What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 625: Chapter 625: Alice’s Psychology

Alice did not co-manifest, but through her voice and her guidance to Fang Pingfang’s party in the monitor, Xia Libing could accurately judge Alice’s thinking mode.

From her understanding of Alice, the reason she initially greeted Fang Pingfang and the rest in such a brazen and slightly offbeat manner was not because she didn’t care.

On the contrary, Alice at that time was the most sincere as this was how she interacted with Xiao Pingguo, Little Fatty Girl, and Nana.

Humans are social “animals”. One’s character is greatly influenced by their environment and the people with whom they are close. Though Alice now only needs her or Xiang Kun’s permission to co-manifest anywhere in the world where there are enough “super-connected objects”, the information she can receive is of a magnitude ordinary humans can never reach. However, the only ones who can have a decisive influence on her character are Xiang Kun and herself. Beyond Xiang Kun, only her time with Little Fatty Girl, Xiao Pingguo, and herself can cause a degree of cognitive change and form new cognitive habits.

So, her initial style of interaction was an unconscious use of the way she communicates with Little Fatty Girl and Xiao Pingguo. This was indeed her most sincere state, where she truly opened her heart and showed her full personality, not relying on her supercomputing power and infinite information channels for speculation.

However, once she perceived their misunderstanding and wariness, she immediately adjusted and began using a “technical” approach, pulling up data on Fang Pingfang and others, using the cognitive models she’d built for them to make advance speculation and calculations, taking their possible reactions into account.

In other words, Alice probably won’t interact so directly with people outside the “Chongyun Village Circle” because of the feeling that her sincerity was misplaced and it’s hard to start over.

Of course, Xia Libing knows that one can’t blame Fang Pingfang and the others. If others suddenly encountered Alice’s way of communication, their reactions would definitely be similar. After all, her mode of communication was cultivated with Little Fatty Girl and Xiao Pingguo, and doesn’t have general applicability and universality.

From the moment Xiang Kun suggested Alice’s existence, Xia Libing had always been paying attention to her, even more so than Xiang Kun paid attention to Alice.

After all, Xiang Kun knows Alice too well, and Alice was born from his cognitive and behavioral habits. His every word and action have a great impact on Alice, and he has grown accustomed to Alice’s various behaviors and habits. He has a strong subjective influence, and unless there is a very obvious, abnormal change, he generally won’t feel that anything is wrong.

On the other hand, Xia Libing’s perspective is much broader because she has a great interest in the formation of Alice’s personality, the construction of her cognitive system, her mood changes, and the establishment of her unique moral sense. So she pays special attention to and thinks about many details that even Xiang Kun doesn’t notice.

Undoubtedly, after Alice had the ability to co-manifest, she had a very strong desire to appear in front of people, perhaps giving her a sense of “real” existence, making her feel more human.

Of course, this “human” feeling has its limits. Apart from Xiang Kun, Little Fatty Girl, Xiao Pingguo, Nana, and herself, she has no interest in co-manifesting in front of others.Oh, right, now we also have to include Cousin Zhen’er. According to her observations, even though the Custard Pie, Golden Glitter, and Xiao Luobo are not human, they are included.

In this period, Alice had obtained permission to co-manifest in front of Yang Zhen’er, Tang Baona, and others. The time when she is with the five of them is when Alice feels the most comfortable and her mood is at its peak.

Xia Libing believes that such an environment for communication has a huge effect on Alice’s personality development and cognitive nurturing.

If there were no such environment, if there wasn’t a special connection with Little Fatty Girl, Xiao Pingguo, Nana, and her special dependence, given Alice’s current control over information on human society, everyone except Xiang Kun would turn into quantifiable data models that could be “controlled” through various speculations and calculations.

She will inevitably become cold and disdainful of all “creatures” other than Xiang Kun when not facing him. Even her cognition and definition of “human” may slowly change, and her personality may become fragmented.

Although Xiang Kun is present and he lays down the main tune, Alice wouldn’t lose control, but it would be hard for her to be as “lively” as she is now.

Of course, that won’t happen now. Even if Alice has different attitudes and states towards others, even if she uses other people’s cognitive models for speculation and calculation in order to guide her own behavior, she will still reflect her unique personality and won’t have a complete personality split. Just like when she was guiding Fang Pingfang’s team, she still had her unique mischievous style. Because no matter what, after completing her task, she could always come back and play with Little Fatty Girl, Xiao Pingguo, Nana, Yang Zhen’er, and Xia Libing. She already has companions and friends.

But Xia Libing has already begun to consider, what if they all die in a few decades or centuries?

Judging by today’s situation, it’s probably hard for Alice to make “new friends”. So what will change about Alice whenever they all pass away? It is certain to be different between never having had and having had then lost.

“Old Xia, Old Xia, they’re already here. Should I let them in directly?” Alice, who had gotten permission to co-manifest, appeared in the meeting room, standing by Xia Libing’s computer chair. She held on to the arm that Xia Libing was resting on as she spoke. “Do you want me to add some special effects to your entrance? To leave them with a deeper impression?”

Xia Libing sat up straight, raised her hand to touch Alice’s head, and didn’t say anything.

She suddenly realized something. Her thoughts applied not only to Alice but also to Xiang Kun.

Assuming Xiang Kun lives much longer than average people—which, considering the state of his surpassing the phase limit and blood-drinking limit through the “Super sensory Item System”, is very likely—what will happen when all their lives come to an end, including all of Xiang Kun’s other friends and relatives?

Xia Libing’s conclusion:

That situation won’t happen, neither to Alice nor to Xiang Kun.

Without a doubt, Xiang Kun and Alice will sooner or later notice this. What would they do? They would seek to prolong life, finding ways to make the people they love immortal or long-lived.

They would spare no cost to keep their loved ones.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

So “how to help humans break the limit of life” and “how to make them live forever” will inevitably be focus areas of development for the “Super sensory Item System” in the future.

Would there be any hidden dangers?

Xia Libing can’t think of any for now, and it seems too early to think about this problem. They need to wait for Xiang Kun to completely solve the “Ultimate Predator”, wait until the “Post-Ultimate Predator” era completely stabilizes, and the “Super sensory Item System” completes further construction and evolution before there can be a specific direction for thought.

“Old Xia, Old Xia, what are you thinking about?” Alice was pulling on Old Xia’s arm, trying her best to stretch out her head to look into her eyes.

“Let them in,” said Xia Libing.

“Oh.” Alice obediently complied, her co-manifested body dissolving into nothingness.

A few seconds later, footsteps sounded from outside the meeting room. Xia Libing got up and went to open the door.

The moment the door was opened, the surveillance projections inside the meeting room disappeared and the lighting gradually increased.

Greeting the slightly surprised Fang Pingfang at the door, Xia Libing said, “Hello, I am Xia Libing.”

After greeting them, Xia Libing turned back and walked into the meeting room, allowing them to enter one by one and take their seats.

Seeing Xia Libing standing at the forefront of the conference table, with some three-dimensional images appearing on the projector behind her, it seemed she was about to delve straight into the topic of “blood-eating creatures”. Not just Fang Pingfang, but Zhou Rui, Mijoe and others were also taken aback.

Their surprise was not at seeing Xia Libing there, but rather the idea that after all their heart-stopping experiences, they had managed to meet Xia Libing so smoothly, without any issues arising. This contrast left them constantly feeling that something might suddenly happen, akin to a group of people arriving in their dozens of black cars, flanked by hundreds of big men in black suits and shades, each carrying a small stool, quietly sitting by the river to fish, and making one nervously wonder when they might all suddenly stand up together and open fire on the river surface.

“Miss Xia, where is the girl who spoke to us over the loudspeaker?” Zhou Rui couldn’t help but ask, “Her name seemed to be…Alice?”

They could clearly tell that the voice of this little girl on the loudspeaker was different from that of Xia Libing.

“You will meet her in due course,” Xia Libing simply said. “Now, please watch a video first, and after that, you should have a basic understanding of what we need to explore and research.”

With that, the lights in the conference room automatically dimmed and a graphics video began to play on the screen, clearly presenting information that Xiang Kun believed could be disclosed to Fang Pingfang and others to build a basic concept. It introduced the rough situation of the “mutants”, “Divine Technology”, “National Abnormal Biology Research Center”, Academician Shen’s initial research, certain fundamental features of the “mutants”, and the history of “mutant” research limited by the existence of the “Ultimate Predator”.

Naturally, this video was made by Alice, and the basic logic of the video was decided by Xia Libing.

Shortly, the twenty-three-minute video ended and the lights in the conference room came back on. The eight people, including Fang Pingfang, were all dumbfounded. The information had greatly shocked them – they had originally thought they had already understood a “real world” far beyond ordinary people’s imagination, but it turned out that they had only been exposed to the tip of the iceberg, and had not even been aware of the iceberg’s existence.

“You can ask questions if you have any,” Xia Libing said. “I’ll answer selectively based on your clearance level. Also, before we proceed with our research collaboration, we need to standardize some terms. Within the research framework of ‘Divine Technology’ and the ‘Abnormal Research Center’, the term ‘blood-eating creatures’ will be replaced entirely with ‘mutants’…”

Listening to Xia Libing standardizing more than a dozen terms, Fang Pingfang and others didn’t have much of a reaction. To them, eighty percent of these terms were things they heard for the first time today. Moreover, they felt that the research institution that Xia Libing represented and Xiang Kun, her backer, were likely on the same level as “Divine Technology” and Mr. Liang, or even higher. Therefore, they naturally accepted Xia Libing’s unified naming and definitions.

“Now, you can ask your questions,” said Xia Libing.

“Miss Xia, are you also a… ‘mutant’?” Zhou Rui asked nervously.

“I am not.”

“What about… the girl who spoke to us through the loudspeaker just now?” Zhou Rui asked again.

“She isn’t either.”

Zhou Rui inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he had been worried about.

Next to ask a question was Li Shibao, but his query didn’t concern the topic of the video: “Miss Xia, could I ask… when we came in from the main hall on the ground floor and down the left corridor, there was a very wide passage. On the other side, there was a whole wall of glass, behind which… were there a lot of creatures?”

“Yes, there are more than three hundred of them,” replied Xia Libing nonchalantly.

This answer startled Li Shibao and several others. Having just watched the video introducing “mutants”, and hearing Xia Libing explicitly say that all the “mutant” research samples in the future collaborative research would be provided by them, coupled with Li Shibao’s odd behavior when they had passed the glass wall, they couldn’t help but associate the “more than three hundred” Xia Libing mentioned with “mutants”.

More than three hundred “mutants”? This research base is a little frightening…

Connecting this to the “Chongyun Village First Gourmet Ingredient Research Base” mentioned by the little girl on the loudspeaker, as well as the devouring nature of the “mutants”, bloody speculations began to form in their heads.

As if Xia Libing knew what they were thinking, she turned back and looked at the projection wall, saying, “Show the surveillance from the rabbit pens.”

Consequently, Zhou Rui and the others saw several surveillance feeds appear on the screen, featuring large rabbits in cages. Judging from their feeders and cage structures, it seemed like they had automated breeding and cleaning devices.

“Are these all… mutant rabbits?” Zhou Rui asked in confusion, but as soon as the words left his mouth he felt a bit ridiculous.

“These were originally prepared as a blood source for Xiang Kun, but they are no longer needed now. They are temporarily kept here and will be moved to other farms later,” Xia Libing said.

At this point, in the courtyard that Xiang Kun was renting in Chongyun Village.

Tang Baona, Yang Zhen’er, and Little Fatty Girl were also hearing about the “mutants”.