Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 100: Increasing Sensing Intensity
The idea of creating a truly living being was incredibly tempting, and the thought made Zhou Ziwei's heart pound uncontrollably.
If Zhou Ziwei weren't sitting in a car, driving through the remote mountains, far from any village or town, he would definitely have found a secluded spot without hesitation to put his idea into practice.
However, for now... Zhou Ziwei could only forcibly suppress that impulse and barely restrain the urge to immediately create an independent soul entity.
For the rest of the journey, Zhou Ziwei had no interest in thinking about anything else, and he had no expectations for the trip to Tengchong to gamble on stones.
Compared to perfecting his superpowers, no amount of money is of any use or value; it's all just material possessions and has far less appeal to Zhou Ziwei.
If his idea could actually come true, then what does money matter? Just imagine! If he ever needs money, he could simply walk around outside any bank, and the bank's vault would automatically open, and the banknotes inside would sprout wings and fly out, landing at Zhou Ziwei's house and disappearing into the travel bag under his bed... Wow, that's such a brilliant idea! Even though Zhou Ziwei is already a billionaire, he still longs to experience the thrill of money raining down from the sky.
As for safety, there's even less to worry about. Just make a hundred or eighty bronze figures of various sizes according to the standard of the Shaolin Temple's Eighteen Bronze Men Formation. Ideally, half of them should have wings. Then, he can create an independent soul within each bronze figure.
When there's nothing to do, these bronze figures are just ordinary decorations, sitting there motionless. If any foolish thief, robber, or assassin dares to break into Zhou Ziwei's house, that foolish guy's head might be cracked open by one of the bronze figures that were originally without a place to live!
However, just as Zhou Ziwei was envisioning a bright future, he suddenly realized that each of the independent souls he created only had a very short lifespan. It was as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head, and his heart immediately sank.
Obviously, even if his idea is effective, even if it is possible to create a structure similar to human nerves in a non-living entity, and even if it is possible to bring a non-living entity with an independent soul to life.
This project must have been enormous. Just think about the intricate and ubiquitous neural networks within the human body; how easy would it be to replicate that onto a non-living organism?
If they work themselves to death to create one, only to have it vanish in a mere ten or twenty minutes, Zhou Ziwei would be so angry he'd vomit blood!
Zhou Ziwei had finally come up with such a brilliant idea, and he was unwilling to give it up so easily. Therefore, he decided that he had to try it out once he arrived in Tengchong.
Then Zhou Ziwei suddenly thought of how amazing the Niu-style Tai Chi Chuan had been in his hands. He felt that the power of this style of boxing was far beyond his imagination, making it seem unreal.
Now that I think about it... the reason why Niu-style Tai Chi was so powerful in him was very likely related to the powerful soul force contained within his body.
If Zhou Ziwei's deduction is correct, then it means that although ordinary people cannot sense the existence of soul power, in reality, everyone's every move is still achieved through the transmission of soul power.
This means that... a person's reaction speed and the quality of their manipulation of power are absolutely related to the amount or quality of the soul power flowing within their nerves.
The essence of Niu-style Tai Chi lies in the four words "borrowing force to strike back". To achieve this, one must first have extremely sharp eyesight and keen reaction speed. Only by observing and finding the moment when the opponent's force is intermittent, and seizing this fleeting opportunity to insert oneself at the point where the force breaks, can one skillfully change the direction of the opponent's force in an instant.
Whether you can successfully change the direction of the opponent's power depends on whether you can manipulate power to a very subtle degree.
This means that... the reason why Zhou Ziwei was able to unleash such powerful force in Niu-style Tai Chi is likely because the quantity and quality of the soul power flowing in his nerve pathways far exceeded that of ordinary people.
Perhaps in the hands of an ordinary person, this style of boxing could only borrow less than 10% of the enemy's strength, so its effectiveness would be very limited. However, Zhou Ziwei could borrow about 50% of the enemy's strength, which at least put him in an invincible position. In this way, no matter how ordinary this style of boxing is, it can be turned into something magical in Zhou Ziwei's hands!
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei felt a surge of excitement. If his guess was correct, as long as he intentionally injected more soul power into his nerves to improve his reaction speed and control over power, then... he might even be able to borrow the enemy's full strength when he used the Niu-style Tai Chi!
In this way, Niu-style Tai Chi would no longer be a simple form of Tai Chi; it would become like Zhang Wuji's Qiankun Great Shift or Murong Fu's Dou Zhuan Xing Yi! When someone throws a punch, he could control the angle of the punch at will, redirecting it 100% to his desired target! In reality, Niu-style Tai Chi's use of the opponent's force is not simply about reflecting the force back; its subtle control is incredibly varied. If Zhou Ziwei could truly borrow 100% of his opponent's power, then the effectiveness of this style of boxing would likely surpass even the two fictional divine skills created by Jin Yong in his novels!
It is impossible for someone to deliberately increase the total amount of soul power flowing in their nervous system. After all, ordinary people don't even know what soul power is, let alone feel the existence of this mysterious energy.
But Zhou Ziwei is different. When he was a wandering ghost on the execution ground, he had already mastered the control of soul power. Now that he is bound by a physical body, the intensity of this control has decreased somewhat, but after repeated use over this period of time, it has reached an extremely precise level.
However, the nerve endings in the human body are so fine that they are invisible to the naked eye. He didn't know if he could accurately control the flow of his soul power into the entire nervous system...
With nothing else to do while sitting in the car, Zhou Ziwei began to deliberately control his soul power, diverting a wisp of it into his nervous system.
Although he only separated a tiny wisp of soul power from the sea of souls, this tiny wisp was still countless times stronger than the soul power that was constantly circulating passively within the human body.
As a result, Zhou Ziwei indeed felt that the area through which the nerve threads, infused with a large amount of soul power, flowed became a hundred times more sensitive than before...
However, Zhou Ziwei forgot that while this heightened sensitivity could bring him faster reaction speed and greater control precision, it would also bring him extremely negative effects.
Just as Zhou Ziwei infused a surge of soul power into the relatively thick nerve line in his left arm, a strong gust of wind blew in through the car window, causing his sleeves to flutter violently in the wind.
The movement of his sleeves would naturally cause some slight friction between his arm and skin, a small friction that he might not normally feel.
The fatal thing was that the spiritual power flowing into the nerves of his arm increased the intensity of his sensations in that area by a hundredfold. Caught off guard, Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt a deep, bone-chilling itching sensation surge through his arm, and he couldn't help but let out a cry of ecstasy...
Volume 1 The Rebirth of a Prodigy Chapter 101 A Close Call
Zhou Ziwei's sudden scream startled the other two people in the car. The scream, made because he was so itchy, was definitely different from a normal scream and sounded particularly creepy to others.
Li Yifeng, who had been dozing off with his eyes closed, suddenly sat up straight, his eyes wide, and exclaimed, "What happened! What happened... were you in a car accident?!"
Liu Xiaofei, who was driving and rambling about how her former roommate at the police academy had made a bad choice in choosing friends and had been cheated out of her virginity by a married man, suddenly heard Zhou Ziwei's shout. Her hands trembled, and she instinctively swerved the steering wheel, sending the car straight toward the bottomless cliff on the left.
The road from Baoshan to Tengchong is almost entirely mountainous, with many sections flanked by sheer cliffs.
After Liu Xiaofei drove onto this road, she felt very scared.
However, she had a strong personality and believed that since she was the driver assigned by the branch office to drive Zhou Ziwei, she should respect her responsibilities. So even though she was afraid, she insisted on not letting Li Yifeng and Zhou Ziwei drive for her.
The reason she kept nagging like Tang Sanzang along the way was to force herself to stay alert. Otherwise, how could a young girl like her, no matter how lively and enthusiastic she was, be more talkative than an old woman?
But what she feared most came to pass. Zhou Ziwei's sudden scream caused her tense nerves to break down, causing her to lose control of the steering wheel...
"ah--"
This time, it was Liu Xiaofei's turn to let out a terrifying scream. If it were an ordinary girl, she would probably have been scared out of her wits by such a sudden turn of events.
Liu Xiaofei, after all, was a prospective police officer who had undergone four years of rigorous training at the police academy and graduated with excellent grades. Seeing the car speeding toward the cliff, he immediately screamed and slammed on the brakes while using all his strength to turn the steering wheel in the opposite direction.
Unexpectedly, Liu Xiaofei used too much force at the wrong angle. With this forceful pull, the wheel did not turn at all, but the steering wheel made a "crack" sound and was broken off by Liu Xiaofei.
The Audi was already of good quality; even if Liu Xiaofei were ten times stronger, she would never have been able to break the steering wheel.
However, the original driver of this car used to rely on his position as a leader in the branch office to drive, acting arrogantly and offending many people. One night, a unit in Kunming held a celebration with fireworks, and one of his enemies took advantage of the sound of the fireworks to go downstairs to the driver's house and wreak havoc on the car he was driving.
The paint was scratched, the tires were punctured, the windows were smashed, and finally even the steering wheel inside was sawed off with a hacksaw.
The driver was dumbfounded when he went downstairs the next day. Although he was furious, he dared not make a fuss about it.
After all, this is a government vehicle, and according to regulations, it should be driven back to the branch office's garage at night. He drove the car back to his own home without permission, which is a violation of the regulations. If his superiors find out, he may lose his job.
Left with no other option, the driver took the car to a repair shop and had it quickly fixed. After the car was repainted, the tires were patched, and the windshield was replaced, it had already cost the driver two or three months' salary. If he were to replace the steering wheel with an original one, he probably wouldn't be able to keep his salary for the whole year. So, he had someone weld on a steering wheel that he had picked up from downstairs at his house, sand it smooth, and repaint it to make do.
The driver's bluff resulted in Liu Xiaofei grabbing the steering wheel at the crucial moment, leaving her only able to scream hysterically as she stared at the ever-approaching precipice!
"Quickly pull the handbrake!"
If Li Yifeng had seen this scene on a television screen, he would have laughed so hard he couldn't stand up straight. But now, being there in person, as someone sitting in this dangerous vehicle, he was terrified. He shouted warnings to Liu Xiaofei in front of him while frantically trying to unbuckle his seatbelt and jump out of the car.
In his anxiety, his hands and feet became a little clumsy, and after trying for a long time, he couldn't even find the seatbelt buckle.
At this moment, a small portion of Zhou Ziwei's nervous system had been actively infused with a large amount of soul power, which made his reaction ability and sensory sensitivity reach an unbelievable level.
Upon seeing this, he was only slightly taken aback before quickly unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the tightly closed car door, and then jumped up, using the momentum of the swinging car door to float to the ground.
Jumping out of a speeding car is definitely not a fun thing to do. If you lose your balance even slightly, you'll likely end up with a bloody head injury or be crushed under the wheels.
Normally, even if Zhou Ziwei could jump out of the car safely, he would have to roll on the ground to eliminate the inertia caused by the car's speed.
However, after landing, he simply used his toes to touch the ground and spun around quickly once before steadily eliminating the inertia.
However, while Zhou Ziwei's reaction speed and agility have greatly increased, his physical sensitivity has also reached a terrifying level.
So although it looked like Zhou Ziwei landed lightly on the ground, the recoil from his feet hitting the ground caused a strong spasm in his sensitive nerves. The pain, amplified a hundredfold, almost made him faint from the pain.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei was mentally prepared this time and gritted his teeth and got through it.
Although he knew that if he quickly withdrew the soul power injected into his nervous system, the pain amplified by the grotesque would immediately disappear, he instead continued to inject an even larger amount of soul power into his nervous system.
Although he himself is now out of danger, there are still two living beings in the car that is speeding towards the cliff, one of whom was one of Zhou Ziwei's best friends in his previous life.
The reason these two people ended up in this desperate situation can be said to be entirely because of him.
Therefore, from any perspective, Zhou Ziwei would never abandon these two people.
The car was moving at high speed, and Zhou Ziwei had no chance to create an independent soul inside the car to help him control it.
Therefore, in order to save the two people in the car under these circumstances, Zhou Ziwei could only rely on his body's strength control ability, which was a hundred times more sensitive than usual, and bring out the characteristic of using the opponent's force against them in Niu-style Tai Chi...
Because he wanted to use his body to forcibly stop the car from falling off the cliff!
The true meaning of Tai Chi is that when the fist reaches its peak, four ounces can deflect a thousand pounds! However... a car traveling at high speed, with its own weight plus the force of the impact, weighs more than ten thousand pounds, and how many four ounces can Zhou Ziwei, who is physically weak, use?
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 102: A Thousand Pounds Pressing Down Four Ounces
Despite the excruciating pain amplified a hundredfold in his brain, Zhou Ziwei forced himself to endure it. Without hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the rear bumper of the Audi that was speeding past him.
He then roared, squatted down in a horse stance, and gripped the bumper with both hands in a circular motion. Suddenly, he unleashed the "Unloading Step and Moving Mountain" move from the Niu-style Tai Chi. Instantly, the car's forward momentum was redirected by the pulsation of the muscles in Zhou Ziwei's palms and the subtle adjustments in his leg steps.
This move, "Unloading Step and Moving Mountain," is considered one of the most exquisite moves in Niu-style Tai Chi. As the name suggests, if used well, this move can even move a mountain by one person.
Of course... anyone who can actually move a mountain can be considered human; this is just an exaggerated metaphor. But even so, it shows how exquisite this technique is.
However, the more exquisite the move, the more difficult it is to master perfectly; and the more powerful the move, the more terrifying its danger.
Sometimes four ounces can move a thousand pounds, but more often than not, what we see is a scene where a thousand pounds unsurprisingly overwhelms four ounces.
With his nerve reaction speed and sensitivity a hundred times greater than usual, Zhou Ziwei had already managed to control this move to an almost perfect degree. However, true perfection is impossible in this world. Even if Zhou Ziwei could increase his nerve reaction speed and sensitivity a thousand times, he would never be able to truly make full use of the power from the outside world.
If Zhou Ziwei were facing an ordinary enemy, then missing even one-thousandth, or even one-hundredth, or one-tenth of the opponent's strength wouldn't pose a significant problem.
But now he was facing a speeding car, and even if he lost just one-thousandth of his power, it would be enough to cause him devastating damage!
Just as the car's forward momentum suddenly slowed down, two crisp "snap" sounds suddenly came from Zhou Ziwei's hands!
Zhou Ziwei finally couldn't help but let out another miserable scream of pain. Just now, the impact of the ground hitting his feet had already made him break out in a cold sweat. This time, with both arms broken at the same time, the pain was magnified a hundred times, enough to make an ordinary person die from the pain.
In other words, Zhou Ziwei's soul was far stronger than that of an ordinary person, which is why he managed to hold on and not immediately lose consciousness.
Seeing that the car had been slowed down by more than half after Zhou Ziwei's earlier obstruction, but since it was already close to the edge of the cliff, it only needed a slight forward lurch to smash through the makeshift roadside guardrail with unstoppable force, and then half of the car body was already hanging over the edge of the cliff... The speed that had already slowed down suddenly generated a powerful force under the pull of gravity, dragging the car violently down the cliff...
Damn it, let's go for it!
Hearing two desperate screams from inside the car, Zhou Ziwei felt a pain in his heart that surpassed even the physical pain. He absolutely could not allow his friend to be implicated and die because of him. He could no longer care about his broken arms. He quickly took two steps forward, suddenly raised his left leg, and with a slight tremor of his toes, drew irregular circles in the air before kicking at an extremely fast speed at the rear of the car, which was raised high due to the front of the car crashing down—the Niu-style Tai Chi Roundhouse Kick!
Zhou Ziwei's kick looked extremely light and gentle; there wasn't even the slightest sound when his toes collided with the car body.
Then, his five toe bones, as well as his arch, ankle, and even his shin and thigh bones, all made a series of crisp "crack" sounds without any doubt at the moment of impact.
The pain from this series of fractures, magnified a hundredfold, surged through Zhou Ziwei's nerves, which were filled with the power of his soul, like the Qiantang River tide, wave after wave, wildly crashing into Zhou Ziwei's brain.
This time, Zhou Ziwei didn't even last half a second before his vision went black, his body leaned back, and he fell straight down beside the cliff with its broken railing.
At the same time, the Audi sedan, which had already been thrown into the air, paused slightly in mid-air after being kicked by Zhou Ziwei's seemingly gentle kick, and then began to spin rapidly in circles in mid-air in a strange manner.