Xiang Kun had gained the upper hand in the death battle with the owl. Hence, in the subsequent close combat, the owl was only struggling to stay alive most of the time. Although Xiang Kun also suffered some injuries—his bones were broken and his skin had been torn by the sharp claws—it was almost just a little “scratch” for him.
After killing the owl, Xiang Kun yielded to his temptations and started sucking blood from the owl’s wounds.
Without a measuring cup, Xiang Kun had no idea how much he had drunk. But he knew it was a large amount.
He didn’t even know how he had fallen asleep in the end.
In fact, Xiang Kun was not surprised to see the owl vanish after its death. It hadn’t even left any traces of blood behind. Xiang Kun had more or less expected this to happen after he saw the bird’s feather disappear into thin air.
He knew that the giant owl was probably a mutated creature just like himself. When Xiang Kun’s flesh was removed from his body, it would turn into fine ashes before long. Hence, he speculated that the same might have happened to the dead owl.
The ashes would disperse in the air with a light blow of the wind. Then it would be effectively identical to normal dust.
Xiang Kun inspected his own body. His clothes were tattered, but his body was intact. All of his wounds had recovered during his sleep.
Furthermore, he could clearly sense the significant improvement in his bodily functions. With a simple clench of his fist, he could feel a flush of strength from his muscles. His control over individual muscle groups had enhanced too, which was another indicator of his evolved muscles. There was no need to rely on physical measurements to tell that he had become much stronger.
Even more noticeable was the improvement in his hearing and sense of smell. In the past, he had to concentrate fully to discern the types and sources of sounds and smells. But now he could capture them effortlessly so long as he wanted to. He was now in full control of his senses as he wished.
Apparently, the giant owl’s blood had made a significant contribution to that. It was much more effective than rabbit blood or any other animal’s blood.
He was suddenly reminded of Chang Bin’s advice to him when they were training at the gym: “You are what to eat.”
To maximize the results of targeted training, sufficient intake of specific nutrients was of great importance too.
Xiang Kun did not examine his body any further. He decided to leave the place first.
Before that, he had something to do.
As he searched for possible remains of the owl, Xiang Kun picked up his own belongings.
Shoes, keys, a broken phone, a flashlight, a Swiss Army knife, and some torn fabric from his clothes. He even managed to find the screwdriver hidden in the grass by tracking its smell.
Xiang Kun checked his body again. There were no blood stains, though he was quite dirty. The dried blood from the fight earlier had turned to dust and thus was easily removable.
His pants were mostly intact, and he had found his shoes too. Hence, Xiang Kun briefly cleaned off the dirt, leaves, and grass on his body and ran home, pretending he had just returned from a morning run.
It was not Xiang Kun’s first time going home topless. The previous time was before sunrise, so no one had seen him other than the security guard. This time, however, it was morning, so naturally Xiang Kun bumped into many residents who were leaving their houses. As a result, he attracted much attention from those around him. Some ladies even had their eyes fixed on Xiang Kun’s upper body for a long time despite their disapproving facial expressions.
Admittedly, Xiang Kun was very muscular, though his body shape was not as attractive as those of low-body-fat professional bodybuilders. Rather, he looked more like a basketball player or a boxer. The lines of his abs were not clear either. He didn’t have the legendary eight-pack. Instead, his stomach was more like a curved steel plate. His back didn’t quite satisfy the “inverted triangle” criterion either, though his shoulders were strong and wide, and his waist was thick.
Everyone could feel the strength exuding from his body. This was based on any living creature’s biological instinct, not from the perspective of aesthetics.
As he jogged into the estate, he greeted the elder security guard with a nod as the latter had been staring at him for a long time. When he was running past the gate, the security guard asked, “Sir, did you go to the lakeside again?”
Xiang Kun was puzzled why the guard had asked that question. He stopped and replied, “I went for a morning run, but not by the lake.” The previous time, he had purposely jumped into the lake and came back with his body covered in mud. But it wasn’t the case this time.
The guard laughed. “I see. Earlier today, Li told me that you fell into the lake by accident last night. So I thought you had gone there again for a run in the morning… It’s pretty dangerous there, at the lake. It may look shallow, but the mud is deep. It may suck people in like a marshland. So please be careful, even if you are a good swimmer…” All of the security guards could recognize Xiang Kun’s conspicuous bald head even though he was new to the estate.
Something in the guard’s words caught Xiang Kun’s attention.
“Last night?”
Though confused, Xiang Kun didn’t ask further. He simply replied, “Sure. Thanks. I’ll be more careful next time.”
After he reached home, Xiang Kun dashed to his laptop and shot a glance at the date and time in the bottom right corner of the screen.
8:15 AM
August 11, 2019
Xiang Kun frowned. It was midnight of 11th August when he returned home after the first encounter with the giant owl by the lake.
At 2 AM, he had gone out again.
At 4 AM, he had found the giant owl.
It was then that the fight occurred. However, he was uncertain about the time he had killed the owl and drank its blood, because his phone was broken.
But he estimated it to be around 5 AM, or even earlier.
Judging from the angle of the sunlight when he woke up, it should have been around 6:30 AM then.
This meant he had only slept for about one and a half hours after feeding!
When Xiang Kun just woke up, he thought it was the morning of August 12th. After all, he had always slept for 25 hours in the past.
In fact, he wouldn’t even be surprised if he had only woken up 48 hours later, since he had drunk so much blood.
Unexpectedly, though, his sleep was so short!
That reminded him of the previous time he fed on rabbit blood. That time, he slept despite the strong hunger, and ended up sleeping for 32 hours straight, much more than the average amount of 25 hours.
Hence, Xiang Kun guessed that he would need less sleep if the blood was of higher quality and a larger amount.
If that was the case, could he be replenishing his energy by sleeping when he didn’t draw enough from his blood intake?
In other words, if he refused to feed when he was starving, could a long sleep solve the issue?
But based on the experiment he had done last time about how long he could endure hunger, the hunger disappeared after 22 hours, followed by increasingly stronger anxiety and no sleepiness. Could it be because he hadn’t endured long enough?
Should he redo the “experiment” again by isolating himself from any possible sources of blood?
Xiang Kun thought it over and decided that it could wait, because he had more things on his priority list now. He was also worried that he might fall into a prolonged slumber of up to a few months, which could cause him unpredictable troubles. It might also harm his body or affect the way his body would change.