The False Bird in the Cage

*

The abominations blinked and waved their twisted, grotesque tentacles and mouthparts, celebrating as they played an eerie tune of flutes and pounding drums.

Inhuman languages murmured in strange cadences. The monstrosities followed in the evil god's footsteps, rustling forward as layers of gray mist coiled around them like storm clouds...

Within the viscous fog, that bewitchingly beautiful and mysterious figure grew ever more dazzling, beguiling hearts and minds.

He was a peerless beauty, unlike anything else in the world. A single glance was enough to unsettle an ordinary person's heart.

If he smiled, no one could resist falling under his spell, longing for him day and night.

"O divine one!"

Those bewitched by the evil god's appearance gazed at his figure in a daze, ceaselessly begging for his mercy...

"Look at me..."

"Please, look at me..."

Their hysterical cries were filled with the despair of falling into an abyss, yet they still received not the slightest pity from him. It was like an unrequited love hidden in one's heart, forever denied a response from the divine: insignificant, unnoticed, and brought low to the dust.

The monstrosities let out piercing jeers, drawing a cold glance from the beautiful boy at the crossroads.

"Your love will never come to anything."

His eyes brimmed with thick, venomous malice.

*

Yu Jiang had always believed he was an experimental creation pieced together from the biological genes of the universally adored Tomie Kawakami, some half-incubus from Avalon, and the Dimension Witch...

A heartless eating machine that fed on negative emotions, a half-incubus with a face that said, "I'm so fragile."

Until one day, a white-haired jujutsu sorcerer who called himself the strongest pointed out that the monsters conspiring with him weren't cursed spirits as he'd thought, and that he himself was neither human nor an incubus...

Yu Jiang: Then what am I...?

A canary-like boy, spoiled, arrogant, frivolous, debauched, extravagant, willful, vain, and greedy, with nothing going for him but his face.

Yet countless people are drawn to him like moths to a flame, calling his name as they become monsters consumed by a twisted love for him, unable to escape.

◆ Reader's Guide ◆

* Content warnings:

◎ Since the protagonist's true form is the Lovecraftian evil god Idhila, nearly every character connected to him will lose their sanity, become corrupted, and turn into an obsessive lunatic. Even the characters on the side of good, like the fake wines, may sometimes act very much like villains. In a sense, they've been "broken."

◎ Includes Bungo Stray Dogs, Detective Conan, and Jujutsu Kaisen [more may be added later]. My own heavily altered versions, extremely out of character.

◎ If you can't accept this, please quietly click X, and maybe we'll meet again another time~!

Please don't tell me things like you don't like it, can't keep reading, or can't accept it. Those comments make things difficult. I'm sorry, but I started writing this story to please myself and share it with readers who enjoy it. I can't cater to everyone's tastes, so let's just part on good terms. Thanks for understanding~!

◎ A self-indulgent work by a daydreaming author. I don't accept writing advice. For now, it's just a planned story, and even if I start posting it, updates will be irregular. Please wait patiently and take it easy. [Does that sound a little irritating? I hope I won't get beaten up for saying it.]

◎ I won't decide on a male lead. If you ask, there is no male lead. I simply want to write a protagonist like Tomie, a universally adored troublemaker and heartbreaker, then capture the dangerous, bewitching tension in the interactions between the protagonist and the male leads who become twisted and obsessed.

#

* This idea came to me in September 2020 and sat in my writing software unpublished. After writing a few chapters, I abandoned it twice, then picked it up again, slightly adjusted the setting, and rewrote it. In the end, I couldn't bear to let this story rot in my drafts, since the blurb, setting, protagonist, and important characters all hit exactly the right spot for me.

So I've decided to share it to give myself some motivation, and try to finish it as soon as possible.

[This planned story was posted on February 27, 2022, and a screenshot was saved.]

Theme: Lies as the foundation, love as the cement. I try to move you with obsession, danger, and madness.