After he left the cafe, Xiang Kun went to the supermarket to buy some groceries before he took a cab home.
In fact, the 20,000 yuan reward from the police was a totally unexpected income for him. Although it was not a huge sum, it was of great help for Xiang Kun, who had been unemployed for a whole month while having to pay for his housing loan.
There was even one moment when he imagined himself to be a bounty hunter, capturing fugitives and claiming rewards. He heard that this occupation still existed in foreign countries.
He didn’t really think it was a viable option for him, though, because his country certainly did not offer such jobs.
Despite his superhuman senses, which even surpassed the tracking abilities of hounds and patrol dogs, there was better surveillance equipment for chasing criminals, including high-resolution CCTVs, widely-used face recognition technologies, as well as policies that enforced real-name registration at all communications, transport, and accommodation facilities nationwide. Under this network, the entire societal system worked in favor of the police, allowing no chance for the lawbreakers to escape.
That time when Xiang Kun managed to track down the yellow-haired criminal using his smell was more due to luck, not his superior abilities.
From the talk he had with Officer Chen afterwards, he learned that it would’ve only been a matter of time before that man was caught by the police, and Xiang Kun had simply helped to bring the inevitable forward in time. Even though the guy had disguised himself by altering his looks and getting a fake ID, he wouldn’t be able to escape the police even if he hadn’t been caught by Xiang Kun back then.
Of course, even if there was really a vacancy for a bounty hunter, Xiang Kun wouldn’t sign himself up. He would risk exposing his special powers if he gained too much attention.
It was almost 8 PM when he reached home.
Xiang Kun first conducted an experiment. After he severely burned the tips of his left index and middle fingers, he removed the scalded flesh on his index finger with a knife.
Although this was not the first time he had done self-harm experiments, it was still extremely tortuous. The veins on his forehead bulged as he endured the continuous pain. However, he was relieved to notice that the pain was slightly more tolerable than the first time he burned himself.
Then he timed his regeneration speed. It took 8’58” and 10’04” respectively for his index and middle fingers to recover completely.
As expected, his body recovered faster with the scalded parts removed. Yet he was still slower than his original speed of 8’18”.
Regarding that, Xiang Kun suspected it was because the burn had reached deep inside his muscles, even including his knuckles. Hence, it might be hard to remove the burns completely unless he cut away his entire finger.
But Xiang Kun didn’t want to test that right now, because he wasn’t sure whether his fingers would grow back normally when cut.
After all, exact figures weren’t necessary for this experiment. It was useful enough to know that his regeneration speed would be faster with the scalded body parts removed.
Moreover, the time taken for his middle finger to recover was similar to his recovery rate after sunrise when his bodily functions were suppressed. In both cases, it was about 20% slower than his usual state.
Additionally, his recovery speed from burns was obviously related to his regeneration abilities from physical damage. After all, he had only burned himself once after his transformation, compared to the ample targeted “training” he had in response to knife cuts, including the two melees with the giant owl.
This further strengthened his theory that he recovered slower from burns than cuts probably because of the suppressive effects that burns had on his body.
But could it be a pure coincidence that his recovery speed from burns was almost identical to his suppressed regeneration rate from normal wounds after sunrise?
Or were they related after all?
Xiang Kun didn’t put much thought to it at the moment. He simply recorded his observations and decided to wait till later to examine them further. After he studied more about burns, he might be able to find an explanation for his suppressed abilities after sunrise.
At the same time, he learned an effective fighting technique against mutated creatures like himself – flames.
After that, Xiang Kun started to consolidate the training he had done at the cafe earlier that day. He noted down the “observation process” as well as his conclusions on the 39 targets and classified his findings.
He categorized “sensory information” into visual, hearing, and smells and added one point to the respective field with every piece of information he gathered.
Then he added another point in “relevant conclusion” if he could make meaningful interpretation with the sensory input.
As for this training, only inferences made regarding the target’s occupation and identity were considered as “relevant”.
For instance, in his observation of Lady 3, he used:
Perfume (Smell +1);
Words typed in the upper left corner of the laptop screen (Visual +1);
Ordered an original-flavored shortbread and a fruit salad (Hearing +1);
Looks and make-up (Visual +1);
Typing sound (Hearing +1).
And concluded that:
“Lady 3 is a writer (Relevant conclusion +1).”
Other information, such as the title of the book she was writing, her pen name, the passwords to her Weibo and email accounts, was irrelevant.
Except for the visual information about “Words typed in the upper left corner of the laptop screen”, all the other four lines of sensory input were redundant.
To maximize his efficiency, he should have just focused on Lady 3’s laptop screen from the very start. Then he could’ve switched to the next target once he identified her as a writer from the words she typed.
This was the training method he would adopt from now onwards to obtain the desired result with minimal information. Today, his “desired result” was to determine their occupation. In the future, it could be “the level of hostility towards him” or “level of potential threat to him”.
At the moment, the main focus of his practice was to make quick deductions on multiple targets with primary observations. It was all about the “speed”, not depth of observations. That would be the aim for the next stage of training.
Xiang Kun concluded after he collated and analyzed the data:
“1. Visual input was the most efficient, direct and productive way of obtaining information. This is because light travels the fastest, thus transmitting information the fastest. Sight is also the most commonly used and heavily-relied-upon sense by normal people.”
For example, he could deduce someone’s identity almost instantly from their age, uniform, books they were carrying or other identifiable items.
“2. When no direct results can be obtained from seeing, sounds and smells are crucial information too. Sometimes, hearing and smelling may provide important clues as efficiently as visuals.”
This referred to the cases where people revealed themselves through communication with others or they carried a particular smell.
“3. It is of utmost importance to continue expanding the sensory ‘database’, so as to improve the efficiency and accuracy of observations and analysis.”
This happened when he was studying Lady 4 in the cafe. He would have been able to tell which bank she was working at if Xiang Kun was familiar with the uniform of the various banks.
Besides, he would have been familiar with a particular smell from the bank if he had been there before. In that case, he would’ve also been able to tell that Lady 4 worked at ICBC if he sensed the same smell from her. He might even know which branch she was from.
Naturally, the collection of all kinds of sensory input was a long-term project. Furthermore, it would be unrealistic to expect Xiang Kun to record all the sensory information he had encountered, because he was not a robot, after all. Even if he were one, his memory would be limited by the capacity of his hardware.
Fundamentally speaking, the training that he had been engaging in was more of a practice for his brain in terms of his thinking ability and reaction speed, rather than purely for his senses.
After he confirmed the direction of his subsequent training, Xiang Kun got up and walked towards the kitchen.
Ever since he had moved here, he would only visit the kitchen for two things – feeding and cleaning the rabbits, or killing them for their blood.
But tonight, he would do something he had hardly done after his transformation. He was going to cook.