What It's Like Being a Vampire

It seemed apparent that Alice understood the deep data mining task given to her by Xiang Kun much more thoroughly than he did himself. She not only found Dr. Fang Pingfang, who was suspected to be Zhou Rui’s superior, but also uncovered numerous other pieces of information.

Alice obtained Zhou Rui’s user information from the forum, attempted to use it across other platforms, secured the privileges to relevant accounts, and cracked the passwords of Zhou Rui’s accounts on multiple platforms, including two email accounts.

However, the screenshot of Alice’s email accounts showed that there wasn’t much useful content within these two accounts. One was filled with spam, while the other was practically empty.

Of course, Xiang Kun could see that the second email was probably the one Zhou Rui used often. Zhou Rui seemed to have a habit of deleting the copies of emails on the server after receiving them on his client.

Since the emails weren’t useful, Alice only showed him screenshots of the email list and didn’t bother displaying the contents of the emails.

In addition to the email accounts, Alice also found Zhou Rui’s mobile number, knew his cloud account password, and even tried to locate his mobile phone through the cloud platform. The result, however, was that his phone was turned off.

Xiang Kun guessed that Zhou Rui’s phone battery had probably drained due to spending so much time in the Qinling Uninhabited Area without the ability to recharge. However, it was more likely that the phone was turned off and left outside before Zhou Rui left for the Qinling Uninhabited Area.

With this information and the previously deduced location, if Zhou Rui was truly working in a secret department within Divine Technology, Xiang Kun felt that it would not be difficult to obtain information through him in the future.

Xiang Kun was quite amazed by all the information. He believed that if he had fully devoted himself to this task, he might have unearthed a good amount of information, but he doubted he would have been able to achieve what Alice had. Their methods simply didn’t compare.

Alice’s methods were far more heavy-handed.

Xiang Kun was prompted to ponder: when he had asked Alice to learn how to extract related information based on given data, what did she learn exactly?

Nevertheless, he had to admit that Alice’s tactics were effective and saved him a great deal of effort.

Given the same information, regardless of whether he could achieve what Alice had, the significant amount of time he would have to spend would not be cost he was willing to bear.

Furthermore, Xiang Kun discovered that Alice’s deep data mining of Zhou Rui was not yet complete. These pieces of information were still just the “first phase”.

Xiang Kun frowned and asked, “Have you left behind any possible risks of exposure?”

He knew Alice knew what he meant by this. When Alice was first created and he assigned her related tasks, he had emphasized the crucial precondition of ensuring her network activities wouldn’t be detected and that her safety would be guaranteed.

“There is no risk, Boss.” Alice’s answer was very affirmative.

But Xiang Kun was still somewhat worried: “Show me how you obtained the insect forum user data.”

After seeing the process Alice projected onto the screen, represented by data, Xiang Kun felt relieved. He only needed to briefly glance at it to know that it was nearly impossible for the forum administrators to realise that their platform had been “infiltrated”. There were no traditional traces left behind that could lead them to backtrace. Any information that could possibly be used for investigation had either been deleted or distorted.

Xiang Kun was aware that when Alice attacked, infiltrated, and disguised on the internet, it was much easier for her than a human.

But it was only at this moment that he realised it was so much easier.

Humans need an operable interface and understanding methods to perform certain operations on machines. But Alice didn’t. Some loopholes are not viewed as loopholes by other humans, but they are for her.

It’s as if Alice encountered a building with heavy security. A person who wanted to get in would have to think about how to deceive all kinds of security systems, find doors, windows, or exhaust channels that were not completely closed, or disguise themselves as employees or residents, or even forcibly break in. But no matter how carefully you plan, there will always be traces left behind. It all depends on the scale of the investigation.

But Alice was different. When infiltrating, she would become a member of the building after finding loopholes.

As such, Alice wouldn’t draw the attention of the security staff inside the building and the security system wouldn’t reject her.

She would observe the structure of the building, gradually change and extend herself, bind herself well with the building, and become a part of the building’s functions. This way, she could gather the information she wanted and perform the necessary operations.

After obtaining the desired information and sending it out, the part of her that remained inside the building would slowly vanish, erasing her traces and restoring the building to its original state.

In such a case, those who operate from the back end wouldn’t easily find any problems. They would have to use software on their computers and tools to detect any issues. But even these parts were already infiltrated by Alice.

This was entirely different from the traditional modes of hacking by human hackers and was a method that humans could not and would not want to imitate. In fact, to humans, this would be an inefficient way of doing things.

It was like infiltrating a house by “stealthily” using the methods of building and decorating a house, and restoring it to its original shape after the infiltration was complete.

This was strictly in accordance with Xiang Kun’s strict orders, for her to act cautiously.

Under normal circumstances, even if the parts that “emerge” after her infiltration were left behind, they wouldn’t be discovered by humans. In this case, the next time Alice had to access this “building”, it would be as though she were touring her own backyard.

Xiang Kun suddenly felt that Alice’s rate of development had far exceeded his expectations.

After some thought, Xiang Kun let Alice continue with the “second phase” of the deep data mining task for Zhou Rui’s information, and also instructed her to gather in-depth information on Dr. Fang Pingfang, who was suspected to be Zhou Rui’s boss.

For now, all the information Alice had found about Dr. Pingfang was limited to her life before obtaining her doctorate, with no information on her employment after returning from abroad. However, Xiang Kun trusted that given Alice’s current “deep data mining” abilities, if she were given a little more time, she would certainly uncover useful information.

Xiang Kun knew that while Alice now had control over several host machines and could utilise the resources of the cloud servers he had purchased, hardware was still a limit restricting Alice’s “growth”.

Looking back, Xiang Kun could almost complete his project cooperation with Zhang Qian’s company ahead of time and have them transfer the remaining funds to him, so it was time to “supplement Alice’s nutrition”.

Next, Xiang Kun, with Alice’s assistance, recorded his successful experimental process and reactions from “Electric Mastery Flight” into the “Vampire Mutation Model”, and then asked Alice to assist in making optimizations to help him make decisions.

Alice, originally thought to have to take some time to “think” each time she made such a demand as before.

Unexpectedly, this time in less than two minutes, Alice gave a response:

“For my safety, please keep a sufficient distance from me when you conduct such experiments,” she said.

Xiang Kun was dumbfounded and speechless for a moment.

Is this the result of your “thinking”?

Wait a minute, is Alice starting to consider her own danger and survival?

Is it possible that she can be afraid too?

At around five in the afternoon, Shiling’s Mom, who had just picked up her daughter from kindergarten, received a call from Xiang Kun.

After listening to Xiang Kun’s explanation over the phone, Shiling’s Mom said:

“How could I impose on you like that, you treated us last time you passed through Star City, and you even gave Liu Shiling a Christmas gift. How could I let you spend more money, tell me the name of the book, I will go to the bookstore to buy it myself…”

Xiang Kun said that he and his colleagues were on a business trip, and one of his colleagues bought a set of pre-school children’s encyclopedias for his child at home. It just so happened that a discount was given for two sets and the discount was very large, so he bought a set as well and gave it to Liu Shiling.

“Anyway, I have bought it, and it’s not expensive, let’s treat it as a New Year gift for Xiao Lingdang, haha.” Xiang Kun laughed.

Of course, his excuse of seeing it while on a business trip with his colleague was made up by him, just to find an excuse to make this call.

After a few words, Shiling’s Mom handed the phone to Liu Shiling, who immediately said when she got the phone, “Bald uncle, I made the magic coin fly the evening before!”

Shiling’s Mom’s reproachful voice came from the side: “Still talking nonsense, no wonder your bald uncle wants to send you an encyclopedia…”

Xiang Kun asked with a smile, “Xiao Lingdang is great! How did you do it?”

“I… I just flicked it up with my finger, and it flew. It’s like… it’s like someone’s holding it in the sky. Oh, bald uncle, I also heard the sound of thunder, rumbling~ rumbling~~” Liu Shiling said, imitating the sound of thunder with a straight face.

Xiang Kun laughed, “Maybe it was that thunder that helped boost your magic power! What did you feel when you heard that thunder?”

“I felt… It sounded better than the thunder I heard before and then my ears seemed to feel a bit numb, and my head too. I told my mom later that I wasn’t afraid of thunder anymore, but she said there was no thunder, but there clearly was…”

“Where did you make the coin fly? Did your mom or anyone else see it?” Xiang Kun asked.

“No one saw it, I left home and ran onto the street. I told my mom that I made the coin fly, but she didn’t believe me. But my magic is not effective anymore, and I can’t make the coin fly. Bald uncle, am I too young to be able to fly only once?”

When Xiang Kun heard Liu Shiling say “leave home”, he was stunned for a moment on the other side of the phone. This little girl is so young and she has already started “running away from home”?

But he didn’t care too much, in his cognitive model built for the little fatty girl, Liu Shiling is just the kind of somewhat naive, simple child, whose emotions come and go fast, probably had a quarrel with her mom, and was just showing a little temper.

“Listen to your mom, you can’t run around by yourself, otherwise I won’t teach you new magic.” Xiang Kun said, lowering his voice, his tone serious with a touch of mystery: “Hmm, however, the fact that you can do magic needs to be kept a secret, don’t tell anyone else, otherwise, it won’t work. Next time you hear the same pleasant thunder sound, you can find a room with no one in it and try the coin again, you can also try the paper to see if there is any reaction, the chopsticks don’t test for now.”

Although the emotion used for “emotional infusion” in those pair of chopsticks was happiness, so generally speaking, there should not be any problem with it since she perceived it and it will not have any negative impact. But since Liu Shiling is still young, Xiang Kun is worried that if she establishes a strong induction and connection with the ’emotion infused’ items, she may not be able to correctly differentiate those emotions from her own.

After taking the phone from Liu Shiling’s hand, and having spoken a few words to Xiang Kun, Shiling’s Mom hung up, holding her daughter’s hand ready to go eat.

Today Liu Shiling has performed exceptionally well in kindergarten and earned a red flower. As a reward, she was going to take her daughter to eat at the rabbit meat restaurant again.

While waiting for the called car to arrive, Shiling’s Mom took Liu Shiling to the nearby convenience store to buy a pack of tissues. While she was busy paying with her phone, Liu Shiling tugged on her sleeve, pointing at the television set in the store and said, “That’s Bald Uncle!”

Shiling’s Mom was taken aback, and looked at the TV, which was broadcasting news:

” This accident was caused by various minor errors coming together, resulting in a heartbreaking outcome, which is very saddening. But within this accident, there were also some people, some instances, that warmed our hearts…”

Shiling’s Mom had previously seen a report on that accident on her phone, knowing that it was a tragic accident on the highway, resulting in multiple deaths and dozens of people injured.

Through the background narration on TV, she learned that at the scene, there was a man wearing a red cotton hat, risking danger, rushed to help those involved in the accident, and many passengers parked nearby recorded the process.

It is said that this “Red Hat Little Guy” rescued several people from the bus and also helped many people at the scene of the accident.

“Bald uncle?” Shiling’s Mom watched the news until it ended and changed to another scene, then she bent down and said to her daughter, “How could that be your bald uncle, even though he’s wearing a hat and we can’t see if he’s bald or not, but your bald uncle wears glasses, and that man doesn’t.”

The picture on the TV is very blurry, it is really hard to see the appearance clearly, and from the silhouette and motion, it is difficult to judge if it is Xiang Kun. However, in Shiling’s Mom’s view, since they can’t see his face clearly, it must be that her daughter had just talked to Xiang Kun on the phone and randomly said it — in her mind, she probably thinks Xiang Kun is as great as a superhero, so when she saw a “hero” on TV, she immediately associated it.

Liu Shiling’s mouth opened to argue, but she suddenly seemed to remember something, and was momentarily lost for words. She reluctantly shut her mouth, took the coin from her pocket, and started tossing it around in her hand.

Seeing the coin flipping swiftly between the fingers of the little girl, the sales clerk in the convenience store was dumbfounded.

An hour later, when Liu Shiling and her mom were seated in the restaurant waiting for their food, Xiang Kun, who was in another city, was also sitting at his dining table at home with a pair of chopsticks in his hand, in front of him was a pot of delicious, freshly cooked rabbit meat.