What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 611: Chapter 611: Changing the World

After finishing their meal in the restaurant’s private room, Zhang Qian called the server to tidy up the table, served the dessert, and closed the private room door. She then signaled Yang Zhuo to start his “show”.

“Sister Qian Qian, we can start with a small Q&A game,” taking a new deck of cards from his sister’s bag, Yang Zhuo began shuffling them while talking, “Sister Qian Qian, you can ask me three detail questions about the surroundings or people from the moment we entered the restaurant until now. Any questions are fine. For example, you can ask how many floor tiles there are between the restaurant entrance and our private room, how many crystal balls hang from the chandelier in the main hall, the pattern and color of the curtains, and so on.”

Zhang Qian found this interesting and asked after some thought, “How many water pots and cups are on the cabinet behind you?”

“Two water pots and six cups,” Yang Zhuo replied confidently. “There was one pot and six cups when we first entered the room, but the server brought another one shortly after, so it should be two now.”

Xiao Min, sitting next to Yang Zhuo, turned her head and glanced at the cabinet behind them, laughing, “True, there are two water pots and six cups. Correct answer!”

Zhang Qian continued, “Which hand and finger was the server wearing a ring on when he cleaned the table?”

With no hesitation, Yang Zhuo immediately responded, “On his right little finger, a silver ring.”

Xiao Min turned to Zhang Qian, “Did Xiao Zhuo answer correctly, Sister Qian Qian?”

Zhang Qian nodded, smiling, “Correct answer, it really is on his right little finger, impressive! Final question, what was the second dish we ordered?”

This seemingly simple question made Yang Zhuo ponder for a few seconds, finally he said, “It was that pork loin.”

“Hmm, correct answer,” clapped Zhang Qian. “Well done, little brother, so observant and such a strong memory! Have you been remembering things all the time? Do you really remember how many tiles are there from the restaurant entrance to our private room and how many crystal balls hang from the chandelier?”

Yang Zhuo laughed, “Of course, I don’t remember those. We were led to the private room by the server as soon as we arrived, so I didn’t have time to count.”

Zhang Qian looked surprised and asked, “But you just said…”

Yang Zhuo interrupted, “It sounded like as if I have strong observation skills, good memory, and full of confidence, if it was to Xiao Min, I wouldn’t ask like this, she would easily go along with my example and let me answer, but knowing your personality, Sister Qian Qian, you definitely would not directly ask those two questions.”

“If you asked a question, Sister Qian Qian, it would definitely not be something that’s hard or impossible to verify, it would be something you know the answer to or something that can be verified immediately.”

“Right when we got out of the car in the parking lot, my sister suggested that I should ‘perform,’ so I thought about this Q&A ‘game’ at that moment. That’s when I asked you if you had been to this restaurant before, you said no, which means you didn’t have prior information about the place, you also needed to adapt in real-time.”

“Since entering the restaurant, I deliberately fell a few steps behind and focused on the direction of your gaze, the things you observed and remembered them.”

“I actually thought you’d ask about the main hall’s advertisement slogans or discount information, because when we entered the restaurant, you glanced at the cashier’s counter. Also, I thought you would ask about the number of the private room next to ours because you looked up before entering our room. This restaurant’s private room numbers are unique, ours is 035, but the neighboring ones are 033 and 025.”

“The server and the cabinet behind me were likely things that could be asked about, so I carefully observed every server that came into our private room, whether they led us in, served dishes, settled the bill, or cleared the table. It seems like I guessed the questions right. On the other hand, I almost couldn’t answer the most normal and simple question: what was the second dish.”

Listening to Yang Zhuo’s analytical explanation, Zhang Qian continuously nodded in agreement, “He’s really starting to resemble Xiang Kun.”

Yang Zhuo said, “This is the ‘observational analysis method’ and ‘nine stages prediction method’ taught to me by Brother Xiang. It’s about acting out possible situations in advance, analyzing conditions and advantages one could have, then taking the initiative to create opportunities, making the first move, and guiding the situation to develop as expected.”

“But reality is not a game where all the conditions can be calculated. Things won’t always go as you hope. There are too many variables.” Zhang Qian shook her head as she spoke.

Yang Zhuo replied, “These methods are merely training, a training for your thought process and observation habits. This way, when we can gather more sensory information, we can think and analyze quickly and make the right decisions.”

Having said that, he stopped the card shuffling he had been performing non-stop, and placed the shuffled deck of new poker cards in front of Zhang Qian.

Zhang Qian picked up the deck and asked Yang Jie, who was sitting next to her, “Now the ‘performance’ is about to start?”

Yang Jie pulled out her phone, ready to film the entire event. “I am going to record this. I do not believe that I won’t be able to uncover his trick,” she stated, filming as she spoke.

“Sister Qian Qian, you can take a look at these cards and choose one. Put it in your hand or pocket, then return the remaining deck to me.” After Yang Zhuo finished speaking, he stood up and turned around to indicate that he wouldn’t be watching her card drawing process.

Zhang Qian and Yang Jie both inspected the deck and confirmed that there were no creases or marks before Zhang Qian took out one card and put it in her bag.

“Done.” She gave the rest of the deck back to Yang Zhuo.

As Yang Zhuo sat back down, he picked up the deck again and continued shuffling without even glancing at it, while Zhang Qian, Yang Jie, and even Xiao Min by their side, observed his hands, his movements, his line of sight, to see if he was secretly peeking at or checking the cards.

However, no matter how they looked at it, there was no way he could see the faces of the cards with his style of shuffling.

After shuffling for less than 10 seconds, Yang Zhuo stopped and looked at Zhang Qian. “Sister Qian Qian, your card is the 10 of spades.”

Zhang Qian raised an eyebrow slightly, shared a surprised glance with Yang Jie then pulled out the card from her bag, placing it on the table — it was indeed the 10 of spades.

Obviously, this couldn’t have been a lucky guess.

“Sure brings to mind Xiang Kun’s fortuneteller-like magic,” Zhang Qian took back the deck and inspected it more carefully. “Did you place a mark on the cards while shuffling that only you can discern — so you can tell which card was picked after I drew one and you shuffled and felt them again?”

“Not at all…”

“I get it now. Does this have something to do with that question-answer game you were playing up? Were you trying to probe which card I would pick, or subtly hint at which card I should choose? That doesn’t seem right either…”

Yang Zhuo laughed, “It’s nowhere near as mysterious as you imagine, Sister Qian Qian.”

He continued to shuffle the deck in his hand as he spoke. “I didn’t mark the cards. I merely familiarized myself with the feel of the cards as if I was ‘getting to know’ them. So when I get them back in my hands, a simple ‘greeting’ tells me which one has been taken.”

Zhang Qian seemed taken aback. “Why do I feel like your explanation sounds even more mysterious?”

“It’s not that mysterious, not mysticism at all. It’s actual sensations. Here, Sister Qian Qian, hold these two cards and close your eyes, try to ‘sense’ them as if you were using ultrasound… never mind, you probably won’t be able to feel it in such short time. Let’s try something else – do you have some loose change, Sister?”

Yang Jie pulled out some coins from her bag and placed them before her brother. There were six, one-yuan coins, and two, fifty-cents coins, all of different ages.

Yang Zhuo picked each coin, weighing it in his hand. He then selected one of the one-yuan coins and set it aside. He pushed the remaining seven coins back to Zhang Qian and Yang Jie, and said:

“Sister Qian Qian, sis, you two divide the coins, and I will try to determine how many each of you have.”

With that, he turned around to wait for Zhang Qian and Yang Jie to distribute the coins. As soon as they finished, he turned back to face them and said directly, “Sister Qian Qian you have four coins, three one yuan coins and one fifty cent coin. My sister got two one yuan coins and one fifty cent coin, am I right?”

Zhang Qian and Yang Jie opened their hands, the number of coins in their hands was indeed as he said, perfectly accurate.

“Xiao Min, were you secretly signaling him?” Zhang Qian turned to ask Xiao Min who was sitting next to Yang Zhuo.

Xiao Min quickly waved her hands: “Not at all, I didn’t do anything.”

Yang Jie also added, “When we were at my house, Xiao Min wasn’t there, and this kid was just as extraordinary. It really has nothing to do with Xiao Min.”

“Could it be that he heard us dividing the coins?” Zhang Qian muttered to herself.

Then Yang Zhuo played a few similar games with the ballpoint pens his sister had bought which were as magical as a magic show.

“When Xiang Kun guessed what I wrote on the A4 paper at the bar, it probably was the same ‘trick’ as my little brother’s.” Yang Jie toyed with a ballpoint pen, still believing that Yang Zhuo had learned some sort of magic trick from Xiang Kun.

Zhang Qian said, “This feels even more incredible than the time with Xiang Kun. At least he had prepared his own A4 paper in advance. But the poker cards and ballpoint pens my little brother used were newly bought just now, and the coins were also changed by you.”

Yang Zhuo quickly clarified, “You’re mistaken. Brother Xiang is much, much more powerful than me, totally in a different league. Following Brother Xiang’s guidance, I have been practicing for almost a year and only just started to get the hang of it. I used to think Brother Xiang was very sharp and smart and wanted to learn his method of thinking. But after learning from him, I understood that Brother Xiang is far stronger than I imagined. Especially recently, I’ve truly started to notice some special changes around me… How should I put it? My understanding of the entire world has changed. The world is much more complex and vibrant than we think. Sis, Sister Qian Qian, Xiao Min, really, if you could also have that feeling and understand the world anew, you would worship Brother Xiang just like me. I have a hunch, no, I know… Brother Xiang is changing the world.”

Seeing Yang Zhuo’s increasingly outrageous declarations and his swelling excitement, not only Yang Jie, Zhang Qian, but even Xiao Min were stunned.

Yang Jie gently nudged her friend with her elbow while her gaze still rested on her brother in front of her, “See, this is it, he is brainwashed by Xiang Kun, even worse than a star-chasing superfan.”

Yang Zhuo also realized he might have overreacted and gave a bitter smile, “I don’t usually talk about these things in front of others or ‘show off’ anything… it’s because my sister asked me to demonstrate, so I did a few times. Brother Xiang often told us that the purpose of our training is to better understand the world and ourselves, not to show off or argue with others. The main reason I spoke so eagerly is that I’ve genuinely felt the changes around me recently, the changes in the world. I realized that what Brother Xiang has taught me is really useful. As you’re all ones close to me, I just couldn’t help but want to talk more about it.”

Xiao Min nodded, “That’s right, Xiao Zhuo isn’t usually like this.”

Zhang Qian furrowed her eyebrows slightly and asked, “The games you’ve just played, they’re not some kind of magic trick, are they?”

“They’re not magic tricks…” Yang Zhuo said helplessly.

“What exactly do you mean when you say the world is changing?” Zhang Qian asked again.

“It’s like…” Yang Zhuo opened his mouth but seemed to struggle to find the right words. After a pause, he continued, “It’s as if the world we initially saw was black and white, but then suddenly we discovered a new color, and more and more colors are appearing, making the world increasingly vibrant and colorful. Something that we used to think is ordinary suddenly feels completely different once we ‘add color’ to it.”

Zhang Qian nodded thoughtfully and asked, “Little brother, can you explain to me in detail about the Nine-section method, refining method, analysis method, axis method and so on that Xiang Kun taught you? Xiang Kun didn’t ask you to keep these secret, did he?”

“What? I asked you to help me discipline Ah Zhuo, how did it come to be like you also believe his words?” Yang Jie asked anxiously.

Zhang Qian smiled and pinched her friend’s shoulder, “You’re too trapped in your own knowledge system, Xiao Jie, and you’re a bit nervous because you care too much. Think about the way he spoke those words, does it sound like he was joking, intentionally trying to trick us? If he himself firmly believes in those sayings, how could it be possible that he merely learned some magic tricks from Xiang Kun? How could some magic tricks make him so staunch in his beliefs? Xiao Jie, you had fewer interactions with Xiang Kun and went to Tongshi Town and Chongyun Village fewer times, so you might not have noticed… Xiang Kun indeed has many unexplainable and magical aspects.”

“You mean… his performance at the bar that time?”

“No, all his behaviors afterwards.” Zhang Qian said, “Not mentioning anything else, just look at the fact that he always stays in Tongshi Town and Chongyun Village, often goes into the mountains, and never assembles a development team. How did he himself constantly propose systematic solutions in such a short period of time? The workload put into each game update iteration would take a team of hundreds of people a long time to develop and test. How did he manage that by himself? Sometimes, I can’t help doubting whether he discovered some kind of a time tunnel to the future in Chongyun Village or Chongyun Mountain. That’s why he goes in from time to time to ‘copy’ something from the future to use.”

“And… last time Xiang Kun celebrated his birthday in Peng City, did you notice that little ‘Apple’ girl who is blind? If I didn’t tell you she was blind, born without the ability to see, would you have noticed the first time you met her? I privately asked her why she didn’t use a cane and seemed to know her surroundings, she said that Xiang Kun had taught her some methods to exercise her senses. Isn’t it similar to what my little brother just said?”

Yang Jie’s eyebrows frowned slightly, but she did not retort. Clearly, her best friend’s words caused her to begin considering another possibility.

Yang Zhuo excitedly said, “Yes, yes, I also know little Apple, little Apple must have learned from Brother Xiang too. Although we have never discussed in detail, I know she must be much better than me. Sister Qian Qian, if you’re interested, you should ask Brother Xiang to teach you. He never told me to keep it a secret. He just said we are all different information entities, and training methods should be customized according to different situations. The way I train and extend my senses may not be the same as yours. Actually, I want to have a chat with Brother Xiang too. I have recently sensed and discovered many different things, but I feel like I’m missing something and I don’t understand.”

What Yang Zhuo didn’t know was that even if he couldn’t get in touch with Xiang Kun, his perceptual training situation was always being observed and recorded by Alice. Once reaching a certain point, the findings were sent to Xiang Kun.

For Alice, who now has the ability to monitor the world through the “all-electronic equipment” and “super sensory item system,” apart from key targets like Xiang Kun’s parents, Old Xia, Tang Baona, Xiao Lingdang, Xiao Pingguo, Yang Zhen’er, and everyone close to them, there are still several categories of observation benchmarks.

One type is like Jiang Chun and Mr. Liang who have established preliminary contact with the “super sensory item system”, but still haven’t formed their own cognitive system of “mutants”. Of course, now Mr. Liang has Xiang Kun observing him personally;

Another type is people like Old Man Du and Qi Haoguo who are deeply affected by the emotional projection of the Eight-Armed, Eight-Eyed Wood Carving, and have established a deep connection with the “Emotion Infused Objects Secondary Network”;

Then there are people like Ye Zijun, Mao Qiang, Li Shibao, and Zhou Rui, who have been affected by different “Emotion Infused Objects” and established a faint connection with the “Emotion Infused Objects Secondary Network”;

And the last group only includes two people: Liu Zhengyi from Chongyun Village and Yang Zhuo.

If we compare the “super sensory item system” to a large group of buildings hidden deep in the fog, then most people in the world are unaware of this group of buildings’ existence.

Old Xia, Little Fatty Girl, Xiao Pingguo, Yang Zhen’er, and Tang Baona, etc. were all invited by Xiang Kun to enter this building group. Together they decorated this building group, arranged each room, and defined their functionality.

On the contrary, Liu Zhengyi and Yang Zhuo were not invited in, nor could they see the whole picture of the building group. However, they vaguely knew about its existence and the direction it’s in. They both used their own methods to explore and try to find this group of buildings.

The difference is that Liu Zhengyi discovered it on his own. His consciousness and senses somehow tapped into this field when the large amount of super-connected objects were activated in Chongyun Village. This sudden flash of insight allowed him to glance at a corner of this magnificent building hidden in the foggy mountains, which led him to carefully explore on his own.

Meanwhile, Yang Zhuo was deliberately guided by Xiang Kun. Training was tailored according to his actual situation, behavior pattern, and cognitive model created from super sensory information.

Xiang Kun wanted to see that without being provided with an interface to “super-connected objects”, without rejecting, and without clearly recognizing, without the influence of “Emotion Infused Objects” passive emotion projection that leads into the “Emotion Infused Objects secondary network”, how ordinary people could sense the existence of the “super sensory item system” and whether they could communicate with the “super sensory item system” on their own to find the interface. Once a connection is made, whether the “super sensory item system” could be applied to what extent?

After all, the “super-connected objects” are now widespread in many human settlements around the world, covering almost every medium-to-large sized city. The songs based on Nana’s “Emotional Melody” and “Item Melody” were also being distributed worldwide under Alice’s control, carrying out “secondary emotional assimilation”.

And the speed of release and connection of “super-connected objects” and “Emotion Infused Objects” is still accelerating. In the future, the “super sensory item system” would inevitably be based on the entire world and all things.

Just like that group of buildings originally hidden in the fog, as it keeps getting larger, blocking the sun, even though how much it tries to hide, it will eventually be noticed by people.

Some things need to be planned ahead.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om