I am NOT a Demon Queen!

“Are you sure this will work?” Zhang Wei asked. “Even if we spread the rumor that Xue Qing is the real you, shouldn’t the black robes realize she isn’t a nine-tailed fox? Their entire modus operandi is hunting your kind. They must have ways to detect spiritual signatures. Xie Jing is a white bone demon. Wouldn’t that throw them off?”

Su Yao stared at him. “What do you mean? She is a nine-tailed fox.”

Zhang Wei blinked, pulling up a file on his tablet. “But the historical records and ancient texts describe her as a skeletal entity, a bringer of plagues from the abyss. That’s what most people know. The government’s files classify her as a non-corporeal, decay-based entity.”

“Those records are wrong. She has always been a nine-tailed fox, just like me. Her ‘abyssal’ nature is a manifestation of her power over entropy and decay, but her core is vulpine.

Su Yao laughed. “She allowed her true form to rot away over time, and the legends twisted her into something else. But spiritually, she is as much a fox as I am. The black robes will sense that if they get close enough.”

Zhang Wei’s brow furrowed. “So everything we thought we knew about her is incorrect? She’s been a fox all along?”

“Precisely,” Su Yao said. “The confusion suits her. It makes her a better hiding place. Now, proceed with the disinformation. The black robes will detect her fox spirit signature and assume she is me. With any luck, their pursuit will trigger her entropy field, and they will eliminate themselves.”

Shaking his head, Zhang Wei returned to his console. “I’ll update the files and leak the intel. It’s scary how much of history is just wrong.”

“History is written by the survivors,” Su Yao replied. “And often, they are liars. Just make sure the black robes become the next to learn that lesson the hard way.”

“Who else knows that Xie Jing is a nine-tailed fox?” Zhang Wei asked. His fingers paused over the keyboard.

“Anyone who lived during and before the Tang Dynasty. The records were corrupted by mortal folklore after that.”

Zhang Wei’s eyes widened. “If the black robes are operating under the misconception that she’s a white bone demon, then their leadership can’t be that ancient. They don’t have access to the real information even the government doesn’t know. We’re dealing with someone who relies on incomplete modern myths.”

“Precisely,” Su Yao said. “Their ignorance is their weakness. Now, make sure the leak implies that ‘Xue Qing’ is me. Let their pursuit begin.”

Zhang Wei’s fingers flew across the console, pulling up a classified personnel roster. “Then we’ll use the perfect vector without direct government traces.” He opened a secure channel. “I’m mobilizing the ‘Nexus’ team.”

Su Yao raised an eyebrow. “Nexus?”

“The survivors we extracted from those Cambodian scam centers last year,” he explained. “Forced to run romance scams and crypto fraud. We rehabilitated them and now they work for us. They understand digital persuasion better than anyone and know how to make a lie go viral in the right dark corners.”

Zhang Wei began drafting the core misinformation packet. “They’ll seed the narrative through bot networks. The story will be that the actress Xue Qing is the genuine article using her role as the cover to recuperate her power right under everyone’s noses.”

He finalized the orders and sent them. “The Nexus team will make it ubiquitous. Within 48 hours, it’ll be the worst-kept ‘secret’ in the supernatural underworld.”

Su Yao watched the operation unfold across the monitors, her fingers tracing the edge of the console. “People never change.”

She leaned back in her chair, the glow of shifting data reflected across her face.

“This is the Hongxian dynasty,” she said, indicating the screens. “Technology lets them see the face of someone on the other side of the planet in an instant.” Her hand stilled. “And they still believe anything they see on a screen.”

A smile touched her lips. “They still hang on the words of some random stranger in a digital forum.” She scoffed. “It’s the same gullibility that fueled palace intrigues and peasant revolts, just with a new coat of paint.”

“It’s less about stupidity and more about volume and confirmation bias,” Zhang Wei corrected. “See something often enough from enough different sources, and your brain starts to accept it as truth. The Nexus team is just manufacturing consensus.”

Su Yao gestured to a feed showing a heated discussion in an occult sub-forum. “Look at them, debating the ‘shadows’ in a photograph as if it were divine revelation. They are like courtiers analyzing the emperor’s new clothes, each one more desperate than the last to prove they can see the pattern.”

A few hours later, the first tangible result appeared in the form of a clip from a years-old interview with ‘Xue Qing’. In it, the host jokingly asked if she’d ever been to the Jade Mountain region. Xie Jing had given a non-committal answer about the beauty of Chinese landscapes.

The clip was now circulating with a caption: “She knows! She’s been there!”

Su Yao watched the clip loop. “See? They are building a prison for themselves out of scraps. They want the myth to be true so badly they will connect the dots themselves, even if the dots are random stains.”

By the next day, the rumor had spread. Walking through the university cafeteria, Su Yao overheard two students whispering.

“Dude, I heard the actress from Azure Mist Chronicles might actually be the demon queen. That’s why her performance was so ‘authentic’.”

“No way, but it kinda makes sense, right? She always seems otherworldly.”

Su Yao collected her lunch. She passed their table and paused, making them jump.

“The only thing ‘otherworldly’ about her is the sheer depth of her vacuity,” she said. “And your critical thinking skills are even more mythical than she is.”

She left them gaping and sat alone. Her phone buzzed with a message.

Zhang Wei: The bait is taken. Black robe chatter is spiking. They’re redirecting assets.

Su Yao typed a single-word reply.

Xiao Ling: Good.

She took a bite of her food. For once, their willingness to believe was proving to be a reliable tool.

Su Yao phased to the rooftop of the library. She watched as three figures in black converged on the film studies building where Xie Jing was giving a press conference for her new movie.

The first assassin leaped between two buildings and misjudged the distance. A pigeon flew into his face. He flailed, his boot catching on a satellite dish and plummeted three stories into a dumpster filled with leftover construction cement.

Su Yao’s comms crackled. “Target Alpha is down. He broke both legs. The cement was freshly poured. How?”

“Statistical inevitability,” Su Yao replied. “Continue observing.”

The second assassin used a drainpipe to scale the building, only to find his handholds slick with a greasy black residue. He lost his grip, crashing through a window into a janitor’s closet. A shelf of industrial-strength cleaning chemicals toppled over and a noxious green cloud erupted. His choked screams were cut short.

“Target Beta is neutralized through chemical inhalation. The mix appears to have created a temporary neurotoxin.”

“The universe is a good chemist,” Su Yao noted.

The cell leader took the front door, crossing the lobby. The gleam of the freshly mopped floor never registered. His feet flew forward, his balance gone.

He went down fast, head snapping sideways into the marble corner of the reception desk. The crack echoed. When the sound faded, he lay still.

“Target Gamma is down. The cause is apparent traumatic head injury from a slip-and-fall. They never even got within fifty feet of her.”

Su Yao watched as campus security and paramedics swarmed the scene. Xie Jing continued smiling for cameras inside.

Then, the cell leader stirred. Paramedics lifted him onto a gurney. As they wheeled him past the main doors, he pointed a trembling finger toward the press conference inside. He rasped a word to a paramedic. “Fox.”

A light fixture above the gurney chose that exact moment to detach from its moorings. It fell, striking the man squarely in the chest. The electrocardiogram monitor flatlined.

“Target Gamma is terminated,” Zhang Wei whispered. “The light fixture did it. It was a one-in-a-million outcome.”

Su Yao turned away from the edge. “The field eliminates the pursuit and the knowledge of the pursuit. It’s a self-correcting problem. The cell is erased. Inform the Nexus team their work was effective.”

“The Duwang cell is gone,” Zhang Wei reported. “For the second time. Wiped out by bad luck. Will they leave the city alone?”

Su Yao watched the last gurney being loaded into an ambulance from her rooftop perch. “No. They will not.”

She phased back to the operations center, materializing beside Zhang Wei’s console. “An organization that sacrifices its operatives twice so readily does not operate on simple cost-benefit analysis. Each failure provides data. They now have confirmed data on Xie Jing’s defensive capabilities.”

Zhang Wei swiveled in his chair. “So what’s their next move? How do you fight that?”

“You bypass the entropy fight,” Su Yao said, scanning the city map. “They will attempt to manipulate a third party into creating a scenario she can’t avoid. Or they will try to attack her from a distance with a method that requires no focused intent.”

She turned to him. “Increase surveillance on all logistical channels. Look for purchases of long-range spiritual projectiles or for attempts to coerce someone with no prior connection to her. The next attack will be a trap laid by remote control instead of a direct pursuit.”

“And we just wait for them to set it?”

“We anticipate,” Su Yao said. “And make the trap itself the target. They are refining their methods. So we will refine our defense.”

The black robes adapted. Their next operative spent three weeks meticulously manipulating the university’s water system. He added untraceable spiritual catalysts to the chemistry department’s waste line and engineered a precise confluence of pipes.

When Xie Jing turned on a tap in her dressing room to wash her hands, the water that flowed out was a neurotoxin distilled from the venom of a dream-eater moth.

The trap snap shut.

Xie Jing turned the knob. Water splashed onto her hands, and she collapsed instantly. Her heart stopped.

Zhang Wei watched through a hidden camera. “They did it. She’s down. Vital signs zero. They bypassed the field.”

“Wait,” Su Yao said.

The black robe operative watching from a van off-campus smiled. It froze on his face.

Xie Jing sat up and looked at her wet hands. “Ugh, the water is so hard here. It’s terrible for my complexion.” She brushed off her dress and walked over to a bottled water dispenser to rinse her hands.

The operative in the van stared.

Then the entropy field found its outlet. The van’s engine seized and the electrical systems shorted, locking the doors. An odorless gas leak from a faulty heater valve began filling the cabin. By the time anyone found him, it would look like a tragic accident.

Su Yao turned away from the monitor. “I did tell you she was immortal.”

“But how? The toxin should have disintegrated her soul!”

“She is the Witch of the Abyss,” Su Yao said. “Their method was clever, but their fundamental premise was flawed. They assumed she could be killed.”

“So what do we do?” Zhang Wei asked.

“Trace the toxin. I want its origin.”

Zhang Wei’s fingers flew across the console, pulling up chemical analysis and spiritual signatures.

“Got it. The neurotoxin is a custom blend. Signature matches a known supplier in the underworld, a gu cultivator in Shenzhen who goes by the alias ‘Viper’. She was one of the best. This would have cost the black robes a fortune.”

Su Yao’s head tilted. “Viper? Describe this Viper.”

“According to the files, she operates out of a hidden lab in the Nanshan district, specializing in rare venoms and spiritual poisons. The descriptions mention white hair and golden eyes.”

“A gu cultivator?” Su Yao smiled. “Fool. That is Xiao Bai, the white snake demon. She is an ancient demon from the same era as I. And she is a friend.”

“Xiao Bai? As in the legendary white snake? She’s alive and running a venom business in Shenzhen?”

“Apparently so,” Su Yao said. “And she has just sold a weapon to my enemies. How interesting.”

She walked to the door. “I’m paying her a visit. Monitor the black robes’ reactions. I want to know if they realize their supplier is one of us.”

“Wait! Should I send a team?” Zhang Wei called out.

“Don’t be absurd,” Su Yao replied. “This is a personal matter. Tell the Nexus team to spread a new rumor that Viper’s poisons are flawed. Let’s see how the black robes like their investments turning to ash.”

Su Yao phased to Hong Kong. A direct phase into the heart of Shenzhen was risky without precise coordinates. The bus was a slower but reliable alternative.

For the next hour, Su Yao endured the scent of stale air conditioning and the sound of pop music from a passenger’s headphones. She phased off the bus the moment it entered Shenzhen, appearing in a quiet alley in Nanshan district. Her spiritual senses unfurled over the bustling streets.

Finding the serpentine energy masked by the scent of chemical cleaners and decay only took little time. It emanated from a nondescript building wedged between a hot pot restaurant and an electronics repair shop.

“There you’re,” Su Yao said.

The entrance was a reinforced steel door without handle. Su Yao placed her palm against the metal. A wave of frost spread from her touch, followed by a quiet shriek as the lock’s internal mechanism shattered. She pushed the door open.

Inside was a white-tiled laboratory that smelled of formaldehyde and a reptilian musk that made her pulse quicken. Her target was close enough to be watching her. Vials of iridescent liquids bubbled on heated plates. Cages lined one wall, holding everything from vibrant frogs to scorpions that glowed with a faint inner light.

Su Yao’s lips tightened. “You’ve been busy.”

At a central workstation, a woman with long snow-white hair looked up from a microscope. She wore a lab coat over practical black clothing. Her eyes were the color of molten gold, their pupils vertical slits.

“Su Yao,” the woman said. “I calculated you would arrive within 48 hours of the toxin’s use. You are 12 hours early.”

“Xiao Bai,” Su Yao replied, stepping inside. The door swung shut behind her. “Or do you prefer ‘Viper’ now? I was unaware you had sunk to selling your wares to pathetic little hunters who target our kind.”

Xiao Bai set down her tweezers. “It is a business. The client provided a financial transaction. I provided a service. That they used it foolishly isn’t my concern.”

“Not your concern?” Su Yao stopped on the other side of the workstation. “They used your ‘service’ in an attempt to kill Xie Jing.”

“They requested a neurotoxin effective against vulpine spiritual entities. They didn’t specify the target was an immortal abyssal entity. That was a critical failure in their intelligence. The product was guaranteed only against targets that can die.”

She picked up a data slate and tapped it, pulling up the order. “See? Clause 4.7: Liability is void if the target possesses true immortality or conceptual invulnerability. They signed it.”

Su Yao stared at her. “You hide behind contractual fine print.”

“I operate in the modern world,” Xiao Bai said, setting the slate down. “Contracts are the new divine mandates. They are clearer and have better enforcement mechanisms.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you care? You and Xie Jing were never close.”

“She is a walking catastrophe, but she is one of us. These insects are hunting us, and you’re arming them.”

“A tool is a tool. It’s the hand that wields it that matters. Also, the hand was incompetent.” Xiao Bai tilted her head. “I assume the entropy field handled the cleanup?”

“Thoroughly.”

“Then the problem is resolved. Is there anything else? I’ve a batch of basilisk venom that requires my attention. The stabilization process is very time-sensitive. You are disturbing the harmony.”

Su Yao smiled. “Oh, we aren’t done. You will provide the client’s full details, including every communication and payment trace.”

Xiao Bai froze. “That would violate my confidentiality agreement. It’s bad for business.”

“Your business,” Su Yao said, leaning forward, “will suffer if I decide to renovate this building from the inside out.”

The two ancient beings stared at each other across the workstation.

“Fine.” Xiao Bai turned to her computer. “The details will be transmitted to you. I will issue a product recall for that specific client. But my fees are non-refundable.”

“Keep the money,” Su Yao said, straightening up. “Consider it your contribution to cleaning up your own mess. And Xiao Bai?”

The white snake demon looked up.

“Sell to them again, and I will use you as the primary ingredient in your own next experiment.”

Without another word, Su Yao turned and walked away from the laboratory. Xiao Bai adjusted the flow of basilisk venom.

“If my husband didn’t insist on befriending the worst possible people then and now,” she sighed, “I could have stayed retired.”

Another downside of a long life.