Picked Up by the Butterfly Family from the Start [Demon Slayer]

[There are about 200,000 words in this book's backlog, but they're all unedited drafts and extras, so they can't be used as-is and need revisions. I originally thought that since my last paid book had earned some income, I could spend my time off after finishing it working on this one. But my finances are so dire that I have to start another paid novel immediately just to get by, so this free story is on hold for now. I hope you understand.]

A burned-out office worker transmigrates from the start into a child in the Taisho era and is taken in by the Butterfly family. At first, she can't protect anyone, but she works hard to grow stronger, kicks fate's bucket all the way down the road, and learns to accept herself along the way.

[Notes]

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1. All pairings are possible, and the female lead has one-sided crushes pointed at her from every direction. Ship whoever you like. Some canon pairings and fan-favorite pairings will be broken up (but Snake and Love are 99% guaranteed, those two will absolutely stay together).

2. The whole story is outlined, and the ending is already written. Two alternate routes are done, too (and more are coming), so you can read with confidence. The author has never abandoned a story.

3. The whole story is free. This is purely for fun, so if you don't like it, please move along. Insults will be deleted.

4. Multiple orientations are represented. The female lead has both male and female romantic pairings, but before the alternate ending routes branch off, all relationships are in the ambiguous stage, with nobody officially together. The female lead only has adult physical relationships with adults; relationships between minors are all familial or friendly.

5. The author isn't Kanao herself, so apologies in advance for any out-of-character moments.

[--- Divider for completed story: The Comic's Background Character Gets Tangled Up with a Cross-Dressing Evil God [GB] ---]

Xie Yan transmigrates into a horror comic as a random background character, with just 5,000 yuan for settling in. She moves into a building called Happiness, and her misery begins.

Not only is everything unfamiliar, the whole place is deeply unsettling.

At night, she can always hear the sound of someone chopping meat and people screaming. She also dreams of a hideous black sludge monster covered in eyes, chasing her and trying to scare her into moving out.

But she doesn't want to leave. For one thing, the higher you go in this thirteen-story building, the quieter it gets. For another, her landlord is easy on the eyes: a cold-faced beauty who stands 183 centimeters tall and wears a JK uniform skirt.

In the world of comics, beautiful women are always popular. If an utterly ordinary background character like her hangs around this beauty, maybe she'll get more popular and survive longer.

Besides, the comic's summary never mentioned this beauty, which means she's not dangerous at all.

Qi Zheng doesn't think he's harmless.

The building's floors, from the first to the thirteenth, correspond to bosses of different levels, and he's the highest-level evil spirit here.

Every living and dead thing that comes here wants to kill him and take his place. Over time, he's developed a keen instinct for danger.

That's when Xie Yan, a clueless woman with a decent foundation who doesn't know how to take care of herself, shows up asking to rent a room.

She has no malice in her, and there's no hint of self-interest in her eyes. She simply admires his pretty face and exquisite makeup and wants to be near him. Keeping her around seems harmless enough. Besides, his half-beast form needs someone to clean up after it.

Qi Zheng thinks he's a genius, because the housekeeper he kept turns out to be really interesting.

At night, she catches him eating a hand bone and, face pale as a sheet, says it looks like a giant chicken foot. She even compliments his teeth.

At night, she sees him slaughtering vermin and pretends to sleepwalk, forcing a laugh as she drifts past him on trembling legs.

In her dreams, she sees his true form, a wet, sticky thing like oil covered in eyes, and turns into a shrieking chicken, running around in a panic.

And during the day... she brings him warm brown sugar water and awkwardly asks after his nonexistent "period."

Qi Zheng considers her vain, cowardly, a faker, an escapist, hilarious, and dumb as a pig.

She can live here until the day he's killed, because she's good at making him happy.

The days pass.

Qi Zheng decides she has an eye for beauty, is restrained, cool-headed, decisive, funny, and clever as a goddess.

He can keep her for the rest of her life. He won't eat her.

But even a rabbit will bite when cornered, and even a mild-mannered woman can lose it. The next time he toyed with her in a dream, she ate him.

Driven to the brink by the nonhuman evil god who had tormented her in her dreams until she was mentally exhausted, Xie Yan grabbed a kitchen knife, cut off several of his tentacles, and eagerly explored the mysteries of the evil god's anatomy.

"You like scaring people, don't you? Go on, try scaring your big sis again!"

The faceless evil god wept in the dream, while the mentally unwell Xie Yan grinned.

From that day on, her nightmares took a different turn, and subtle changes began to occur in reality, too.

The horror comic seems to have turned into a dating game. One day, her long-legged JK "woman" landlord, blushing, says to her, "Hey, want to see my special CG?"

[Male Lead's Version]

In the dream where his tentacles were cut off, Qi Zheng felt his severed limbs slide down her throat and into her stomach.

It was comfortable, warm, burning hot, and agonizing.

Ah... The stupid woman ate him. He was tainted now.

She had to take responsibility. They were already together, and they had to stay together.

"Why are you running away? What do you mean, 'a straight woman's motto isn't to keep kissing women'? I'm a straight man!"

Theme: Keep moving forward with conviction.