Controlling Beads

After finishing their late-night snack, Xia Libing and Xiang Kun cleaned up the remaining food, tidied up the trash, washed her chopsticks, and then each carried a food box and left the reception room.

"Does your shift have a microwave or an induction cooker or something? If you get hungry later and want to eat those dishes again, it's best to heat them up." Xiang Kun asked as he came downstairs. Xia Libing's food box still had a lot of uneaten food in it. He had basically prepared enough for three people, in case there were other colleagues on duty with Lao Xia.

"There's a microwave... hiccup~." Xia Libing hiccuped again.

Xiang Kun suddenly stopped, then turned around sharply, roared, raised the hand that wasn't holding the food box into a claw, opened his mouth wide, and made a ferocious, menacing pounce motion.

Xia Libing stood on the stair landing, looking down at Xiang Kun, who was four or five steps away, her expression unchanged. "What?"

Two seconds later, Xiang Kun withdrew his hand, awkwardly touched his nose, and continued carrying the food box down the stairs, "I heard that if you get startled when you have hiccups, it will stop."

Xia Libing followed behind him, saying calmly, "I wasn't scared."

"Then drink more hot water later," Xiang Kun said casually. "When you're on duty, you don't have to stay awake all night, right? You can sleep, right?" He had looked into it before. In general hospitals, on-duty doctors can rest, but doctors in emergency rooms and ICUs don't have much rest when they're on night shift.

"Hiccup~... Time to sleep," Xia Libing said.

"Okay, then you should get some rest too. Happy New Year." They had already left the office building. Xiang Kun waved as he walked towards his electric scooter.

Xia Libing replied, "Happy New Year... burp"

She stood at the entrance of the main building and watched Xiang Kun ride his electric bike out of the hospital before turning back to the ward where she was on duty, carrying the food box.

After leaving the hospital on his electric scooter, Xiang Kun didn't ride far. Instead, he found a spot along the hospital's outer wall where he wouldn't be caught on camera and stopped.

Since Lao Xia is carrying those chopsticks, he should be within their influence tonight while resting and sleeping. We can estimate the time later and try to sense it again, guiding Lao Xia's dreams.

Based on their conversation at the supermarket today, he felt that with Lao Xia's abilities, he might make some other "discoveries" after re-entering the dream world.

Hopefully, she won't "wake up" too soon this time, or if she does, she can keep the dream going for a while longer.

However, Lao Xia is definitely not asleep yet. His first priority is not to sense the chopsticks, but to determine whether there are any "vampires" or Mutated Creature in the hospital.

In most cases, it's unlikely. The patient Lao Xia mentioned earlier who thought he was a vampire didn't seem like a real vampire based on his described symptoms and physical condition. But he subconsciously felt something was off and thought he should confirm it.

Now, whenever this feeling arises, even if Xiang Kun can't immediately determine the reason, he chooses to trust his intuition. Because his current perception is too strong and too complex, much of the information may be beyond his brain's ability to process correctly and give him a result he can understand. Therefore, it only gives him a subconscious, intuitive feedback of what he should do.

Xiang Kun couldn't directly ask Lao Xia to take him into those completely enclosed wards, as that was against hospital regulations. Moreover, given Lao Xia's personality, he would definitely refuse simply and decisively. "No."

However, for him, investigating hospitals was no more difficult than investigating the secret Research Base and centers of "Shenxing Technology".

Xiang Kun hid the electric scooter and then easily climbed over the hospital wall, making almost no noise.

He evaded the hospital's surveillance cameras, found a safe route, and entered one of the wards. According to his senses, Lao Xia was on duty in this ward.

The indoor buildings where patients reside have relatively complete security measures. Entry and exit require swiping an ID card, and there are multiple access control systems and extensive internal surveillance.

Xiang Kun could infiltrate the building if he really wanted to, but for the time being, he didn't need to do so.

He first searched by scent, but found no distinctive scent of the Mutated Creature. Then he took out a bead from his pocket that had established a "Super-Sensory Link".

Xiang Kun threw the bead into the ventilation opening on the first floor, then closed his eyes to sense it.

After the small ball entered the vent, it began to roll forward at a constant speed, as if it were not subject to inertia, but rather to a continuous traction force.

Based on the new ability that the Little Chubby Girl had "developed" on his way home, Xiang Kun had already come up with several derivative applications. One was to interfere with various electronic devices. The second was the method to save the old man who had a heart attack at the station. The third was to control the objects with "Super-Sensory Link" to make relatively precise movements, especially those that are relatively light and small, to affect their own magnetic field and the magnetic field in a certain direction, forming a track similar to that in electromagnetic launch technology, so as to affect their own movement.

It's not just metals; beads, Coin, and even paper and wood can be affected. During the sensing process, the "Super-Sensory Link" object itself also carries a magnetic field, enveloping itself as a unique whole.

Previously, Xiang Kun could only slightly interfere with the movement of some "Super-Linked Object," such as making the arrows he shot deviate slightly, changing the direction of the paper airplanes he threw or making them fly more steadily, and making minor adjustments to the landing point of the balls he launched with a slingshot.

Later, this control became much stronger, even allowing Coin and balls to levitate and move along one's body. It was also possible to use "Hyper-Sensory State" to pre-operate on them before throwing them, causing them to perform some pre-set, non-inertial movements after being thrown.

However, it is quite difficult to control them to start moving completely from a stationary position and to perform relatively long and precise movements.

However, after Little Chubby Girl developed several new capabilities for "Super-Linked Object", Xiang Kun has found a more efficient and accurate way to control "Super-Linked Object".

The key to controlling them lies not in themselves, but in their surroundings.

They shouldn't be treated like cars or airplanes, but like trains. When they begin to move under Xiang Kun's influence, tracks can be laid in the direction you want them to move, laying tracks as they run.

After being influenced by Xiang Kun, the "Super-Linked Object" did not simply "create" a magnetic field, but rather utilized and stirred the existing magnetic fields around it, making them its own. It was as if there were countless railway tracks around, but they were scattered haphazardly and without order. Under Xiang Kun's will, a pole extended from the "train," and with a few flicks, the tracks in front were instantly rearranged and laid out in the required direction, guiding it forward.

Now, that ball is rolling forward using this method.

A moment later, the ball fell from the building's ventilation opening, bounced twice on the ground, and then continued to roll slowly.

In fact, if it were close range, Xiang Kun could control the sphere to float and move horizontally, but that would be too fast and difficult to control precisely. Moreover, Xiang Kun cannot use this method to control the "Super-Linked Object" too far away from himself. Beyond a certain distance, it would be very "tiring" and he would not be able to control it precisely, since he cannot see it after it enters the building.

Therefore, using a relatively weak force to make the ball roll is the most "effortless" and easiest method to precisely control it remotely.

In a duty room, a female nurse in her forties, who was reading a novel on her phone, suddenly looked up at the door, frowned slightly, and nudged another nurse next to her who was wearing headphones and watching a variety show. "Did you hear that? It sounds like something?"

"What's that sound?" His companion took off one of his headphones and looked up in surprise.

"It's the sound of beads hitting the ground, and it seems to be rolling around," the nurse said, frowning.

Her companion chimed in, "It's normal to hear these kinds of sounds in reinforced concrete buildings at night. It's probably due to thermal expansion and contraction or something. You can search it online; there's a theory behind it."

The nurse frowned. "No, it's not that sound. There really are beads rolling, and the sound is still there."

"Maybe Dr. Xia upstairs dropped something. It's strange that Dr. Xia is on duty on New Year's Eve. We have no choice but to do so, it's all arranged in advance. Dr. Xia could have skipped the shift, but she volunteered. Didn't we hear that the vice president is her relative? I don't understand," her companion said.

"No, I'll go check. Maybe one of the patients is causing trouble." The nurse said, putting away her phone and getting up to leave the duty room.

But as soon as she reached the aisle, the sound of the beads rolling that she had just clearly heard vanished.

She frowned and looked around for a while, then surveyed the ward. There was nothing unusual, and she didn't hear the beads rolling anymore.

Back in the duty room, the nurse had just sat down and picked up her phone to continue reading her novel when she faintly heard the sound of beads rolling, and it seemed to be coming from the corridor outside.

So she jumped up, rushed to the door, and peered inside, but there was still nothing there, and the rolling sound disappeared again.

"What's wrong with you? Are you hallucinating from staying up all night? Should we go upstairs and see Dr. Xia?" Seeing her going in and out so much, moving around so much, and looking so serious, her companion stopped watching the show and took off her headphones to say this.

"You really didn't hear the beads?" the nurse asked.

"I was wearing headphones, of course I didn't hear anything." His companion listened intently for a moment, then shook his head to confirm again, "No, I didn't hear anything."

"It's gone now." The nurse walked back to the duty room and sat down.

This time, however, the sound of the beads rolling didn't continue after she sat down, making her wonder if she had just been hallucinating, or if it was just the natural sound of the building expanding and contracting due to temperature changes.

Suddenly, his companion became talkative and said, "Hey, you know what? I heard a rumor that Dr. Liu was taken away from his home by the police last night. I wonder what he did wrong."

The nurse nodded. "I know about that. It seems he took money for a forensic examination before, but then regretted it, didn't do the work, and returned the money. Yesterday, the person who gave him the money got into trouble and was arrested; he confessed..."

"The money has been refunded, but the matter hasn't been resolved. Dr. Liu shouldn't be sentenced to prison, right?"

"It's hard to say, after all, he originally intended to do it."

As the two nurses gossiped, they didn't notice that in the empty corridor outside the duty room, a tiny ball was "carefully" rolling along the boundary between the wall and the floor. Because of the special material of that boundary, the sound the ball made as it rolled was almost inaudible.

Previously, Xiang Kun was unfamiliar with the structure of the building and had not done any "homework" beforehand. The bead also had no "eyes," so he could only rely on his own sense of direction through sound. As a result, he was controlling the bead's movement somewhat erratically, which inevitably caused some noise in the quiet, enclosed building at night and attracted the nurse's attention.

However, the nurse's voice reminded Xiang Kun, so he tried rolling around one by one and found the contact surface at the edge of the wall to reduce the noise he was making.

The reason Xiang Kun wanted to get the sphere inside the building and "control" its movement was to locate it.

He could smell all sorts of odors inside the building from downstairs, but the odors were too complex, and without a location reference, he couldn't trace them back to their source, especially not in his "Hyper-Sensory State."

Based on his previous conversation with Lao Xia, he knew that the patient who considered himself a "vampire" could only eat if there was a red liquid in his food. So he focused on identifying the smells of the foods the hospital was most likely to provide, such as ketchup, tomato juice, carrot juice, and watermelon juice. If the patient always ate these things, his body and room would definitely have a stronger smell than other rooms.

Once he determined the flavor and its direction, he needed to use beads for positioning.

He had never been inside the building, and a single bead couldn't provide accurate location information. However, Lao Xia inside the building possessed a "Super-Linked Object" Coin, which, combined with his own "Super-Linked Object," allowed for a relatively precise location assessment, confirming that the bead's location matched the source of the scent he had identified.

After ruling out the kitchen, trash can, and storeroom, Xiang Kun quickly positioned the bead outside a hospital room. He deduced that the person in the room corresponding to the bead was the "vampire patient" who couldn't live without "red liquid" with every meal.

Next, Xiang Kun found a secluded corner to sit cross-legged, closed his eyes, and entered a "Hyper-Sensory State," beginning to perceive the cognitive information of the building.

In the "Hyper-Sensory State," "Emotion-Infused Object" are equivalent to "teleportation portals," while "Super-Linked Object" are equivalent to buoys that help him locate himself in the vast ocean, and levers used to "leverage" the real world.

He immediately found the cognitive information representing that bead, and then, based on the bead's location, perceived the cognitive information of the corresponding patient in the ward.

In his "Hyper-Sensory State," he could instantly determine that there were no "Mutated Creature" in the building, but he still needed to confirm whether there was anything wrong with the "vampire patient," which was why he "placed" the orb inside to help locate the source.

Xiang Kun has encountered a great deal of cognitive information exhibited by humans in a "Hyper-Sensory State" and is already able to decipher the meaning of some of this information.

In his observation, the "vampire patient" was a woman, and quite tall, estimated to be over 1.8 meters, but probably very thin, and in good physical condition.

Xiang Kun observed for a long time, but from that cognitive information, he did not see anything that was significantly different from normal humans. However, he still felt a faint sense of unease.

He knew there was something wrong with this "vampire patient".

Although he doesn't yet know what the problem is.

Xiang Kun compared her cognitive information with that of other patients and nurses around her, and sure enough, he found some differences. These differences were not individual differences, but rather her unique characteristics that set her apart from the rest of the group. None of the other patients in the ward had these differences; only she did.

However, for the time being, Xiang Kun is unable to decipher what the real-world information represents by this cognitive information; he will only know after he actually comes into contact with this "vampire patient."

After exiting the "Hyper-Sensory State," Xiang Kun did not continue to investigate the "vampire patient," nor did he intend to go in and contact the patient that night—it was too difficult and unnecessary to do so completely without alerting anyone or leaving any trace.

He was eager to confirm tonight, but he wanted to rule out the possibility that there were Mutated Creature in the Third Hospital that might pose a threat to Lao Xia.

As it stands, the "vampire patient" is not Mutated Creature, nor a real "vampire." Even if there are problems, they will not pose a threat to Lao Xia for the time being.

Xiang Kun did not retrieve the bead, but let it enter the ward where the "vampire patient" was located, and stay in a corner against the wall.