He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

"Name?"

"Aiyi".

"age?"

"Twenty-four."

"Twenty-four?"

The officer facing him sounded confused. He put down his pen, frowned, and looked at the petite figure in front of him. A red light flashed in his right prosthetic eye.

"What's wrong...?"

Ai's large ears drooped visibly, and although she tried to remain calm, she looked somewhat uneasy.

—Despite being an adult office worker, she has the unfortunate physique of a thirteen or fourteen-year-old, with a petite frame and pale skin. Her long hair, which is closer to gray than black, is tied into a cute little ponytail behind her neck, with the rest falling naturally over her shoulders.

"My identity ID... was just updated recently, so there shouldn't be any problems."

He chuckled and blinked, his pale blue pupils shimmering like raven scales under the light.

"Tsk...you small breeds look quite young." The officer clicked his tongue in surprise, but didn't pay much attention. "You're here to report...a friend is missing? Fill out a form first, name, age, occupation..."

Ai carefully handed the form back, and received a yawning response from the police officer:

"Alright, it's been registered. We'll process it within five business days, excluding holidays. Go home and wait for our message."

"Thank you." Faced with such a perfunctory reply, a moment of sadness flashed in Ai's eyes, but she could only bow slightly in thanks, almost as if she could hear a "condolences" from the police officer.

- They definitely wouldn't dare to cause trouble. There are at least 80 to 100 unlucky people who go missing every day in the city. For "minor" cases like this, the processing time can be extended from five days to indefinitely. The case is closed when the person who reported the case has forgotten about it.

There's a reason why the crime rate in this godforsaken place can't come down.

Hey……

Ai sighed helplessly, and thinking of the police officer's reaction earlier, she reached out and touched her light gray wide ears that drooped on both sides of her hair, and her fluffy tail that was almost half a person's length sticking out from her specially made work pants—a characteristic of a small fox, I think it was called a gray fennec fox.

Various kinds of animalistic organs are commonplace in this world.

"He's actually quite adorable now..."

The police officer with thick eyebrows and big eyes had been looking at me strangely earlier. No wonder my colleague keeps hugging and touching me all the time... and he keeps saying things like, "Brother, you smell so good," and "Brother, your hands are so small and white."

I am now so charming that I am attractive to both men and women.

...

Dragging her weary body, Ai staggered out of the police station. Stung by the ubiquitous neon lights, her eyes welled with tears as she squinted, silently observing this bizarre and dazzling world.

Skyscrapers, towers, domes, floating cities...

Strings of light trails, hundreds of kilometers long, extend from the end of the dome toward the equally bright distance. The view is squeezed into homogeneous blocks of color by the inverted, pitch-black forest. Towers and skyscrapers, like out-of-control ancient trees, are extreme and radical, filling all the gaps below the dome in their unrestrained, rampant growth.

Above, the spire is being continuously piled up, and the self-regulating machines that operate day and night, like worker ants, add aesthetically unappealing growth structures to the "top" of this nest, making it look even more bloated. The concepts of up and down have long been blurred in such a massive colony.

It looks grotesque, deformed, and ugly—

What a crowded "nest" should look like.

...

Carefully avoiding the homeless people lying haphazardly on the street, Ai Yi couldn't help but feel fortunate.

Fortunately, I chose a good starting point, so I didn't have to start over after rebirth.

This is what people commonly refer to as "the lower town"... sandwiched between "the upper town" and "the bottom town." It lacks the hysteria of the bottom town and the decadence of the upper town; it's more like an old capital that has reached its peak of prosperity and then fallen into decline.

The short young man sighed as he looked away.

My current identity, Ai, is an employee of a small company in the lower city.

There's no insurance or other financial security, wages are meager, safety is unsecured, sleep is insufficient, and health is nonexistent.

People are dizzy.

Despite trying her best to slack off during the past few months since her transmigration, Ai still feels neurasthenic and spiritually empty.

But that's already considered lucky enough.

Just one level below this nest, in the place where those unlucky creatures live, the bottom nest—born in a dark and gloomy pipe. If they're lucky, they can be rebuilt immediately; if they're unlucky, they survive by eating garbage, just like cockroaches.

As they grew older, they joined the gangs that killed members of the extermination organization, and were beaten until their brains were splattered out. They died… their over-treated, rotten flesh was canned and made into unlabeled, substandard products that would give even dogs diarrhea all night. If they had been even slightly famous in life, someone would turn their ashes into derivative dice and sell them at a high price—this is a unique subculture of the Underground Nest District.

Being enveloped in the madness and chaos of a strange world is a disheartening reality, and one can only barely get by by listening to "bottom-of-the-nest jokes"...

This is the only way.

.

.

In the early hours of the morning, any mode of public transportation is dangerous, so Ai Yi could only walk alone on the edge of the never-sleeping commercial district, wandering down the overpass and starting to wander aimlessly.

Aiyi stopped in front of a convenience store, hesitated for a moment, and then quietly slipped inside.

Passing through the rest area, which was also filled with homeless people, he carefully avoided the "dangerous elements" whose hands were sticking out half of their black grips. He lightly jumped over the bodies and silently walked to the front desk.

"Sister Dudu..." he called softly, while expertly opening the cabinet door, picking out a bottle of full-sugar cola and popping it into his mouth.

A hand was raised from backstage, accompanied by the sound of someone turning over, and indistinct babbling came out.

"Ai...? What time is it...?"

She expertly added water to the cup noodles, then without a second thought, tossed in a bouillon cube, and put it in the microwave to heat. Without turning her head, Ai listened quietly to the manager muttering to himself in the back.

"Why are you getting off work later and later... Aren't you supposed to be a legitimate company? You make us work almost twenty hours a day, are you trying to kill us?"

"Hiccup..." As expected of this special edition with added gas, sugar, and maybe even more ingredients, it can be used as an stimulant. After another bite, her numb brain was instantly overwhelmed by dopamine. Ai squinted her eyes and responded in her precious lucidity.

"Working overtime... isn't it to save some money so I can support Sister Dodo in the future...?"

"Sigh—I wonder who's supporting whom..."

Dudu rolled over again, her voice gradually fading. She thought about how, despite being a mature woman, she still blushed easily at Ai Yi's unintentional teasing.

This little brat didn't even have the common sense of living in the Nest City at first, and he had to rely on his own help to survive.

Feeling inferior after much deliberation, Dudu commanded in a fierce tone, while simultaneously trying to regulate his disordered breathing: "Aiyi, come here!"

Then came the sound of her slapping the sofa, "Quick, quick, come here."

"Sigh..." Ai, who had been staring blankly at the spinning cup noodles, silently set a timer for the microwave and sighed softly.

He turned and walked backstage, his expression a mixture of tolerance and helplessness: "I'm here."

...

As soon as Ai entered the backstage area, she frowned.

"Drank so much again?...Tsk."

The already narrow aisle was almost completely filled with empty cans, but thankfully they weren't left overnight and didn't smell bad. Ai tidied up the trash on the outside to one side of the shop, then turned around and heard Dudu urging impatiently, "Never mind those...come over here."

"You promised me, didn't you?" Ai shook her head, calmly crushing the can labeled 45° distilled spirit, making it easier to put into the bag.

"No one is allowed to drink so much alcohol by themselves. Also, put your food on the counter after you finish eating, don't pile it up inside. Customers? What customers? You expect anyone to actually come and spend money in this place?"

Dudu was still quietly trying to explain, "I was just trying to keep the shop clean," but Aiyi shut him down with one sentence.

"I'll forgive you one more time, Sister Dodo. You've almost used up all your indulgence vouchers with me."

Ai had silently walked to the deepest part of the backstage area, looking at the store manager sprawled on a beanbag chair—

A very tall woman with short chestnut hair that made her look quite young, her dark red pupils were wide open, like those of a nocturnal bird, or perhaps more like an owl adapted to the darkness. She looked up at Ai and acted coquettishly, her eyes unconsciously squinting in the light, her pupils shrinking into two small ovals.

"Come here, come here..."

Dodo lay there in a relaxed and casual posture, revealing a section of her fleshy thigh beneath her not-so-conservative casual clothes, which vaguely showed her fair skin.

That's very generous.

Ai tilted her head, twitched her ears, and pretended to casually look away.

According to her own drunken revelation, she is already an old woman approaching thirty—if Ai Yi were to describe her, she would clearly be a sweet and gentle older sister.

"Little Ai...closer."

Ai Yi had a bit of a headache—

Despite being the older one, she completely lacked the self-awareness expected of an older sister, displaying no maturity whatsoever and acting as willful and foolish as a child. If she hadn't pulled him back when he first transmigrated, Ai Yi would never have gotten involved with such a troublesome woman.

"Hey, have you grown taller?"

"..."

But he still went over, and then naturally, he was pulled into Dodo's arms, where Dodo hugged his fox ears and sucked on them.

"Ah... I feel healed."

Ignoring Ai's symbolic resistance, Dodo narrowed her eyes, rolled over again, and wished she could meld the little fox into her body. She was already quite tall, while Ai, due to her fennec fox features, looked tiny.

It's like driving a big truck.

A strong smell of alcohol, mixed with an unknown but certainly cheap perfume, wafted into the fox's nose. Whether out of unease or for some other reason, Dodo slightly raised its pair of brown wings, opening them halfway to completely cover the two of them.

"Take your wings away...cough cough." Ai almost suffocated. Just as she was about to brush away the prickly feathers blocking her nose, she heard some strange noises coming from beside her.

It sounded like a sob suppressed to the extreme.

Something must have happened...

Ai Yi sighed, gently freeing herself from Du Du's arms, which had somehow become weak, and watched her silently shed tears.

"Stupid woman," he thought to himself.

Whenever something happens, she drinks heavily, and when she's drunk, she hugs the fox and cries... Every time, Ai comes out a mess, her beautiful gray ears covered in tears and snot, and even her own feathers are wet and stuck together—

Doesn't she know how much effort it takes to maintain her feathers?

"She has gone missing."

Dudu said softly, "For two whole days. Since the night before last, I've been calling and texting her nonstop, but she hasn't replied... Then I called the police, and I still haven't heard anything..."

A few seconds of deathly silence, followed by a sudden outburst of emotion.

"I told her..." Dudu let out a few strange noises from deep in her throat, like a sharp sob, as if she were blowing air into a broken plastic straw.

"I advised her that she had gone through so much trouble and effort to settle down in the lower city... she shouldn't be so greedy..."

Ai listened quietly. He knew who the "she" Dudu was referring to was—the temporary worker who had been helping out at this small convenience store just two days ago—a young girl who had just been promoted from the "bottom-tier talent channel." Ai called her Sister Nana.

She was indeed a very young, hardworking, and beautiful girl. With the same avian characteristics, her golden-red feathers were meticulously groomed, smooth and beautiful—after just a few days together, Ai Yi turned her into a fox-obsessed man, clinging to that big tail every time they met.

Suddenly, I lost contact with them.

"I've already reported it to the police..."

Ai tried her best to organize her thoughts so that the meaning she conveyed wouldn't be too sharp: "Maybe she just found a better job... and she's afraid of upsetting you by switching jobs at the last minute, which is why she doesn't dare to reply to your messages."

"As punishment... send me her wages for this week."

It turns out he really doesn't know how to comfort people, nor does he understand humor. The effect of his words was... as terrible as telling a hellish joke when someone is sad.

Seeing that Dudu was even more frustrated, Aiyi had no choice but to keep quiet.

He pondered silently—

In the city of Nest, even in the lower city where the security system is relatively complete, going missing is equivalent to being murdered.

For a "beautiful young girl," going missing could mean an even greater misfortune.

pity.

He knew how hard that girl worked; the number of people who managed to climb up from the bottom tier each year... he wondered if it added up to hundreds. These lucky ones who climbed up always received attention, sometimes as an "advantageous channel" for advancement, and sometimes as a mark of malicious stigma—

Because of the suffering they have endured, they are more susceptible to temptation and more easily led by desires down endless shortcuts.

Standing on the edge of the abyss, one step out means utter destruction.

pity.

Lost in a daze amid the sorrowful atmosphere, Ai Yi gradually lost his focus. He watched as Dudu started hiccuping, crying with snot bubbles coming out of his nose, and choking for a long time without being able to utter a complete sentence.

"pity……"

Although its expression didn't change, its large ears drooped silently. Ai hesitated for a moment, then tucked its tail in front of Dodo, "You can hug it for a while, but don't cry on it."

Then the silly bird just clung to the fox's tail and didn't move, only bursting into a tremor every few seconds.

A tacit silence descended, lasting until the very end of the silence.

"Little Ai..."

Dodo's muffled voice came from behind its tail, trembling as if it hadn't fully recovered: "Have you been to the bottom nest?"

Before the fox could even frown, Dodo, realizing he had asked a foolish question, laughed out loud: "That sounds like a curse... And no one would willingly go to the lower levels, would they?"

She murmured to herself as if in a dream, "Nana, that's where she climbed up... I've always been so surprised. I used to think that place was only for thugs, criminals, lunatics, and ugly monsters deformed by radiation and pollution..."

She turned her head, her expression both smiling and strangely ambiguous: "Your sister Nana is very pretty, isn't she?"

Ai didn't bother to answer; she just wanted to take back control of her tail, but was forcibly taken over by a force that was neither too strong nor too weak.

"She's so pretty... young, good-looking, has a great figure, and big breasts..." Dodo tucked his fluffy tail under his arm, counting Nana's advantages on his fingers, and then stole a glance at Ai's reaction—finding that the fox still had that deadpan face that was "expressionless, yet even cuter," and couldn't help but start grinning foolishly.

"Hey, hey..." She tugged at Ai's tail fur, preemptively asking before the fox could get angry, "Anyway, she... she definitely won't be back for the next few days. Tell me the truth, did you ever have any ulterior motives before?"

"..." Ai felt that remaining silent was the best option at this moment, but after recalling the events, she couldn't help but complain, "Wasn't it you who was always trying to match us up before?"

Just the other day, this stupid woman was still using those old-fashioned "romantic vignettes" to help the two of them get together. Did she really think she couldn't see through it all?

After saying this, while Dudu was clearly stunned, Ai retracted her tail and then suddenly took a step forward—the backstage space was already quite small, and now, even if Ai didn't take up much space, it still felt excessively "crowded."

"Gulp..." Dudu had just come to her senses and was clearly flustered by what she saw. She could hear her swallowing clearly nearby, along with her increasingly heavy breathing.

The already strong smell of alcohol suddenly became overwhelming, and a layer of turbid mist covered the dark red pupils, the blood flowing within them vivid and dripping.

"What...what are you doing?!"

"Get ready to do something naughty," Ai warned, her hands moving non-stop as she forcefully lifted Dodo's leg. "Lift your hand, don't flap your wings, and don't pull my tail..."

"Gurgle—" With Dodo's protesting groans, Ai finally flipped her over. Looking at her twitching wings, she stopped, a little annoyed, and sighed softly. "Dodo-neechan like this... it's hard for me to do it."

"Gulp, I will not give in!"

"Alright, alright, put your wings back, good boy." Ai gently scratched the base of the silly bird's wings twice, with excellent results. Dodo immediately went limp and collapsed, an abnormal flush rising on its face, muttering unwillingly.

How do you know this weakness?

"Because I am a Flying-type Pokémon Master, you are not allowed to move from now on."

With her arms under her face, Dodo closed her eyes in despair—although it wasn't the first time this had been done to her, she still felt shy because she couldn't see what was behind her.

Where's Ai? What's that fox's expression like now?

I really want to see it...

"hiss--"

A tingling sensation ran down her back, and Dudu couldn't help but gasp. Ai interrupted her impatiently, "Bear with it, your feathers are all messed up, tsk..."

After finally finishing combing those wings, the next step was to wipe the body.

"Ugh, doing this to a woman who can't resist is so perverted." Despite his sharp tongue, Dodo had already surrendered, even closing his eyes in pleasure, leaving only his formulaic verbal retorts.

"What are you thinking about right now? You're not spying on some weird places, are you...? You don't want to take responsibility, do you?"

"It depends on my mood." Ai carefully lifted the shirt off Dodo's back, revealing smooth, fair skin. She reached inside with a clean towel and carefully wiped away the fine beads of sweat. "Lift your arm up a little more. Don't worry, I didn't touch anything."

What does "depends on my mood" mean?

Dudu was clearly struggling with other important points—this shouldn't be considered a clear rejection, right?

"Okay... Do you need my help? Turn it over yourself."

Watching this silly bird completely oblivious to the sweet allure of her mature older sister's body, and continuing with its lewd antics, Ai Yi suppressed the urge to tickle her feet. She took a deep breath, swallowing all the sensual thoughts that welled up inside her, and then gave Dodo's thigh a hard pinch—

As expected, there was no response.

She pursed her lips, a fleeting shadow of gloom crossing her eyes, and glanced calmly at the microwave oven, which promptly chimed with a "ding."

"Take a rest for a while."

Watching Dodo gently flap its wings in response, Ai silently shook her head, thinking that perhaps she didn't need to worry about everything like an old father—this silly bird had lived in the nest for nearly thirty years, and she was much stronger than her own.

He walked out of the convenience store with the hot cup noodles in his hand, not even knowing why he was leaving. He felt like staying inside was like being in prison.

Ai's world-weary and aloof temperament might suit the Nest City well, but it's completely out of place with that foolish woman.

I randomly found a clean corner and squatted down. I solemnly unpacked the plastic fork. Then, thinking about the development of my Japanese light novel over the past few months, where I "traveled through the city and huddled together with older sisters for warmth," I couldn't help but have a fit of chuunibyou and whispered, "I'm starting to eat."

It wouldn't have any special taste; it was just pure synthetic food. While reminiscing about the ready-made meals from her past life, Ai took out her personal terminal, intending to watch a few low-brow videos, but couldn't resist clicking on a webpage—

Lost in thought, I suddenly heard a soft, sweet whisper in my ear:

"This won't do."

Ai: "?!"

He jumped up from where he stood, the gray fur on his ears and tail standing on end. With a look of horror on his face, he saw a small face that had silently approached him, looking at the same screen as him, and a pair of bright red eyes.

The corner he chose was where the light couldn't reach, and it was pitch black all around. Fortunately, he had the racial characteristics of a fennec fox—Ai was born with a gray vision. Darkness was an environment he could overcome; he just couldn't distinguish colors and could only see gray and black images.

The petite girl knelt beside him, her slender fingers pointing at the content on his screen—

[Cardinal Heavy Industries Announcement: Fully bionic, multi-module, leg prosthesis implantation/replacement surgery, after-sales support, supports most humanoid features, supports customization of appearance and function/pre-sale starting price: 19.8 RMB...]

The accompanying picture shows a pair of legs of standard size, no different from those of an average person.

Ai looked up blankly. The girl tapped the screen again, closing the interface on her own, then emphasized, her soft voice now tinged with seriousness:

"This won't do."