What It's Like Being a Vampire

This pond was originally owned by someone in the village to raise fish. Liu Caifu took it over, along with a piece of land and a house next to it, planning to set up a family farm attraction.

Of course, even if it was set up before, there wouldn’t be many visitors, it was just planned to serve as a place for old friends from Tongshi Town to entertain themselves. It was used only once or twice a year, neglected in the long run, and naturally deteriorated. Having to have someone clean it up every time made it a hassle to use.

But recently, both Tongshi Town and Chongyun Village have seen a great potential for development. The roads have been repaired, and Liu Caifu has teamed up with Chu Xiuwen to invest more and properly renovate the family farm. Although the design is still in progress and construction hasn’t officially started, it’s already been cleaned and some existing things can be used directly.

It might not yet be suitable for overnight stay, but fishing and cooking are not a problem.

Li Yang and Liu Caifu didn’t participate, but for the remaining six people, one fishing rod per person was enough, and the fish bait was readily available.

However, there were not enough fishing chairs, only two were usable. The others had to bring out chairs from the house next to them. When it came to Xiang Kun, there wasn’t even a chair, only stools, so he simply moved a rock over to sit on.

Yang Zhen’er glanced at Xiang Kun on the opposite side of the pond. He was sitting on a rock under the tree, one hand holding the fishing rod and the other stroking “Shiny” on his thigh, eyes closed, not moving a bit, like he was sleeping.

Not only him, “Shiny”, with his big hand rested on it, also had its eyes closed, as if it was sleeping as well.

“Nana, why does Brother Xiang look like an enlightened monk? Is he dozing off with his eyes closed?” Yang Zhen’er said with a puzzled expression.

Three meters to her right, Tang Baona glanced at Xiang Kun and laughed, “It’s clear that Xiang Kun is preparing for a long battle. Do you think you can win, Zhen’er?”

Before fishing, after Yang Zhen’er confirmed that Xiang Kun was also fishing for the first time, she made a bet with him.

If the fish Xiang Kun catches before 11:30 are less than the total number she and Nana catch, he must stop calling her “Yang Lao San” and owes her three meals. Of course, he cannot call her “Old Three” either.

If Xiang Kun catches more fish than both of them, then Yang Zhen’er needs to wash the dishes and utensils for everyone’s meals for lunch and dinner today and for the whole day tomorrow.

“Nana, just laugh, don’t move the rod in your hand. Your rod is always shaking, how will the fish get hooked? Be serious, our score is combined! This is the war where I bet my ‘real name’!” Yang Zhen’er said unhappily.

Tang Baona held back her laughter and nodded earnestly: “Okay, I will do my best.”

“What’s with ‘Shiny’? Why isn’t it moving? Did it faint?” Yang Zhen’er said, then shouted at Xiao Pingguo on the other side, “Xiao Pingguo, ‘Shiny’ is pinned down by your Uncle Xiang’s Five Finger Mountain and can’t move, aren’t you going to check… it might lose its life!”

Xiao Pingguo just laughed: “No problem, ‘Shiny’ is used to Uncle Xiang, it’s very comfortable.”

Yang Zhen’er fished for a while, but did not see a fish get hooked. Although she was sitting on one of the only two fishing chairs available, which was the most comfortable of all chairs, she was still a bit restless. She twisted her body and wanted to chat with Nana next to her, but was afraid of affecting her fishing and ultimately their combined scores.

After looking around for a while, she suddenly yelled at Xiang Kun across the pond, “Brother Xiang! Shiny is pooping!!”

However, both Xiang Kun and “Shiny” in his hand remained motionless. On the other hand, Tang Boana and Xia Tianhuo next to him were startled, Xia Tianhuo almost threw his fishing rod directly out of his hand.

“Hey! Yang Lao San! What are you screaming about?” Xia Tianhuo said discontentedly, “With your impatience, you are not suitable for fishing at all. You might as well go borrow a net from Director Liu to go catch fish!”

Tang Baona also laughed, “Zhen’er, if you keep making a fuss like this, all the fish in the pond are going to be scared over to Xiang Kun’s side.”

At this point, Yang Zhen’er finally concentrated quietly on the task of fishing.

Of course, Xiang Kun wasn’t sleeping at this time, and the “Shiny” in his hand wasn’t sleeping either.

He was actually just using this gap to enter the “Super Sensory State” and perform a “Super Sensory Transformation” on “Shiny”.

Aside from Old Xia, no one else would know what he was doing while in a daze; they would just think he was dozing off.

Making “Golden Flash” more capable of survival, stealth, and related usage of the “Super Sensory Item System”, so it can better serve as Xiao Pingguo’s “Eye in the Sky”, was something Xiang Kun had been planning for a while. He started with the initial association of “Zero-Zero-One” and “Zero-Zero-Two”, conducted experiments on other secondary associated ant colonies in order to accumulate experience, and find a safer, more effective method to transform “Golden Flash”.

However, after Alice was fully integrated into the “Super Sensory Item System”, not only did Xiao Pingguo gain a true “Sky Eye”, there was no longer any need for a significant “transformation” for “Golden Flash”.

Compared to before, now all that is needed is for “Golden Flash” to have better capability to utilize the “Super Sensory Item System”. It’s more like a “software upgrade” rather than a “hardware transformation”, much less complex and much safer.

A few days ago, Xiang Kun and Old Xia had made two extremely fine ankle rings, in which a total of twenty tungsten steel balls were encased. They had fitted these rings on “Golden Flash” the night before.

So now, Xiang Kun can not only influence “Golden Flash” through the “Super-connected Objects” that he carries, but the twenty “Super-connected Objects” on “Golden Flash”‘s feet can also work. In the future, they will be the main method for “Golden Flash” to deploy abilities.

This kind of transformation cannot be accomplished in one fell swoop. It requires gradual adjustments over time. Fortunately, Xiang Kun has plenty of time to interact with “Golden Flash”, so there is no need to rush.

According to Xiang Kun’s calculations, this “super sensory transformation” is not difficult; it should not pose any problems.

In the future, “Golden Flash” will become a “flying platform” that can help Xiaopingguo, Alice, and even Xiang Kun deploy “Super Sensory Item System” capabilities.

“Golden Flash” itself is already a strengthened “Super-connected Object” with a consciousness. Alice can influence a great distance through it and the twenty “Super-connected Objects” it is carrying, such as controlling electronic devices directly, hijacking and disguising various wireless signals, etc.

Xiao Pingguo, with Alice’s help, can use “Golden Flash” itself and those “Super-connected Objects” for long-distance “Emotion Projection,” affecting human emotions, and creating direct projection illusions.

If we use an analogy, “Golden Flash” is like an aircraft carrier. It has limited combat power itself, but the various aircraft it carries have strong combat power; it merely extends the range and mobility of this “combat power.”

For Xiao Pingguo, the future “Golden Flash” can be said to be a “mobile mini Chongyun Village.”

Xiang Kun quickly finished the first stage of transformation for “Golden Flash”, then exited the “Super Sensory State”, loosened his grip, and let it fly away to play on its own.

Xiang Kun rested for a while, switched to “oxygen-saving mode”, and then quietly threw a tungsten steel ball into the pond. Utilizing his sensing and control of water, he detected the situation with the fish, then threw a few more in to herd the fish to where his bait was.

As for the bet with Yang Zhen’er, he didn’t really care. If he really let Yang Zhen’er wash so many dishes, she would probably break a lot of bowls and plates.

However, he later thought that the reference to “Yang Lao San” seemed be growing on him. If he didn’t let her call him that, it would feel a bit uncomfortable.

So… he might as well cheat a bit and win this bet.

So, by 11:30, Xiang Kun had caught three fish, Xia Libing one, Xiao Pingguo one, while Yang Zhen’er, Tang Baona, and Xia Tianhuo caught nothing. Yang Zhen’er was so frustrated that she almost went to Liu Caifu for a net to fish in the pond.

But Yang Zhen’er, who lost the bet, hadn’t been sulking long. After tasting the braised fish that Xiang Kun had made during lunch, she was overjoyed again.

In the afternoon, while the others were enjoying the rural scenery nearby with Liu Caifu as their guide, Xiang Kun found a gap to check on the status of Zhou Rui and his companions in Chongyun Mountain, as well as Fang Pingfang and her team on Wushu Mountain through Alice.

With Alice having virtually taken control of the internal network of Divine Technology’s secret department, and with electronic devices of all members of Fang Pingfang’s team having been prepared in advance, it is not necessary to use “Super-connected Objects”, “Emotion Infused Objects” or enter a “Super Sensory State” for Xiang Kun to understand their movements. Alice just needs to access those devices directly to get a clear understanding of their situation and report it to Xiang Kun.

Many of these devices are even capable of recording visuals and audio.

Although it is Zhou Rui’s trio that have had direct contact with Xiang Kun and are closer to him, his actual plan focuses on Wushu Mountain.

It’s not because the leader of this investigation team, Fang Pingfang, is there, but because the place where the initially spotted “mutated big bird” turned into a worm and burrowed into the ground was Mount Wushu—a fact known to Mr Liang.

Only by basing arrangements on facts can the operational mechanism of the secret department of Divine Technology and Mr. Liang’s reaction be more effectively witnessed.

…

Earlier, with Alice’s help, Xiang Kun learned the whereabouts of most of the research institutions of the secret department of Divine Technology, as well as the information and credentials of most of the researchers, and even had access to the research they were conducting and their core data.

But this vast amount of data did not solve his previous questions about the secret department of Divine Technology, Mr. Liang, and other people who knew about the existence of mutants behind the scenes.

The more he knew, the more questions and doubts arose.

The biggest question was: Beneath Brilliant Fortune Building, in the secret basement floor three levels below, where the rabbit woodcarving was found, there were obviously many ‘mutants’. The various conversations between ‘Mr. Liang’ and Mijoe indicated a profound understanding of ‘mutants’, so why wasn’t there any research report or data related to the confirmed ‘mutants’ in the secret department data that Alice obtained?

Like previously discovered, whether it was secret department researchers like Zhou Rui and Fang Pingfang, or security guards like Li Shibao and Gao Shu, they knew very little about ‘mutants’, or as ‘Divine Technology’ called them, ‘blood-eating creatures’.

Xiang Kun had originally thought he had just observed too few samples. After all, there were many other branches of the ‘Divine Technology’ secret department, many relevant researchers, field workers, and teams. Perhaps Fang Pingfang and the others had lower authority, and perhaps other teams and researchers could access more information about ‘mutants’.

But now, from what Alice grasped, Fang Pingfang’s team was already among the few in the ‘Divine Technology’ secret department with the most understanding of ‘mutants’, with judgments closest to the truth. They all had relatively high internal authority.

Xiang Kun had also used Old Xia to conduct ‘dream in a dream’ mental probing, confirmed from the subconscious of Fang Pingfang, Zhou Rui, Mijoe, and others. Their real situation was consistent with the relevant information Alice found on the server.

In fact, Fang Pingfang, Zhou Rui and others had many questions about this, and many people vaguely knew that the secret department of ‘Divine Technology’ was working on some unconventional lifeform, but nobody could confirm what it was.

On balance, the one who understood ‘mutants’ the most in Fang Pingfang’s team was Mijoe, a newcomer to the ‘Divine Technology’ secret department. Fang Pingfang had later understood the concept of ‘blood-eating creatures’ through her ‘popular science’.

However, even Mijoe had limited information. Most of it was knowledge she originally obtained from Guo Tianxiang, which, through Mr. Liang’s explanation, became a more systematized understanding.

Research personnel in the secret department, if not conducting field investigations, mostly conduct specific, non-consumer, professional depth development of ‘Divine Technology’s existing technology at various research bases. As for what the specific requirements were, it all depended on Mr. Liang.

Mr. Liang would also occasionally send them some unfinished products that needed further development and problem-solving according to specific needs or directions.

The final products often had unclear uses. Even if their intended applications could be discerned, they were often far from practical applications. Most were still semi-finished, but Mr. Liang would be satisfied and arrange for prototypes to be made.

This included some of the mass-produced special drones that Xiang Kun saw on Wushu Mountain that night. These drones, according to design, had obvious defects. However, from what Xiang Kun observed that night, these drones only showed advantages, with none of the anticipated problems visible.

Obviously, some details were missing from the data and information that Alice obtained. Perhaps one would have to get a drone or other equipment for disassembly to verify.

In the secret department, some researchers, like Fang Pingfang and Zhou Rui, were sent out to perform field tasks. They investigated events of suspected ‘mutant’ appearances, and sometimes even performed tracking and capturing.

The secret department’s database and related materials also contained solid evidence like images obtained when field workers directly encountered unusual ‘mutants’, just like the ‘mutated big bird’ that Fang Pingfang and others witnessed hunting a ‘mutated ant’ on Wushu Mountain late at night the previous year.

However, the records only went up to tracking and capturing. There were occasional records of capture attempts, but there were no records of successfully capturing ‘mutants’, nor information regarding substantial research or sample analysis on them, clearly inconsistent with actual situations.

The ‘Divine Technology’ secret department had a team specifically responsible for information collection, analysis, guidance, and control of the media and the Internet. When information pointing at suspected ‘mutants’ was discovered, Mr. Liang would be notified immediately.

When they found that the information could be widely spread, they would take measures to quickly sever it at its source. If it had already spread, they would lower its popularity, distort and tamper with the spreading information to increase the difficulty of obtaining and discerning information for other netizens, then slowly delete the message source, eliminating the possibility of information spread with minimal noise.

Moreover, not only was ‘Divine Technology’ doing this, similar actions were being taken abroad, and the ‘Divine Technology’ information collection team recorded all related information. For foreign related information, they mostly adopted a monitoring but non-interfering attitude.

Obviously, there were institutions or organizations similar to ‘Divine Technology’ overseas, also searching for ‘mutants’ and restricting related information spread.

The information collection team of the ‘Divine Technology’ secret department had investigated and recorded part of the information of these foreign institutions or organizations, but had not delved too deep. They didn’t carry any intention to target or guard against them, which Xiang Kun found strange.

He let Alice follow these clues to see what the situation was with these foreign institutions or organizations and to obtain more in-depth information.

Generally speaking, all research teams, information collection teams, and specific functional teams and organizations in the ‘Divine Technology’ secret department had a fixed person in charge – Mr. Liang.

Almost all information was decided upon by Mr. Liang. At first, Xiang Kun thought ‘Mr. Liang’ might be a codename for a decision-making team, but before he left Pengcheng City, he and Alice established:

‘Mr. Liang’ was the ‘mutant’ Xiang Kun glimpsed on Wushu Mountain, who could become invisible and fly, who took the ‘rabbit woodcarving’, and who was in the secret location under the third basement level of Brilliant Fortune Building at the time.

As for who assisted Mr. Liang in controlling the entire ‘Divine Technology’ secret department, it was a computer AI referred to as ‘Tai’a’.

This computer AI is none other than the one which Alice breached and took control of with ease when infiltrating the security system on the third basement floor of the Brilliant Fortune Building.

Despite being undermined by Alice, the “Thaia” AI was actually quite advanced in the realm of artificial intelligence. It could be considered the “blood vessel” and “meridian” of the entire secret department of Divine Technology, acting as the core that connects all the departments and teams. Regular requests and menial tasks would be handled quickly according to Mr. Liang’s pre-set habits, while more complex information would be clearly sorted and presented for Mr. Liang to make decisions.

“Thaia” has been created and in use for many years, with numerous iterations. The development team was led by Mr. Liang himself, and different batches of team members had been replaced over the years. In a way, Mr. Liang is the product manager of “Thaia”.

However, such an important figure, such a leader who has connections with almost all key members of the secret department of Divine Technology, had no personal information recorded in the server, no photos, no place of birth, no educational background, not even a full name.

And it seemed that no one in the secret department had actually seen Mr. Liang in person.

This was something Xiang Kun could understand. He already knew that Mr. Liang was a mutant who could turn invisible and looked significantly different from humans. Avoiding direct contact with people was the right choice.

As for Mr. Liang’s name and identity, Xiang Kun had a hunch, and he was pretty sure about it. But in the end, he would need Alice to help him confirm it.

However, another piece of information was of more concern to Xiang Kun than Mr. Liang’s identity.

He had confirmed that Divine Technology indeed had government backing, with official personnel stationed directly in the secret department, most particularly in the information gathering team.

He even found two people he recognized from the employee information—Zhao Feng and Wang De’an—two officers who were previously obsessed with investigating the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster illusion”, had joined Divine Technology. They probably joined due to their investigation, because according to the information found in the server, they had recently been sent to Burma to investigate the mass illusion event in Myitkyina on the evening of March 8.

The partner working closely with Divine Technology was a department that could not be found in any official public information – the “National Abnormal Biology Research Center”.

The person in charge was He Haomin, most of his staff were part of the secret department of Divine Technology, bearing dual identities. And judging from how their data was stored, Mr. Liang obviously knew about their situation very well.

It appeared that the secret department of Divine Technology was merely a puppet put forward by the officials.

However, based on Alice’s analysis of the related data and information, the collaboration between the “National Abnormal Biology Research Center” and Divine Technology started significantly later than when the secret department of Divine Technology was established.

From this perspective, was Divine Technology more like being wooed or absorbed halfway?

But why would they carry out these investigations and studies through a private company?

If it was only for confidentiality, that nonexistent “National Abnormal Biology Research Center” should have been enough.

If Mr. Liang and Divine Technology had achieved some investigation or research outcomes that were recognized by the government, or if they had grown big and abundant enough in resources to get governmental endorsement and cooperation and gain great autonomy,

Then Xiang Kun believed he could do the same.

By now, Xiang Kun was very well aware that he was unique, even among the mutants.

Given time, he could totally outperform Mr. Liang and Divine Technology, especially with the help from Alice. As Alice kept evolving and he gained more and more super-connected objects and emotion-infused objects, making the super sensory item system more abundant and powerful, his value to the government would definitely grow.

But before that, he had to find out why Divine Technology, the government department, and even foreign agencies and organizations were desperately covering up the existence of mutants, even keeping their own researchers in the dark, but letting them investigate related incidents.

Only by figuring out this would he be able to determine the posture and method with which he should contact Mr. Liang and He Haomin.

He had several ways to find the answers to his questions:

First, through Alice accessing the data within the special storage device located in the secret space below the third basement floor of the Brilliant Fortune Building. Xiang Kun believed that he was highly likely to find the answer there;

Second, by using the information of the second-level Derivative Ant Colony and the temporarily missing “mutated big bird” at Chongyun Mountain and Wushu Mountain as bait to prompt Fang Pingfang’s team, Divine Technology, and Mr. Liang into conducting a substantive investigation on mutants and thereby uncovering the real operations behind;

Third, by starting with Mr. Liang and He Haomin themselves, with the assistance of Alice and Old Xia, starting a multidimensional spying and investigation.