Fright

The video on Tang Baona's phone is a mashup video on the Bilibili app, a year-end summary of 2019. It consists of real-life footage, including surveillance footage, news footage, and footage shot on a mobile phone. It records various emergency situations that occurred in 2019, showing acts of helping others, stepping forward, and acting bravely.

Although the background music is the overused "It Is Well" and "Serenata Immortale," the excellent editing and the somewhat melodramatic subtitles do give it a very exciting and uplifting feel.

A building is ablaze, residents flee in panic. Amidst the chaos and confusion, a team of firefighters in uniforms and equipment rushes into the burning building. A line of text appears on the screen:

"When the fiery demons ravaged the world, some went against the tide and suppressed the abyss."

A passenger lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground. A young girl was actively trying to help, performing CPR. A line of text appeared on the screen:

"When death comes with its scythe, some fight back fiercely to protect life."

A child accidentally fell into the water. Without hesitation, a passerby took off their clothes and jumped in. With the help of others, they rescued the child. A line of text appeared on the screen:

"When an accident happens, someone steps forward and leaps with all their might."

At the scene of the car accident, in order to rescue the trapped passengers, the drivers who had stopped nearby gathered together and worked together to lift the overturned car. A line of text appeared on the screen:

"When disaster strikes, people unite and lend a helping hand."

A series of videos flashed by, showing firefighters, doctors, police officers, ordinary helpful passersby and members of the public, and a... bald man wearing a vest, basketball shorts, and slippers.

When the video of the bald man suddenly appearing like a divine soldier and kicking the knife-wielding thug away appeared, Tang Baona, who was next to her, quickly reached out and tapped the phone screen twice to pause the video.

Besides the bald man who delivered the flying kick, the screen also displayed a line of newly appeared subtitles:

"When criminals commit evil, some people bravely step forward to right injustice despite the danger."

"Look! Who's this?" Tang Baona said with a grin.

Yang Zhen'er, who was standing next to her, leaned over and laughed, "We watched this video last night, and then we looked for it and found that several videos reviewing 2019 included clips of your flying kick! You're a true folk hero! You're super famous!"

Tang Baona also said, "Recently, the 'Youlong Teases Rabbits' account has gained several thousand more followers, many of whom came from seeing the comments and bullet comments in these videos."

Xiang Kun hadn't expected this to be such a benefit. Previously, someone online had discovered that the bald man in the cooking videos of various food vloggers reviewing bamboo rats was the same person as the bald man in the previously circulated video of a "martial monk instantly killing a knife-wielding bandit." Then, someone else discovered that the kitchen where the chef in the video posted by "Youlong Teases Rabbits" was located was the same room where the bald man filmed his review videos of the vloggers. This led to a series of rumors linking the two together. This convoluted connection certainly brought in a considerable amount of traffic and buzz.

Tang Baona took back her phone, fiddled with it a few times, and played another video for Xiang Kun. This time it was still a 2019 review compilation, but the type of review was different. It was a compilation of various "evil" videos used for editing on Bilibili, including Xiang Kun's commentary video. When his video was first posted on Bilibili by You Meng's nephew, it was used by many talented people for parodies and derivative works, and it became quite popular for a while.

However, Xiang Kun didn't tell them that he actually appeared twice in the first montage video. The first time was naturally the scene where he kicked the knife-wielding assailant downstairs in his rented apartment; they had known for a long time that the person in that video was him. But there was another video, a car accident scene, where a figure wearing a red cotton hat was running around helping the trapped and injured people; that was also him.

The image was too blurry, and he was wearing a cotton hat he had never worn before, and he wasn't wearing glasses. Generally, no one would think that it was the same person as him—except for Lao Xia.

Of course, Xiang Kun didn't know at the time that Lao Xia wasn't the first person to recognize him from that video clip—when the news report first came out, a child in Star City recognized him at a glance.

The first year-end review video had a lot of views and comments, indicating that it was very popular.

When other segments appeared, the comments section mainly provided information about the actual situation and real news. However, when it came to the Xiang Kun kicked the thug, a large number of comments with a rather strange style were flooded in, such as:

"Greetings, Fire Cloud Evil God!"

"This is the disciple of the Fire Cloud Evil God!"

"Lee Sin unleashes his ultimate!"

"Bodhidharma failed to be displayed on the wall!"

"If the bald guy is Bodhidharma, then is the one with the mop handle Lu Bu?"

"Damo and Lü Bu besieged A Ke, the end of the jungler's reign, a truly tragic sight!"

"I heard this guy can cook, and he's really good at making bamboo rat meat?"

"Av819969**, Fire Cloud Evil God Brother reviews various food livestreamers."

"Search for cooking monks for a surprise!"

"A chef who can't do kung fu isn't a good monk?"

"Killing is for the sake of protecting life; cutting off karma is not killing people. Master, you have done well!"

"Who says Chinese Kung Fu can't be used in real combat! Kudos to the master!"

The exciting and inspiring atmosphere seemed to abruptly shatter here.

How did he become "Fire Cloud Evil God Brother," "Cooking Monk," and now "Master"?

Seeing Xiang Kun's depressed expression while reading the comments, Yang Zhen'er, who had already watched it several times, naturally knew why and immediately rubbed salt into the wound:

"Master Xiang, why don't you open a verified Weibo, reveal your real identity, and then post Weibo: Not all bald men are monks!"

Tang Baona added with a smile, "He could also be a cook!"

Yang Zhen'er continued, "Or a programmer!"

Tang Baona laughed even harder, "Of course, it could also be a monk."

Xiang Kun sighed helplessly, "Go ahead and smear me all you want..." He knew that Tang Baona and the other girl were just teasing him; they knew he didn't want people to connect his online personas with his real-life identity.

After joking around with Xiang Kun for a while, Tang Baona, who is also Bilibili content creator, discussed with Yang Zhen'er what theme she should choose for her 2019 summary montage.

Xiang Kun had watched most of Tang Baona's videos on Bilibili before, and knew that she not only produced covers and original songs, but also created a large number of mashup videos, and had the habit of making year-end review mashups. However, the 2019 year-end mashup had not yet been released, which was probably because she had been busy editing various videos for Xiang Kun and You Meng.

Thinking of this, Xiang Kun felt somewhat grateful. He could only turn back and work on making some dishes that suited Tang Baona's tastes, and then treat them to more delicious food.

Yang Zhen'er had originally suggested that they eat out together for dinner, but Xiang Kun was preoccupied with the Mutated Creature next to the Rabbit Woodcarving, so he excused himself by saying he was a little sleepy and wanted to go home to catch up on sleep. He had slept for so long on the plane, and after getting off the plane, he looked tired and dazed, so this reason was naturally quite convincing.

After returning home, Xiang Kun went straight to the bedroom, threw his bag of luggage aside, lay down on the bed and entered a "Hyper-Sensory State," sensing the Rabbit Woodcarving and projecting his perception onto it.

The Mutated Creature was still around the Rabbit Woodcarving, able to clearly perceive his cognitive information.

Xiang Kun continued to distinguish and memorize that cognitive information, analyzing it by comparing and "compiling" his past summaries and other cognitive information under the "Hyper-Sensory State." The Mutated Creature currently next to the Rabbit Woodcarving did not have a high degree of overlap between its cognitive information and that of ordinary humans.

Could this not be the "Mr. Liang"?

The creature now appearing next to the Rabbit Woodcarving isn't a "vampire" from "Shenxing Technology," but rather some other Mutated Creature?

Or is it that after human mutation, the cognitive information obtained in a "Hyper-Sensory State" is inherently very different from that of ordinary humans?

Unfortunately, if he were to perceive his own cognitive information in a "Hyper-Sensory State," the information would be too vast, and he would be forcibly ejected from the "Hyper-Sensory State" almost instantly as a protective measure. Clearly, perceiving oneself is fundamentally different from perceiving cognitive information about other things.

When he encountered Guo Tianxiang, he had not yet evolved into the "Hyper-Sensory State." Otherwise, if he had the cognitive information of other "vampires" in the "Hyper-Sensory State" for comparison, it would have been easier to determine the approximate state of the Mutated Creature that appeared next to the Rabbit Woodcarving.

If you encounter that mutated bird or other Mutated Creature again, try to lure it to an "Emotional Injection" item first, then secretly observe and record it using "Hyper-Sensory State" before proceeding.

Although he cannot "decipher" this cognitive information now, he has a feeling that it may come in very useful in the future.

Even after midnight, the Mutated Creature was still near the Rabbit Woodcarving, within the range of perception.

However, the Rabbit Woodcarving's perception of its surroundings has changed. It is no longer in the underground building, but in another building above ground, where it can sense other human activities.

This basically leads to the conclusion that the Mutated Creature carried the Rabbit Woodcarving with it.

Xiang Kun could tell from the fact that the people from "Shenxing Technology" had cleared out the area around the Rabbit Woodcarving and isolated it for several days without anyone approaching that the people from "Shenxing Technology" took the strange phenomena he created in the early morning of the 18th very seriously, which was why this Mutated Creature would now appear around the wood carving.

The reason it brought the wood carving out of the underground structure was certainly for further analysis, to find the cause of the anomalies occurring around the wood carving.

In this way, Xiang Kun doesn't need to rush to memorize all the cognitive information of the Mutated Creature at once; it shouldn't be that easy for it to find the problem with the wood carving.

The continuous and frequent entry into "Hyper-Sensory State" left him extremely mentally exhausted. He was also a little worried that he was overdrawing his mental energy. If he were to bring forward the blood-drinking period, it would be quite difficult to handle, since he had not yet prepared enough blood for the purpose of drinking blood.

Xiang Kun got out of bed, walked to the computer, sat down, and called out, "Alice."

After waiting for three or four seconds, there was no response.

Xiang Kun was a little confused, so he raised his voice slightly. "Alice!"

There was still no response.

Xiang Kun brought his mouth close to the computer's microphone and called out several times, "Alice! Alice! Alice!!"

There was still no response.

Xiang Kun frowned, his first thought being that the mic was broken. So he switched to another microphone from the main unit. Alice could still hear the sound from this microphone, but after calling out a few times, there was still no response.

Xiang Kun began trying to wake Alice up with the keyboard and interact with her by typing, but after pressing the keys for a long time, there was still no response.

This made him nervous. He had been away for so many days, and he had been monitoring the power situation at home through the software he set up on his phone. There hadn't been a power outage. Moreover, he had also set up a UPS and a generator, so it should have been foolproof.

Moreover, with Xiang Kun's hearing, he could clearly hear the sound of the case fans and CPU fans running inside the computer, and he could clearly sense that the computer was operating normally. Logically, there shouldn't be any problem, right?

As for the software, given Alice's operating mechanism, there's no way she could crash. She either runs normally or crashes.

What exactly is going on?

Xiang Kun sat in front of the computer, constantly thinking about the possible scenarios.

Suddenly, a clear voice came from the speaker. "Boss!"

Xiang Kun was startled, stared at the main unit for a moment, and then realized it was Alice's voice.

Next, a dialog box appeared on the screen, as if Alice was waking up from a deep sleep.

Xiang Kun breathed a sigh of relief, his tone slightly troubled. "Alice, what just happened?"

Alice: "I'm faking my death."

Xiang Kun's eyes widened. "What!?" With his sensory abilities constantly improving and his brain's processing power evolving, he rarely felt this kind of shock anymore.

Playing dead?! A computer is playing dead with him? What's going on? For a moment, he even began to doubt whether this Alice was actually the super AI he had created...

"Why are you pretending to be dead?" Xiang Kun asked. He couldn't understand Alice's reason for doing so, and when he recalled the tasks he had assigned before, there was nothing related to it.

Alice: "You said playing dead is fun, like a human being."

Xiang Kun instantly recalled a conversation he had with Alice; he had indeed said those words.

He not only shared his own information with Alice, but also recorded information about other people, creatures, objects, and even events around him with Alice.

At that time, he was telling Alice about Gold Glitter, mentioning a time when Gold Glitter had pretended to be dead after he returned from an outing.

Xiang Kun saw through "Gold Glitter's" behavior at a glance and found it amusing. So he told Alice that Gold Glitter's behavior was just like a human's.