What It's Like Being a Vampire

Before attempting to sense the “Emotion Infused” chopsticks at Liu Shiling’s place, Xiang Kun had made various predictions about the possible results of the sensing process.

In his view, the possibility of merging dreamscapes or the consciousness of other dream masters descending into Old Xia’s dreamscape was actually quite small.

It sounds like you come to my dream, I go to your dream, as if it’s as simple as me visiting your house and you coming to mine – like just popping in for a visit.

But having sensed many different people’s different dreams through “Emotion Infused Objects” and having entered a “Super Sensory State” in a dream with the help of black circle graffiti, Xiang Kun was very clear that connections between dreamscapes and consciousnesses were far from being this simple.

In our real world, everything exists based on the same material foundation, so it’s simple and normal for different people or objects to intersect with each other – like drawing on the same sheet of paper.

But dreamscapes are different. Every dreamscape is based on an individual’s consciousness.

Each person’s consciousness varies enormously. Their character, experiences, memories, senses, emotions, etc., can greatly influence the dreamscape they construct.

Just like Xiao Pingguo’s dream world is essentially different from others’ dreamscapes – they are two worlds that are hard to reconcile.

For two people to “meet” in a dream, to a certain extent, is akin to two organisms born in different ecological environments and with different foundations visiting each other’s habitat.

In Xiang Kun’s view, when he sensed the “Emotion Infused” chopsticks of the Little Fatty Girl, he most likely switched his senses into her dreamscape.

The current situation is equivalent to two different creatures born from different environments, merging their original ecological environments together to coexist – making do for the sake of coming together.

Observing the dreamscape from an observer’s perspective, Xiang Kun naturally found this “stylistic” image peculiar: on a flattened surface on the peak of a mountain that appeared to have run out of an animation, and not yet fully vectorized, there is a living room with no walls, no roof, but the furniture in the room is perfectly intact, as if this wall-less living room was just Photoshopped into the entire world, looking very abrupt.

As an “observer”, after switching between multiple perceptive angles to perceive the current “combined” dreamscape, Xiang Kun realizes:

This dreamscape should be a special case limited to Old Xia and Liu Shiling.

Old Xia is special, and so is Liu Shiling.

Before he first guided Old Xia into a dream and sensed Old Xia introducing the “Super-connected Objects” projection and turning it into a “lucid dream”, Xiang Kun had already experienced the feeling of switching perspectives in Little Fatty Girl’s dream.

Like Old Xia, Little Fatty Girl’s dream was also supported by “Super-connected Objects projections”.

However, unlike Old Xia, Little Fatty Girl was still dominated by her subconscious in her dream, groggily, even if she successfully projected the “Super-connected Objects” into the dream, it was purely instinctual and subconscious behavior in the dream.

In comparison, Old Xia was making various attempts within the dream, fully conscious.

Despite Old Xia being “awake” and Little Fatty Girl being “groggy”, and even though Old Xia controlled ten “Super-connected Object projections” and Little Fatty Girl only had two, the fusion of the two dreamscapes showed Little Fatty Girl’s dreamscape to be far more “dominant”. It occupied more elements in the combined dreamscape and had greater control over the dreamscape, fully immersed.

Xiang Kun also noticed that after the two dreamscapes merged, the appearance of Little Fatty Girl wasn’t sudden – she directly “replaced” the “Emotion Projected Little Fatty Girl” in Old Xia’s original dreamscape.

This also indirectly indicates that the reason Little Fatty Girl could connect seamlessly into Old Xia’s dreamscape was likely due to the emotions that triggered Old Xia’s dreamscape, which at their core, were sensed and transformed from Little Fatty Girl.

The previously projected Little Fatty Girl was as if the most straightforward interface between the two dreamscapes.

The reason why she and Old Xia, both big and little foodies, could share co-manifested delicacies in the dream was likely directly related to the type of emotions in Old Xia’s dreamscape.

Of course, these are currently just Xiang Kun’s conjectures. Whether or not they are true will need further verification afterward.

After Old Xia and Little Fatty Girl had feasted in the outdoor living room at the top of the mountain for a while, the dreamscape began to collapse and disappear quickly, and Xiang Kun lost his senses of Little Fatty Girl and Old Xia.

In Star City, at Liu Shiling’s house.

Little Fatty Girl suddenly sat up from the bed, mumbling in a daze, “I want to eat more!”

Then she smacked her lips, slowly laid back down, and mumbled, “I want to eat chicken wings… more spicy…”

Throughout the process, her eyes never opened.

In the corner of the room, on a round sofa cushion, a ginger cat named “Custard Pie” was startled awake by the cries of its young owner, sitting up with a bewildered look on its face as it watched its owner’s bed, its ears trembling slightly.

Once the young owner’s mumbling gradually quieted down and the room restored its tranquility, with only the sound of the young owner’s elongated breathing, it slowly went back to sleep, licking its own foot, and continued to nap.

However, only a few seconds later, “Custard Pie”, who had opened its eyes again, leisurely trotted to the bedside, jumped onto Liu Shiling’s bed, found a spot in the corner of the bed, and curled up.

Although this big ginger cat seemed to be stout and big-eared, it was surprisingly light and agile when it moved.

Shiling’s mom, who was still awake in the next room, was also startled by her daughter’s cries, dressing up, putting on her slippers, and coming into the room to check.

Helping her daughter tuck in the blanket that had been half pulled off when she sat up, Shiling’s mom suddenly noticed a pair of eyes in the corner of the bed staring at her eerily, startling her. She automatically stiffened and leaned back slightly, realizing after a couple of seconds that it was the ginger cat tucked into the corner of the bed.

Shiling’s mom frowned, although she had bathed the cat today, she had yet to take it to the pet hospital for vaccinations and deworming, so she preferred not to allow the cat to sleep in her daughter’s room. She had made a temporary little nest for the cat in a cardboard box and bought a cat litter pan, which were meant for the living room, yet her daughter had sneaked the cat into her room in the middle of the night.

Shiling’s mom reached out to hold the cat, but it jumped off the bed on its own and curled up on the sofa cushion in the corner of the room, then lazily looked at her.

Shiling’s mom shook her head and hesitated before deciding not to chase the cat out of her daughter’s room.

Today she sent a picture of the cat to a friend who also owns a cat, the friend told her that this cat looks like it has some British Shorthair bloodline with a hint of Golden Gradual Color and seems to be very well-cared for, it’s probably a pet that got lost.

This kitty, although just taken in by her daughter last night, is extremely affectionate with her daughter and was very well behaved. The cat didn’t even struggle when her daughter bathed it, and it wasn’t even afraid of the hairdryer. This made her think that it has been raised by humans before which would explain why it’s so friendly.

She planned to go back and ask the property management staff of the residential complex to see if anyone in this area had lost a cat. If someone local had indeed lost this cat, she knew she had to return it.

But if the cat’s owners didn’t live nearby, she wouldn’t insist on giving the cat away. Having the cat to keep her daughter company would provide some different kind of fun and hopefully might prevent her from becoming too engrossed in playing with coins and folding origami… right?

Just as she was about to return to her room, Shiling’s mom felt her hand being held. She was frightened, upon turning around, she found her daughter had woken up and was wide-eyed, holding her hand:

“Mom, I’m hungry.”

Shiling’s mom found this strange: “But you ate plenty last night?” Even though her daughter was quite a good eater and was known to love food more than other kids her age, she never woke up in the middle of the night hungry or had a habit of eating late-night snacks.

However, Shiling’s mom eventually said: “Well, I’ll go make you a bowl of cereal with milk then. You go get dressed and come to the living room.”

But little fattie still wouldn’t let go of her hand: “Mom, I want to eat grilled chicken wings…”

“What?”

“Grilled chicken wings, or chicken legs would do…”

Shiling’s mom flicked her daughter’s forehead and scowled, “Grill your head! There’s only cereal, if you don’t want to eat it then go back to sleep!”

After the dreamland had collapsed, Old Xia woke up quickly too.

She was tying up her hair while walking out of her bedroom, speaking to Xiang Kun, who was sitting thoughtfully in the living room: “That little girl in the dream…”

Xiang Kun picked up the conversation, “It’s Liu Shiling, I was the one who pulled her into the dream, or to be more precise, I combined the dreams of you both through sensing ’emotion-infused chopsticks’ on her side. This was my first attempt, but I suspect this is an exception – it shouldn’t be so easy for other people’s dreams to merge.”

Xia Libing nodded, sat across from him, and the next second, a piece of Napoleon cake appeared in front of him.

Old Xia didn’t have to say anything, as Xiang Kun knew what she meant. He picked up the cake from the table, examined it for a while before bringing it to his mouth for a bite.

This time, the cake didn’t vanish. He could clearly feel the texture of the cake, the sweetness of the cream beneath the shattered pastry transmitted clearly to his brain through his taste buds.

Just like the real one.

But Xiang Kun quickly realized that this cake was still distinct from a genuine one.