Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
Xiang Kun’s apartment consisted of two bedrooms and a living room, and it was only 70 square meters in size. His balcony was not spacious, or rather, it could be called tiny.
However, one good thing about his apartment was the great view. One could see the mountains in the distance as the house was located far from any tall buildings.
Instead of sitting on a chair, Xiang Kun was lying directly on the tiles in the balcony. Of course, he had cleaned the floor thoroughly beforehand.
At night, Xiang Kun’s body was in its optimal state. His senses had improved significantly after the past three feeding sessions and his targeted training in between.
However, due to facility constraints, he was unable to quantify his progress. He had tried to test his hearing using a mobile app that could produce sounds with frequencies between 1kHz and 22kHz, but that was insufficient to show any conclusive results of how his hearing had improved in general, other than measuring the range of sounds audible to him. He had also tried to measure the maximum distance from which he could hear a fixed source of sound, but this method required a stable and undisturbed environment, which was hard to achieve.
Similarly, he was unable to accurately measure the extent to which his sense of smell had sharpened.
Lying on the balcony floor, Xiang Kun closed his eyes and relaxed himself, concentrating all of his attention primarily on his hearing, and secondly on smell.
All of a sudden, all sorts of sounds rushed in like a flood discharge, mingled together with the smells.
The human brain has a well-developed mechanism for analyzing external information for protective purposes. At the same time, it saves some hassle too.
When one’s attention is not focused on the sound and the smell, all the signals received by the ears and the nose are selectively filtered out by the brain.
The reverse is true too. Concentrating on some aspects inevitably leads to limited reception of others.
However, how to analyze the sensory input is yet another story.
For example, imagine a car whizzing past your window.
If you notice the sound, a picture of a car driving past your house at high speeds may subconsciously emerge in your mind.
This happens because you are familiar with the road outside your house and the sound of cars. You’ve seen how cars drive on the road outside your house.
But for people who are more familiar with the sounds of different engines and exhaust pipes, they can even tell whether the car has a four or six-cylinder engine, whether it’s a Ford or Toyota, a diesel-fueled truck or a sports car. The image in their brain will be more detailed too.
Nevertheless, when you hear footsteps upstairs when you are at home, you are able to visualize more concrete pictures of what’s actually happening. If you hear the sound of clicking high heels and you have not met your neighbors upstairs, you may imagine a young lady walking around with her long, beautiful legs in a pair of high heels. But if you know that the tenant upstairs is a middle-aged woman, you’ll be able to “see” her walking around in heels when the footsteps occur.
Briefly speaking, our brains are capable of filling in the blanks using an existing “database” of experiences, logic, and intuition.
Hence, gathering sensory information and making use of it to assist with the decision-making of the brain are two completely different issues.
Xiang Kun had decided to lie on the floor because it, together with the walls, were the main propagation medium of sound other than air in a building made of concrete and steel bars. When he was in direct contact with the floor, it was easier for him to hear all sorts of sounds in the entire building.
Initially, the noises were indiscernible and all mixed together. Xiang Kun slowly differentiated them by sifting out the sounds nearest to him first. It was downstairs, Room 608. Judging from the sound, there seemed to be a middle-aged couple discussing their son, who was about to head northward for university. In the background, their TV was broadcasting the most recent news.
Further away, the next door was in complete silence. There were no footsteps, no sounds of electric appliances, no talking, and no breathing, only the rustling of curtains in the wind. He deduced that the occupant of the apartment had yet to return, and that the window was left open.
Then he heard the chubby girl, Liu Shiling’s, voice. They had met earlier in the day and he knew that she lived in apartment 706.
Judging from the noise, the girl was at home with her mom, who was urging her daughter to take a shower. But the girl was watching cartoons and was reluctant to move.
Xiang Kun continued to discern the noises he heard and made judgments from there.
When he heard footsteps, he could roughly know where the person was in the house and how they were moving. He made those deductions based on the internal structure of his own apartment and other familiar sounds, such as the sound of turning water taps, igniting the oven, picking up cups, and switching on electric devices.
At the same time, his sense of smell complemented his judgement. For instance, when he heard the clang of a wok with food sizzling inside, he employed his sense of smell to determine what the person was cooking. He could even make a rough guess about the flavor.
Furthermore, he could be even more certain about locating something accurately with information gathered from the two senses together.
As time tickled by, more and more households became quiet. Many of them switched off their lights as the night grew thick.
When it was past 1 AM, Xiang Kun finally opened his eyes. He sat up and stretched.
By then, he had “visited” every household in the block using sound and smell. Although the only person he could name was Shiling from 706, he had virtually met all of them that night. He had even stumbled across some secrets.
Certainly, though, Xiang Kun had no intention to probe into other people’s privacy. He had done it solely for training purposes.
Just like how he had started to improve his stamina and agility after he had become more muscular, he had to train his brain in analyzing the sensory inputs more efficiently with his senses now sharpened enough.
Now, imagine two professional athletes with the same weight and similar muscle mass. When they generate force, the outcome is different due to the different sports they partake in, their training regimes, and the way they use their strength. For instance, the punch from a professional boxer is definitely harder than one from a basketball player, while the latter can certainly perform better on the basketball court than the former.
Hence, Xiang Kun knew that it was absolutely crucial to know how to tap on his powerful senses to solve problems. To do so, he needed practice.
And the first stage was to collect samples of sounds and smells that he had not encountered before. This was to enrich his “database” and convert them to his instincts. He was already halfway through this.
The second stage was what he was doing right now, which was analyzing his surroundings using the sound and smell information he had gathered. They would then become his “super eye”.
Although it took him six hours to finish exploring just one building, he might only need less than two seconds after he was sufficiently proficient at this. By then, he might be able to construct a real-time holographic image of the entire block as soon as he caught a glimpse of the smell or sound of anyone in the building.
Xiang Kun had realized that his brain was evolving together with his other senses. At the very least, when he immersed himself in the sea of sounds, he no longer felt nauseous and light-headed like how he used to in the beginning.
The next morning, Xiang Kun went out at 7:30 AM with his sports bag on his back. He was going to the gym. Actually, his apartment was very far from the gym – he had to transfer to the bus after taking the metro, and the entire journey would take at least 40-50 minutes. But he had no intention of switching to another gym, because his membership could not be refunded.
He wasn’t planning on taking the public transport either. In fact, he wanted to run there, which was another form of training too.
In the corridor, he bumped into Shiling, who was heading out too. Behind her stood a plump lady who had certain facial resemblance with the girl. She was probably Shiling’s mom.
“Mr. Bald Head!” Shiling called out as she ran towards Xiang Kun.
Her mom was instantly embarrassed by her daughter’s impolite remark. She immediately came up and apologized, “I’m sorry. My girl is being rude. Are you the new tenant at 708? We are neighbors from now on. Please do not hesitate to ask me if you need any help!”
As the girl went to press the elevator button, Xiang Kun had a short chat with Shiling’s mom. He then learned that the family had just moved in earlier in the year, and that they had bought the apartment. Shiling’s father was an engineer, and he was always away from home. Shiling’s mom was a housewife, who spent most of her time and energy taking care of their only child.
Xiang Kun briefly introduced himself too. He said that he had been a programmer for seven years, but he didn’t reveal that he was unemployed at the moment.
There were two elevators in each unit. Before long, one of them came down from upstairs.
With a ding-dong, the elevator door opened to reveal a dog’s head. The dog looked as if he was about to lunge forward, which gave Shiling a sudden scare. Terrified, the girl stumbled backwards, but she was caught in time by Xiang Kun before she fell.
Xiang Kun looked up to see a young lady in her 20s, pulling the other end of the strap attached to the adult husky. Clearly in high spirits, the dog wanted to dash out as soon as the elevator door opened. Since the girl was using her phone, she was almost unable to retrain her dog.
“Pinkie! PINKIE! STOP! DON’T MOVE!” The girl chided her dog loudly as she pulled on the leash with both hands.
But the husky didn’t listen to her and kept attempting to go out. Meanwhile, Shiling was still hugging Xiang Kun’s thighs as she hid quietly behind him, apparently still in shock.
Shiling’s mom knew the girl. She frowned and said, “Miss Yang, you need to watch over your dog well. The elevator is small, yet your dog is so huge. What if he hurt my girl? She’s so young and defenseless…”
Pulling the leash, Miss Yang replied without even looking up, “Don’t worry. Pinkie just loves to play with kids. He doesn’t bite! Besides, he can’t go far with the leash… PINKIE! STOP! SIT! NOW!”
Clearly, it was not the first time Shiling’s mom had complained to Miss Yang. Knowing that it was no use, she turned to Xiang Kun and said, “We’ll wait for the next one. You can go down first.”
However, Xiang Kun walked in while holding Shiling’s hand.
At first, the little girl was still a bit scared and unwilling to enter. Suddenly, the husky hid behind Miss Yang, pressing his head against the elevator wall and trembling, as though he had lost all of his energy.
Xiang Kun turned to Shiling’s mom and said, “It’s alright. Come on in.”