茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter Forty: Prey

Upon seeing that talon, Xiang Kun realized that the scene he had been observing was observed from the perspective of the Giant Owl, and it probably wasn’t in real-time.

In other words, what he had just seen was from the owl’s memory?

In Xiang Kun’s understanding, an animal’s memories should typically be stored in the neurons of the brain. After all, he had only consumed a little bit of blood, he hadn’t eaten the owl’s brain. So what exactly was the theory behind this?

Putting aside his speculation about the theory, the brief one-second scene contained much information.

The rabbit in the torn garbage bag in the scene seemed to be the one he had killed when he drank its blood.

Xiang Kun couldn’t help but think of the legends in vampire literature, where individuals who got bitten by a vampire and didn’t die would be transformed into a vampire themselves. It was as if the vampire’s saliva contained a virus; individuals who got infected would be transformed. Perhaps this owl mutated because it ate the rabbit that came into contact with his saliva?

However, Xiang Kun quickly dismissed his speculation because:

When he collected rabbit blood, he would let the blood flow into a container and drank from there, never letting his saliva touch the rabbit.

In the scene he had seen, “his” talons were very large already, suggesting the owl had already mutated into the Giant Owl.

Xiang Kun also recalled the landscape in the one-second scene and concluded that it was a garbage dump.

Could this Giant Owl have found the rabbit by chance, taken an interest in him, and tracked him down?

However, if that were the case, the owl should have attacked him directly. Why bother catching rats and hunting dogs?

It couldn’t have deliberately used this behavior to draw his attention, could it? Lead him to this remote place and attack him? His finding the dead rat and becoming interested in the particular scent the owl left on the rat were accidents. If the owl wanted to attract his attention intentionally, the rat should have been thrown onto his balcony. Moreover, if it wanted to attack him in a secluded area, wouldn’t his nightly visits to the hill these past few days provide a better opportunity?

This owl, like him, must have mutated due to a certain reason.

As for why it attacked him, Xiang Kun understood after tasting the Giant Owl’s blood – it considered him food.

He suddenly realized why the dead rat was gruesomely murdered but not eaten, this owl, like him, probably had a mutated digestive system, only drinking blood instead of eating meat.

Such a huge body was likely a result of mutation.

Perhaps the owl threw the rat’s corpse into the hill and the husky’s body into the lake… was it trying to destroy evidence?

Under the moonlight, Xiang Kun looked down at himself. He was covered in mud and blood stains, and his shirt had already been taken off, leaving his upper body bare. In this state, wouldn’t people call the police if he ventured out onto the streets? Or perhaps would record a video to post on Douyin [a Chinese video-sharing app like TikTok]?

Although it was past midnight, it wasn’t like the streets were devoid of people.

And when he returned to the apartment complex, he would definitely raise the issue of security guards. That was a situation he wanted to avoid.

After thinking for a while, Xiang Kun headed towards the nearby lake and jumped directly into the shallow water by the lake. His body immediately sunk into the sludge, reaching up to his waist.

He quickly used the lake water to wash off the blood stains on his body, then climbed out of the lake, his pants also covered in sludge, effectively hiding the original blood stains.

Upon returning to his apartment complex, his disheveled appearance naturally caught the attention of the security guards by the gate.

Xiang Kun returned with a wry smile, “I went for a run and accidentally fell into the lake.”

The security guard looked confused, and then with a look full of sympathy and concern, watched Xiang Kun walk into the neighborhood.

Returning home shirtless, covered in mud, and soaking wet, Xiang Kun quickly threw his wet pants and shoes directly into the trash can. After taking a quick shower, he sat down in front of his laptop.

From a search engine, Xiang Kun found out that the world’s largest owl is the

Blakiston’s Fish Owl, with a body length of 70-77cm and a weight of 1.5-5-5kg. It’s already quite large for a bird, but it’s still quite small compared to the giant owl that Xiang Kun encountered at night.

Birds measuring 1.5 to 1.6 meters in length and weighing several tens of kilograms do exist, such as ostriches, emus, and cassowaries. But these birds, although they may run fast on the ground, cannot fly, because they are too heavy.

Xiang Kun then searched for pictures of various owls, and he thought the appearance of the giant owl resembled that of the Tawny Owl, with a large and round head, very obvious facial disc, and no ear tufts. However, compared with the Tawny Owl picture he found, the giant owl he saw had significantly deeper colored feathers and no white spots. It was very difficult to discover, especially when hiding in the dark.

Such a large owl appearing near a city would definitely attract a lot of attention if seen by people!

Nowadays, with so many surveillance cameras on the streets and almost everyone having a cell phone capable of taking photos and recording videos, it would be easy to capture if seen.

So, Xiang Kun searched the Internet using keywords like “giant bird,” “giant owl.” “strange bird.” but when he failed to get the results he wanted. he expanded the search keywords. Using crawler scripts for assistance, he searched for and collected information on local forums and message boards in his city and several surrounding cities.

But from the results, no one has discovered this giant owl.

The only thing that Xiang Kun thought might be related was a post on a local county forum from a neighboring city. Someone said that they saw a person standing in a tree at the front of their village at night. He was scared and wanted to shine a flashlight on it, but the “person” had disappeared.

From the description, it’s very possible that it was the giant owl. Xiang Kun was also mistaken thinking it was a person in a coat standing in a tree.

Unfortunately, that individual’s reaction was too slow, and they didn’t manage to take a picture.

From his tracking of the giant owl and what he saw in that brief, one-second image, Xiang Kun thought that this giant owl must have intelligence far exceeding its kind, and it’s deliberately avoiding humans. It’s likely that it only appears on the outskirts of the city late at night and hides in some obscure places during the day.

This giant owl either just mutated into this huge size not long ago, or it was living deep in the old forest before, and it’s understandable if it wasn’t discovered while deliberately avoiding human contact.

Otherwise, if it had been lingering around the city for a long time, no matter how careful, such a huge bird would have a hard time completely avoiding human sight.

If it came from deep in the forest, then, what was the reason for its appearance? Was the owl deliberately searching when it found the rabbit carcass that Xiang Kun had thrown away in the garbage heap, or was it just a chance discovery?

All these questions remain unanswered for now.

The giant owl had previously considered Xiang Kun as prey, and now Xiang Kun was equally interested in this giant owl.

He thought, maybe he could find the reasoning behind all his bodily changes from this owl.

Of course, the owl’s blood was also something he desperately needed. He could be sure that the blood of this owl would provide much more energy to his body than the blood of rabbits, chickens, ducks or any other blood he had tasted before.

According to the previous pattern, he would feel hungry today and then drink blood. He already bought three meat rabbits at home. This time he planned to increase the amount of blood, taking it from two rabbits.

He could advance the time for blood-drinking and start now. Upon waking up if he still has a cycle of 25 hours, it should be early tomorrow morning, just in time to find the giant owl under the cover of night.

One more blood-drinking means one more mutation. This increase in power, recovery ability, and sensory ability should greatly help him in his encounters with the owl.

However, Xiang Kun was somewhat worried. If the owl got scared from the fight tonight, or felt that he was too difficult to prey upon and decided to give up and leave, what then?

If it went back deep into the forest, several tens to hundreds of kilometers away, he would have no faith in his ability to track it..