He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

"Huh...?"

Ai sat up resentfully, watching the noodle soup dripping down her work clothes. "It was you?"

He recognized the girl—though they had only met a few times and he didn't even know her name.

The girl shifted her attention from the terminal and began staring blankly at the half-eaten bowl of instant noodles on the floor: "What a pity..."

This reminded Ai of their first meeting, which seemed to be a similar scene—that day, he was forced to drink a lot of alcohol by that stupid bird, and when he walked out of the convenience store, he was already delirious, and he just casually leaned against a corner and was about to choke on his own…

I almost threw up on the little guy.

By the light from the next room, Ai Yi could see the girl's face clearly, and she felt it was all too real.

The reason is simple: this girl is too beautiful. Putting aside her extremely gorgeous black and white princess dress, her looks alone are enough to rival Ai Yi's. Her expressionless, milky white face is as delicate and cute as a cyborg doll, and her bright red eyes are like a cat in the shadows.

He's probably quite young, not like me with a baby face, but he's a middle-aged working man.

Ai remembers her initial reaction being this: she yelled, "It's too dangerous! It's too dangerous! How can a girl be out alone so late?" Then, fueled by alcohol, she pressed the girl for her family's contact number. When ignored, she became enraged and angrily demanded, "Aren't you afraid of running into bad people?"

She replied weakly, "What's a bad person?"

These five words instantly snapped Ai Yi back to reality—

There are certainly many bad people in the city, but once those with ill intentions die, it doesn't matter whether they are "good" or "bad".

"Oh ho, if I meddle in other people's business again, I'll be a dog."

For a naive little girl to suddenly appear in a place like Chaodu, it's obviously abnormal. Either she herself is a dangerous person, or there are a lot of dangerous elements in the background... When faced with such an obvious abnormal event, the person whose personal safety should be worried about becomes Ai herself.

Fortunately...

After a cautious attempt, Ai successfully fed the "Cheeto" in her hand. Watching the little girl nibble on the butter biscuit stick like a hamster, the crisis was successfully averted.

after that……

"Hmm... the big brother who's always drunk."

The girl nodded to Ai, indicating that she recognized her as well, and simply said that her strange behavior earlier was because she recognized Ai.

"What did you just say...? This won't do?"

Just as the fox was about to ask further, he noticed that the girl was already eyeing the spilled cup of noodles on the ground, and he couldn't help but sigh and rub his forehead—"Don't even think about eating the food on the ground, it's already dirty. If you want it, I'll get it for you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Cheetos through the half-empty tobacco pouch, handing it to the girl. It wasn't that Ai liked to eat them herself, but he was used to feeding them to her—every two or three days, he could always find this little one in the corner outside the convenience store, quietly slipping her snacks, which she would always accept and whisper a "thank you."

If she's shameless enough, or if she's had a few drinks that day, Ai will even watch her eat—her elegant demeanor is like that of a wildcat, languid and independent, yet naturally aloof from everything.

Ai Yi had a hard time understanding what kind of quality this was; he felt the gravity, the gravity from his own kind.

It is right here, yet it is detached from everything and out of place in the world.

Ai saw a reflection of himself from a few months ago in those inorganic, blood-red pupils—dull, numb, locked up, bound and trapped in emptiness… All these shared qualities made him unconsciously lean towards the girl with kindness.

"At least it didn't let my persistence in feeding it go to waste."

After several months... I finally managed to fatten up the kittens.

Sitting on the bench under the light, I quietly watched the girl eat. She wasn't wearing socks, and her round-toed boots were kicked up to a point where her toes couldn't reach. Her fair little feet swayed slightly half an inch off the ground.

Ai narrowed her eyes, revealing a blank expression.

The girl's casual sitting posture revealed a section of her thigh, her soft skin making the hard bench feel soft. The ripples created by the contact between flesh and matter resembled contours sculpted by a god…

It wasn't that Ai Yi had any lustful thoughts; she just felt that this scene was unreal, as if it were filtered—the mediums were completely different, yet the transition was seamless. This little girl, just sitting there, blended into the environment.

Noticing Ai's gaze, the girl turned her head away, quietly licked the cookie crumbs from her lips, then pointed to herself with one finger and whispered:

"nirvana."

Ai: "?"

"My name is Ne." Ne repeated the meaning he wanted to convey, then pointed to Ai.

"Ai... Uncle?"

Ai Yi remained expressionless, offering only a token rebuttal: "Calling me 'uncle,' isn't that a bit impolite...?"

Of course, that's not the point—the point is that Ai had never told Nee her name, let alone her age.

"High-privilege user?" He was a little dazed.

As expected, he's definitely not an ordinary person.

The level of development of the Nest City has approached or even surpassed the cyber world that Ai Yi knew. Everyone living here is connected to a giant interactive interface called "Think Tank" from birth. It may take the form of brain-computer implantation or direct consciousness connection. In any case, no one has ever discovered the Think Tank's main body or its derivatives... In short, it is a black technology that Ai Yi cannot understand.

This think tank is extremely accurate, and the medium used to identify identities is completely unknown. On the day Ai Yi transmigrated, she had inherited the complete body and a lot of memories of her predecessor, but she was directly corrected to be an unregistered person. If it weren't for the inefficiency of law enforcement agencies, which successfully resolved the identity issue before the inspection team arrived, Ai Yi would have been exiled to the bottom nest.

The new identity was arranged by Dodo, who used back channels (i.e., paying the Enforcement Department Semon) to preserve Ai's "Level 1 Citizen" status, at least allowing him to stay in Downtown.

In the think tank's mechanism, starting from "Level 3", users can directly access low-level files. The young girl in front of me is at least a Level 3 user.

Loli rich girl...

On second thought, Ai remembered that the silly bird had filled in 24 years old as its age, mainly for convenience, to meet the age restrictions of almost all places and positions, in order to avoid being judged as violating the "Child Labor Prohibition Law".

It's a ruthless city that eats people without blinking an eye... yet it has surprisingly strict restrictions on child labor, which is completely incomprehensible.

So it's not surprising that he's called "uncle".

"What did you mean when you said this wouldn't work?"

Ai brought up the prosthetic body purchase page, held the terminal up to Nie, and then quickly closed it.

"This is a product from Cardinal Heavy Industries four generations ago. The precision of the nerve connection is very low, and it cannot be matched with human performance at all... The flesh-and-blood adaptability indicators have not been announced, and there is no insurance for the surgery. There may be risks of rejection and deep infection..."

"and……"

Nie tilted his head and continued, "Besides, that woman's legs are healthy... getting a prosthetic body won't help."

"Healthy?"

Ai tilted her head like her sister, "I can understand the rest... but Dodo really can't stand up."

"It has nothing to do with her body, I've seen it..." As she said this, a fleeting glint of light flashed in Ne's eyes. "She can't stand up because of 'deterioration'."

"Deterioration..."

Ai repeated the word, then suddenly felt a chill and anxiously pressed for an answer:

Is it a genetic disease?

"That's one way to understand it, but essentially... degradation isn't a disease." Nie's gaze was unfocused as he explained calmly, "It's a kind of 'curse,' an invisible calamity spreading from the bottom of the 'Great Ritual Pool.'"

"From the moment the 'Center of Destiny,' who held the power of life and survival, rotted and collapsed, the principles of the 'Heart' fell from their peak. All life lost its foundation for inheritance, and the evil consequences of deterioration grew from withered branches, becoming an original sin—"

In Nest City, the white rabbit couple could also produce a raccoon dog, which was practically a slap in the face to Mendel.

The "random bestiality" that no medical device can predict and no theory can explain is the shell of the curse, and degradation is the result of the curse.

Nie pulled her legs up onto the chair, her posture of hugging her ankles becoming more docile, and continued, "A human-shaped shell, but the inside is gradually being replaced by a beast. The corrupted can no longer freely control their bodies, like uncompiled code being forcibly executed. Losing the ability to stand... may be the first error message that the mutated soul sends to the body."

"Wait... let me catch my breath." Ai closed her eyes, processing the massive amount of information she had received—

"Curse Binding", "Grand Ritual Pool", "Hour God", "Rules"...

These keywords are secrets that a working-class person should never be able to access, so why is Nie telling himself these things?

He decided to focus on the immediate priority: "You said... this is just the first step in reporting an error; could the situation worsen?"

"Some of them will."

Without hesitation, Nie replied, "If it's not a disease, then medical technology can't predict its development. Some degenerates may only show mild symptoms like nearsightedness or rhinitis. They may never experience the full consequences of the curse until they die."

In the next sentence, her voice lowered again:

"Some people go through a certain stage where the rate of deterioration suddenly accelerates—the first thing to collapse is the physical body. The mixed life factors cannot be materialized into meaningful sexual characteristics, thus deforming into lumps of flesh or chaotic hemolymph. Because of the surge in vitality, the deteriorated person usually does not die, but suffers extreme torment until their will breaks down, at which point they can achieve incomplete liberation."

A desperate end with blurred images.

"I see..." Ai nodded, gently pressing her sore eyes with her fingers.

Then, he sighed heavily, muttering "This stupid bird is such a nuisance," as he moved closer to Nie, lowering his eyelids slightly and contracting his blue pupils a little.

He spoke softly, as if afraid of disturbing something: "So, what should I do?"

……

The silence lasted for about half a minute. Faintly, Ai seemed to see a strange halo flicker in Nie's eyes for a moment, which disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye.

The girl whispered two simple words:

"The pinnacle."

The spire...

He had heard of this place in everyone's dreams.

Ai closed her eyes and looked up, taking deep breaths to calm her racing heart, as if talking in her sleep: "When I'm at work, everyone around me has this vision—at the top of this nest, even higher up in the upper city, in that world called 'The Spire,' only by reaching there will all dreams come true..."

He was utterly bewildered: "It's as if that realm beyond gravity has become the end of imagination, the endpoint of desire. What we want, someone will always tell you: climb to the top of the tower and find it, there lies everything promised."

A place where the down-and-out crave power and wealth, the lost yearn for a future, and even offer the dead a chance to survive, and the fugitives a pact to escape punishment...

"What kind of place is it exactly? What can I specifically get from it?"

Ai turned her head and stared at Nee, as if seeking an explanation, or perhaps waiting for her rejection.

"In the Holy Grail at the top of the tower, all that is real, not illusory, is contained."

The girl's riddle only confused Ai, who could only ask, "How do I get to that place...?"

Before she could finish speaking, Nie suddenly moved closer to Ai, pressing his entire body against the fox's legs. He brought his nose close to her cheek and sniffed lightly. The stray strands of hair tickled Ai, who instinctively hugged the girl's neck, then released her as if she had been electrocuted.

The next second, Nie jumped off Ai's lap, licked her lips, and once again her eyes shone with iridescent light. She asserted, "That's right, the sinking door, the cracked key, you truly possess the credentials to the top of the tower..."

Words cannot pass through that door, but your spirit can.

The seed of "inclination" is buried within this body, waiting to sprout and grow.

"Although I don't know what your 'inclination' is... that seed remains dormant, just as it was a few months ago."

Nie was simply stating a fact; her face was expressionless, and her tone was as calm as still water: "If you still have a thirst for something, then water it, nourish the seed..."

Use your limbs to touch and draw nourishment. Nourishment can be love, protection, arrogance, betrayal, deception, revenge, pity... and everything else you can lick.

Beneath this dome, all things exist, and within them flows an invisible substance—a red liquid incomprehensible to ordinary people—that is the raw material for nurturing seeds.

If you still yearn for it, don't let it wither away.

……

That concludes the discussion.

Nie was like a wildcat, disappearing quietly at some unknown time. Ai sat alone on the bench in a daze until a gentle, dim light poured down from the end of the dome, like the dawn after the stars faded. The sleepless city was about to usher in a new round of "daylight".

As a result, I still didn't sleep all night and had to rely on caffeine to get through the day.

"Tsk... No wonder it's the capital city."

The little girl was no longer beside him. He lit a cigarette, a rare occurrence, and exhaled warm ash. A feeling of melancholy arose in Ai Yi's heart.

In just a few months since I transmigrated, I've encountered a troublesome, silly older bird, and another...

Machine-Doll.

When Nie climbed on top of him just now, Ai Yi suddenly let go not because he was trying to avoid suspicion, but because he had touched something incredible.

There's a USB port on Nie's neck...

Ahem, just kidding. It's definitely not a USB port. Maybe it's a cooling vent or a data interface or something like that.

Although the scale was small, Ai Yi still stuck to her judgment. Surely no one would have a round slot on their neck—what kind of beastly characteristic is that?

No wonder Nie, who seems to be a nobody, speaks at length and in formal terms; he probably just copied from a database.

Loli mecha girl... Yay!

However, after confirming Nee's special identity, Ai also felt a sense of loss.

I knew it! How could a rich woman be so willing to give herself away and even poke fun at my own desires? Turns out she came with a mission.

—I'm afraid she'll drug me and force me to go back with her to be her tool and mouthpiece!

Ai Yi, who had been inexplicably targeted, sighed softly. His frustration wasn't as intense as he had expected. Perhaps it was because he simply didn't expect anything in return for unwarranted kindness, or perhaps...

Ai smiled knowingly as she recalled the scene of the little girl taking the snacks, saying "thank you," and then squatting in the corner, munching on the cookies.

Although this might be a mean-spirited cat, I managed to raise her myself. Didn't you see that she dares to sit on my lap and even rubs against me?

So what if a kitten is a little scraggly? It'll grow up to be affectionate with time.

Finding reasons to comfort herself, Ai blinked and summoned the think tank panel—

+-+ Ai (Ajin/Grey Fennec Fox), 24 years old

+-+ Permission Level: 1 (Citizen)

+-+Position: Full-time employee, Kerryburg GmbH

Credit: 110380

Without a doubt, everyone in the Nest City has one of these. It is projected directly into the center of vision as a light screen and is usually only used to check some basic personal information.

The "seed" that Nirvana spoke of... is not here.

Then let's go deeper to find it.

Ai took a deep breath and made up his mind to unseal the memory fragments left behind by the original body—this part of the secret about the intangible art was engraved on the back of the gray layer by a thin membrane, quietly waiting for him to prepare to embark on the "path of ascension".

"For now, I'll just say I'm ready."

He closed his eyes, trying to recall more, as the flickering dawn light shimmered at the edge of his vision.

Naturally, he saw an ancient book with a brass cover in the center of his pitch-black perspective. The cover resembled a rugged leather bag, with uneven holes and grooves.

"This is... my key."

Ai reached out her hand to the book.

The next instant, the pages were ignited in the dim light of "the dawn," burning fiercely, the cold flames scorching away the darkness clinging to the cover, completely stripping away the ignorance that had sealed it away.

It can now be understood.

Under Ai's gaze, the book was opened, as if a basking in light had lifted the skin from the chest cavity to reveal passages still flowing with filthy blood, and bytes pulsating like a heart.

The flames dissolved the meaning in each passage into black liquid, flowing into her long-awaiting eyes. Suddenly, Ai understood the book's title—

Secret Teachings: The Enlightenment of Seeing the Door

The moment the secret passage was completely engulfed by flames, mist emerged. From the deeper reaches of the vast dreamscape, threads that grew out like vines and traces of the wind gradually wove together into a blurry map marked only with "paths," but without any coordinate system or reference points.

With a map, one can delve deeper into that world—

"Our current location is..."

Ai Yi slightly opened her eyelids, and from beneath her pale blue pupils rose a deep abyss-like surface, as if a tall, upright pillar were rising up.

"I saw it..."

The closed, pure white door was faintly visible in the dim darkness—

He murmured in his sleep, as if relieved: "It's the door."

I found a door; hopefully it doesn't lead to Teyvat.

Stepping toward the boundless pool, Ai stood at the gate, hearing the Secret Chronicle whisper in her ear:

"It is the 'Gate of Ash Wood,' the initial checkpoint leading to the Grand Gift Pool."

Beneath his feet was a flesh-colored puddle that gradually deepened in color. Ai struggled to walk through the mudflats, until the light pink solution reached above his head and the feeling of suffocation was about to get out of control. Finally, he stood in front of the uneven doorway.

On the door, those uneven marks, like wounds oozing pure white blood, and invisible symbols rise and fall within reason:

"I saw the light of day, which was the blood and lymph flowing from Joshua's neck, seeping into the cracks of the bricks and tiles and turning into a source of light. The tendrils of light reached out to the earth, charred pine trees into charred remains, and shriveled fruits screamed and shattered, black sap flowing out from inside. Finally, on a piece of land plundered by the light, even the milk and honey flowing in the rivers dried up."

"We can only beg you, magnificent ash tree, to shelter us with your branches and leaves as wide as the world, and to protect us from the ravages of the light..."

"The Origin Awaiting Unsealing: The Light of Day"

"What the hell...?"

Ai frowned; this didn't seem to be what he was looking for...

My head is filled with a bunch of weird and strange things.

As my thoughts wandered through the boundless swamp, the light filtering in from the edge of my vision grew ever stronger.

The true daylight is about to arrive—if the seed cannot be found before the end of the "season of dawn," then we can only wait for the next dividing point between light and darkness, the "season of gloomy dusk," before we can re-enter this state of "insight."

That would mean another day of being a corporate slave, and if any unexpected situation arises, I wouldn't be able to sleep tomorrow night either.

Thankfully, as something was further consumed, and after another wave of dizziness and disorientation, it seemed as if howling dust was being shaken down from the crack in the door. Ai finally saw and understood the inscriptions carved on the surface of the door—

"The Initial Guidance: Sowing"

"From the buried radiance, you are able to reveal your name: Ai."

"You are Ai."

"You often feel a strange longing, as if some invisible medium is flowing through your veins, leading you to the door of sowing. To understand how seeds should grow, you begin to learn the thinking of plants, immersing your porous skull in the 'Grand Ceremony Pool,' and your hair learns to absorb nutrients like roots."

"Soon, you learned aquatic skills from the gaps in the pool, and your cheeks grew gills that were better adapted to the water, as well as mouthparts for swallowing bright red lymph—"

"Try to breathe, breathe in the Grand Ceremony Pool."

"I have learned to breathe through my cheeks." Ai touched her cheek with her palm, unconsciously feeling the newly formed organ that had sunken in.

From now on, he will be able to swim in the pool.

"Well done..."

The door responded, and then continued its explanation:

"You have taken your red instincts, combined with the source of your desires, and made them into seeds, which you have sown at the door."

"The final step is to draw nourishment from your seeds and distribute it...waiting for the right time to grow."

I still can't understand it!

Ai felt like she was about to throw up and roll her eyes, but she still couldn't understand a thing about these mystical texts.

He endured the increasingly blinding glow, immersing his consciousness into the ever-thicker pool of liquid, the dissolving red fluid gushing from his mouth and nose. He felt suffocated, so he gripped his cheeks tightly with his fingers, forcing them to come into contact with more of the solution and generate more precious "oxygen"...

Hang in there a little longer—

Finally, from the crack in the door, a final, tiny string of words, like a centipede crawling, emerged and flowed into his dim rationality:

"Even when wounds heal, they leave scars. After misfortune and suffering have passed, I gaze with the coldness of winter upon those who show mercy, and proclaim their hypocritical prayers."

"You are weary of empathy; you grieve without pity, you are sorrowful without compassion."

"You lick your wounds with all your might."

"Currently selected nutrient: Grief (0/3)"

"Your 'seed' cannot sprout; it needs nourishment to seek out some grief: through understanding your own sorrow, or by witnessing the tragedies and struggles of others."

"That's all..."

"Found it... this is it, the method of germination."

The radiance vanished the instant it reached its peak, and darkness, like the surface of an abyss, sank into the swamp.

The door remained tightly shut.

……

I opened my eyes again.

"The season of dawn" died silently in his gaze, and the nest city welcomed the rebirth of daylight.

As Ai Yi emerged from his state of insight, a slight, suffocating feeling of oxygen deprivation lingered around him like dust and mist. He began to experience tinnitus and heard sounds like tiny bubbles bursting. All colors appeared thick and greasy under the artificial dawn.

He felt restless.

Some mottled, broken shadows stretched out their tentacles towards him from the shadowy side, like the feet of insects or the whiskers of snails, gently scratching at the thin membrane of his pupils, but unable to get permission to pass through.

They are trapped inside the eyeball.

They can't get out.

Great.

Ai swayed as she got up, almost losing her balance, but still managed a smile at the glowing dome:

"I know how to 'sprout' now."