NOVEL NEXT Ch. 11
Chapter 11: Records
Bai Lengci swept the last tuft of blood-stained feathers into the dustpan and dumped them into a black garbage bag, tying it shut.
She returned to the sofa in the living room and began to think through a series of things.
There was no doubt that it all began with the dream soaked in darkness during the high fever.
The dream had contained no concrete images.
Only an overwhelming, suffocating sense of “death.”
After waking, she had had no appetite for normal food.
And when the live chicken bought at the market pressed its warm neck to her lips—
her body’s instincts and hunger had taken over everything.
Then came the shedding.
Then this body… renewed as a new vessel.
“Vampire.”
That word slid through Bai Lengci’s mind.
Images from films—pale faces, blood-red eyes, and those fangs—flashed through her consciousness.
She licked her own teeth with the tip of her tongue out of habit.
They were smooth and even, without any abnormal sharpness.
But besides that?
Skin so pale it was inhuman?
An overwhelming craving for blood?
Even this change of sex… could it be some kind of “perfecting” adjustment—
to better resemble the legendary nocturnal creatures who used seduction as a weapon?
Bai Lengci rose and went back to the room, opened her laptop.
Her fingers landed on the keyboard and she typed search terms: “unable to eat,” “only drinks blood,” “skin unusually pale shedding,” “sex change.”
The responses in the Chinese internet world were absurd and comical.
Most were explanations without scientific proof.
And things like rabies or pica differed greatly from her symptoms.
As for sex change, the search results quickly slid toward transgender surgery or psychiatric topics like “gender anxiety.”
They had nothing to do with the natural, ripening-and-falling-into-place transformation her body had undergone.
Then Bai Lengci switched her VPN node overseas.
The English keyword combinations painted a stranger picture.
In Eastern European folk tales of the Middle Ages, pale, light-fearing “strigoi” wandered at night.
In Victorian Gothic novels, the aristocratic Count Dracula stalked prey in London’s fog.
In modern urban legends, handsome nightclub regulars left suspicious teeth marks on necks…
And some links pointed to an obscure medical term.
Porphyria (卟啉症).
She opened a cached page of an academic abstract.
The terminology described a rare, hereditary blood disorder.
A defect in enzymes of the heme synthesis pathway led to accumulation of photosensitive porphyrins under the skin.
The symptom list read like a vampire résumé:
Extreme light sensitivity: sunlight or strong UV exposure triggered severe skin pain, blisters, and ulceration, forcing sufferers to become “children of the night.”
Severe anemia: the complexion appeared sickly, lifelessly pale, accompanied by long-term fatigue.
Tissue damage: porphyrin-induced erosion could lead to gingival recession, making teeth appear abnormally long and stained with blood (“blood-teeth”); chronic damage to soft tissues of the nose, ears, and so on could create an “inhuman” appearance.
Relief by blood transfusion: infusing healthy blood to replenish heme was an effective therapy to ease acute symptoms. Historically, untreated severe patients, in extreme pain and with altered consciousness, might instinctively seek fresh blood, becoming a real-world prototype for “blood-thirsty” legends.
Bai Lengci’s gaze lingered on the words “Relief by blood transfusion” on the screen.
The strange sensation when the warm chicken blood had slid down her throat the night before surged back.
It seemed to fit.
But porphyria could explain photosensitivity, pallor, blood-seeking (as an instinct to relieve pain), even some outward changes.
It could not explain the sudden reversal of taste after the fever.
Nor could it explain the almost insect-like, complete “shedding.”
And… she lowered her head, eyes falling to the flat area under her chest.
What to do?
Go to a hospital?
She imagined herself sitting in an examination room, describing to a doctor in a white coat.
“Doctor, after my fever I couldn’t eat anything; I could only drink blood. I shed a layer of skin, and then became like this.”
She lifted that flawless face.
“And I had changed from male to female.”
The air would freeze in an instant.
Suspicion, horror, perhaps even a furtive excitement at seeing a rare specimen might appear in the other’s eyes.
What would follow?
An isolation ward?
Endless biopsies?
A compulsory psychiatric evaluation?
The blankness of the internet search itself was a huge warning light.
If her symptoms had precedent—
then the information was either strictly locked away at some unknown level,
or she was “the first case,”
or a soon-to-be-lost “another one.”
In any case, exposure under spotlights would be tantamount to surrendering control of her body and destiny.
The likely outcome would be labels like “unknown pathogen infection,” “extreme genetic mutation,” or “severe dissociative identity disorder,” and a life spent in laboratories or isolation wards.
Her survival instinct told her not to be exposed.
She had to hide.
She closed all browser windows and cleared her history.
Bai Lengci’s senses were now unusually sharp.
The distant sound of a car returning home at night outside the window.
The low whine of water running deep in the pipes.
Even the faint, tidal-like beating of her own heart… were amplified in the silence.
After thinking for a while, Bai Lengci took out a notebook and wrote.
Assume the cause of bodily change was x.
I. Reasons for the emergence of x:
1. The rain on the night of January 14, 2024.
2. High fever.
3. The dream.
4. A genetic disease triggered by external factors, such as getting rained on, high fever.
5. Other.
II. Bodily changes.
1. Whole-body shedding, including face, hands, and feet. The new skin was whiter and more delicate. Physical constitution improved significantly.
2. Could not eat normal food; food was quickly vomited after ingestion.
3. Had an impulse to seek blood; would be attracted by the smell of blood, prompting the body to obtain blood; after drinking blood there was a feeling of satisfaction and drowsiness.
4. Became female.
Looking at the document she had written, Bai Lengci found that most of the changes to her body were beneficial.
Except for the eating issue.
From yesterday until now she had only drunk a little chicken blood and had not eaten anything else.
Bai Lengci did not think that small amount of blood could provide the energy for survival.
She poured a glass of warm water, drank it, and sat quietly for a while; there was no reaction in her stomach, so water clearly was not rejected.
Then she poured herself a glass of milk and drank it.
In less than 30 seconds Bai Lengci ran to the bathroom and vomited everything out.