What It’s Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 21: New Feelings

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

Xiang Kun opened his window and listened to the sounds outside more clearly. The noise level and amount of noise made him extremely uncomfortable and his ears began to ring.

Apart from sounds, different strong smells almost caused him to start crying and his nose almost began to run.

Xiang Kun quickly closed his window and frowned. Weren’t the improvements to his smell and hearing too drastic?

If they were so sensitive, wouldn’t living in the city be torture?

Thankfully, his worry did not last long. After forcing himself to get used to it, Xiang Kun realized that the effects of his sensitive hearing and smell were not so bad.

The senses would only be activated if he focused on any of them specifically.

It was like how his sense of hearing had improved after drinking blood the second time. However, if he did not close his eyes on the rooftop that night, he would not have noticed this skill.

The human brain would filter the information obtained by the different sensory organs and only keep those that humans wanted or needed.

Compared to the improvement in strength, sight, or lung capacity, it was more difficult to track the improvement in hearing and smell. One would probably need special equipment.

Xiang Kun closed his eyes in his room and began to focus his attention on sounds as he received different sounds.

After Xiang Kun’s hearing improved tremendously, there were major changes to the sounds he received and his deduction about time. Not only had the volume of the sounds increased, it was now difficult for him to make out all the different sources of noises.

After a while, Xiang Kun began to feel dizzy and nauseous. He quickly opened his eyes and took a deep breath to distract himself.

Perhaps he was not used to the improvement to his sense of hearing?

However, thinking back to the feeling he had earlier on, he realized that it was not because of his hearing, but rather because he could not get used to the overwhelming information his brain was receiving.

The human brain always slacked off. Of course, this slacking off was actually a self-protection method.

Sensory organs were always receiving information. However, this information would undergo “selection”. Most of the time, we see, listen, smell, and feel much more than we think we do.

It was like looking at optical illusions. People do not realize the strangeness when they first look at it but see them after seeing hints. Actually, they had been looking at the strange parts all along. but the human brain neglected those parts.

Yet now, although Xiang Kun’s sensory organs had improved and were receiving way more information, the processing of this information by the brain had not improved enough. After all, when he was training earlier on, he had not received as much information in one go.

Therefore, after resting, Xiang Kun decided to only focus on individual sounds.

…

Within the car horns, yells, and music, Xiang Kun carefully eliminated the sounds and chose the sound that was closest to him…

Drip, drip. Was it the sound of his tap in the bathroom? No, it was not his tap, it was the tap from his neighbor.

The sound of water flowing in the pipes could be heard. The person living above him had flushed the toilet and the water was flushed down the pipes.

There were sounds of gunshots? Was the young man upstairs watching a movie or playing a game?

He heard chatting sounds. It seemed to be a female voice. However, it was so soft that he could not make out the contents clearly.

…

Xiang Kun walked out of his own room and walked along the corridor with his eyes narrowed. Then he walked down the stairs and looked for the source of the voice.

He had been training this noise tracking ability a few days ago. It seemed like the effects were pretty good.

After a few minutes, Xiang Kun finally found the source of the voice. It was not in his block. It was coming from the block opposite of his, and it was the voice of the daughter of the shop’s boss when she made a phone call.

Xiang Kun was standing at the other side of the road and was more than ten meters away from the shop. The daughter of the shop’s boss was on the second level. He could not see her and there was also a wall separating them.

However, Xiang Kun could hear the contents of the conversation.

At this moment, the entire world seemed to be muted apart from the sound of the conversation.

However, this required Xiang Kun to focus his attention. If he got distracted—for example, if the boss greeted him—the sound of the boss’ daughter would become blurred. That was because different sounds from different places would immediately fill his brain.

However, Xiang Kun was still very surprised by the improvement in his hearing.

The scale of improvement had far surpassed his expectations.

After all, when he was training his strength earlier on, the improvements made after drinking blood twice were still within the normal limits. Apart from the strange recovery speed and endurance, his strength had not exceeded the limits of ordinary people.

Yet now, after five days of training, Xiang Kun’s hearing had far surpassed that of an ordinary person. He did not believe that an ordinary person could reach that level from training.

However, Xiang Kun speculated that perhaps the improvement on his sensory organs were not as great. It was probably just because their original abilities were not fully displayed.

Xiang Kun walked around in the night, just like how he had a few nights ago. He was experimenting with the improvements in his hearing and smell.

Initially, he was worried and fearful of the changes in his body. Yet now, he was curious and excited about them.

After realizing that his life was not in danger, although there were some inconveniences, the improvement brought about by the changes to his body made Xiang Kun feel excited. After all, if his bodily functions were going to change, he should change them based on his desires.

For the next few nights, Xiang Kun walked about the streets every night and familiarized himself with the dozens of streets nearby. However, when he was strolling one night, he felt unusually different. It was the same feeling he had when he first went out a few days ago for a night stroll.