What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 574: 574: Music and Emotions, Reality and Brain Hole

Chapter 574: Chapter 574: Music and Emotions, Reality and Brain Hole

“Old Xia, Old Xia, I know how to use all these devices. Just tell me what you want to do, and I’ll help you!”

“Old Xia, Old Xia, you don’t need to look at the user manuals. I’ve mastered all these devices! Let me guide you!”

“Old Xia, Old Xia, Dr. Fang and Old Zhao have gone to interrogate passengers from your airplane. They’re currently interviewing passengers from seats 17B and 17C. Do I need to do anything? Should I play the recording of their conversations for you?”

Xia Libing paused what she was doing, and looked towards the empty space a meter away.

The next second, Alice was summoned, gazing up at her expectantly.

Xia Libing stared at her for a minute before speaking, “You’re nervous.”

“I’m not, I’m super relaxed! No, I’m super excited!” Alice said, hopping up and down as if that would serve as proof of her relaxed state.

Xia Libing ignored her statement, reached out, held her head to stop her from hopping, and asked directly:

“Do you think Xiang Kun’s plan is dangerous? Or that it has a chance of… failing?”

By “plan”, she referred to Xiang Kun’s aggressive strategy against the “Ultimate Predator”, which started after the bird attack on their flight yesterday. This plan even included tackling the “mutated big bird” last night.

Xia Libing only had a general idea about the plan’s specifics, as it was constantly being updated by Xiang Kun. But she knew that Alice was always providing the most timely assistance to Xiang Kun, so Alice had a detailed understanding of the plan.

“No!” said Alice immediately, “With Alice here, there’s no risk for the boss! No way!”

“Alright, I get it.” Xia Libing was quick to deduce that Alice was indeed not worried about Xiang Kun’s plan. She was confident, both in terms of her faith in Xiang Kun and herself.

So, Alice’s current off-kilter behavior must be due to some other reasons.

If it were something serious, Alice would come right out and say it without beating around the bush. She knew the gravity of different matters.

So perhaps Alice just wanted to attract her attention purely for the sake of having a chat?

Could it be that Alice currently has a strong desire to communicate due to some other reasons?

Right, of all the people Alice could currently communicate openly with, Xiang Kun was busy with his plan against the “Ultimate Predator”, Xiao Pingguo was having dinner with her father, uncle, and potential future aunt, Xiao Lingdang was attending school, Tang Baona was engrossed in work in Tongshi Town. It seemed that she was the only one available to be “bothered”.

Plus, she was one of the two people who knew everything about Alice. She could have straightforward, honest chats without any pretense with Alice, even to the point of directly summoning Alice for a “real interaction”.

So Xia Libing didn’t say anything else, and squeezed Alice’s cheeks, gently kneading them instead.

Once she was done, Xia Libing carried on with her tasks, and Alice quieted down. Her summoned form didn’t dissipate, and she just leaned against old Xia, contentedly staying by her side.

After a while, Xia Libing suddenly spoke, “Play the song Sister Nana composed yesterday.”

“Alright!”

Alice joyfully complied, and the song Tang Baona had composed yesterday based on Yang Lao San’s emotions instantly began playing from Xia Libing’s phone.

Xia Libing squinted her eyes, seemingly savoring the emotions in the song. Although it was just “humming happily” without meaningful lyrics, the melody contained a lot.

After Tang Baona’s humming ended, Alice immediately asked, “Nana had secretly rehearsed it a few times. I recorded it. Do you want to listen? Or should I replay the version just now again?”

Xia Libing shook her head, “No, that’s not necessary.”

She knew that the song was a result of Tang Baona’s emotional analysis of Yang Zhen’er. When she listened to it last night, she tried to “get” the emotional points in the song but didn’t succeed. She listened to it again today but still felt nothing.

Alice had confirmed with her before that Nana’s song still had the function of “instantaneous micro emotional assimilation”.

Obviously, she did not have the same emotion that Nana had derived from Old Three, so no assimilative resonance could be generated—unless that emotion came from Xiang Kun.

Xia Libing had communicated with Xiang Kun before, and knew that songs were an excellent way to invoke, recall, store, and awaken emotions. This applied not only to others but to Xiang Kun as well.

She was not completely devoid of emotions anymore. Through emotional assimilation with Xiang Kun, she had experienced emotions a few times. But how to link those emotions with songs or how to convey emotions through songs, she didn’t understand.

Alice seemed to guess what Xia Libing was contemplating, and looking up at her resting on her leg, said, “Old Xia, Old Xia, how about I play a few songs for you? Huh? The songs on your playlist are all from Nana, should I play these? It is a pity that the boss didn’t sing when I was born, otherwise I would have recorded it!”

Xia Libing didn’t answer right away, but kept thinking. Her eyes fell on a backpack placed on an empty table by the lab door. It was the big backpack she had always carried, the one that Xiang Kun had given her. She suddenly had a thought.

“There’s a line in a song, ‘Your backpack, which hasn’t worn out even after all these years.’ Play that song.” Xia Libing said. She had listened to this song before, but she didn’t usually listen to many songs and didn’t know the name of this one.

“Alrighty!”

As soon as Alice finished speaking, the song ‘Your Backpack’ by Eason Chan started playing on Xia Libing’s phone.

Xia Libing tilted her head slightly to listen carefully to the song.

She didn’t urgently need to do this now, but since she had noticed Alice’s slight abnormality, she decided to interact with her this way, giving her something to do so that she could analyze her reaction.

After two cycles of the song, Xia Libing suddenly started singing softly along, “Your backpack, which hasn’t worn out even after all these years, has become another part of my body…”

The music suddenly paused, and Alice’s crisp voice echoed, “Old Xia, Old Xia, you’re off tune. Listen to me, it should be ‘Your backpack~’ Ready, go~”

Xia Libing didn’t follow again, Alice’s cheeks were held together once more.

…

Tang Baona, who is now in Tongshi Town with Yang Zhen Er searching for a new office location, has been daydreaming the whole morning.

After arriving in Tongshi Town, her ability to sense others’ emotions had decreased almost to zero. It seemed as if Xiang Kun was like the network interface for that emotional perception. If she was too far away, she would immediately lose the connection, and end up without a network of emotional connections.

This made Tang Baona, who had just “learned a new skill”, feel somewhat uncomfortable, and then she subconsciously kept trying to sense the surroundings, hoping to regain the special perceptive ability she had felt the day before.

Unfortunately, that kind of perception seemed to be blocked. It was gone.

So, she habitually revisited the song she composed through analyzing Yang Zhen Er’s emotions the day before, trying to fill in some lyrics with her own understanding, while also reflecting on her secondary perception of Yang Lao San’s emotions in the morning at breakfast— Yang Lao San’s mood today was a little bit different from last night’s, especially the dream he had, the emotional changes were quite intense.

Tang Baona kept daydreaming and spacing out. Yang Zhen Er, who usually just plays auxiliary roles, had no choice but to communicate with the property management and agents herself after two unsuccessful reminders. Fortunately, Chu Xiuwen was also there. He had great influence in Tongshi Town, especially with different business property developers and managers, so they had plenty of options, and he was able to negotiate the lowest prices.

Actually, even without Chu Xiuwen, various business office spaces in Tongshi Town were very enthusiastic when they heard it was QianKun Technology that developed “Genesis of Voice”. They actively offered various conveniences and discounts.

Tang Baona absent-mindedly let Yang Zhen Er make the decision. She only spent half an hour to confirm the location, then decisively signed the contract, and then went to have lunch with Chu Xiuwen and others.

During lunch, Chu Xiuwen received a phone call from Xia Tianhuo and stepped aside to talk. Yang Zhen Er softly said to Tang Baona, who was still absent-minded: “Nana, is there a problem with the ‘Little Elf’?”

“Ah?” Tang Baona was startled and looked at Yang Zhen Er with a puzzled expression.

“Is there something wrong with the ‘Little Elf’? Or… have you already fused with the ‘Little Elf’?” Yang Zhen Er whispered mysteriously.

Tang Baona was even more confused: “What do you mean by fusing? What are you talking about, Yang Lao San?”

Yang Zhen Er gave Nana a look as if saying “I understand you, you don’t have to hide it”, then took out her own “Lucky Coin” and said, “Nana, do you think I should also name my coin? How about ‘Fairy Coin’? Mm, not great, it’s not imposing, nor cute, it does not reflect my characteristics. How about… ‘Sacred Badge’? No, ‘Fairy Badge’! No, not good, the badge is still an object, this way, when I talk to it, I won’t have any immersion…”

Tang Baona looked utterly surprised, “What are you even saying, I was just thinking about the song I wrote last night, trying to figure out what lyrics to adorn it with. What are you even thinking about? What ‘Sacred Badge’, what ‘fusion’, what ‘immersion’, what ‘Fairy Coin’?”

As she was speaking, she suddenly gasped, thinking about something, she took a look at Chu Xiuwen who was still on the phone, then whispered, “Don’t tell me you also know about the ‘Little Elf’s’ existence?”

Yang Zhen Er looked puzzled, “So ‘Little Elf’ is not a specific name, but a general term? Hmm, of course I know, I knew yesterday when we were on the plane.”

“How did you know the little girl outside the plane was… hers?” Tang Baona naturally knew when “on the plane” was and that Yang Lao San’s change had occurred after the white-dressed little girl on the wing showed up.

“Of course I knew! And I assure you that I knew about the ‘Little Elf’ much earlier than you did,” Yang Zhen Er said with a touch of pride.

“Really? How early could it have been? Don’t tell me you knew since you were a little girl?” Tang Baona frowned.

In her view, even if Yang Zhen Er knew, she couldn’t possibly have known before her first visit to Chongyun Village and moving into that house. How early could that have been?

However, Yang Zhen Er said, “You’re actually right, I knew from a young age. No, it’s not accurate to say I knew, I should say… I met him when I was a child!”

“Yang Lao San, you’re blabbering nonsense again,” Tang Baona said, exasperated.

Yang Zhen Er had a confident look on her face: “Nana, it seems you don’t know who that ‘Little Elf’ on the plane belonged to?”

Tang Baona was stunned: “Whose ‘Little Elf’?” She then laughed, “Don’t tell me it was your ‘Little Elf’?”

“Of course, it’s not my ‘Little Elf’, but I know who it belongs to!” Yang Zhen Er said slyly.

“Whose is it?” Tang Baona’s heart stirred, and she asked subconsciously: “Is it Xiang Kun’s?”

“No, it’s definitely not Xiang Kun’s. How could Xiang Kun’s little elf be so cute!” Yang Zhen Er instinctively answered.

Tang Baona suddenly thought that Yang Zhen Er might really know something. Because her expression now was far more composed than when she ordinarily blabbered nonsense. She genuinely came across as if she knew something.

“Wait, right after you got off the plane yesterday, you were whispering in Old Xia’s ear and you two talked a lot. When we got home last night, you immediately dragged Old Xia upstairs. So… are you saying, that beautiful little girl who saved us and appeared outside the plane, is Old Xia’s ‘Little Elf’?” Tang Baona quickly recalled Yang Zhen Er’s unusual behavior on the plane, after getting off the plane, and after returning home, and made a deduction.

“Bingo!” Yang Zhen Er winked at Nana and did not hide, “That is our Old Xia’s ‘Little Elf’. However, this is your terminology, Nana. According to my terms, it would be cooler to call it an ‘Avatar’! The little girl who saved us is Old Xia’s ‘Little Avatar’!”

Tang Baona asked right away: “Did Old Xia admit to it?” Compared to Yang Lao San, she found Old Xia to be more reliable.

“Though he didn’t admit to it directly, it’s pretty much the same as admitting it, considering that the evidence is ironclad!” Yang Zhen Er still had a somewhat proud look on her face.

“Ironclad? What ironclad evidence?” Tang Baona asked.

Yang Zhen Er took out her mobile phone, opened the cloud album, and pulled out photos of their big family from when they were young as well as several individual photos of Xia Libing. All these were physical photos in albums and photo frames. As she gave the phone to Tang Baona, she mysteriously said, “These photos can’t be leaked. If the passengers on the same plane with us see them, Old Xia’s identity will be exposed.”

When Tang Baona looked at the photographs, she was fairly astonished. Although there was a slight age difference between the young Xia Libing in the photos and the little girl on the plane’s wings, she could still tell that they were quite similar.

If this was the case, combined with Yang Lao San claiming that Old Xia had tacitly agreed with her guess, then the “Little Elf” might really be Old Xia? Or, at the very least, directly related to Old Xia?

This could also explain why the “Little Elf” was so kind to her, why she saved her, and why she was constantly protecting her.

So, has Old Xia been the most special one all along?

“Is it really Old Xia? But… why does she look like her childhood self?” Tang Baona mumbled to herself.