茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

On Yang Zhen’er’s birthday, besides Xiang Kun and Tang Baona, Tang Baona’s sister Baoting, the “prospective brother-in-law” Gao Yao, and her good friend Qin Ping are also expected to attend.

Regrettably, Old Xia has to work on New Year’s Day and doesn’t have a holiday, so he can’t come back.

Of course, Yang Zhen’er did “promise” Old Xia that she would send him photos and videos, “sharing” what delicious food they had for dinner.

Xiang Kun is still busy in the kitchen by himself. It’s not that Yang Zhen’er and Tang Baona are unwilling to help; it’s just that they aren’t useful when they go into the kitchen. Instead, they would disrupt his plans. Either way, he can handle everything himself, and this time it’s much easier than Christmas Eve.

While preparing the food, Xiang Kun is also continuously perceiving the “rabbit wood carving” and “bone” he left deep in Qinling.

Through the emotions he senses, Xiang Kun can confirm that there are at least two people around the “rabbit wood carving”.

After sensing a large number of emotions, Xiang Kun has long discovered that emotions also have characteristics. Even the same type of emotions, such as fear—even if the source of fear is the same, different people’s emotions have subtle differences. The differences can only be noticed through careful discrimination and the establishment of a feature database.

For people whom he is more familiar with, such as Tang Baona, he can discern whether the emotions he perceives are hers from certain specific emotions.

Emotions sensed from an object can also to some extent reveal the personality traits of the emotion’s owner.

Like now, Xiang Kun sensed two identical astonished emotions through the “rabbit wood carving”. After imagining the scene inside the cave and putting himself in that situation to establish a cognitive model, he judged that these two people’s psychological bearing capacity was stronger than that of most ordinary people.

Although Xiang Kun’s woodcarving skills have improved a lot compared to when he first started, in the uninhabited area of Qinling, he didn’t bring any woodcarving tools that had established a “super sensory contact”. The wood he used wasn’t very suitable for carving, so he had to use a metal arrowhead to crudely chisel away. Thanks to his strength and muscle control, he managed to roughly carve out the basic shape.

However, the rough appearance of the rabbit wood carving adds a few touches of peculiarity, primitiveness, and mystery to it. In the environment of the cave and with the presence of other animal bodies, most people would experience greater emotional fluctuation after seeing it.

Xiang Kun couldn’t help but wonder if one of the two people interacting with the wood carving would be a “vampire”, perhaps the founder of “Divine Technology”, Lu Cheng’an?

However, Xiang Kun soon dismissed that possibility after some thought. If it were a “vampire”, there should be other types of emotions, and confusion should be the predominant one.

Because Xiang Kun has personally explored most of the areas around that cave, and he has also surveyed areas where he didn’t go from the high ground. Therefore, he can construct basic scene maps in his head. Hence, when locating the “bone” that established a “super sensory contact”, he has quite accurate judgments of its moving trajectory and distance.

From its moving direction, after being taken out of the cave, it is directly going towards the outside of the Qinling mountain range, showing a tendency to leave.

Although he doesn’t know how they specifically found the cave in the cliff, shouldn’t finding the cave mean that the search has made major progress and the search range should be expanded?

Or do they also realize that the person who left the wood carving isn’t the mutant that originally killed the wild boar?

But if that’s the case, they should also stay and continue to investigate the person who left the wood carving.

Unless they think there’s no point in staying because they won’t find anything? How did they come to this conclusion?

Of course, another possibility was that they had two groups of people. One group transported the things from the cave back, and the other group stayed behind to continue exploring and searching.

While sensing and pondering, Xiang Kun finished cooking dinner.

The dinner still consisted of three dishes made from rabbit meat. There was no choice since every time he used blood-drinking, the amount of rabbits he consumed was too much. Even if he regularly cooked dishes for security and property staff in the community, there were still many more left to deal with. Now, his weekly “food costs” were much higher than before he mutated.

There were also a few newly developed dishes, like teppanyaki squid, garlic lobster, and two kinds of vegetables, all of which were not very hard for him to cook.

Furthermore, he had virtually grown familiar with the taste preferences of everyone having dinner. Even for Qin Ping, he had a general idea of her taste preference based on previous observations.

At the dinner table, Xiang Kun learned that Qin Ping eventually chose the offer from Divine Technology. Although Divine Technology seemed to be more focused on exploring and developing in new fields compared to the much more mature offerings of the other company, the latter seemed like a more steady choice for her professional career development. However, for Qin Ping, who was not even thirty yet, Divine Technology’s offer evidently presented more challenge and anticipation, let alone better compensation.

“When are you going to start, is the headquarters of Divine Technology in this city? Where do they develop these exoskeleton projects?” Yang Zhen’er curiously asked.

“Their research and development center for this project is in Yangcheng City. I’ll go there after the New Year. Sadly, I won’t get to eat Chef Xiang’s delicious food as frequently,” said Qin Ping. As she spoke, she didn’t stop eating. She had a liking for seafood, so she was particularly interested in the lobster prepared by Xiang Kun.

Yangcheng City?

Every time this city was mentioned, it reminded Xiang Kun of Guo Tianxiang. However, he knew that Divine Technology’s R&D centers were most likely scattered in different locations, and the laboratories researching vampires and mutants might not necessarily be in the same location with other R&D facilities, each operating individually.

In his mind, he also wondered where the things shipped out from the cave were sent.

Once their location was confirmed and no longer changed, Xiang Kun might have to go over there for investigation.

Of course, he would have to be extremely careful and make thorough preparations. Compared to Guo Tianxiang, Divine Technology was a more dangerous and challenging adversary.

Although he currently did not know Divine Technology and the people behind it’s exact attitude towards other “vampires” and mutants, based on the giant owl, the mutated spider, and the memory fragments of Guo Tianxiang that Xiang Kun acquired, the mutants at a certain stage would have a “hard need” for blood of other mutants, which made peaceful coexistence difficult to achieve.

After the meal, everyone played San Guo Sha together. Although Xiang Kun could basically identify everyone’s role as soon as they drew their identity cards, he played as if he didn’t know the “truth” and followed the rules of the game. Yang Zhen’er and Tang Baona felt that they finally found a field that Xiang Kun wasn’t good at.

It was almost midnight when they stopped to cut the cake and sing the birthday song. Yang Zhen’er blew out the candles and made a wish.

However, when everyone was about to say goodbye and leave, Yang Zhen’er stopped Xiang Kun: “No, we must first see what gift Carpenter Xiang gave me. If it’s a herd of running horses or Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, I will ‘return’ it!”

Qin Ping couldn’t help but laugh, “This is the first time I’ve heard about ‘returning’ someone’s birthday gift. It’s too hard to be your friend. Hey, you should also check the gift I gave you. If you’re not satisfied, I can take it back for ‘return’.”

Tang Baoting also joked, “Yeah, check ours as well. If you don’t like it, I can also ‘return’ it.”

Ignoring the teasing from the others, Yang Zhen’er huffed, “It’s not the same. Carpenter Xiang’s gift is handmade by him. I’ve been waiting for this wood carving for three months. I can’t let him get away with it. I must be strict about it.”

Xiang Kun laughed, “Okay, okay, as today’s birthday star, you have the final say. Let’s ‘check the goods’ first. If it’s not acceptable, I’ll make a new one for you! Everyone is watching, I certainly won’t cheat!”

So, the couple of Tang Baoting and Qin Ping, who had already reached the doorstep, also walked back to watch Yang Zhen’er “unpacking”.

They had been curious about the cardboard box that had been left in the corner of the living room, wondering what gift Xiang Kun had sent. Now that they had the opportunity to see, they naturally wouldn’t miss out.

After opening the box, there was a cluster of bubble wrap. Under Xiang Kun’s instruction, Yang Zhen’er first picked up a small wooden box from the top left corner.

The wooden box looked simple, without any paint on it, but the edges were finely polished – it didn’t have any splinters and did not prick the skin. It was the same type of box that Xiang Kun used before when he had gifted wood carvings to Tang Baona.

Upon opening, inside was a palm-sized, long-haired girl holding two swords, dressed in armor. Similar in style to the wood carving Xiang Kun had previously gifted Tang Baona for Christmas, it was a chibi version with an oversized round head. Yet, anyone familiar with Yang Zhen’er could easily recognize that this wood carving was based on her, with her distinctive features targeted perfectly.

Yang Zhen’er’s eyes lit up. The figure, sculpted by “Carpenter Xiang”, really suited her taste. It was how she often imagined herself in an anime-styled avatar – although not a chibi version, but a beautiful and cool one.

“It’s a late Christmas gift for you,” Xiang Kun added from the side.

“Ah? Seeing this makes me want to shamelessly ask Xiang Kun for a Christmas gift too,” Tang Baoting couldn’t help expressing.

“Me too.” Gao Yao also nodded, murmuring in agreement.

Yang Zhen’er happily put the piece back into its box, placed it on the table. Then she reached her hand into the cardboard box, and with Xiang Kun’s help, she unwrapped another, even larger wood carving that wasn’t packed in a wood box.

After she took it out, everybody besides Xiang Kun couldn’t help but gasp.

The theme of this carving was a dinosaur, with the quintet from the cartoon Doraemon riding on its back – Doraemon, Nobita, and Shizuka were straddled across its back, while Gian and Suneo were clinging tightly to the dinosaur’s tail.

“How did you know that my favourite manga is ‘Doraemon’?” Yang Zhen’er asked in surprised delight.

“Didn’t you tell me?” Xiang Kun asked, puzzled.

“Did I say that?” Yang Zhen’er was perplexed.

“Yes.” Xiang Kun affirmed. In actuality, he had inferred this from various scenes he had seen through previous Dreamland explorations. The two carvings he gifted Yang Zhen’er can’t be considered exquisitely detailed, as he didn’t establish any “Super sensory contact” with the material, nor did he use “Emotional Infusion”. But by a stroke of luck, both pieces were of designs that Yang Zhen’er was certain to love, so she couldn’t help but adore and appreciate them immensely.

Once they left Tang Baona’s house, Xiang Kun and Qin Ping both followed Tang Baoting and Gao Yao’s car.

In the car, Xiang Kun chatted nonchalantly with the three of them, all the while using the “Rabbit Wood Carving” to perceive dreams.

In fact, from around ten o’clock in the evening, Xiang Kun had already perceived the first dream through the “Rabbit Wood Carving”. Before leaving, he perceived the second one, and shortly after getting in the car, he perceived the third.

From his multiple tests before, Xiang Kun knew that in a single night, an object with “Emotional Infusion” couldn’t stimulate the same person to dream twice, but it could stimulate and perceive the dreams of another person near the object after perceiving a dream.

After returning home, he perceived two more dreams within two hours. From then until sunrise, he didn’t perceive any new dreams.

That is to say, there were at least five people around the “Rabbit Wood Carving”.

Whether there were only five people in total couldn’t be determined, as the range the “Rabbit Wood Carving” could influence was limited. Perhaps there were other people out of its range.

Xiang Kun summarized the dreams he had perceived – two of the dreams were related to military training. Clearly, these two people were “professionals” who had undergone such training. Their presence in the team exploring the Qinling Uninhabited Area was quite normal.

The setting of another dream was in a laboratory, where the dream owner was diligently processing “Rabbit Meat”. Obviously, this was a researcher who spent all his days in a lab, and his presence in the team also made sense.

The other two dreams featured playing with Lego bricks, and feeding ants in a giant clear ant farm. From the former’s insufferable and complex playing methods to the latter’s specially designed and clearly customized ant farm, it could be determined that both dream owners were tech geeks, very likely researchers like the one from the lab dream.

This was also the reason Xiang Kun used the feelings of being focused and serious to create an “Emotional Infusion” with the rabbit wood carving. From previous experiences, the dreams influenced by such emotions usually relate to the subject’s occupation or hobbies.

In this way, he could use the dreams to speculate about the people’s occupations and identities.

And even better, if he was lucky enough and the information was sufficient, he might be able to directly confirm the identity of the dream owner, or find out the research and achievements of the organizations they affiliated with.

From the two dreams related to military training, Xiang Kun couldn’t glean any special information. But the other three dreams provided much more information in comparison.

After careful deliberation and calculation, Xiang Kun finally focused his attention on the dream about feeding ants.

Both the ants and the specifically designed large ant farm were rare. If they were custom made, it could pinpoint directly to the individual.

Moreover, such a niche hobby group might only consist of a few small circles nationwide. The good players and the impressive ones might be well-known. People with such a technical nerd identity might like to seek like-minded people by sharing.

Of course, there could also be another possibility that the owner of the dream was indeed interested in ants and paid a lot of attention to related information, but they only fantasized about raising them and didn’t actually have the time to do so. The ants and the giant ant farm could all be imagined by them. If they daydreamed enough, seriously and focused, they might dream about what they fantasized when stimulated by the rabbit wood carving.

However, that scenario was not very likely. Xiang Kun decided to start with the ants and the ant farm, and searched online for ant species pictorial books, compared with the appearance of the ants seen in the dream to determine the species, and then searched in various ant-related bars, communities, and forums for related content.

During this process, Xiang Kun let Alice monitor his operations on the computer. With each step he took, he would also tell Alice his purpose and reasons for doing so.

He wanted Alice to learn his querying logic and learn to take “shortcuts”.

At about nine o’clock in the morning, Xiang Kun finally saw an ant farm almost identical to the one in the dream on Weibo. Seeing the post displaying “Posted from Huawei mate20”, along with the Mate20 beside the ant farm in the dream, increased the probability of them being the same person.

The Weibo user was not verified and had not marked any profession information, but once he found the Weibo account, Xiang Kun knew he wasn’t far from locating the actual person.

Whether through the bone with “super-sensory contact” or the ant guy, both could become clues for his investigation.