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Chapter Seventy-Seven: Suppressing Vomiting

As Xiang Kun stood at his own doorstep, hearing the conversation between Shiling’s Mom and Tang Baona in the elevator, he knew he was in trouble.

As expected, Tang Baona, who stayed downstairs, called him a few dozen seconds later.

“I only started trying to cook recently and I can only make two dishes now.”

“A neighbor gave me some homemade snacks. Since I just cooked a dish, I thought it would be nice to give them some as a return gift.”

“She’s just being nice when she said my dishes are better than those in restaurants. As a newbie, there’s no way I can outdo them.”

“A chef? You’re joking. Up until this month, the number of times I’ve cooked doesn’t even reach two digits.”

“As for why it’s rabbit meat? I just happened to stumble upon a rabbit meat recipe online and thought I’d give it a try.”

“Sure, if you dare to try my dish, I can prepare it in advance next time and you can be my guinea pigs. But don’t blame me if it tastes bad.”

“Not eating rabbit meat? Why? It’s really good and it’s the only dish I know how to make right now… alright, I’ll try cooking beef next time.”

“Tonight? I can’t do it tonight. I haven’t prepared anything and I have something to do later. Let’s reschedule. I need to look up and try some beef recipes first…”

After hanging up the phone, Xiang Kun returned to his home.

Indeed, it was logically speaking, he had been hanging out regularly with Tang Baona, Yang Zhen’er, and Xia Libing, and they were now his friends. If he could cook for his neighbors then he should also cook for his friends—especially after they directly asked for it.

Of course, Xiang Kun would still forcefully refuse if he really didn’t want to.

But after waking up from his blood-drinking period this time, he had been considering going back home to live with his parents for a while, he couldn’t continue not eating normally.

After his sudden mutation, he was more concerned about survival initially, then focused on training and guiding the mutation to enhance his abilities. He didn’t think too much about how to interact with others because he was living alone after being laid off, hence he could avoid many problems.

Now, however, it seemed that he was not going to die soon, whether he had turned into a “vampire” or some other being, so he should consider some future matters.

There were three main challenges to interacting with others now: the constant blood-drinking period, needing to sleep for about 25 hours after blood-drinking and the inability to ingest anything other than water.

The first issue could be solved if he had a private space. Drinking blood took very little time and was not too frequent, roughly once every six days. He just needed to ensure nobody saw him during the process.

The second issue, he could blame on work or gaming. Even before the mutation, he sometime slept for 15-16 hours straight after staying up all night gaming or coding. As long as he gave a heads-up before sleeping, even in his parents’ house, he would not be disturbed.

The third issue was relatively more difficult to deal with.

When socializing with relatives, friends or family, it was almost impossible to dodge eating together.

Occasionally making excuses to abstain might work but in the long run, it would cause problems. The only exception was if he chose to go full hermit and cease all social contact.

But even if he were to embrace total isolation from the world, he could not abandon his parents. He couldn’t avoid regular contact or meals with his parents.

Of course, he had also thought about being honest with his parents about his situation. They would certainly keep things secret for him, cover for him, and do whatever they could to help him. His parents were the people he trusted more than anyone else in the world.

But he knew that if he did so, they would worry about him constantly.

His parents had been worrying and working hard for him for thirty years. He hoped that their later years could be more relaxed, rather than being haunted by the fear that their son could turn into a “monster” or die suddenly. As for how to suppress the vomiting after eating, Xiang Kun had a rough idea.

He had contemplated previously whether he could stop the vomiting by force,

i.e., eating food and then forcefully holding it in, not throwing up. By doing so, his stomach could evolve after his blood-drinking period so that food could stay for longer periods without throwing up.

But after trying, he found it impossible…

Vomiting is a process where the stomach and pylorus contract, the cardiac opening retracts, the abdominal muscles contract and the abdominal pressure increases. This pressure forces stomach contents to reflow violently from the stomach, through the oesophagus and out the mouth.

For most people, whether it’s from drinking too much, motion sickness or certain diseases, feelings of nausea usually precede vomiting. During the gut-wrenching contraction of the diaphragm and the abdominal muscles, there’s the urge to vomit. It’s possible to bear it for a while or to alleviate the nausea in other ways. However, once vomiting commences, it’s impossible to forcefully stop or suppress it.

For Xiang Kun, the transition from feeling nausea to the act of vomiting happened too quickly after eating, he couldn’t control the vomiting.

The outcome of ‘resisting’ forcefully was, at most, keeping his mouth closed tightly, not allowing food to fly out from his mouth after throwing up… But this was too conspicuous. Others would certainly notice if they were eating at the same table.

However, after exploring the burrow of a giant owl last time, Xiang Kun found a possible way to suppress sleepiness after blood-drinking— swallowing pebbles.

He figured that he could use the sensation of the pebble turning in his stomach and the associated vomiting feeling to stay awake.

The feeling of a pebble in the stomach is different than that of other food. He could vaguely and intermittently feel the shape of the pebble.

So when his stomach started to contract, he could use his perception of the pebble to control parts of his stomach, forcibly suppressing the contraction.

Although this was very painful, it effectively held back vomiting.

Xiang Kun believed that this was due to the change in the structure of the stomach after mutation. Before his mutation, swallowing a pebble would at most cause stomach ache due to digestive issues, not the clear perception of the pebble’s condition and shape in the stomach he has now, nor the ability to suppress vomiting through this sensation.

If the giant owl could do the same, it would prove that his stomach, which primarily digests fresh blood now, was the reason he could do this.

Xiang Kun first took the smooth pebbles he had bought before. After washing them, he swallowed them. Then he directly opened a 480ml bottle of Xiaoming’s Tea and drank it all at once—the drinks were bought for entertaining Tang Baona and the rest that day.

Xiang Kun reasoned that the process of vomiting wouldn’t discriminate what was in the stomach to be thrown up. Essentially, if he could suppress the pebble’s ejection during vomiting, he could suppress the vomiting impulse, then other things in the stomach should naturally also be able to stay.

Twenty seconds later.

“Blargh”

Xiang Kun forcefully spat out all the drink he just consumed, making a mess in

the kitchen.

In the end, he spat the pebble in his mouth into his hand.

Even though the attempt failed, Xiang Kun was not discouraged because right after the drink entered his stomach, he lost control of the sensation of the pebble in his stomach.

So, the experiment taught him not to consume too much liquid food. Then Xiang Kun opened the snacks he bought previously and continued his experiment..