He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

I don't know how much time has passed.

When Ai Yi awoke again, the dim, yellowish light streaming through the curtains illuminated his face, offering no warmth and blurring his vision. Dust moths, like moths drawn to light, swirled and danced within the column of dust…

The dormant mind seems to have been revived, and reason and passion have been reignited from the darkness.

Ai raised its head from its tail, its pupils trembling almost imperceptibly.

He felt restless.

"Ah... I really shouldn't stay up late..."

Frowning, Ai stood up from his chair and yanked the curtains shut, finally blocking out the nauseating light. For some reason… the specks of light dancing in his vision always gave him a disgusting feeling—like hairy moths, multi-legged crawling insects, their chaotic movements creating a noisy flapping of wings.

...

wrong……

Why am I still experiencing tinnitus...? Is it because I didn't sleep well?

wrong……

Ai covered her forehead, and mottled patterns appeared in her beautiful blue pupils, the sound of flapping wings resonating within them, first like a buzzing, then like drumming, and finally like thunder rising from the deep bottom of the pool—

The skull cracked open, and the "winged, hairy creature" broke through the pupil membrane, growing mouthparts from the gaps in the bones, extending tentacles from the bleeding points in the chest cavity, and protruding thin wings from the holes in the eyes.

wrong!

Ai suddenly realized what was happening, but it was too late to do anything. He felt a deep, cloying sweetness, like poison, a numbing sensation like a snake's bite. His body seemed to be shedding its skin, the outer layer peeling away little by little with the sound of flapping wings. He looked down through the holes in his eyes—

A giant moth, about half the size of a human, with a mottled body, its white and charred black colors mixed together, rested quietly on his abdomen.

Its layered, cloth-like wings vibrated, its multi-segmented antennae, resembling a swan's neck, swayed like a pendulum, and its short, thick toes covered with backward-growing down opened its chest cavity. Its soft, curled, slender mouthparts pierced its abdomen, sucking up the grayish, flowing hemolymph.

The utterly absurd scene, however, transformed into a strange emotion after a brief moment of fear.

Her original consciousness was instantly overwhelmed by a grander vision, and Ai felt an unparalleled joy.

He seemed to be rising, his mortal soul, which had been huddled up, was being released. He felt truly honored, and this was a real feeling, not a false one. At this moment, a magnificent being was thirsting for the fluids of his own breast and abdomen. Even a humble and colorless person like himself could receive this honor, adding the holy blood and lymph into the magnificent being, and following him to the bottom of the Great Pool of Sacrifice.

I am rising in a bloody ritual.

Ai murmured unconsciously:

"Praise be to you for your grace... Please drink the blood feast within my belly—"

Just as his consciousness was about to dissolve, wisps of lingering light shone down on his shoulders.

It is...light, the light of death.

"The somber season of twilight," the end of daylight, the dying season of radiance, light wrinkled and broken in the buzzing of moths, battered and bruised, yet still blinking and whispering:

"Light is not one with wings, 'moth,' light needs no spurring."

The flickering light continued to murmur, and the thin wings that peeked out from between Ai's skull withered little by little at this sound, flowing back into her body enveloped in the twilight glow, which caused the moth to emit a dissatisfied buzzing sound—

"Light is not a shelled species either. Magnificent winged ones, please remember, the 'scale' has already sunk to the bottom of the pool and is no longer an appendage of the 'moth.' The principle of 'metamorphosis' has followed the rules of the 'scale.' Do not transgress it..."

This seemed to be a warning; the moment those words were spoken, the shed skin on Ai's old form grew back to its original place.

But the moth's mouthparts remain in its abdominal cavity, and it continues to thirst endlessly.

Under the influence of the glow, Ai regained a sliver of reason from his old longing. He grabbed hard at the short, thick antennae of the moth, but could only feel an empty vibration.

It's going to happen—

"It's not even dark yet... why are you drawing the curtains?"

With a soft "whoosh," the normally jarring noise became heavenly music to Ai Yi's ears. He turned his head with all his might, met Lin's horrified gaze, and rushed towards the window, immersing himself in the lingering twilight.

Finally, the sound of flapping wings dissolved in the glow, and the moth on its abdomen disappeared.

Are we saved...?

He gasped for breath, one trembling hand covering half of his cheek, revealing his tiny pupils twitching rapidly, while the other was pressed tightly against his chest and abdomen, his nails digging into his flesh through his clothes, using pain to regain his mental composure.

Grass!

Even though her skin was still covering her chest and abdomen, Ai felt a void, as if something in her abdominal cavity had been eaten away, eaten away forever, leaving an invisible, mottled wound.

The influence of the "moth" will remain in his body forever unless he is promoted by another great being.

Now it's not a question of whether or not to promote him. At this moment, Ai is uncontrollably emitting a humming sound like the vibration of wings from the gap in his chest cavity, indistinctly chanting his name:

"Moth".

Under the influence of the remnants of the magnificent object, knowledge flowed forth from the back of the gray matter—

"Moth," a god who thirsts for turbid liquids, a god who flaps its wings inside the skull, a god whose body is mottled.

The "Moth," residing at the bottom of the Great Ceremony Pool, is one of the truly magnificent beings.

Besides, many more unsealed memories were obscure and intangible, simply beyond the capacity of her rudimentary mind to contain. Coupled with the lingering, terrifying "influence" she had just received, Ai was on the verge of madness.

This can't go on!

Curled up in the twilight, he finally closed his eyes, letting the waves surge and his thoughts sink into the ceremonial pool.

Let's give it our all and make another "insight".

Having learned from his previous experience, he quickly returned to the pure white door. However, the "fuel" that had settled in his soul had not yet been fully restored, and his reason and passion had only just faded. The ciphers engraved on the door appeared to him as chaotic moths fluttering about, scattering on the ground after repeated rearrangements, never forming a coherent "meaning."

It's all over.

Ai felt an incomprehensible "despair," as if an invisible darkness was about to devour him completely. He tried to find "comfort," even if it was just a moment of solace...

Where can I find peace and comfort?

He sank deeper and deeper into the pool of rites, his desire growing ever stronger, until he dissolved into a crimson, turbid liquid below his chest…

...

"Ai...?"

Lin looked at the fox lying limp on the ground, its limbs twisted as if boneless. She cautiously approached and checked its breath. "You're not dead... What happened?"

"All I did was draw the curtains!"

She rested her chin on her hand, questioning her life choices while contemplating whether to call for help—calling the hospital might not be a good option; if Ai Yi woke up and saw a bill that would bankrupt him, he probably wouldn't be happy.

What should we do?

As she pondered, a petite figure silently appeared beside Ai Yi, her long, gray hair casting a matte sheen like raven scales, barely obscuring half of the twilight.

"Huh?!"

Lin was shocked. She had no idea how this person had appeared; it was as if he had materialized out of thin air. She immediately started shouting, "Security!"

"It's so noisy..."

Nie's gaze lingered on Lin for a moment, then the principle of silence was like lime poured into her throat, drowning out the scream.

Lin was terrified and her body went limp. As an ordinary female office worker, she naturally didn't understand what was happening—her mouth was wide open and even her tonsils were vibrating, but the scream she was supposed to make seemed to be cut off by something inside her body.

"This is outrageous!"

She carefully leaned against the wall, holding onto the glass, trying to avoid the seemingly harmless and cute girl as much as possible. Lin was also relieved that this "dangerous element" who had bypassed the company's security system didn't seem to be paying attention to her, his bright and beautiful ruby-like eyes fixed on Ai lying on the ground.

Now, run!

"Sorry, Fox, I'm off now. I'll get help right away to rescue you!"

Lin quietly moved to the doorway, making sure she hadn't attracted the mysterious girl's attention. She couldn't help but look back at how things were unfolding, and suddenly noticed something significant.

"...Huh?"

and many more!

Why do these two people have such similar hair?

Lin stood there, stunned, a look of suspicion flashing in her eyes.

Not only is the already rare hair color "gray" perfectly replicated, but even the strange "inorganic" texture is completely replicated, like extremely fine glass fibers... no, like soft optical fibers, clearly opaque, yet with an eerie luster.

Lin had thought this hairstyle was strange before, and had asked Ai several times, "Which hair salon did you go to for this effect?" and "Did you get a prosthetic body because you lost too much hair?"

After observing Ai for several months, it was only after discovering that his newly grown hair was the same color and texture that they believed it was his original sexual characteristic.

Today, an exact replica appeared—

"Holy crap...something's up!"

At this moment, the mentally exhausted office worker had forgotten the danger, and since the young girl had no intention of harming him further except for turning herself mute at the beginning, he was completely absorbed in his curiosity about "gossip".

"Could it be... a daughter?"

She knew that Ai Yi only looked young, but was actually an adult. Combined with the fact that the girl looked about fourteen or fifteen years old, a completely mature idea was born in her mind.

"Haha! It can only be a daughter!"

Lin laughed triumphantly (though it was silent), thankfully she had helped Ai with her work today, preventing Ai from missing the company's lunch break, thus allowing her to enjoy this shocking gossip all to herself—

This seemingly innocent but actually cunning fox finally revealed his true colors in front of her—he even has a daughter! In her excitement, Lin completely forgot that the sexual characteristics of the Nest City cannot be inherited.

She now only wants to use this secret to blackmail Ai for the rest of her life—dear Mr. Fox, you don't want your female/male colleagues who admire you to know that you have a daughter, do you?

I decisively pulled out my device and started recording.

"Damn it, why did it break now?"

The screen was just a mosaic of pixels and noise. Lin frantically restarted the application several times, but it was still no use. She was so anxious that she almost threw the terminal on the ground, but in the end she couldn't bring herself to do it.

What she didn't know was that—standing in the silent place, any act of "external communication" had been forbidden by the power of the Principles. The will of Nirvana had placed this area into the realm of invisible magic, and even the company's supposedly error-free monitoring system was covered by gray noise.

the other side.

Nie quietly squatted in front of Ai, watching his small body curl up in fear, seeing his soul dissolve in the Great Sacrifice Pool, and feeling the longing and despair he carried.

"A moth..."

Nie silently recited the name in her heart, her gaze gradually turning cold—she had sensed that terrible "influence" from a great distance, and had also "heard" the invisible buzz that resounded throughout the entire hive.

But even she hadn't expected that Ai would complete the enlightening insight on the very first dawn after she left. She couldn't have imagined that the magnificent being who soared at the bottom of the Great Sacred Pool, the oldest celestial keeper of the Moth's Code, would focus his attention on a "qualified one" who had not yet sprouted, and would not hesitate to rise from the bottom of the pool to the mortal world to drink the red liquid in his cavity.

Is it because of "glowing"?

This is the only possibility.

Moths have chased after light for countless years. The instinct of tiny caterpillars to be attracted to light originates from the moth's eternal search.

"Ai..."

Nie unbuttoned the bottom two buttons of the fox-fur shirt, revealing his lower abdomen, and gently touched the hideous "wound" with his fingertips.

The wound extended all the way to her chest, and Nie's fingers continued to probe deeper. Between movements, she fell into deep thought.

It sucks.

The moth's influence left a wound that pierced through the chest and abdomen, bleeding profusely and unable to heal. The fluid in the cavity was almost completely drunk dry by the moth, along with the already depleted rationality and passion.

In addition, there were the consequences of forcibly seeing the Grand Prayer Pool at the end of dusk.

The situation cannot get any worse.

Nee did not blame Ai for making the insightful decision at the last moment. After all, at that time, it would have been futile to ask colleagues, the company, or the hospital for help. If Nee had not come, Ai would have dissolved into longing and despair.

Insight was the only means he currently possessed that allowed him to touch the intangible, but unfortunately, Ai's final struggle only pushed the situation to the brink of despair—the "gloomy season of twilight" was about to pass, and he had lost consciousness in the Great Sacred Pool. When daylight ended and darkness descended, the technique of Insight would no longer be effective. After losing his way in the Great Sacred Pool at night, he would completely transform into the liquid within.

Hurry up... what other options are there?

……

...that was the only way.

Nie straddled Ai's waist, having made up his mind—

She bowed slightly, and they built a bridge between each other.

In the easily succumbed fusion, the sweet and pungent red liquid flowed along the passage toward one end of the cavity.

Drink the light from my head... fill the blood in your cavity.

In the unconscious fusion and transmission, Ai's pale cheeks flushed red. He trembled as he raised his hand and pressed it firmly against the back of the girl's head. His other arm, like a swimming snake, coiled around Nie's neck, greedily drinking the light within the girl's skull.

Nie's beautiful, glassy pupils closed slightly, the flowing ruby ​​red within them gradually fading, and the fading highlights made her look like a delicate and fragile doll.

Can man-made things also feel suffocated?

A beautiful, inorganic girl, embraced in the afterglow of twilight, pale and lonely like a pool of dried blood, yet still dazzlingly bright.

Until Huiguang died.

……

"what?"

Lin, who was standing at the door, seemed to have truly lost the ability to speak at some point. Even though the rule of silence was already shaky, she could only utter mumbled "Huh?"

Holy crap...

She felt she had seen something she shouldn't have, that she might go blind—

"Are they father and daughter?"