What It’s Like Being a Vampire

Xia Libing knew that Xiang Kun must understand her purpose of playing the coin guessing game.

If he didn't want her to discover the uniqueness of the coin, Xiang Kun could have made a wrong guess on purpose for the first two times.

If it was intentional for her to discover the uniqueness of the coin, then Xiang Kun should also guess wrong on purpose after she changed it to an ordinary coin.

But Xiang Kun's performance was obviously telling her:

Whether it was the coin or not, he was sure to guess.

Xiang Kun seemed to be reminding her that his uniqueness was not limited to coins.

Xia Libing recalled the scene in the supermarket when Xiang Kun suddenly handed her the trolley and walked out of the supermarket.

Later, through the chat between Xiang Kun and those two old classmates, she learned that the children of the two old classmates almost ran into the middle of the road before, but fortunately Xiang Kun happened to pass by and brought the child back in time.

Of course she knew that Xiang Kun didn't just happen to pass by.

But how did he know about that?

When he was in the supermarket, he couldn't see the situation on the road outside the supermarket.

Or, Xiang Kun went out because of other things, it was indeed coincidentally seeing that old classmate's child in danger, and then saved him.

Xia Libing remembered again that when Yang Zhener sent a video request on the bus, the phone only vibrated, but Xiang Kun looked at the pocket where she put the phone almost at the same time as her.

In a less noisy place, if you are relatively close, it is normal for the people next to you to hear the sound caused by the vibration of the mobile phone. But at that time they were on the bus, all kinds of tire irritability and wind noise, the sound of advertisements on the small TV in the car, the sound of various passengers talking on mobile phones, and the high-decibel noise outside the car made it difficult to hear the small voices around them. , not to mention that she was sitting and Xiang Kun was standing, so there was a certain distance between them.

So, maybe Xiang Kun's hearing is different from that of ordinary people, and he can hear many subtle sounds? If this is the case, Dai can also explain many of the abnormalities she discovered before.

And through some observations of Xiang Kun in her memory, she found that whether it was guessing coins in the coffee shop last night, or today's performance in the supermarket or on the bus, Xiang Kun seemed to be faintly hinting to her about her peculiarity. There are some obvious differences in his acting style from his previous ones.

It seems that after Copperstone Town, her straight ball strategy had a good effect.

But she was a little puzzled, if Xiang Kun wanted her to discover his peculiarity, why didn't he tell her directly?

Don't trust her enough?

No, not for this reason.

If it's not enough trust, then judging from Xiang Kun's always cautious and insecure behavior style, he would never deliberately disclose so much information to her, but would only alienate her, be wary of her, and observe her secretly.

Not trust, what is the reason?

In this year, the person or thing that caused such a big change in Xiang Kun may be very dangerous. Xiang Kun is worried that after she knows the truth and gets involved, she will also encounter danger?

This possibility is more likely, and it is more in line with her judgment of Xiang Kun.

So now Xiang Kun wants to let her discover the truth bit by bit, discover his peculiarities, and the reasons for these peculiarities, so that she can gradually realize the degree of danger and weigh it by herself?

Or in this way, to test her ability to see if she has the ability to bear that kind of danger?

But judging from Xia Libing's knowledge of Xiang Kun and the information he had obtained through various channels and methods over the past few months, these guesses seemed to be close to nothing, and could not fully explain Xiang Kun's motives for his actions.

Then she thought of the secrets about herself, and she suddenly realized, yes, maybe just like she was changing her strategy to detect Xiang Kun, Xiang Kun was also changing her strategy to detect her.

Looking at the picture on the mobile phone of the little Xiangkun crawling on the ground with a smirk on his face, Xia Libing narrowed his eyes, thoughtful, and re-formulated her strategy.

Her observation, analysis, and exploration of the peculiarities displayed by Xiang Kun were not purely out of curiosity, but largely because of herself.

She also has to weigh whether it is really necessary for her to know Xiang Kun's secret completely, and whether it is necessary to participate in what he may be doing. Will these help her own affairs?

...

Jianzhou City, near Wushu Mountain Scenic Area, in a villa area.

Originally, there were not many residents in this villa area, and most of them are rented out to tourists who come to travel and vacation. If they live here, they usually don’t live here. There are too few living facilities. Today's New Year's Eve, there are even fewer people, even the property and security personnel are much less, the entire villa area looks very deserted, even a bit gloomy.

The temporary team composed of Fang Pingfang, Mi Qiao and others still lived in that villa.

At this time, the main members of their team, the first six people, gathered in the living room on the first floor of the villa, waiting to connect with Mr. Liang for a remote meeting.

The previous investigation can be said to have entered a dead end. They need to report to Mr. Liang, and then see if they can point to a new path.

Within a few days, Zhou Rui, with the assistance of the logistics staff dispatched by Ye Chong, basically confirmed that there was indeed a lack of ants on the main peak of Wushu Mountain, and some nests that obviously belonged to ants were also found in the area of ​​several nearby peaks. Obviously there is some reason, some kind of existence, which is affecting the survival of ants.

Fang Pingfang preliminarily judged that this was the result of the invisible insect that could only fly and be invisible - it was very likely that it fed on ants, and it might have driven them to extinction and ate the queen of ants directly. A case where ant colonies disappear in this area.

But what drove Zhou Rui and Fang Pingfang a little crazy was that while they were confirming the condition of the ant colony, they were also looking for traces of the invisible insect and its kind, but they found nothing, and could not find any trace at all. , no nests, no signs of activity, no feces, no kin, nothing.

Over there is the main scenic spot of Wushu Mountain, and there are often tourist activities, so they can't do too detailed exploration and search at all.

On the other hand, Fang Pingfang and Mi Qiao's investigation of the small stone that alarmed the giant bird of prey that night also failed to make any progress.

The stone was so ordinary that no useful information could be found on the intuitive level with the naked eye, so Fang Pingfang sent it directly to a laboratory in Yangcheng that belonged to the secret department of Shenxing Technology after a short period of time. Follow her request items for testing.

But apart from the stone, the giant bird of prey and the invisible insect caused such a big commotion that night, but there was no body tissue left. , and did not detect any substances that Fang Pingfang thought she could obtain, which made her feel a little unbelievable.

The scene is really clean a bit too much, if it is not for the countless large pits on the ground that seem to have been plowed, a large number of plants that have been swept and crushed, and videos taken from multiple angles, multiple recording devices, and multiple imaging modes , all of which prove that what really happened that night, Fang Pingfang has to doubt whether what she saw was pure hallucination, and that huge raptor is not a real creature at all.

Fang Pingfang wanted to continue to pursue the whereabouts of the giant raptor and invisible insect and applied for technical support, but Mr. Liang's reply was that they hadn't locked the location yet, and asked them to conduct other investigations first.

other aspects?

Fang Pingfang really didn't know what aspects to investigate from. The two creatures were like ghosts, completely surpassing the knowledge and cognition she had learned before.

Just like the cave found in the uninhabited area of ​​the Qinling Mountains, the bird remains brought back from the cave, and the rabbit wood carving brought back.

Although encountering this kind of existence that can help her open her horizons and better explore the unknown, she is always very excited and looking forward to it, and has great passion.

But many of the characteristics of these existences cannot be analyzed with the system knowledge she has learned, but it really makes her a little dizzy.

However, Mr. Liang appointed her to be responsible for the direction of the entire investigation, which made her feel agitated as she held the steering wheel but didn't know the way or navigate.

Although the investigation has not made much progress, all the people in their temporary team still have to travel around every day these days, and they are busy until midnight every night, very tired. It happened to be during the Spring Festival again, and everyone else was going home for the New Year, but they had to do investigation work here with no results, and it was inevitable that they would be depressed.

So seeing Zhou Rui and the others in the living room looking drowsy and listless, Fang Pingfang could understand.

Ten minutes later, the communication with Mr. Liang was established.

As before, Mr. Liang can see their videos and hear their voices, but they can only hear Mr. Liang's hoarse and unpleasant voice.

Fang Pingfang, as the team leader, reported their latest investigation results to Mr. Liang—in fact, the result was that there was no progress, and the investigation was stuck.

But for this situation, Mr. Liang didn't seem to be surprised or worried at all. He just said that he knew it, and then let her continue to follow her own way of thinking.

Fang Pingfang had no choice but to say directly: Mr. Liang, do you have any suggestions? At present, we can only wait for the laboratory test results in Yangcheng and the arrival of some equipment. For the time being, there is nothing else to do in Wushu Mountain. Done.

However, Mr. Liang's answer remained unchanged: You make a decision, tell Ye Chong what you need.

I want the whereabouts of those two creatures! Fang Pingfang lamented in her heart, but she knew that it was useless to speak out about this demand, because Mr. Liang had already given an answer—their locations could not be locked temporarily...but don't worry, they will be locked sooner or later.

Fang Pingfang simply said: In this case, before the expected test results come out and the latest batch of equipment arrives, can Zhou Rui and Ms. Chen be allowed to go home for the Spring Festival?

Mr. Liang's answer made her, who has always been calm and rational, want to scratch her hair again:

You make the decision.

After finishing the meaningless teleconference with Mr. Liang, Fang Pingfang looked at her team members and said, Although today is the 30th year, Ye Chong can adjust the car and arrange the itinerary. Basically, at the latest You can go home on the first night of the first lunar month, spend the Spring Festival with your family, and when there is new progress in the investigation, I will ask Ye Chong to arrange for you to come back.

But after saying this, the other five people looked at me and I looked at you, but no one spoke.

After a while, Li Shiqi, who had cooperated with Fang Pingfang before and had known each other for a long time, said with a smile: I won't go back, the family has already made arrangements, but when I go back, I will disrupt their arrangements and not make any fuss. gone.

Gao Shu, who is also in charge of security work, also said: I can feed the whole family without worrying about it. It doesn't matter where I celebrate the New Year.

Mi Qiao also smiled and said: I am the same. I will celebrate the New Year with everyone here, and I can still have a companion. If you really want me to go back to 'home' and give me a vacation, I don't even know where I am going.

Ye Chong shook his head, and said succinctly: I don't have any home to go back to either.

Fang Pingfang looked at Zhou Rui again. From her point of view, in their team of six, the one who most wanted to have a holiday and go home for the New Year must be Zhou Rui—when he was still in Qicheng City, he I often talk about the hope that I can go home for a long vacation, and I haven't been home to see my parents for a long time.

But Zhou Rui hesitated for a moment, but still said: Dr. Fang, I'm not going back either.

Fang Pingfang frowned: Zhou Rui, don't feel embarrassed that you are the only one going back. You heard what Mr. Liang said just now. I make the decision for the team. Then you go back for the New Year. It's my decision. It's okay. We don’t go back because we love our work so much, it’s simply that we don’t have the need to go back.”

However, Zhou Rui still shook his head firmly and refused the benefits of going home for vacation.

Although part of the reason is that the whole team did not go back, he felt weird when he went back alone. He was really a little sorry to go back for vacation alone with such a high salary, field work allowance and mission allowance every year. Moreover, Mr. Liang said that Dr. Fang decided, but it is inevitable that he will mind in his heart. If he is not assigned to the next mission, or if he finds an opportunity to drive him out of the secret department, it will be a big loss.

But Zhou Rui didn't want to go back, the biggest reason was the giant raptor and invisible insect he was investigating now.

In particular, the discovery of the invisible insect made him very excited, who liked insects and ants the most since he was a child.

He didn't want to miss any details of the investigation of this invisible insect, he wanted to be a part of it, he didn't want to miss the opportunity.

Seeing that no one was willing to go back to celebrate the New Year, Fang Pingfang didn't persuade Ye Chong much, and said to Ye Chong: If the investigation is at an urgent time, then of course it doesn't matter what the Spring Festival is or not, but there is nothing to do now anyway, everyone is destined Get together to celebrate New Year's Eve, then we still have to prepare a New Year's Eve dinner...

Ye Chong smiled and said: Don't worry, Dr. Fang, I have already arranged the New Year's Eve dinner, and someone will deliver it in the afternoon. There are dumplings, noodles, pancakes, and a seafood cauldron worth tens of thousands of dollars. It is absolutely rich. It’s just that according to the regulations of field missions, you can’t drink alcohol, so you can’t prepare alcohol, you can only double the number of drinks.”

Fang Pingfang nodded: Then everyone is free to move around, come back before six o'clock in the evening, and have New Year's Eve dinner together.

After finishing speaking, she went upstairs, ready to go back to her room and think again. She didn't think Mr. Liang would leave their team here on purpose, she must think there was something to investigate here, although she didn't understand why Mr. Liang didn't give them a direction directly.

Dr. Fang, I have something to tell you. Mi Qiao followed Fang Pingfang upstairs, and said after catching up to her before she was about to enter the room.

()