茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter 190: Tired Heart

Xiang Kun presented himself as a quaint homebody who carves wooden figurines, and kept up a conversation with the girl for the entire ride, making sure she constantly held at least one minion wood carving in her hand, while intentionally sparking her memory of various funny, cute anime characters.

Just before the girl got to her stop, Xiang Kun did feel a bit of happiness from her. However, after considering the overall conversation, he thought these emotions were largely guided by him, with the wood carving playing no role at all. These twelve wood carvings were still worthless in terms of direct emotional influence on conscious people.

After the girl got off, Xiang Kun approached another passenger who was also nodding off in an attempt to use the wood carving to influence their dream. But perhaps the person was not deeply asleep, so the attempt failed. He could not succeed in perceiving the dream until the person woke up.

Waiting for half an hour, Xiang Kun finally perceived a dream from another drowsy passenger and guided the passenger to dream of himself holding a cell phone and laughing hysterically. In the dream, a minion stood on his shoulder, laughing along with him.

After he woke up, Xiang Kun created another opportunity to expose him to the wood carving.

Xiang Kun wanted to see if people who had been influenced by dreams were more easily affected by the wood carvings in reality.

However, the experiment was still unsuccessful.

It was already past three in the afternoon. Xiang Kun had been wandering around on the subway for over five hours and was feeling weary, dully staring into space as he slouched in the subway seat.

This kind of tiredness wasn’t physical, nor mental, but rather emotional fatigue— the initial “experiment” he had planned ended up being a waste of effort due to his undue “carelessness”. The various attempts afterwards did not yield any useful results, leaving him with the feeling that he was wasting time.

Despite this, while he was zoning out, his senses were still subconsciously collecting various information.

The sounds coming out of the smartphones of the passengers in the carriage were all “shared” with him. In addition to numerous short, loud videos, he also heard some news stories that piqued his interest. For example:

“Shen Xing Technology Company has obtained a drone air operation license and will start implementing an unmanned aerial system in pilot communities. This system will play a role in security patrols, health supervision, property facility management and more. It is reported that the property drones used by Shen Xing Technology come in seven different models, each with unique sizes and performances, which differ greatly from traditional drones…”

“…The search and rescue of three missing backpackers has entered its third day, with more professional search teams joining the effort, but there has not been any further progress. The three backpackers entered the uninhabited area in the depth of Qinling Mountains on the 15th of last month…”

Xiang Kun picked up his phone, preparing to search for the news that interested him in detail. Suddenly, there was a dispute not far away.

As Xiang Kun turned his attention over, his brain churned up the relevant information about the subway car that he had subconsciously gathered. He knew that the quarrel over there was between two men fighting for a seat. They were standing face to face in a confrontation, and the argument seemed to be escalating towards physical violence.

When Xiang Kun first got on the subway, the carriage wasn’t crowded. But as time passed, one stop after another, the carriage filled up with people. There were no empty seats, and the number of standing passengers was almost equal to the seated ones.

The passengers around the feuding individuals immediately created some distance. Half of the onlookers took out their phones to secretly take photos or videos.

If these two really started fighting, they would probably soon become the talk of the town on everyone’s social media feed.

Xiang Kun continued to look down at his phone, uninterested in the situation, with no intention to intervene. Plus, based on the sensory information he had collected, there was a high probability that these two guys wouldn’t actually fight. At most, they would just argue the journey away. By now, their dispute was not necessarily about the seat anymore, but more about saving face.

However, a few seconds later, Xiang Kun suddenly looked up at the two arguing men again, as a thought came to mind.

Today, Xiang Kun took the subway with twelve minions and didn’t walk away empty-handed. At least when he was bored earlier, while absently squeezing a minion wood carving and deeply perceiving it, he noticed that, when relaxing his brain and keeping himself in a state with almost no emotional fluctuations, he could faintly sense the emotions he had once “infused” into the wood carving.

In other words, Xiang Kun had treated the wood carving like a “storage device” , with the emotions being the data stored.

However, the emotional perception was extremely weak. It only allowed him to barely perceive the feelings at that time and did not allow him to directly immerse himself in those emotions.

In terms of the extent of emotional influence, it might not even be as strong as a nostalgic old song or a powerful instrumental music.

But comparably, this method of emotion guidance is more covert than watching videos or listening to music. Furthermore, it is pretty hard to guide some of the emotions, like “happiness”, using conventional methods. After all, many funny jokes or videos lose their impact after being viewed twice or thrice.

The “happiness” emotion “stored” in the minion, although very weak, allows Xiang Kun to fully perceive that emotion, and then guide it.

As he held that little minion in his hand, looking at the two arguing men not far away, and he began to feel that their voices gradually sounded funnier. Their enraged, red faces started to look like a monkey’s butt, adding to the comedy.

In his mind, he even imagined two small minions chattering and arguing with each other.

Without realizing it, Xiang Kun started to laugh. A minute later, everyone in the car who was watching the arguing men showed amused smiles. A kid who looked like he had just started kindergarten was even pointing at the two men and laughing till tears came out.

The arguing pair slowly stopped, looking bewildered at the passengers around them. They were baffled at first, then looked a little confused. They then glanced at each other and both laughed sheepishly, shaking their heads as they walked in opposite directions in the carriage, creating distance between them and ceasing their argument.

A few minutes later, when the subway arrived at the station, Xiang Kun, who emerged from his emotional state, got off the train. Now he was not “emotionally fatigued” anymore, but feeling invigorated instead.

It wasn’t because he stopped an argument by consciously entering a state of “Emotional Assimilation”; rather, it was because the long subway ride had finally resulted in a successful experiment, yielding effective results and data.

In addition, for his ability of “Emotional Assimilation”, he was able to summarize more experiences and find ways to guide it more conveniently.

Taking into account the spontaneous process of “Emotional Assimilation” towards the seat occupier on the train last time, Xiang Kun could basically conclude:

During his process of “Emotional Assimilation”, the person who becomes his emotional target—the seat occupier last time, and the arguing passengers this time—would not be influenced immediately.

However, from the subsequent reactions of the two passengers, it can be seen that they might have been influenced afterwards and found each other amusing.

According to this theory, “mental deterrence” and “Emotional Assimilation” might be used simultaneously under certain circumstances?