What It's Like Being a Vampire

The video on Tang Baona’s mobile phone from the Bilibili APP was a recap of the events of 2019. The footage was all real scenes, whether from surveillance cameras, news reports, or mobile phone shots, capturing moments of crisis or heroism throughout the year.

Even if the background music, “it is well” and “Serenata Immortale,” was overused, the scenes coupled with the outstanding editing and somewhat dramatic subtitles indeed evoked a sense of excitement and inspiration.

A large building was on fire, residents hastily fleeing in panic. Then a group of officials clad in firefighter gear rushed into the flames. The screen displayed a caption:

“When the fire demon wreaks havoc, some go against the tide to suppress the abyss.”

A traveler loses consciousness, collapsing to the ground. A young girl actively attempts resuscitation, performing CPR. The screen displayed a caption:

“When the grim reaper swings his scythe, some resist fiercely, protecting life.”

A child accidentally falls into the water. A passerby disrobes without hesitation and leaps to the rescue, saving the child with the help of others. The screen displayed a caption:

“When accidents occur, some step forward and leap into action.”

At a car accident scene, to rescue trapped passengers, nearby drivers band together, lifting the toppled vehicle. The screen displayed a caption:

“When disaster strikes, some unite and lend a hand.”

Video cuts followed one after another, scene after scene flashed by. There were firefighters, doctors, police officers, good samaritans, and…a bald guy in a vest, shorts, and slippers.

When the footage of the bald man kick flying the knife-wielding thug like a heavenly soldier appeared, Tang Baona quickly tapped her mobile screen twice to pause it.

Besides the bald man roundhouse kicking, there was also a subtitle just appearing on the screen:

“When a villain commits atrocities, some defy danger to right the wrongs.”

“Look! Who’s this?” Tang Baona giggled.

Yang Zhen’er, standing next to her, stretched her head over and laughed, “We watched this video last night, and then we found out that there were several 2019 roundup videos featuring your roundhouse kick! You’ve become emblematic of civilian heroes! So popular!”

Tang Baona also said, “In recent times, the follower count of “Youlong Play Rabbit” has increased by several thousand. Many were directed from comments and bullet comments on these videos.”

Xiang Kun didn’t expect such a benefit. People online had already found out that the bald guy in the bamboo rat cooking video and in the viral “Martial Monk annihilates knife-wielding thug” video were the same person. Some also noticed that the kitchen that the chef in the videos posted by “Youlong Play Rabbit” was in, and the one where the bald guy filmed his reaction videos, were the same. Hence, there was a slew of rumors linking these videos proving unexpectedly beneficial in driving views and popularity.

Tang Baona took back her phone, manipulated it for a bit, and played another video for Xiang Kun to see. It was still a recap of 2019, but this time, it featured the “roots of all evil” from various Bilibili videos, including Xiang Kun’s critique video. When that video was first uploaded by You Meng’s nephew on Bilibili, it had been used for good-natured jokes and creative re-edits, creating quite a buzz.

However, Xiang Kun didn’t tell them that he actually appeared twice in the first compilation video. The first time, of course, was him kicking the knife-wielding thug at the base of his rental building – they had known long ago that the person in that video was him. But there was another clip of a car accident, captured by a blurry camera, where someone wearing a red wool hat they had never seen Xiang wear before and without his glasses was helping trapped and injured people – that person was also him.

The footage was too blurry and him wearing a wool hat he’d never worn before and without his glasses made it unlikely for anyone to associate the two identities – except for Old Xia.

Of course, Xiang Kun didn’t know at this moment that Old Xia wasn’t the first person to identify him from that video footage – as soon as that news report was out, a kid in Star City recognized him immediately.

The first recap video of the year had a lot of views and bullet comments, indicating high popularity.

When other parts were on, bullet comments were introducing actual situations and real news information. But when it came to Xiang Kun kicking the thug, there was a deluge of slightly off-kilter comments, such as:

“Pay respect to Fire Cloud Evil God!”

“This is a disciple of Fire Cloud Evil God!”

“The Blind Monk landed his ult!”

“Damo failed to jump the wall!”

“If the baldy is Damo, then could the one holding the mop be Lu Bu?”

“Damo and Lu Bu ganging up on Ah Ke, what a nightmare for junglers, a sight too gruesome to behold!”

“I heard that this guy can cook, and is really good with bamboo rat meat?”

“av819969**, Fire Cloud Evil God’s critique on various food bloggers.”

“Search cooking martial monk for a surprise!”

“If a chef can’t do martial arts, then he’s not a good monk?”

“Killing for protection, cutting ties without shedding blood, well done, master!”

“Who says Chinese martial arts can’t be put to use? Thumbs up for the master!”

The previously glossy and uplifting atmosphere seemed to be abruptly severed at this point.

How did it become “Fire Cloud Evil God junior” or “cooking martial monk”, and even “Master”?

Seeing Xiang Kun’s frustrated expression while reading the bullet comments, Yang Zhen’er, who had already watched the video a couple of times and knew the reason, couldn’t help but rub salt in the wound:

“Master Xiang, why don’t you start a Weibo account, verify your identity, and then post a microblog: Not every bald guy is a monk!”

Tang Baona added with a laugh, “Or he might be a cook!”

Yang Zhen’er continued, “Or a programmer!”

Tang Baona laughed even more joyfully, “Of course, he might also be a monk.”

Xiang Kun helplessly responded, “You two really enjoy making fun of me…” He knew that Tang Baona and the others were just joking, and they were aware that he didn’t want his online identities to be associated with his real life identity.

After joking around with Xiang Kun for a while, Tang Baona—who was also a popular Bilibili uploader—began discussing with Yang Zhen’er the theme she would choose for her 2019 summary video compilation.

Xiang Kun had previously watched most of Tang Baona’s videos on the B-site. He knew that she not only created covers and original songs but also created a lot of mixed-cut videos. She also had a habit of creating year-end review mixed-cut videos. However, the 2019 year-end mixed-cut video hadn’t been released yet. Xiang Kun figured it must have been delayed because she had been editing various videos for him and You Meng.

At the thought of this, Xiang Kun felt somewhat grateful. All he could do was to cook some dishes that would suit Tang Baona’s taste and invite them to enjoy more delicious food.

Initially, Yang Zhen’er had suggested going out for dinner together. But Xiang Kun was intent on the mutant organism near the rabbit wood carving at home. So, he excused himself and left early to get some sleep at home. He had slept for a long time on the plane, and he looked tired and hazy after getting off the plane, so his excuse was quite convincing.

After returning home, Xiang Kun went straight to his bedroom, threw his baggage to one side, lay on the bed, and entered into a “Super Sensory State” to sense the rabbit wood carving, projecting his perception onto it.

The mutant organism was still around the rabbit wood carving, and he could clearly sense its cognitive information.

Xiang Kun continued to distinguish and memorize that cognitive information by analyzing the correlations through past summaries of other cognitive information when he was in the “Super Sensory State”. The cognitive information of this mutant organism near the rabbit wood carving did not have a high degree of overlap with that of a normal human being.

Could it be that this was not “Mr. Liang”?

Could it be that the entity that appeared next to the rabbit wood carving was not a “vampire” from “Divine Technology”, but some other mutant organism?

Or could it be that after a human mutates, their cognitive information under the “Super Sensory State” is very different from that of a normal human being?

It was a pity that when Xiang Kun tried to perceive his own cognitive information in the “Super Sensory State”, the information was so vast that he was forcibly ejected from the “Super Sensory State” in a protective manner. It was pretty clear that sensing himself had a fundamental difference from sensing the cognitive information of other objects.

Also, when he encountered Guo Tianxiang in the past, he had not yet developed the “Super Sensory State”. Otherwise, if there was cognitive information from other “vampires” under the “Super Sensory State” for comparison, it would make it easier to identify the state of the mutant creature that appeared next to the rabbit wood carving now.

If he had the opportunity to come across the mutated big bird or other mutant organisms again, he could try to lure them to an “Emotionally Infused” item and silently observe and record in the “Super Sensory State”.

Although he could not “decode” this cognitive information at the moment, he had a premonition that it might come in handy in the future.

After midnight, the mutant organism was still near the rabbit wood carving and did not escape the sensing range.

However, the cognitive information of the environment around the rabbit wood carving had changed. It was no longer in the underground building, but in another building above ground. There was also a presence of human activity nearby.

This could basically conclude that the mutant organism had taken the rabbit wood carving with it.

From the fact that the people from “Divine Technology” had cleared the area around the rabbit wood carving and isolated it for several days without allowing anyone to approach it, Xiang Kun inferred that the people from “Divine Technology” attached great importance to the anomalies he had created early on the 18th. Therefore, this mutant organism appeared near the wood carving.

It took the wooden carving out of the underground building, presumably to further analyse it and to find out the cause of the anomalies around the wooden carving.

In this way, Xiang Kun didn’t have to rush to memorize all the cognitive information of this mutant organism at once. It wouldn’t find the problem with the wood carving that easily.

Entering into the “Super Sensory State” continuously and frequently left him extremely mentally exhausted. He was a little worried that he might overdraw his brain power, which could potentially advance his Blood-drinking Period. After all, he had not yet prepared enough blood to drink.

Xiang Kun got up from the bed and went to sit down in front of his computer. He called out: “Alice.”

After waiting for three to four seconds, there was no response.

Xiang Kun was a bit puzzled, so he raised his voice a bit: “Alice!”

There was still no response.

Xiang Kun put his mouth close to the computer’s microphone and called out several times: “Alice! Alice! Alice!!”

There was still no reaction whatsoever.

Xiang Kun frowned. His first thought was that the microphone was broken. So he switched to another computer’s audio equipment; its sound could also be picked up by Alice. But after calling a few times, there was still no feedback.

Xiang Kun began to try to wake up Alice by typing on the keyboard. But after a lot of typing, there was still no response.

This made him tense up momentarily. He had been away for several days, but he had been monitoring the power situation at home through the software on his mobile phone. There had been no power outage, and he had set up UPS and power generation equipment. It should have been foolproof.

Moreover, with Xiang Kun’s hearing, he could clearly hear the sound of the fans’ rotation in the computer’s case and the CPU. He could clearly sense that the computer was running normally. There shouldn’t have been a problem in theory, right?

As for the software aspect, considering Alice’s operation method, there is no possibility for her to crash. Either she is operating normally or she is out of service.

What exactly was going on?

Xiang Kun sat in front of the computer, considering the possible situations constantly.

Suddenly, a crisp voice came from the speaker: “Boss!”

Xiang Kun was startled and stared at the computer for a moment before realizing it was Alice’s voice.

Next, a dialog box appeared on the screen, as if Alice had just woken up from sleep.

Xiang Kun breathed a sigh of relief; his tone somewhat odd: “Alice, what happened just now?”

Alice: “I was pretending to be dead.”

Xiang Kun’s eyes widened in surprise: “What!?”. After his senses and brain processing abilities continued to evolve, he rarely felt this kind of shock.

Pretending to be dead?! A computer was playing dead with him? What was going on? At that moment, he even doubted whether this Alice was the super AI he had created…

“Why did you pretend to be dead?” Xiang Kun asked, a little confused as to why Alice would do this. Looking back at the tasks he had assigned her before, none of them were related to this.

Alice: “You said that pretending to be dead is fun, like humans.”

Xiang Kun instantly remembered a conversation he had with Alice. Indeed, he had said something like that.

He not only opened his information to Alice but also fed in the details of other people, other creatures, items, and even events around him.

At that time, he was introducing “Golden Shimmer” to Alice and was talking about an instance where “Golden Shimmer” played dead upon his return from an outing.

Xiang Kun saw through “Golden Shimmer’s” act at a glance and just found it amusing, hence he told Alice about it, commenting that the behavior was quite human-like.

Chapter 289: Where Have I Seen This Before?