茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Seeing Xiang Kun, Yang Zhuo immediately gave him a thumbs up and blurted out, “Brother Xiang, Awesome!”

As soon as he saw the Bluetooth headset in Yang Zhuo’s ear and heard the sound from the headset, Xiang Kun knew that he was playing the sound story game he had developed and what the “Awesome!” he mentioned was referring to.

Walking into the living room, he found Yang Zhuo, Yang Zhuo’s girlfriend Xiao Min, Yang Zhuo’s sister Yang Jie, Zhang Qian, and Chang Bin. Wang Han, Tang Baoting, and Gao Yao, who had just finished work, were also on their way.

As for Tang Baona, the owner of the house, and the house regular, Yang Zhen Er, they were busy in the kitchen. Various sounds kept coming from there. The others in the living room were engrossed in their games with their headphones on, hardly noticing the doorbell that Xiang Kun had been ringing for a long time, nor the sounds from the kitchen.

However, Xiang Kun had already heard the commotion in the kitchen when he was waiting outside the door, and he couldn’t help but find it amusing.

“Is this salt or sugar?” This was Yang Zhen Er’s voice.

“Oh, my sister! It’s MSG!” The voice of Tang Baona sounded quite helpless.

“Nana, how do I kill this fish?” Yang Zhen Er’s voice sounded timid.

“Didn’t we prepare the video earlier? Just follow that.” Tang Baona’s voice sounded exhausted.

“I watched it, but it only talked about how to handle the fish meat, not how to kill the fish.”

“Then search again, enter ‘how to kill a fish’.”

“Nana, this doesn’t taste right, did it get burnt?”

“How could it be burnt, I was following the video… Huh? It really got burnt… Quick, quick, turn off the heat, quick!”

“Nana, are you sure this is MSG?”

“Mhmm, how could I mistake… uh, okay, this actually is salt. Hey, why would the grains of salt look like this? It shouldn’t be?”

“Nana, since it’s certainly salt, why did you add it again? Didn’t you just add it earlier?”

“Did I add it? Oh my, I’m confused….”

“Are we running out of time? We still have a lot of dishes to prepare. Ah, I knew we should have bought ready-to-cook ingredients. It’s all Brother Xiang’s fault. Every time we go grocery shopping with him, he always buys fresh produce. I’m so used to that.”

“Stop talking and get to work. Oh, what about the crabs? Don’t let the crabs suffocate. I remember dead crabs don’t taste as good.”

“Let me check. Huh? The number of crabs… it’s not right! It seems like one has escaped. Where did it go? Oh my gosh, Nana, I told you crabs are hard to deal with, we shouldn’t buy crabs anymore…”

“You said you would handle the seafood. Maybe we should switch, and you can handle the vegetables and meat?”

“It looked so simple and relaxed when Brother Xiang cooked. How come when we do it, it’s such chaos? There are fewer dishes to cook today than at Christmas.”

“That’s why you call him ‘chef’, isn’t it? Ah, never mind, let’s just order food. Otherwise, we might not finish cooking dinner till nine.”

“Even if we do finish…it might not be edible…”

“Wasn’t it you who insisted on cooking ourselves?”

“I know, my mistake, my mistake! But what are we going to do with all these ingredients?” Yang Zhen Er’s voice sounded distressed.

“Let’s store the untouched ones in the fridge. We need to research more on cooking methods and try again next time. This time was too rushed. Or… next time let Brother Xiang do the cooking.” Tang Baona’s voice was filled with resignation.

“What about the ones that are half-prepped?”

“Let Brother Xiang cook it for supper.”

“What about this fish… It can’t be kept in the fridge, can it? It’s still alive. Should we continue rearing it in the basin? Oh, should we buy some fish food for it? If it starves to death, it won’t be fresh anymore…” Yang Zhen Er spoke in confusion. Then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she said, “Wait up, the crab, we haven’t found the crab yet! Nana, stop cooking for now, let’s find the crab first…”

Xiang Kun couldn’t take it anymore, he couldn’t bear to listen any longer. If he did, he might die from laughter. Since everyone in the living room was busy playing games with their headphones on and nobody paid any attention to him, he decided to check out the kitchen.

As soon as he pushed open the kitchen door, he saw Tang Baona and Yang Zhen Er busily working away in a messy kitchen. Startled by Xiang Kun’s sudden appearance, they looked at him with the expression of someone seeing their savior.

“Brother Xiang, you came just in time! Quick, quick, quick, help us find the crab! We don’t know where it ran off to!” Yang Zhen Er, who was squatting on the floor, anxiously pleaded.

Naturally, Xiang Kun knew where the crab was. Whether by smell or sound, he could immediately pinpoint the location of the fugitive crab.

Xiang Kun moved the refrigerator away and caught the crab that had escaped to the corner. After cleaning it up, he placed all the crabs neatly together.

“I’ll take over, you guys can go wait outside.” Xiang Kun took control of the kitchen without hesitation.

Tang Baona said somewhat embarrassed, “This doesn’t seem right… We agreed that we’d be the ones cooking tonight, and you’d just be waiting to eat.”

Today was February 10th. Xiang Kun had been back from Citong City for almost two weeks, having completed three blood-drinking cycles. He had most recently awakened at noon today.

During that time, he had hosted many dinners with Old Xia, Tang Baona, Yang Zhen’er, and others, with him always taking on the cooking duties—after all, there was still a great deal of rabbit meat that needed to be dealt with.

Beyond having meals together, the most essential activity at these gatherings was participating in the voice-based game that Xiang Kun had developed. Even when there were no gatherings, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er played the game every day, becoming quite addicted to it.

However, across this period, they hadn’t been playing the same version of the game. Within these ten-plus days, Xiang Kun had already provided Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er with six versions of the game—all iterations and upgrades implemented by Alice based on the data collected during their playthroughs, alongside Xiang Kun’s suggestions for improvement.

Each time an upgrade was rolled out, the overall experience greatly improved, leading Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er to believe that Xiang Kun had been exhaustively working on perfecting the game.

While Xiang Kun hadn’t expressly made a request, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er hadn’t divulged the game’s existence to many people either. Even when they invited Tang Baona’s elder sister Baoting and prospective brother-in-law Gao Yao over to join them, they first asked for Xiang Kun’s approval.

And today was the first occasion where so many people were gathered in one place, and the game was being showcased to such a large group.

Besides the visitors currently in the living room and those on their way like Wang Han and Gao Yao, they were also planning to connect with Liu Caifu and You Meng from Tongshi Town after dinner, along with Zi Cheng who was staying at home.

This was essentially the first formal product demonstration for the “investors.” Both Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er, who had already quit their jobs to join Xiang Kun’s future company, were naturally terribly invested in this. They had spent considerably more time playing the game than Xiang Kun himself, with Alice gaining valuable experience regarding the game from their trial runs. Xiang Kun’s overarching conceptual control over the game had been informed by their feedback, so in a sense, they had contributed significantly to the game’s current state.

Originally, Yang Zhen’er had intended to borrow or rent out a villa or hotel banquet hall for tonight’s “investor experience meeting.” However, Tang Baona thought that their so-called “investors” were all friends they knew and since Xiang Kun hadn’t even registered his company yet, there was no need for a formal affair. A casual gathering at her home would suffice.

The two ladies proposed cooking dinner themselves to facilitate the friendly atmosphere of a gathering, also sparing Xiang Kun the task of preparing the meal—after all, he was the star of the night.

But, well…that left them in their current situation.

Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er had realized that cleaning up the kitchen mess was too much for them to handle. Ordering food at the last minute would be complicated, besides making the two ladies feel like they had lost face.

Therefore, despite feeling a bit embarrassed, Tang Baona untied her apron and, together with Yang Zhen’er, handed it over to Xiang Kun.

“By the way, chef Xiang, why would Old Xia leave? Why not go earlier or later than today’s gathering night? She left so abruptly that when I called her this afternoon, she was already at the airport and didn’t even ask me to drive her there. It’s not about her work at the hospital either. So, what could be so urgent for her to rush to Citong City?” Yang Zhen’er didn’t immediately leave the kitchen but asked curiously, “Isn’t she helping you out during this period? Do you have any idea about the situation? If the game catches on, she should be one of the key contributors, right?”

Xiang Kun, of course, knew why Old Xia had chosen to return tonight. He had just ended his sleep cycle today at noon. During Old Xia’s stay, she collected data from his three blood drinking and sleeping episodes and now needed more equipment and tools for testing. As a result, she went directly to Citong City to register a company, contact related equipment manufacturers, customize equipment, and would later go directly to Tongshi Town to talk to Liu Caifu about setting up a laboratory in Chongyun Village.

After the first blood drinking and sleep cycle following their return, Xiang Kun and Old Xia revisited their experiences from the night of July 11th last year together, even including observing the food stall and rental house. In the following days, they visited the habitat of the mutated “Giant Owl” and spent a day there, observing the traces left by the “Giant Owl” and checking their cavernous nesting grounds.

According to their initial plan, they were going to visit Yangcheng to look for any trace that Guo Tianxiang might have left. Even though Xiang Kun didn’t know how far the police’s investigation into Guo Tianxiang’s case had progressed, judging by the timeline, they should no longer be closely monitoring that location. If no police or other people were keeping an eye on it, he and Old Xia should have the opportunity to conduct an on-site “survey” to help him “anchor” some scenes from Guo Tianxiang’s memories.

Later, according to the plan, after Xiang Kun underwent a blood-drinking period, they were going to make another trip to the uninhabited part of Qinling and check out the place where Xiang Kun had a battle with the “mutated spider”, and also the spider’s cliff cave.

Through these investigations, they intended to identify the reason and common pattern of mutations in these “mutants”, and in turn analyze the cause of Xiang Kun’s mutation.

However, after returning from the “Giant Owl’s” habitat, Old Xia decided to cancel the subsequent plans because she felt that the amount of basic mutation information they had uncovered was too little, making it difficult to quickly gather sufficient information from other “mutants’” memory fragments or their habitats, unless, in the memory fragments Xiang Kun had obtained, there were contents directly related to their causes of mutation.

Therefore, Old Xia decided to first sort and analyze the information about the known “mutants”, including their memory fragments and information related to their habitats.

Nonetheless, Xiang Kun had already organized most of these details, or to put it in another way, he inputted the details and Alice sorted them, simplifying Old Xia’s job significantly.

Over those past dozen of days, Old Xia had spent most of her time working in Xiang Kun’s place. Since Xiang Kun didn’t need to sleep except during his blood-drinking period, the bed was mostly unused, and when Xiang Kun needed to sleep during his blood-drinking period, Old Xia would stay up all night keeping watch.

Old Xia was completely obsessed with her research on Xiang Kun’s mutation. Apart from eating, drinking and sleeping, she invested almost all of her time in the research. Either she sought the cause or root of Xiang Kun’s mutation, or she experimented with Xiang Kun’s different abilities and the abilities she acquired through the “Super-connected Objects”. She was also trying to use these abilities to conduct more derivative “development”, establishing a more comprehensive system that would closely mimic Xiang Kun’s real abilities.

The first time Old Xia ate with Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er after returning, Yang Zhen’er was surprised to see Old Xia’s obvious dark circles. Keep in mind, whether it was during the middle school exams, the high school exams, or the postgraduate exams, Old Xia had always breezed through without ever having to pull all-nighters that resulted in dark circles.

Old Xia explained, following the script she had coordinated with Xiang Kun, that she had been helping Xiang Kun with his work. Yang Zhen’er naturally assumed she had been assisting with Xiang Kun’s game, which explained the rapid updates and feature additions. As for how Old Xia, who had studied medicine, could be of help to Xiang Kun, Yang Zhen’er didn’t ask too many questions. In her eyes, her genius of a cousin could pick up on anything quickly, and it wouldn’t be surprising if she showed her talents in programming too.

As for Yang Zhen’er’s question, Xiang Kun chose to answer it “truthfully”: “Didn’t I mention earlier that I wanted to set up a research base related to breeding in Chongyun Village? Since Old Xia knows more about this area, she went over first to help me with the preparation, purchase and customization of some equipment, and also to discuss with Director Liu about how to plan for land use and find a design company. Once we have more or less settled things here, confirmed our intention with Director Zhang and others, and the funds are in place, and the framework is up, I will also go to Tongshi Town and Chongyun Village. The Youlong Restaurant should also be nearly ready to start operations.”

Yang Zhen’er was a little bit confused: “Brother Xiang, with so much going on(, do you think you can handle it all?)?”

“I can’t manage it all by myself,” Xiang Kun laughed. “That’s why I need your help.”

Tang Baona hesitated, “Can Zhen’er and I really be of any help? We’re not professionals…”

While tidying up the kitchen and preparing food quickly, Xiang Kun responded, “If it had been two weeks ago, I would have asked you two to do your best since we had just started, and I wouldn’t be worried about anything. Moreover, there were Director Zhang, Zi Cheng, and Chang Bin, all savvy businessmen. But now, I know you two can handle it, since this ‘product’ was developed to its current state with your help. So, go ahead with confidence and courage~”

With Xiang Kun taking over, dinner was successfully prepared, although it was served later than expected. It wasn’t until half past seven that the meal was ready.

Fortunately, everyone in the living room was engrossed in the game. All wearing headsets, their expressions varied, and they didn’t even notice their hunger, simply grabbing snacks occasionally. Even Tang Baoting, Gao Yao, and Wang Han, who had arrived not long after getting off from work and hadn’t been able to join the game, gathered by the side, sharing others’ headsets and listening to the gaming process, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

When the game ended, everyone was still engrossed in discussing the gaming content. Yang Zhuo berated his sister for being too cunning, and Zhang Qian complained that Xiao Min was too soft-hearted.