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Chapter Three: Analyzing the Situation

Xiang Kun vigorously rubbed his face and arm, quickly scraping off the hardened layer of dead skin to reveal the new, smooth skin underneath.

He tugged at his hair and it came out in large clumps as if it had been simply glued on his head.

After taking a bath and scrubbing his whole body, Xiang Kun stood in front of the mirror again. What he saw was a noticeably younger version of himself. Aside from his baldness and regrowing set of teeth, which looked a bit strange, he looked quite different.

He wrapped the rotting and somewhat stinking chicken carcass in a few layers of garbage bags. After cleaning up the mess of chicken feathers and blood all over the house, Xiang Kun sat down on the only chair in the room, deep in thought about the chain of events that have happened to him.

No doubt, everything started on Thursday night when he got drunk. When he woke up, his body began to show anomalies.

He lost his appetite for normal food and would vomit anything he ate. Yet, he felt an inexplicable thirst for animal blood, even to the point of purchasing a live chicken to drink from its severed neck.

Although he remembered the process of buying the chicken, killing it, and drinking its blood quite clearly, he felt at the time like he was driven by primal instincts and hunger, unable to control himself.

Now, after drinking chicken blood and sleeping the entire day, he discovered that his skin had shed a layer, all his hair fell out, and all his teeth were falling out to be replaced by new ones. While taking his shower, he noticed that all his fingernails had also fallen off to reveal a layer of tender new nails growing underneath.

Unless it was all hallucinations, this clearly was not the result of being hungover, inflamed, or sleep-deprived. Neither was it any disease he had ever heard of or witnessed.

Scenes from various novels and films he had seen in the past flashed through his mind and then froze on three words:

Vampire.

If someone told Xiang Kun he would become a vampire before last Thursday, he would definitely think that person was either insane or a fraud.

Yet at this moment, as he reckons with his current situation and his past experiences, these three words uncontrollably filled his mind.

He opened his laptop and searched for his symptoms online. Predictably, he didn’t find any “scientific” explanation. Diseases like Pica, Rabies, and Porphyria did not align well with his symptoms, especially the inexplicable regrowth of his teeth and the shedding of his skin.

As a programmer, using a VPN to access Google was basic protocol, but even when he searched on the wider Internet with English keywords, he only found unrealistic folklore and no case that matched his symptoms exactly.

Now what to do?

Go see a doctor?

Undeniably, clinical examinations and professional medical procedures would be helpful to understand his condition better.

But what would he say to the doctor? That after a heavy drinking session, he suddenly couldn’t tolerate normal food and whatever he ate was spat back out. But he found a liking for drinking chicken blood, and after a long sleep post blood-feast, his skin and teeth underwent transformation, and he lost all his hair?

Assuming that what he has is a disease, not finding any relevant case online could only mean:

First, he might be the first person to contract this disease.

Second, previous cases could have been deliberately hidden, and never made public.

Regardless of what the actual scenario was, if Xiang Kun sought medical attention, he was very likely to become a subject of intensive monitoring, and he could potentially be “protectively” stripped of his freedom.

At that time, he might not have to worry about medical bills, but the hospital or any other institution’s main concern might not be to save his life or cure him, but to investigate the disease he contracted.

After careful consideration, he decided not to go to the hospital, at least not until he could no longer control the deterioration of his “condition”, or his life was endangered.

Of course, this was a risk. If it was indeed a life-threatening disease, he might be missing the best time for treatment.

Xiang Kun opened a new Word document on his laptop, put on his glasses, and was about to start typing when he felt a little dizzy. The screen images seemed a little distorted.

He removed his glasses and the dizziness immediately disappeared. Understanding what was happening, Xiang Kun pulled the curtains open slightly and looked at the words on a distant billboard. He could now see a few ad slogans that were previously blurry without his glasses. Although his nearsightedness is still apparent, his eyesight had improved significantly.

Having faced the conditions of his teeth and skin before, Xiang Kun immediately recognized that this was also part of the “symptoms”.

After licking his teeth with his tongue, Xiang Kun went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. He found that his teeth had grown noticeably from when he woke up at 4 to now, almost around 6. Over the span of more than an hour, his teeth had re-grown significantly. With this speed, he might not have to wait until tomorrow morning for his teeth to look like their original shape, and the cavities of the past were also healed.

Xiang Kun sat back in front of his computer and started typing on the document:

Assume the factor causing all bodily changes is X.

First, possible causes of X:

1, Something was wrong with what I ate or drank at the snack stall on the evening of July 11th.

2, A genetic disease that was triggered by external stimuli, such as alcohol.

3, Infection by a virus or bacteria from other sources, such as being bitten by an insect.

4, Something unknown happened after I got home drunk and fell asleep.

5, Other possibilities.

Second, the bodily changes caused by X:

1, Full body skin renewal, resulting in healthier and smoother skin, disappearance of old scars, teeth and nail renewal, complete hair loss, significant improvement in nearsightedness.

2, Loss of appetite for normal food, immediate vomiting after eating anything.

3, Unexplained bloodlust, attraction to the scent of blood, inciting intense hunger, and driving the body to consume blood. Drinking blood results in feelings of satisfaction and drowsiness.

4, Other yet unexplored causes of changes.

Third, how to deal with X:

1, Investigate the causes of X.

2, Record the bodily changes and find the cause and trend of changes.

3, Solve the issue of eating.

Looking at the document he had laid out, Xiang Kun stroked his chin. Most of the changes that had occurred in his body seemed to be beneficial. Even if the hair loss was permanent, it wouldn’t have a major impact.

If he were to describe his condition according to gaming terminology, the changes his body was going through were mostly BUFFs, not DEBUFFs.

Except for the matter of food.

Living beings need to eat to survive, or they will die without the necessary energy. Since the evening of July 11th until today, July 15th, he hadn’t eaten anything other than drinking chicken blood, because no matter what he ate, it all came right back up.

He didn’t believe that such a small amount of fresh blood provided all the energy he needed to survive.

Xiang Kun poured himself a cup of lukewarm water. Ten minutes after drinking it, there were no reactions in his stomach. It seemed that his stomach was not rejecting the water.

With this, he found the previously bought carton of pure milk at home – half of which was still remaining – poured it into a cup, and gulled it down.

Twenty seconds later, Xiang Kun rushed to the bathroom and vomited it all out.