茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter Fourteen: Hunger

That night, Xiang Kun received a WeChat message from Chang Bin, inquiring about his meeting.

He naturally claimed that their conversation went well and that he would continue to understand her better.

However, Chang Bin reproached him harshly when he learned that Xiang Kun had rescheduled the dinner to the afternoon, didn’t invite Tang Baona for dinner, and had no subsequent arrangements, parting ways around five in the afternoon and returning home respectively.

A little later, Chang Bin sent another message, saying that through Wang Han, he learned that the girl seemed to have a good impression of Xiang Kun, describing him as “funny and humorous,” “quite interesting,” and that she “can first be friends.”

Chang Bin argued that it sounded promising, advising him to take the initiative to chat and meet her more often.

Xiang Kun naturally agreed, but deep down, he felt that this was probably just Tang Baona’s polite refusal, implying that Xiang Kun was more suitable as a friend—which indeed coincided with his own intention.

Following that, for three days, Xiang Kun and Tang Baona had no contact and he spent the day as per usual—mostly in the gym during the daytime and training his vision and lung capacity at night.

Xiang Kun’s first blood drinking was on July 14, and the second time was on July 17, spanning a period of three days.

But now, six whole days have passed since he drank rabbit blood on July 17, and he didn’t feel tired or hungry at all.

Over these six days, besides plain water, he hadn’t eaten anything else, yet his daily level of physical activity was extraordinarily high.

He was uncertain when exactly the next time to drink blood would arrive.

The previous two times, he started feeling a strong sense of hunger only after seeing blood, but this time he hoped to wait until his body actively “prompted” that need. This would allow him to know how long he could last after drinking blood.

The remaining rabbit, now chubby and white, was pampered by him. He even made a special trip to the supermarket to buy food for the rabbit. He was becoming a real “shit-shoveling officer” (caretaker).

He just hoped to complete the blood drinking before moving to his new residence.

On the evening of the 23rd, Xiang Kun was practicing his vision when he suddenly received a WeChat message from Tang Baona.

“Are you there, Teacher Saitama?”

“Teacher Saitama” was a playful nickname Tang Baona gave him when she mentioned the anime “One Punch Man”.

Xiang Kun thought for a moment and replied with a simple word—”Here”.

“What are you doing? Want to go out for barbecue?”

Eating stuff… that was clearly impossible.

Just as Xiang Kun was about to find an excuse to deny, his mouth started salivating, and a sudden surge of hunger erupted from within.

It’s here!

Since his mutation, this was the first time Xiang Kun felt hunger before seeing blood. He no longer cared about thinking up excuses, and directly replied “Sorry, I can’t make it due to some matters.” He then tossed his mobile phone aside, sat down in front of his computer, opened the document to log his actions, and also turned on the timing software for timing.

He wanted to see what influence this sense of hunger would have on him, and what other changes would occur with the passage of time.

In his previous two blood-drinking incidents, he clearly remembered the whole process when he first went to the market to buy a chicken but felt his body was “acting on its own.”

The second time he drank rabbit blood at home, he felt much better.

He wondered whether the difference was simply because the first time was at the market or because his need for blood was stronger at the market.

That also needed to be verified.

After completing the record, Xiang Kun sat cross-legged on his bed, earnestly sensing the changes in his body.

Usually, when a person feels hungry, it starts from the belly—from the contractions after emptying the stomach.

But the hunger Xiang Kun was now feeling was not coming from the abdomen or stomach, but seemed to come from the depth of his consciousness, from every organ and every cell of his body.

After taking a moment to sense his current state, he found that his physical strength did not seem to decrease significantly. He did not feel weak in his limbs from hunger like ordinary people.

However, he was finding it hard to concentrate on anything with this sense of hunger disrupting him.

Time ticked away little by little. He had felt the hunger since 9:08 pm. By 3:00 am, it had intensified, causing Xiang Kun to become restless.

Xiang Kun repeatedly got up and walked to the edge of the rabbit cage in the bathroom, only to control himself and return. He also tried to do other things to divert his attention, but he couldn’t stop picturing scenes of killing the rabbit for blood, and kept recalling how his body felt when he drank blood last time.

At first, Xiang Kun video-recorded himself every half an hour, reciting a Tang dynasty poem in front of the camera to ascertain his state.

After midnight, he reduced the frequency to every ten minutes, using this method to do something and divert his attention.

Xiang Kun several times considered going out to get some fresh air or to run, but he had already thought before, it was absolutely impossible to leave the house in such a condition. This could prevent him from impulsively doing something uncontrollable.

However, to Xiang Kun’s surprise, around five-thirty, when the sun was about to rise, the hunger and the impulse for blood drinking suddenly decreased significantly.

It seemed that after sunrise, the factors that suppressed his body functions would also suppress his thirst for blood.

Xiang Kun sighed in relief, recording the changes in his body on the computer while adjusting his respiration and continuing to endure.

The state improved a lot during the day, and it didn’t increase the difficulty of resisting with the passage of time. But after sunset, the hunger began to increase again.

Finally, at 7:33 pm, right after almost punching the wall in frustration, Xiang Kun gave up continuing to resist. He quickly slaughtered the rabbit he had been raising for nearly a week, suppressing the impulse to gulp all the blood at once, and collected the blood in a measuring cup.

The measuring cup had clear scale lines marked. He divided it into four cups; the first three cups held 50ml each, and the fourth cup only held a little over 20ml.

After drinking the first cup of 50ml, Xiang Kun could distinctly feel his hunger had not been satisfied. He was still very thirsty for rabbit blood.

But he didn’t continue drinking immediately. Instead, he timed it on his phone, waiting 1 minute before drinking the second 50ml cup. Then he continued timing, waiting another 2 minutes before drinking the third cup.

After consuming the third cup, Xiang Kun immediately felt that the power of the blood had somewhat lessened.

He was assaulted by a strong wave of drowsiness, but Xiang Kun held on, tidying up while timing. Five minutes after drinking the third cup of rabbit blood, he picked up the fourth cup and finished it.

In fact, Xiang Kun could still feel a craving for blood, but the last bit of less than 20ml had done little to help.

It was obvious that the fourth and final cup had lost the effects that rabbit blood would have typically brought.

This confirmed his previous suspicions; the effectiveness of rabbit blood diminished rapidly after leaving the rabbit’s body.

The second cup drunk 1 minute later was not much different from the first cup, while the effectiveness of the third cup declined significantly.

This suggested that the decline in effectiveness should start 1-3 minutes after the rabbit blood leaves the rabbit’s body.

After making the record, Xiang Kun did not fall asleep immediately as expected, but chose to sit on the bed and resist the drowsiness.

He wanted to see how long he could fight this drowsiness after drinking blood.