The Crow Detective

[Light Lovecraftian elements, with a mountain of personal worldbuilding] Serious blurb: Brutal monsters grow in the barren wasteland. Ancient giant eggs gestate in writhing flesh. Grim steel bears the weight of endless wails. In a series of unbroken dreams, Lu Xiu seems to have become a crow, a symbol of doom and death. He is locked in a cage inside a detective agency, yet he is the agency's true owner. The agency's front door leads to a bustling, prosperous new world, while its back door opens onto a dead, eerie, distorted old world. Between the two doors sits a recliner, where a familiar-looking lodger spends all his time dozing. This familiar lodger not only likes to stare at Lu Xiu with an obsessive, sick fascination, but also keeps bringing him one bizarre case after another... Less serious blurb: Before Lu Xiu entered a psychiatric hospital, the Zhou Peiyu he knew was a gentleman: always gentle and considerate, calm and composed. But after Lu Xiu was admitted to the hospital and his illness grew more severe, Zhou Peiyu became, in his eyes, a longtime patient wearing the guise of an elegant gentleman. So when the door to the old world opened and he met Zhou Peiyu again in a strange, chaotic city, Lu Xiu felt no surprise at all as Zhou Peiyu pinned him, a black crow, to the detective agency's worktable, heating water with one hand and drawing a knife with the other. Still, he offered an earnest warning: "I'm a mutated crow who has worshipped an evil god. Ordinary people might get poisoned or have diarrhea if they eat me." Zhou Peiyu's deep golden eyes narrowed lazily. He smiled gently, radiating confidence. "It's fine. I'm not ordinary." CP: A laid-back, unflappable gong who isn't ill × an elegant, refined shou who is ill PS: The gong can turn into a human even when he's a crow. The two of them still fall in love, so it doesn't count as interspecies romance. PPS: The Lovecraftian setting has a mountain of personal worldbuilding, but Cthulhu himself doesn't appear. [Reader's Notes] 1. Gong's POV, 1v1, mutual pampering, happy ending. Light Lovecraftian elements and countless personal settings. 2. Both partners put effort into their relationship. The pairing will not be reversed or broken up. Extreme character loyalists, please stay away; read in harmony. 3. Please don't compare rankings or offer writing advice. Personal attacks will be returned in kind. 4. Blurb written on 2021.10.26, revised on 2022.8.28, screenshot saved. If you steal my ideas, you'll choke on your water and get toothache; your grocery bill will double, your work will flop with no bestseller rankings, and if you transmigrate into a novel, you'll be a miserable cannon fodder who never turns things around. Theme: The universe is vast and humanity is small. Even in desperate circumstances, struggle on; hope endures.