茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

The lanky young man sitting in the back seat subconsciously glanced back again. Due to their hasty departure, they hadn’t even had time to close the warehouse gate properly. That dark gate was like a monster about to devour its prey, chilling anyone who looked at it.

Especially when he thought about the monster with many eyes and arms he had just seen inside, he wanted to leave this place as far as possible as quickly as he could.

“Baldy, let’s leave quickly. I… I didn’t see anything…” The young man said in a nearly tearful voice. He had no interest in discussing the monster any further. It felt like the mere mention would make the monster dash out from the warehouse to look for him.

The scar-faced man looked suspicious, “You didn’t see anything?” He looked at the obese middle-aged man sitting in the co-driver’s seat: “You said it didn’t want to let us leave. Do you know what it is?”

“You saw it yourself, don’t you know?” The middle-aged man rubbed his face hard, trying to keep himself awake, but his trembling hands betrayed his current emotional state.

“What the hell do I know? Speak clearly!” The scar-faced man suddenly exploded with rage, leaning over to choke the middle-aged man with the help of a wrench, and scolded him angrily.

“Baldy, Baldy, don’t do this, let’s leave this place quickly…” The young man in the back seat reached out and tremulously held the arm of the scar-faced man in an attempt to dissuade him.

“The damn car isn’t starting, how can we leave? Leave your ass!” The scar-faced man forcefully shook off the young man’s hand.

However, at this moment, the normally slippery middle-aged man unexpectedly leaned towards the car door, raised his left foot, and fiercely kicked the scar-faced man.

The scar-faced man was kicked fiercely, smashing into the driver’s door, creating a loud noise. The young man watching from the back seat worried if the blow would shatter the car window.

After screaming in pain, a ferocious light flashed across the scar-faced man’s face. Seeing the middle-aged obese man and the lanky young man still in the car, he quickly opened the car door, jumped out of the car, then, turning back, yelled at them furiously, “I knew it! It must be your dirty work! You planned to harm me! You collaborated to harm me! All for personal gains? Well, take it all. See where you can sell the goods without my connections! I hope you can handle the heat! Death upon you! I’ll remember this vendetta, you better be careful!”

Having said that, the scar-faced man glanced back towards the warehouse again fearfully, then started running towards the exit of the abandoned factory area.

Seeing the scar-faced man spew out a bunch of nonsensical accusations then suddenly begin sprinting, he even stumbled a few steps in, then immediately picked himself back up and continued running until he disappeared at the corner. This left the two people in the vehicle staring in bewilderment.

“Uncle, what happened to Baldy?” The young man asked shakily.

The middle-aged man wiped his nose and shook his head, “He’s haunted by guilt.” He paused and then continued, “The three of us… we all are.”

The young man didn’t quite understand his words, so all he could do was ask, “Uncle, what… what should we do? What about this car?”

“I probably won’t live much longer.” The middle-aged man put his head down and gave a bitter smile, burying his face in his hands, “I know that you also saw it, that monster in the warehouse. It can make us see the things we fear. The more you avoid, the more scared you become. Do you understand? The more you evade, the more you fear.” His emotions slowly settled, and he no longer appeared as shattered and out of control as he did earlier.

Upon hearing these words, the young man in the back seat started spacing out, seemingly lost in thought.

In the narrow alley next to the warehouse, Xiang Kun, who had already exited his Super Sensory State, was quietly recounting the conversation between the people inside the truck to Xia Libing.

From where they were positioned, they couldn’t see the warehouse door or the truck, but for Xiang Kun, distance was not a hindrance at all. Plus, thanks to the poor noise isolation of that rickety truck, Xiang Kun clearly heard the conversation among the three people inside.

The reason Xiang Kun decided to perform these experiments on the three people was not simply because he wanted to scare people for fun. He wanted to validate his two theories.

His first theory was an attempt to modify the group illusion capabilities Xiao Pingguo “developed” last night, that is, to propagate range illusions even without Gold Flash.

There were several methods Xiang Kun could use to create illusions in other people:

One was to affect others through eye contact-induced “co-manifestation”, allowing others to see what he was seeing. This ability worked best when combined with “Emotional Assimilation”. He used this method the last time he and Chang Bin went to the bar for a drink and he suddenly decided to sing Jacky Cheung’s “Big Husband”, affecting the people around him.

The second method was to directly utilize the ability Xiao Pingguo “developed” earlier, which involves packaging the emotions contained in “emotion-infused objects” and turning them into projections for co-manifestation. By “injecting” them into the target’s consciousness, the target would not only experience the corresponding emotions but also see the corresponding emotional projections. However, Xiang Kun had no control over what projections they would see. He utilized this method in Tongshi Town against the bald Boss Qi and Qi Haoguo who were with Liu Feibao.

The third way was to perform the previous method remotely while in a Super Sensory State, allowing people to experience corresponding illusions. After locating a Divine Technology research base through the rabbit wood carving, he used this method to make the researchers at the base see illusions of rabbit meat.

The latter two methods only affected individuals. Though the first could affect groups, it required him to enter an emotional state, or self-hypnotize first, which meant a long preparation time. Also, he had to expose himself in front of other people, which often wasn’t feasible.

As for the ability of “Illusion Reality” that Old Xia had just “developed”, he wasn’t sure if it was pure illusion. Though it could allow other people to see, so far, it could only manifest all kinds of food and it didn’t have the ability to affect emotions.

The modification method Xiang Kun utilized was simple. He directly entered the “Super Sensory State”, called upon the emotional projection of the Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Woodcarving, then right under the “Super Sensory State”, he utilized his influence over a large number of “Super-connected Objects” around him to expand the emotions and create a broad influence area.

If we were to liken the ability Xiao Pingguo developed last night to throwing out a sack of chalk dust (emotional projection), allowing a high-powered electric fan (Gold Flash) to scatter it everywhere for wide-range impact,

Then Xiang Kun’s modification was like arranging a pile of smaller electric fans (coins, marbles, and other super-connected objects) in advance, throwing out a sack of chalk dust, and letting these fans blow the dust everywhere for the wide-range impact.

When Xiang Kun used this ability for the first time, he was worried that he wouldn’t have enough “super-connected objects” to call and project the interference from, so he practically had Old Xia throw most of the “super-connected objects” into the warehouse.

To judge by the final outcome, the resulting illusions indeed propagated to a group. All three thieves who had entered the warehouse saw the illusions and experienced significant emotional effects.

They might have even overdone it a bit.

The second idea or purpose of Xiang Kun’s experiment was to test the lasting effects of the fear projection of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”, and what those effects might be.

He met Chu Xiuwen this morning who had mentioned Boss Qi. Since returning from Tongshi Town, he had suddenly started doing charity work and even disposed of some high-quality, profitable assets.

Xiang Kun recalled those people previously affected by the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”, like the scammer from a consulting firm who, after being “deep fried” in a dream, turned himself into the police the next day.

Because the dream was experienced from the first-person perspective of the dreamer, Xiang Kun had some idea of why the scammer would make such a decision after waking up.

The fear brought on by the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” varied from person to person based on their personal experiences.

Comparatively, criminals or those with a guilty conscience are more greatly affected than ordinary people.

Although most criminals, especially habitual ones, will find various excuses for themselves when committing crimes or hurting others and won’t have any remorse or repentance.

But anyone who grew up in a normal society will carry basic morality. Even leaders of criminal organizations, who are boundlessly wicked, will still educate their children to obey the law and be good. Naturally evil people or psychopaths, are quite limited. Usually, they can persuade themselves, but under the fear instilled by the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”, all the fears and worries in the subconscious will be revealed and amplified.

The “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” is like a lighter, igniting their fears.

Once fear is ignited, even if the hallucinatory influence of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” stops, the fear will not immediately disappear. It will continue to “burn”.

The more they try to escape, the stronger the fear will be. Only by facing or accepting it can they alleviate or even eliminate the fear —— this is also Xiang Kun’s own experience.

Even though Boss Qi wasn’t dreaming when influenced by the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving”, the direct emotional projection could have a stronger effect than the one experienced in a dream.

This could also explain his unusual actions after returning from Tongshi Town.

To validate this, when Xiang Kun was luring the three car thieves away, he had Old Xia throw a few marbles into the truck.

Then, after the three had been frightened in the warehouse and wanted to drive away, Xiang Kun, in a “Super Sensory State,” used the influence of the marbles to temporarily paralyze the truck’s ignition system.

He prevented them from leaving so he could observe their reactions.

After hearing the man called “Scar face” get out of the car, cursing and walking away, and the two slim and fat man also got off the car, Xiang Kun knew that his speculation was fundamentally correct. The emotional impact of the “Eight-armed, Eight-eyed Wood Carving” is more lasting and stronger than other types of “Emotion Infused Objects”. Affected individuals must directly respond to alleviate it.

From what he heard, aside from the scar-faced man who suspicious that he had been sold out and ran off somewhere, the overweight middle-aged man planned to go to the hospital for a check-up, to quit drinking, quit smoking, and find a normal job with regular hours. The tall and skinny young man decided to buy a ticket, leave Citong, return home, and visit his father whom he hadn’t seen since he ran away four years ago.

As for the wide-open warehouse, the stolen electric bikes in the warehouse, and the small truck that temporarily couldn’t start but actually had no problem, were all abandoned here without anyone caring.

Xiang Kun and Xia Libing emerged from the side of the warehouse to collect the “Super Connected Objects” inside and on the truck, retrieve the bags that they had previously hidden, and walk out from the abandoned factory area.

Even though the factory was abandoned and remote, it was just a twenty-minute walk to the main road, so they wouldn’t have a problem hailing a car. They had called a private car when they arrived, but it dropped them off at the road outside, they walked all the way there.

On the way, Xiang Kun continued to explain the details of the recent “experiment” process and the final “experiment” results to Xia Libing. He then exclaimed with a touch of pride, “Who would have thought that the first ‘Emotion Infused object’ I inadvertently created carries a bit of the crime-fighting spirit. Old Xia, have you watched DC Comics? Are you familiar with Gotham City? That’s where Batman lives. I reckon, if a real Gotham City existed, theoretically, by carrying this woodcarving and enough ‘Super-connected Objects’ to serve as nodes, I could ‘purify’ the whole city of Gotham’s criminals, alas. Oh, I presume it wouldn’t work on the likes of the Joker.”

Xia Libing thoughtfully said, “What would have happened if you had invoked the emotional projection of these chopsticks?”

Xiang Kun imagined and hesitated, “They would probably see an illusion of Liu Shiling inviting them to eat. Then they’ll feel intensely hungry? Yes, they would probably still feel fear. After the illusion disappears, they would probably think they saw a ghost. However, this kind of fear is purely scare, far less impactful than the emotional projection of the ‘Eight-armed woodcarving’.”

He could tell that Xia Libing was very interested in invoking the emotional projection of “Emotion Infused Objects”. It seemed she was contemplating how to obtain this ability through the dreamland system she had established.

When they returned to the city, it was dinner time. After making a call to his mom at the hospital, Xiang Kun and Xia Libing went back to her rented place.

Dinner was again a hastily prepared bowl of noodles by Xiang Kun.

Xia Libing had mentioned earlier that they needed to recap the day’s events in the evening.

Today they had carried out tests on various aspects of Xiang Kun’s body and his special abilities. He even managed to fly despite weather and atmospheric electric field conditions for the first time — though the landing was quite rough. He also used “Super Sensory State” to influence a group of people simultaneously with an illusion for the first time.

Since coming clean with Xia Libing, Xiang Kun felt a change in his mental state. He became more relaxed and found it easier to expand and apply some abilities.

Looking at Xia Libing eating noodles hungrily, Xiang Kun couldn’t help but stroke his chin: Maybe he could train Xia Libing to be his Alfred?

Yes, and Alice, isn’t she like Iron Man’s Jarvis? No, my Alice actually has more potential than Jarvis.

Although I’m not as wealthy as Batman or Iron Man, my team is just as strong, and I have superpowers.

Xia Libing suddenly stopped eating her noodles and looked up at Xiang Kun, who was sitting across the table, squinting his eyes, stroking his chin, and smiling inexplicably.