The Guide Is Claimed by the Peacock Ancestor God

Cthulhu Mythos x Sentinel and Guide [Arrogant, obsessive, beautiful boy god who loves mischief, Peacock Wisdom King gong x Timid but ruthless, melancholy European owl assassin shou]

An Old One dressed in Western clothes smiled beneath the gauze curtains and said, "I am a wicked bone that broke away from its body."

[Shou's perspective]

In his second year undercover at the military academy, Fu Pian, an experimental assassin who had endured years of contamination, was nearing the end of his life.

He hid his condition to keep the organization from finding out and initiating his disposal.

Experimental subjects rarely got the chance to live in the outside world for long, so he cherished his life there. That lasted until he was slacking off at the new-student reception desk and came face-to-face with the creditor from his old undercover mission.

Back then, he'd infiltrated the Peacock family, posing as the illegitimate son and cousin of the legitimate young master, Fu Pinqie. They'd spent every day together as brothers in name, master and servant in reality, and Fu Pian had endured a mountain of bird-related abuse.

When he finally left, his resentment long accumulated, he stabbed his employer.

At their first glance upon reuniting, he knew the young master had come to take revenge.

He had no intention of wasting time on a punishment game, yet he was forced to play from the start.

You were the one who provoked me first, Fu Pinqie.

Old grudges piled atop new ones. The owl Guide tossed aside his milk carton and began drawing up a plan to use the peacock.

Peacocks are birds with multiple mates. The Sentinels of the Peacock family have always had countless partners, both inside and outside marriage.

And thanks to their time together, he knew the young master’s one and only weakness.

Fu Pinqie, the mighty bird, needed to sleep clutching something soft, warm, and fluffy: his A-Beibei.

And Fu Pian, top assassin Night Owl, was that very A-Beibei.

No matter how the day went, every night he was held as Fu Pinqie fell asleep.

He understood Fu Pinqie's nature better than anyone.

He liked to toy with people and have fun.

If he could start over, he would never repeat his old mistake and fall for the young master, who was always showing off.

He would no longer trust him or harbor the ridiculous hope that someone of such illustrious birth could be his lifeline.

The young assassin who had once fantasized about love and escaping the organization in the estate's storage room had been erased on the eve of his flight from the Peacock estate.

Just as Fu Pinqie's interest in him reached its peak, Fu Pian acted as though he had fallen for him, as if he'd forgotten the old rejection and humiliation, and asked him outright:

"Do you want to be with me?"

He saw a confident smile flicker in the peacock's beautiful eyes.

He smiled too, lowering his gaze to hide his expression as he faced the human antidote, the Peacock Sentinel with the supreme ability to cleanse contamination.

[Gong's perspective]

An owl laid a nest of eggs in his bed.

A nest of unhatched, unmarked eggs.

His older brother had the most interesting body in the world.

His feathers were soft and fluffy, like a big loaf of bread;

he loved good food and could be coaxed with pretty little cakes;

he clearly loved being touched, yet was wary when someone stroked the back of his neck or his spine;

he would sigh and push his face away, complaining that laying eggs was exhausting.

He watched the Guide, now mortal, weak and fragrant, struggle to sit up. Pointing at the eggs, he pretended to be lighthearted and asked:

Want a fried egg?

The God of Beauty, Lord of Light, All-Seeing One, God of Time,

found it all very new.

So even though he had used this A-Beibei for a thousand years, he had no intention of replacing him.

He smiled as he accepted every betrayal in every lifetime:

Fu Pian took part of his power and broke free of his body, causing him to fall from godhood;

Fu Pian joined forces with outsiders to suppress him for hundreds of years;

Fu Pian went to great lengths to get close to him, blushed and shyly confessed his love, then plunged a blade into his body the next second.

His beloved older brother, the other half of him, rich in humanity.

He would gaze at him with soft, melancholy eyes, absentmindedly touch his cheek, and wear the expression humans called happiness when he praised the flavor of his cream.

He observed him, curious about him, wanting to ask him:

Was love merely honeyed words? Was it one of a million lies?

He also wanted to ask him why he had sealed him beneath Qixia Mountain.

[Shou's perspective]

The plan went smoothly. The ploy of playing the victim worked, and he was carried into the Peacock estate in Fu Pinqie's own arms.

Taking up residence as the young master's only lover, he schemed on behalf of the organization against the vast Peacock family, the greatest power in the south.

Meanwhile, the assassin secretly rid himself of the Ancient God's contamination. No longer bound to the organization, which had been barely surviving since the government crackdown six years ago, he began his true revenge.

He had miscalculated only one thing. The attentive care and frequent affection brought forward his avian Guide's ovulation, and his abdomen gradually swelled as he sank into an uncontrollable restlessness.

He wanted to be touched... wanted a mate.

He wanted him.

[Gong's perspective]

The plan went smoothly. His silly little owl was back by his side.

This owl was stubborn and dim-witted, the same in every lifetime, always dying for reasons that seemed laughable to a god.

The sundial of the God of Time turned for him again and again, reversing time to return to when the world still held him captive.

From the moment they were born from the same egg, he was destined to belong to him.

Nothing in this world had ever mattered. Devouring him and fusing with him again was essential, of course, but until then, keeping him as a pet for amusement was nice too.

Fu Pian had forgotten everything, even the source of his malice.

But the God of Time had infinite patience, waiting for him to tear away his disguise and bare his sharp beak and claws once more.

He looked forward to that moment, when he would hold him so he couldn't break free, and say:

"My beloved Mingfei, surprised?"

-

Side couple [Domineering, gloomy financier, dark Guide who is a River Styx jellyfish shou x White Tiger Sentinel, delicate college boy forced to be a substitute gong]

At the end of the previous timeline, Zhong Chuoning, his hair turned completely white, would rather die than sever their link and escape him.

At sunset, a young man who had dropped out of school hurried from a cafe to his next part-time job. A luxury car blocked his way and lowered its window. The person inside asked if he wanted to attend military school.

"I like your genes." At the end of the semester, his benefactor, with gloomy phoenix eyes, gripped his chin and forced him to look up.

"Your summer homework is to get me pregnant before summer ends."

His gaze involuntarily flicked toward the aphrodisiac on the table. He thought, Actually, we don't need that.

At school, he worried about his benefactor, whose pregnancy was advancing month by month, until a classmate pointed at an old photo on the instructor's desk and exclaimed, "This senior looks just like you."

Yan Liu was his benefactor, his sugar daddy, the person he sold himself to.

Only when the rift opened and that familiar figure appeared above the military academy, surrounded by countless spirits and wearing black gauze beneath a broad jellyfish-like veil, did Zhong Chuo learn his other name.

"Lord of Xingjingfang, please stop."

As everyone watched in terror, he was swept into the black gauze. His back hit a towering belly, and he heard his benefactor give a cold laugh of furious rage:

"How dare you ignore my calls?"

The entire school went on alert. Only he knew the truth behind the high-ranking figure's personal visit.

Beneath the black gauze was a restless pregnant belly, deprived of the nourishment of pheromones.

+++

- One-on-one romance with mutual feelings. No groveling-for-forgiveness arc, but enough misunderstandings between them to circle the globe three times.

There is no sex during the fake-brothers period. They are not registered under the same household. The gong knows the shou's identity is fake. The cousin he impersonates never existed; he used an old scandal from the previous generation.

- The main couple are both virgins. They each have admirers, but only have eyes for each other.

Both are around 185 cm tall, with the gong taller than the shou.

- The gong loves physical contact with the shou. The shou is the gong's pet bird, beloved bird, and A-Beibei.

- The gong is an Old One who rules over the past and future. In human and bird form, he is a god of beauty whose looks rank among the best on Earth. He usually keeps his appearance understated. He controls multiple divine authorities but is currently not enthroned as a god. Born on Earth, he does not always share humanity's interests.

- The shou wears disguises for a long time. At first he looks ordinary, though somewhat handsome, but that is not his real face. His true face is that of a striking, handsome European man, yet he says the most timid things with that face.

- The gods as depicted in the surface world's religions are universalized forms derived by the Ancient Gods to make them easier to worship, such as the Peacock Wisdom King and the Great Mother Goddess.

- In this world, the Lovecraftian Ancient Gods are the cause of Sentinels and Guides. For details, see the previous novel in the same series, Sentinels Are Blue-Ringed Octopuses. The specific Ancient Gods do not correspond to those in the original Cthulhu Mythos.

Guides of any gender can give birth, due to contamination from the Mother of Abundance. (As mentioned above, the Mother of Abundance in this novel is not Shub-Niggurath.)

- The main couple are birds and lay eggs; the side couple are human and have a child.

The side couple's gong is a virgin, while the shou is not. Before meeting the gong, the shou was a top. In the previous timeline, he loved the gong in secret, watching over him from the sidelines. Pregnancy and childbirth are part of the story. In this timeline, they have a happy family.

- The gong is a divine, beautiful boy whom everyone loves, but he may be humanity's enemy. The side-couple shou is a domineering CEO from an abusive romance novel who forcibly takes a man, imprisons him, extracts his pheromones, and abuses him physically, but protects humanity.

* Fu Pinqie is taken from "Jialing Pinjia," the Sanskrit Kalavinka. This is a proper noun transliterated from Sanskrit, and the character Jia is pronounced "jia" here.

* Kara on the cover is not a misspelling of Kala. It is the romanization of "jialan" or "emptiness."

The novel was formerly titled Jialan Sundial / Jialan Mo Qixia Ri. Here, Jia in Jialan is pronounced "qie."

Theme: Good and evil are separated by a single thought.