What It's Like Being a Vampire

A health checkup? Xiang Kun immediately remembered the Mid-Autumn evening when he went to cook at Xia Libing’s house. By the end of the night, only the two of them were left. Xia Libing noticed that he seemed a bit under the weather all night, so he casually mentioned that his stomach wasn’t well.

It was obvious that Xia Libing thought he had eaten too little today, that there still might be something wrong with his stomach.

“I didn’t go for a checkup, but there is nothing wrong with me. I usually don’t eat much for dinner.”

Xia Libing nodded without saying anything more on this topic. Instead, she asked: “Do you remember the first time we met?”

The moment that popped up in Xiang Kun’s mind was when he bumped into Xia Libing at the Man Coffee shop, but he pretended to be confused and said: “I remember, it was the night when I was playing cards at Nana’s house.” Xia Libing shook her head: “Before that, I saw you at the coffee shop. It was

Man Coffee, you must have seen me too.”

Xiang Kun pretend to be startled for a moment, then recalled: “Oh right, I remember now, I think we ‘made eye contact’ once?”

Xia Libing looked at him: “What were you doing at the coffee shop that time?”

“I wasn’t really doing anything, just sitting idly. I had just lost my job at that time, and I was bored.”

“From the moment I entered the coffee shop, you did not drink at all. You did not stare at other people, but I knew your attention was always on others. I

initially thought you were following the lady in the bank uniform. However, later I noticed that you turned your attention to me. Hence, I concluded that you were just watching girls casually.”

Having heard Xia Libing’s remarks, Xiang Kun was quite surprised, he didn’t expect that during their first encounter, he was mistaken as a pervert by Xia Libing. Nevertheless, he realized that at that time he had just begun to learn how to collect and analyze sensory information from other people. He had not learned how to hide his expressions when his attention was on others, so it wasn’t surprising that he was caught by Xia Libing.

“But after interacting with you a few times, I realized that you simply have a habit of observing others.” Xia Libing added.

Xiang Kun just slightly nodded and didn’t say anything. He Imew Old Xia well enough to know that her mentioning this topic all of a sudden meant something else was coming.

As expected, Xia Libing asked: “Based on your observations, what kind of person am I?”

Xiang Kun thought for a while and cautiously answered: “A … very calm person, sometimes might even appear overly calm, to the point of seeming indifferent. ”

He paused for a moment before continuing: “Sometimes your reactions remind me of the traits of Asperger’s syndrome I read about in some books. But after spending more time interacting with you, I don’t think you have that.”

Seeing Xia Libing nodding thoughtfully after hearing his words, Xiang Kun couldn’t help but ask: “What about you? Based on your observations, what kind of person am I?”

This was also something he was curious about. He knew that the extremely observant Xia Libing must have noticed more about him than others, and must have spotted something, otherwise, she wouldn’t have paid him such particular attention.

However, to his surprise, Xia Libing answered immediately without a moment’s hesitation: “Still observing, no conclusions yet.”

Old Xia… do you have to be so slippery?

Helplessly, Xiang Kun asked: “What about based on your observations so far?”

Xia Libing still shook her head: “The more I observe, the more questions I have, the more confused I get.”

Xiang Kun was going to say, “If you have any questions just ask me directly” , but he hesitated and didn’t say it. He was a bit worried that Old Xia would bring up some questions that he simply couldn’t answer. And if he was forced to lie in response, it would just be pointless.

At this moment, Xiang Kun’s phone vibrated. He picked it up and saw a WeChat notification from Tang Baona.

Upon opening it, he found a forwarded Bilibili video link, followed by a laughing emoji and a text from Tang Baona:

“Who would have thought that you have quite the knack for performing! Next time you cook, you should do something like this again. I guarantee my recording will be much better than the video!””

Confused, Xiang Kun clicked on the video.

“Bald guy’s super cool step-by-step guide in preparing bamboo rat meat!”

The moment he saw this title, his heart sunk slightly as he guessed what it might be.

Upon opening the video, he was greeted with the scene of him in Youlong Restaurant’s kitchen, showboating as he prepared the bamboo rat dish and offering his expert opinion on how a food video should be made.

From the moment where he declared that cooking videos are primarily audiovisual works, to the final presentation of the bamboo rat dish.

The ten-minute-long video depicted the entire process of Xiang Kun purposely showing off. There were all kinds of comments flying across the screen; some praise, some criticism, and a lot of them.

“2333333…”

“LMAO…”

“Being goofy but somehow still looking cool!” “Is the talk show host Meng Fei now cooking?” “Even the way he wipes his glasses oozes with style!” “New material for remix

“I feel like a new style of cooking video is about to emerge”

“This scene seems rehearsed multiple times, doesn’t it?”

“You guys didn’t notice that this bald chef must have had some martial arts training? His strength when he single-handedly lifts the pot is so steady”

“I don’t know if he has practiced martial arts or not, but I’m sure that the bamboo rat meat he cooked is definitely not well-cooked…’

“With such skills, he still dares to make cooking videos to teach people how to cook?”

“The one who posted in red, do you have the guts to say this to the bald chef’s face?”

“I think he would be more convincing giving boxing lessons”

“Why do I find this so satisfying to watch? I didn’t feel that the video was slow even after watching it for ten minutes.”

“Where is the BGM? Why isn’t there any background music? Come on, cue the music!”

“Actually, he has a point…”

Xia Libing also curiously came over to Xiang Kun to watch the video on his phone. She found it quite interesting, so she sneakily took out her own phone and started to search it online.

Xiang Kun, of course, knew what the issue was, so he immediately called You Meng.

“Xiang Kun, Director Liu and I were just talking about you and you called! It’s like speaking of Cao Cao and Cao Cao appears!” You Meng’s voice on the phone indicated that he had been drinking.

Director Liu is in his restaurant again? Were they planning something behind the scenes? But at that moment, Xiang Kun couldn’t worry about Liu Caifu, he quickly asked, “Where’s your nephew?”

“He’s at the restaurant, do you need him for something?”

“Get him on the phone!”

A moment later, You’s Grandnephew also figured out what the problem was after having a baffled conversation with Xiang Kun. He immediately called his classmate to delete the video.

Normally, an average video on Bilibili that isn’t posted by a well-known UP or isn’t trending wouldn’t get more than a few hundred or thousand views in 24 hours.

However, this video, unfortunately, was discovered and reposted on Hupu Pedestrian Street, becoming a hot topic. Then someone cropped a short section of it and added some background music before reposting it on Weibo and TikTok. Hence, many viewers swarmed in, resulting in the video posted by a newbie becoming popular in no time.

Thus, even if the video was deleted now, it seemed that the damage was already done…

Relevant “spinoff” videos were getting more and more ridiculous, ranging from

“Bald Ye Wen of the Cooking World Critiques Various Food Videos” to “Shaolin

Temple’s Seventy-three Secret Techniques: Bamboo Rat Fist Cooking.”

Some even replaced the audio of him wiping his glasses with water vapor with Leung Ka Fai’s lines from “Black Gold”: “I’ve said what I wanted to say. Who agrees and who disagrees.” Followed by another line of Leung Ka Fail s “disciplining” voice: “Those who agree, sit tight and wait for the meal. Those who disagree, get ready to go in the pot.”

Xiang Kun didn’t need to search it up himself. Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er kept forwarding the various clips found on different platforms to their group chat one by one.

With every post, they attached a laughing emoji showing that they were rolling on the floor, laughing their heads off..