I am NOT a Demon Queen!

Lectures came and went. Su Yao returned to Duwang, slipping back into the rhythm of student life. She sat in the library and wandered the campus grounds. The initial flurry of activity around the black robes had subsided.

In class, she watched her peers and the staff. There was a distinct lack of hidden malice or scent of spiritual conspiracy. The entire organization seemed to have vaporized after Zhao Ze’s arrest.

She was leaning against a wall sipping water during a break when Zhang Wei’s daily report arrived.

“There has been no significant movement. Tezca stock continues to plummet, while the Hundred Demons and the Aesthetes have gone to ground, and the Wild Hunt is quiet. Everything is calm.”

“Calm is often the prelude to stupidity or storm,” Su Yao replied. Her eyes scanned the students milling about. “But thus far, it’s stagnant.”

She attended a study group, listening to classmates stress over an upcoming exam.

“I heard if you drink a specific brand of milk tea the night before, it helps your memory!” one girl exclaimed.

“That’s just superstition,” Su Yao stated. “Your performance is only determined by preparation.”

The group fell silent.

Later in her apartment, she watched the news. There were reports of strange lights in the sky over Mongolia, dismissed as military exercises. A segment aired on a new tech startup claiming to harness ‘cosmic energy.’ She changed the channel.

The prophecy from the Turkish coffee shop surfaced in her mind.

“Vague generalities,” she muttered to the empty room. “Any fool could have said that. ‘A long journey’? I’ve lived millennia. ‘A threat from beyond the stars’? The ramblings of a woman who listens to Bai Lang’s conspiracy streams. ‘A reunion’? I’m surrounded by resurrected fools and ancient nuisances.”

Concrete information and actionable intelligence remained elusive. Only the same cryptic whispers had followed her since awakening in this era.

Her phone buzzed with a message.

Mei: Movie night? I got the super spicy instant noodles!!!

Su Yao stared at the message. Spicy noodles and mediocre films. Perhaps the relentless passage of time was the only prophecy that mattered.

She typed a reply.

Xiao Ling: Don’t get the cheese foam mango drink again.”

Then she turned off the screen. The prophecy was just noise. She would wait for a signal she could actually fight.

Su Yao phased into Mei’s cramped apartment. The air was already thick with the scent of cheap instant noodles and artificial cheese powder. Mei was on the floor surrounded by a fortress of pillows and snack bags, gesturing at the large TV screen.

“You’re just in time! I got the extra-spicy ones, and we’re starting Moonfall! It’s about the moon falling out of orbit, but it’s like a secret spaceship or something!” Mei said, shoving a bowl of noodles into Su Yao’s hands.

Su Yao took the bowl, eyeing the vibrant red broth. “The moon does not ‘fall out of orbit’ without catastrophic gravitational consequences that would render this plot irrelevant within the first five minutes.” She sat on the edge of the couch, as if afraid to touch it.

Mei rolled her eyes. “Just watch! It’s fun!”

As the movie began, Su Yao watched the chaotic scenes of lunar anomalies and global panic. When the characters discovered that the moon was actually a Dyson sphere powered by a white dwarf star at its core, she snorted.

“A Dyson sphere?” Su Yao set her noodle bowl aside. “Powered by a white dwarf? The scale is ludicrous. A white dwarf has a radius of approximately one percent of the sun’s, yet the moon has a radius of 1,737 kilometers. The mathematics alone are an affront to basic astrophysics.”

Mei paused the movie, turning to Su Yao. “Can’t you just enjoy it? It’s a movie!”

“It’s a stupid movie,” Su Yao said. “The scientific inaccuracies are an insult to any being with a basic understanding of orbital mechanics. I refuse to subject myself to further intellectual degradation. We will watch something else.”

Mei sighed, scrolling through the streaming service. “Fine. What about Morbius? It’s about a vampire doctor or something. Lots of action!”

Su Yao raised an eyebrow. “A vampire doctor? How utterly nonsensical. Very well. Proceed. It can’t possibly be worse than that lunar farce.”

Mei clicked play on Morbius, and the movie began. Within minutes, Su Yao was already critiquing the portrayal of biochemistry and pseudo-medical jargon.

“So,” Su Yao said during a slow-motion transformation scene, “this ‘morbin’ time’ nonsense is meant to be a credible scientific process? The CGI is as convincing as a mortal’s excuse for missing a debt payment.”

Mei groaned. “You’re impossible! It’s just a superhero movie!”

“Superhero?” Su Yao snorted. “He appears to be suffering from a severe hematological disorder coupled with poor life choices. If he simply consumed a few low-level spirits, his energy deficiency would be resolved without the need for all this theatrical brooding.”

The credits for Morbius rolled. Mei stretched, gathering empty noodle cups. “Well, that was, a thing. You hated it, didn’t you?”

“It was marginally less intellectually offensive than the lunar catastrophe,” Su Yao conceded, standing and walking to the window. She pulled back the curtain, her gaze fixed on the night sky. “The moon is larger than usual.”

Mei bounced over to join her, crunching on a leftover chip. “Oh, yeah! It’s a super moon tonight! It’s, like, when the moon is at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. It happens a few times a year. It’s pretty, right?”

“A ‘super moon’,” she repeated. “On the very night we are subjected to a film about the moon’s artificial nature and hidden threats.”

Mei blinked. “You think it’s connected?”

“Coincidence is a narrative tool for the weak,” Su Yao stated, letting the curtain fall back into place. “The celestial bodies don’t move for mere spectacle.”

She walked toward the door. “The movie night is over. I’ve work to do.”

“Wait! What kind of work?”

Su Yao kept walking. “The kind that begins when the moon looks down and finds you watching.”

She phased to the rooftop of her apartment building and stood at the edge. Her gaze remained fixed on the moon. She searched the surface for unnatural light or changes in its gravitational signature, waiting for some hint that the movie held a grain of truth.

Minutes stretched into an hour. The moon hung there, brilliant and silent. Her heightened senses found it simply closer than average, bathing Duwang in stark silver light.

A soft chime came from her phone. It was a message in the FFF chat.

Kayo: Anyone else just looking at the big moon? Feels kinda spooky, ngl. Like it’s watching back.

Baoqing: It’s just a perigee, you drama queen. Though, the tides in the harbor are unusually strong tonight. A few minor spirits got washed away.

Yuzuriha: It’s quite lovely. I’m enjoying the view with my evening tea.

She typed a reply.

Su Yao: It’s a rock. And it’s closer. Nothing more.

She shoved the phone back into her pocket. The grand prophecy and conspiratorial movie had all led to this quiet night beneath an oversized moon.

Zhang Wei’s voice buzzed in her phone. “Sensors are clean. No unusual activity beyond the expected gravitational fluctuations are detected. It really is just a super moon.”

“I’m aware,” Su Yao said. She continued to stare at the lunar surface. “The universe is under no obligation to be interesting on our schedule.”

“So, what now?”

“Now,” Su Yao said, turning away from the silent looming disk, “I go to sleep. The mystery of the moon can wait. And it appears it has no pressing desire to share its secrets tonight.”

Leaving the super moon to illuminate an empty rooftop, she phased back into her apartment. Sometimes, the most unsettling thing was the catastrophe’s refusal to arrive.

Su Yao lay on her bed, the oversized moon still glaring through her window like an unblinking eye. The silence felt less like peace and more like a held breath. She grabbed her phone and typed into the FFF chat.

Su Yao: @Kayo What do you know of Kaguya?

The reply was almost instantaneous.

Kayo: lol the moon princess? She’s fictional, a fairy tale from some old Japanese story. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter or something. Why? You looking for a new bedtime story? ?

Her fingers tightened around the phone.

Su Yao: You’re certain? The Wild Hunt faction seems to believe she is a real, imminent threat.

Kayo: OMG those guys are so dramatic! They probably read a manga and confused it for a historical text. Trust me, she’s not real. There’s no record of a lunar princess entity in any legitimate celestial registry from that period. It’s 100% mortal make-believe.

Su Yao stared at the message. Kayo had an encyclopedic knowledge of legendary beings. If she declared Kaguya a fabrication, it carried significant weight.

Su Yao: And the increased Wild Hunt activity? Their fixation?

Kayo: They’re LARPers with too much power and no life. They need a grand, poetic target to justify their whole ‘ultimate hunt’ shtick. A fictional moon princess is perfect because it’s unprovable, so they can chase the idea forever without ever having to actually succeed or fail. It’s kinda sad, really.

She let out a slow breath. The Wild Hunt were chasing a ghost story, using it as a glue to bind their faction together.

Su Yao: Understood. It seems I’ve been concerning myself with the delusions of idiots.

Kayo: Welcome to my world! Now, wanna watch the new anime adaptation of Kaguya-sama: Love is War? It’s way more fun than the original myth! It’s about these two geniuses who—

Su Yao turned her phone off and dropped it on the nightstand. She looked back at the moon.

The grand conspiracy had shrunk back into mundane reality. An actual alien invasion would have been preferable.

The next day, Su Yao found Xie Jing and Bai Lang lounging under a ginkgo tree on campus after a lecture on international trade policy. Xie Jing was sketching in a notebook while Bai Lang was staring at a squirrel.

“You’re both here, convenient,” Su Yao said, standing over them.

Bai Lang looked up. “Su Yao! I’ve been thinking about your theory. That my ‘aliens’ and your ‘Celestial Court’ are the same thing. It holds up, but it led me to a much scarier place.”

Xie Jing continued sketching. “Is it scarier than the cancellation of my favorite drama? Because that was a tragedy of cosmic proportions.”

“Silence,” Su Yao said, before turning to Bai Lang. “Explain this scarier place.”

Bai Lang leaned forward. “What if there are real aliens? Beings completely separate from the Celestial Court. And what if they don’t need to invade?”

Su Yao raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“Think about it,” Bai Lang whispered. “An invasion is always messy, full of war and resistance. But the perfect victory is one where the conquered never even know they’ve been conquered. What if they were already here and won a long time ago, becoming the elite? They control everything now, from stocks and policies to social media algorithms. We’re just living in the world they manage.”

She pointed a trembling finger at a group of students in expensive-looking athletic wear laughing nearby. “They could be among us right now guiding humanity like a farmer guides his livestock, and we’re too busy staring at our phones to even look up and see the fence.”

Xie Jing looked up from her sketch, which depicted a portrait of Li Xuan. “That sounds exhausting,” she said. “All that effort to rule a species that mostly just creates traffic jams and reality television. If I were an alien, I’d demand a refund.”

Bai Lang glared at her. “This is serious! They could be the true power behind the Yamato corporation! Behind everything!”

“The theory has merit,” Su Yao conceded.“It would explain the systemic nature of the opposition. An enemy that is the very system itself.” She looked at Bai Lang. “Your paranoia has finally produced a usable model.”

Bai Lang beamed. “So we investigate the global elite for alien DNA?”

“We continue as we are,” Su Yao said. “The method remains the same, only the perceived scale of the opponent changes. If they are human, they fall. But if they are aliens, they will be forced to reveal themselves. Either way, we win.”

She turned to Bai Lang. “Your theory is less stupid than your previous ones. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Bai Lang grinned. “She said it wasn’t stupid!”

Xie Jing added delicate fox ears to Li Xuan’s portrait. “Everyone needs a hobby,” she murmured. “Hers is paranoia. Yours is delusion. Mine is aesthetic appreciation of the deceased. It’s all equally valid, really.”

Su Yao turned to Xie Jing. “Do you remember what happened to the city the last time three Nine-Tailed Heavenly foxes gathered in the same place?”

Xie Jing’s eyes widened. “Oh, that. Wasn’t that around the fall of the Shang? Or was it during the Five Dynasties? The details are fuzzy, but I recall a lot of fire and screaming. And something about a river reversing course? It was very dramatic, but terribly messy.”

She sighed. “The celestial paperwork took centuries to sort out.”

Bai Lang’s ears perked up. “Three foxes? What happens? Do they form a megazord or something?”

Su Yao ignored her. “Cataclysmic events tend to unfold. Now, with you and me here, we are two.” She gestured in the direction of the campus gates. “And if that influencer Cheng Lian, is indeed another one of us, that would make three. I sincerely hope she is merely some other lesser vulpine spirit. The alternative would be inconvenient.”

Xie Jing tapped her chin with a pencil. “But Cheng Lian? She seems so modern. All she does is post selfies and sell diet tea. If she’s a heavenly fox, she’s certainly not acting like one. Unless this is a new form of cultivation? Social media ascension?”

Bai Lang gasped. “What if she’s the alien queen? Using influencer marketing to pacify the masses!”

Su Yao pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t give her ideas. We need to ascertain Cheng Lian’s true nature before we accidentally trigger another historical calamity. I’ve no desire to explain to the Celestial Court why Duwang was swallowed by a spontaneous vortex because three of us decided to coexist in a two-mile radius.”

Xie Jing shrugged. “Well, if she is one of us, she’s probably just as bored as me. Maybe we can start a book club instead of destroying the city this time?”

Su Yao looked at her. “Your optimism is as misplaced as your fashion sense. I’m going to investigate Cheng Lian. Bai Lang, sniff out any alien elites in the faculty. Xie Jing, try not to cause any entropy fields while I’m gone.”

As Su Yao turned to leave, Xie Jing called after her, “But what if we all get together for bubble tea? That couldn’t hurt, right?”

Bai Lang muttered, “Famous last words.”