What It’s Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 3: Analysis of Current Situation

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

Xiang Kun rubbed the skin on his face and arms. The hardened, dead skin quickly fell off and a new, smooth skin was shown.

He scratched his head and his hair fell off easily as though it had been stuck onto his head.

After showering and scrubbing his entire body, Xiang Kun stood in front of the mirror again. He looked much younger, apart from the awkward-looking bald head and a mouth with incompletely grown teeth, which made him look weird.

Xiang Kun wrapped the dead chicken, which had a foul smell, in a few layers of plastic bags before throwing it into the trash bin. Then he cleaned up the chicken feathers and blood in his house. After that, he sat down on the only chair in his room and began to think about what had happened to him.

Without any doubt, everything had started last Thursday night after he had gotten drunk. Ever since he had woken up, his body had been strange.

He had no appetite for ordinary food and would vomit after eating. However, he was strangely thirsty for animal blood and had bought a live chicken to drink its blood.

Although he could remember buying the chicken, killing it, and drinking its blood clearly, he felt as though his body had been out of his control and he had been operating on instinct.

Now, after sleeping for another day, his skin had shedded, all of his hair had fallen off, and all of his teeth had fallen off and regrown. Earlier on, when he was showering, he realized that his fingernails and toenails had fallen off as well and that a new, thin layer of nails was growing.

Unless all of this was a hallucination, they were definitely not caused by being drunk, being hot, or having insufficient sleep. He also had not seen or heard of such an illness before.

Based on the stories from novels and films, he came to a conclusion.

Vampire.

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

Yet now, from the changes on his body and his past experiences, he thought of this word uncontrollably.

He took out his laptop and searched his symptoms on the search engines. As expected, there was no “scientific” explanation. The symptoms for pica, rabies, and porphyria were extremely different from his symptoms and could not explain why his teeth had regrown and he had shedded his skin.

As a programmer, using a VPN to use GOOGLE was easy for him. However, even when he used English to access foreign websites, he only managed to find some unreliable information and could not find any illnesses with the same symptoms as his.

What should he do now?

See a doctor?

The equipment in the hospital and diagnoses of professionals would definitely be helpful for him to figure out what was happening to his body.

However, what should he tell the doctor? “After I got wasted, I was suddenly unable to eat like a normal person and vomited everything I ate. However, I started to enjoy drinking chicken blood and fell asleep after drinking it. When I woke up, my skin shed, and all of my teeth changed, and all my hair fell?”

If he was ill, he could not find any relevant illnesses on the internet. This meant that:

Either he was the first person to get such an illness.

Or the past cases had been intentionally undisclosed.

No matter what, if Xiang Kun went to the hospital, he could possibly become a person under surveillance and lose his freedom due to “protection”.

Although he probably would not need to care about medical fees, the priority of the hospital or organizations might not be to protect his life and cure him, but instead to study his illness.

Therefore, after consideration, he decided not to head to the hospital unless his “illness” worsened uncontrollably or if his life was in danger.

However, he was taking a risk. If it was an illness that was life-threatening, he could miss the best time for treatment.

Xiang Kun created a new word document on his laptop and put on his glasses. He was ready to type before he felt dizzy and the screen became blurry.

Xiang Kun removed his glasses and immediately figured out what had happened. He opened his curtains and looked out of his window at the words on the signboard far away. He remembered that in the past, he could not see the words if he did not wear his glasses, but now, he could see them clearly without them. Although he was evidently still short-sighted, his vision had improved tremendously.

After the symptoms with his teeth and skin, Xiang Kun immediately realized that this was also one of the “symptoms”.

After licking his teeth with his tongue, Xiang Kun went to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. He realized that in slightly more than an hour’s time, his teeth had grown. Based on this speed, perhaps he would not need to wait until the next morning—his teeth would grow back to their original shape, and his cavity was gone.

Xiang Kun sat back in front of the laptop and started typing on the word document.

Let X be the reason for all the changes in his body.

I. Reasons for X:

1. Something was wrong with the alcohol or food he consumed on the night of the 11th of July;

2. His genetic disease had acted up after an external trigger like alcohol;

3. Other transmission sources like germs, for example, or being bitten by insects;

4. After he fell asleep when he got home, something that he could not remember happened;

5. Others.

II. The changes in his body caused by X.

1. Shedding of skin. His new skin was healthier and younger and his previous scar had disappeared, he had a new set of teeth and nails, all of his hair had fallen, and his vision had improved tremendously;

2. He could not ingest food normally and would vomit after eating;

3. He had an unexplainable impulse to drink blood and was attracted to the scent of blood. After smelling blood, he would feel extremely hungry and would find blood to drink. After drinking blood, he would feel satisfied and sleepy;

4. Changes that remained undetected.

III. How to deal with X:

1. Investigate the reason behind X;

2. Record the changes in his body and find out about the reason and trends of this change;

3. Solve the problem of eating.

After looking at his document, Xiang Kun held his chin and realized that most of the changes that had happened to his body were beneficial. Even if his hair did not grow out, it would not affect him as much.

If he used terms from a game to describe whatever that was happening to him, the changes to his body were mostly BUFFs instead of DEBUFFs.

Except for the eating problem.

A person had to eat or else he would not have the energy required to remain alive and would die. However, from the night of July 11th to July 15th, apart from drinking chicken blood, he had not eaten anything else as he would vomit everything he ate.

He did not think that the amount of blood he had consumed could provide him with the energy he needed to live.

Xiang Kun poured a cup of warm water for himself. After drinking it for ten minutes, there was no reaction in his stomach. Clearly, his stomach did not have any reaction to water.

Therefore, he looked for the remaining half carton of milk in his house and drank all of it in one gulp.

After 20 seconds, Xiang Kun ran towards the toilet and vomited everything out.