What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 609: Chapter 609: Eating Hamburgers

In fact, the idea Mr. Liang mentioned about using the fear emotion projection of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed wood carving” to manage people’s hearts and maintain order was also something Xiang Kun had considered.

Initially, he was worried whether the fear caused by the “eight-armed, eight-eyed wood carving” would have any after-effects on ordinary people or produce any unidentified, detrimental reactions.

After having enough samples, he realized this item mainly acted as a “penalty for the guilty, introspection for the innocent,” and basically posed no harm to ordinary people.

However, he understood then that the emotional projection range of “emotion infused objects” is not unlimited.

It would be simple to influence a single person or multiple targets within a small area. But to influence a large number of targets within a large area, enough “super-connected objects” would be required in the vicinity.

Like before in Myitkyina, Alice had not yet merged with the “super sensory item system”, and lacked the strong, mass-produced, automated connection and deployment capabilities of “super-connected objects”. The entire city of Myitkyina had not been pre-set with enough “super-connected objects”, so if he wanted to make a large-scale influence in the city, and make more people see the “eight-armed, eight-eyed giant illusion”, he could only control a bunch of “super-connected spheres” to move continuously under the “super sensory state”. Then he himself had to constantly leave the “super sensory state”, change positions for more precise control which was very cumbersome and troublesome.

On the other hand, to impact a wide range with emotional projection, the effect of the emotional influence will inevitably differ. Under such circumstances, the emotional projection will achieve the best effect if the region has emotions of the same type. Like in Myitkyina, due to the occurrence of a riot, a mass of fear was already present in the area. This, in turn, actually provided a boost to the “emotional projection”, giving it a conduit to expand.

Strictly speaking, with Alice having perfectly merged with the “super sensory item system” and “super-connected objects” already deployed in most human settlements around the world, both conditions can be perfectly resolved at this point in time.

When necessary, Alice could even play Tang Baona’s songs corresponding to certain emotions within these regions to preheat and mobilize emotional resonance, creating a perfect environment for the “emotional projection”.

But the biggest problem was that Xiang Kun found the influence of “emotional projection” didn’t stop after the illusion and instant emotional explosion. It was a continuous impact that could even establish a deep consciousness connection with the corresponding “emotion infused object”.

The emergence of the “emotion infused objects secondary network” was proof of this situation.

Through analyzing and understanding the “emotion infused objects secondary network”, Xiang Kun believed this system has a load limit.

There is a limit to establishing secondary network connections and there is also a limit to the number of ordinary units affected by emotional projection. It’s like the membership service and visitor access of a website server.

Although it’s still far from that limit, Xiang Kun knows that such a limit exists. As for the relationship with the limit, it probably has to do with his emotional bearing capacity. That’s because when he performs large-scale emotional projection, he himself will also receive very weak feedback from the same emotion. This feedback will have no effect when only a few people are impacted, but when a large number of people are affected, the cumulative weak feedback will exceed the limit.

Of course, this limit is high. At present, there should be no problem in simultaneously influencing a city with a population of four to five million, but for larger scales, it is uncertain. After all, he can’t be sure of how many of those influenced by emotional projection will establish a connection with the “emotion infused objects secondary network”.

So for now, he would use the fear emotion projection of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed wood carving” on a small scale to achieve certain objectives. He would also allow Alice, Xiao Pingguo, and Little Fatty Girl to cooperate and carry out remote emotional projection deployment. There would also be continuous long-term emotional projection through the four cat wood carvings in Youlong Restaurant. But unless faced with an emergency situation like in Myitkyina, he would not fully deploy the fear emotion projection of the “eight-armed, eight-eyed wood carving” for order establishment.

Once the “super sensory item system” is further perfected and he has a more comprehensive understanding of the connection with the “emotion infused objects secondary network,” perhaps setting up a more standardized and formalized emotional infusion link would be possible. At that time, using emotional projection to correct and unify thoughts and behaviors may even be achievable.

Right now, it’s just a preliminary demo version and naturally can’t be used on a large scale.

But all these details were not something Xiang Kun could explain to Mr. Liang thoroughly, so he summarized it in a sentence.

“It’s not yet ready for full scale and widespread use.”

After completing the fusion experiment of “non-user mutant” with Xiao Luobo and giving a slap to the “Ultimate Predator” who was trying to use Xiao Ding as a “spy” to gather information, Xiang Kun and Mr. Liang also left the underground tunnel.

With their departure, a large amount of moss in the underground began to dissipate, collapse, and shift deeper in, like an army in retreat.

After returning to the surface, Xiang Kun naturally walked between the city streets. Mr. Liang, in a state of invisibility, followed beside him, somewhat confused as to why Kun had come to the city.

Walking next to Xiang Kun, he suddenly felt that the city seemed to be a bit different. Without deliberately perceiving it or using his aerial drones to gather information, he could still identity the locations of some buildings, some electrical facilities, some electronic devices around him, as if there were some special connections in the dark.

He couldn’t help but immerse himself in it, feeling as if his soul had left its shell and was freely roaming.

He vaguely realized that among his perceptual connections with his surroundings, the most pronounced were electronic devices, followed by simple metal objects.

But not every electronic device or every metal object had this sense of connection; only a part of them did. He couldn’t differentiate what distinguished the ones that did from the ones that didn’t.

It seemed like the newer devices were more likely to establish these vague perceptions and connections?

While Mr. Liang was immersed in these sensations, Xiang Kun walked into a fast-food restaurant and bought two hamburgers.

This greatly puzzled Mr. Liang. Neither Xiang Kun nor he could eat normal food. So what was the purpose of buying hamburgers?

Moreover, the cash Xiang Kun used to buy the hamburgers was brought there by someone Xiang Kun had arranged when they had just arrived in the city from the wilderness. Clearly, this was planned in advance and was not a spur of the moment decision.

Xiang Kun took the paper bag with the hamburgers and continued walking. He entered a park, sat down at the end of a long bench in a corner where there were few people, handed a hamburger to Mr. Liang, took a bite from his own, and said while chewing, “No need to be invisible, it’s fine. No one will come over here.” With Alice present, anyone approaching would be diverted by some operation.

Mr. Liang hesitated, then revealed his physical form as instructed. He took the hamburger and sat down on the other end of the bench.

Even though he was already restraining his power, the bench still issued a horrible groan once he sat down. Their combined weight was already close to 600 kilograms, and with their ultra-high body density making only small contact with the bench.

“Can… can you eat normal food?” Looking at the hamburger in his hand, Mr. Liang asked with a frown.

“I can manage to swallow it temporarily and then vomit it back up later,” Xiang Kun said with a laugh, munching on his hamburger. When carrying out the process of regular consumption, he no longer needed to swallow that goose pebble which established “super sensory contact” to settle his stomach. He had already managed to control the nausea and vomiting, but the food he swallowed could still not be digested directly and would have to come up. However, he could now control the time he throws up, be it after two or three hours, or after ten or more hours.

Xiang Kun looked at him, “Come on, have a taste. Swallow it down if you want, spit it in the paper bag after you’re done.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

After a slight pause, he looked at the slowly darkening sky, and said, “Next up, it’s our final stop on this ‘Hunting Trip’. Once we finish the blood-drinking process, we’ll have to start executing the plan and there’s no way to stop. After the plan… Although I believe the success rate of the plan is over 90%, I can’t guarantee that you can keep this body. In future… whether we can find the same sensation when reconstructing the body, particularly the memory and sense of taste, I’m not sure. So, let’s taste our last few bites.”

Mr. Liang looked at the burger in his hand, froze for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, “Can you read my memories?”

Xiang Kun didn’t deny it, saying, “It isn’t exactly reading memories, more like… I’ve seen some of your dreams when you were feeding on blood, which is the only time you can actually dream.”

Mr. Liang simply nodded, not asking any more about, it seemed that one by one, all of Xiang Kun’s magical abilities were revealed. He had already given up trying to make sense of it all with his previous knowledge and understanding.

A grin spread across Mr. Liang’s face, reaching his ears. He opened his large mouth, big enough to swallow five or six burgers at once, and very carefully took a small bite out of the burger in his hand, then started to chew it slowly in his mouth.

If he still looked human, he would’ve probably closed his eyes to better savor the taste, but his eyes no longer had eyelids, the function to close them was no longer there.

He looked at the sunset in the distance, which had turned blood red, chewing the burger in his mouth, and it was as if he was once again back in the underground laboratory from a few years ago.

…

“Dingdingding! Ah Liang! Look, what’s this!”

A beautiful girl pulled out a bag and spoke to Lu Qinliang, who had just walked into the lab.

Lu Qinliang looked at the “KFO burger” logo on the plastic bag, dumbfounded, and asked, “Where did you get this? How did you buy…”

Academician Shen, who followed him into the lab, glanced at it and said, “Oh, Xiao Xue asked me to buy it. She said this kind of Western fast food is trendy outside and claimed that young people love it.”

Hearing that Academician Shen bought it, Lu Qinliang had to swallow his words that “how could you buy a counterfeit” and walked over curiously to watch Xiao Xue, who was making holes in the opened burgers.

“What are you doing?” Lu Qinliang couldn’t help but ask.

“I’m going to put candles on it.” Xiao Xue said, sticking the candle on the burger: “Happy Birthday! Ah Liang!”

Lu Qinliang stared blankly as Xiao Xue stuck a thumb-thick white candle, typically used for lighting, on the burger. After lighting it, she held it up to his face. Academician Shen also stood not far away, slightly nodding his head, “Happy Birthday, Ah Liang.”

For a moment, he felt like laughing and crying. He was both touched and amused, but he couldn’t help but smile broadly.

“Come on, blow out the candles and let’s eat burgers together.” Xiao Xue urged.

Academician Shen also nodded, “Yes, this open flame is against lab regulations. This will not happen again.”

Lu Qinliang reluctantly blew out the candles, took the burger, and said, “We can’t eat ordinary food anymore, so buying this type of food is useless. You should have bought me clothes or something… If you wanted to buy food, why not a birthday cake? Who buys a burger for a birthday?”

Xiao Xue gave him a glare: “Because I haven’t had a burger in a long time, and I wanted one.”

“Okay, okay.” Lu Qinliang laughed helplessly

“Academician Shen, come here, you probably haven’t eaten anything in a while either, have a taste.” Xiao Xue cheerfully handed a burger to Academician Shen.

So, the three of them sat around the table, each holding a burger, chewing carefully, and then spat it out into a nearby trash can or plastic bag.

If one only looked at this scene and ignored the lab equipment surrounding them, they might think this was a father eating with his two children.

…

At the park bench, Mr. Liang’s burger was long gone, but he was still staring blankly at the distant sky. It had completely darkened.

A smile crept up to the corners of his mouth, reaching his ears, revealing a smile unconsciously.

Xiang Kun by his side didn’t urge him or make a sound and waited until Mr. Liang’s body entered the invisibility state again before standing up — he knew Mr. Liang was ready.

“Let’s go, the final stop,” said Xiang Kun.

…

Pengcheng City.

At the airport, Zhang Qian picked up the newly arrived siblings Yang Jie and Yang Zhuo, along with Yang Zhuo’s girlfriend, Xiao Min.

“Huh, didn’t you say you were super busy on WeChat? How do you have time to come pick us up?” Yang Jie asked curiously.

The group was on vacation for the national holiday and came to Pengcheng City to have fun. Originally, Zhang Qian was too busy with work to pick them up and had arranged for a company driver instead. Yet, unexpectedly, she came herself.

While helping them with their luggage, Zhang Qian sighed, “I was indeed super busy. Somehow, Xiang Kun is now collaborating with ‘Divine Technology.’ They sent representatives over to liaise and there were loads of duties to attend to. It’s been so hard! Though we’re supposedly working with ‘QianKun Technology,’ all the work for meetings and detailed planning discussions is carried out by our team. Xiang Kun, Yang Zhen’er, Old Xia, Nana, none of them are here. It’s been killing me!”

“So, you still made time to come pick us up?” Yang Jie furrowed her brows and said, “You should be busy with your work. We’re not children who’ll get lost.”

“Ah, my old man also came over.” Zhang Qian said helplessly.