Record

Chapter 4: Records

Xiang Kun tried every edible and drinkable item in his home.

Then, he made a record on his document:

Solid food: Instant noodles X, potato chips X, oatmeal cookies X, Oreo cookies X;

Liquid drinks: Boiled water √, purified water √, whole milk X, Red Bull X;

Recalling that he had eaten plain porridge and side dishes at a small shop on July 14th and had vomited everything up, he added to the solid food list:

Plain porridge X, stir-fried bean sprouts X, pickled mustard greens X.

After checking and recording his findings, Xiang Kun checked the time; it was already 1:30 AM. He washed up and prepared to go to bed to ensure proper sleep and rest.

However, after tossing and turning in bed for nearly an hour, Xiang Kun felt no sleepiness at all. He figured it might be because he had just slept for over twenty hours, so he got up and reopened his laptop.

Previously, he had used his physical changes as keywords for his searches, and most of the results pointed toward "vampires."

Therefore, Xiang Kun decided to use "vampire" as his target to collect information.

Of course, works of fiction like Twilight, Interview with the Vampire, or The Vampire Diaries would not be the focus of his research.

He saw that question on Zhihu again: "What is it like to become a vampire?" Aside from the answers that were clearly imaginative vampire fiction, there were also some serious attempts to collect data and discuss the origins and scientific explanations of vampires.

Regarding the origins and scientific explanations of vampires, most answers were actually quite similar, suggesting that the legend of the vampire originated in Eastern and Central Europe in the 18th century.

Those who became "vampires" were usually people who died from accidents or sudden illnesses.

Their relatives would either suffer from severe diseases or die one after another in other accidents. Furthermore, in the days before they died, they would dream of the deceased returning as vampires to drink their blood.

In the end, it was simply a case of encountering disasters, epidemics, or other bouts of bad luck, and attributing these events to deceased family members.

The common practice at the time was to exhume the coffin, remove the heart, and burn it. Because the body would produce strange sounds due to bloating in a short period, and the skin would shrink, making the nails appear as if they had grown after death, the legend of the "vampire" was further fueled.

Later, with the development of medicine, various phenomena were explained, and the "vampire" became increasingly romanticized, gaining more imagery and characteristics, and even acquiring superpowers and immortality.

Sometimes, patients with rabies, pica, porphyria, and other diseases were also used as modern scientific explanations for "vampires."

Xiang Kun even specifically watched Vampire Forensics, a documentary produced by the National Geographic Channel mentioned in several answers. It covered much of the same ground and contained nothing that could explain the series of changes he was experiencing.

Instead, some descriptions in certain unreliable works of fiction seemed to align more closely with his situation.

Before he knew it, dawn had broken. Xiang Kun still felt energetic, so he decided to go out and buy some things.

He went to the bathroom to wash his face and opened his mouth to check; he found that his teeth had grown out sufficiently. At the very least, when he smiled, others would likely notice nothing more than his very white teeth.

What relieved him was that his new teeth were normal, with no terrifying fangs.

After leaving the house, Xiang Kun first bought several food items: fried dough sticks, soy milk, pancakes, bread, and so on. He tried only one bite of each, testing them one by one, but without exception, he ended up vomiting them all back up.

However, because he ate very little, the nausea and the discomfort of vomiting were significantly reduced.

Xiang Kun took a taxi to a shopping mall to buy some supplies, including various foods, drinks, an induction cooker with a small matching pot, cleaning tools, a scale, a measuring tape, and more.

It was past 10:00 AM when he returned home. The sun was intense, and Xiang Kun subconsciously felt a desire to avoid the sunlight.

It was the peak of heat in July, but Xiang Kun didn't feel hot at all. Even after going out to shop, squeezing onto the bus, and carrying several bags weighing dozens of pounds, he hadn't broken a sweat.

Although his body seemed to instinctively avoid the sun, once he noticed this, Xiang Kun deliberately stood in the sunlight and let the scorching sun beat down on him.

Yet, in his experience, standing in the sun caused no obvious discomfort; he didn't even feel the heat of being exposed to the sun as a normal person should.

He looked up at the sky again, blinded by the sunlight to the point where he couldn't keep his eyes open, but that was the same for ordinary people, right?

Although he didn't understand the specific reason, he could still feel his body's instinctive rejection of the sun and the intense heat.

According to the information he had read last night, the degree of light sensitivity in "vampires" was much more severe; being exposed to the sun would cause their skin to rapidly burn, oxidize, and char.

As for porphyria, the disease most closely associated with "vampires," exposure to direct sunlight would cause photosensitive dermatitis, itching, and blisters.

By comparison, although his body instinctively wanted to avoid the light, he had no obvious symptoms or reactions while in the sun, and he even seemed more heat-tolerant than before.

Back home, Xiang Kun pulled a chair into the bathroom and began drinking beverages.

He took a sip of Coke; twenty-something seconds later, he vomited.

He took a sip of Sprite; twenty-something seconds later, he vomited.

He took a sip of orange juice; twenty-something seconds later, he vomited.

However, after drinking coffee made from Nescafe Gold freeze-dried coffee powder, Xiang Kun didn't vomit for several minutes. This gave him a faint glimmer of hope, as he had previously tried Nescafe 3-in-1 instant coffee and vomited after twenty-something seconds. What was the difference between the two? And what was the difference between them and the other drinks he had tried?

Xiang Kun then boiled an egg and ate it, and there was no reaction. Then he boiled beef slices in water and ate them, which also caused no issues.

He began to wonder if it was related to the sugar content of the food.

Although black coffee, eggs, and beef all contained trace amounts of sugar, compared to other foods and drinks, it was significantly lower.

But why sugar? Based on the knowledge Xiang Kun had learned previously, he knew that most of the energy required by the human body was provided by sugar.

Just as Xiang Kun was recording this at his laptop, he suddenly felt a spasm in his stomach and rushed to the bathroom again, vomiting violently. Everything he had eaten, which he thought was fine, was purged completely.

Xiang Kun wiped his mouth helplessly, washed his face, and returned to the computer to make a note in the document: Foods or drinks with low sugar content could stay in the stomach for a longer time, but after twenty minutes to half an hour, they would still be vomited out.

Afterward, he began to undress. Left with only his boxer shorts, he stood on the electronic scale he had bought, measured his chest, waist, and arm circumference with the tape measure, and set up his phone to take full-body photos with a timer.

He was going to start recording the changes in his body.