What It's Like Being a Vampire

Can a person fall asleep while standing? Of course, it’s possible. Xiang Kun had such experience before his mutation, falling asleep standing up on the subway, only to be jolted awake when it was his stop.

However, generally, if you’re sleeping standing up, you need something to lean on, or to be holding onto a handrail like on a bus or subway, otherwise it’s easy to lose your balance when you doze off.

But Old Xia wasn’t leaning against a wall or holding onto a handrail, yet she still managed to sustain her balance while asleep. This was quite amazing.

Could it be because she was holding that woodcarving, helping her to maintain her balance and center of gravity?

Xiang Kun put on a shirt and then squatted down in front of Old Xia, gazing at her with amusement. He tried to take the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Wood Carving from Old Xia’s hand, but the moment he touched the woodcarving, Old Xia’s eyes shot open, and she lifted the woodcarving up.

Old Xia, her eyes wide, looked at Xiang Kun who was squatting and gazing up at her. She hesitated for a second, put down the wood carving, didn’t ask Xiang Kun what he was doing, and first checked the video camera, asking, “How long have you been awake?”

“About two minutes and twenty-six, seven seconds,” Xiang Kun answered. “If you’re tired, go to sleep first. I’ll gather the data myself; you can review it when you wake up.” Old Xia was obviously exhausted to the point of falling asleep on her feet.

But after recording Xiang Kun’s sleep duration and saving the recorded video file onto the computer, Xia Li Bing still ended up completing various data tests and recordings for Xiang Kun.

Throughout the procedure, Xia Li Bing was silent, her eyes half-closed as if she was sleepwalking, yet her movements in writing, recording, measuring were still very accurate and fluent, without any errors.

After giving the notebook filled with data collected during Xiang Kun’s sleep to him, setting up the chat window with Little Fatty Girl on Xiang Kun’s phone and saving it, Xia Li Bing then moved towards the bed.

“I’ll change your sheets and quilt cover for you…” Before Xiang Kun could finish his sentence, he saw that Old Xia had already flopped onto the bed and fell asleep immediately.

Xiang Kun chuckled, helped Old Xia to remove her shoes, moved her legs onto the bed, loosened up her hair, laid her head on the pillow, and then fetched a blanket from the cupboard to cover her up—the previous time when he was sleeping, he did not use a blanket for ease of observation for Old Xia.

Xiang Kun picked up Old Xia’s softcover notebook, flicking through it. The notebook was new, everything written in it started from yesterday.

The special symbols Old Xia used to record data, Xiang Kun obviously understood it.

It was only after reading Old Xia’s records that he realised, during his blood-drinking hibernation, his body temperature did not gradually drop but first rose and then returned to the level before drinking blood. Near the time he woke up, it gradually dropped slightly.

What changes were really happening in his body during this process?

While Old Xia was recording this data, she also marked the equipment that will need to be purchased or custom-made in the future. Seeing these gadgets, Xiang Kun could imagine being laid on a bed resembling the hibernation-capsule from science fiction movies after his future blood-drinking hibernation, body wired to various data-gathering lines, surrounded by electronic devices, while Old Xia in a white lab coat with a tablet in her hand recording all sorts of data.

As he was reading, Xiang Kun suddenly realized that some data were clearly not similar to the usual notations about his hibernation, but seemed like creation and prediction of a new model, and some words, terms and descriptions were not made by the special symbols. They were directly written in Chinese, filled with the contents completely unrelated to Old Xia’s style like ‘magic’, ‘casting a spell’ etc.

Flipping another page, he saw a simple, round doodle of a figure with a hoodie drawn by Old Xia, and he immediately recognized — this was Little Fatty Girl donning a “magic robe” with cat ears from the dream.

Old Xia marked some abstract graphics and hypothesized formulas next to Little Fatty Girl’s doodle, but most of them were crossed or blotted out.

Then he recalled how Old Xia, before going to sleep, opened the chat window of QQ conversation with Liu Shi Ling on his phone. He picked up his phone and scrolled through the conversation with Liu Shi Ling.

Most of the conversation between the two was through voice messages, with about one-third of Old Xia messages being pictures and various emoji.

After listening to them, Xiang Kun immediately understood the origin of some of the sensations he had when he woke up — it seemed Little Fatty Girl had expanded and upgraded her “created” ability.

Xiang Kun raised his gaze to the light glowing in his bedroom, he had a desire to experiment subconsciously. However, remembering that the main server of “Alice” was in his bedroom, he restrained himself.

He took his phone and went to the balcony, took out a one-yuan coin which had established a “super sensory contact” and placed it on the phone screen, then tuned into it for a moment.

Shortly after, the phone screen turned off, although he didn’t press the power button, nor was it timed to turn off automatically.

The next instant, the phone screen lit up again displaying the lock screen, the hand holding the phone didn’t move at all, neither the power button nor the fingerprint unlock were touched.

Xiang Kun can now control the lighting and extinguishing of his phone screen directly through the influence of “super-connected objects” solely by his senses.

He could have accomplished the same thing before by entering a “super sensory state”, also with the use of “super-connected objects”, but now he can do it instantly, indicating that his control precision over electronic devices through “super-connected objects” has increased dramatically.

He gazed at his phone for a moment, and in no time, he lost the small fan of the WIFI signal, the 4G signal disappeared, and the small ladder of the communication signal was nowhere to be seen, his phone lost all signals. After a while, the signals were restored.

Xiang Kun pocketed his phone and took a deep breath, he listened carefully, then took out two tungsten steel balls and flicked them toward the balcony below.

Both balls didn’t fall to the ground, instead, they floated like two mosquitoes and wriggled in from the balcony door into the living room.

A few seconds later, sound from the TV echoed in that living room, followed by other household appliances turning on and starting to operate one after the other.

However, not all the appliances and electronic devices could be controlled, for instance, some devices plugged into the extension cord could not be powered on or controlled if the extension cord switch is turned off.

The noise caused by the appliances was not small, but no one was home to notice of it, which is why Xiang Kun had selected this house as his experiment target.

After another round of experimentation, Xiang Kun could just about perform everything that the Little Fatty Girl had managed the night before, essentially reproducing her abilities.

Right now, his awareness of the various electromagnetic fields around him was even more acute, as if they were water. The devices running on electricity seemed like items floating on this water. Xiang Kun dipped himself in this “water”, affecting those floating objects by creating ripples on its surface. The various “super-connected objects” acted as his paddles with which he stirred the water.

However, his influence could not extend far for now. It could only be used within the distance where he could sense and control the “super-connected objects”. Also, the methods of influence are still rather crude. For example, he could turn the phone screen on and off, block all signals on the phone, and even directly scrap the phone, but he couldn’t perform specific and precise operations on the phone.

But if he enters the “super sensory state”, he can bypass the distance limit directly with “emotion-infused objects”. And If he can find a specific way to implement corresponding abilities during the “super sensory state”, he should also be able to perform more precise operations.

Xiang Kun speculated that this extension and improvement of the Little Fatty Girl’s electromagnetic related abilities is probably related to his recent blood-drinking slumber, and the significant enhancement to his “sixth sense”.

After contemplating for a while, Xiang Kun sent an audio message to the Little Fatty Girl on QQ:

“Are you there?”

He knew the Little Fatty Girl didn’t have her own phone, and she was using her mother’s tablet, which meant she might not see it in real-time. He sent the message, then returned to his bedroom to attend to other matters. Much to his surprise, the Little Fatty Girl sent an audio message back in less than two minutes:

“I’m here! Roasted Chicken Wing Sister…er, Uncle, no, Uncle Bald, are you awake?”

I recommend a super interesting novel called “Becoming the richest man from the beginning of the game”. It will add a great flavor to this chapter, laugh till your belly aches.