Xie Jun's Story

As they approached the airport, Xiang Kun's smile slowly faded. He knew he had just become immersed in some kind of emotion again, and might have experienced "Emotional Assimilation."

At the time, he naturally didn't pay attention to other vehicles around him. At high speed, due to wind noise, road noise, and the isolation provided by the vehicle, he couldn't hear much from other vehicles.

However, his instinct to gather information about his surroundings allowed him to detect some signs that proved his "Emotional Assimilation" ability could affect people in the vicinity even in a high-speed vehicle, and was not isolated by the speed of movement or the vehicle itself.

To some extent, his ability to "Emotional Assimilation" has changed significantly since the beginning.

Initially, according to Xiang Kun's observations, the prerequisite for "Emotional Assimilation" to have an impact after he was deeply immersed in a certain emotion was that others noticed him and their eyes were on him. The target of the emotions generated by "Emotional Assimilation" could only be him.

Just like when he was carrying his bow and arrow on the road, only those who saw him by chance would feel the same emotions, and in their minds, the person walking alone in those emotions was still Xiang Kun; on the night of Tang Baona's birthday, he sang a song in the KTV, and it was because everyone else's attention was on him that he was able to have the effect of Emotional Assimilation. In their perception, the target of the emotions was also Xiang Kun himself.

Therefore, he once believed that when he was immersed in a certain emotion, it was his demeanor, expressions, body movements, and various messages emanating from him that had a kind of physiological hypnotic effect on those around him who were paying attention to him, unconsciously drawing them into the same emotion. Because the focus was on him, the emotion was still borne by him.

However, as time went on and the frequency of blood-drinking and mutations increased, the way and extent of "Emotional Assimilation" influenced people changed significantly without them realizing it.

Now, once he's immersed in a certain emotion, he doesn't need anyone around him to notice him; he can directly and indiscriminately influence and assimilate them.

Just like on a high-speed train, he was sitting in his seat, and actually few people on the train noticed him, but they were still affected by his emotions and, in line with his emotional goal, targeted the person who was occupying the seat.

If there were other people outside the affected area outside the train at the time, they would likely have been assimilated by the emotions, but because they didn't share the same emotional target, their reactions would have been different.

Just like on the highway, some people in the surrounding vehicles were affected by Xiang Kun, but they didn't see Xiang Kun or even know he was there, so their reactions would definitely be different.

After repeatedly entering a "Hyper-Sensory State" and conducting extensive observations, Xiang Kun hypothesized that when "Emotional Assimilation" takes effect, the key role should be played by the special "energy" that he uses to establish connections with various related entities.

However, his emotions this time were quite unusual. After arriving at the airport, he vaguely felt that his body had undergone a slight change under the influence of his emotions. He could intuitively feel this change, but he couldn't describe it in detail.

It was as if he had gained more complete control over his body, and the abilities and energy he had absorbed were being rapidly assimilated and integrated.

Why is this happening?

In fact, even Xiang Kun himself was not quite sure what kind of emotion he was feeling or what his goal was when he laughed out loud on the road.

He was simply reminiscing about his university life and some thoughts, and then thinking about the experience after the mutation, which actually only lasted a few months but felt like several long years. He felt it was somewhat absurd and funny, as well as somewhat helpless and melancholy. A variety of feelings intertwined, but in the end, they turned into anticipation, joy, and excitement.

How would people on the highway or in other cars feel if they were affected by this emotion, especially if they were unaware of Xiang Kun's existence?

It's a bit hard to imagine, but I don't think it will be any too negative emotions.

At least he feels pretty good right now.

Xiang Kun arrived at the airport and soon saw Peng Xiao and Tan Lulu, their old class monitor from university, who had arrived on the same flight.

Of course, he didn't go up and play pranks like he did with Chang Bin and Zi Cheng a few months ago. Some jokes should be made according to the relationship. If the relationship isn't close enough, or if you know the other person's personality isn't suited to such jokes but still make them, then it will only annoy them.

"Old Peng, Old Ban, over here." Xiang Kun waved to the two of them and stepped forward to help Tan Lulu with her suitcase.

Seeing the two looking at him with a slightly bewildered expression, Xiang Kun didn't keep them in suspense and smiled, "You don't recognize me, do you? It's me, Xiang Kun."

"Xiang Kun? Holy crap! What happened? You've changed so much! Just as you walked over, I was telling our old squad leader that if that bald guy took off his glasses and put on a suit, he'd be Agent 47," Peng Xiao joked.

Xiang Kun smiled and replied, "It's just a bit more exercise." Then he led the two to the side to rest, as they were waiting for another college classmate whose flight wouldn't arrive for another forty minutes.

Xiang Kun naturally established corresponding cognitive models for Peng Xiao and Tan Lulu, mostly based on his memories from university. However, he could make basic corrections to their personalities based on their brief greetings upon first meeting, and then make targeted judgments.

In Xiang Kun's view, Peng Xiao was still the same boastful and overly familiar person he always was, so he didn't give him a very enthusiastic positive response. Instead, he maintained a normal level of politeness and made himself seem somewhat mysterious and unapproachable, which would save him a lot of trouble.

This doesn't mean he dislikes Peng Xiao; it's just that his social strategy makes things easier and less strenuous for him.

Just like Zicheng, who also loves to joke and can be quite cheeky, Xiang Kun will give strong feedback and counterattacks. This can be seen as another social strategy choice, or as a genuine feedback that eliminates strategy, making it more emotional and direct.

After chatting with the two for a while, another classmate, Xie Jun, arrived. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he was led to the parking lot by Xiang Kun.

"Xiang Kun, are you still working at that company?" Tan Lulu asked after getting into the car.

"No, I'm doing things on my own now," Xiang Kun replied simply.

"You started your own business? That's great! What's it about? Software engineering?" Peng Xiao asked.

"It's just small-scale stuff," Xiang Kun Chang Bin that your company is doing quite well, Lao Peng. It seems you've already gone through several rounds of financing. Isn't it time to go public? Who knows, maybe another billionaire will emerge among our classmates."

"What billionaire? I'm just the lowest-ranking partner. And it's not as easy as it was a few years ago. Capital is unwilling to burn money and has started to be cautious. Sigh, starting a business is tough these days. A stable job like the boss's is still the most comfortable."

"These days, there's no such thing as a secure job anymore. Peng Xiao, don't complain. I heard you just bought a villa in September and a sports car for your girlfriend?"

"Wow, Mr. Peng! When can I come visit you and show me what life is like for a tycoon?" Xie Jun, sitting in the passenger seat, turned around and laughed.

After successfully steer the conversation towards Peng Xiao, Xiang Kun stopped participating and focused on driving.

As they entered the city and waited at a red light, Xie Jun suddenly said, "Xiang Kun, your driving skills are quite good."

Xiang Kun could answer, Peng Xiao, who was sitting behind him, had already leaned over, holding onto the back of the front seat, and asked curiously, "How is it 'not bad'? I didn't see Xiang Kun driving very fast?"

Xie Jun explained, "Driving skills aren't simply about speed in a short period of time. The city is so congested, and there are speed limits on the highway, so how fast can you go? The key is Xiang Kun's driving; he has a great 'rhythm.' I've been observing him for over ten minutes, and his predictions are incredibly accurate and his driving is remarkably stable. I know many skilled drivers who drive like this in everyday life. He was actually overtaking constantly the whole way, so his total speed was quite high, and he even drove along the lane lines on the curves. But you, sitting in the back, didn't feel any sense of aggressive driving, right? That's the most impressive thing about him."

"You're absolutely right, Xiang Kun is indeed a very steady driver," Tan Lulu nodded in agreement.

Xiang Kun laughed and said, "After all, I'm a seasoned driver with a nine-year license, and I'm familiar with Chang Bin's car. But Xie Jun, aren't you also a website developer? How come you 'know quite a few skilled drivers'?"

He did have his driver's license for nine years, but in reality, he could count the number of times he had driven in the last two years on two hands. However, Chang Bin had driven this Magotan many times, and had long since established a cognitive model of it. He also had a corresponding cognitive model matching his driving skills. Every time he drove, he would continuously revise the model. With his visual ability, reaction ability, and brain information processing ability, improving his driving skills was naturally not a difficult task.

He even suspected that if he drove the car for a while, he might unknowingly develop "Super-Sensory Link" with some of its parts.

On the way back from the airport, he was actually subconsciously "practicing" his driving, but he was driving very gently. He thought the three people in the car wouldn't notice anything unusual, because from an absolute sensory perspective, he didn't drive like a speeding car constantly accelerating and braking; on the contrary, he was driving very steadily.

Xie Jun laughed and said, "Because I run a car review website. Although I'm responsible for the online development and maintenance, I also really like cars and don't have much to do, so I've also done some new car reviews and helped them shoot videos. I also go to the track with my colleagues when I have free time, so I know quite a few test drivers."

Tan Lulu and Peng Xiao were very interested in Xie Jun's industry and started asking him a series of questions, such as which car company had the most customers, and which brand and model of car in a certain price range they would recommend.

Xiang Kun would occasionally chime in with a few words to help steer the conversation and draw their attention to Xie Jun.

But one thing Xie Jun mentioned immediately drew Xiang Kun's attention as well.

"Several automotive media outlets went to test that off-road vehicle that time. Our website was short-staffed, so I went along as a photographer. The vehicle we were testing, though called an off-road vehicle, was really just a city SUV with limited off-road capabilities; it didn't even have a rear differential lock... Uh, that's not important. Anyway, when our convoy was driving along the planned route, something strange happened. While driving through a wooded area, the lead vehicle hit and killed a wolf." Xie Jun tilted his head and told his story to the two classmates in the back seat.

"It's normal to have wolves where you went to test drive the car, right? Did you get surrounded by a pack of wolves later?" Peng Xiao asked curiously.

Xie Jun lowered his voice and said mysteriously, "No, that wolf was badly injured. We thought it was definitely dead, but unexpectedly, it stumbled to its feet and ran away. And the people in the car ahead said that the wolf had horns on its head."

"Horns? You must be mistaken. Wolves can grow horns? If it were a horse with horns, you could say you bumped into a unicorn. What kind of monster is this wolf with horns?" Tan Lulu couldn't help but laugh.

"Unicorns are creatures from fairy tales, you know!" Peng Xiao complained from the side, then asked Xie Jun, "Aren't you all media people? Wasn't anyone taking photos or videos? There's a dashcam in the car, right?"

"That's the strange thing," Xie Jun said. "The dashcam recorded it, and some of our media personnel were filming the surrounding scenery, so they also filmed it. I've seen those pictures and videos; we did indeed hit something with horns, which looked like a canine."

Tan Lulu asked curiously, "If there were videos and images, it would have been all over the news by now! You guys have discovered a new species!"

"I haven't even gotten to the strange parts yet..." Xie Jun said.

"Wow! My dear Jun-ge, you've been talking about this strange place for ages, but what's so strange about it?" Peng Xiao said with a laugh and a scolding.

"Your videos and images, you didn't all get lost, did you?" Xiang Kun asked casually.

"Yes!" Xie Jun immediately confirmed his guess, then said, "When we returned to camp that night, all the relevant videos and pictures on the equipment disappeared, even the records from the dashcams were gone. It wasn't just that car, it was all the cars!"

"It was deleted?" Peng Xiao asked in surprise.

"Unless we deleted it ourselves." Xie Jun shook his head. "Many people copied the video, and I copied it too."

"So you probably didn't copy it?" Peng Xiao guessed.

"Impossible, I checked it on my own device."

Xiang Kun asked, "Did you stop along the way?"

"Yes, we did stop a few times. Some cars had flat tires, and some had burst radiators," Xie Jun said. "But we actually discovered the problem halfway through. The lead car that hit the wolf had all the bloodstains and fur left on it gone."

"Did you drive for a while and get covered in dust or something? Or maybe you passed through a puddle and it got washed away?" Tan Lulu guessed.

"No, even if there were any, it's impossible for there to be absolutely no trace left," Xie Jun said. "After we returned to camp, we removed all the bumpers from that car and examined them carefully. There really wasn't a single trace of blood or wolf hair! Moreover, the camp's technicians said that judging from the marks on the bumpers, the car didn't seem to have hit an animal; it looked more like it had hit a rock. And yet, all the videos and pictures we could use as evidence are gone. All the car dashcams were also turned off, with no records from that day, as if they were forgotten to be turned on before departure. But I'm very certain that the team leader in charge of the activity checked the dashcams of all the cars before departure, and we checked them ourselves."

"This is... too strange," Tan Lulu said in surprise.

Peng Xiao also expressed his doubts. "This is too far-fetched! It sounds like you're making up a story. Are you all hallucinating?"

"That day, it wasn't just one or two people, it was over twenty! How could they all happen to have the same hallucination, and not a single one of them noticed?" Xie Jun said. "But later, everyone gradually came to believe that the car hit a rock, and that we forgot to turn on the dashcam when we set off, because there was no other explanation that made sense..."

"Xie Jun, are you really not making up a story to fool me?" Tan Lulu was still not quite convinced.

"You can just consider this a story I made up, hey, but I was talking to a photographer from another media outlet about this before, and he had a theory that we might have encountered a convergence of world lines, like... the Mandela Effect, you know? It's when a group's collective memory of certain historical events doesn't match the historical facts; it's actually the multiverse influencing each other. When our lead car hit the horned wolf, it was actually an event from another parallel universe, those memories crossed over into our world and into our minds. In that parallel universe, our cars all had dashcams on, and we did indeed hit the horned wolf. But in our world, the cars only hit a rock, the convoy's dashcams were all forgotten to be on, and we didn't capture any footage related to the horned wolf..."

Peng Xiao was completely dumbfounded. "Holy crap, Xie Jun! You guys went to test a car and it went from an animal documentary to a monster horror movie, and now it's straight into a sci-fi movie?"

When Xie Jun told them this story, Peng Xiao and Tan Lulu felt like they were listening to a tale. Even Xie Jun himself wasn't entirely sure if it had actually happened.

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