So Interesting

After receiving the investigation information from Fang Pingfang, Zhao Feng, and others, Mr. Liang realized that they were not far from finding the source of the eight-armed, eight-eyed illusion.

He keenly realized that if the eight-armed, eight-eyed illusion and the little girl in the white dress on the airliner wing had a common origin, then that origin was very likely directly related to the Rabbit Woodcarving found in the Qinling Uninhabited Zone. In that case, the "origin" was most likely a "Blood-feeding Creature".

Furthermore, this "Blood-feeding Creature" is of a very high level, possessing the ability to create illusions remotely and enter dreams through objects, which is something ordinary people cannot resist.

Therefore, Mr. Liang decisively ordered Fang Pingfang's team to cease their investigation, break off all contact, and return to await further orders.

Based on their investigation, Mr. Liang initially determined that the source of the eight-armed, eight-eyed illusion should be one of Xiang Kun, Xia Libing, or Tang Baona.

After personally getting involved and gathering and analyzing more information, Mr. Liang quickly eliminated Xia Libing and Tang Baona from the list of suspects through the process of elimination, leaving only Xiang Kun.

Although the information obtained showed that Xiang Kun exhibited many characteristics that were not those of a "Blood-feeding Creature," such as being seen eating normally in a restaurant like others in some surveillance videos, Mr. Liang determined from more information that Xiang Kun was indeed a "Blood-feeding Creature."

However, after identifying Xiang Kun as his target, Mr. Liang did not immediately contact him or conduct a personal investigation, but instead focused on tracking another "Blood-feeding Creature."

Previously, when that "giant raptor" caused tourists to fall off cliffs in Wushu Mountain, Old He instructed Mr. Liang to prioritize its capture and not let it escape. As a result, when Mr. Liang tracked down the "giant raptor" in Wushu Mountain and almost succeeded in killing it, he was caught off guard and it hatched into eggs and escaped. In addition, a sudden and very strange thunderstorm shot down a large number of his drones, which also affected his flying ability, forcing him to abandon the pursuit.

The investigation into the bird attack on the passenger plane near Jianzhou focused primarily on the little girl in the white dress who appeared on the wing. However, based on various information and data, Mr. Liang knew that the bird that instigated the attack was most likely a mutated bird. Although the mutated bird was vastly different in size from Wushu Mountain's "giant raptor," after carefully examining the bird carcasses and investigating the area below the impact site for a day, Mr. Liang could basically confirm that the bird was the same one as Wushu Mountain's "giant raptor."

Old He was already furious when he failed to kill that "giant bird of prey" last time. If he finds out this time that the passenger plane was attacked by a flock of birds and almost crashed because of the same bird, his blood pressure will probably explode.

Therefore, Mr. Liang's plan was to prioritize killing this "bird" that caused trouble everywhere and posed a great threat to humans, and then investigate Xiang Kun after that.

Based on the information available so far, Xiang Kun is different from Guo Tianxiang and those so-called "orthodox Bloodline" in Europe. They do not feed on human blood, are well integrated into the social order, have many close friends, engage in normal social activities, have a stable living environment, and are less likely to actively harm others.

However, after conducting his own investigation for many days, Mr. Liang discovered that the "bird" seemed to have vanished into thin air. Despite using all his resources to track it down, he was still unable to pinpoint its whereabouts.

This bird can also hide, making it difficult to find. However, he has a swarm of drones, along with various private and public equipment assisted by "Tai'e," all of which have search modes for "Blood-feeding Creature." If it doesn't show itself, that's fine. But if it does, data analysis can still predict its location, allowing for a large-scale search. With Mr. Liang personally involved, the probability of finding its trail is not small.

But now that he had gained nothing, Mr. Liang was getting a little frustrated.

He speculated that this "bird" had most likely transformed its form again, just like it had done in Wushu Mountain, and might have burrowed into the soil and hidden away like an insect.

They may have even evolved some special ability during this period, allowing them to hide even better.

In this situation, Mr. Liang thought of Xiang Kun again. He was on that plane at the time. If he was a "Blood-feeding Creature," then the appearance of the girl in the white dress was very likely directly related to him. It might have been a display of one of his abilities, or an illusion to conceal his other abilities and attract the attention of other passengers. And the reason why the "bird" went to such great lengths to drive the flock to ambush the passenger plane was most likely because it was also targeting him.

There might be some connection behind this that "Shenxing Technology" hasn't been able to find yet—it's not quite normal that the "bird" could just happen to drive the flock of birds to collide with the Xiang Kun was on in mid-air.

Perhaps by investigating Xiang Kun, we can find a way to track down that "bird".

Therefore, Mr. Liang once again focused his attention on the investigation of Xiang Kun.

However, he did not go to Chongyun Village immediately to contact Xiang Kun directly. Instead, he went to the place where Xiang Kun had initially rented a place.

Mr. Liang planned to first "reconstruct" the entire path of Xiang Kun's transformation from an ordinary person into a "Blood-feeding Creature," gather information first, and then see how to deal with him and how to handle the situation.

With the help of "Tai'e" and Old He's special authorization, it wasn't very difficult to investigate these matters. After all, Xiang Kun didn't change his identity and run around like Guo Tianxiang.

Judging from Xiang Kun's basic information, his life experience is very normal and ordinary. He followed the rules step by step, without anything out of the ordinary or unexpected.

Of course, Mr. Liang wasn't like Qin Dong, Ji Hang, and others who, just because Xiang Kun had various extraordinary qualities, assumed that his otherwise ordinary resume was fabricated. He knew very well that before the mutation occurred, no creature—whether a cat, dog, fish, bird, insect, or human—had anything special about it; they were all just ordinary, normal beings.

Everything changed on July 11, 2019, the day Xiang Kun's company went bankrupt and he lost his job.

Prior to this, based on "Tai'e's " analysis of all of Xiang Kun's life-related data, including his Alipay, WeChat, bus card, subway card, and various social media account usage patterns, it was determined that his life trajectory was perfectly normal before July 11, 2019, which did not conform to the characteristics of any "Blood-feeding Creature."

On the evening of July 11, he paid for his meal at a roadside food stall using WeChat and then called a ride-hailing service to go home. From then until July 14, there was no trace of any activity on any of his personal accounts, and he also missed several phone calls.

On July 14th, he had three WeChat Pay bills. According to the payment records, one was from a small restaurant near his rented apartment, one was from a pharmacy, and the other was from an individual.

According to the information found by "Tai'e", the person who received the third payment was a chicken and duck seller at the market.

After July 14th, Xiang Kun had virtually no Alipay or WeChat Pay records for meals or food purchases until nearly a month later when he started buying some ordinary ingredients from the supermarket again.

After contacting Xiang Kun went to Tongshi Town to open a restaurant with his childhood friend, it's likely that he was deliberately practicing making ordinary food to cover up the animal carcasses he left behind after drinking blood.

This information was enough for Mr. Liang to recount Xiang Kun's experiences in the first few days after his mutation.

He sneaked into the rented room where Xiang Kun had previously lived. The room was still unrented, but naturally, all traces of the "Blood-feeding Creature" had long since disappeared. He picked up some objects and sensed them with his tongue, but found nothing.

Mr. Liang then went to the Xiang Kun had bought. According to the information he found, Xiang Kun had already paid off the remaining loan in August of this year.

As for how he repaid it, Mr. Liang also knew that Xiang Kun was now one of the behind-the-scenes bosses of "Universe Technology" and directly led the development of the most popular online multiplayer voice game, "Voice Genesis".

Mr. Liang strongly suspects that Xiang Kun's ability to develop such a cross-generational game and achieve financial freedom in one fell swoop is likely related to the mutation that occurred in him.

His continued mutations and evolution after transforming into a "Blood-feeding Creature" might be related to his brain's thinking and programming development; otherwise, it's hard to explain why he could suddenly create such a game. After all, according to Mr. Liang's investigation, he didn't have a mature development team; most of the core functions and gameplay were created by himself. Currently, the technical staff at "Universe Technology" and "Soaring Dragon Interactive Entertainment" are mostly doing UI optimization and some related activity functions.

To be honest, Mr. Liang has seen quite a few "Blood-feeding Creature," but none of the "Blood-feeding Creature" he knows, the "Blood-feeding Creature" recorded by Academician Shen in the past, or even some of the foreign human "Blood-feeding Creature" they know of, have been like Xiang Kun, who, after transforming into a "Blood-feeding Creature," actually continued to shine in his original career through evolution and mutation.

Based on his understanding of the mutation mechanism of "Blood-feeding Creature," Xiang Kun's ability to do this must be due to his deepest love and dedication to his work and programming.

This naturally improved Mr. Liang's impression of Xiang Kun. In his view, a person who, after mutating and becoming a "Blood-feeding Creature," can focus on brain development and continue to make money and build a career through technology must have a clear and distinct understanding of things, and whose values have not been eroded by the "blood-eating characteristics."

Of course, judging from the changes in Xiang Kun's physique around July 11th, Mr. Liang also knew that he hadn't been stagnant in terms of physical development.

However, Xiang Kun's records in the police system revealed to Mr. Liang that Xiang Kun was a person with a sense of justice and responsibility.

The incidents Xiang Kun knows how to use his strength correctly and with restraint. He dares to act but also knows when to stop, and he abides by social rules and actively maintains social order.

This improved Mr. Liang's impression of Xiang Kun even further.

Upon arriving at the Xiang Kun had purchased, Mr. Liang, knowing no one was home, simply stuck his finger into the keyhole and used his convertible "mechanical universal lock" to open the door.

If there were other people in the hallway at that moment, they would have noticed that Xiang Kun's security door had simply opened by itself.

Mr. Liang, who was invisible, walked around the room, observing his surroundings.

He discovered the few pieces of boxwood that Xiang Kun had left over from making wood carvings, the carving knives and various tools, and the Eight-Armed Eight-Eyed Wooden Carving in the cabinet.

This wood carving is exactly the same as the one Feng Xiuye showed to Old Du.

Mr. Liang had a feeling that everything was as expected, and that everything was going according to plan.

He glanced at the mainframes in the bedroom, thought for a moment, then opened the window. A moment later, a drone flew in.

Mr. Liang took the drone to a host computer and pulled out a data cable to connect it to the USB port.

Soon, "Tai'e" found a file encrypted with MD5. "Tai'e" automatically used a rainbow table brute-force attack to decrypt it, and luckily, it only took a few minutes to decrypt it.

Then Mr. Liang unexpectedly discovered that the file was actually Xiang Kun's self-data record since the first day of his mutation.

This was an unexpected bonus. Mr. Liang no longer needed to deduce Xiang Kun's mutation process based on various clues; this guy had simply memorized all the detailed data himself.

Looking at the record file that not only contained detailed data but also included pictures and videos, Mr. Liang, still in stealth mode, grinned from ear to ear, shaking his head with a smile and muttering to himself:

"It's really interesting that programmers have become 'Blood-feeding Creature'."

Upon seeing Xiang Kun's records, it became clear that, except for the first mutation when he drank chicken blood, he consistently used rabbit blood to complete his blood-drinking period. Moreover, he would only start drinking blood when he felt hungry and stop when he no longer felt hungry. This further improved Mr. Liang's impression of Xiang Kun.

However, when Mr. Liang saw that Xiang Kun had discovered a way to guide mutations and improve certain fixed abilities through intentional training, similar to fitness, he couldn't help but let out a soft "hmm." It wasn't that the discovery itself was strange, but Xiang Kun the training execution and results that followed were astonishing.

He then discovered that Xiang Kun's blood-drinking period was actually controlled very regularly, with blood-drinking occurring once every five days. Each time he drank blood, he was asleep for almost the same amount of time, and the increase in the amount of blood he drank was also gradual and very stable.

Mr. Liang had a strange feeling, as if the mutation that transformed Xiang Kun into a "Blood-feeding Creature" and the collection of "High-Dimensional Factor" were changing Xiang Kun's body while also being trained by Xiang Kun, falling into some kind of pattern and habit, and they were influencing each other.

"Interesting..."

The file also recorded Xiang Kun's consumption of other "Blood-feeding Creature," including a "Giant Owl" and a "mutant spider."

Xiang Kun also described the special connection he had with the wood carving he created, and how he unintentionally used the wood carving to frighten Tang Baona's maternal grandfather, uncle, and Old Du in his dreams.

He described how he discovered that the wooden carving could manipulate people's emotions and create hallucinations while they were awake, and how he used this method to influence Qi Haoguo in Tongshi Town, then went to Myanmar to rescue Xia Tianhuo who had been kidnapped, and incidentally prevented a riot in Montamira.

While looking at the document recorded by Xiang Kun, Mr. Liang also looked at the investigation materials from Fang Pingfang and Zhao Feng through the tablet delivered by the drone. He compared and verified the two to piece together the true situation.