “Your skills are wasted on freelance assassination. With the government, you’ll have a stable career, a pension, and the opportunity to occasionally shoot at things that actually deserve it. All you have to do is say yes.”

The sniper stared. Her eyes were wide with a mix of fear and confusion. “Why would you offer me that?”

“Because you’re a resource, and resources should be efficiently allocated,” Su Yao replied. “Also, because I find the name ‘Rodrigo Tortilla’ personally offensive, and I’d rather you work for me than for him. So, what is your answer?”

The sniper hesitated, then gave a shaky nod. “Yes, I’ll take it.”

“Good.” Su Yao released the atmospheric prison, and the sniper collapsed to the floor, coughing. Su Yao tossed her a business card identical to the others. “Call that number. Mention Xiao Bai. They’ll expect you. If you try to double-cross me, remember that I can find you anywhere.”

With that, Su Yao phased out of the room, leaving the sniper to her new career path. She reappeared beside Gao Shun, who was still in the service corridor.

“The sniper has been neutralized,” Su Yao informed him. “The hirer was one ‘Rodrigo Tortilla.’”

Gao Shun’s eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly. “Rodrigo Tortilla? Here?”

“You know the name,” Su Yao observed. Her tone was flat.

“Everyone in Macau who matters knows that name,” Gao Shun replied. His voice was low. “The man hasn’t been operating here directly for years. He runs a shipping and import-export empire out of Lisbon with diversified interests. If he’s taking a personal interest in a situation here, it means the stakes have shifted beyond casino rivalries or local power plays.”

Su Yao processed this. An external player with global reach, entering the fray. That changed the calculus. “Why would he care about a fabricated identity like Madame Meng?”

“He wouldn’t,” Gao Shun said. His gaze turned inward, calculating. “Unless Madame Meng was a front for something he actually wants. Or unless you, Xiao Bai, have drawn his attention merely by existing in a space he considers his. His organization is like a spiderweb. It’s invisible until you stumble into it. Then it’s too late.”

“Fascinating,” Su Yao said, though she sounded anything but fascinated. “An external multinational corporation of crime, now intersecting with a local spiritual awakening. This is a hostile merger.”

“Precisely,” Gao Shun said. “Tortilla does not make moves like this without a compelling reason. Someone, or something, has made Macau worth the risk for him again.”

“Then our objectives align more closely than before,” Su Yao concluded. “You want to maintain your territory. I need to prevent any powerful external faction from capitalizing on the chaos. We will pool intelligence. You find out what Tortilla is truly after here. I will continue investigating the newly empowered and eliminate any of his local assets.”

“Or,” Gao Shun countered. His voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. “Someone is using his name. Throwing a very large, very recognizable rock into the pond to see what surfaces and to hide their own splash.”

Su Yao considered this. Her expression was unchanging. “A plausible tactic. Attributing an attack to a known powerful entity creates confusion and misdirects retaliation.”

“Exactly,” Gao Shun nodded. “So we have two possibilities. One: Rodrigo Tortilla has genuinely returned to Macau for reasons unknown. Two: a third party is impersonating him to escalate the situation and watch how we react.”

“In either case, the response is the same,” Su Yao stated. “We proceed as if the threat is real. If it’s Tortilla, we neutralize his operations. But if it’s an imposter, our forceful response will flush them out. The outcome is identical. We find and dismantle the source of the aggression.”

She began to walk down the corridor. Her pace was measured. “The sniper gave us a name. False or not, it’s a lead. You will investigate the Tortilla angle. I will continue to investigate the city’s new power structure. I will make it known that ‘Xiao Bai’ isn’t concerned with the names of her enemies, only with their subsequent lack of functionality.”

A cold smile touched her lips. “This is an opportunity for a more thorough investigation.” She glanced back at Gao Shun. “Let them play their games. The house always wins.”

With that, she turned a corner and vanished, leaving Gao Shun with the chilling certainty that she would happily tear his city apart piece by piece to find what she was looking for, regardless of whose name was on the wreckage.

The familiar, shrill ringtone of Xiao Ling’s old phone cut through the ambient noise of the casino corridor. It was a sound Su Yao associated with mortal trivialities. She almost dismissed it. But few had this number. She retrieved the outdated device from a hidden pocket.

The screen showed Baoqing’s number.

Su Yao answered. She said nothing.

A low, amused chuckle echoed from the receiver. “Xiao Bai?” Baoqing purred. The name dripped with theatrical delight. “My, my. Dragging that old name out of the attic? I hadn’t pegged you for a nostalgic.”

Su Yao’s grip on the phone tightened slightly. “It’s a tool, a disposable identifier.”

“Is it?” Baoqing’s laughter was a soft, rustling sound. “How delightfully ironic. Because the real Xiao Bai is very much alive and well. She goes by ‘Blanca’ now. And guess which glittering den of vice she currently calls home?”

Su Yao went perfectly still. The statistical probability of this specific coincidence was so astronomically low it felt less like chance and more like narrative interference.

“Macau,” Su Yao stated. The word was flat.

“The very same!” Baoqing confirmed, gleeful. “She and her devoted Xu Xian have a lovely little import-export business here. They’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, but they prefer to operate under the radar these days. Or they did, until you started waving her old name around like a banner.”

Su Yao’s fingers tightened minutely around the phone. The air grew cold.

Then, Baoqing’s laughter returned, brighter and more mischievous. “I’m joking, of course! By the Celestial Court, the look on your face must be priceless. No, they are still safely tucked away on the mainland, running their little schemes in Shenzhen selling everyday items. They haven’t set foot in Macau in decades.”

She let out a contented sigh. “But you believed it for a second, didn’t you? Oh, that was worth the call. You’re so delightfully predictable when it comes to messy, personal complications.”

Su Yao ignored the taunt. “The purpose of this call was to waste my time.”

“Was it a waste?” Baoqing countered. Her tone was light. “Now you know for certain the name ‘Xiao Bai’ is clear for you to use without stepping on any legendary, white-scaled toes. That’s valuable intelligence. You got to experience a moment of delightful, hypothetical panic. A win-win.”

“The only win is the elimination of a false lead,” Su Yao replied. “Don’t contact me again with fictional scenarios.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Baoqing chuckled. “Fine, fine. Go play in your casino. But do try to leave some of the city standing. It’s so hard to find good pawnshop locations these days.”

Su Yao stood perfectly still in the corridor. The muffled sounds of the casino were a distant hum.

“A question,” Su Yao said. Her voice was dangerously calm. “How did you know I was using the alias ‘Xiao Bai’? The news of a minor incident in a Macau casino should not have reached your ears so quickly. Unless you’re closer than you pretend.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, then a soft, rustling sigh. “Oh, very well. You’ve caught me in a small omission. I’m behind you. Well, not in the physical sense.”

Su Yao kept her gaze fixed forward. Her senses expanded to their utmost range, probing the spiritual environment around her. She detected nothing but the low-grade chaos of the casino and the muted auras of Gao Shun’s guards.

“Explain,” Su Yao commanded.

“It’s the hairpin, you silly fox,” Baoqing said. Her tone shifted to one of mild exasperation. “The jade one the kit gave you, the one from my shop. Did you think it was just a pretty relic? It’s a listening post, a very subtle one. It lets me keep tabs on my inventory. I felt it the moment you invoked the name.”

Su Yao’s free hand went unconsciously to the jade hairpin securing her hair. She had considered it a reclaimed possession, a link to her past.

“A prudent business practice,” Su Yao conceded. Her voice was ice cold. “And a fatal miscalculation. I don’t tolerate surveillance.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Baoqing chided. “It’s not like I’m livestreaming your thoughts. I just get a vague sense of ‘Su Yao is here, and she’s being strangely poetic with names.’ It’s more for my own amusement than any strategic purpose. But since we’re on the subject, it’s also how I knew you were in Macau the moment you arrived. The bridge has quite the distinct spiritual resonance, you know.”

Su Yao slowly pulled the hairpin from her hair. She held it in her palm, examining the seemingly innocent piece of jade. “The terms of our association have been amended.”

“You’re going to break it, aren’t you?” Baoqing sighed. “Such a waste of good jade.”

“No,” Su Yao said. Her fingers closed around it. “I’m going to keep it and to make sure the only thing it transmits from now on is a continuous looping recording of absolute silence. Consider your connection terminated.”

She could almost feel Baoqing’s pout through the phone. “You’re no fun.”

“The fun,” Su Yao stated, “ended when you decided to bug my accessories.” She ended the call and slipped both the phone and the now-quarantined hairpin into separate, isolated spatial pockets.

A part of Su Yao hoped Baoqing was also responsible for the black robes. It would simplify matters and give her a legitimate reason to skin the old fox alive.