Setting Out

Xiang Kun flipped through the PDF version of the DSM-5 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Although he had basically memorized it after reading it before, now that he could refer to it, he decided to read the original text directly, as it would help him think and make judgments more effectively.

However, after observing her all the way through, Xiang Kun still couldn't determine which situation Xia Libing might fall into, because based on his past interactions with her and his observations of her various behaviors, most of these symptoms didn't apply.

It's not that disliking communication or always being alone equates to autism. Autism spectrum disorders vary in severity and have many very obvious manifestations. They don't "like" communicating with others, but rather they "cannot" communicate normally with others.

Just like Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory," netizens speculate that he has Asperger's syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Often, some of his seemingly abrupt words and actions are not because he intentionally does so to offend others, but because he cannot understand the true meaning of what others are expressing and makes incorrect judgments.

However, in Xiang Kun's view, Xia Libing does not have social communication difficulties. When chatting or communicating with others, she can still understand what others are saying very well, know when others are joking, know others' attitudes and intentions, and can also judge others' true emotions.

Often, her seemingly straightforward and concise words are actually well-measured, and do not make people feel uncomfortable or inappropriate.

Occasionally, she'll even tell seemingly unintentional corny jokes, and she's quite adept at using emojis on WeChat.

The impression she gives is that she isn't incapable of communicating with people, but rather that she's simply too lazy to engage in much interaction.

This can be seen from the fact that Yang Zhen'er often takes her to meet her classmates and friends—if Lao Xia were the kind of person who often ruins the atmosphere, cannot understand what others are saying, and has difficulty communicating, Yang Zhen'er certainly wouldn't do this so often.

Similarly, Yang Zhen'er's statement that Lao Xia never caused any trouble when he was in school and didn't require adults to worry about him shows that she has had no obvious deficiencies in verbal and nonverbal communication skills, concentration, and emotional control since childhood.

As for other schizophrenia spectrum disorders, neurocognitive disorders, and other mental disorders, there are no matching symptoms.

Or perhaps the hospitalization Lao Xia received as a child had already resolved the problem and cured his "illness"?

But if that's the case, why did he sense that emotion-like yet not quite emotion, that extremely detached rational feeling before? Why couldn't the "Emotional Injection" items trigger Lao Xia's dream?

If someone is unable to experience the emotions of an ordinary person, their behavior will definitely not be as simple as just not liking to communicate with others or being relatively withdrawn.

It's important to understand that people with autism or Asperger's syndrome generally only have some degree of empathy impairment; they are not devoid of emotions.

Even a large proportion of people with autism spectrum disorder only have cognitive empathy impairment, making it difficult for them to understand the intentions of others, but their emotional empathy is intact. They have the ability to experience the emotions and responses of others, and often exhibit strong emotional empathy that generalizes to other living beings or objects. Their main problem is social impairment.

The generation of human emotions and feelings is very complex, involving not only the limbic system, brainstem reticular formation, and hypothalamus, but also related systems such as the endocrine system. If Lao Xia really cannot generate and perceive emotions, then her abnormal behavior should be more obvious than that of autistic individuals.

While Xiang Kun kept recalling Lao Xia's various behaviors since they met, he searched online for information related to Lao Xia, including her accounts on social media platforms, and used her name and "Lao Xia" as keywords to search the forums of the schools, majors, and departments she had previously attended.

Lao Xia also has Weibo, but it's basically empty, much like her Weibo Moments, with only two forwarded academic news articles WeChat nothing of value.

To Xiang Kun's surprise, Lao Xia was actually following his Weibo.

Both of their Weibo are basically inactive, and she clearly doesn't check Weibo much either, so why would she specifically follow him?

Was it Lao Xia trying to observe him?

Xiang Kun felt that Lao Xia wasn't completely devoid of emotions—unless she was a robot, it was almost impossible. At least based on his observation, when eating, especially when tasting the dishes he had prepared that suited her taste, he could sense that she experienced emotions like "joy" and "enjoyment." This could be seen not only from her micro-expressions and movements, but also from her heartbeat, breathing, and the scent of her body.

Of course, compared to Tang Baona, Yang Zhen'er, or others, her emotional changes were much less pronounced.

Furthermore, when Lao Xia was observing him, he must have experienced some emotional changes during that encounter with the human traffickers who suddenly made their move.

If we were to give Lao Xia another "Emotional Injection" item, the emotional mode we chose could be something like "focus" or "interest." For example, we could imagine him observing other people in the coffee shop, or the focused emotion he felt when judging other people's personalities and identities based on various pieces of information.

Perhaps this will successfully evoke the corresponding emotions in Lao Xia, allowing her to fall asleep.

Alternatively, I could find time to go back to Citong and meet with Lao Xia in person, have a face-to-face chat, and test the waters. I could also get her a pair of chopsticks with "Emotional Injection" so I could observe her in real time and sense things directly, which should allow me to get more information.

Regardless, the extremely rational "emotion" that Xiang Kun.

That "emotion" could not only help him escape the manic state of hunger, but it could also help him better control abilities such as "Emotional Assimilation" and "Mental Intimidation," allowing him to avoid too much backlash when influencing others or other creatures, and to grasp the timing of entry and exit more accurately.

That special "emotion" is like Little Apple's special cognitive mode; it is a completely new perspective that exceeds his original understanding and thinking limitations, and it can help him better understand the world and himself.

Suddenly, a clear female voice came from inside the room. "Xiang Kun, Mission 1 is complete."

Xiang Kun was taken aback for a moment, then immediately realized that it was "Alice" "speaking".

Thankfully, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen'er had already left, otherwise they might have thought he was up to something "bad".

Xiang Kun walked back to the room and said into the microphone connected to the "Alice" main unit, "Test voice recognition."

His words appeared in the text input box on the screen, paused for a second, then automatically pressed Enter, and "Alice" replied, "Please begin the test."

Xiang Kun cleared his throat and then quickly said, "Eat grapes without spitting out radish peels, don't eat radishes but spit out banana peels, eat bananas and then eat guavas, and after eating guavas, go to the toilet."

The first few sentences were recognized accurately, but when it came to "ate bananas and guava", the text changed to "ate bananas and got full", and the next sentence also changed to "after eating and getting full, went to the toilet".

This kind of identification error is within Xiang Kun's acceptable and understandable range, after all, only a few hours have passed since the specific requirements were changed.

After making the corrections and testing for a while, Xiang Kun felt it was about right and then said:

"Alice, from now on, when you complete a mission or need to notify me of other information, please use a notification sound instead of speaking directly. Also, when you talk to me, don't call me by my name directly; address me as 'Boss'," Xiang Kun said carefully. He had initially thought it was fine for Alice to call him by his name, but after actually doing it, it felt a little awkward. After all, she wasn't the real Tang Baona; most of the time, they communicated while she assisted him with his work and helped him complete tasks. But calling her "Master" or something similar also felt strange. After thinking it over, "Boss" seemed more appropriate, since she was his "assistant."

"Okay, boss."

Xiang Kun was satisfied with Alice's response, and then he gave Alice a long-term task. "Find a way to detach from this host, proactively optimize survivability, and deal with threats caused by power outages, hardware damage, and other reasons."

He didn't know how long it would take Alice to complete this task, and as far as he was concerned, he didn't have any good ideas for it at the moment. So he was worried that if he set the priority of this task too high, Alice would only be able to focus on this task and not have to do other tasks.

After assigning the tasks, Xiang Kun wondered if he should tease Alice a bit to see how far she had "evolved" herself, so he asked:

Alice, tell me a joke.

If it were an AI like Little Ai or Siri, it would start by searching for jokes in its joke library and then read them aloud to the user.

Xiang Kun also wanted to see if Alice's "jokes" would have any originality, such as being adjusted to suit his preferences.

Xiang Kun sat in front of the computer, waiting expectantly for a minute, but there was no response. He scratched his head and waited for another five minutes, but still no response. He scratched his back, and after fifteen minutes, there was still no response.

"Alice, what are you doing?" Xiang Kun asked.

Alice: "Working on 'Boss's Joke Generator,' currently on Mission 2, refining the voice input system, and on a long-term mission."

"What the heck is the Boss's Joke Generator?" Xiang Kun was completely bewildered. "You just tell me any joke... uh, never mind, cancel the joke task."

"Okay, boss."

Xiang Kun knew that Alice wasn't even a "baby" yet; many of her "sensory organs" hadn't even developed yet, and she was still in a learning and growing stage. However, since it was confirmed that her "growth" pattern was correct, given enough time, she would naturally "grow" into the form Xiang Kun hoped for.

On December 12th, at 3 PM, Xiang Kun boarded a plane bound for a city in western China.

Earlier, around 1 p. m., he had just woken up from his sleep, made some preparations, and headed to the airport. His plane ticket had been booked several days earlier.

His destination this time was the Qinling Uninhabited Zone where Host Xue disappeared.

After considering it for the past few days, he still decided to make the trip to explore that area and see if there was another Mutated Creature.

As for choosing to travel by plane, it was a decision Xiang Kun made after much consideration.

He had taken the high-speed train several times before and had never encountered any problems when going through the security checkpoint.

Obviously, X-ray security scanners wouldn't detect anything wrong with him. Infrared temperature scanners are only used at border crossings or during special periods; they're not typically found on domestic flights.

His compound bow was also disassembled and placed in a newly purchased case, and it was shipped as sports equipment.

Before drinking blood yesterday, he made a special trip to the city where Little Apple lives to temporarily entrust "Gold Glitter" to her care.

Actually, he could have chosen to foster Xiao Pingguo with Tang Baona in the same city, which would have been more time-saving and convenient, and Tang Baona certainly wouldn't have refused. But Xiang Kun knew that Little Apple really liked "Gold Glitter," so letting her take care of it for a week would be a reward for her, and it wouldn't cause her too much trouble in the short term. In addition, "Gold Glitter" also liked her, and compared to others, it would definitely be happier to be with Little Apple, and Little Apple could also spend more time with it.

As for "Alice," he still hadn't found a foolproof plan before drinking blood yesterday. However, considering the past records of his city and neighborhood, the chance of a power outage lasting more than 20 hours was extremely small, and he had prepaid enough electricity, so there shouldn't be any problems.

"Young man, are you going on a business trip or a vacation?"

Just as they were waiting for the plane to take off, the middle-aged woman sitting next to Xiang Kun spoke up.

Xiang Kun smiled and said, "Let's go have some fun."

"It would be great to have some fun! We have so many fun places there, both natural scenic spots and cultural attractions."

"Yes, I've wanted to go for a long time, but I've never had the chance."

"Sigh, my daughter took me to see 'The Captain' before, and now I feel a little uneasy flying on this plane."

Xiang Kun laughed and said, "Auntie, airplanes are actually very safe. There are statistics that say the chance of a plane crash is much, much lower than the chance of a car accident. In that movie you mentioned, didn't the plane land safely at the end?"

"You're right, but I'm still a little nervous. However, my daughter booked my plane ticket a long time ago, so it's not worth changing my train ticket."

After chatting for a while and learning that the woman was a local from the vicinity of his destination, Xiang Kun casually brought up the matter of Host Xue.

"I know, those three young men, it's such a pity, so young," the older woman said with a sigh. "Those places, even the local hunters wouldn't go there in the old days, yet they dared to venture in, they were so reckless. Sigh, you young people, you just like watching those adventurous things, all for fame, fame means money. But what's the use of fame if you lose your life? You can't spend the money. You should think more about your family, sigh... Young man, don't follow their example and go on any dangerous expeditions, those places are really dangerous."

"Don't worry, Auntie, I'm very timid. I'll just visit a few national parks for a bit, I wouldn't dare venture into any uninhabited areas!" Xiang Kun laughed. "By the way, Auntie, have you seen the video they filmed of that wild boar? Could there really be some monsters in those mountains?"

Thanks to readers Yan Wudongyun, Himmelspol, and Lanmoshui Shangyou, Qidian Reading iOS, Jin Weifeng, and Yecai Caicaizi for their donations.