What It's Like Being a Vampire

After listening for a while, she knew her daughter was using QQ video to ask someone about her drawing problem. As for whom she was consulting, Shiling’s Mom had asked her before. She said it was a “pretty sister” found by “Uncle Bald” to teach her.

Not only that, but Xiang Kun also sent Shiling a lot of online videos teaching children how to draw, all of which she could view and learn directly on the iPad.

Shiling’s Mom watched those videos and found them to be of high quality. Apart from not being able to provide hands-on instruction, the quality of the drawing teaching should not be worse than that of paid classes or hired teachers.

Recently, her daughter often chatted with people via QQ on her iPad. She knew it was with Xiang Kun, and a girl called “grilled chicken wing sister” by her daughter. From yesterday, she started to learn drawing from another girl called “pretty sister”.

She had secretly checked part of her daughter’s voice chat records. She admired the patience of Xiang Kun and “grilled chicken wing sister”. It was incredible how seriously they answered her daughter’s absurd and childish questions, engaged in such imaginative and irrelevant topic discussions, and even managed to steer her interest towards studying and scientific knowledge through these topics!

Shiling’s Mom felt that even normal kindergarten teachers, let alone she herself, would inevitably want to pull her daughter back to reality after humoring her descriptions of various kinds of magic and control for a while.

Shiling’s Mom heartily appreciated Xiang Kun and found it amazing that birds of a feather do indeed flock together – Xiang Kun’s friends were as patient as he was, treating Shiling so well.

Before long, Shiling finished her drawing study and video call, left her room to wash up and prepared to go to bed.

Shiling’s Mom then entered her daughter’s room and looked at her drawings.

Looking at the little duck with several pairs of wings and a cluster of eyes on its belly, Shiling’s Mom couldn’t help but chuckle. Luckily Xiang Kun’s friend was the one teaching and not a teacher from an outside art class, otherwise, they would probably be driven mad by this drawing.

She also checked the revised picture sent via the iPad and discovered, to her surprise, that it harmonized the multiple wings of the little duck and made the eyes on its belly even more realistic.

Clearly, rather than forcing Shiling to “correct” her drawing, the girl so-called “pretty sister” chose to guide according to Shiling’s unique “style”, presumably to avoid discouraging her enthusiasm.

Shiling’s Mom was touched and felt it necessary to add this “pretty sister” on QQ to thank her.

She again looked through Shiling’s thick stack of practice “drawings”. Most of them were simple animals drawn based on the videos sent by Xiang Kun and the sample pictures sent by “pretty sister”, although there were plenty of “modified” versions.

However, some drawings were much more complex and imaginative. These were obviously Shiling’s own “creations”.

Among these, the most frequently drawn was a giant with eight arms and eight eyes, clad in rudimentary armor, with each hand holding utensils such as forks, spatulas, and so on.

There was also a large cat with several pairs of wings, numerous pairs of eyes, and even a butt full of eyes.

From the cat’s orange fur, Shiling’s Mom guessed it was depicting “Custard Pie”, but she wasn’t sure what the eight-armed, eight-eyed human was meant to be. Judging from the various items in its hands, was it some sort of chef deity? Was it a “modified” version of Xiang Kun?

She didn’t connect this eight-armed eight-eyed figure with the shadow that someone had photographed in their community early in the morning, because the visual differences were simply too stark.

“Mom, why are you sneaking a peek at my drawings?” Shiling, who had just finished washing up, suddenly approached and looked up at the drawing in her mom’s hands.

Shiling’s Mom jumped with fright. However, she quickly regained her composure and said, “It’s natural for a mom to look at her daughter’s drawings. How can it be called sneaking a peek? Shiling, what is this you’ve drawn?”

Shiling thought for a while, considering that it wouldn’t violate her “confidentiality agreement” with Uncle Bald, before saying, “It’s a ‘Barbie Warrior’.”

“Oh, is the ‘Barbie Warrior’ the Great Demon King? The opposite of a ‘Barbie Doll’? If you defeat it, will it drop a lot of delicious food?” Shiling’s mom teased.

“No, it’s a friend, a helper, just like the ‘Custard Pie’!” Liu Shiling earnestly said.

“Is that so?” Shiling’s Mom nodded and added, “I should still enroll you in a painting class. You can learn the basics from the instructor there, and then let the ‘beautiful sisters’ guide you. It’s not good to bother them too much by monopolizing their time.” After realizing her daughter really wanted to learn to paint, she was determined to spend money on a interest class, even though they were currently facing some economic issues.

Liu Shiling shook her head: “No need, Mom. Uncle Bald said he would help arrange a study plan for me. I just need to follow his plan.”

“Is that so…” Shiling’s Mom didn’t say much else. She knew that in her daughter’s eyes, Xiang Kun’s words carried a lot of weight. She also believed that the plan Xiang Kun would make must be good.

After tucking her daughter into bed and saying goodnight, Shiling’s Mom looked at “Custard Pie” snoozing on the corner sofa cushion. She attempted to pick it up to stroke it while watching TV in the living room; however, “Custard Pie” wriggled out of her arms and escaped.

Shiling’s Mom didn’t get angry; she knew “Custard Pie’s” style too well. Aside from her daughter, it was very difficult for others to hold or stroke it.

She depended on her daughter’s popularity to make “Custard Pie” behave obediently in “specific moments.”

Shiling’s Mom took out a piece of salmon jerky from the living room and squatted in front of “Custard Pie” with jerky in her right hand and reaching out with her left hand to the cat.

“Custard Pie” glanced at the jerky and obediently snuggled into Shiling’s Mom’s bosom, letting her hold it. The so-called “specific moments” were when she had something tasty to offer.

However, when other people came to the house, like Xiao Mei and her mother, even if they brought tasty treats, “Custard Pie” would completely ignore them.

Xiao Mei’s mom didn’t find this surprising at all. Back when “Custard Pie” was a stray, many people “coveted” this beautiful cat and tried to “lure” it home with food, but it never cared.

Until it voluntarily ran to Liu Shiling’s house, everyone thought it was a cat that was afraid of humans.

Earlier, when Xiang Kun, Tang Baona, Yang Zhen’er, and Little Fatty Girl were having their painting teaching session via video call, Mr. Feng was also video-calling his daughter and son-in-law.

“Dad, you’ve met that friend Nana introduced, right?” The person asking was Tang Baona’s mother.

She and her husband had heard from their eldest daughter a while ago that their youngest daughter was set up by Wang Han’s husband, who introduced his university roommate to her for a blind date in July.

Both of them naturally questioned their eldest daughter privately about it, but Baoting initially said there was no chance, later claimed the progression seemed fine, but never specified how it was going.

Though they were both very laissez-faire about their daughters’ marriages, and respected their daughters’ choices, now that they knew there was a potential suitor, and that it seems to be going well, they naturally couldn’t help but be interested and concerned.

Especially Mrs. Tang, since their eldest daughter was already engaged; her life was practically settled. Naturally, she couldn’t help but start thinking about her youngest daughter’s love life.

However, the parents knew their daughter’s personality well and never directly questioned her, choosing to inquire secretly through Baoting instead.

Knowing that her father was going to have dinner with Xiang Kun today, Mrs. Tang also wanted to go. However, with persuasion from Mr. Tang and Baoting, she didn’t. After knowing that the children had already left, she couldn’t help but video call her father to see what he thought of Xiang Kun.

Mr. Feng chuckled, “He’s quite a good boy; he’s tall, spiritual, and a sturdy lad. Other than being bald, there’s really nothing to pick at, haha.”

“What about his character? How is his personality?” Mrs. Tang further questioned.

She had previously seen photos of Xiang Kun from Baoting. Compared to appearance, she was more interested in his inner character.

“Although it was only one night and a meal, she knew that her father was quite discerning when it came to judging people. It was enough for him to get a general impression of someone.

Mr. Feng continued on with his thoughts, “From my contact with him tonight, he seemed to be a very down-to-earth young man. He’s not the kind of person who tends to exaggerate or boasts, to the point of being overly modest. When chatting with me about woodcarving, his knowledge of various techniques, history, and classification are all very clear. Some things that I don’t remember very well, he could talk about them in great detail. This is not something one can achieve without having a long immersion in this field and investing great energy. Adding to this, the woodcarvings he makes indicate that he invested a lot of effort in mastering his carving skills, which is something that not every young person is patient enough to achieve. Most importantly, when he was talking about these things with me, he didn’t seem proud or showy at all. Instead, he could accurately point out the problems and deficiencies. This is really rare to see.”

Mr. Tang grew curious, “According to Tingting, isn’t this Mr. Xiang a programmer? And they are currently developing a game, aren’t they? He actually has the time to do woodcarving and is also very skilled?”

Mr. Feng continued to praise, “The rare thing is that, seemingly insignificant, we can infer that Xiang Kun is a determined and focused individual. What’s more, he is also great at cooking. I tasted the braised rabbit he made himself tonight, it was indeed delicious, quite impressive, tasty. It was not exaggerated when the girl from the Yang family said that he was at ‘chef’ level.”

Mrs. Tang also nodded, “Cooking is indeed a good skill, being able to cook is a good thing. Although Nana is quite industrious, she really has no talent for cooking.”

Mr. Feng said: “All in all, I think he’s quite good. From the way he talks and works, I see him as someone who can get things done and live a good life.”

Mrs. Tang said: “I’ll have Nana invite Xiang Kun home for a visit when she gets a chance. We can tell him that her dad and I also want to have a taste of Xiang Kun’s cooking skills.”

Mr. Tang chuckled, “Indeed, based on dad’s description, I am also quite interested in that rabbit meat.”

When Xiang Kun left Tang Baona’s home, it was already past 11 o’clock, so he did not ask Yang Zhen Er to drive him home, instead, he called a cab himself.

On his way home, he tried to contact Old Xia via WeChat, but receiving no reply, he knew Old Xia was already asleep.

He didn’t wish to wake Old Xia, so he began to contemplate the information he had obtained from Mr. Feng tonight.

Since his mutation, Xiang Kun had been pondering a question: why aren’t there any “mutants” or “real vampires” information online?

At first, he thought it was because there were too few “vampires”, or perhaps he was the “only” “vampire” and the first mutated human, so there was no real related information.

But as he later came into contact with various “mutants”, discovered “Divine Technology”, and learned about what Mijoe, Fang Pingfang, and others were doing, he realized that it was “Divine Technology” that was deliberately blocking and downplaying information related to “vampires” and “mutants” on the internet.

However, there is another issue: in principle, “Divine Technology” simply can’t completely block everything.

Even with official help, and official inspiration and permission, “Divine Technology” can’t accomplish it.

Because this mutation did not only happen in one country or one species, it bloomed fully and the timing and location of its emergence are hard to determine.

Theoretically, someone somewhere in the world should have discovered a “mutant” by now and spread the news on the Internet before getting “controlled”. By now, it should have been well-known and shocked the world.

Not to mention a single “Divine Technology”, even the official from a single country or collaboration from many countries would find it hard to completely control this news.

Furthermore, what’s the purpose of controlling this news?

Does it want to monopolize the technological advancement and research achievements that the “mutant” might bring?

But what puzzles him is that the secret department of “Divine Technology”, people like Fang Pingfang, Zhou Rui who are directly instructed to investigate “mutants”, and even directly found “mutants”, and saw “mutant” related video materials, the “mutant” related information they have is still very little. It seems that the people behind “Divine Technology” deliberately left them ” groping in the dark”?

Xiang Kun started to analyze some of the real “rumors” he knew, such as the “fishing answer” Guo Tianxiang let Mijoe post on Zhihu; the “horned wolf” that his old classmate Xie Jun encountered while testing a car in the forest; the video of the abnormal wild boar corpse posted by the host who was killed in the Qinling Uninhabited Area; the relevant news and messages on the Internet when the “mutated big bird” and “mutated ant” in the Wushu Mountain Scenic Area collided with tourists causing a cliff fall accident.”

Some of this information would seem fake to the average person, while some would seem a bit peculiar but not beyond comprehension.

Divine Technology’s approach to dealing with this information was to either try to erase it directly or to mislead people, muddying the waters to create doubt about its authenticity.

There were just far too many unreliable rumors on the internet; without solid evidence or further visual materials to prove it, it’s impossible to get too many people to pay further attention, let alone create a hot topic.

Just like when he had earlier learned from Little Fatty Girl that someone had captured a photo of the eight-armed monster she had constructed out of fine particles, after which Alice had searched the internet for related information. She discovered that this “Mr. Li” from Little Fatty Girl’s residential community had used a blurred image as a selling point and then vigorously promoted the idea that it was some sort of monster or entity from another dimension appearing outside their community.

Though it did attract some attention, the majority of internet users were merely curious bystanders not taking it seriously. In fact, many thought the image had been tampered with.

Alice even found related “scientific threads” on Douban, Zhihu, and Weibo, offering various seemingly scientific and logical analyses of that blurred photo, proving that the many-tentacled grey shadow was actually just dirt on the lens.

If Xiang Kun hadn’t known that it was indeed the “eight-armed monster” constructed by Little Fatty Girl, he would have thought the image was fake as well.

That “Mr. Li’s” live-stream, relying solely on that blurry image, naturally couldn’t maintain its hype for very long. When he actually started faking in his live-streams by hiring people to put on supernatural performances in their community, it only led to even harsher backlash.

So Xiang Kun had not asked Alice to do anything at all, because, as things were going, either “Mr. Li” would be ridiculed into ending his broadcast by netizens, or he would be shut down by the authorities and asked for a talk.

No one would ever know what the object in the photo truly was, much less make any connection to Little Fatty Girl.

Perhaps just like these examples, there were indeed pieces of information about “mutants” or other strange phenomena on the internet, but had been distorted intentionally or unintentionally by all sorts of other information?

If a “Vampire” like himself were to make a self-exposure video, or if others who had captured “mutants” put a video of a “mutant” on the internet.

Then, according to his inference, “Divine Technology” would first try to control him, erase his video while releasing more fabricated videos and information – all in a bid to confuse the public and lead them to believe that the videos and information are fake.

However, this was only Xiang Kun’s speculation. Perhaps he could have Alice search the internet again using broader criteria to see if there were any “real gems” buried among the numerous “dust clouds”.

But there remained one big question Xiang Kun couldn’t quite understand. This kind of information control was not something a single company, a single nation, or even several nations could achieve.

It was very difficult to completely block this sort of news across the entire world, across all living organisms.

If it was only for the sake of scientific research confidentiality, each country, institution, or company would only keep the “mutants” they control and grasp confidential. There is no reason to keep it confidential for other countries, and they might even deliberately reveal “mutants” from other countries or other regions.

There had to be some reason that all countries had come to an implicit agreement and understanding.

Perhaps it was that very reason why officials silently approved Divine Technology’s investigation into information on “mutants” and allowed “Divine Technology” to control at least four “mutants”.

What could that reason be?

Could it be related to the research findings they obtained from the “mutants”?

After returning home, Xiang Kun shared all the known information with Alice and then had her simulate and infer based on this known information.

To establish a model to see what preconditions might lead to the present results.