The girl playing and singing on the other side of the intersection caught Kevin's attention, as well as the attention of many passersby. Perhaps because this small area of southern suburbs had never seen street performers before, her presence immediately became the focus of attention.
These days, people who set up musical instruments on the street fall into three categories: the artistic beggar wearing sunglasses, playing his erhu, a tuneless yet melodic expression of sorrow; the performance artist, lacking musical comprehension or craftsmanship, simply seeking revenge against society; and the truly talented individual worthy of the title "street performer." The young girl across the street, though childish in appearance, Kevin believed she belonged to the third category: despite her dusty clothes, she kept herself neatly dressed, her face radiating a cheerful energy. In any case, she looked wealthier than the impoverished vampire back home. Her music was irresistible. Kevin had never heard the melody before, as if she had composed it herself. It sounded completely different from current pop music, evoking a sense of vastness and ethereal beauty, reminiscent of grasslands and wind. It was a strange association. Before today, Kevin had never understood the idea that "supreme music can convey a state of mind," but now he believed it. The melody truly had the power to suddenly broaden one's mind. As the young girl began to sing an unnamed ballad, Kevin heard a language he had never heard before. It sounded like a random murmur, its meaning and vocabulary completely unclear, as if it were a humming improvisation simply to express a feeling. Even the great devil Y'zaks couldn't help but stop and listen for a moment, then a look of confusion crossed his face. "I don't understand? Is the translation system incomplete?"
"Terminal," Kevin poked the data terminal in his pocket, which had gone into sleep mode. "Listen, what language is this? Why isn't it in our translation database?"
The data terminal played a system startup background music clip, then listened for a few seconds. "There's no pattern, no logic, no decipherable pronunciation. The system has determined that these pronunciations don't need to be translated. They're just a collection of sounds, meaningless."
Kevin thought for a moment and came up with a simple explanation: "So this girl forgot the lyrics and is just singing nonsense, right?"
"Can't you check the atmosphere once in a while while you're talking?" The data terminal vibrated twice in Kevin's pocket. "That sounds so beautiful! Even if you say she's singing from her heart, that's better than just singing without knowing the lyrics, even though this machine thinks she's forgotten the lyrics."
At this moment, the singing girl across the intersection seemed to notice the situation (or perhaps she noticed Y'zaks first; this 6-foot-tall, burly fellow had a 200-yard radius of sarcasm, and his presence was a landmark for the entire street). She looked up at Kevin and gave him a sweet smile, presumably a greeting.
Kevin, of course, didn't know her, so he returned the smile with the politeness of a stranger, then followed Y'zaks out of the intersection. He had business to attend to, and a werewolf girl at home, ready to transform that night, was crying out for food. He couldn't waste his time here. As Kevin and Y'zaks were almost at the door, the data terminal suddenly spoke: "By the way... since they just greeted you, shouldn't you have gone over and put ten dollars in the box? This machine checked the Earth data and found that this is the custom."
Kevin thought for a moment, a smile on his face, a kind of spiritual purification: "Did you hear her singing? Such a clear and vast voice, I don't think money can measure it. Although she's singing to make a living, I think a smile to her is more meaningful than ten dollars."
"But after you two left, the girl took a breath and rolled her eyes at you two, muttering about you being stingy..."
Kevin: "..." His finally purified mind was instantly polluted again. Couldn't this talkative data terminal give him a little clarity of mind? When the two of them returned home, Vivian was already home. The vampire girl had been flying out for most of the night yesterday and had not returned in the morning. It seemed that she had gone to a faraway place to collect "materials". As soon as Kevin entered the living room, he saw her busying herself with a bunch of things spread out on the coffee table, apparently grinding medicine powder. Vivian looked up and saw the large bag in Y'zaks's hand. She casually asked, "So many?"
"What if Lily gets hungry after her transformation? I read that werewolves have a voracious appetite after transforming. I bought her twenty bags of spicy noodles and ten bags of bread, just in case she gets hungry and runs into town and hurts someone."
When Lily heard about snacks, she cheered and leaped over from the sofa. She opened a bag of spicy noodles and slowly munched on them on the sofa. Vivian stared at Kevin in amazement. "Twenty bags of spicy noodles... what were you thinking?"
"She loves these little things," Kevin said, giving Lily a doting look, as if she were a pet. "Besides, spicy noodles are good for satisfying cravings. I even asked Raven 12345, and they tell me spicy food helps Lily's evolution..." "I've never heard of a werewolf evolving from spicy food," Vivian said, curling her lips. "You'd better also prepare ten bottles of mineral water. Lily will definitely need a belly full of cold water. Your thinking is drifting more and more like that goddess."
Raven 12345's goddess status still holds some weight. Kevin dares to casually babble about her, but Vivian doesn't dare to utter the word "insane woman" out loud. This suggests that vampire girls are still wary of gods, religions, and the like. Kevin helped Y'zaks place the two large bags on the nearby dining table. Then, curiously, he leaned over to Vivian. "What are you doing? It looks a little disgusting... Oh my god, this smells..."
Vivian spread out several sheets of old newspaper on the coffee table, a large pile of items on top. Some of them were herbs that looked like weeds, but they were clearly precious materials Vivian had painstakingly found. The leaves, still reeking of earth, were meticulously sorted into piles, stained with water, evidently having been washed. Next to the leaves lay a jumble of what looked like clods of earth, wood chips, moss, and even stone debris. In another setting, Kevin would have mistaken them for something from the large dumpster at the east end of the street. But Vivian was meticulously processing these items: she placed the various ingredients in a certain order and dosage into several small stainless steel basins. Some had already been crushed into powder, while others were still being processed. "This is a powder made from three dried herbs. Mix it with rabbit blood and drink it with water to forcibly stabilize the mind. A normal person would fall into a deep sleep after just two sips, but for a werewolf, this dose is just enough to calm them down," Vivian explained, listing the suspicious concoctions on hand. "This off-white powder is incense. It'll be mixed with wormwood juice and formed into a cake. I'll burn it when Lily transforms. The aroma will suppress her attacks. Werewolves often use this during their coming-of-age ceremonies, so the recipe must be correct. This moss was collected from a cemetery. I flew a long way to find it. It can concentrate spiritual energy. Werewolves are a race that's more muscular than brainy, and they're born with limited spiritual strength, so they need this..."
Before Vivian finished, Kevin couldn't help but dry heave. Even in the land of foodies, few would dare to taste the saltiness of these things. Yet, two-thirds of them would be processed into the "medicine" Lily must take tonight. The thought of it made him feel nauseous. Kevin glanced at Vivian, trying to glean some kind of insight from her eyes. "Tell me honestly, are you seeking revenge on Lily?"
Vivian smiled, "Landlord, look at that honest look in my eyes..."
Kevin sighed. "It seems this is indeed revenge."
But Lily, the woman involved, seemed completely oblivious. She was still enthusiastically watching the soap opera with her bag of spicy noodles, unfazed by the unknown concoction on the coffee table. Kevin couldn't help but call out to Lily, "Lily, come and see what Vivian prepared for you... You have to eat it tonight..."
Lily turned her head and sniffed, "Hmm, it's quite good! I'll eat anything!"
Kevin: "..."
This omnivorous werewolf no longer needed treatment!