Wild Boar
Judging from the conversations with Yang Zhen'er and Tang Baona, although they "watched Lao Xia grow up" when they were young, they didn't actually know much about Lao Xia's situation.
Why does Lao Xia have his current personality? Why did Xiang Kun sense that extremely rational and indifferent feeling, which was both emotional and not emotional, when he sensed the lyrics and calligraphy? Why can't he sense Lao Xia's dreams? They all likely point to the same reason.
Autism? Probably not, Yang Zhen'er probably doesn't know much about it.
But it's true that Lao Xia was hospitalized as a child due to some issues, and this might be a key point.
As Xiang Kun pondered, he continued the conversation at the dinner table. Since he knew that Yang Zhen'er didn't fully understand the reasons behind Lao Xia's personality, he didn't delve into that topic further, lest he seem too deliberate and attract attention.
"By the way, Chef Xiang, can I play with your AI too?" Yang Zhen'er said to Xiang Kun suddenly, after she had almost finished eating.
"Huh?!" Xiang Kun was startled. How did she know about "Alice"? I haven't mentioned it to anyone! If Lao Xia had figured this out, we could have a gossip session. When did Yang the Third become so shrewd?
However, Yang Zhen'er's next words put his mind at ease. "Your AI made Nana think the whole company was chasing after a handsome guy named Xiang Kun! I wanted to ask her for one to play with, but she absolutely refused! Chef Xiang, could you send me a copy too? Send it to my QQ!"
Tang Baona Xiang Kun: "No!" Then she said to Yang Zhen'er, "That's my voice, it's my exclusive copyright. Xiang Kun won't let anyone else use it without my permission!"
It turns out that what Yang Zhen'er was referring to was the speech synthesis system that was created using Tang Baona's voice as a voice sample.
"If you want, you can provide me with your voice as a sample, just like Nana did. But it will take a lot of recordings, so you'll have to be patient," Xiang Kun said to Yang Zhen'er.
Yang Zhen'er asked suspiciously, "You're not going to use our voices for something strange, are you?"
"What?! Am I that kind of person?" Xiang Kun immediately protested his innocence.
"You're not that kind of person. Would you leave a message like ' Xiang Kun, you're so handsome' on Nana's AI?" Yang Zhen'er deliberately used a high-pitched, coquettish voice when she said "Xiang Kun, you're so handsome".
Tang Baona, who was drinking soup, almost choked and pinched her arm repeatedly.
Xiang Kun felt somewhat helpless; this had truly become a stain on his record! It couldn't be washed away!
After finishing their meal, the two helped Xiang Kun clear the table and wash the dishes. They then sat and chatted for a while, discussing everything from the video Tang Baona made for "Youlong Restaurant" to some recent news.
For example, the bodies of the three backpackers who went missing in the Qinling Mountains not long ago have been found. They were said to be so badly decomposed that they must have been eaten by wild animals.
"One of the deceased was an outdoor streamer. I've watched some of his videos and live streams before, and they were all pretty good," Tang Baona said to Xiang Kun and Yang Zhen'er while looking at her phone.
Yang Zhen'er also said, "Yes, I watched his live stream too. It seems he went to explore some unknown monster deep in the Qinling Mountains. He went in on October 15th and came out around the 20th. He even posted a video of finding a wild boar that had been hunted. He said it was only killed, but the carcass wasn't eaten. There was only a very small blood hole. He suspects it was done by a blood-sucking monster because there was very little blood at the scene."
Tang Baona said, "I think they probably hunted that wild boar, right? They deliberately made this video to create an atmosphere of a 'monster'."
"I think so too," Yang Zhen'er agreed. "Among the people the streamer was with, there was supposedly a very professional outdoor survival expert. But that survival expert probably wasn't that professional. According to what's said online, they apparently ate some wild fruit and got poisoned, then starved to death in the mountains."
"Sigh, we still haven't done enough safety preparations," Tang Baona said with some regret.
"Didn't they check the tracks around that wild boar? If another wild animal had really hunted the wild boar, it should have left tracks." Xiang Kun said, taking Tang Baona's phone and looking at the video she had just found, the one posted by the streamer earlier, about "an unknown monster hunting a wild boar."
"You don't really believe in any blood-sucking monsters, do you? They must have hunted that wild boar themselves. The wound was probably caused by a shotgun or crossbow bolt, right?" Yang Zhen'er said.
After watching the video for a while, Xiang Kun returned the phone to Tang Baona without saying anything more.
He had actually heard about this news before, knowing that three backpackers had gone missing in the Qinling Uninhabited Zone, but he didn't know that one of them was a livestreamer, nor did he know about the videos featuring vampire monsters.
Judging from the video alone, he couldn't really make a specific judgment in a short time, but the news did pique his interest.
He always felt that since he, Guo Tianxiang, and that Giant Owl existed, there should be many other Mutated Creature in nature.
Why are these creatures still not widely known?
Was the news deliberately suppressed, or was there some other reason?
After chatting for a while, around nine o'clock in the evening, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen'er went home.
Xiang Kun then took out his laptop and started looking up the news they had just been talking about at the dining table, focusing on the video of a wild boar being killed by a "monster" filmed by a news anchor surnamed Xue.
Judging from the video footage of the wild boar, apart from a small wound of about two centimeters on its neck, there were no other visible injuries.
Moreover, there was indeed not much blood around the wild boar.
Judging from the wound, it didn't seem like it was caused by a hunting rifle. However, he himself had no experience using hunting rifles and could only make inferences based on pictures he found online.
I also found some survival forums and other forums with related discussions. The discussions about this video showed that most people believed that the wounds on the wild boar could not have been gunshot wounds, but rather from arrows or crossbow bolts with specially made arrowheads.
As for the streamer's claim about a blood-sucking "monster," it was basically considered a deliberate publicity stunt, and nobody believed it.
No creature in nature employs a similar hunting method, especially since the wild boar hadn't eaten after being killed and was essentially intact. What animal, besides humans, could do something like that? Or was it that the boar was encountered by the Host Xue right after the hunt and scared away? Is it really that much of a coincidence?
Xiang Kun watched the video over and over again, slowing it down and zooming in, carefully observing the wild boar and the surrounding situation when the carcass was discovered, his mind racing.
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