What It's Like Being a Vampire

The man who introduced himself as Old He appeared to be in his fifties, with neatly combedback hair that was not dyed black, hence it was mixed with a significant amount of white hair.

He was not wearing any uniform, but rather a dark suit which seemed to be made of high-quality material and tailored well, but was clearly aged. Both his leather shoes and belt appeared to be of decent craftsmanship – durable but not brand-name.

Oddly, Old He was also sporting a watch that did not quite match his clothing style. Its design was bizarre, bearing no resemblance to a traditional digital watch or a sports wristband or even a typical smart watch. To the sides of its large screen main dial, there were four sub-dials each a quarter of the size of the main dial attached to the strap, making it look more like a specialized tool.

Upon walking into the meeting room, Zhao Feng and Wang De’an instinctively began to evaluate Old He, but they were unable to discern his identity or his position in any department or unit from these external features.

However, judging from the head of the special investigation team’s attitude towards Old He, it was apparent that Old He was at least of a higher rank and status than he was.

After the head of the team called the two of them in, he greeted Old He and left the room, leaving them to converse with Old He alone.

After exchanging a glance, Zhao Feng and Wang De’an both felt their hearts skip a beat. What did he want to discuss with them that even the head of the special investigation team needed to excuse himself?

“Xiao Zhao, Xiao Wang, come, sit down, feel free to engage in conversation,” Old He said with a smile, his eyes filled with friendliness, giving off an impression of being easy to talk to and a person of gentle character.

After they sat down, Old He skipped the pleasantries and directly moved ahead to the main subject. He said: “I heard from your previous supervisors… Oh, not Old Li, but Old Han and Old Xu, was it? That you two seem to be investigating certain hallucinations witnessed by the criminals in previous cases?”

The “Old Li” that Old He mentioned here was the head of the special investigation team, whereas “Old Han” and “Old Xu” were Wang De’an’s and Zhao Feng’s respective supervisors in Pancheng and Citong city.

“We just felt some subtle commonalities himearranting investigation between the hallucinations experienced by the criminals in those two cases. There might be some external connections we haven’t been fully clear on yet. So we casually discussed and exchanged thoughts during our free time after work, purely out of curiosity,” Zhao Feng said in a measured tone.

Wang De’an nodded in agreement, adding: “We just discussed it after work…” and then added, “Both cases were already closed.”

Old He nodded with a smile, and asked: “So, did you dig up anything?”

The two young officers exchanged another glance before Zhao Feng responded again: “So far… we have no definitive evidence.”

He dared not tell Old He about how he had been guided by an “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster” in his dream to find several corpses on Zi Huan Mountain, as it sounded too unreal. If shared, he might give the impression that he was mentally unsound.

Old He asked, “Did you guys read about the news from Myanmar’s Montamilla online today?”

“You mean… the riot in Montamilla?” Zhao Feng enquired cautiously.

Old He nodded, saying: “Behind the Montamilla riot, there were some forces hostile to us stirring up trouble and adding fuel to the flames. But in the end, they suffered the consequences of their own actions, further exposing the identity of their backers. The official authorities in Myanmar will certainly be more vigilant towards them in the future – those people really played themselves. However, what I want to talk about has nothing to do with this issue. It’s about the ‘monster’ or ‘giant’ illusion that appeared in Montamilla, which is now being discussed by a lot of people online. According to many eyewitness accounts, there’s an illusion with eight arms and eight eyes, doesn’t it sound similar to the hallucination seen by the criminals you are investigating in your cases?”

“Indeed, it indeed does,” Zhao Feng answered honestly. When he and Wang De’an had seen the related news about Montamilla online, they instantly connected it with the matter they were investigating.

Wang De’an couldn’t help but ask, “Boss, do you know what that thing is?”

Old He smiled at him and said, “Don’t call me Boss, just call me Old He. I don’t know what it is either. I’m quite curious. So I wanted to ask you if you’re interested in joining us to investigate this issue? Um…the next thing we need to discuss requires signing some confidentiality agreements. That’s alright, isn’t it?”

As he spoke, Old He slid a folder from the side table towards them.

Zhao Feng and Wang De’an immediately gathered together, looking closely at the two agreements inside the folder. After some low-pitched discussions, they both took up a pen and signed their names, suppressing their somewhat excited emotions.

Old He didn’t even glance at the signed agreements, he simply tossed the folder back onto the side table and said with a smile, “I should introduce myself. My name is He Haomin, and I’m the director of the ‘National Abnormal Biology Research Center’.

“In theory, we come under the ‘Biotechnology Development Center’ of the Ministry of Science and Technology, but actually we report directly to other higher-ups. The work we do requires a high level of secrecy, so you won’t find the name of our institute on any external websites.

“Our main tasks are, as the name suggests, to study ‘abnormal biological entities’. We have reason to believe that the delusions you two investigated, as well as the illusion that appeared in Montamilla last night, are all either created by an ‘abnormal biological entity’, or are a special state of a particular ‘abnormal biological entity’.

“Usually, you would have a day or two to consider joining but this case is unusual. If you agree to join, I plan to send you to Montamilla for an investigation right away.”

Zhao Feng and Wang De’an were somewhat surprised. They whispered to each other briefly, both leaning towards acceptance. They were indeed very curious about the “Abnormal Biology Research Center”.

But before agreeing, Zhao Feng asked a question: “May I ask… how did you first notice us?”

He wasn’t sure that their former boss and partner, Officer Han, would have actively reported their activities to the ‘Abnormal Biology Research Center’. In fact, he thought that Old Xu and Officer Han, like most people, probably had no idea this department even existed.

Old He said, “Chen Tianhua… or Mijoe as you know her. When you arrested her in Citong, I noticed you.”

At these words, both men were taken aback. Then they realised that when they vouched for Mijoe’s innocence back in Citong, it was because they had Old He or his research center backing them.

“Is she one of yours?” Wang De’an asked on impulse.

“You could say that, or you could say she isn’t,” Old He said, “Here’s the thing: our specific research and investigation into ‘abnormal biological entities’ is conducted in partnership with a certain company, or rather, it is mainly led by that company. Our role is more to assist, oversee, and conduct safety assessments. If you two agree to join us, once all the formalities are complete, your official employment will covertly be transferred under the ‘Abnormal Biology Research Center’. However, in the field, you will be given new identities arranged by that company and will collaborate with the company’s investigators. Mijoe isn’t with the ‘Center’, she’s with the company.”

The two men were somewhat confused by this. Zhao Feng spontaneously asked, “What company? Is it an affiliated business of the Center?”

Old He replied only with a smile.

Zhao Feng paused for a moment, then quickly understood. He said, “We’re both prepared to join.”

Wang De’an also nodded in agreement.

Instead of presenting any kind of agreement for them to sign immediately, Old He seemed to trust their verbal acceptance. He said, “It’s called ‘Divine Technology’. As for the relationship between the center and the company, you don’t need to worry about that. After joining, you will no longer be policemen. Remember, outside, you’ll only have investigation rights, not enforcement rights. All information and data on ‘abnormal biological entities’ obtained through investigations must be submitted to the ‘Center’ or the research staff at ‘Divine Technology’ who are assigned to you. You must not disclose or improperly handle any information. The specific regulations will be explained and trained by someone later. Of course, this will be after this current mission. On this mission, someone will accompany you. If you have any questions, just ask him. He will ensure everything is handled appropriately.”

Seeing that the two were still bewildered and slightly confused, Old He added, “Investigate, collect, report, that’s what you have to do now. Do not dip into the specifics of ‘research’, maintain curiosity, but don’t be overly curious. Abide by the rules and confidentiality agreements once you have completed a mission, and you’ll understand.”

…

A little past noon, Xia Libing got up from her computer, put the “cake01” notebook in her pocket, took the chopsticks Xiang Kun had made, and went to the kitchen.

She opened the refrigerator and took out several pieces of rabbit meat from the freezer to defrost in the microwave.

In one corner of the kitchen, there were actually several cages stacked up, occupying most of the kitchen space. Inside were more than twenty meat rabbits that she had brought back from the place where Xiang Kun last bought meat rabbits, using a small truck she had arranged in the morning.

However, these meat rabbits were kept for Xiang Kun to drink blood when he returned.

There was still a lot of the rabbit meat Xiang Kun had left over from drinking blood at her place last month, all of it stored in the freezer and not yet consumed.

After defrosting the rabbit meat and simply chopping it into small pieces, Xia Libing boiled a pot of water, put the rabbit meat in and covered it, without adding any seasoning other than a sprinkle of salt.

When she thought it was almost cooked, she took it to the living room to eat.

From last night to now, in order to ensure that Xiang Kun could detect her “pseudo-emotions” through the “Emotion Infused Objects” at any time, suppressing his impulse to drink blood and maintaining his rationality and alertness, she had not slept at all.

Although she could enter the “Conscious World” through “Cake01” to alleviate her fatigue, she could not stay in the “Conscious World” all the time. As such, she did not order food or cook instant noodles at noon, but chose to eat only rabbit meat—to avoid high-carbohydrate foods that could make her drowsy after eating.

But she still underestimated how awful the boiled rabbit meat she cooked was. After only a few bites, she had to resort to co-manifesting the “Crispy Pig’s Elbow”, eating a bite of boiled rabbit meat and then a bite of “Crispy Pig’s Elbow”, to get through her lunch.

Just as Xia Libing was almost done eating the unappetizing pot of rabbit meat using her “wit” and “superpower”, the lights in the living room, which were not on, suddenly came on, then went out immediately, and then came on again, and went out immediately, on, out, on, out and then paused, came on for a second after a long pause, then out, and then on…

If it had been someone else, not to mention a girl, even a man, even at noon, would probably have their hair standing on end and a chill running down their spine, thinking that they’d encountered a supernatural event.

But as the first and only person who knows Xiang Kun’s secret, Xia Libing immediately figured out—it’s Xiang Kun sending her a signal.

Even though she had never called Xiang Kun directly, he hadn’t replied to any of the messages she sent. She had guessed that his phone might have malfunctioned during the large-scale use of “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” emotion projection in Myitkyina, making it unusable. Otherwise, it’s unlikely he wouldn’t contact her at all.

Now it seems that this is how Xiang Kun is trying to contact her.

After the living room light flashed more than a dozen times, Xia Libing realized that this was Morse code.

She and Xiang Kun have developed several simple codes for communication, but these codes are either through records, or through language, Chinese characters, and Morse code wasn’t mentioned.

But Morse code is a very common, simple, and universally existing signal code. She knew that Xiang Kun would understand it, and Xiang Kun knew that she would get it, so it could be used for communication without prior discussion.

Xia Libing didn’t use pen and paper to take notes, but directly recorded the signals from the living room light’s flickers in her mind.

After a while, she realized that the five letters that Xiang Kun was expressing constantly through the living room light were:

B, W, M, J, P

This is obviously not complete pinyin or English, but Xiang Kun does not need to add another layer of encryption in this situation.

Xia Libing thought for a moment, picked up her phone, casually opened the WeChat conversation with Xiang Kun, then entered these letters using the phonetic input method, yielding two suggested phrases:

“Help me buy a plane ticket”, “Help me buy chicken fillet”.

Clearly, Xiang Kun wanted to convey the former.

Xia Libing immediately opened the plane ticket purchasing app, entered Xiang Kun’s name and ID number, and bought a ticket for the earliest flight from Nande City to Citong City.

…

At Nande City Airport, Xiang Kun, sitting on a bench near the entrance, exited his “Super Sensory State”, waited for a few minutes, then got up, used his ID card to successfully get his boarding pass.

Just as Xia Libing had guessed, his phone was seriously damaged during the emotion projection operation in Myitkyina and could not be turned on, even the SIM card was broken. On one hand, he was pressed for time and didn’t want to get a new SIM card in Nande City, on the other hand, he didn’t have enough cash.

When he was at the airport, he originally wanted to borrow a phone from the airport staff to call Old Xia to help him buy the earliest available plane ticket, and plan to deal with the SIM card when he gets back.

He had also located Old Xia through the “Super-connected Objects” coin on her, knowing that she was still at her previous residence in Citong City, and speculated that she wanted him to drink blood in Citong City when he came back, so he planned to let her buy the earliest ticket to Citong City.

However, when Xiang Kun saw an airport ground crew repairing an indicator light, the flashing light gave him an idea. So he entered the “Super Sensory State” and tried to convey Morse code by influencing the lights in the room through multiple “Super-connected Objects” around Old Xia.

The letters expressed in Morse code cycled six times, and once Xiang Kun saw Old Xia pick up her phone while in his “Super Sensory State”, he knew she understood what he meant.

Old Xia was indeed Old Xia, and she didn’t disappoint him.

However, Xiang Kun was somewhat unsatisfied with his own ability. He can now remotely influence electronic products, such as mobile phones or computers, through “Super-connected Objects” while in a “Super Sensory State”. If he could precisely control them, it would be much simpler to directly open a document on a computer or mobile phone and display the messages he wanted to express.

Unfortunately, his control still is too crude and cannot carry out such precise operations. It is estimated that he can only influence them by turning the screen on and off.

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