We are destined to repeat the same mistakes.

More and‍‌​​‌​‌​⁠‌‍⁠​‌‍‌⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍​ more believers joined the column’s procession.

“Even though I can’t hear the whispers you mentioned, listening to these prayers over and over is making me want to join in, and circle around this thing.” Chao Wu stared at the carved pillar in a daze. “I wonder what’s up there. I really want to go up and see for myself…” 

She suddenly shook her head vigorously. “Don’t mention An, even I’m starting to lose clarity!”

Ning suddenly said softly, “Circling arounds is painful.”

An Yu looked up. Ning pointed to the jam jar in front of him. “An said that before going up, there was indeed an inexplicable desire. But while circling the column, it was extremely painful. Though his consciousness was hazy, one thought kept repeating in his mind—he desperately wanted to stop.”

“What kind of pain?”

“His deep consciousness was being tormented.” Ning was also a bit surprised and hesitated before continuing, “Although he couldn’t understand the whispers either, during the circling, he vaguely felt like he was being persuaded. It seemed like if he gave up on something, the painful circling would stop.”

“Give up the obsession with having high-entropy offspring?” Zhu Tao asked An Yu. “Can you understand the whispers?”

An Yu shook his head. 

He felt no persuasion, only irritation, and a desire to cut off those mouths.

Grapevines extended from Zhu Tao’s fingertips, placing small leaves that offered mental resistance on everyone. An Yu casually plucked the leaf from his shoulder and smoothed it onto the jam jar, the sweet grape scent lingering around him.

Ning asked, “What about you?”

“I don’t need it,” An Yu replied naturally. “If the mental pollution up there is severe, please take care of everyone else; don’t worry about me.”

“This guy’s mental stability is ridiculously high,” Zhu Tao muttered. “Back in District 53, he was repeatedly beaten to near death by all sorts of aberrants, but his mental strength never wavered.”

Ning stared blankly at An Yu. “The rumors on the forum are actually true…”

Underneath the carved pillar, the believers’ prayers wove an invisible golden shield, making the air around them seem to solidify. Meanwhile, the column’s procession grew larger, creating magnificent ripples in the red light. The believers knelt in a circle, one after another, around the carved pillar. Even before ascending, the young women had already closed their eyes and covered their ears, indifferent to everything around them, only chanting the absurd doctrines louder and louder.

“For better reproduction, “

“For more stable survival, “

“For women to bear their natural responsibilities.” 

Amidst the endless chanting, Chao Wu’s long, rose-colored hair spread out, extending like a staircase to the sky, following the rhythm of the vortex. An Yu stepped onto the dense and resilient hair carpet beneath his feet and walked up. The higher they climbed, the more the whispers felt like a tightly woven net, ensnaring their consciousness. Ning clasped his hands in front of his chest, and one after another, blue morpho butterflies emerged from his body, surrounding Zhu Tao and An Yu.

With the fluttering of butterfly wings, An Yu looked back. Below, the believers had turned into tiny black lines, while the figures of the women moving higher on the pillar grew larger, with grotesque scales gradually embedding into their skin. They had lost their human legs; their fish tails slapped the air as they climbed higher and higher, as if something awaited them at the top.

The higher they ascended, the stronger the impact of obsession became. An Yu suddenly recalled an afternoon when he was around ten years old. He woke up from a nap to the sound of a woman screaming hoarsely downstairs—a woman in her forties, living in apartment 1309, had complications during childbirth. In the slums, medical resources were scarce, and she bled to death. The baby didn’t survive either.

For a long time afterward, gossip about the child’s father circulated in the welfare district. Some said he must have been a wealthy man who could have taken her out of the slums if she had just given birth. Others speculated that the child might have been the District Resource manager’s. The rumors were endless, but in the end, everyone mocked her for insisting on giving birth despite the risks of her advanced age. They said she deserved to die.

When her and the child’s body were carried away, An Yu stood upstairs, yawning absentmindedly. Ling Qiu leaned against the railing and suddenly smirked bitterly, “Women have to endure immense pain when giving birth, yet they always go through with it without looking back.”

An Yu had casually asked, “Why is that?”

Ling Qiu said, “Maybe it’s different for everyone. It could be the pursuit of happiness, a stubborn obsession, or maybe just confinement and coercion.”

An Yu reminisced as he continued to ascend until the figures in the column completely lost their human traits, becoming dead fish mechanically swimming with closed eyes. Finally, he looked up at the top—

At the top, four massive koi fish, as large as whales, were linked head to tail in a circle, spinning rapidly in silence. Staring too long at them caused an illusion, as if they were four women.

Ning whispered, “Such deep sorrow.”

The jam jar hanging in front of An Yu trembled slightly, and he instinctively cupped it, gently stroking the jar to soothe it. Though he couldn’t sense sorrow, he vaguely felt a vast emotion emanating from the four giant koi fish, pressing down on him like a suffocating weight.

The grape leaves on the jar quickly withered and shriveled. As they continued to approach the giant koi, the leaves suddenly crumbled into powder and vanished into the air currents. A swarm of blue morpho butterflies surged from Ning’s body, but this time, they dissipated quietly in the air before flying far.

Ning frowned and said, “Such powerful mental manipulation.”

Zhu Tao shouted, “Everyone, stay away from the column!”

Endless grape leaves danced in the air, attaching themselves to everyone and to Chao Wu’s hair. As soon as they adhered, they withered and crumbled, only to be replaced by new ones, wave after wave. Zhu Tao’s face gradually turned pale, and he seemed unaware as he slowly approached the carved pillar.

Chao Wu’s long hair suddenly seemed out of control, and the ends of her hair gently hooked a woman swimming around the pillar.

That could no longer be called a woman—it was just a dead fish.

Everyone was unconsciously moving closer to the carved pillar, except for An Yu. He continued to ascend calmly, using his hand to block the jam jar that was flying towards the carved pillar and soothingly pressing it back to his chest time and again.

When Chao Wu’s hair tips once again uncontrollably reached for the pillar, An Yu leaned down and drew his knife, slicing through the lock of hair.

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A weak blue morpho butterfly flew to An Yu’s fingertips. An Yu held it up to his lips and said softly, “Go watch over others.” He continued to hold the small jar to his chest, stepping on the rose hair blanket, and continued to walk peacefully to the highest point.

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But An Yu had already extended half of his body into it. —Nothing happened.

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The rose-red long hair immediately turned into a whip, slapping the fish away. The flying whip tip skimmed past the giant koi, stripping off a layer of fiery red scales!

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The dead fish fell from the air, and the four giant koi at the top suddenly began to spin faster. The dead fish at higher altitudes began to awaken one after another, and all the women around the pillar opened their eyes, snarling as they viciously pulled at Chao Wu’s hair.

The veins of the worshippers on the ground bulged and they aggressively surrounded Chao Wu.

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Zhu Tao immediately leaped down from the sky, using vines to wrap around Chao Wu’s wounds.

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In the midst of the chaos, An Yu’s voice was even more composed.

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Even with the entire team’s support, in the end, as if destined, he still had to go alone.

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“Give me a hand,” he whispered to the jam jar. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll hold onto you before things get out of control.”

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The large white morpho butterflies enveloped the two white-haired young men, keeping the biting dead fish away from them. Amidst the chaos, the four koi at the top of the pillar finally stopped spinning and began to swim towards An Yu with their tails flicking.

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—“I always see a swirling mass of broken red light in the sky. Can you see it?”

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A large white morpho butterfly immediately flew up and sucked away that drop of blood.

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It was no longer the chaotic and meaningless murmuring, but a girl’s sorrowful voice whispering in his ear, “We are destined to repeat the same mistakes.”

The next second, the giant koi that had bitten his fingertip suddenly exploded!

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An Yu suddenly had a premonition; the answer he sought was within that red light.

He reached out again to touch the red light fragments, but this time, the moment he made contact, he was harshly rebuffed!

Including the previous time he entered, this was the second time he was rejected.

Zhu Tao looked up at the shattered red light floating in the air and muttered, “Is this… the end?”

As soon as the words were uttered, the shattered red light suddenly surged, rushing into the bodies of the four dead fish at the top of the carved pillar. The fish floated to the peak of the pillar, quickly linking head to tail, spinning in unison. Their forms shifted, transforming into a new projection koi.

As long as the faith persists, the religion will never end.

With the formation of the new projection koi, the chaotic pillar finally calmed down. The dead fish returned to the pillar, and the women at the base, who had not yet transformed into fish, closed their eyes once again, continuing their circling around the column.

The worshippers concluded their prayers for the day. Seemingly unaware that half of their companions were gone, they smiled contentedly and bid each other farewell, planning to return the next evening.

The large white butterflies gradually returned to An’s body. He looked pale as he stared at An Yu’s back, murmuring, “What exactly are you? You manipulate space, you’re immune to mental attacks, and…”

Those who invade you die.

Aside from saying he wanted to find Ning, this was the first time An had initiated a conversation with An Yu.

In his view, An Yu was surrounded by a powerful oppressive aura, one that both enticed people to approach but also made them too afraid to get close.

When An Yu turned around, the fierce red light in his eyes made An instinctively take a step back.

“Thank you,” An Yu said.

An was stunned.

“It’s good to have you,” An Yu continued, looking up at the white butterflies that hadn’t completely dissipated. “What  a powerful ability. Even without Ning, you’re still impressive.”

The terminal displayed a survival value of 95.4%—thanks to An’s protective array of butterflies, An Yu had only been bitten a few times by those aberrants, and with the timely healing from the large white butterflies, most of his life loss was due to physical exhaustion.

An Yu mused, “If it weren’t for your mental instability, perhaps you would be the strongest healer in the Spire.”

The half-withered grape leaf on his head trembled at his words, angrily drifting off his shoulder.

The carved pillar had dimmed, and the column’s procession had quietly vanished, silently awaiting the arrival of the next night. In the end, Xu Shuangshuang had already reached the lower third of the pillar. If she ascended the next third, she would begin to sprout scales. This meant there was only one day left, and they had to act quickly.

Ning gently embraced the weary An, comforting him as he said, “Those clusters of red light might be the essence of the faith. If you kill the giant koi’s projetction, it will automatically jump to the next host. To break its endless cycle of jumping, you have to catch it first.”

Chao Wu was the most severely injured and she gasped, “How do we catch it? Just getting close to it made us almost lose our will.”

“I can.”

An Yu said, looking up at the top of the pillar, “But… it rejected me.”

He still remembered the moment he was repelled. Though he was slow to notice, he could still sense the anger in the shattered red light, rejecting him as if he were an outsider. As long as he was rejected, he would never be able to save the people here.

“Those who believe in prayer enter, those who persist in it gain, and those who let go leave.”

An Yu murmured repeatedly before saying, “You stay here. I need to go out for a bit.”

Ning asked, “Where to?”

“Main City,” An Yu replied. “The Church.”

Author’s Note:

M1zushi: me <3 fictional worldbuilding intertwined with problems of our modern society