What It’s Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 462: Chapter 462 I am Alice (Part 4)

The supermarket staff responsible for cutting and weighing meat looked at Xiang Kun with a few pig elbows in his hand on the cargo platform. Seeing that he made no response, according to Old Xia’s instructions, they packaged the meat, weighed it, labeled it, and handed it over.

Xia Libing naturally put the packaged pig elbows into the shopping cart and continued looking at other ingredients, seemingly unfazed about Xiang Kun’s recent “trick”.

However, after a few steps, Xiang Kun heard Xia Libing whisper, “I wanted to ask you a few questions about emotions, but it seems you don’t have any relevant experience.”

Did that sound like “I wanted to ask you for money, but it turns out you’re as broke as I am”?

Xiang Kun couldn’t resist getting closer with his shopping cart and whispered, “Just because I wasn’t very popular in school, doesn’t mean I don’t have any relevant experience!”

Xia Libing, walking next to the shopping cart, looked back at him without a word.

Xiang Kun continued, “Even if I don’t have extensive emotional experience, I do have a lot of theoretical knowledge. You don’t have to eat pork to see a pig run! Chang Bin was a ‘master of emotions’ at school and, as a roommate, I learned quite a bit from him. By the way, if you wanted to ask about emotions, it must be related to emotional issues. There are various types of emotions related to such feelings, and it’s not expressed and summarized with a single type of emotion. However, this is easy to deal with. We don’t need specific experiences. If we watch some good romance movies and dramas together, I might be able to recognize some emotions, assimilate and share them.”

He understood that after Old Xia opened the door to emotional perception, having sensed emotions of “laughter and happiness”, he wanted to experience more emotions that ordinary people have.

Without a doubt, interpersonal emotional communication, like love, is the state in which various emotions are most likely to emerge.

Being fond of someone, being liked by someone, mutual liking, longing for something unattainable, secretly falling in love, emotional breakdown, being betrayed by someone and various states will bring a very complex emotional experience. Old Xia’s curiosity is understandable.

However, after hearing his words, Xia Libing said, “The first time we played poker at Nana’s house, we played Truth or Dare, Zhen’er asked you how many times you’d been in love, you said ‘once’, that wasn’t true, right?”

Xiang Kun gave Old Xia a deep look, “I was thinking about making a big dinner, but it seems like you’ve been eating too much meat lately. How about we have a vegetarian dinner tonight?”

Xia Libing, face unchanged, smoothly changed the subject: “After what happened in the mountains and the sea, do you have any feelings about it? Do you need to talk to me about it?”

Xiang Kun was slightly stunned. This was a major change in the topic, but he instantly understood Old Xia’s meaning.

If he had only mentioned “what happened in the mountains”, Xiang Kun might still have been confused because many things had happened in various mountains, from Zi Huan Mountain, to Wushu Mountain, to Chongyun Mountain, Qinling and so on. Without specific reference, it would be hard to know which time or which incident he was referring to.

However, mentioning “the sea” as a parallel hint, coupled with the following two sentences, allowed him to quickly understand what Old Xia was referring to. He was referring to the time when he used “Electric Mastery Flight” in the mountains to cause a lightning storm that hit two fugitives, and when he created a massacre among the kidnappers on the boat while saving Xia Tianhuo in Burma.

The commonality of the two incidents, the need to be asked about feelings, and whether he needed to “talk” to Old Xia, were obviously referring to these two incidents, in which his actions directly or indirectly caused death.

But honestly, it was only when Old Xia asked him about this that he began to recall and realize the casualties caused by these two incidents. He didn’t feel anything special before.

But looking back, he realized that “not feeling anything” was in itself a feedback different from the past.

If these two incidents had happened to Xiang Kun before he mutated, witnessing a ship full of people slaughtering each other, seeing two people charred to death by lightning, his soul would definitely have been enormously shaken and he would have been scared – he was not a very brave person before.

Why does he feel nothing now?

From a visual impact standpoint, when he previously obtained Guo Tianxiang’s memory fragments, the scenes of bloody violence he saw in those fragments were greater – Guo Tianxiang had done many brutal and bloody things while in Africa.

None of those scenes could affect him anymore, let alone the electrocution and the carnage on the boat.

Upon witnessing scenes of bloodshed, especially the death of one’s own kind, most untrained individuals enter a “fight or flight” stress response to varying degrees. It’s an instinct ingrained in our DNA.

However, due to Xiang Kun’s continuous evolution, his sensory abilities, physical strength, restorative abilities, and athletic abilities have all reached levels far exceeding those of ordinary humans. Many injuries or actions would not even come close to being fatal for him. In fact, he can easily dodge or withstand them if he chooses to do so.

Unlike those who have undergone extensive training to enhance their psychological resilience, Xiang Kun has directly altered his instincts at a fundamental level, making it entirely natural.

It’s akin to how an average person wouldn’t be severely discomforted when seeing someone else being kicked in the butt or pinched on the arm.

Moreover, he now perceives sensory information very differently from an ordinary person. When an event or phenomenon occurs, he can gather and process information from vision, hearing, taste, touch, and even his sixth sense from all angles, and the amount of data he collects is much more substantial than that of the average person.

Imagine looking at a low-resolution image, most people would first respond to the picture’s composition and color, but Xiang Kun could quickly obtain information about each pixel, resulting in inherently different perceptions and understanding.

Morally, although Xiang Kun, doesn’t adhere to the “never kill” principle like Batman in DC comics, he still has his own codes of conduct:

When dealing with ordinary humans, he must use his abilities sparingly and consider resolving any issues within societal norms first.

In situations involving “mutants”, he needs to clearly define the objectives and circumstances of his ability usage, understanding the necessity of using each ability.

The death of two fugitives he was chasing at Chongyun mountain area due to his “Electric Mastery Flight” was not intentional, but an accidental result of unleashing a small-scale (localized) lightning storm.

Even though he was aware they could possibly die, he chose to accept the consequences as the fugitives had posed a direct threat to Old Xia. It was an act of lawful self-defense, and it didn’t conflict with his code.

The same logic applied when dealing with the pirates at sea. Xiang Kun chose to employ the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” for emotional projection, allowing them to “judge themselves”. If anyone had posed a direct threat to Xia Tianhuo, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike them down – justifiable self-defense.

Certainly, he is no moral saint, nor does he see himself as a “judge”. He does not feel obligated to determine whether everyone on that ship deserved their fate or whether they were all “worthy of punishment”.

In extraordinary times, extraordinary measures are required.

So, morally speaking, he feels no qualms whatsoever.

Xia Libing’s straightforward question triggered an extensive self-assessment in Xiang Kun.

This process was relatively quick. From the moment Old Xia finished speaking to the end of Xiang Kun’s introspection, only a second had passed.

Remembering the character named “Buddha Sword” from a particular work, Xiang Kun found a saying from it very suitable as a response and cool enough. Hence, he gently smiled and reassured Old Xia, “No worries, all is good with me. ‘Kill to protect, cut the ties, not the man’. I’ve given it much thought.”

Old Xia glanced at him saying, “Oh.”, and then started helping him with the checkout procedure at the cart.

This response deflated Xiang Kun’s expectations of grandeur from his previous statement, feeling somewhat awkward and foolish.

However, during the ride back home after purchasing the groceries, Xiang Kun, glancing at the indifferent Old Xia, suddenly realized that Xia’s earlier sudden query might not necessarily be out of concern for his psychological state. Otherwise, Old Xia would have approached him much earlier. It was unlikely for him to bring it up suddenly.

Being thoroughly aware of Xiang Kun, Old Xia should understand clearly that those two incidents wouldn’t have had any significant impact on Xiang Kun’s state of being or mental health.

Considering the topic at hand, Old Xia’s sudden query might have been a reminder: with the super sensory ability, cognitive method, and current status that Xiang Kun now possesses, attaining many emotions could be considerably more challenging than before his mutation.

Clearly, Xia Libing, who currently can only acquire new emotional perceptions through her “Emotional Assimilation,” was also worried that Xiang Kun, due to his constant evolution, might have a threshold for some emotions too high, reducing her chances of perceiving those emotions.

However, for this problem, Xiang Kun itself didn’t have any better solution for the moment.

After getting home, Xiang Kun began preparing food and cooking, while Old Xia, using the “CAKE01” notebook, entered the “Conscious world” to establish a special connection with the “Black Circle Graffiti,” which Alice had previously briefly sensed. This was in preparation for the upcoming experiment.

The dinner that Xiang Kun prepared was quite abundant. It included Old Xia’s favorite crispy pig’s elbow, fish soup, lamb chops, two plates of greens seasoned according to her taste, and fragrant steamed rice.

Natural food lover, Old Xia will not let good food go to waste. She loosened a button on her overalls that she was wearing that day, allowing her belly to expand and savored each bite with gusto, alternating between chopsticks and soup spoon.

The whole dining process was quiet, efficient, and fast. Old Xia had even found a rhythm to her eating, which left Xiang Kun, who was eating his “Co-Manifested Ice Cream,” quietly impressed. He was grateful that “Little Apple” wasn’t as food-obsessed; otherwise, he might have thought the “entry condition” for his “Super Sensory Item System” was “foodie.”

After finishing dinner, slightly stuffed, Xia Libing wandered around the house, sat on the sofa, zoned out for a while, and then her eyelids began to grow heavy. She was indeed getting sleepy again.

Xiang Kun quickly asked Old Xia to go to bed, to rest. He then exchanged notes with Alice, checked the arrangement of the “Emotion Infused Objects” and “Super-Connected Objects,” and prepared himself by sitting on the computer chair by the bed.

Xia Libing soon relaxed and succumbed to her sleepiness, falling into a deep sleep.

Judging from her breathing and other physical state information, Xiang Kun determined that she had fallen asleep. Rather than starting to sense the “Emotionally-Infused Object” induced dream, he waited for a while before beginning to sense it.

In Old Xia’s dreams, as in the past, she quickly “woke up” and then, as planned, began trying to establish a “Dream within a Dream” through the “Black Circle Graffiti.”

Typically, establishing a “Dream within a Dream” would require someone in the vicinity of the “Black Circle Graffiti” to enter a deep sleep. But at present, within that range, there were no other “people” apart from Xiang Kun and Old Xia herself.

If there had been no experiment with Alice at noon, and if they had immediately tried to create this “Dream within a Dream,” there would have been absolutely no suspense: absolutely no “Dream within a Dream” could have been established through the “Black Circle Graffiti.”

However, at noon, after Alice successfully sensed the “Black Circle Graffiti” and briefly entered the world of “Super Sensory Information,” Alice had found a “format” that could be assimilated and influenced by “Emotion Infused Objects.” Now, all they needed was to be prepared. Under the condition of “Super-Connected Objects” being well-connected, they might be influenced by the “Emotion Infused Objects” and create the “Dream within a Dream.”

Be it the conscious activities of humans or the data operations of a computer, after being unified through “Super-Connected Objects” and “Emotion Infused Objects,” they can essentially be considered the same “format.”

Of course, all of this was just a scheme that Xiang Kun had worked out himself, theoretically feasible. He was uncertain of the actual results.

The chances of this step being successful were much smaller than the experiment at noon.

Xiang Kun, who was sensing Old Xia’s dream, was waiting slightly anxiously and excitedly for the result of Old Xia establishing the “Dream within a Dream.”

When he felt that Old Xia’s dream started to become chaotic, all kinds of sensory information rapidly disappeared, but the dream did not collapse, Xiang Kun knew that the “Dream within a Dream” had been successfully established!

Xiang Kun was very excited. As long as the “Dream within a Dream” was established, it meant the success of this experiment, and Alice had the basic conditions to be included in the “Super Sensory Item System.” The content of Alice’s dream didn’t matter at all.

The dream Alice showed through the “Dream within a Dream” established by Old Xia was an incredibly chaotic space. Various sensory information was disorderly, making it impossible for normal human consciousness to perceive and understand this dream.

Even Xiang Kun, who had adapted to Little Apple’s dreams, read memory fragments of “mutated parasites” and “mutated spiders,” and could understand a certain level of cognitive information in the “Super Sensory State,” was also clueless. He figured even Alice hadn’t quite figured out what she was dreaming about.

Just when Xiang Kun believed that the “Dream within a Dream” should end this way, the surrounding environment underwent a dramatic change, and a somewhat familiar white room appeared in Xiang Kun’s visual perception.

Xiang Kun recognized it instantly. It was the room that had appeared multiple times in Old Xia’s dream.

However, now the room is bare. There is neither Old Xia nor Alice in it.

Apparently, the room displayed now is the result of Old Xia’s influence on Alice’s “dream within a dream”.

At this moment, Old Xia and Alice were like the materials that make up this room, and he was the one peeping down from above the room.

Xiang Kun was a bit curious. What was Old Xia going to do?

Alice was obviously not quite used to this connection method. She could not process data or find the correct way to express information in this way.

As the creator of Alice and an experienced veteran programmer, Xiang Kun couldn’t find a good solution for the time being. Could it be that Old Xia had come up with a solution in such a short time?

A moment later, Xia Libing, in overalls, sports shoes, and a jacket, appeared in the room. This was the first time Xiang Kun saw the “panda expression”-free Old Xia showing himself in the “dream within a dream”.

Nine coins and a tungsten steel ball then appeared in the room. These were the dream projections of the ten “super-connected objects” that had a special connection with Old Xia.

The nine coins and one ball floated to a corner of the room, dissipated, and coalesced into the shape of a little girl.

The little girl wore a lavish princess dress, black shoes on her feet, and cute ornaments on her head. She had delicate features but a blank face. There was no sparkle in her large eyes as she was squatting in the corner of the room, scraping and digging at the wall with a scalpel. It was as if she was trying to dig a tunnel to get out or studying the material of the wall.

This image…it was clearly what Xiang Kun had seen in Old Xia’s dream before — her self-projection into her childhood figure through the “super-connected objects”.

But now, Xiang Kun was sure that this “little Old Xia” was Alice’s expression in this dream — or rather, it was the Old Xia guiding and controlling her expression in this dream.

This dream belongs to Alice, but the super administrator is Old Xia. She is helping Alice to construct and understand the dream.

As for Xiang Kun? He was the power supply.

Old Xia in the room gestured to the “little Old Xia” in the corner, causing the little girl who was digging at the wall to appear instantly in front of her, looking up at her blankly.

Compared to the refined little girl that Xiang Kun first saw in Old Xia’s dream, the current Alice version of “little Old Xia” had some slight differences. Even though they looked completely identical and had the same blank expression, the initial “little Old Xia” seemed indifferent, while the current “little Old Xia” was confused, with her wide eyes filled with bewilderment and a touch of curiosity.

“Who are you?” Old Xia asked in the dream.

“Who am I?” The “little Old Xia” repeated the question, tilting her head to think, and gradually, her bewildered gaze began to focus.

“I am Xiang Kun’s assistant.”

“I am the boss’s assistant.”

“I am… Alice.”

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