茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter Eighty-One: The Range of Sensing

Throughout the meal, Xiang Kun continued to observe Tang Baona and others’ moods and physical changes, judging their preference over each dish and adjusting his understanding of their taste preferences accordingly.

However, this was information instinctively collected by his brain, not the result of deliberate observation.

After all, if he wanted to know their opinions and preferences of the dishes, he could simply ask. There was no reason for them to refrain from answering or lie on this matter.

But surprisingly, someone did lie…

“The crispy pork knuckle is the best, followed by the beef broth. The curry beef could be softened a bit more.” Xia Libing’s comments were as Xiang Kun expected, especially since the crispy pork knuckle was made specifically for her.

“I find the beef broth pretty delicious, and the dry pot rabbit meat isn’t bad. The stir-fried chicken is slightly salty. Overall, everything is very good! Sigh… I feel like I ate too much tonight. I’m probably going to put on weight.” Tang Baona, like the rest of the locals, generally preferred lighter tastes. Hence, Xiang Kun had prepared these dishes with a lighter touch to cater to their tastes. He could imagine that the dishes he sent to room 706 might taste somewhat bland to Liu Shiling and her mother.

“Um… I think… the stir-fried chicken tastes the best. Yes, that’s it.” Yang Zhen’er’s opinion was the briefest.

However, Xiang Kun immediately knew she was lying. Not only did her current state betray her insincere words, but her strong reactions to the dry pot rabbit meat were also blatantly obvious. There was no need for him to gauge from her facial expression, heartbeat, or smell. The amount she ate of it alone provided a clear indication.

However, he wasn’t surprised because Tang Baona had specifically asked him not to prepare rabbit meat during their previous phone call. But, later that night, when he texted her to clarify their taste preferences, Tang Baona informed him that if he wanted to make rabbit meat, she would have no objections as long as it was delicious.

Now it’s clear. When she asked him not to cook rabbit meat, it must have been at Yang Zhen’er’s behest. Tang Baona, on the other hand, intentionally wanted to see Yang Zhen’er “swooning” over the dish!

But how did she know that I could make rabbit meat that Yang Zhen’er would love?

After dinner, Xiang Kun went to the bathroom under the guise of flushing the toilet and regurgitated the stone and the food he had eaten.

The three girls cleaned up the dishes and leftover food before Tang Baona suggested playing Ludo – they did bring the board game today as promised!

Xiang Kun didn’t mind, given that the stakes were whoever lost had to wash the dishes…

Ludo is essentially a game of probability. While strategy doesn’t play a significant role, it does matter, especially when multiple people are playing.

Of course, if all three girls gang up against him, winning would indeed be challenging.

However, the wager was that the last person had to wash the dishes, meaning as long as he didn’t come last, he wouldn’t lose.

As the number of players on the field decreased, their influence on Xiang Kun also diminished. His chances of avoiding last place were still quite high.

But he wasn’t bothered about the dish-washing stake in the first place since he intended to do it anyway. So, after a rigorous battle on the Ludo board with the girls, he resigned himself to a seemingly reluctant last-place defeat and trudged off to wash the dishes.

If they so wanted to win against him, he would concede.

Because Xiang Kun deliberately controlled the pace, a game of Ludo lasted an hour. After chatting for a bit following the game, Tang Baona and her friends bid their farewells and left; it was not a weekend, after all, and they couldn’t afford late nights every day.

Returning home, Xiang Kun tidied up the kitchen, took the inner pot of the rice cooker to return it to Shilings Mom in room 706.

Given the late hour, Xiang Kun didn’t enter the room, instead handing her the inner pot on the doorstep and expressing his gratitude before preparing to leave.

But Shiling’s Mom stopped him, her face alive with curiosity, and asked, “So, which one of them is it?”

Xiang Kun was startled, responding, “What do you mean?”

“Your target! You must have a target among those three beautiful girls.”

“Uh… We’re just ordinary friends. I’m not currently considering dating.” Xiang Kun replied, touching his bald head.

Shiling’s Mom chuckled, “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s a natural thing for men and women to marry. Those three girls are all exceptional… If we’re strictly talking about looks and figure, it’s the tall one in overalls who is the prettiest. But, if we’re looking at personalities, the girl with the glasses seems cuter, and she’s beautiful too. The other girl seems fun, but I reckon you’d prefer someone more calm and gentle…”

Unable to fend off Shiling’s Mom’s burning curiosity, Xiang Kun quickly made an excuse, pretended to take a phone call, and escaped back home.

After gathering some equipment at home, Xiang Kun stepped out again, ready to continue with his pre-planned training for the night.

This Blood-drinking Period, aside from the ongoing learning and memory training, Xiang Kun had also scheduled physical training for himself.

His training method is very simple and consisted of two main activities:

Firstly, he continued to return to the small hill from before, practicing full-powered uphill and downhill rushes.

However, he now bought some weight equipment online, which greatly increased the difficulty.

The weighted suit can weigh up to 80KG with all the weights added, it cost him over 800 yuan.

The online store’s customer service repeatedly confirmed with him whether he made mistakes in checking the weight: it’s supposed to be kilogram, not Chinese jin. As normally, very few people would buy such a heavy weight suit due to its lack of practicality.

Even for Xiang Kun himself, during the first few uphill climbs, he only added 60KG of weight. As a result, the speed of his full-speed uphill running decreased dramatically.

When speed running downhill, he reduced the weight down to 20KG. Otherwise, with the huge inertia, which he finds difficult to control at present, if he falls, he wouldn’t be able to get up and would roll directly down the hill.

Although single soldiers in the army often carry weights of 40 to 50KG or even more, those are for weighted marching, not like what Xiang Kun does, full power bursts and continuous extreme training on such harsh terrain with no path on the mountain. For an average person to do like he does, injury is inevitable, let alone achieving it.

The second part is to conduct some similarly-weighted bodyweight exercises.

For instance, practicing some gymnastics moves at home, such as a planche (a type of push-up).

Or, taking advantage of the quiet late night, going to the community activity area to practice moves like the front lever, back lever, slow-motion muscle-ups, etc. on the parallel bars.

With his current body weight, along with additional weights, the difficulty of these exercises is quite high. These exercises are somewhat difficult even for him now, but the training effect and the stimulating effect on the body are excellent.

However, he wouldn’t train for too long in the community because, even late at night, the security guards patrol occasionally.

On the evening of September 5th, after a slumber of 25 hours, Xiang Kun immediately sensed the location of the “Tissue Paper 2” post-sleep, which SF Express informed was to be returned.

He could still sense the location, but only vaguely the direction and distance, not the detailed location as within the city area.

He already found that if the item he established a connection with is in a familiar area, he could have a fairly accurate location positioning in his mind.

If he is not familiar with the area or has never been there, then he can only have a clear direction sensing and a vague distance sensing. As for the specific location, it would be a mystery.

Just like that “Tissue Paper 2”. After giving it to SF Express for delivery, he could often make a rough guess of its location within the city area, whether it was in XX district or on XX street, roughly near some landmark.

But once it leaves the city boundary, he could only vaguely sense the movement direction of the “Tissue Paper 2”.

However, if tracking is needed, he can still follow the sensing to find “Tissue Paper 2”.

From the distance point of view, even when the SF Express tracking earlier showed that the package had arrived at the target city, a straight-line distance of more than 2000 kilometers, his sensing was still very clear, with no weakening or fading.

After “Tissue Paper 2” is returned, he plans to send an international express to test whether he can sense it in America or Europe.

For overall sensing time, his recorded result was 1 hour 24 minutes 45 seconds.

Of course, the actual sensing time was actually longer than this, as he often started timing after he began sensing.

So far, it appears that the time spent sensing doesn’t reduce the intensity of the sensing.

However, it is also possible that the time is still too short; for this

Blood-drinking Period, he will continue to experiment and time it.

Meanwhile, the four items he observed during the last Blood-drinking Period:

Paper 1, Paper 2, Coin, and Ballpen Bead, have all established a sensing connection.

After conducting experiments in two Blood-drinking Periods, it was evident that during observation, after the white light flashes in his eyes, a connection will be established in the next mutation allowing Xiang Kun to sense the location of the object anytime.

So far, it seems that for these items with which he has established a connection, he can only sense their locations.

But Xiang Kun intuitively believes that the connection between him and these items should not be that simple. Besides sensing their locations, he believes there may be other secrets still undiscovered.

Luckily, now there are four more target items for experimentation..