What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Seven, “Brilliant Eyes”

Xiang Kun took all of Guo Tianxiang’s belongings with him, including clothes, shoes, keys, some odds and ends, the white knife he had seized for his counter-kill, and the most important object for a modern person, a mobile phone.

Before stuffing them into the backpack, he quickly checked those items, with particular emphasis on the mobile phone.

Of course, he wasn’t inspecting the contents of the phone. Although he could find the unlocking code through Guo Tianxiang’s memory, he didn’t have time to check the contents in detail, and he didn’t want to throw the phone away. So he had to make sure that nothing was wrong with the phone.

He was worried that the dreadlock-haired female hacker might have tampered with the phone without Guo Tianxiang’s knowledge, as it was something hackers would habitually do.

Under normal circumstances, after turning off the phone or removing the battery, the location of the device at the time of shutting down could only be determined through a base station.

However, sometimes, if a dedicated trojan is implanted in advance, the phone would enter a “pseudo-off” state when manually turned off by the owner, and continue to send location information over the internet.

Although Xiang Kun had not seen an actual application of this, he was aware of the possibility.

Fortunately, after inspecting it, he was almost certain that Guo Tianxiang’s phone had not been tampered with.

So Xiang Kun turned off the phone, put it in the backpack with the rest of the items, and started running at a steady pace along the highway by following the directions on his own phone’s navigation. He ran until over ten in the morning when he caught a van for a short ride, transferred a few times, and finally returned to the city.

The hours of running were not to save on transportation costs, but to feel the specific changes in his body after drinking the vampire’s blood.

Apart from the obvious improvement in strength, speed, agility, and sensory abilities, what Xiang Kun was most interested in was the range of capabilities brought by the vampire’s eye.

However, Xiang Kun couldn’t find the way to activate the infrared thermal imager mode from Guo Tianxiang’s memory, like he had previously discovered the night vision ability from the owl’s blood.

As for hypnosis and the ability to make people see things that they feared, he had not tested them yet and didn’t know how to use them.

But Xiang Kun wasn’t in a rush. He knew that if he’d acquired those abilities, he’d eventually figure out how to use them.

Besides, on the way back, he continually retrieved Guo Tianxiang’s memory. He knew that he didn’t gain all of Guo Tianxiang’s memory. However, he wasn’t sure whether he had gotten 50%, 40%, or less.

But it was clear that he had a more comprehensive memory when using the sights on the pedestrian street and scenes related to Xiang Kun to search.

Xiang Kun speculated that the more recent memories and the ones that had a profound impact on Guo Tianxiang, the more of it he’d gained.

With this in mind, he found it easier to analyze the vampire’s psychology, determining what he valued and cared about most. But that would be something for him to do in the future.

He planned to “conquer” this vampire by looking back on his track. Although the target was already dead and gone, there was ample information. It was enough for him to rebuild the vampire’s psychology and experience from his intricate memory, helping him to sort out the memory timeline and find the information he needed.

At this moment, Xiang Kun started by using the dreadlocked female hacker as a

parameter to search through Guo Tianxiang’s memory. After piecing together many memories, he roughly figured out the process of this average-looking but uniquely dressed female hacker and this vampire Guo Tianxiang meeting each other.

This female hacker named Mijoe originally found out about Guo Tianxiang’s other identity and his involvement in a murder case. Therefore, she planned to blackmail him for a considerable sum of money using that information.

But perhaps, after investigating more profoundly, she found clues about Guo Tianxiang’s real vampire identity. So she directly contacted him, sent him everything she’d found out, explained how to hide himself to avoid suspicion and detection, and then indicated she wanted to join him and become a vampire.

Of course, Guo Tianxiang willingly agreed. They met in private, and surprisingly, he did not harm Mijoe, the dreadlocked female hacker. Instead, he promised her that if she worked for him and found at least one other vampire or mutant, he’d turn her into his blood slave and grant her eternal life.

Xiang Kun knew that Guo Tianxiang must’ve used hypnosis on Mijoe, but this female hacker’s luck was good. Perhaps, Guo Tianxiang just needed her hacking skills to help him. Otherwise, she’d most probably have become the vampire’s meal.

From the memories related to Mijoe, Xiang Kun saw Guo Tianxiang receiving messages from her, establishing video chats, and viewing the chat content between her and Xiang Kun’s disguised account “Pipikachu”.

He saw Guo Tianxiang instructing Mijoe loudly in the video to lure Xiang Kun out by any means necessary. All information about the vampires was directly given to Mijoe by him.

Through Guo Tianxiang’s point of view, Xiang Kun could see that Mijoe was panicking in the real-time video chat. Obviously, she was frightened by Guo Tianxiang’s state, so she quickly collapsed the identity of “Kasumi of August” — although it didn’t affect Xiang Kun’s detection of their disguise.

Although most of the time, emotions from the owner of the memories couldn’t be sensed, from his view of the video call and the female hacker Mijoe’s actions, Xiang kun could infer Guo Tianxiang’s infuriated and somewhat out-of-control state.

It seemed that Guo Tianxiang’s blood-drinking period, as Xiang Kun had speculated earlier, had reached a critical point, where normal fresh blood could no longer alleviate his hunger completely. He needed the blood of other vampires or mutants.

As for Mijoe, Xiang Kun’s current plan was to leave her alone.

He suspected that the female hacker would not notice Guo Tianxiang’s disappearance in a short time – even if there was no response to the contact, she might merely think that he was ignoring her.

If necessary, Xiang Kun could impersonate Guo Tianxiang to reply to Mijoe.

After all, through Guo Tianxiang’s memory, he knew their communication habits and had read a lot of their previous correspondence.

As soon as he opened the front door, a Canary flapped its wings and flew over, obediently landing on his shoulder and chirping a few times.

Xiang Kun could hear its excited voice – it was welcoming him back home.

It felt like an emperor returning from a personal expedition, leaving the grand minister to guard the capital city. Now that the emperor had returned, the minister rejoiced and greeted him, expressing in a self-congratulatory manner, “I’ve held the fort perfectly!”

Xiang Kun extended his hand, and the Canary immediately understood, hopping onto his palm. Then it let him pet it a few times, its eyes half-closed, neck slightly retracted – it seemed to be enjoying itself.

Feeling the warmth of the Canary, Xiang Kun had a sudden idea. He blinked hard, felt the surrounding temperature and looked again with concentration.

Suddenly, Xiang Kun noticed that the colors of the whole world were instantly drained, deep and shallow blocks of color appeared on everything, from the Canary in his hand to the Rabbit in the kitchen, just like the view from an infrared imager in the movies.

However, it was somewhat different from the infrared imaging he had seen before. There were fewer normal contours but more rich and dense blocks of color.

Xiang Kun grinned. He had indeed obtained this ability from Guo Tianxiang’s blood.

Since he had this ability, perhaps he already had the other two abilities related to eyesight?

Xiang Kun, like a child with a new toy, let the Canary fly back to its open cage and started experimenting with several rabbits, observing the composition of the red blocks on their bodies.

He also checked his own body and saw that it was indeed a light red, dotted with patches of blue.

He had already obtained night vision from the Giant Owl, and now he also had this visual ability similar to infrared thermal imaging. Essentially, whether it was day or night, foggy weather or complicated terrain in the forest, he would have a visual advantage.

Especially if he encountered other vampires or mutated creatures again, with his vision and sense of smell functioning simultaneously, he would most likely detect them first, secure the initiative.

Unfortunately, it seemed infrared thermal imaging couldn’t penetrate walls. It was fine with plastic bags, curtains, or glass, but it didn’t work on thicker walls unless the target creature was extremely hot and close to the wall.

During a break from studying his new ability, Xiang Kun casually sensed the locations of the items with which he had established a connection.

The Tissue 2 had already crossed the ocean to America, yet he could still sense it, and the intensity of the sensation hadn’t declined significantly. The cumulative sensing time had reached 2 hours and 36 minutes, though the actual time consumed was probably longer.

He could determine the direction of Tissue 2, but without having visited there, he could not pinpoint its exact location or distance.

In addition, the ballpen bead he had placed on the earring boy was still in this city, however, judging from its location, it was most likely not on him anymore since it was located in a garbage dump.

But when Xiang Kun sensed the one-yuan coin given to Little Fat Girl Liu Shiling, he was somewhat surprised. He could still determine the coin’s direction, but the intensity of the sensation was weaker than at the start.

If this situation happened with Tissue, Xiang Kun would understand easily. For instance, if the tissue was torn into several pieces, his sense would only remain in one part and it would weaken. This fact was already proven in previous tests he had conducted.

But that was a coin!

Could it be that the Little Fat Girl had lost the coin and part of it had been chipped off by something?

As soon as he finished dealing with the current matters, he would need to find some time to check it out..