What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 113: The Conquered Golden Sauce

Translator: 549690339

Chapter 113: The Defeated Golden Sauce

Xiang Kun cautiously placed the woodcarving into a wooden box he made himself, securing it so that it wouldn’t move inside. If its silly tuft of hair were to break, the entire woodcarving would be ruined.

By eight in the morning, he sat in front of his computer and opened QC).

sending a message to a friend, “It’s done. Check it out when you have time.” What he was referring to was not the woodcarving, but a software outsourcing project.

In the past two weeks, he was not only crafting a woodcarving gift for Tang Baona. On the 15th of last month, he had voluntarily taken on an outsourced task.

Xiang Kun wasn’t fond of social activities in real life, but on the internet, in certain sections of several purely technical forums, he was a well-known and active veteran member.

Many programmers were like him – being solitary in reality, but preferring to stick together online.

Xiang Kun often helped answer technical problems, frequently shared his opinion and experience on new technologies, and wrote articles or tutorials summarizing the analysis of examples and the solution process of problems.

This wasn’t necessarily because he particularly enjoyed helping others or showing off. In this process, he had to express the logic behind things in more popular language. It was a test and summary of his own learning. Besides consolidating knowledge, he also organized his ideas, noticed previously ignored details, and had new thoughts.

Many people knew him online, or should I say, knew his technical skills and had a general understanding of his abilities.

He also knew a lot about others – their reputations, work, past projects, and habits – which made communication easier.

Thus, when Xiang Kun was seeking work, he didn’t go directly to platforms like Zhu Bajie, CSTO, sxsoft, or find clients who posted requirements in forums or QQgroups. Instead, he took it from those colleagues who also intersected on various forums and were familiar with each other.

Usually they were second-hand tasks, or a part of a project. The income would be somewhat less, but communication would save a lot of trouble. The requirements were clear, and market conditions were understood, so there was no need to waste energy bargaining with potential layman clients.

He didn’t want to take this kind of job before. Firstly, because he had just mutated and was in a period of body exploration, he needed to consider matters of life and death. He still had some savings and was not immediately facing a situation where he couldn’t repay loans or pay electricity bills.

Secondly, such work was time-consuming, but he needed a lot of time for various experiments and trainings for his body. He had no energy or interest in doing it.

But now, his body’s mutation direction was gradually under his control. His blood-drinking cycle was fixed, and life and death seemed of little concern. As he plans for the seemingly fanciful “Al assistant” project, he can utilize outsourcing projects to let his brain find more efficient, programming-friendly thinking habits.

Moreover, he was starting to run out of money…

He wanted to do the “Al assistant” project, and needed a new computer, an 19 9900X, double 2080TIs, more terminal devices, and more expensive cloud services.

He also intended to open a farm in the countryside in the future, which required a certain amount of capital. He wanted to build suitable accommodations, not just factory buildings, including a small gym, a computer room, and a small lab. As for the money from selling the house, most of it should be left for his Darents’ retirement.

Ever since he bought the microscope, he had the urge to take anything he saw and create a thin slice of it to observe under the microscope. After reading various biology books, he became eager to do more experiments. He often visited the equipment section on the “experimental Taobao” but was always discouraged by the prices.

With needs, naturally came motivation.

If he included the final payment for this gig, it would total around twenty-five thousand, equivalent to 1.25 yellow-haired fugitives.

Of course, he spent less time on it. He completed it in less than fifteen hours over two days.

If it were him for a few years back, even without a full-time job and fully devoted to it, it would probably take at least 15-20 days to finish this task; the efficiency simply can’t be compared to what it is today.

However, he did not immediately deliver the work, but still waited for more than ten days.

Not until today did he send over all the files including the source code. He believed that with his coding readability and comment habits, he would definitely satisfy the client. Even in the future, if modifications, additions, and maintenance were needed, it wouldn’t be very difficult even if they did not ask him.

As for whether the client would take the product and not pay the rest of the money, Xiang Kun was not worried. They knew each other very well, and it would be impossible for them to cheat him over more than 20,000 yuan.

At this time, there was a rustling noise from behind Xiang Kun. Following that, the Canary landed on the table and tweeted at him a few times.

Xiang Kun glanced at it, lightly tapped the table in front of it twice with his index finger, and it tweeted twice again, then fluttered its wings and flew back to its cage in the living room.

This was another achievement Xiang Kun had made during this time. With the countless hours of observation and interaction, he can now say that he knows this Canary like the back of his hand.

Xiang Kun can not only discern its intentions from its chirps, but also judge its mood and physical condition from its body movements, heartbeat, breathing, and scent even when it’s not chirping.

To put bluntly, when it crouches, he knows what kind of poo it wants to poo, he knows what kind of dream it’s having by looking at its sleeping posture.

Moreover, Xiang Kun has found a way to communicate with it. By feeding it personally and simulating the “mental deterrence” from “Giant Owl” memory pictures, he lets it understand what he wants it to do.

This way, he has trained it to only defecate in specific places, and have the habit of saying “hello” to Xiang Kun every morning.

Now, whenever Xiang Kun extends his arm in front of it and calls “Come”, it would obediently come and stand on his arm, incredibly well-behaved.

If Xiang Kun taps twice on his mobile screen, it will start chirping, because before this, Xiang Kun had used his mobile to play its chirping sounds to let it understand that he wanted it to chirp.

Not only this, but Xiang Kun has even started searching online for other Canary’s chirping sounds for it to learn…

Of course, in order to understand this bird as completely as possible, Xiang Kun has put in a lot of effort.

He has found a lot of information and training tutorials about Canaries and Hibiscus Birds on the internet, spent a lot of time observing it doing various things in different states, gathering all sorts of body reactions. He has personally bought various suitable foods for it, created nutritionally balanced bird food, and carefully observed its condition when eating different types of food, analysing the tastes it liked.

Xiang Kun also went to the bird dealer who sold him the bird. With the excuse that a friend also liked that Canary and wanted to buy a few more, he observed other birds that used to live together with the Canary, saw the situation of the older birds it learned chirping from, and even privately found the breeder who sold the Canary to the bird dealer.

Before investigating these situations, Xiang Kun did not expect to gain any useful information from it definitely, but after investigation, he found that there were indeed some useful parts.

By looking at the previous life situations and growth environments of the Canary, he can discover a lot of details. From these, he can infer the possible sources of some of the Canary’s habits, speculate the reasons for its characteristic formation, and hence find a more effective way of communication and training.

Although the thinking patterns of birds are quite different from those of humans, and the meaning “Bird Language” can express is very limited, unable to achieve a detailed conversation. But Xiang Kun feels that his communication with it now should not be any less effective compared to other Canaries communicating with it. In fact, often times what it intends to express might not be understood by other Canaries, but Xiang Kun would understand immediately.

Generally speaking, after spending more than half a month’s time, his “guide” to this Canary has been basically completed- he can understand its mood, intention and physical condition through observation, and predict its behavior with a high probability of success.

And these experiences will also help him in dealing with other animals and even humans in the future..