He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

There exists an invisible art in this world.

Ai knew this secret from the moment she transmigrated.

……

In the end, she still couldn't catch up on her sleep. She walked out of the bathroom with dark circles under her eyes, sighed, and casually stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in the sink.

The trace amounts of nicotine were no longer of any use, and the effects of caffeine were negligible. The heavy fatigue seemed to originate from the soul, and the dulled rationality could barely sustain any thought. My eyelids kept drooping...

This is difficult.

Even the synergist was no longer effective... The "insight" from a few hours ago had exhausted the rationality and passion in his soul, leaving him feeling like a living corpse trapped in a shell.

Ai squinted, fighting off the overwhelming drowsiness, and groped her way through the lobby in the dark until she finally reached the elevator. After pressing the button for the 46th floor, she let out a long sigh of relief.

"Good morning……"

A colleague, also swaying slightly, gave him a sympathetic look and quietly slipped a mint into the fox's pocket. Because of his endearing appearance, Ai was used to being fed, so she forced a smile, mumbled a thank you, and stepped out of the elevator.

She heard whispers behind her, and Ai Yi twitched her ears to catch most of what they were saying.

"Don't let this fox's harmless appearance fool you... He smokes and drinks in private, roams the streets late at night, and often comes home drunk early in the morning. He might already be being kept by a rich woman..."

The person who had just fed Ai Yi was completely stunned, muttering in disbelief, "How is this possible?"

Oh, I'm sorry, I've let you down...

Ai Yi shrugs.

Aside from not having found a rich woman yet, he wasn't wrong.

Without even a ripple in his heart, Ai Yi smiled disdainfully to himself. He was perfectly capable of living off a woman's money. As long as he created a cute and obedient persona, his image would be unbreakable!

As for some colleagues who like to gossip... let them see whether rumors can lower their favorability faster than Ai Yiti can—his face, ears, and big tail are not for nothing.

Do you know how many people line up every day at this company to pet the fox?

"Sister Lin." As soon as she arrived at the office, Ai Yi switched to a sweet smile and greeted the colleague sitting by the door, "Good morning."

It was obvious at a glance that she had spent the night at the company. Lin, wearing a light blue work uniform, looked up and saw two clear red marks on her face—from accidentally falling asleep on the table.

She grabbed two handfuls of her messy hair, painfully ripped out a broken section, and then listlessly replied, "Good morning..."

Seeing Ai's appearance, she was startled again, "Hey, you weren't sleeping again? Did you go to your older sister's place to enjoy yourself again?"

Damn, I miscalculated.

Ai Yi realized just how bad her condition was. Her face was as pale as paper, and she had dark circles under her eyes, making her look like a poisonous dog that could be seen anywhere on the street.

This pitiful appearance is more likely to send chills down your spine than evoke pity.

"Stay away, or you might die in front of me."

Lin is pretty much in that mindset right now.

Having failed in her attempt to win Lin's favor, Ai Yi casually tossed the mints she'd just gotten from someone onto Lin's desk and said in a low voice, "Sister Lin... I'm going to die. I'm counting on you for work today. If you can, please remember to clock in for me again..."

You get to eat and take everything, all the good stuff?

Don't even think about it—

But Ai didn't listen to the echo at all. She went back to her workstation, took off her shoes, put her feet on the chair, curled up into a small ball, yawned, and slowly closed her eyes.

"Good night."

"Your mother!" Lin was furious, but helpless against this fox, when she suddenly heard Ai's casual, almost dreamlike whisper—

"A friend of mine has gone missing."

Lin stood there, stunned.

Ai continued, muttering to herself, "Because of this, another friend of mine is very sad. She's a silly but kind person... She can't even take care of herself, yet she still worries about the fate of everyone around her. Despite her efforts to protect every one of her companions, misfortune always seems to happen—"

"My friend, he's probably dead, or maybe he's suffering a fate worse than death? I don't know, I don't know..."

But who knows what will become of Nana?

Ai sucked on the dark tragedy as if chewing on shards of glass, a strong, bloody taste emanating from the back of her tongue and deep in her throat.

He buried his head in his tail and murmured, "That's how it always is for those who climb up from the bottom of the nest. They leave one swamp only to be dragged down by the downward pull of gravity into an abyss."

I've never really understood it.

"Life in the city may be monotonous, but as long as you follow the routine, it can be quite comfortable. However, there are always people who are not satisfied with the status quo and want to pursue those empty desires... and become addicted to deeper temptations."

It's utterly foolish to be chased and float upwards by desire.

"Where exactly do they want to go?"

Ai didn't open his eyes again until the very end. He whispered, "Sister Lin, where do you want to go in the future?"

"Me?" Lin was still thinking about how to comfort the fox when the topic suddenly turned to her. She was speechless for a moment and stammered, "I don't know."

"They're all the same."

Ai's lips curled into a self-deprecating smile: "I haven't decided yet..."

I haven't figured out... how to get to the top of the tower.

"That's enough, Sister Lin, I really need to sleep for a while..." Ai Yi yawned, sticky tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. "Greetings, Goddess Lin, God of Quality Sleep, I beg your forgiveness—please don't wake me up, please."

"..."

Watching the fox bury its head in its tail, its breathing gradually becoming slow and even, Lin sighed, raised her hand as if to slap herself, but hesitated for a moment before sheepishly lowering it:

"Damn it, why can't I bring myself to do this?"

Lin grumbled as she flipped through the documents in her hand. The thought of having to do the work of two people today made her want to cover her forehead and wail.

It's all Ai's fault.

It was all his fault for suddenly mentioning that "his friend might have died in an accident." In such a sad atmosphere, how could Lin refuse such a small request to "help out for a day"?

Sigh, I've been severely morally blackmailed.

As one of the few smart people among her colleagues who saw through Ai's disguise (in her own opinion), Lin always regarded him as a "scumbag" and a "cute bastard." After all, this guy really had no taboos and did whatever he wanted when it came to work.

This kind of person is also a lazy dog!

This is terrifying. Lin felt like she might have discovered the biggest parasite in the company, and she couldn't help but shudder.

However, this impression changed the moment she opened the file Ai sent her—this guy's code was actually quite well-written, with a clear layered architecture and concise and clean comments.

This will likely save a lot of work.

An hour later, Lin started sweating—"You can write it like this?"

"It's a bit tricky, but I'll understand it."

Two hours later.

The new employee poked her head out of the door: "Sister Lin, the manager wants to see you..." "Don't make a sound, I'm thinking."

Two and a half hours later, Lin took off her headphones and collapsed at her workstation.

"I saw it..."

She was foaming at the mouth and her face was flushed.

"The God of Front-End Development"

……

Having rewritten his reputation in strange ways, Ai Yi was unaware that his titles of "God of Front-End" and "God of Code" were about to spread throughout the entire company. He now lay with his eyes closed, exhausted but unable to sleep, and could only continue his research into the art of the invisible.

After much thought, I decided to call this form of power "esoteric Buddhism." And the knowledge about esoteric Buddhism is the greatest legacy left to him by his predecessor, after deducting "this body," a small amount of savings of about 100,000, and a solitary apartment in the suburbs.

Previously, he had never dared to reveal any knowledge about the intangible arts, and he dared not discuss or study the source of this power during his work.

The main reason is that Ai has not yet obtained key information, such as the attitude of the mainstream official government of the Hive City towards the cult, and the status of the cultists in this world.

My initial estimate is that things won't be too good, otherwise how did I even get here?

The fox was having a bit of a headache—

The memories left to him by his predecessor were interrupted between his daily work and a long-planned ritual. Ai didn't know how his predecessor died—was he murdered by an enemy using invisible magic? Or did he lose himself in the entanglement of fear and desire, his soul dissolving...?

who knows?

With such a predecessor who was destroyed for unknown reasons, Ai Yi dared not easily attempt to establish a secret cult in the Nest City.

"Sigh, if this were a normal world, we'd just have to fight the Anti-Corruption Bureau."

But this is a hive city whose true nature is unknown. Those ordered to exterminate you may be Mechanicus priests shouting "Praise Ohm Messiah," or they may be Astartes giants standing three meters tall, or even Cybertronian psychopaths with 95% of their bodies modified.

This was far too dangerous for an early esoteric practitioner.

but……

Ai Yi was confused.

However, if one wants to reach the "top of the tower," this is the only path available to oneself—the possibility of climbing up by accumulating power and wealth is too slim, and there are no precedents to refer to.

He consulted a lot of materials and found that in the long and lost history of the hive, there were only a few unverifiable cases, which were more like selected background characters to inspire people. No one had ever publicly risen to the "top of the tower"; at most, they had only risen from the lower city to the upper city.

There's nothing we can do.

Ai silently made a decision: she would go home after get off work today.

It sounds absurd that it takes such a big decision just to go home, but Ai knows it's not simple at all.

He was going to explore the original owner's home, a residence located in the far suburbs of Beihe, "Ai's Single Apartment".

In the memories left by the original owner, that was the place where he conducted his esoteric activities most frequently, leaving behind rituals, insights, and traces and secrets of ascension.

A den of cultists.

His original self, all his wealth and power came from the art of the invisible. As long as he returned home, he could find more details about the ascension in the cult's lair, and perhaps even figure out the cause of his original self's death, as well as the unfinished ritual.

But do we really have to go to the far suburbs?

As Ai thought about their destination, she couldn't help but shudder.

If I could, I would never want to go back there for the rest of my life.

In the suburbs, activities closer to daily life mostly involve human trafficking, moon sugar trading, and offline meetups on the dark web. The headquarters of the Beihe Jiucheng gang is located in the suburbs. If you meet ten people there, all ten will be fugitives. Four of them are henchmen, four are sugar figurines, and the remaining one is a godfather and a cult member.

To take it a step further, almost all of downtown's "urban legends" originate in the suburbs: corpses that come back to life, centipedes and worms arranged in bizarre patterns, keyholes flowing with black blood, and mansions that devour the living...

Compared to the chaos and disorder in the suburbs, the company is like paradise.

Perhaps that's the place in Lower City that's closest to the essence of the Underworld.

After leaving that terrifying home, he had been sleeping at the company and convenience stores for three months, during which time he completely sealed away his memories of Tantric Buddhism, wanting only to live a peaceful and tranquil life...

"All I want is a peaceful and comfortable life!"

Ai felt dazed and slightly sleepy. For some reason, after three months, he once again recalled his "past life"—

Her last memory was of a messy room where takeout bags and empty cans took up all the space she could stand in. Ai vaguely remembered being a shut-in, which became even worse after her parents passed away, and she ate, drank, and slept almost entirely in a small room.

No speeding truck crashed into him and killed him, nor was he taken away by good fortune because of working overtime late at night. Ai Yi never thought he would die from overwork, after all, he always cared about his health, drinking a whole glass of warm milk every night before bed, and insisting on getting a full ten hours of sleep even with an irregular schedule.

Thinking of this, even Ai Yi herself couldn't help but twitch her lips: "No matter how you look at it, he's a complete waste."

Does a guy who wastes more oxygen living than dead really have what he calls "desire"?

He recalled the day his parents died in his previous life, when he hadn't shed a single tear. Ai Yi was like that, alienated into a freak in the incomprehensible gaze of others; "cold-hearted" was the only description people around him could give him.

What exactly is this version of myself "craving"?

He rolled over.

I……

He sniffed the vanilla scent emanating from his tail, the natural fragrance of his body, which should have smelled wonderful, but it seemed to be mixed with a hint of smoke and alcohol, making him feel uncomfortable.

Sleepiness washed over the fox, who rolled over in the narrow chair and fell into a deep sleep just seconds later.

...

…Buzz…

Faintly, something flapped its wings, and the light filtering in from the window twitched invisibly, like crumpled cellophane being crumpled into a ball.

In the silence, Lin suddenly scratched her ear. She looked around in confusion, but was destined to find nothing. She could only mutter a curse under her breath:

"Whose trash hasn't been taken out... it's infested with bugs."

After this little incident, the office fell silent again.

The buzzing was omnipresent in the deathly silence.

……