茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter Forty-Three: Awakening

In the combat against the owl, Xiang Kun gained an upper hand. Hence, the subsequent close-quarter combat turned into a last-ditch resistance of the owl. He did get scratched and quite a few bones were broken, but as far as he was concerned, they were all considered “skin-deep injuries”.

After killing the owl, Xiang Kun could no longer contain himself and started to drink the blood from the owl’s wounds fervently.

Xiang Kun didn’t have a measuring cup, he didn’t know how much blood he drank, but he knew it was plentiful.

He did not even remember when he fell asleep.

As for the vanished body of the owl, not even a trace of blood was left. After witnessing the mysterious disappearance of feathers, Xiang Kun had developed a psychological expectation for such occurrences.

This giant owl was likely a mutant creature, just like him. As his flesh turned into extremely fine powder not long after being sliced off, the body of the owl likely underwent the same process upon death.

Said powder could easily disperse into thin air with just a gentle breeze, indistinguishable from ordinary dust.

Xiang Kun examined his body. Aside from his tattered clothing, there were no injuries on his body. The injuries that were inflicted during the fight with the owl had healed during his slumber.

He could clearly feel a drastic enhancement in his physical capabilities. There was no need for a specific test. Just by clenching his fist, he could feel the abundant strength within his muscles. Furthermore, he has gained control over a greater number of individual muscle groups, demonstrating his improved physical development.

Even more noticeably, his hearing and sense of smell have improved. Scents and sounds that previously required a high degree of concentration to discern could now be easily detected with a flicker of thought. His control over his senses had become increasingly effortless.

Clearly, consuming the blood of the giant owl had provided him with significant enhancement, a benefit far beyond anything rabbit blood or other types of blood could provide.

Like a phrase Chang Bin used to say during their work out days, “Three parts practice, seven parts eating.”

Targeted training should be paired with the appropriate and sufficient supplements to maximize training results.

However, Xiang Kun didn’t bother to further examine the changes in his body or to quantify the degree of enhancement in his physical functionality. The priority was to leave the place.

But he couldn’t just leave immediately.

Xiang Kun started searching for any potential remnants of the owl while collecting his belongings.

His shoes, shattered mobile phone, torchlight, Swiss Army Knife, keys, even pieces of his torn clothes were collected. He even spent quite some time searching for the screwdriver that fell into the grass based on its scent.

After examining himself briefly, even though he was dirty, there were no blood stains. The blood of both him and the owl, upon drying, would turn into a powder form, making it easy to clean. His torn pants weren’t in terrible condition, and he had retrieved his shoes. Xiang Kun quickly cleaned up the mud, dead leaves, and weeds from his body and ran back home, pretending to have been out for morning jog.

This was not the first time Xiang Kun returned to the neighbourhood shirtless. However, the last time he did so was in the early morning, and besides the security guards, he didn’t encounter other residents. This time it was morning, and many residents who were heading out saw him. The sight of Xiang Kun shirtless drew numerous stares, particularly from female residents. Though they frowned, seemingly disapproving, their eyes lingered on him.

Xiang Kun was muscular, but his muscles didn’t look as “ripped” as those of people who were lean and sculpted. Instead, he had the body type of a basketball player or boxer; his abs were not distinctly separated into eight segments. At first glance, they looked more like a slab of iron with a slight curve. His back, though wide and well-developed, did not have an overly exaggerated “V” shape since he also had a solid waistline.

However, anyone could tell that his body held an immense amount of strength. This wasn’t about aesthetics but originated from a basic biological instinct.

Upon entering the entrance of the neighborhood complex, he greeted the old security guard, who was staring at him. Just as he was about to jog forward, the old guard began to speak: “Sir, have you been to the lakeside again?”

Xiang Kun paused, stopping in his tracks: “Oh, I just went for a jog. But I didn’t go to the lakeside.” He was puzzled. He didn’t deliberately jump into the lake and come out covered in mud like last time. Why would the guard ask this?

The old guard chuckled: “Oh, I see. This morning, Li said that you accidentally fell into the lake last night. I thought you had gone there again early this morning… That lake can be dangerous, some areas seem shallow, but the silt is deep. Once there, you’ll sink, it is just like a swamp, swimming won’t help. Be careful…” Even though Xiang Kun moved in not long ago, the security guards weren’t unfamiliar with him due to his distinctive bald head.

The words of the old guard caught Xiang Kun off guard.

Last night?

Though his mind was filled with confusion, Xiang Kun didn’t ask for more details and just responded with, “Alright, thank you, I’ll be careful.”

Once home, Xiang Kun headed straight for the laptop, waking up the screen to reveal the time in the bottom right-hand corner:

8:15

Then he checked the date:

2019/8/11

A frown creased Xiang Kun’s forehead. When he encountered the giant owl by the lake, had a brief skirmish, got injured and came home, it was already the early morning of August 11th.

He left his house again after 2 a.m..

By the time he found the giant owl, it was past 4 a.m.

A standoff, a fight and finally, after he killed the owl and drank its blood, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed — he had no way of knowing, his phone was broken.

But it must have been around 5 0’clock in the morning, perhaps a little earlier.

From the angle of the sunlight when he woke up, it should have been around 6:30.

Was it that he only slept for a bit over an hour after drinking blood?

When he first woke up in the morning, he assumed it was already the morning of August 12th. Based on past patterns, it would be normal for him to sleep for 25 hours.

Even if he slept for over 48 hours due to the large amount of giant owl blood he drank, he wouldn’t be surprised.

What he didn’t envision was that he had only slept for over an hour!

It reminded him of the previous time he drank rabbit blood. He felt a distinct wave of hunger before falling asleep, resulting in an overall sleep time of 32 hours, vastly exceeding his usual 25 hours.

Xiang Kun analyzed the situation. Could it be that the blood he’d consumed satisfied his needs to a greater extent, had a higher quality and quantity, thus shortening his sleeping hours?

So, it seemed that sleep was a means to compensate for his energy deficiency?

Then, if he was extremely hungry, could he solve it by sleeping for a long time without eating?

However, during his previous experiment on hunger tolerance, he lasted 22 hours without food, only feeling increasingly agitated without any sign of sleepiness. Or was it that the duration wasn’t long enough?

Or he should carry out the experiment in an environment completely devoid of “food” next time?

After a moment of contemplation, he decided to postpone this experiment, as there were more pressing matters to attend to. He was also a little concerned that if he indeed fell into such a sleep, the duration might be too long. An unconscious sluice for ten days, twenty days or even several months could lead to uncontrollable accidents. It might even cause harm to his body, affect the mutation status and so on..