What It's Like Being a Vampire

Xiang Kun and Old Xia ran up to the rooftop terrace and set up a small table to place the laptop. They each took a seat on a small plastic stool and huddled together to discuss the information he had gleaned that night while watching the screen. The primary topic of discussion was the analysis of the dream content of the humanoid “mutant” he had sensed.

Xiang Kun already knew from Alice that the “human-shaped mutant” who was lingering underneath the Brilliant Fortune Building with Mr. Liang was named John. All that was known was that he came from Europe, entered the country irregularly, and his specific history and identity were not entirely clear.

In the dream of John that Xiang Kun had sensed, John was fighting a giant serpent in a gloomy and spooky underground building. The building looked like an underground tomb, with a ceiling that was dozens of meters high and filled with a hodgepodge of Egyptian, medieval, and ancient Chinese architectural styles and altars. The surrounding environment was clearly not the underground space beneath the Brilliant Fortune Building, but rather an environment that he had imagined based on his own experiences and emotional influences.

The giant serpent was enormous, at least seven or eight meters tall when it stood up, and its body was as thick as a barrel. It had a huge mouth filled with sharp teeth on its chest, and within its mouth were several hooked tentacles, menacingly baring fangs and brandishing claws at him.

Regardless of whether it was information obtained from Alice or what Xiang Kun deciphered from the “Super Sensory State”, it could be determined that the “mutant” resembling a giant serpent lumbering under the Brilliant Fortune Building was not so gigantic.

John himself was clad in a suit of European medieval style plate armor, however, what he held in his hand was a gargantuan white porcelain knife. This porcelain knife was incredibly sharp and easily severed the tentacles in the giant serpent’s mouth.

With relative ease, John defeated the serpent that was far larger than himself. The serpent then turned into a white mist and dissipated, while John turned to kneel beneath a large platform, looking up at the steps leading to a gigantic throne at the end, and submitted himself in subservience.

Subsequently, an uncanny “monster” manifested on that throne.

The monster, though humanoid in shape, was naked with no eyelids or lips, a broad and flattened nose with wide nostrils as if two holes had been dug into the face, and odd patterns running across the skin with an appearance of streaming light.

The humanoid monster slowly rose, was about to speak, when suddenly sensing something, it turned to look at the space above behind it. There, an overwhelmingly huge figure slowly emerged in the glow of the fires from the surrounding multitude of altars.

First appearing was a enormous head, it’s eight eyes as if eight creatures with lives and consciousness of their own, indifferently surveying everything below.

Emerging slowly from beneath the colossal head from behind the building was an equally titanic body, as well as eight arms as large as colossal pillars, reaching down to the ground to support its body as it continued to rise.

The Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant was not only rising from the ground but also continued to expand, seemingly intending to occupy the entire underground space.

The humanoid monster that was originally on the platform retreated step by step, then abruptly vanished.

John on the other hand swiftly rose from the ground, hopped up onto a nearby altar, scanned around, then lifted a plate of rabbit meat high above his head, before again kneeling down.

A moment later, a gigantic hand descended from above, covering the rabbit meat, John who held the meat, as well as the entire altar beneath his knee.

The dream ended there.

Xiang Kun speculated that the humanoid monster that appeared and disappeared atop the high platform was likely Mr. Liang.

Through John’s sensory information in the dream, Xiang Kun knew that John felt a touch of fear towards the humanoid monster, but towards the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant that almost burst the entire underground space, he felt a strong sense of longing, joy, submission, and worship.

The absence of fear towards the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed being was easily understood by Xiang Kun because the dream was induced by the rabbit wood carving, not the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed wood carving, thus the person influenced in the dream would be displaying emotions and thoughts during wakefulness.

But given this, why would the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed wood carving hold such huge significance in his dream, and why would he hold a sense of worship?

Could it be that this guy had previously experienced the emotional projection emanating from the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed wood carving?

Perhaps in Burma?

No, if he had indeed been influenced by the emotional projection from the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed wood carving, there would certainly be fear involved when he saw the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Giant in his dream, and it would materialize into something he fears the most. It wouldn’t be so strongly submissive and worshipful.

Dreams and the memory fragments Xiang Kun obtains after devouring the blood of other “mutants” obviously differ greatly, usually limited to a singular scene with minor activities. And a lot of what is seen and sensed would have been processed by the subconscious, hence deviating from actual memories and objective facts.

Although Xiang Kun can now directly edit the dream he induces to some extent, compared to Old Xia’s “Dream in A Dream”, his abilities to directly explore other’s memories, and to hypnotize and guide them is still somewhat inferior. There is no guarantee on the information that can be gleaned through dreams, or that the subject can be hypnotized to forget the process of being hypnotized. Thus Xiang Kun refrained from acting rashly.

Nevertheless, the dream he had sensed this time allowed him to draw a few conclusions:

1, His “Emotion Infused Objects” could cause “mutant” beings to have dreams. Whether non-humanoid creatures could be induced to dream was something that still required testing;

2, It was clear that John had just finished devouring that serpent and entered a blood-drinking slumber. According to his experience, during this slumber after devouring a “mutant”, he would obtain fragments of its memories, and these sensory information would rapidly play out in his mind like a carousel. It was unknown whether John had finished acquiring these memory fragments, or was that process interrupted by his “Emotion Infused Object” inducing a dream, or perhaps John was unable to acquire memory fragments from other “mutants” that he has consumed;

3, By comparing his sensory perception within other people’s dreams with that of John’s dream, Xiang Kun can tell that although John’s senses of hearing, vision, and smell were enhanced beyond that of ordinary people, they are still significantly weaker than Xiang Kun’s. They are roughly equivalent to the level after Xiang Kun’s third or fourth blood-drinking mutation. At least on a sensory level, John should be considered a rather ordinary “mutant” compared to most;

4, The massive white ceramic knife that John used against the giant serpent in the dream and the one Xiang Kun obtained after he killed Guo Tianxiang are very similar in form and material, suggesting that they likely came from the same source. It’s possible that John and Guo Tianxiang are somehow linked;

5, The image of Mr. Liang in the dream might not perfectly align with the real Mr. Liang, but it should not be far off. Before Alice was unable to locate any video footage of Mr. Liang, he seemed to go invisible whenever he was under surveillance. He also did this when operating the console in the secret underground space of the Brilliant Fortune Building. Therefore, both Xiang Kun and Alice didn’t have a clear idea of what he looked like. According to Xiang Kun’s sensory information and John’s impression in the dream, it was clear that Mr. Liang did not cling to human appearances like Xiang Kun does;

6, Judging by John’s attitude towards Mr. Liang in the dream, it can be deduced that, as previously speculated by Xiang Kun and Alice, he was not part of the same organization as Mr. Liang and was most likely his captive;

After hearing Xiang Kun’s sensory descriptions and his six judgments regarding the dream, Xia Libing started pondering while using Alice to make a simple table on the computer.

Since Alice has fully integrated into the “Super Sensory Item System”, Xiang Kun no longer has concerns about data security due to Alice’s immense dominance in the digital world. Whether it was discussing with Old Xia or doing his own recordings, he would let Alice take care of everything through the computer to ensure all related information was documented to further improve the “Vampire Mutation Model”.

Xia Libing occasionally asked for further details about the dream. Xiang Kun explained as requested and even had Alice help with creating a simulation software. Based on the descriptions from John’s dream, they constructed a similar model of a giant underground tomb and even “re-created” Mr. Liang’s appearance in the dream.

After quite a while, Xia Libing finished making a table and said to Xiang Kun: “Based on past cases, the target’s dream reflects his reaction to the current state of affairs on one hand:

“The dim and seemingly endless underground environment, and the vague, stylistically inconsistent architecture imply that he doesn’t have a clear understanding of his own situation, or the background of Mr. Liang. He only has broad and vague assumptions;

“The giantness of the serpent represents his perception of the serpent’s strength, which significantly exceeds his own. But the fact the he quickly vanquished the serpent indicates that after vanquishing and devouring the serpent, he was in a relaxed and triumphant state of mind;

“Mr. Liang’s tall stature and the fact he is standing on a platform far higher than John indicates that whether in terms of actual strength or psychological upper hand, John feels absolutely inferior when facing Mr. Liang. He is utterly suppressed with no confidence or thoughts of resistance on his own;

“On the other hand, it also represents his hope for a change in the status quo, a hope for the future:

“The Eight-Armed Eight-Eyed Giant’s body is massive, almost filling the entire space, and appears suddenly. It emerges from behind the platform where Mr. Liang is standing and scares Mr. Liang away. This proves that in his subconscious, the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Giant and the power it represents is far more formidable than Mr. Liang. He also harbors hopes that this power can help him counter Mr. Liang and change his situation;

“Upon seeing the dream projection of the ‘Emotion Infused Objects’, namely the ‘Rabbit Meat’, his first reaction was to pick up the ‘Rabbit Meat’ and ‘sacrifice’ it to the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Giant. This suggests that in his heart, he believes there is a connection between this ‘Rabbit Meat’ and the ‘Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Giant’;

“Finally, when the palm of the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Giant came down and pressed onto both him and the entire sacrificial platform, it proved that deep down, he is skeptical and apprehensive about relying on the power of the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Giant.

“Based on the investigations previously conducted by you and Alice on the underground space of the Brilliant Fortune Building, the target was not imprisoned within a closed space like the other three ‘mutants’. Instead, he is semi-free within the underground space, and has been staying with the rabbit wood carving all the time. I speculate that Mr. Liang reckons the target could somehow uncover the origins of the rabbit wood carving and he might have told him about the dream and the ‘Rabbit Meat’;

“As for the connection between the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Giant and the rabbit wood carving, it could be Mr. Liang’s assumption, or it could be the target’s own assumption, such as learning about what happened in Myitkyina through the internet or other media, and then connecting them together through some intrinsic logic. The Emotion Infused Objects-induced effect caused by Alice’s failed information theft attempt a few days ago, which made him hallucinate the ‘Rabbit Meat’, likely further reinforced his understanding;

“Not long after seeing the ‘Rabbit Meat’ hallucination, the target devoured a ‘mutant’, which was clearly orchestrated by Mr. Liang;

“Based on the current speculative judgment, Mr. Liang treats other ‘mutants’, whether mutated from humans or other creatures, basically the same way. When they first appear, he will summon secret department research personnel and field personnel to investigate them. But the real capture of the ‘mutant’ is done in a completely closed and solely controlled setting, with no observable systematic research methods. It’s more like emotional, random handling;

“I speculate that Mr. Liang is naturally possessive and cautious towards other ‘mutants’. If we want to get in touch with him, we should be prepared for possible confrontations. Or perhaps we can establish contact with the people at that ‘Abnormal Research Center’ when we have completed our own research base and obtained some valuable results. Compared that, Mr. Liang is a much bigger and harder to control variable;

“Considering the target’s mental state, in the future, we may use the rabbit wood carving and the nearby deployed ‘Super-connected Objects’ to influence and guide him, allowing him to help us further probe Mr. Liang’s attitude towards ‘mutants’ and the reason why he didn’t allow the researchers to participate in the direct research of ‘mutants’.”

After hearing Old Xia’s analysis, Xiang Kun nodded his approval, “Indeed, I wouldn’t rashly contact Mr. Liang myself. I will wait for Alice to help me extract data from the hidden storage devices under the Brilliant Fortune Building. Only after we clarify those queries will we decide what’s next.”

Xiang Kun grinned, “Besides, given Alice’s control and mastery of the confidential information of Divine Technology, we can not only mislead or guide their investigative direction, but we can also utilize their established information collection network, contracted investigators, and related equipment and researchers to assist us with our research, right? In fact… there’s no need for us to set up our own equipment when we can simply use theirs. Right, Alice? We can do this, can’t we?”

The notebook computer replied crisply: “It can be done!”

However, Xia Libing immediately refuted the suggestion: “I want to do it myself.”

Xiang Kun didn’t insist, and smiled, saying, “Then we’ll do it ourselves.”

Alice seemed to be siding with Xiang Kun: “We’ll do it ourselves!”

——

I’d recommend the new book by Sacred Wisdom Wolf, “Ancient God Breeder”. His character crosses into a different dimension, raising dragons and ancient gods.

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