茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Yang Zhen’er widens her eyes, asking in confusion, “Why would she get along better with me but prefer Nana? That doesn’t make sense.”

Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er sitting on the same bed, hearing this, immediately leans over, resting her chin on her friend’s shoulder, and teasingly says in a falsetto, “It’s obviously because I’m cuter!”

“Go away! Xia and I are seriously discussing things here, don’t come and act cute!” Yang Zhen’er pushes Tang Baona’s head to the side, pushing her glasses down to her chin, triggering her to fuss about fixing her glasses.

Xia Libing objectively says, “It’s because Xiang Kun’s mom will mentally apply the standard of ‘daughter-in-law’ to any single females Xiang Kun brings home.”

As soon as she finishes saying this, the room instantly falls quiet. Tang Baona, who has just adjusted her glasses looks blank and Yang Zhen’er’s mouth forms an ‘O’.

Even Xiang Kun next door can’t help but chuckle on hearing this.

Old Xia… still so… direct.

About ten seconds later, Yang Zhen’er coughs, then casually says, “That I can understand. Nana does seem to carry more of a ‘daughter-in-law’ vibe. If I were a mother-in-law, I would pick Nana.”

Tang Baona was initially uncomfortable with the topic and didn’t know what to say, her cheeks mysteriously heating up. But hearing Yang Zhen’er’s words, she can’t help but burst out laughing, She playfully squeezes Yang Zhen’er’s waist: “What do you mean ‘daughter-in-law’ character… you better explain what that is. Also, a mother-in-law is the wife’s mother, mothers-in-law are the man’s mother!”

“Wow, Nana, you’re so experienced! You know so much! No wonder you’re more suited to be a daughter-in-law than I am!” Yang Zhen’er giggles wickedly.

“You’re the one with the experience, I’ll kick you to death!”

“Stop! Stop! I’m falling off the bed! And a gentleman uses words, not kicks!”

After they’ve spent some time goofing around, Yang Zhen’er gets back onto the bed from the floor and turns to Xia Libing again. “But we didn’t finish our last point, Xia, what about Xiang Kun? Have you spotted any secrets about him? Have noticed that he’s changed quite a lot over the few months we’ve known each other?” As she speaks, she repeats the analysis, she conducted with Tang Baona on Valentine’s Day.

When she finishes speaking, Xia Libing replies, “Xiang Kun’s daily routine is indeed unusual; compared to most people, it’s significantly different. His eating habits,set himself according to his lifestyle and activities. He takes a keen interest in rare or unique organisms. His plan to build a breeding laboratory in Chongyun Village is also related to this. He likes to work out and train both his body and mind and enjoys thinking about novel problems.”

“Novel problems? Like what? It’s not how to make rabbit meat taste like beef or chicken taste like rabbit, is it?” Yang Zhen’er asks, laughing.

Xia Libing replies, “For example, the basic structure of matter, the connection between the world beneath the fundamental particles and four-dimensional space, the relationship between human perception and the magnetic field, movements of water molecules, the nature of dreams…”

Yang Zhen’er lissens with a stunned look on her face, she murmers, “No wonder you and Brother Xiang have so much to talk about.”

Tang Baona adds, “How does Xiang Kun think about so many issues? It’s not his field. He still has to work on making games and studying the restaurant business, no wonder he’s stressed to the point of going bald.” And she can’t help but start laughing at her own comment.

Xiang Kun, listening from the next room, scratches his head, helplessly. He can’t help but marvel at how well Xia Libing knows her two sisters, understands their lines of thought and their focuses. She directly satisfies their curiosities so that they’re content with her explanations and see them as self-evident.

As Xiang Kun stands by the window, listening to the conversation and laughter from the girls next door, he thinks about what the evolution of Little apple’s water-sensing ability would look like. And how it could affect the evolution of his super sensory item system.

Unconsciously, the breathing of the three girls from next door had gradually stabilized, and they were clearly asleep. Meanwhile, Xiang Kun too had slowly entered a highly peaceful and calm state.

Suddenly, Xiang Kun was startled out of his peaceful and stable state, realizing that something was off.

It wasn’t that he had detected any danger or perceived any specific anomalies, but rather that, he seldom experienced such a state after his mutation.

Without sufficient control over his surroundings or potential variables, he couldn’t possibly enter such a state of calm.

After mutation, regardless of how much he evolved his senses, how much information he gained about the outside world, or how confident he was in his own judgments, he would always seek more information, trying to control more variables.

Even after evolving a sixth sense, this instinct to continuously probe into perceptual information would still remain.

But his recent state, that recent feeling, was as if he had completely grasped the information in his environment, everything under control, thus he was so calm and stable.

This was unreasonable.

Just a moment ago, he wasn’t consciously gathering information about his surroundings, he was mainly focused on pondering over Xiao Pingguo’s perception of water and the expansion of water-related abilities, and was partly attentive to the sleeping state of the three people in the next room. He instinctively collected and judged information about his surroundings.

Xiang Kun started to backtrack his recent state, analyzing detail by detail, trying to figure out the cause of his feelings.

Was it because of Old Xia, Nana, and Zhen’er from next door?

Indeed, the three girls next door were friends he met after his mutation and had a very special relationship with him. Old Xia was the only one who knew his secret about the mutation.

But the problem was, this situation of them sleeping next door had happened more than once. It happened in Tongshi Town before New Year and in Star City yesterday.

Or was it because there was something special about this place?

Xiang Kun then entered the “Super Sensory State”, and carefully discerned through cognitive information but found no anomalies.

Constantly retracing memories and continuously making conjectures, after about ten minutes, Xiang Kun finally found the reason:

Maybe it was because while he was consciously aware of the sleeping states of Old Xia and others from next door, his instinct was unconsciously gathering information about his surroundings. Unnoticeably, after collecting a certain amount of information, his perception and the surrounding environment merged into one, and the primary subject of his perception were the three girls next door, not Xiang Kun himself.

Although his perceptual ability greatly improved after ingesting the “Mutated Parasite”, his understanding of the sixth sense became more and more clear. Particularly after gaining the ability to perceive and control water in Star City, he experienced a qualitative leap. But if his perception still revolved around himself, he would certainly not have this sense of calm and stability.

Because essentially speaking, in his subconscious, the biggest threat and uncertainty actually came from himself. He couldn’t achieve a completely peaceful mentality without understanding the mechanism and cause of his mutation.

Thinking about it that way, it made perfect sense. It was his instinct protecting the three girls from next door, observing their environment. And because he was there, he felt that the environment the three girls were situated in was very safe, resulting in such a calm and peaceful mindset.

But as Xiang Kun analyzed this state of mind, he thought about the differences in difficulty levels of developing his own abilities and abilities of Old Xia, Little Fatty Girl, “Xiao Pingguo” based on the “Super-sensory Item System”.

Even for Old Xia, who among the three has the deepest understanding of the source of the abilities and the most curiosity about their principles, the difficulty of “developing” abilities is much, much less than Xiang Kun’s.

Because they don’t need to, as Xiang Kun does, specifically ponder how to achieve a certain ability when “developing” a new one.

Xiang Kun then had an idea. What if, when studying his own abilities, he didn’t take his own abilities as the main subject, but instead made a new capability “designed” and derived from the original one the main subject? He could imagine it, then try to call upon his own capabilities to actualize it. Perhaps this could make it easier to develop and use abilities?

If it was before, even if he had this idea, it would be hard to realize. But now, under the application model of “Parasite Everything”, he might be able to abstract the “Super sensory Item System” into a whole, allowing himself to “parasite” within, “parasiting” himself to call upon capabilities, and thus expand them.

He acted on his thought immediately, and the one he tried first was Old Xia’s “Illusion Reality” ability.

Although all the abilities “developed” by Old Xia, Little Fatty Girl, and “Apple” eventually pointed to Xiang Kun through the “Super sensory Item System”. Whatever they “developed” and could apply, Xiang Kun could also obtain in return.

But for now, anything that Old Xia could co-manifest, he could as well. However, if there was something Old Xia couldn’t co-manifest, he couldn’t develop it himself either. Thus everything had to depend on Old Xia’s creation of projections in her dreams and their co-manifestation in reality. Only then could he acquire the ability of that relevant item’s co-manifestation.

At this time, what Xiang Kun wanted to try was to “co-manifest” something that Old Xia had never co-manifested before.

If someone else was watching Xiang Kun at this moment, they would find him standing in the hotel room with his hands hanging down, staring ahead, completely still as if petrified, not even blinking.

Time passed second by second, and Xiang Kun remained still. But around him, dozens of small objects began to float. If one looked closely, they would find that these small objects were either tungsten steel balls or one yuan coins.

At this moment, they seemed to be serving as escort machines for Xiang Kun’s “mothership”, “floating” around him.

Suddenly, the light in the room dimmed. If someone took a closer look at each independent light source, they would find that none of the lights had changed. It seemed as if a veil had been put over the air in the room, obstructing the transmission of light.

Noise from outside the room, or the sound of the room’s air conditioning vents and the bathroom ventilation system, seemed to have been muted all of a sudden, and disappeared completely.

In the next moment, the dozens of “Super-connected Objects” around Xiang Kun exploded outward. But just before they were about to hit obstacles, they abruptly stopped. Then they contracted rapidly towards Xiang Kun and began to orbit around him.

Xiang Kun abruptly extended his right hand, palm up. A coin, as if summoned by him, suddenly appeared in his palm.

The coin looked no different from a regular coin, but Xiang Kun knew it wasn’t a regular coin – this was a coin he had conjured through “Illusion Reality”.

Moreover, this coin was very different from the items Old Xia had co-manifested – Old Xia had never co-manifested a coin.

This “co-manifested object”… was unusual.

But its existence was brief. Less than a second, in fact. Xiang Kun didn’t even have time to flip it before it disappeared from his palm.

However, the moment it disappeared, Xia Libing, Tang Baona, Yang Zhen Er in the next room, and all the guests and staff in the entire hotel, woke up from their dreams. They seemed to have heard a loud noise, but when they opened their eyes, the sound seemed very illusory.

Even the front desk and security staff on duty in the hotel lobby, as well as guests in some rooms who were not yet asleep, were now looking around in confusion, trying to locate the source of the sound. But after a while, they could only assume that they were hallucinating, shook their heads, and stopped paying attention.

Being suppressed by Yang Zhen’er’s arm and leg, Tang Baona, half-awake, nudged her best friend and asked: “Is there a thunderstorm?”

“Ah?” Yang Zhen’er rubbed her eyes, turned around to look at Xia Libing on the other bed who also opened her eyes: “Old Xia, is there thunder?”

Old Xia looked at her: “No, go back to sleep.”

“Oh…” Yang Zhen’er turned back, cuddled Tang Baona tighter, tucked her head into her chest and mumbled: “Old Xia is not reliable.”

Tang Baona didn’t respond, because she had fallen asleep again when Yang Zhen’er turned around.

Xia Libing, though, didn’t fall asleep immediately. She looked at the wall of the room as if lost in thought.

Separated by a wall, Xiang Kun, looking down at the balls and coins scattered on the hotel carpet, corrected his glasses, and his eyes squinted. The gains from this successful attempt were somewhat unexpected.

…

Two weeks later, on March 4th, it was raining in most parts of the country. The northern part of Jianzhou, Tongshi Town, and Wushu Mountain were no exception.

Tomorrow will be “Jingzhe”, one of the 24 solar terms, which signifies a rise in temperature and increase in rainfall. This rain might continue for some time.

Such weather, with spring thunderstorms and bountiful moisture, naturally was someone’s favorite.

In a villa area near Wushu Mountain, Zhou Rui, who had just returned a few days ago, was lying on the first-floor sofa of their team’s villa, leisurely scrolling through videos on his tablet.

After a while, he suddenly jumped up from the sofa, leaned over the coffee table by the window, and suggested to Mijoe, who was sipping coffee while looking at her laptop, “This YouTuber seems to have a good review of a restaurant. It looks delicious, and I checked it out, it’s not far from here, in Tongshi Town. It’s just a few dozen minutes by car. How about we go there for lunch? We’re half holiday right now, with nothing to do anyway.”

Mijoe glanced at the tablet Zhou Rui handed over. A food blogger was currently showcasing a restaurant in a video.

It looked like a recorded video, not a live stream.

She wasn’t interested in these internet celebrities or YouTubers, shook her head and said, “Such videos are probably sponsored by the restaurants themselves. It might not taste as good as it appears. Besides, it’s raining, and I don’t feel like going out.”

“With Lao Gao driving, what are you afraid of with the rain? I don’t know if the YouTuber was contacted by the restaurant, but looking at his expressions, it seems really delicious. If this is an act, he deserves an award. Why would he be a YouTuber? I’m getting hungry just watching him eat. Look at this part…” Zhou Rui said as he rewound the video.

“…This time I’m at Tongshi Town, Jianzhou City, Haixi Province. Tongshi Town might not be well known to many, but it’s not far from the national 5A-level scenic area, Wushu Mountain! Actually, the main purpose of this trip is to tour around, but also to explore some food spots. This ‘Youlong Restaurant’ is opened by the ‘Youlong Play Rabbit’ from our B-site. As for this UP master, all of you should know. He specializes in teaching how to cook rabbit meat. Not only is the food delicious, but the video also is on par with action movies. I had some contact with him before through WeChat, and he told me his restaurant just opened after a renovation and invited me to try out the food. Ah~! So, here I am today. But today, I didn’t tell him I was coming. Let’s sneak in and eat as regular customers to see how good it actually is …” The somewhat chubby male host with a wide smile was introducing as he walked towards a restaurant on the street.

Seeing this, Mijoe shook her head: “This is definitely staged with the restaurant.”

“I skipped too far ahead… keep watching. Watch how he eats.” Zhou Rui hurriedly suggested.