What It's Like Being a Vampire

A kindergarten in Star City.

After the children finished their lunch, a young female teacher ensured that all the children had gone to bed for their nap, then sat down by the door, put on her headphones, and began to watch a video on her cellphone.

Before long, a small hand gently patted the teacher’s arm. She looked up and saw that it was Liu Shiling, the “most popular child” in the class.

The teacher removed her headphones and subconsciously held Liu Shiling’s chubby little hand. She asked in a soft and concerned voice, “What’s wrong, Shiling?”

Liu Shiling also spoke softly: “Teacher, I’m thirsty. I want to drink some water.”

So the teacher got up and walked to the wall. Among a row of stainless steel cups, she found the one labeled with Liu Shiling’s name, poured her a small amount of boiled water, and helped blow it until it cooled before handing it to her: “Sip it slowly, be careful, it’s hot.”

“Thank you, teacher.” Liu Shiling took the cup, blowing on the steam while taking small sips of the water.

The teacher returned to her seat by the door. However, instead of continuing to watch the video, she started looking at some text messages on her phone.

Liu Shiling moved a small stool to the teacher’s side. Holding her cup, she sat next to the teacher and softly asked, “Teacher, what video were you watching just now?”

“Can I watch with you?” Liu Shiling asked quietly, “I can’t sleep.”

The teacher hesitated, surprised that a child would be interested in a news video.

After thinking for a moment, she agreed. She took out the earphone again, cleaned the ear tips briefly, gave one to Liu Shiling, then plugged it back into her phone and continued watching the video she was previously watching.

She was watching a video about an incident that happened in Myitkyina the night before. The original uploader had combined various news clips and home-made videos from both domestic and foreign sources, then narrated it in their own language with subtitles.

The video showed a shop that had been smashed, a street with scattered traces of blood, and then the camera flipped to a Chinese boss who was standing in front of his smashed store, describing his experience from the night before in Chinese while filming. It was obvious this video was originally posted on his own social media.

The teacher hesitated, wondering if it was appropriate to show kindergarteners this kind of video. There was no direct violence, but these scenes were the consequences of a riot.

In the morning, Liu Shiling had overheard several teachers in the hallway discussing the news. She had no interest in current affairs or news. She couldn’t distinguish between Burma and Myitkyina, nor did she know where they were or how far they were from Star City.

However, she picked up two phrases from the teachers’ discussion: “eight arms” and “eight eyes”.

Liu Shiling immediately thought of “Bald Uncle’s” “pet”, the “Barbie Warrior” she had named.

She was thus very curious about what the teachers were discussing, and wanted to know whether the being described as having “eight arms and eight eyes” was the “Barbie Warrior”.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t access QQ at the moment to confirm with “Bald Uncle”, and the teachers had only briefly touched on the topic before discontinuing their discussion.

Just before nap time, she happened to see the teacher watching what seemed to be related news on her phone. There was a brief shot of a giant with eight arms, so she came over, thick-faced as she was, to request to watch together.

“Teacher, can we start watching from the beginning?” After watching for a while, Liu Shiling suddenly asked carefully.

The female teacher was even more surprised. Liu Shiling was actually interested in this news?

She had originally watched for about 6 or 7 minutes. It didn’t matter to watch it over again. Moreover, she was more interested in why Liu Shiling would want to watch this kind of news clip.

The video started playing from the beginning again. It features a girl who had personally experienced the riots in Myitkyina last night and seen the illusion of the eight-armed, eight-eyed monster. She was describing her experience the previous night through a selfie video.

This girl happened to work in graphic design and had also undergone training in drawing. She returned to the hotel last night and drew the illusion of the eight-armed, eight-eyed monster she had seen.

What Liu Shiling caught a glimpse of when she glanced at the screen just now was the display of that picture.

After the video started playing again, the female teacher was no longer focused on her phone. She was constantly observing Liu Shiling from the corner of her eye, and to her astonishment, the child was indeed staring at the screen with wide eyes, deeply engrossed in the news clip and the explanatory video.

“Teacher, can we pause here?” Liu Shiling suddenly asked, looking up at her teacher.

“Ah? Oh, here?” The teacher reflexively tapped the screen, pausing the video, to reveal the sketch of the eight-armed, eight-eyed monster illusion.

Liu Shiling said, “Teacher, can you screenshot this drawing and send it to my QQ? I want to learn to draw this.”

The teacher looked at the drawing again and asked in surprise, “Why would you want to draw this? Don’t you…think it’s scary?”

Liu Shiling was also surprised. “Why would it be scary? It hasn’t done anything wrong… Teacher, has it done something wrong?”

The teacher was stunned for a moment. She had already seen some news from Myitkyina this morning, especially the descriptions of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster illusion”. After discussing it with other teachers when she got to work, they each had different guesses about the reason for the appearance of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster”. However, one thing nearly all the media, eyewitnesses, and netizens discussing the topic agreed on was that the appearance of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster illusion” in Myitkyina had objectively put a stop to a large-scale riot, saving countless lives that might have been lost.

Seeing Liu Shiling still waiting for her answer with her big eyes wide open, the teacher had no choice but to tell the truth, “It didn’t do anything wrong; on the contrary… it did a good thing. It saved a lot of people.”

Liu Shiling laughed happily, “So it’s a very powerful and good pet… monster! I want to draw it!”

The teacher immediately thought of the multiple-winged, multiple-eyed animals Liu Shiling often drew. Understanding that this child likes such images because they suit her aesthetic, the teacher felt relief.

“Okay, I’ll screenshot it and send it to you.” The teacher took a screenshot of the video and sent it to Liu Shiling’s QQ – a contact she had just added a couple of days ago at Shiling’s request.

However, the teacher was still puzzled when, after happily saying, “Thank you, teacher!”, Liu Shiling continued watching the news video about Myitkyina with her. Even though the sketch of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster” no longer appeared in the video, which was just a collection of related selfies and interviews by eyewitnesses, Liu Shiling was still captivated.

Naturally, the teacher didn’t know that after watching just a little bit, Liu Shiling had essentially made up her mind that what was being described by the people in the video was “Uncle Baldy’s Barbie Warrior”. She didn’t have any evidence or basis for her judgment; it was just a hunch.

With the “Barbie Warrior” doing good again, she took pride in it.

In the afternoon, Liu Shiling’s class had a drawing lesson. After she finished drawing the content the teacher assigned, she started redesigning her own “Barbie Warrior” image based on the sketch of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed monster” she had seen on the teacher’s phone at noon.

Because she didn’t have her tablet with her and couldn’t access QQ, and it wasn’t appropriate to ask the teacher to borrow her phone again, she had to try to imitate the drawing from memory.

Unfortunately, even though Little Fatty Girl’s drawing skills had improved a lot under the guidance of Tang Baona, there was still a vast difference between her and the girl in the video. The elements were too complex and the style was too realistic for her abilities. Moreover, her memory of that drawing was slightly off from reality, blending with her impressions of the real “Barbie Warrior” from her dreams.

As a result, the drawing didn’t turn out to be as awe-inspiring and majestic as the girl’s drawing, staring down on all life. In fact, it was even worse than her previous drawings of the “Barbie Warrior”.

Looking at the even uglier “Barbie Warrior” on the paper, Liu Shiling sighed helplessly and her eyebrows furrowed together.

“Haha, is this the drawing from the video we watched at noon? Shiling, you did a great job, it’s so cute.” The female teacher who walked up to Liu Shiling complimented with a laugh after looking at her finished drawing of the chubby, plump “Barbie Warrior.”

Liu Shiling’s expression became even more bitter. A “Barbie Warrior” was supposed to be impressive, not cute!

…

After she returned home with her mom in the afternoon, Liu Shiling immediately asked for her mom’s PAD. Then she went back to her room, logged into QQ, and saved the screenshot of the video sent by the teacher.

She took out her drawing book, staring at the picture drawn by the lady in the PAD for a long time, but still couldn’t start drawing.

She thought for a while, then opened QQ again to find Tang Baona’s avatar. Just as she was about to press the voice button, she remembered that her Fairy Sister had said that she and the pretty sister were going somewhere and would be busy for a while, so they couldn’t teach her to draw or sing for the time being.

She scratched her head, scrolled through her short QQ friend list, and clicked on a cartoon deer avatar wearing a helmet – this represented “Da Lu”, Zhou Lutong’s QQ.

She had previously exchanged letters with “Da Lu” a few times through Xiao Mei. “Da Lu” had sent her several drawings, and she had given “Da Lu” several origami. The last time they added each other on QQ, but they only greeted each other once and haven’t spoken since then.

Liu Shiling sent the saved video screenshot to her, then sent a voice message for help: “Da Lu, Da Lu, I want to learn how to draw this, how should I learn?”

Liu Shiling didn’t wait for a reply, but kept trying to draw the “Barbie Warrior” in her own way, because she knew that “Da Lu” was a primary school student and got out of school later than their kindergarten.

After eating dinner, Liu Shiling finally received a reply from “Da Lu”. But her response was neither text nor voice, but a drawing.

The drawing was of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed monster” drawn by the lady in the video screenshot she had sent earlier. However, “Da Lu” accurately extracted some characteristics from the drawing, exaggerated those features, simplified other details, thickened the lines, and cartoonified the drawing style.

Upon seeing the picture sent by “Da Lu”, Liu Shiling’s eyes lit up. She didn’t need to say anything, this picture had addressed all her previous problems.

The lady’s picture was a sketch. Liu Shiling had never studied sketching. She only drew simple colored pencil pictures, so it was difficult for her to mimic this realistic style with many details.

But “Da Lu” helped her deconstruct and reorganize the picture, which immediately gave her a feeling of familiarity. As a result, following “Da Lu’s” newly revised style, and adding some features of the “Barbie Warrior” she saw in her dreams, she quickly produced a relatively satisfactory “Barbie Warrior”.

After completing the drawing, Liu Shiling picked up her own painting and examined it carefully, tilting her head left and right, squinting her eyes, her face full of smiles and showing off.

Then she began to tear up little pieces of paper. After tearing up a large amount of paper, she controlled the two coins, “Chocolate” and “Ice Cream”, to jump into the paper scraps. After a while, it seemed as if a miniature tornado formed and lifted the paper scraps into the air. Then one tornado became two, and the top ends of the two tornadoes connected together, swaying, converging, and extending.

Under the influence of the two coins, the torn pieces quickly formed a 30 cm tall, eight-armed figure.

Moreover, she purposefully colored some of the paper scraps black, intending to control them to form eight eyes on the figure’s head.

Unfortunately, her control was not accurate enough. Among all the scraps of paper, she could not precisely manipulate the black ones, so the eyes of the eight-armed figure were mostly on its stomach, like it had been jabbed with eight holes.

Though it wasn’t perfect, Liu Shiling was already very happy just looking at the image of the eight-armed figure — at least no one would mistake it for a standing crab or a bare tree with its leaves blown away by the wind anymore!

The reason she tried so hard to draw a good “Barbie Warrior” was not only because she loved drawing, but mainly to establish and create a more concrete and complete image of the “Barbie Warrior” in her mind!

That way, when she conjured up the image of the “Barbie Warrior” using “magic”, it would be much more impressive!

Although Uncle Bald had told her before not to use “magic” to construct the image of the “Barbie Warrior” outdoors or in front of people, she should prepare and practice first. Because if she doesn’t and end up conjuring a “crab standing upright” when she really needs it, it would be quite embarrassing and the dignity of the “Barbie Warrior” would not be upheld.

The name “Barbie Warrior” was her creation after all!

Perhaps in the future, the “Barbie Warrior” could, through her magic, truly exist in this world, having a physical form to fight against villains, instead of being treated as an illusion or hallucination that doesn’t exist.

Liu Shiling was really happy when she managed to construct an eight-armed figure out of paper scraps. She controlled the tiny eight-armed figure, made of paper, to float up into the air, with its eight arms constantly swinging, like swimming in the air.

“Whooooosh, whooooosh~, Barbie Warrior is flying~, whooooosh, whooooosh, Barbie Warrior can fight really well, whooooosh…”

As she controlled the eight-armed figure to fly around the room, Liu Shiling was humming a song cheerfully, a tune she herself didn’t even know where it came from.

Shiling’s mom, who was watching TV while combing Custard Pie’s fur in the living room, seemed to vaguely hear her daughter humming in her room. She frowned and brought Custard Pie to the door of the room and pressed her ear against it, listening carefully.

After a while, Shiling’s mom thought Liu Shiling was crying in her room, and was startled. She quickly pushed the door open and rushed in, “Shiling, what’s wrong?”

“Ah!” Liu Shiling was startled by her mom’s sudden appearance. She had just been humming to herself and jumped in surprise, almost biting her own tongue.

At the same time, the eight-armed tiny paper figure that she had been controlling to fly above her head disintegrated into a flurry of paper scraps and two coins fell to the ground. It was as if snowflakes were fluttering around Little Fatty Girl.

Seeing the scene before her, Shiling’s mom was stunned. She quickly realized that her daughter must have been pretending to be a homeless girl in the snow, using paper scraps as snowflakes.

“Liu Shiling! How many times have I told you not to tear up paper scraps carelessly! They are so hard to clean up! They float everywhere, around the table, in the corners of the wall, you can’t even sweep them up, do you know that?”

Under her mother’s frustrated scrutiny, Little Fatty quickly scurried over to get a broom to sweep the floor – even though using “Chocolate” and “Ice Cream” to “collect” the scraps would have been much more efficient.

“Custard Pie” also obediently ran over to Liu Shiling’s side, helping her sweep the floor, even finding the paper scraps that fluttered under the bed or into the corners.

However, no matter how Liu Shiling looked at that chubby cat face, she felt like it was taking delight in her misfortune.

Shiling’s mom, who was watching her daughter sweep the floor with her arms crossed, did not look stern or angry. Instead, the corners of her mouth seemed to curl up a bit, as if trying not to smile.

She didn’t know why, but seeing her daughter making silly mistakes now actually made her feel happier and more relaxed.

For some time, her daughter had been increasingly sensible and mature, no longer watching cartoons every day, demanding for yummy food, or causing mischief. Instead, she loved studying, was quiet, polite and did not fuss. But this change upset Shiling’s mom, and not knowing what to do about it, she couldn’t exactly tell her daughter to “stop being so well-behaved.

Out of the corner of her eye, Shiling’s Mom noticed a few drawings on the table in the room. The one on top was an eight-armed, eight-eyed figure. From the overall form and proportions of the figure to the colouring, it all looked quite good. Had her daughter improved her drawing skills again?

This was not the first time her daughter had drawn the eight-armed, eight-eyed figure. She had drawn it several times before, along with an orange cat with several sets of wings and eyes, both frequently featured in Liu Shiling’s drawings.

When she saw them before, she didn’t think much of it and credited it to her daughter’s imagination. But now, she was reminded of a news story she saw today. The monster described by a Burmese tourist in the news also had eight arms and eight eyes, didn’t it?

Shiling’s Mom furrowed her brows a bit, but then quickly dismissed her doubts. Images of figures with multiple arms and eyes, they aren’t really exclusive to anyone. The world is so large, there must be many similar figures around. Maybe her daughter just got the idea from some cartoon character.

But looking at the drawing on the table, Shiling’s Mom still felt a little strange, as if she had forgotten something.

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