The shared wives in the men's dormitory at the animal farm

The city lay in a slumber, but Ruan Ling, just off his night shift, felt a profound loneliness. His backpack slung over his shoulder, he walked the deserted streets, each step a dull thud against the pavement. Passing a dark alley, a faint glow caught his eye. Curiosity overriding his fear, he approached, finding a transparent, fluorescent stone pressed beneath a discarded can.

It seemed worthless, yet he picked it up, pocketing its strange light. Back home, the warmth of his small apartment offered little comfort. His phone buzzed – a message from a friend, a photo of his friend and a new, imposing boyfriend. Ruan Ling typed a blessing, a hollow ache in his chest.

He splashed water on his face in the bathroom, the cool droplets mirroring the cold words of his ex-boyfriend, words that still echoed like needle pricks in his mind. "Are you bisexual? Are you so perverted? Why don't you just cut off the lower part...?"

The suffocation returned, a familiar shroud. He gripped the basin, knuckles white, his body chilling despite the humid air. Then, a sudden burning in his pocket. The glowstone. It pulsed with light, words now etched onto its surface, words he somehow, inexplicably, understood: "Coveting the Moon."

Confused, he set it aside. The shower beckoned, a promise of washing away the day's fatigue and lingering pain. But as the warm water cascaded over him, his thoughts drifted to the photo, to the freedom he yearned for, a freedom reality denied. He reached down, fingers tracing his own contours, a secret world unfolding in the steam. A soft moan escaped, lost in the hiss of the water, a desperate wish for touch, for embrace, for release. Just as pleasure crested, the world warped. One moment, his bathroom; the next, a vast, unfamiliar nest, four pairs of intense, animalistic eyes fixed on him.