Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei was not only filthy, but his face was also covered in mud. Although he had been abandoned, the two waiters did not recognize him. He was secretly glad that he hadn't had time to wash his face, otherwise... he would have been too ashamed to face anyone tomorrow.
Seeing that the waiter's scream had alerted the security guard who was sleeping in the guard room, Zhou Ziwei hurriedly doubled his reaction speed and then took off running... In the blink of an eye, he ran up the stairs in one breath.
Later, Zhou Ziwei discovered that there was too much mud on the soles of his shoes, so he simply threw them out and into the trash can before running barefoot to the door of his room.
He touched himself and realized that his clothes were already torn to shreds, so there was no room key left. Fortunately, he still had his watch on his wrist, and there was the steel wire he used to pick locks on the watch. As long as he had that, for Zhou Ziwei, there was no lock in the world... Of course, we should add a sentence after that—except for electronic locks.
Zhou Ziwei pulled out the steel wire, inserted it into the keyhole, and gave it a slight shake. In less than a second, he easily opened the simple hidden lock. Then, Zhou Ziwei reached out and twisted the lock handle, opening the door a crack, and "whoosh," he slipped inside.
Just as he gently closed the door, he heard two security guards shouting as they climbed the stairs.
Zhou Ziwei breathed a sigh of relief, leaned against the wall in the dark to catch his breath, and after the security guards outside had gone far away, he didn't turn on the lights in the room, but instead slipped into the bathroom.
As soon as he entered the bathroom, Zhou Ziwei turned on the water heater without even turning on the light, and then quickly tore off all his clothes... or rather, all the tattered strips of cloth, and threw them into the trash can.
Then Zhou Ziwei stood under the showerhead, scrubbing the dirt off his body while shrinking his consciousness, excitedly feeling the earth-shaking changes in his sea of soul.
Although Zhou Ziwei's trip to the bat cave in the mountains ended in a very mess, he also gained a great deal from it.
Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls has now expanded to about three times its previous size, and now it contains the soul power equivalent to 1,500 remnant souls.
Actually, this soul power hasn't completely filled Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls yet, but it's probably close. Zhou Ziwei doesn't want to bite off more than he can chew; if he accidentally bursts out of his own sac, he'll be in deep trouble.
What surprised Zhou Ziwei the most was that his soul power was originally white, or rather colorless, but this time he could clearly feel that the soul power that filled his sea of souls was like clusters of light red mist, full of vivid and strange vitality.
This change actually started with the Six-Syllable Mantra. Today, when Zhou Ziwei sneaked into the vicinity of the bat cave at the foot of the cliff and found an opportunity to quietly devour three ghost bats in succession, he felt that the soul power he absorbed was actually the energy of more than nine hundred remnant souls. This means that under normal circumstances, each ghost bat contains about three hundred remnant souls. This also confirms how lucky he was that he did not explode after absorbing those fifteen ghost bats last time.
It's estimated that the ghost bats he encountered last time not only exhausted most of their soul power after unleashing their Soul Roar, but they were also probably among the weaker ones in this group of ghost bats.
Zhou Ziwei originally possessed the soul power of nearly two hundred remnant souls. With the addition of these nine hundred, he now has the soul power of over a thousand remnant souls.
He estimated that after devouring one or two more ghost bats, his Sea of Souls would be almost saturated.
Therefore, instead of quitting while they were ahead, they remained lurking there, quietly waiting for a lone ghost bat to take the bait.
Sure enough, he didn't have to wait long before the fourth lone ghost bat flew over and slowly entered the range that Zhou Ziwei's Six-Syllable Mantra could cover. So Zhou Ziwei did not hesitate to recite the invincible Six-Syllable Mantra deep in his heart.
However, to Zhou Ziwei's utter surprise, the six-syllable mantra he usually recited would immediately transform into white, semi-transparent, holy halos. But this time, as soon as the six halos formed, they suddenly burst forth with a mysterious and dazzling pale red.
Subsequently, under the purification of the six pale red halos, the soul attached to the ghost bat was restored into a ball of pale red soul power, which was absorbed into Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls. Immediately afterwards, the soul power in Zhou Ziwei's entire sea of souls was affected by a chain reaction, and almost instantly it was all stained with this pale red color.
In that instant of transformation, Zhou Ziwei's entire body turned a fiery red, like a burning fireball...
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 139: The Young Woman
The red light emanating from Zhou Ziwei's body was actually different from the pale red halo formed by the Six-Syllable Mantra.
The halo formed by the Six-Syllable Mantra is a pure power, without any impurities. Even if it is tinged with a light red, it is still a pure light red. Apart from Zhou Ziwei himself, neither humans nor souls can see it. Even if a soul can sense the existence of this sacred power, it cannot capture the specific form of this power.
The red light emanating from Zhou Ziwei's body was clearly visible to both pure souls and normal life forms, and even those who couldn't see it could sense it. At this moment, Zhou Ziwei was like a guiding light, startling all the creatures in the valley and deep within the cave, even those that were asleep, into a frenzy and rushing towards him...
Zhou Ziwei was stunned. Without saying a word, he immediately increased the speed of his leg nerve reaction to four times... Normally, three times was the limit for Zhou Ziwei, but now, in order to escape, Zhou Ziwei was going all out. He endured the pain in his feet that was magnified dozens of times and ran towards the escape route he had already planned with a speed that would make even the so-called world's number one sprinter feel ashamed.
Silent howls came from behind Zhou Ziwei. Without turning around, Zhou Ziwei could feel the power of the soul's roar that had once terrified him was surging towards him like waves.
In that instant, at least dozens of ghost bats simultaneously unleashed this almost fatal attack on Zhou Ziwei.
Zhou Ziwei was terrified. Last time, he was almost killed by the roar of the souls of fifteen bats. Although his soul power was much stronger than before, the number of these ghost bats was several times greater, and each ghost bat was much larger than the fifteen from last time. Obviously, the size of the ghost bats determined their strength. He estimated that the power of the soul roar of these dozens of ghost bats was more than ten times that of last time.
In his panic, Zhou Ziwei knew that dodging was not an option when facing such a tangible yet intangible attack. The only way to weaken the soul roar was to create as much distance as possible from it.
As the distance increases, the destructive power of this soul's roar will inevitably weaken.
So Zhou Ziwei had no choice but to run... He simply increased his leg reaction speed to six times in an instant, and amidst immense pain, like a shooting star streaking across the sky, he swiftly plunged into the deep swamp on the east side of the valley, a swamp that had been accumulating for hundreds of years...
Just before Zhou Ziwei plunged into the swamp, he finally heard dozens of shrill cries of different voices echoing from his sea of souls. Then he felt a turmoil in his mind, and the more than a thousand units of soul power he had just accumulated melted away as quickly as a snowball thrown into a sea of fire.
One thousand... eight hundred... five hundred... three hundred... one hundred...
Feeling that the power of his soul had dropped to a dangerously low level, Zhou Ziwei was terrified. Without thinking, he immediately began reciting the Six-Syllable Mantra that had saved him several times.
After reciting the mantra, he realized that the nearest ghost bat was probably forty or fifty meters away, while his six-syllable mantra only had an effective range of thirty meters. He was afraid he would not escape this time.
No sooner had Zhou Ziwei finished reciting the Six-Syllable Mantra than he immediately felt a ball of pure soul power, tinged with a pale red, being pushed from afar by a mysterious red halo and rapidly merging into his sea of souls. Then came a second ball, a third ball…
As Zhou Ziwei sank completely into the depths of the swamp, the deadly roar of the soul finally dissipated. At the same time, Zhou Ziwei sent the last wisp of soul power, purified into red, into his sea of souls.
Ultimately, his soul power reserves were fixed at around 1,500 remnant soul energy.
Zhou Ziwei was very puzzled. Although he was running for his life and didn't have time to look back, his hearing, which had been amplified five times, clearly detected any slight sound within a hundred meters around him.
He clearly remembered that there wasn't a single ghost bat within thirty meters of him, so how could his six-syllable mantra have captured the souls of several ghost bats at once?
Zhou Ziwei silently calculated how many clumps of soul power he had received, and then recalled the location of each ghost bat he had heard just now. He quickly came to a conclusion that surprised him greatly... The range of his Six-Syllable Mantra had suddenly reached a radius of sixty meters... which was twice as much as before.
Since the aura surrounding the Six-Syllable Mantra has doubled in size, the effective range of the soul power assimilated by the aura's power should also have increased accordingly!
Zhou Ziwei's heart stirred, and he immediately released a wisp of soul power from his forehead, which quickly extended into the distance. Sure enough, it reached its limit after reaching a distance of about twenty meters, and then it could no longer extend.
As expected... does this count as an upgrade? Hmm... it should be... or you could say it's the result of a quantitative accumulation finally achieving a qualitative leap.
Although Zhou Ziwei was both shocked and excited, he was still in a dangerous situation and didn't have time to investigate what other improvements his abilities had made besides the Six-Syllable Mantra and the extended range of his soul power.
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei was lurking deep in the swamp. The ghost bats couldn't chase after him, but if another dozen or so ghost bats came and unleashed a series of soul roars at the swamp... Zhou Ziwei might not die, but the soul power he had painstakingly accumulated would be negated once again.
Zhou Ziwei had already planned his escape route when he first arrived. He used his soul power to explore the area around the valley and discovered that there was an underground river beneath the swamp on the east side of the valley.
If Zhou Ziwei remembered correctly, once you cross this mountain to the other side, there will be a mountain stream. That stream should be the exit of the underground river below!
Of course... this was just Zhou Ziwei's guess. Perhaps the underground river would go deeper and deeper, and there would be no exit in the short distance. However, in this critical moment, Zhou Ziwei couldn't care less about that. If he were to climb out of the swamp now, even if he wasn't killed by the roar of the souls, he would be immediately caught and killed by the swarm of ghost bats. He could only choose to hide in the underground river first. If he couldn't find a way out for a while, he could just hide for a while and then come back here. He didn't believe that the ghost bats had that much patience to stay here forever.
As it turned out, Zhou Ziwei's gamble paid off. Although the underground river gradually went deeper underground, after passing through the mountain to the other side, there was an exit leading to the surface. However, this exit did not connect to the mountain stream, but to a small swamp.
The underground river was completely dark. Normally, if the spring were to emerge to the surface, some light would seep down, but because the outlet was a swamp, there was absolutely no light.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei's soul power had just been upgraded, allowing it to extend to more than twenty meters, which enabled him to barely detect the location of the exit. Otherwise, if he could only detect up to ten meters away, he probably wouldn't have been able to find a way out for a while.
The most critical issue is that, likely due to recent abundant rainfall, the underground river channels are completely filled with water, leaving no air at all. Zhou Ziwei is only able to rely on the diving skills he possessed in his previous life, thanks to a remnant soul he had merged with. Otherwise, if he had rashly ventured into the underground river this time, he might not have been able to come back up.
Zhou Ziwei crawled out of another swamp in a disheveled state, and immediately sensed the ladybug he had left in the valley rushing toward him.
He and the ladybug shared a mysterious spiritual connection; no matter how far apart they were, he could vaguely sense the ladybug's general location, so there was no need to worry about the ladybug getting lost.
As for the little amoeba, it had been tucked into Zhou Ziwei's shirt pocket... but during his escape, his clothes had been torn to shreds by the branches in the valley and the rocks in the underground river, and his pocket was long gone. The amoeba should have disappeared with it, but Zhou Ziwei clearly felt it was still in its original position. Looking down, he saw that the damned little bug was now completely curled up, lying on his left chest, looking like a small fleshy ball on his body. And the worst part was... this little fleshy ball was located right where Zhou Ziwei's nipple was...
Through the memory information transmitted by the ladybug, Zhou Ziwei learned that after he disappeared, the hundreds of ghost bats in the valley immediately split into two groups. One group guarded the swamp where Zhou Ziwei had jumped down, while the other group split into three groups and searched all over the mountains and fields, as if they would not be satisfied until they captured Zhou Ziwei and killed him, turning him into a monster just like them.
Fortunately, the king of the ghost bats never appeared this time for some reason, and the ladybug was different from before. Its flight speed was even slightly faster than that of ordinary ghost bats. In addition, it was dark, so the ghost bats did not notice the ladybug's presence.
Upon learning that the ghost bats were still chasing him, Zhou Ziwei dared not delay. He quickly found his car, which he had hidden at the foot of the mountain, got in, and immediately returned to the county. During this time, he didn't even have time to wash off the mud on his body.
Zhou Ziwei stood under the showerhead, rinsing off the mud on his body while sensing the changes in his sea of souls. He secretly wondered if he had any other benefits besides the doubled extension of his soul power and the doubling of the coverage of the Six-Syllable Mantra.
But just then, a slight noise was suddenly heard coming from outside the bathroom...
"Someone has entered this room."
Zhou Ziwei's heart skipped a beat. Could it be that there were still remnants among the group of the fanged dragon? Otherwise... what kind of good person would come to my room so late at night?
Zhou Ziwei snorted inwardly and immediately released a wisp of his soul power, sweeping it towards the direction from which the sound came from.
Although the soul power released by Zhou Ziwei at this moment appeared to be pale red, it was like the halo of the Six-Syllable Mantra, a pure display of alternative energy. Its existence would not attract the attention of any normal person. This was different from the red light that erupted when Zhou Ziwei's sea of soul underwent a sudden qualitative change in the valley.
Otherwise, if Zhou Ziwei's soul power, which he relied on to save his life, were to be released and shine brightly, visible from a great distance, he would not be excited now, but rather weeping bitterly.
With a sweep of his soul power, Zhou Ziwei saw the person outside. To his great surprise, she was a beautiful young woman who was only about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, wearing only a sexy silk nightgown.
At this moment, the sexy young woman was wearing a pair of fluffy slippers, yawning, and carrying something that looked like a picture frame as she walked towards the bathroom.
How could this happen?
Zhou Ziwei was stunned for a moment. Even if he was stupid, he could tell at this moment that this woman was definitely not a desperate bandit or assassin. Speaking of which... although assassins can be beautiful young women, if this person really came to assassinate, why would she dress like this?
Puzzled, Zhou Ziwei once again used his soul power to scan the pitch-black bathroom, and immediately discovered two transparent women's underwear hanging on a clothes rack, as well as bottles of bizarre cosmetics on the washstand...
Holy crap... no way! Did I... I went into the wrong room?
After a moment of stunned silence, Zhou Ziwei remembered that he was staying in room 306. However, he had been so frightened by the screams of the two front desk staff that he had rushed upstairs and hurriedly entered this room. He hadn't noticed at the time, but now, thinking back, he suddenly realized... he seemed to have only gone up one floor before entering this room. So... this room wasn't his room 306 at all, but clearly someone else's room 206!
Wow, this is going to be really interesting. If someone finds out I'm hiding in a young woman's bedroom, then... then they'll think I'm a pervert or a rapist!
In a panic, Zhou Ziwei quickly turned off the water heater and then turned around to look for his clothes.
After looking around, I couldn't find any clothes at all. Then I remembered that the clothes he was wearing were so torn that they couldn't cover his body at all. I had taken them off and thrown them into the trash can. Even if I found them now, it would be useless!
Zhou Ziwei wanted to find a towel or something to cover up his embarrassment, but... the bathroom was very clean. It seemed that apart from the two transparent women's underwear hanging on the rack, which were no bigger than the palm of his hand, there was no other cloth. If Zhou Ziwei actually wore those two pieces of underwear, he would be disgusted with himself... It would be better to just stay naked!
With a creak, the bathroom door was pushed open from the outside by the sexy young woman. In his anxiety, Zhou Ziwei was considering whether to simply knock the woman unconscious so he could make a quick escape when he realized that the young woman was sleepwalking, her eyes slightly closed, and she hadn't even turned on the light before walking in. She didn't even notice Zhou Ziwei standing naked in front of her.
Zhou Ziwei hesitated for a moment, then immediately abandoned the idea of attacking the young woman.
After all, he had barged into someone's room recklessly, which was already wrong. If he then knocked out the innocent victim, it would be even more inexcusable. Since the young woman hadn't turned on the light, she might not have noticed his presence. In that case, Zhou Ziwei could simply wait there a little longer until the young woman was sound asleep in bed before making his escape.
The young woman didn't close the bathroom door after she came in. A faint ray of morning light shone through the thick curtains of the bedroom and reflected into the bathroom, instantly making it no longer dark.
If the young woman were to suddenly open her eyes at this moment, she would probably still see Zhou Ziwei. However, since Zhou Ziwei had already decided not to harm this innocent woman, he could only hold onto a sliver of hope and endure it.
The young woman staggered to the toilet, lowered the seat, then lifted her silk nightgown, ripped off her equally transparent panties underneath, and plopped down on it…
"Whoosh..."
A clear, suggestive sound of running water emanated from the toilet, instantly making Zhou Ziwei, who was standing less than half a meter away from it, blush furiously.
Poor Zhou Ziwei, in both his past and present lives, had never tasted the pleasures of a woman. The body he inherited, however, was brimming with the lecherous nature of a wolf. Under this intense stimulation, Zhou Ziwei felt his blood boil, and his penis grew wildly, like a balloon being inflated, erect and pointing defiantly to the heavens…
"My apologies... my apologies... I'm not a peeping tom, this... this was just an accident..."
Zhou Ziwei kept reminding himself as he quietly turned and slipped towards the door.
Now he could only hope that the sexy young woman would remain in a daze and never wake up, let alone see him, the naked man.
Otherwise… to protect himself, Zhou Ziwei would probably have no choice but to knock her unconscious first. And once such a sexy young woman was unconscious in front of him, Zhou Ziwei couldn't guarantee that he could resist her temptation…
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 140: Dissipation
Zhou Ziwei had only taken two steps when the young woman suddenly yawned, arching her upper body upwards to reveal her perfect curves. She mumbled sleepily, "Atao... I dreamt about you again today... Atao..."
In his previous life, Zhou Ziwei's parents had always called him Atao, so when he heard the young woman call him Atao so affectionately, he froze, and couldn't help but think of his parents and sister from his previous life...
Just then, the young woman gently held the photo frame in her hand, blinked her hazy eyes, and finally slowly opened them...