What It's Like Being a Vampire

“Wangzi’s daily routine involves foraging for food in Happy Valley. His favorite food is milk,”

As Liu Shiling explained, a chubby paper crane wobbled back and forth on the shoe cabinet. If not for its long neck, Shiling’s Mom thought it looked more like a penguin made from origami…

“To drink milk, Wangzi needs to find a cow. Hey, Shiling, does Happy Valley have any cows?” Shiling’s Mom couldn’t help but laugh as she asked.

It quieted down behind the shoe cabinet and the fat paper crane also stopped moving.

After a while, Liu Shiling stated loudly, “Mom, you’re the audience. You should quietly watch the performance! No heckling!”

“OK, OK, I’ll observe quietly. Carry on, carry on,” Shiling’s Mom replied, laughing uncontrollably.

Liu Shiling then placed a folded paper gorilla on the shoe cabinet and said, “One day, the Great Demon King and Gorilla Sweet Chili Sauce came to Happy Valley from another world!”

Hearing this name of the paper gorilla, Shiling’s Mom who was in the middle of sipping soda, almost spewed it out as she burst into a fit of laughter and coughing.

“Mom! Be serious!” The dissatisfied voice of the Little Fatty Girl came from behind the shoe cabinet.

“I choked, I choked, sorry, continue.” Shiling’s Mom apologized.

On the shoe cabinet, the paper gorilla also started moving on its own, chasing the fat paper crane around. Compared to the paper crane, this paper gorilla moved very smoothly, as if it was being pulled by something from below.

Shiling’s Mom closely observed and suspected that there might be a magnet or something under the paper gorilla. But how did Shiling control it? She didn’t see Shiling holding another magnet nearby. Could she be controlling it from beneath the shoe cabinet, somehow making the magnet go through the cabinet’s wooden board?

After chasing around for a while, the paper gorilla finally caught up with the fat paper crane on the shoe cabinet and “knocked it down”.

“Wangzi was bullied by Sweet Chili Sauce, and Happy Valley was no longer happy, plummeting into a curse of darkness.”

After this narration, Shiling’s Mom saw a small hand reach out from behind the shoe cabinet and switch off the living room lights.

Huh?!

Shiling’s Mom was startled for a moment. Wasn’t her daughter scared of the dark?

After a few seconds, a ray of light shone on the shoe cabinet. Shiling’s Mom released that it was the small table lamp from Liu Shiling’s room which Shiling had brought as a prop.

“The Great Demon King, Sweet Chili Sauce, laughed triumphantly: hahahaha….”

As Liu Shiling mimicked the villain’s laughter, the upper body of the paper gorilla began to tremble with high frequency as if it was laughing loudly.

Shiling’s Mom, finding the whole thing amusing, couldn’t resist taking out her phone to record it.

“But justice may be delayed but it will never… no, let’s try that again… But justice, while delayed, will never be absent! At the moment when Wangzi lost all hope, a Grand Magician who saves the world appeared!”

Then an origami man was placed on the shoe cabinet.

This figure, even under the dim light of the desk lamp, was clearly more meticulously folded than the paper gorilla and the fat paper crane. It was even “painted”.

It looked like a magician in a red robe, holding a black magic wand.

When the magician paper figure was placed on the shoe cabinet, Shiling’s Mom distinctly heard the sound of a hard object hitting the surface of the shoe cabinet. She was more certain that her daughter was controlling the paper figures with some type of magnet. No wonder her daughter had been so interested in electromagnetism recently.

“The Grand Magician stopped the Great Demon King, Sweet Chili Sauce, who was bullying Wangzi. Sweet Chili Sauce was furious. He roared, ‘yaya yaya yaya…’”

As Liu Shiling mimicked the paper gorilla’s outrageous voice, the desk lamp on the shoe cabinet also started to flicker, appearing to accompany the Great Demon King’s rage.

Some worry crept into the mind of Shiling’s Mom because she didn’t see Liu Shiling controlling the desk lamp at the shoe cabinet. She wondered if her daughter was playing with the plug to control the light, which could be dangerous.

Just when she was about to get up to check, Liu Shiling turned the living room lights back on.

“But the Great Wizard launched the Great Bright Magic, bringing light back to Happy Valley and dispelling the dark curse.”

“The Great Demon King was not defeated and he shouted: ‘Great Wizard, do you think you can defeat me like this? You’re too naive! I’m the Sweet and Spicy Sauce! Go, Fire Bird!’”

As soon as the words fell, Liu Shiling, hiding behind the shoe cabinet, launched a black paper airplane. The paper plane flew around the living room in a half-circle after being launched from behind the shoe cabinet, made an arc, and miraculously flew back to the shoe cabinet, aimed at the paper magician.

The paper magician was hit and fell down on top of the shoe cabinet.

Even Shiling’s Mom, who had been trying to figure out how the paper people and paper cranes could move, became nervous when she saw this. She began to follow the “plot” anxiously.

“Hahaha, Great Wizard, Happy Valley is mine, Sweet and Spicy Sauce’s!”

“Although the Great Wizard was injured, she was not defeated. She struggled to get up. She remembered the words her teacher always told her while learning magic: ‘The greater your magic power, the greater your responsibility. The only one who can defeat you is yourself!’”

“She launched a huge magic spell that has never been completed before.”

“Ice! Blizzard! Dance!”

A bunch of colorful confetti was thrown out from behind the shoe cabinet, spreading over the shoe cabinet. To Shiling’s mom’s surprise, the large piece of finely cut colorful paper, instead of scattering, hung in the air and was dragged down like tiny threads, all sticking to the paper orangutan.

Even Shiling’s Mom had a little illusion, after her daughter shouted “Ice Blizzard Dance”, the light in the living room seemed to become brighter.

The paper orangutan, covered with tiny paper cutouts, trembled uncontrollably. Liu Shiling behind the shoe cabinet provided voiceover for it: “Ah! Ah! Ah! …I’m dead!”

The paper orangutan fell down, and the paper magician moved to the middle of the shoe cabinet. The fallen fat paper crane also stood up and moved next to her.

“Thank you! Thank you Great Wizard!” Liu Shiling said, her voice thin and squeaky.

“You’re welcome, it’s my duty to guard this world and the people of this world,” Liu Shiling deepened her voice to sound as serious as possible.

“Happy Valley has once again become a happy place.”

A few seconds later, Liu Shiling’s head popped out from behind the shoe cabinet, looking at her only audience: “Mama, how was it? Did you like my ‘Battle of Happy Valley?’”

“Amazing! Really amazing!” Shiling’s Mom stood up, clapping and walked over to the shoe cabinet.

She reached out to get the paper orangutan, all the little paper cutouts stuck to the paper orangutan suddenly fell off, landing on the shoe cabinet.

She found out that there wasn’t a magnet on the base of the paper orangutan, but a one yuan coin.

“Oh, Mom, you can’t see that. The magician’s tools are a secret!” Liu Shiling quickly grabbed the paper orangutan, and also put away the fat paper crane made from the A4 paper that Kun gave. She started packing up her props.

“Mom, you can’t post the video you just took on moments. My magician’s secret must not be leaked. Otherwise, it won’t work.” Liu Shiling said.

“Then tell mama, how did you do all these? How did the paper crane move, the paper plane flew back after a round trip, the little paper scraps gathered on the paper orangutan. Did …Did your Uncle Bald show you secretly when you video-chatted with him in the afternoon?” Shiling’s Mom guessed, but felt something was off. She had been there all the time when her daughter was video-chatting with Kun in the afternoon. All Kun did was to explain some of the mysteries in the encyclopedia, mostly about electromagnetism. There was no specific method on how to make small objects. Was it possible that her daughter understood those mysterious instructions, but she didn’t?

“Ah, mom! One mustn’t reveal their magic tricks.” Liu Shiling insisted.

“Please tell me, tell mama, I’ll cook your favorite meals for you tomorrow, and I’ll buy you ice cream. You can even have two… no, three!” Shiling’s Mom begged lovingly.

Liu Shiling looked troubled. After hesitating for a long time, she finally said, “I’ll tell you when I grow up.”

That night at eight o’clock, Shiling’s Mom took her daughter to the balcony to watch the distant fireworks show put on by the city government.

It was actually a long way from where the fireworks were set off, they could only see the fireworks, but the sound was very slight.

Liu Shiling, holding the chopsticks given by Kun, acted like a conductor, pointing at the fireworks bursting in the distance, mimicking the sound of the fireworks: “Bang! Whooosh… Bang Bang! Whoooosh….”

Shiling’s mom put her own coat on her daughter, wrapping her up like a dumpling, to keep her from catching a cold on the chilly balcony.

If it had been any other day, she would have certainly scolded and lectured her daughter for playing with her chopsticks instead of eating. But today was special, she decided to let her be happy.

As Liu Shiling watched the firework display, her attention quieted. Her little face was flushed red, her eyes sparkling; she stared unblinkingly at the fireworks igniting in the distance, seemingly lost in her thoughts.

As the fireworks show came to an end, Shiling’s mom asked curiously, “Shiling, what are you thinking about?”

Liu Shiling shook her head as if snapping back to reality, “I don’t know what I was thinking about…”

On New Year’s Eve, Liu Shiling couldn’t stay awake with her mom until midnight to watch the evening show, as she had promised. She was sleepy by ten and fell asleep on the sofa.

Shiling’s mom was able to carry her to her bed, undress her, and tuck her in all without waking her up.

However, around four in the morning, Liu Shiling suddenly woke up. She sat up in bed, her head tilted, lost in thought.

She felt like she just had a dream, but upon waking up, she couldn’t remember it. She also felt like she had realized something, but no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn’t understand what that something was.

Liu Shiling scratched her head, somewhat vexed.

She turned to retrieve her two coins from underneath her pillow, then remembered she hadn’t put them there because she hadn’t gone to bed herself. The coins were still in her pockets. Suddenly, with a thought, her hand lifted, and the two coins “darted” out from her pocket on the not too far away chair and flew into her hand, quickly and securely.

Looking at the two coins in her hand, Liu Shiling seemed to understand something. As soon as she had woken up, she had gained better control over the “Chocolate” and “Ice-cream” coins.

Her “magic power” had significantly improved!

Liu Shiling clutched the two coins tightly, extremely excited and pleased. She was much closer to her goal now!

Suddenly, she heard a noise from the window. Startled, she instinctively grabbed her blanket, covered herself, and shrank into a corner of the bed, ready to call for her mom.

But as she was about to open her mouth, she remembered that she was a magical girl now! This was her home and she had “Chocolate” and “Ice-cream” with her, as well as the magic wand Bald Uncle had given her. It was her job to protect her mom now!

So she carefully crept out from her duvet, put on her slippers with Garfield heads, held the two coins in one hand, and the two chopsticks in the other. She slowly walked towards the window, nudged the curtain apart, and looked outside.

Liu Shiling checked outside, the cold wind was howling, the streetlights were on, but the street was abandoned. Everything seemed normal so she breathed a sigh of relief and was about to backtrack when suddenly, a head appeared at the window.

“Ah!” Liu Shiling was startled, nearly toppling backward.

But in the next instance, she calmed herself down, realizing that the head that appeared on the window was a cat’s.

And the cat looked somewhat familiar, with a fat head, big ears, short limbs, and light ginger fur. It looked just like the stray cat she had seen chased by a group of stray dogs previously. She had been quite worried about that cat.

How on earth did it climb up to their window?

The big ginger cat and Liu Shiling stared at each other for a moment before it made a pitiful meow as if pleading for something.

Seeing the shivering body of the ginger cat, Liu Shiling thought it must be freezing. She hesitated for a moment, then walked over to open the window and quickly stepped away.

The ginger cat meowed softly again and then agilely came in through the window. It landed on the floor, retreated to a corner of the room and hid under the table.

Liu Shiling exhaled slowly, then squatted down to look at the ginger cat hiding in the shadow under the table. She whispered, “I can only let you stay for one night. You have to leave in the morning, okay? Mom doesn’t like cats, and she won’t let me keep you.”

“Meow~” The cat responded softly.

Liu Shiling thought she had gotten an affirmation, nodded, closed the window, and crawled back into bed.

But once she was under the covers, she found that she couldn’t fall asleep. She tossed and turned, then laid on her side, her eyes meeting those of the little ginger cat hiding under the table, in the darkness across the room.

Liu Shiling heard her stomach rumble and asked the cat, “Are you hungry?”

“Meow~”

With that, Liu Shiling got up from the bed again, went to the kitchen to get two sausages, and squatted by the table: “You eat one, and I eat one, perfect.”

But after feeding the Big Ginger Cat, when she was going to eat herself, the cat sat next to her and stared at her with wide eyes, meowed and bumped its head against her.

“You’re still hungry?” Liu Shiling stared wide-eyed at it.

Just as she was about to give the cat her sausage, she suddenly had an idea, “Let’s play a game, kitty.”

Liu Shiling folded a paper airplane and told the cat, “If you can catch the plane before it hits the ground, I’ll give you a piece of sausage!”

After she threw the paper airplane, the Big Ginger Cat, either reacting instinctively or really understanding her, immediately pounced on the plane.

However, the paper airplane flew around in the small room without ever hitting a wall. Although it moved slower the lower it flew, it always managed to dodge the cat’s attacks. The cat eventually managed to catch it and brought it back to Liu Shiling’s feet.

“Good boy! Here you go!” Liu Shiling merrily gave a slice of sausage to the Big Ginger Cat.

Although a common paper airplane isn’t as easy to control as the A4 paper plane Xiang Kun gave her, it’s quite easy to control its direction within a certain range when thrown into the air. Especially after waking up tonight, she found this control far more effortless than when she was showing off to her mom a few hours ago.

After a while, Liu Shiling decided to use a coin to play with the Big Ginger Cat. However, controlling the coin was even smoother. Throwing it into the air and holding it for a while, then looping it back to her hand, was as easy, no matter how the cat pounced or jumped, it was never able to catch the coin and often lost sight of where the coin had ended up.

A girl and a cat were playing exuberantly in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Shiling’s mom, who got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, heard the noise and frowned. She opened her daughter’s room door and saw her daughter enthusiastically striking a pose and looking excitedly at some part of the room.

Is she sleepwalking?!

Shiling’s mom was taken aback, didn’t dare to make a noise immediately and quickly recollected the steps on how to deal with sleepwalkers she had read about online.

Luckily, the next moment Liu Shiling turned to her, “Mom…”.

But her following words made her partially relieved heart start racing again:

“I would like to introduce a friend.”

Shiling’s mom anxiously watched as her daughter pointed under the table and introduced, “Mom, this is my friend…” She paused for two seconds before continuing, “… this is my friend ‘Custard Pie’. ‘Custard Pie’, come out, my mom wants to meet you.”

Shiling’s mom’s heart pounded as she nervously watched the dark space under the table. She slowly moved closer to her daughter, preparing to grab her and run, with scenes from horror films flashing through her mind.

However, after a moment, a Big Ginger Cat crawled out from under the table and meowed at her.

“Huh? Is…is that a cat?” Shiling’s mom exclaimed in surprise, “How did it get in?”

Liu Shiling pointed at the window: “I got up in the middle of the night and saw it shivering on our window sill, it looked very pitiful, so I let it in. Mom, can we keep it? ‘Custard Pie’ is very well-behaved! I can eat less and share some food with it.”

Shiling’s mom wondered, “Weren’t you scared of cats?” Her daughter had always been afraid of animals, both large and small. She once got scratched by a neighbourhood cat which resulted in Shiling’s mom also developing an aversion towards cats. But, now her daughter wanted to keep a stray cat?

“Maybe because… um…” Liu Shiling looked at the Big Ginger Cat she had named “Custard Pie”, thought about it and said, “Maybe because ‘Custard Pie’ is not a cat.”

“Meow~” ‘Custard Pie’ seemed to have accepted this name and meowed in response.

The author of “Overthrow the Han” has started a new book, “Revival of Song”. It’s really good and it launched today. If you like historical novels, you can go and support it by subscribing.