January 21, 2015.
Beijing, Dongcheng District.
11:23 a.m.
Wang Li had been discharged from the hospital at 9:00 a.m.
The doctors had wanted to keep her longer—something about "observation" and "your vitals are still unstable" and "have you considered seeing a specialist"—but she had signed the release forms and walked out anyway.
She had people to see.
Well, one person.
A fifteen-year-old demon princess who had promised to help her and then disappeared into the night like a very confident stray cat.
Wang Li had no way to contact her.
No phone number.
No address.
No idea where she had gone.
So she did the only thing she could think of:
She went back to the alley.
THE SEARCH
The alley looked different in the daylight.
Less mysterious.
More... garbage-filled.
The crates were still there. The trash can was still there. But the cat was nowhere to be seen.
Wang Li stood at the entrance, feeling foolish.
What did I expect? That she'd just be waiting for me?
She sighed and turned to leave.
And that's when she saw her.
THE GIRL IN THE COFFEE SHOP
There was a small coffee shop across the street.
Not the kind of place Wang Li usually noticed—she didn't drink coffee, had always preferred tea, had always been too busy for leisurely café visits anyway.
But something made her look.
Through the window, she saw a figure standing near the counter.
Silver-blue hair.
Golden eyes.
The same delicate features, the same androgynous beauty, the same air of someone who belonged in a different world entirely.
She was studying the café's interior with an expression of intense concentration—like an architect examining a blueprint, or a general surveying a battlefield.
Wang Li's heart leaped.
There she is.
She started across the street.
THE OBSERVER
The girl—the princess—didn't seem to notice Wang Li approaching.
She was too focused on the café.
Her head tilted slightly as she examined the espresso machine.
Then the pastry display.
Then the seating arrangement.
She was muttering something under her breath, too quiet for Wang Li to hear.
"...good location... foot traffic... but the lighting is wrong... and the menu is too basic..."
She turned slightly, and Wang Li caught a glimpse of her profile.
There was something different about her.
Not her appearance—she looked exactly the same as she had in the hospital room.
But her presence.
It was heavier.
More... layered.
Like looking at the surface of the ocean and knowing that miles below, something enormous was moving.
Wang Li shook off the feeling.
She was being paranoid.
"Princess!" she called out.
The girl didn't react.
Wang Li frowned and walked closer.
"Princess, I need to talk to—"
THE ATTACK
The air changed.
Wang Li felt it before she saw it—a shift in pressure, a sudden cold, the metallic taste of ozone on her tongue.
She stumbled back.
And then he appeared.
The Impostor.
Still wearing Wang Li's face.
Still smiling that terrible, private smile.
But now his eyes were different.
They were focused.
Predatory.
Hungry.
He stood between Wang Li and the café, his body radiating an aura of malice so thick it seemed to darken the air around him.
"There you are, Doctor," he said, his voice a perfect imitation of her own. "I've been looking for you."
Wang Li's blood turned to ice.
She couldn't move.
She couldn't speak.
All she could do was stare at the creature wearing her face, watching as he took a step toward her.
And then another.
"What's wrong? Don't you recognize yourself?"
He laughed—a sound that was hers and not hers, wrong in ways she couldn't articulate.
"I came to deliver a message. About your mother. About what's going to happen to her."
He took another step.
"But first, I think I'll deal with your new friend."
He turned toward the café.
Toward the girl.
Toward the princess.
THE MISTAKE
The girl still hadn't reacted.
She was still examining the café, her back to the street, her silver-blue hair catching the weak winter light.
To the Impostor, she must have looked like an easy target.
A child.
A distraction.
A way to hurt Wang Li before delivering his message.
He moved.
The attack was faster than anything Wang Li had ever seen.
One moment, the Impostor was standing in the street.
The next, he was inside the café, his hand reaching for the girl's throat, his face twisted with malicious glee.
Wang Li screamed.
Or tried to.
The sound caught in her throat as terror locked her body in place.
No no no no—
And then the girl moved.
THE KICK
It was not a punch.
It was not a block.
It was not any defensive technique Wang Li had ever seen in movies or read about in books.
It was a kick.
A simple kick.
But it was also the most devastating thing Wang Li had ever witnessed.
The girl didn't even turn around.
She just... shifted.
Her body rotated at the waist, her leg came up, and her foot connected with the Impostor's chest with the force of a meteor.
There was no sound.
For a single, terrible moment, there was no sound at all.
And then—
BOOM.
The Impostor flew backward.
Through the café wall.
Through the building behind it.
Through what must have been three or four more walls, because Wang Li could hear them collapsing one after another, like dominos made of brick and glass.
The entire street shook.
Car alarms went off.
People screamed.
And the girl—the impossible, terrifying girl—lowered her leg and turned around.
Her golden eyes were calm.
Her expression was mildly annoyed.
Like she had just swatted a fly.
"Who the hell was that?" she asked.
THE COLLAPSE
Wang Li couldn't answer.
She was too busy staring at the destruction.
The café was gone.
Or at least, the front half of it was gone.
The wall where the Impostor had been standing had been completely obliterated.
Beyond it, she could see the ruins of what had once been a small office building—now just rubble and dust and the sound of someone, somewhere, screaming.
And in the middle of the wreckage, buried under what looked like several tons of concrete and steel, was the Impostor.
He wasn't moving.
Wang Li hoped he was dead.
She knew he probably wasn't.
The girl stepped out of the café.
She walked toward Wang Li with the casual grace of someone strolling through a park.
She stopped a few feet away and tilted her head.
"You know that guy?" she asked.
Wang Li opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"That... that was the Impostor."
The girl blinked.
"The what now?"
THE EXPLANATION ATTEMPT
Wang Li tried to explain.
She really did.
But her mind was still short-circuiting from the sight of a fifteen-year-old girl kicking a thousand-year-old cultivator through four buildings.
"The... the thing I told you about. In the hospital. The one wearing my face. The one who's been ruining my life."
The girl stared at her.
Then at the rubble.
Then back at Wang Li.
"That was the doppelgänger?"
"Yes!"
The girl frowned.
"Huh. I thought he'd be stronger."
Wang Li felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in her throat.
She swallowed it down.
"He's been cultivating for thousands of years! He's in Spirit Transformation stage! How did you—"
The girl held up a hand.
"Hold on. Spirit Transformation? That's what you said?"
"Yes!"
The girl's frown deepened.
"Seriously? That's it?"
She looked at the rubble again.
Then she sighed.
"Wow. I really overestimated this world's power levels. That's embarrassing."
THE NOT-PRINCESS
Wang Li was hyperventilating.
She could feel it—the tightness in her chest, the dizziness, the cold sweat on her palms.
She had just watched a building collapse.
A building.
And the girl was acting like it was no big deal.
"Who are you?" Wang Li whispered.
The girl looked at her.
For a long moment, she didn't answer.
Then she smiled.
It was not the smile of a fifteen-year-old.
It was the smile of something ancient and amused, something that had seen empires rise and fall and had never once been impressed.
"Funny," she said. "I was just about to ask you the same thing."
THE CONFUSION
Wang Li blinked.
"What?"
The girl—the not-princess, the impossible being—gestured at the destroyed street, the collapsed building, the dust still settling in the winter air.
"I came here to look at a coffee shop. Do you know why?"
Wang Li shook her head mutely.
"Because I'm bored." The girl shrugged. "I've been traveling for a while. Checking out interesting places. Thinking about starting a business. Maybe a café. Something low-key."
She paused.
"Then some random guy attacks me for no reason, and you show up screaming about doppelgängers and Spirit Transformation and your face being stolen."
She tilted her head.
"So. Who are you?"
THE REALIZATION
Wang Li stared at her.
And then, slowly, the pieces clicked into place.
The girl in front of her was not the demon princess.
She had the same hair.
The same eyes.
The same face.
But the princess had been a child—confident and powerful, yes, but still a child, with a child's enthusiasm and a child's love of web novels.
The being in front of her was something else entirely.
Something older.
Something vast.
Something that looked at the collapse of a building and saw nothing worth noting.
"You're not her," Wang Li whispered.
The girl raised an eyebrow.
"Her?"
"The demon princess. The one I met last night. She looks exactly like you."
THE SILENCE
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the girl laughed.
It was a light, musical sound—completely at odds with the destruction surrounding them.
"A demon princess?" she said. "That looks like me?"
She shook her head, still chuckling.
"Well. That explains a few things."
She glanced at the rubble where the Impostor was buried.
"I thought it was strange that some random cultivator would attack me. But if there's a demon princess running around with my face... maybe he mistook me for her."
She sighed.
"How annoying."
THE INTRODUCTION
Wang Li's legs gave out.
She sat down hard on the sidewalk, her back against a lamppost.
Her whole body was shaking.
"Who are you?" she asked again.
The girl looked at her.
Those golden eyes—so similar to the princess's, and yet so different—studied her with an expression that was half curiosity, half amusement.
"My name," she said slowly, "is Rimuru."
She paused.
"Rimuru Tempest."
THE CONFUSION DEEPENS
Wang Li's mind went blank.
"Rimuru... Tempest?"
"That's right."
"That's a... that's not a Chinese name."
The girl—Rimuru—smiled.
"No. It's not."
She turned and looked at the wreckage.
"But don't worry about it. Names aren't important. What's important is that I just destroyed about four buildings, and someone is probably going to call the police."
She looked back at Wang Li.
"Can you walk?"
THE WALK
Wang Li couldn't walk.
Her legs wouldn't cooperate.
So Rimuru picked her up—picked her up, like she weighed nothing, like carrying a grown woman was the most natural thing in the world—and carried her away from the destruction.
They ended up in a small park a few blocks away.
Rimuru set Wang Li down on a bench and sat beside her.
They sat in silence for a while.
The winter wind blew through the bare trees.
Distant sirens wailed.
Wang Li stared at the ground.
"You're not human," she said finally.
Rimuru didn't answer.
"Are you?" Wang Li looked up.
Rimuru met her gaze.
And for just a moment—just a fraction of a second—Wang Li saw something in those golden eyes that made her soul tremble.
Something infinite.
Something impossible.
Something that had existed before time and would exist after everything else had turned to dust.
"No," Rimuru said quietly. "I'm not."
THE REVERSE
Rimuru stood.
She walked a few steps away, then stopped.
"Wait here," she said.
And then she turned around and faced the destruction.
She raised one hand.
Wang Li watched, too exhausted to feel surprised, as the air began to shimmer.
The collapsed buildings shuddered.
The rubble lifted.
And slowly, impossibly, everything began to rewind.
Bricks flew back into place.
Glass reassembled.
Concrete flowed like water, filling in cracks and gaps.
The screams faded.
The car alarms stopped.
Within thirty seconds, the street looked exactly as it had before the attack.
As if nothing had ever happened.
Rimuru lowered her hand.
She turned back to Wang Li.
"Better," she said.
Wang Li stared at her.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
"You just... you just reversed time."
Rimuru shrugged.
"It's not that impressive. I only rewound about ten minutes. Any decent mage could do it."
She sat back down on the bench.
"Now. About that demon princess who looks like me."
She crossed her legs and fixed Wang Li with a curious stare.
"Tell me everything."
THE EXPLANATION
So Wang Li told her.
Everything.
The photographs.
The Impostor.
The hospital.
The cat in the alley.
The princess with silver-blue hair and golden eyes.
The stories about the Great Demon Lord and the clones and the bloodline.
Rimuru listened without interrupting.
When Wang Li finished, there was a long silence.
Then Rimuru sighed.
"Ah," she said. "I see."
She leaned back on the bench.
"So there's a demon princess running around Beijing with my face. And she's claiming to be descended from the Great Demon Lord. And she reads Chinese web novels."
She chuckled.
"That's... actually kind of cute."
Wang Li stared at her.
"You're not upset?"
"Why would I be upset?" Rimuru tilted her head. "She's clearly a fan. Or maybe a distant descendant. Either way, it's flattering."
She paused.
"Though I should probably find out who her father is. If she really is from my bloodline, then that means somewhere along the line, one of my clones got busy."
She made a face.
"Gross. I don't want to think about that."
THE MORNING AFTER
The cat arrived ten minutes later.
Wang Li saw it first—a flash of orange and white, darting between the trees.
Then it transformed.
The demon princess appeared, breathing hard, her golden eyes wide.
"There you are!" she shouted. "I've been looking everywhere for you! Are you okay? I felt a massive energy spike and—"
She stopped.
She was staring at Rimuru.
Rimuru was staring back.
For a long, awkward moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the princess's face went pale.
Her mouth dropped open.
And she made a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a scream.
"Y-y-you—"
Rimuru raised an eyebrow.
"Hello," she said pleasantly. "I hear you've been claiming to be my descendant."
The princess made another squeaking sound.
She looked at Wang Li.
Then at Rimuru.
Then back at Wang Li.
"THAT'S THE GREAT DEMON LORD!" she shrieked.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
And so the truth is revealed.
The "demon princess" is real—but the being she's been claiming as her ancestor is also real, and currently sitting on a park bench in Beijing, looking at a coffee shop.
Rimuru Tempest has entered the story.
The Great Demon Lord himself.
And he's been mistaken for a schoolgirl.
This is fine.