Do Not Pray to the Abyss

*The ending has been substantially revised. This version is only responsible for the content posted on the serialization platform. A fictional modern setting, suspenseful detective story that will make you think. Please do not connect it to real life. [Blurb] A living human statue appears at a city art exhibition, shocking the entire country. The case is heinous and complex, and international criminal investigator Xu Changying is ordered to return home and work jointly with the police. The moment he sets foot in his homeland for the first time in eight years, memories of people and events from the past come rushing back. Xu Changying thought his heart had long since turned to stone, but the instant he saw that familiar face with its unfamiliar expression, he could not stop himself from feeling shaken and disoriented. In the autopsy room, the other man took off his mask and greeted him as if they were meeting for the first time. “Hello, I’m Xia Qing.” - Over the past eight years, Xu Changying became the AGB organization’s only beta agent, traveling to countless corners of the world. He could no longer remember whether it was in Colombia, North Africa, or some backwater town in Southeast Asia. During a break between missions, the beta agent had caught a fleeting glimpse on an old, blurry television screen of that aloof, distinguished face: Xia Qing, the top heir to a leading domestic biotech conglomerate and a world-renowned life scientist, whose team had just overcome another major scientific challenge. The impassive face on the old screen overlapped with the boy in his memories, whose eyes had always held a warm, eager smile. Xu Changying looked away, tossed aside his cigarette butt, and walked into the dust where a shootout had just taken place. - When they met again, one was an international investigator and the other a consulting expert. A bizarre case bound them tightly together once more. Xu Changying smiled as he stared at that nearly unchanged face, now made unfamiliar by retrograde amnesia, and held out his hand too. “Nice to meet you. I’m Xu Changying.” A cheeky, cool beta bottom × A cold, rational beauty of an alpha top Content warnings: 1. The plot takes center stage, with suspense as the main focus and intense, brain-teasing moments alternating with lighter ones. Reading spoilers along the way will very seriously affect your experience. 2. An unconventional police procedural. This is not a collection of standalone cases: the million-word story revolves around one central plot. 3. An unconventional ABO story with many original worldbuilding details. The bottom used to be an alpha, but is a beta now and always will be. 4. Beautiful top, handsome bottom. Extreme character loyalists, please look elsewhere. 5. The top has amnesia and the bottom goes from alpha to beta: maximum melodrama, in terms of the plot. 6. The bottom really is very beta, and a little Mary Sue-ish. 7. The plot is truly, outrageously melodramatic. 8. There are many twists later on, so readers will need a little patience and emotional preparation, in terms of the plot. 9. The story contains many flashbacks presented as case arcs. They are important parts of the story and cannot be skipped. [New] 10. Original character tags: cheeky but iron-hearted cool beta bottom × cold and rational, but ridiculously lovesick, beauty-of-an-alpha top. These have always been the characters throughout the story. I changed the tags in 2025 after several complaints that they were misleading, but people kept complaining even after the change, so I’m listing them here for you to decide for yourself. This was my first time posting on JJ, and I didn’t know the community’s conventions. It seems “beauty,” “lovesick,” and “iron-hearted” carry certain implications about tops and bottoms. But if you ask me now whether Xu Changying is iron-hearted and Xia Qing is lovesick, my answer is still: yes~ Please don’t post spoilers in the comments~ [Blurb updated 2024.08.03] [Blurb updated 2026.03.23] Theme: The world calls for love and peace