In retrospect, he had lived a life of extreme poverty in his previous life, and owning a car was an unattainable dream for him. Now that he actually had a car, it felt so unreal.
Yang Hongtao shook his head with a wry smile, but didn't ask the taxi to take him back. He figured the car wouldn't be stolen anyway, and he could just come back for it after he finished his business.
When it comes to shops specializing in beef noodles, the taxi driver actually knows two places. One of them is located in the city center, right next to California Beef Noodles. It is a relatively famous restaurant in Dangyang, with a very nice environment that is both clean and spacious.
The second stall is a food stall on the snack street, which also specializes in beef noodles. It is said that the beef noodles made by this stall are quite authentic and are definitely no less than those of the well-decorated beef noodle shop. However, the price is 30% cheaper than that beef noodle shop, so the business is also very booming.
When the taxi driver finishes his shift late at night, he often drives there to have a bowl of hot and spicy beef noodles.
Yang Hongtao chose to go to that food stall without any hesitation, because he had already figured out from the assassin's T-shirt that the guy must work in a low-end restaurant or food stall, otherwise his clothes wouldn't be so dirty.
The snack street isn't far from the pedestrian street; a taxi ride takes less than ten minutes.
Yang Hongtao paid the fare and got out of the car at the intersection. Then, pretending to be browsing the night market, he slowly walked in. Following the directions given by the taxi driver, he quickly found the food stall specializing in beef noodles. When Yang Hongtao was still more than twenty meters away from the food stall, a strange feeling suddenly arose in his heart.
Yang Hongtao was slightly taken aback, squinted his eyes, and carefully sensed for a moment before a happy smile appeared on his lips. It turned out that by getting to this vicinity, he had actually sensed the existence of an independent soul within the assassin's phone.
This was definitely an unexpected surprise. He never expected that after such a long time, the independent soul entity would not have completely dissipated.
Although the intermittent, seemingly fragile connection suggests that the soul power contained within the independent soul entity has been almost completely depleted—at least the independent soul entity no longer possesses the necessary thoughts and emotions—the remaining trace of its soul imprint is still sufficient to exert a significant influence.
The food stall specializing in beef noodles seemed to be doing quite well. It had a dozen or so tables, and more than half of them were already full of customers. In addition, there were two middle-aged women serving as waitresses and two men in their thirties or forties busy at the stove.
Yang Hongtao glanced around but couldn't see the assassin anywhere, leaving him completely bewildered. In fact, Yang Hongtao had already guessed that the assassin wouldn't show his true face when he went out to kill; if he hoped to find someone based on the assassin's facial features, he would likely be disappointed nine times out of ten.
However, Yang Hongtao was almost certain that the two men who looked like chefs at the food stall weren't the assassin either, because their body types were too different. Even if someone could change their face through makeup, changing their body shape wasn't so easy.
Could it be that the assassin was actually a woman in disguise? But that doesn't make sense... his voice didn't sound like a woman's when he made the phone call!
Yang Hongtao muttered to himself, then quickly moved more than ten meters closer to the food stall, intending to take a closer look. After all, since he had already sensed the existence of the independent soul within the phone, it proved that the assassin must be right in front of him; there was no reason he couldn't find him. Or perhaps the assassin really was a woman in disguise! In any case, as long as Yang Hongtao found the remaining independent soul within the phone, he should be able to confirm who the assassin was.
However, just as Yang Hongtao walked to the front of the food stall and was about to go in, he suddenly could no longer sense the existence of that independent soul entity!
Damn it, can I really be that unlucky?! That independent soul entity could have disappeared any earlier or later, but of all times it had to vanish at the most crucial moment? Isn't this just playing with people?!
Yang Hongtao was extremely annoyed, but soon he felt something was wrong. He had only identified this beef noodle stall and walked straight towards it, without paying much attention to the strength of his senses about the independent soul. Now that he thought about it, it seemed that the closer he got to this place, the weaker the senses became. Could it be that... the assassin was not actually in this beef noodle stall at all?
Thinking of this, Yang Hongtao quickly took a few steps back along the same path.
As a result, he had only taken three steps back when that strange sensation of the independent soul actually occurred again!
That's really true!
Therefore, Yang Hongtao stopped searching for the assassin with his naked eyes altogether. Instead, he half-closed his eyes and relied entirely on his senses of that faint, independent soul to find his way. He quickly discovered that the faint sensation was emanating from a nearby food stall selling Yunnan rice noodles. Having determined the approximate location, and after a brief observation, Yang Hongtao easily locked onto his target.
It was a young man who looked to be only in his early twenties. Judging by his appearance alone, he was indeed quite different from the assassin. However, Yang Hongtao was very familiar with this man's build, and the man was also wearing the same oil-stained T-shirt. When Yang Hongtao moved closer and released a wisp of his soul power to scan the young man, he not only discovered the cell phone, but also that Zhou Ziwei's wallet was still there.
Wow, so this guy isn't so bad after all! He actually tried to shift the blame onto me like this!
Now Yang Hongtao understood that when he called the assassin earlier, the assassin must have quickly discovered the flaw, which is why he deliberately brought up beef noodles to try and draw Yang Hongtao's attention to the food stall next door. If Yang Hongtao hadn't been able to sense the remaining independent soul in the assassin's phone, he probably would have been fooled!
So... since the assassin discovered the flaw in the phone call, why didn't he simply lead him further away, or give him no hints at all? In that case, Yang Hongtao's chances of finding this place would be even smaller, and wouldn't he be much safer?
Yang Hongtao was puzzled for a moment, then suddenly realized.
It's estimated that the assassin was unwilling to give up because he hadn't completed his mission. When he heard Yang Hongtao's probing phone call, he decided to play along and lure Yang Hongtao to this food street. He planned to find an opportunity to kill Yang Hongtao in one go and complete the mission that had already caused him to fail twice.
If the person who came was not Yang Hongtao, the "target," then the assassin would naturally stay far away and would not be so easily recognized.
"Damn it, you can use a trick against me, but do you think I can't?" Realizing this, Yang Hongtao immediately devised a plan. He had come here to fight this assassin and find out who was behind it all. Therefore, he wasn't afraid the assassin wouldn't make a move; he was only afraid that the guy would suddenly attack when he was least expecting it.
So Yang Hongtao simply circled the food stall where the assassin was before leaving. He then walked hesitantly into the beef noodle stall. Throughout the entire ordeal, Yang Hongtao only glanced at the assassin at the beginning; even when he used his soul power to probe the assassin's belongings, he never looked in that direction again.
"Boss, a bowl of beef noodles, please."
Yang Hongtao feigned suspicion, sat down, ordered a bowl of beef noodles, and began looking around, scrutinizing everyone in the food stall from head to toe several times. Finally, he put on a disappointed look, hurriedly shoveled a few mouthfuls of the freshly cooked beef noodles into his mouth, pushed the bowl away, paid the bill to the owner, and turned to leave.
Yang Hongtao walked at a moderate pace, keeping a watchful eye on his back. As he expected, the connection between him and the independent soul remained unbroken; clearly, the assassin was following him closely. A barely perceptible smile appeared on Yang Hongtao's lips, then he suddenly quickened his pace, swiftly leaving the food street, turning and disappearing into a quieter alley ahead…
Volume 1: The Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 31: Transformer
The young man following closely behind paused slightly when he saw Yang Hongtao suddenly speed up and turn into an empty street. He knew that this "target" had most likely discovered he was being followed. He stopped, hesitated for a moment, then reached into his belt and touched the six cross-shaped objects. Suddenly emboldened, he quickened his pace and hurried after him. At the same time, he reached for his waist, and two cross-shaped darts were already nestled in his palms.
This dart has blades at both ends, one end like a needle. It can be thrown as a concealed weapon to injure someone, or held in the hand and used as a dart or similar weapon. In fact, for him, this dart is his true specialty, the ultimate weapon he relied on for assassination and self-defense when he became an assassin. However, because this weapon is so unusual, the traces left after a murder are easily identifiable. Therefore, he will not easily use this guard skill unless it is a very difficult mission. For ordinary missions, he either uses his bare hands or firearms, and there is almost no mission he cannot handle.
But today, for some unknown reason, he encountered the most troublesome target he'd ever faced. The pay for this job wasn't particularly high; if the target hadn't lived in the same city, he probably wouldn't have taken the job at all. He'd initially thought the mission would be easy, but it turned out to be fraught with difficulties.
He had initially disguised himself as a taxi driver and suffocated his target, but then the target somehow came back to life. When he made his second move, he suddenly noticed that the target seemed to have become much more agile.
What surprised and bewildered him most was that his phone suddenly went crazy during the mission, turning on automatically twice and even inexplicably dialing the 110 emergency call center.
This was a completely inexplicable disaster. If this phone hadn't been specially issued by the organization, possessing many amazing functions, and if it weren't the only way he could contact the organization, he would have thrown this damn phone as far away as possible long ago.
Even if the phone is completely broken, he can only report the malfunction and wait for the organization to replace or repair it.
However, after escaping from Yang Hongtao, he fiddled with the phone countless times, but couldn't find anything wrong with it. In the end, he could only describe what happened today as "seeing a ghost."
In any case, Yang Hongtao had already been listed as one of the most difficult targets by the assassin. Therefore, after receiving Yang Hongtao's probing phone call, he decided to play along and led Yang Hongtao to the food stall next to him. He also made sure to bring his six cross-shaped darts, which he rarely used, with him.
Firstly, the darts were his specialty, honed since childhood, giving him more confidence when facing enemies. Secondly, the area was a bustling city, making it inconvenient to use a pistol, and even with a silencer, the chances of being detected were still high.
Yang Hongtao walked ahead, feeling the assassin closely following behind him, and couldn't help but feel a little nervous. As soon as he turned into the quiet street, he reached into his pocket without hesitation and grabbed his Glock pistol.
Although he had never conducted live-fire drills, Yang Hongtao was quite confident in his marksmanship. Among the remnant souls he had merged with, several were quite proficient with firearms in their previous lives. After these different memories from several people were finally merged into one, they formed a unique kind of experiential memory. This powerful experiential memory was definitely more than one level higher than any of those individuals.
Therefore, without specific experiments, Yang Hongtao could not make a precise assessment of his marksmanship, but he was confident that he was at least a few points better than the assassin behind him.
With this pistol, Yang Hongtao was at least 70% confident that he could turn the tables and take down the assassin behind him.
The problem is that his gun doesn't have a silencer. If he fires a single shot, people three blocks away will be able to hear it. If some concerned citizen remembers his face and reports it to the police, he'll probably be charged with murder by firearm.
Although the person behind him was a professional assassin, and Yang Hongtao's killing was considered self-defense, the key question is whether the police would believe him if he said that! Moreover, even if he could find evidence to prove that the person was an assassin, he would first have to explain his illegal possession of a firearm to the authorities.
Therefore, Yang Hongtao's courage grew considerably as he gripped the gun in his arms, but he also knew that it was best not to use the gun unless absolutely necessary.
After turning the corner and walking a few steps, I saw a large, rusty thing standing on the sidewalk ahead. It turned out to be an old-fashioned transformer.
About one meter outside the transformer, a rope circle was set up with two cloth strips hanging on it, with the words "High Voltage Danger, Do Not Approach" written in red pen.
As we all know, a transformer is a facility that converts high-voltage electricity transmitted from a power plant into low-voltage electricity for residential use. Nowadays, transformers in cities are generally fully enclosed, which has a relatively high safety factor.
The old, rusty transformer in front of us was designed with some safety hazards, and given its age and disrepair, it should have been replaced long ago. However, this street is currently undergoing redevelopment, and the next phase of urban planning is to demolish all the old houses here to build a leisure square. At that time, the transformer will have to be completely removed, so there is no need to replace it with a new one now.
The moment Yang Hongtao saw the transformer, his mind started racing... High-voltage electricity! What a treasure! If he could use this thing, he could kill someone without leaving a trace, and he wouldn't have to take any responsibility afterward. Even if someone witnessed it, it wouldn't matter! Haha...
The transformer in front of him was simply too big, its total volume was not much smaller than a house. It was estimated that it would be extremely difficult to create an independent soul body directly inside this behemoth using soul power. He might even exhaust his own soul power and still not succeed.
Although the experience of creating independent soul entities in the safe and mobile phone respectively shows that the soul power required to create an independent soul entity in a non-living object is not necessarily related to the size of the object, it does not mean that a larger object necessarily requires more soul power than a smaller object.
The problem is that this transformer is too big. Yang Hongtao can't believe that such a big thing can be controlled with just a little bit of soul power.
Anyway, this transformer is made up of many parts. Yang Hongtao estimated that as long as one or two important components are controlled, the high voltage should be successfully discharged.
Yang Hongtao kept walking, but when he was still some distance away from the transformer, he decisively released a wisp of his soul power and went inside the old antique to study it.
Fortunately, one of the hundreds of remnant souls that Yang Hongtao had merged with was an electrical engineer in his previous life, so he had a good understanding of the structure and principle of the transformer. Combined with the hidden dangers caused by the old antique due to years of disrepair, Yang Hongtao successfully found a breakthrough in less than ten seconds.
He doesn't need to control the entire transformer at all. As long as he can control a small internal component and tilt a terminal at a 15-degree angle, he can immediately conduct the high-voltage electricity that has not yet been transformed into the transformer's casing...
Without any hesitation, Yang Hongtao found the key point and immediately concentrated the wisp of soul power that was leaking out of his body on that component. He also gritted his teeth and continuously sent the soul power from his body to it.
Although the large amount of soul power consumed would make Yang Hongtao feel very distressed, whether he could safely kill the assassin depended on this, and he couldn't afford to be stingy at such a critical moment.
The result was quite unexpected for Yang Hongtao. The transformer component he was trying to control was about the size of a mobile phone, but to his surprise, he only used a small portion of his soul power, about one-twentieth of the soul power he used to create an independent soul entity within the mobile phone, and he succeeded.
Volume 1: The Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 32: Control Failure
Therefore, it seems that the amount of soul power required to create an independent soul from a non-living object is not significantly related to the size of that object.
Judging from the results of Yang Hongtao's three attempts, the one that created an independent soul entity in the mobile phone consumed the most soul power, followed by the safe. As for the components of this transformer, compared to the previous two, the soul power consumed was negligible.
So what patterns can be found in this? Yang Hongtao pondered that perhaps the amount of soul power consumed is related to the precision of the target? In other words, although that mobile phone is the smallest, in terms of precision, it is definitely higher than that of the safe, while the zero part inside this transformer is relatively much simpler.
This is the only pattern that Yang Hongtao has been able to find so far. As for whether there are other influencing factors, Yang Hongtao has no idea.
Moreover, Yang Hongtao also sensed that although the independent soul body established in this zero part was easy to form, its life strength was not strong and its spirituality was very poor.
To give an analogy, if the independent soul created in a mobile phone is equivalent to an adult, then the independent soul generated in a safe is equivalent to a young adult, while the components of this transformer are equivalent to a two- or three-year-old child.
In the blink of an eye, Yang Hongtao didn't have time to think things through. Just as he successfully created an independent soul in the core component of the transformer, the assassin behind him had already turned the corner and chased him into the street.
Without any hesitation, Yang Hongtao ran quickly forward, hugging the massive transformer.
The young assassin had a bad feeling as soon as he entered the street. It was obvious that the target had suddenly sped up because he had realized he was being followed. In such a situation, a normal person would feel safer in a crowded place.
Because crowded places make people more cautious, and using crowds to obstruct one's view makes it easier to escape.
However, after discovering that he was being followed, Yang Hongtao immediately disappeared into this secluded street. This action was clearly unreasonable, which aroused the assassin's suspicion.
Despite his suspicions, the assassin showed no intention of stopping. He had already failed twice today, and a third failure could affect his confidence. Therefore, he was determined not to let Yang Hongtao go this time.
In his mind, the most likely reason Yang Hongtao lured him to this street was that he had a few accomplices lying in ambush here, or even called the police. Perhaps the police had already laid a trap here, just waiting for him to fall into it.
If that's the case, then the assassin isn't too afraid. If Yang Hongtao's helpers are just ordinary people, then no matter how many they come up with, it won't make a difference in front of a professional assassin like him.
Even if there are police lying in ambush here, as long as he gets close enough, even if he is surrounded by police, he is confident that he can eliminate the target first and then retreat calmly.
So when the young assassin saw that there was no one else on the street except the two of them, he stopped hiding and immediately took a step forward, making full use of his speed advantage to quickly shorten the distance between the two.
Eleven meters, ten meters, nine meters...
A cold smile suddenly appeared on the young assassin's lips. The knuckles of his hands, which were tightly gripping the cross-shaped darts, gradually turned pale white, and the most powerful explosive force was gathered in each finger.
One meter... If he could shorten the distance between them by just one meter, he would be confident that he could kill the target in front of him with a single dart, and by then it would be too late even if someone came out to help!
The young assassin's darts were highly lethal within fifteen meters, but if shot too far, both the power and accuracy would be somewhat reduced. The strongest power was within eight meters, and within eight meters, even if the opponent had a gun, he was confident that he could kill them first.
However, just as the young assassin was about to strike, Yang Hongtao, who was running ahead, suddenly stopped, then took a step back, turned around, and pointed a dark gun barrel at his forehead.
A chill ran through him. The young assassin had already raised his left hand, which was holding the dart, but he lacked the courage to strike.
Although the two were still a little far apart, the young assassin was still more than 70% confident that he could pierce the target's heart with the cross-shaped dart.
The problem is... from Yang Hongtao's movements and techniques, he could tell that the other man's marksmanship was definitely no worse than his. Even if he could kill the other man with a single dart, he would probably also have a bloody hole in his own forehead at the same time.
Assassins never really care about human lives, but those lives belong to other people. Of course, they care a lot about their own lives.
At that moment, the young assassin didn't hesitate at all. He suddenly lunged to the side, rolled on the ground, and found the nearest cover to hide in.
At this moment, the closest and most ideal cover for him was, of course, the old transformer. As for the warning tape surrounding the transformer, it couldn't stop him and he ignored it completely.