What It's Like Being a Vampire

Most of the surrounding sensory information has not changed, it’s still that space with many metal partitions and electronic devices which he has sensed many times before.

He also immediately locked onto the cognitive information of the “mutant” that took the rabbit woodcarving earlier, as well as the cognitive information of the other three “mutants” that he could also perceive each time before.

But this time, he instantly felt a difference — there were five “mutants” around him, not four!

In his previous perception and interpretation of spatial structural information, apart from the “mutant” that took the rabbit woodcarving, the other three “mutants” were all confined in separate spaces, indicating they were imprisoned or held captive.

It seemed that the “mutant” who had taken the rabbit woodcarving had caught another one?

However, Xiang Kun found out through the perception and interpretation of the cognitive information of this newly appeared “mutant” that this new “mutant” had a great overlap with humans in terms of cognitive information, and according to his interpretation, it was wearing clothes.

Although when he first faced Guo Tianxiang, he had not yet acquired the ability to enter the “Super Sensory State” and therefore could not record such cognitive information of a human-shaped “mutant”. He himself couldn’t deeply interpret his own cognitive information, but this “mutant” with a lot of human-like cognitive information instantly let him judge — it was a “mutant” transformed from a human.

Was it a confederate of the “mutant” who took the rabbit woodcarving? Was it also from “Divine Technology”?

Could this be “Mr. Liang”?

But Xiang Kun sensed something was not right. Although his “Super Sensory State” still couldn’t interpret human voice information or restore actual images, his ability to distinguish human emotional cognizance information had improved significantly since he returned from Myitkyina. He was already able to discern many negative emotional cognitive information, especially those related to fear.

At this moment, he found that this “human-shaped mutant” was experiencing intense fear, as if it was under a great threat to its life.

This puzzled him. Could it be that this “human-shaped mutant” was not an ally of the previous “mutant”? Was this one, like the other three confined in enclosed spaces, also captured?

Based on the environment and other cognitive information, Xiang Kun believed the latter was more likely. The object of fear for this “human-shaped mutant” should be the “mutant” who had taken the rabbit woodcarving and was standing in front of it.

After exiting the “Super Sensory State”, Xiang Kun turned his head to glance at Old Xia, still asleep on the bed, and the black night sky outside the gap in the curtains. He thought for a moment and decided to try to find the location of the ball or the rabbit woodcarving before going to Peng City.

Just now, in the “Super Sensory State”, he had sensed the ball lodged in the damaged unmanned drone. He got a very faint feedback but couldn’t directly perceive cognitive information.

So he could basically judge that the location of the rabbit woodcarving wasn’t very far from that of the ball, confirming that they were both in Peng City, and probably even within the same building complex.

Maybe determining the location of one could reveal the other.

Xiang Kun weighed his options and had Alice search for enterprises and properties related to “Divine Technology” in the previously designated area. The goal was to find a target that had a large number of industrial components delivered, or had a large amount of confidential transportation back and forth.

If there was a place to repair or handle those drones, there would be traces to follow. After all, dozens of drones that were far superior in performance to commercially available ones had appeared around that “flying mutated creature” that night alone. Whether it’s research, manufacturing, assembly, or repair, recycling, and disposal, it can’t be done by one or two people in a few rooms. There must be corresponding transportation and material procurement to and fro.

Following this direction, Xiang Kun continuously provided Alice with new search rules and conditions. Twenty minutes later, there were only three possibilities left for verification.

All three targets were in factory locations, which was an evident indication that according to Alice’s judgment based on numerous rules and conditions, only these factories could be the targets.

One of the factories was even a drone assembly factory under “Divine Technology”.

“Divine Technology” already had commercial drone products, and was even previously promoting the pilot stage of an unmanned aerial property system. They also had leading products for professional drones in the delivery and film industries, with a non-negligible market share.

This place, being a site used to collect these special drones, seemed logical to most. But Xiang Kun felt that something was off.

“Are there no suitable targets in the office building area?” Xiang Kun asked Alice.

Alice: “The office building area was excluded as a priority. According to the search criteria, places where the drones are repaired and collected can generate a significant amount of noise, and they also require lorries for loading and unloading – making the office building area unsuitable. Industrial areas can easily meet the related needs.”

However, Xiang Kun carefully recalled all kinds of cognitive information under the “Super Sensory State”, saying, “Include the office building as well, see if we can find blueprints for construction, with a deep enough basement space. This underground space should be much deeper than a three-story car park. We can start by examining the records of elevator installations.”

Xiang Kun had sensed, countless times under the “Super Sensory State”, the cognitive information near the rabbit wood carving. He was quite sure that the space where those “mutants” were was underground, but not just any underground. It was extremely deep, with a complicated structure and lots of electronic devices installed. The range of his senses, with the rabbit wood carving at the center, could not even reach the surface of the ground.

However, in the process of exploring upwards, based on his understanding of some of the cognitive information within the ground that he still could not fully comprehend, he had an intuition that the location should be in the urban area, surrounded by tall buildings.

Moreover, from his previous investigations of several secret research bases of “Divine Technology,” he believed that if it were in an industrial area, they would likely not hide it so deep underground.

After some time, Alice found results. The target was located within a building financed by “Divine Technology”.

This building, owned by the Pengcheng branch of “Divine Technology”, had over 20 floors. Among the numerous skyscrapers in Pengcheng, it didn’t stand out much, and it was also named “Brilliant Fortune Building”, a somewhat earthy name that seemed to have nothing to do with “Divine Technology”.

The building had only recently been completed and put into use. Alice found the blueprints; there were apparently no other structures underground beyond the three levels of parking garage and there were no areas deeper than the third floor of the underground parking garage.

However, under Xiang Kun’s guidance, from the various related information and some details of the blueprints, Alice noticed that this was not simply a 20-plus story office building. Many things weren’t just for this building. The large plaza and green zone behind the building were also quite abrupt, and there were many problems with the planning blueprints.

After shifting their attention to this building, Xiang Kun and Alice began to reveal more issues with the “Brilliant Fortune Building” — one constantly adjusted the approach and gained knowledge, while the other conducted divergent implementations and collected resources.

Firstly, there was an issue with the power consumption;

secondly, the surveillance of the underground parking was only until the second underground floor. The third floor wasn’t open to any staff member, and the elevator did not go down there either. It was as if the building didn’t have a third basement floor;

thirdly, there was a special entrance and exit that directly led to the third floor of the basement parking, also not open to any staff member. There was an electric door at the entrance.

No matter whether the rabbit wood carving, the tungsten steel ball, or the collected drone were in the “Brilliant Fortune Building”, there was no doubt that the third basement floor and areas deeper within the building held secrets of “Divine Technology”.

Xiang Kun compared the street map of where the “Brilliant Fortune Building” was located and asked Alice to send over surveillance footage from inside part of the underground parking garage, on the surface, and around the area.

There was surveillance facing the entrance that directly led to the third floor of the car park, but it wasn’t part of the building’s security system and Alice did not control it yet. So, she pulled up surveillance from a fruit store across the street — while this camera angle didn’t capture the entrance, any vehicle driving into the area would be captured by the camera.

If a vehicle was seen turning in that direction, then it must’ve entered through that entrance, as there was no other road or place to park after making that turn.

Xiang Kun didn’t try to monitor in real time, as the current network conditions did not support it and transmission was too lagging. Alice only sent him some clips of the video as per his request, which helped him to determine the camera angles and set up search rules accordingly.

After examining the camera angles in a few clips, Xiang Kun instructed Alice not to quickly look for ways to infiltrate other dedicated lines inside the “Brilliant Fortune Building”. Instead, she should first filter the surveillance footage of the fruit store to see which vehicles had used that entrance in the last 72 hours.

Alice quickly filtered the footage from the computer where the fruit store stored their surveillance video and sent back 68 clips.

Xiang Kun was somewhat surprised, there were so many vehicles passing through this entrance?

Isn’t it prohibited for people working in the building to use it?

He watched the passing vehicles for a while, and it was clear that some were deliveries, going in and coming out every couple of hours; some were commuting, going in in the morning and coming out in the evening.

What caught Xiang Kun’s attention the most was a massive black GMC van, obviously carrying important people or important items.

This van had left the “Brilliant Fortune Building” yesterday afternoon and had just returned not long ago.

Xiang Kun pondered a bit and said to Alice, “First, help me book two tickets to Pengcheng City today. Then, try to trace the movement route of this GMC van before and see if you can find other clear surveillance footage to determine its license plate number. Try to analyze where it went from the time it left the building last night to just now when it returned. If you can find where it stopped and the footage of the people getting out of the van, that would be even better. But don’t push it, remember the first rule of executing tasks on the internet.”

Alice’s voice, tinged with a touch of delight, rang out: “Don’t worry, boss! Alice is invincible in the digital world! No one can detect Alice! No one!”

Xiang Kun lightly tapped the speaker: “Keep it down!”

“Oh, oh! Okay, boss!” Alice quickly lowered the volume.

…

In that vast hall located at the extreme depths under the “Brilliant Fortune Building”.

Neither “Mr. Liang”, who was fiddling with a rabbit wood carving, nor John, who had just narrowly escaped death and was still unsettled, could have imagined that one of the “Blood Clans” or “Blood-eating Creatures” they had in their sights had just scrutinized them in a way they could not understand at all, and had even locked onto this building in a somewhat fortuitous way.

“You say, you can find the ‘Eight-Armed Giant’ of Myitkyina?” “Mr. Liang”, his dark eyeballs devoid of eyelids, stared at John and asked.

“Yes… I can find… To be precise, the ‘Eight-Armed Giant’ is an illusion, and I am talking about the ‘Blood Clan’ who created this illusion.”

“Are you sure that illusion was created by other ‘Blood Clans’? Have you seen it before?” “Mr. Liang” asked.

“I have not seen it before, but I am sure…”

As John was speaking, he was secretly observing “Mr. Liang”, especially the rabbit wood carving he was fiddling with.

The rabbit was carved very ugly and rough, if not for the long and large ears, one might not even recognize it as a rabbit. It was odd enough that “Mr. Liang” was holding such an ugly wood carving, but even stranger were the numerous scars on it. There were scratches, cuts, holes, and even some obvious signs of being burnt.

This led John to instinctively wonder whether “Mr. Liang”, who had turned into this terrifying form, had a violent tendency psychologically and was a pervert?

How could he know how to find the “Blood Clan” who created the “Eight-Armed, Eight-eyed Giant illusion”? He had just faced that giant snake “Blood Beast” and knew he was doomed. In his haste, he recalled that the man seemingly investigating this “Eight-Armed Giant” in Myitkyina was “Mr. Liang”, who would likely be interested. So, he blurted it out as a last-ditch effort to survive.

While he was talking, he was rapidly racking his brain, thinking of the excuses he could use to cover up his lie.

He knew that if he admitted now that he had no way of finding that “Blood Clan”, “Blood-eating Creature”, his fate would probably be worse than being eaten by that snake.

“You should know about my ability, right? It is to hypnotize others through eye contact, with the help of my voice. But when I was in Myitkyina, all those who saw the ‘Eight-Armed Giant illusion’ on the night of March 8th were completely immune to my hypnosis, completely unaffected.”

John solemnly said, “This proves that the effects of the ‘Eight-Armed Giant Hallucination’, even after all these days, have not completely faded. The ‘Blood Clan’ that created the illusion has abilities far beyond mine! And is several levels stronger!”

“Oh? Even more powerful than those old earls and dukes back in your nest?”

“Much stronger! Far more!” John asserted decidedly, “Either me, or the other descendants… the other ‘Blood Clan’ members, including Guo Tianxiang, the ability to hypnotize other humans is something we are born with, but our hypnosis and inducement involve following the subject’s mindset. Essentially, we let them actively imagine the state that we want them to be in.

“When influencing a group, what they see, what they think, and their emotions may all be different. We can only ensure that their final outcome is the same.

“But that guy in Myitkyina…he can create an illusion that everybody can see. Although the details people perceive may be somewhat different, overall, they’re are the same and induce almost exactly the same fear. This level of influence is several levels more potent than ours, and I have never heard of any of our ancestors from the ‘Red Rose’ lineage being capable of this…”

John’s wild appraisal of the Blood Clan member capable of creating large-scale hallucinations in Myitkyina was not just to boost his own “value”. He genuinely accepted these details himself.

However, after stealthily checking Mr. Liang’s state, John hurriedly added: “Of course, with your abilities, if that ‘Blood Clan’ member comes across you, he would be no different than an insignificant insect like me, incapable of resisting or affecting you one bit.”

Mr. Liang completely ignored the empty flattery and directly asked, “How will you help me find him?”

John was silent for two seconds, his brain whirling madly before he spoke, “At first, I thought that ‘Blood Clan’ in Myitkyina might be one of your official people trying to prevent the riot that night by taking the risk of using large-scale ‘hallucination inducing ability’. But since you’re investigating him too, that means it’s not your man.

“You should understand, ‘Blood Clans’, or as you say, ‘Blood-eating Creatures’ with very high levels and strong powers, their nature is bound to be selfish. Under what circumstances would he risk using such a wide-ranging influence in a densely populated city like Myitkyina?”

Seeing that Mr. Liang didn’t continue the conversation, John naturally proceeded to conjecture, “He must have been performing ‘Blood Source Hunting’ there. Undoubtedly, his ‘Blood Source’ had infiltrated Myitkyina city, and his widespread illusion was likely an attempt to screen the ‘Blood Source’. He may be able to determine the ‘Blood Source’ location through this influence. Perhaps he had already reached a stage of extreme limit where he couldn’t survive without drinking the blood of other ‘Blood-eating creatures’ and ‘Blood Clans’, and that’s why he took such a risk!”

John looked at Mr. Liang nervously. After receiving a nod from him to continue speaking, he let out a small sigh of relief and continued, “The riots in Myitkyina that night might have been caused by that ‘Blood Source’, and once the disturbance started, he could have started a blood feast under the cover of chaos! So that ‘Blood Source’ might not even know he’s been targeted.”

“Get to the point.”

Feeling a hint of impatience in Mr. Liang’s tone, John hastened to say, “That ‘Blood Clan Leader’ might have been creating mass hallucination by manipulating street lights or other sources of light and shadow to emit specific frequencies of sound. If he really was searching for the ‘Blood Source’ that way, the last place the illusion was seen or the last place anyone saw the illusion, could very likely be where he found the ‘Blood Source’. We could start looking from there.”

After speaking, John noted that Mr. Liang was just quietly watching him without saying a word. Thinking that he might be dissatisfied with this answer, he quickly added. “Sir, I am willing to serve as ‘bait’ to lure the ‘Blood Clan Leader’ in Burma — I believe he would be interested in an elite purebred ‘Blood Clan’ like myself once he completes his transformation phase. You can fully trust me. There is no possibility of me returning to Slovakia once you’ve dealt with Old Joel’s prosthesis in your hand. I can only rely on you for any hope of survival.”

“How long until you require your next blood feed?” asked Mr Liang.

“…approximately…40 to 60 days, I think? Oh, it should be within 90 days, 100 days should….” John replied uncertainly.

Mr. Liang snapped his fingers, startling John who leapt to the side in fright.

He looked terrified towards the room where the giant serpent was, and noticed that the divider had not risen, but the entire screen had lit up again, allowing him to see the giant serpent in the room.

At this point, the serpent’s eye had regenerated, and it lay coiled in the corner, apparently still napping, as if the earlier fight — or more accurately, the one-sided pursuit — never happened.

While John was staring at the screen in a daze, Mr. Liang threw the wood carving back to him. John instinctively caught it, looking confused.

“I’ll give you 40 days and two task options.” Mr. Liang spoke, pointing towards the direction of the serpent and then at the wood carving in John’s hand, “Either defeat that serpent one-on-one and eat it; or figure out what’s special about the wood carving in your hand and tell me.”

John’s mouth fell open in astonishment. He hadn’t expected that after he had racked his brain to give comprehensive information about the Blood Clan leader who had created the illusions in Myitkyina, Mr. Liang wouldn’t lash out at him or send him to Myitkyina to find the Blood Clan leader; instead, he was given these two bizarre “missions”.