What It's Like Being a Vampire

In the wake of the sudden riot in Myitkyina, Mao Ting said that the police’s attention was all on the opposing big shots and their gathered subordinates, leaving them unable to handle what the “others” were doing.

However, in reality, after detecting today that all powers might react aggressively, the police advanced their plans and called in three police mobile units from the province to rush to Myitkyina in the afternoon.

Despite the outbreak of the riot, the police were still short-handed under conditions of multitasking, unable to curb the riot in time. But Myitkyina’s official decision was very timely, immediately mobilizing several armed police battle groups (equivalent to armed police) to enter the city, and the nearby garrison was also ready to maintain order at any time.

Normally, this riot would soon dissipate. After all, for Burma and the Myitkyina officials, who have been committed to developing tourism and attracting investment in recent years, such a malicious event is a strong blow to policy implementation and economic development and must be forcefully halted before it results in worse outcomes.

Of course, even if Myitkyina officials actively work to quell the riot, it’s inevitably, albeit reluctantly, a step too late. By the time the riot was suppressed, it would be very late at night at the earliest, by which time many people would have already suffered injury.

Those who died cannot be resurrected, and the injuries suffered will be permanently etched in memory, many people’s fates will change.

However, while the official “thunder” did not arrive in time, Xiang Kun’s “thunder” had already come in advance.

The emotional projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”, with an unprecedented influence, swept over several blocks of Myitkyina where the riot took place, preventing many tragedies that were about to happen.

In order to control the “super-connected objects” at the best distance and spread the emotional projection’s influence through the “super-connected object” matrix, Xiang Kun did not stay in one place, but moved seven times to enter the “super sensory state” and mobilized the emotional projection.

Although the area affected by the emotional projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” compared to the whole of Myitkyina is not very large, and its total duration is not long, its impact is persistent and contagious.

Like Mao Qiang, who could have become a rioter in a confused state, local youths, after being affected, not only stopped their violent behavior but also saved Ye Zijun’s family of three and escorted them back to the hotel.

Similar events happened everywhere. The fearful emotions brought by the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” were not simply panic and fear, but had deeper and longer-lasting impacts.

Therefore, the actual impact area of the emotional projection that Xiang Kun evoked was much larger than the range where people could see the illusion of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster”.

Based on past experience, the fear projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” would initially give people the most direct impact of fear, basically capable of interrupting all of their actions, followed by letting them feel the most primal and authentic fear deep in their psyche.

The direct impact of fear is a momentary one, with everyone more or less affected in the same way. But the subsequent ongoing impact is unique to each person.

Xiang Kun classified the prolonged effects of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” fear projection on people into three categories:

The first category accepts their true fears, obeys their hearts, and then finds a way out. Most people fall into this category. After all, seeing their true fears is akin to seeing their actual needs. Their avoidance of fear aligns with the satisfaction of their desires, providing a great spiritual comfort, thereby helping them recognize themselves better and establish cognition. Simply put, to “obey” their hearts would make their lives better.

The second category doesn’t receive much lasting impact and only consider the fear unforgettable and shocking, as they’re already very clear about what they’re truly afraid of. The things they feared before are still frightening now, such as simple fears of heights, darkness, sharp objects, certain scary images, claustrophobia, etc. This category has fewer people, mostly children or those who think simply.

The third category draws fear into a vortex, causing continuous self-doubt, shocking themselves, and scaring themselves, unwilling to accept their fears, leading to a mental breakdown in the face of persistent fear. There have been several such individuals encountered by Xiang Kun in the process of calling upon the fear projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving,” such as the car thief who ran to the police station with a kitchen knife saying someone wanted to kill him, and “Brother Kui” who kidnapped Xia Tianhuo. This group of people is actually the rarest, extremely difficult to come across.

This large-scale use of emotional projection in Myitkyina confirmed Xiang Kun’s earlier predictions and estimates regarding the effects of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” fear emotional projection.

However, what he failed to anticipate, or rather infer, was that during this unprecedented large-scale emotional projection, he too gathered plenty of new information – as the projection continued, both the range and intensity of the emotional projection kept expanding. This wasn’t because he had altered the way he invoked Emotion Infused Objects, or improved his application of Super-connected Objects, but rather a “strengthening” of the emotional projection itself.

It wasn’t as if the fear of the world “nourished” the emotional projection; the projection was merely a “capability” that Xiang Kun devised by combining “Emotional Assimilation” with the “Super Sensory Item System”. Its strength lies solely in Xiang Kun himself.

Only today did Xiang Kun truly realize that, for the emotional projection, a consistent emotion that has gone through homogenization could serve as a medium for influencing its surroundings.

Using an analogy, the emotional projection that Xiang Kun summons through a certain quantity of Super-connected Objects whilst in a Super Sensory State is like the air blown out by a fan which operates at a constant power.

At first, only a few scattered droplets were picked up by the wind, making it look like slanting rain. But as the environment changed, with droplets turning into widespread water bodies, although the fan maintained the same power, it was now stirring up tidal waves.

Everyone’s emotion became a part of the wave after assimilation, in turn, augmenting its influence.

That is why the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster” seen by others grows remarkably, not because Kun intentionally did so, but naturally, as the homogeneous sense of fear in the surrounding became more intense with time.

This is something Kun didn’t notice when he had previously invoked the Emotional Infused Eight-eyed wood carving multiple times.

Moreover, the usage of large-scale emotional projection this time helped him discover certain other information in the Super Sensory State.

All those affected by the emotional projection could be instantaneously identified by Xiang Kun through their cognitive information. This shows that the affected emotions, in a Super Sensory State, can transform into cognitive information which he can instantly distinguish.

According to Xiang Kun, this is the decoding effect of the Emotional Projection carried out by the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Woodcarving, a type of Emotion Infused Object. The cognitive information was “tagged” via the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving; he discovered, interpreted and comprehended this cognitive information through the “plugin” Emotional Projection.

In a sense, this emotional effect on others by Emotional Projection of Emotion Infused Objects, is also equivalent to establishing a “connection” between him and the affected individuals.

This “connection”, however, is unlike the deep relationship he shares with Super-connected Objects and Emotion Infused Objects. It’s more of a superficial, dynamic connection that serves as a “tag”.

As the emotions of the affected individuals continue to ferment, this connection may continue to change.

He knows that this kind of connection may not only be established when invoking Emotion Infused Objects to carry out Emotional Projection. Even while carrying out “Emotional Assimilation” or “Mental Deterrence”, a subtle special connection – that only surfaces in the Super Sensory State – is established with the affected organisms.

However, previously when he used “Emotional Assimilation” or “Mental Deterrence”, he had to maintain focus and wasn’t able to enter a Super Sensory State to observe. He couldn’t see the overall cognitive information change when the emotions being influenced changed, hence he never made the discovery before.

Of course, during the Spring Festival break, while he was influencing the emotions of the three car thieves in the abandoned factory, he also did not notice any anomalies in the Super Sensory State. This proves that the tagging and distinguishing of cognitive information were partly due to his recent evolution and mutation, and partly due to the large-scale impact of emotional projection, leading to a qualitative change from quantitative change.

From what we can see at the moment, referring to this kind of connection as a “tag” seems most apt, since he can only observe it in a “Super Sensory State”, but has yet to find a way to influence through this connection.

At the most, in the Super Sensory State, he can instantly determine if a person has been affected by the emotional projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”, as well as derive a way to judge other people’s emotions in the Super Sensory State.

However, this discovery brings more benefits to Xiang Kun than meets the eye.

In the Super Sensory State, human emotions and even thoughts can present themselves as cognitive information and by using emotions projection from Emotion Infused Objects, it provides him with a shortcut to “decode”.

In the long run, this means that Xiang Kun has a deeper and more essential understanding of the “Super Sensory State”, which means he has found a more convenient way to “decode” various cognitive information under the “Super Sensory State”.

Before this, his “decoding” could only clumsily switch between two states, and compare the sensory information and cognitive information of the same object that he observed, thus distinguishing the meaning represented by the cognitive information.

If he could quickly “decode” enough cognitive information, it could potentially bring a qualitative leap to his “Super Sensory Item System”, as well as his related abilities.

At that time, “Parasitic World”, “Decode Universal Things”, “Universal Hacker”, “Universal Programming”, wouldn’t just be pretentious slogans, abstract theories, and distant goals, but could actually begin to prepare for practical implementation.

Therefore, despite the fact that he ended emotional projection and withdrew all “Super-Connected Objects”, Xiang Kun felt that the commotion he had caused tonight was a bit too big and might bring some subsequent troubles, but he didn’t regret it at all.

He climbed to a high point in the city and, through vision and other sensory information, confirmed that the city’s unrest had basically subsided, and due to the mobilization by the Myitkyina officials, a large number of military and police had also entered the city, controlling the situation.

Thus, Xiang Kun did not linger, walked out of the city directly, preparing to travel overnight and leave as soon as possible.

Although the city was under martial law and all highways and main roads leading out of the city were full of military and police for strict inspections, it was still easy for Xiang Kun to leave.

After all, by taking off his shoes, he could traverse any terrain. He could completely take the “road less travelled”, leaving from the mountains and forests where there was no paved road.

Tonight’s unprecedented mass emotional projection effect allowed Xiang Kun to briefly escape from the craziness and violence brought by the blood-drinking demand when entering the “Super Sensory State”. At the end of the emotional projection, he also experienced an inexplicable sense of exhilaration.

This feeling was like driving a 720 horsepower supercar but only dared to run at a 40KM/H speed limit, suddenly getting the chance to drive on the airport runway, pressing the pedal to the metal, and releasing its performance to the fullest.

It was like having a 2080TI graphics card and 4K display, but only being able to read novels, type documents, and browse 480P short videos. Finally, there was a chance to play a 3A single-player game, turning on all the visuals, and experiencing the stunning visual effects.

However, after this exhilaration, the craziness and violence brought by the blood-drinking demand still existed, and it was greatly amplified at night. While running, his instinctive sensory information collection quickly determined the various animals in the surrounding forests. His mind constantly calculated their blood volume and devised various ways to kill them for blood.

Although Xiang Kun had decided long ago not to drink blood and sleep in an uncertain environment like Burma unless absolutely necessary, because of the blood-drinking impulse, his brain continuously created blood-drinking plans based on the sensory information gathered.

The plan to drink blood outside wasn’t completely impossible, but it had a prerequisite, which was to devour other “mutant creatures”.

Because devouring other “mutant creatures” only required a short sleep time, he could wake up in about twenty to thirty minutes, much safer compared to continuous sleep of 25 hours.

So when he was traveling through the forests in Burma, searching the city, and then going out to sea to look for “Brother Kui” and the others’ ship, he was deliberately looking for signs of other “mutant creatures”.

Unfortunately, all the way up to now, he still hasn’t found any traces of other “mutant creatures”.

So before the sunrise, while Xiang Kun was traveling, he could only try to stay rational and awake by occasionally sensing Old Xia’s emotional projections.

…

In the house where Xia Li Bing was renting in Citong City.

A ponytailed girl still sat in front of her computer, holding a notebook in her hand, with her eyes closed as if in deep meditation.

But every now and then, she would open her eyes and browse a Burmese social media site using a translation plugin on the computer in front of her, to keep up with what the netizens were discussing.

The girl is none other than Xia Libing. Even though it’s three in the morning, she still stays awake. She knows that Xiang Kun should be in his blood-drinking period now and needs to sense her rational, clear “pseudo-feeling” through the “Emotion Infused Objects” she carries, such as the notebook full of black circle graffiti, to suppress the manic and violent emotions.

So, she has to stay awake so that Xiang Kun can sense her anytime and ease his blood cravings.

This afternoon, she, along with her uncle and aunt, and the officials had received news from the Xia Tianhuo Company. They said that Tianhuo had managed to contact them via satellite phone. The kidnappers had taken him aboard a ship to the sea, there was an internal fight, leaving only one survivor. For now, Tianhuo was safe.

After sundown, there was the latest news from Myitkyina. The company’s responders had found Tianhuo’s ship, docked it at the nearest port, and then the police took control of the ship. Tianhuo and the remaining kidnapper were taken to the hospital for examination. Among those accompanying them were both company officials and embassy staff from our country.

Tianhuo is still cooperating with the investigation by the Myanmarese police, so he can’t come back immediately, but his safety is basically guaranteed.

This sudden twist and turn caught everyone from the family to the police and government officials by surprise.

However, the fact that Tianhuo got out safely and seemingly unscathed is the best news, easing everyone’s tensions immensely.

The uncle planned to meet with Tianhuo’s father who had just returned to the country, and then they would both go to Burma to reunite with Tianhuo. The aunt, on the other hand, had to go back to the third ward to handle some urgent matters. Xia Libing also found an excuse to leave her uncle’s house and return to her rented house in Citong City.

Although what she had discussed before with Xiang Kun was to prepare the meat rabbits needed for the blood-drinking ceremony in advance at the house they had in Chongyun Village, Xia Libing had a change of heart and decided to change the location from Chongyun Village to Citong City.

That afternoon, when she received a phone call from someone at Tianhuo’s company, everyone else felt surprised, but Xia Libing immediately realized that Xiang Kun must have found Tianhuo.

She could even guess Xiang Kun’s methods from the word “infighting”.

When Xiang Kun emerged from the sea, he also contacted her immediately via WeChat, confirming her suspicions.

However, another message sent by Xiang Kun in the evening caused Libing, who had already prepared to call a cab and rushed to Chongyun Village to prepare him for blood-drinking, to change her mind.

The message from Xiang Kun was simple, saying, “I’ll make a big fuss in Myitkyina before I leave”.

Xia Libing didn’t know exactly what Xiang Kun was up against, but staying in Citong would allow her to provide support in an emergency faster than she could in Chongyun Village, whether by plane or high-speed rail.

Secondly, according to her research, the border city where Xiang Kun had previously arrived had more direct flights to Citong than Jianzhou. And the flights were more flexible and also earlier. It was closer and faster from Citong Airport to where she lived than it was from Jianzhou Airport to Tong Shi Town and then to Chongyun Village.

Starting the blood-drinking process as soon as possible while Xiang Kun was already in need of blood-drinking would prevent unforeseen circumstances.

Thirdly, since Xiang Kun had drunk blood here before, she knew exactly where to buy meat rabbits and how to go about the whole process. This would prevent her from falling asleep on her way back to Chongyun Village. She could also provide continuous “technical support” to Xiang Kun, such as “Dream in A Dream”, whenever he needed it.

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