What It's Like Being a Vampire

However, after adjusting her position, Xia Libing felt that the front camera of the laptop alone couldn’t capture her facial expressions fully; it lacked a three-dimensional and comprehensive perspective.

So she brought over a cardboard box and a few thick books, propped up her mobile phone at a suitable filming angle, and started recording. She then sat back in front of the computer to watch the video with Xiang Kun.

As the video continued to play, Xiang Kun initially focused his attention on Old Xia. However, the funny thing about humor is that even if you’re not fully focused, as long as you know what it’s about, and it triggers your funny bone, you can still be amused and quickly get into the mood.

This time, the “Emotional Assimilation” takes much longer than before, running through the entire collection of automatic play list before coming to a halt.

Disconnecting from the emotions, Xia Libing rubbed her cheeks and wiped the fine sweat beads that emerged on her forehead. This time, however, she didn’t cry.

While Xia Libing was checking the recorded video, Xiang Kun was mentally comparing the sensory information of Old Xia’s body during the two instances of “Emotional Assimilation”.

Although he wouldn’t pay attention to Old Xia’s status when entering “Emotional Assimilation”, the continuous collection of sensory information around him had become his sensory instinct and brain instinct. Xia Libing was sitting beside him all the while, and all kinds of sensory information were impossible to ignore.

Whether it was based on rhythm of breath, heartbeat rate, smell secretion, or other physiological information, Xiang Kun made the same judgement — the bodily reaction patterns of Xia Libing during the two experiences of “Emotional Assimilation” affected by him were mostly consistent, but the intensity of the reactions was significantly different. The first time was much more intense.

Logically, this doesn’t make sense because during the “Emotional Assimilation”, the targeted individual is directly influenced by Xiang Kun’s emotional assimilation, equivalent to directly copying his emotional pattern. Therefore, the intensity of the emotion should be directly linked to his emotions.

However, the emotions during those two times watching the video were basically the same, weren’t they?

In other words, the intense part of Old Xia’s emotional feedback after being “Emotionally Assimilated” by him for the first time today, which exceeded the second “Emotional Assimilation”, should be her own emotions?

Perhaps, feeling the kind of “too funny”, “too hilarious” joy for the first time caused a natural physiological reaction in the body, similar to the type of feedback during touching or exciting moments. However, Old Xia herself couldn’t be aware of this.

Xiang Kun shared his guess with Old Xia.

While Old Xia, who was checking the videos recorded by her notebook and mobile phone, thought for a few seconds, but didn’t give her opinion.

Obviously, she wasn’t entirely sure why she reacted the way she did.

Xiang Kun leaning next to Old Xia, watching his ridiculous smiling face in the playback video, and the occasional funny laughter, couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

However, compared to his own, Old Xia’s performance in the video caught his attention even more. The wide-mouthed laughing figure, in sync with his own frequency, naturally seemed much more adorable than him.

Adorableness aside, the laughing Old Xia in the video, rocking back and forth in rhythm with him, a variety of laughter sounds, looking like an uncouth ponytailed beauty, strangely made him feel somewhat unfamiliar, not like the Old Xia he knew.

Turning his head to look at the “Real Xia” beside him, with a cool expression, slightly upturned corners of the mouth, a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, and slightly squinted eyes, he finally felt a bit settled — this was the Old Xia he was familiar with.

The Old Xia in the video…seemed too normal, so normal that he barely recognized her.

But he also understood that the overly “lively” and “natural” Old Xia greatly differed from the cognitive model he had formed about Xia, hence the illusion.

If Old Xia gradually discovered her ability of emotional perception and began expressing emotions normally, Xiang Kun thought he could quickly update his cognitive model and accept the “New Xia”.

As for now… Xiang Kun notices not only himself, but also the current Old Xia watching the video, seemed to find that it’s strange.

Xia Libing constantly presses the “←” key to rewind and watch her “giggle” segments in the videos. She even zoomed in the footage, slowly playing it back to carefully observe her expressions, and then… she started to mimic.

Yes, Old Xia was mimicking the expressions of her own in the video, learning to laugh the way she did on the footage.

“Ha ha… hey!… ha!…” Old Xia not only mimicked the expressions but also copied the laughter.

Honestly speaking, Old Xia’s imitation was very lifelike, only some very subtle differences could be noticed from the change of expressions.

Of course, whereas others wouldn’t be able to discern, Xiang Kun could still tell if a person is really laughing or deliberately controlling a smile. Using his superior vision, he was able to discern the skin and muscles on the face, not to mention he could also make judgments based on other sensory information like heartbeats and breathing.

Seeing Old Xia retrieve her notebook, which recorded more than 900 behavior mode rules, and seemed to want to record the new summarized response method of “joyful, funny, happy”, Xiang Kun couldn’t hold back anymore and held the notebook that Old Xia had opened.

Looking at each other, Xiang Kun could see that Old Xia was also disrupted from her original thinking pattern and habitual behavior by the two “Emotional Assimilations”.

According to Xiang Kun’s cognitive model of Old Xia, after just experiencing the two “Emotional Assimilations”, she should first discuss the specific emotional perception with Xiang Kun, who was the “origin of emotion”, then try to recall and rebuild the emotional cognition by rewinding the comedy videos.

It seemed that the experience of the two emotions made Old Xia eager to “preserve” that kind of emotional perception, which was why she was so eager to mimic and record it.

Clearly, the consecutive two “Emotional Assimilations” of the same type did have some lasting effects on Old Xia, which, from another point of view… might have achieved their original experimental goal to some extent?

“Old Xia, why are we conducting the ‘Emotional Assimilation’ experiment?”

As Xiang Kun spoke, without waiting for Old Xia to answer, he continued: “The purpose of this experiment is, firstly, to let you experience the emotions of happiness and joy, and secondly, to find a method for you to perceive emotions independently.

“Emotions… or sentiments, can’t be mimicked.” Xiang Kun pointed at his heart and said: “What needs to be practiced is not expression, but perception.

“During these two Emotional Assimilations, what you have experienced are my feelings, my emotions and sentiments.

“You should use the feelings during ‘Emotional Assimilation’ as seeds, try to grow your own emotions and sentiments.”

After Xiang Kun finished speaking, he saw Xia Libing thoughtfully nodding her head and putting away her notebook. He also breathed a sigh of relief.

In fact, he hadn’t planned to say so much in such detail. Because he knew that Old Xia was a very assertive person with her own ideas, she had her own plans and logic in the way she did things, her own behavior patterns and ways of thinking.

However, based on Old Xia’s reaction just now, Xiang Kun decided that he had to make decisions and direct in this matter — because Old Xia had no experience whatsoever in this aspect.