"I didn't say that!" Zhou Ziwei said innocently. "I don't even know what 'beautiful beyond compare' means, so how could I say it? By the way... what does 'beautiful beyond compare' mean? Why does it have to be square and not round or flat?"
Zhou Ziwei's question really stumped Liu Xiaofei. After a moment of stunned silence, she glared at Zhou Ziwei and said, "How would I know? It's just an old saying that people use to describe dropping their bags. Who knows what it means?"
"I see." Zhou Ziwei nodded upon hearing this and said, "In my opinion, this might actually be an insult, hehe... Alright, let's stop studying ancient literature. Fasten your seatbelt, we're about to set off."
"oh……"
After Zhou Ziwei's outburst, the awkwardness between the two disappeared, and they even became closer.
Following Zhou Ziwei's instructions, Liu Xiaofei fastened her seatbelt, then leaned to the side, resting her head on Zhou Ziwei's shoulder with a tender smile, and asked softly, "By the way... I just went to my uncle's house last night, why are you going again today? Also... where is Officer Sun? Didn't she say she would protect you closely?"
Zhou Ziwei smiled faintly and said, "Officer Sun has other business to attend to and has already left. My name is currently listed on the black market assassin website, which means there might be assassins attacking me. These assassins might come tomorrow, or they might come a year later, or they might never come at all... Officer Sun can't possibly stay by my side forever! Hehe... The country didn't train her just for me. I'm just a nobody in the civilian world, why would the police need to assign someone to protect me all the time... Hmm... As for going to your cousin's house... I'm going to give him a gift."
When Liu Xiaofei heard from Zhou Ziwei that Sun Xiaoyu had been transferred, she couldn't tell whether she was happy or worried.
What made him happy was that without that icy woman following Zhou Ziwei around every day, he would have more opportunities to get closer to Zhou Ziwei, and even be intimate with him.
What worries him is that without the protection of a professional like Sun Xiaoyu, he doesn't know if Zhou Ziwei can handle any powerful assassins who might come.
Later, after hearing Zhou Ziwei say that he was going to give Gu Dongfeng a gift, he asked, "Give a gift? What kind of gift?"
Zhou Ziwei chuckled and said, "Well... I'll keep you in suspense for now, you'll find out later."
"Ugh... Fine, don't tell me then, I can't be bothered to ask anyway..."
Liu Xiaofei pretended to be angry, putting on a stern face and ignoring Zhou Ziwei. However, no matter how hard she tried to keep her pretty face straight, she could never fake the icy indifference of Sun Xiaoyu. After less than two minutes, seeing that Zhou Ziwei didn't seem inclined to coax her, she couldn't hold back any longer. She couldn't help but chuckle, turned her head and glared at Zhou Ziwei, saying, "Can't you just coax her a little... really... like a block of wood. I don't even know how you managed to trick your wife into your hands."
Zhou Ziwei really couldn't answer this question. In fact, Wang Xuewei was a free gift with the purchase of another wife. He inherited the body and identity of the original Zhou Ziwei, so he naturally gained this wife as well.
Therefore, Zhou Ziwei simply smiled slightly upon hearing this and continued to ignore her.
Liu Xiaofei stuck out her tongue and continued, "By the way... have you heard... someone said someone jumped off a hotel this morning... but when someone heard the noise and came out to check, they couldn't find the jumper's body. There was just a pool of blood on the street below the hotel, but not long after, someone wiped it away. When I heard this, I started to have doubts... could that person be the assassin who came to attack you? Did you throw him off the building?"
As Zhou Ziwei drove, he nodded casually and said, "Yes."
Liu Xiaofei was startled and quickly sat up straight, saying urgently, "Sure enough, there are still assassins coming to attack you. How could Officer Sun leave at a time like this? No... I have to report to my superiors later and try to get them to send someone even more capable than Officer Sun to protect you."
"No...please don't!"
Zhou Ziwei said with a wry smile, "Those people drove me crazy with frustration last time. You absolutely mustn't bring in another group like that, otherwise... I'm afraid I'll be driven crazy by them before I'm even killed by the assassins."
Liu Xiaofei knew perfectly well that they were being protected by layers of guards, and that she was certainly inconvenienced at every turn. However, she was more worried about Zhou Ziwei's safety, and hesitated for a moment before saying, "But you..."
“There are no ‘buts’.” Zhou Ziwei shook his head and said, “The last group that came was arguably the most elite and professional team in the police force, but what was the result… You know, right? In the end, how much of a role did they actually play? I don’t need anyone to protect me. As long as they don’t cause trouble, I might live a few more days…”
Liu Xiaofei fell silent upon hearing Zhou Ziwei's words. Upon reflection, she realized that Zhou Ziwei was right. In the previous attack, the police had played a very limited role. Despite being monitored by a large team of dozens of people, the attackers still managed to drive a car into her vicinity, and a sniper even fired at Zhou Ziwei. If it weren't for Zhou Ziwei's quick reaction, even with Sun Xiaoyu's close protection, he would have been hard-pressed to escape unscathed.
Someone even infiltrated the hotel and planted a bomb in the elevator. Although Sun Xiaoyu had advanced bomb detection equipment, she didn't detect it at all. On the contrary, Zhou Ziwei was the one who had the foresight to discover that there was something wrong with the elevator.
If it weren't for Zhou Ziwei's insistence, all three of them would probably have perished in that elevator...
From this perspective, it seems that the so-called police elites did not play much of a role in the attack. Sun Xiaoyu, who had been protecting Zhou Ziwei closely, not only failed to save Zhou Ziwei, but Zhou Ziwei actually saved her twice.
As a police officer, Liu Xiaofei naturally has a strong sense of belonging to the police force, and the first thing she thinks of when danger arises is the police.
However, faced with the facts, Liu Xiaofei has to admit that, for Zhou Ziwei, the police protection doesn't seem to be of much use.
Left with no other choice, Liu Xiaofei had to temporarily abandon the idea.
The county town wasn't big, and Zhou Ziwei drove for a short while before arriving at Gu Dongfeng's house. Only the elderly couple lived there, and it was usually quite quiet. Because Gu Dongfeng had a rather eccentric temperament, although many people respected him, few were willing to visit his home unnecessarily.
In the last two years, Gu Dongfeng's hands have trembled so much that he can no longer hold a carving knife. He has basically retired from the jade carving industry, except for occasionally giving pointers to a few of his former favorite apprentices. As a result, without those people who deliberately come to Gu Dongfeng to curry favor and ask for a piece of his work, his home has become increasingly deserted.
Although the elderly couple had gotten used to this quiet life, Gu Dongfeng's wife still loved liveliness at heart. When she saw Zhou Ziwei and Liu Xiaofei enter the door together, she was immediately overjoyed and hurriedly invited them into the living room. Then she made tea, washed fruit, and brought cigarettes and candy. She was busy making Zhou Ziwei feel uncomfortable, not knowing whether to sit or stand properly.
Later, Gu Dongfeng scolded his wife a couple of times, and only then did Mrs. Gu stop making arrangements. She said that Zhou Ziwei had cured Liu Xiaofei's eyes, and she hadn't properly thanked him yet. She insisted that Zhou Ziwei stay for a meal today, and then she went out to buy groceries.
When Gu Dongfeng saw that Zhou Ziwei was carrying a leather suitcase, he knew that Zhou Ziwei must have come for a reason. So he didn't bother with small talk and went straight to the point: "Little Zhou, you're not here just to visit this old man, are you? Just tell me what's on your mind!"
Seeing that Gu Dongfeng was being so direct, Zhou Ziwei didn't beat around the bush either. He immediately picked up the suitcase, gently placed it on the wooden coffee table, and said, "I'm here to give a gift to Mr. Gu."
Upon hearing this, Gu Dongfeng said with great interest, "Oh... this is really something new... now that you're my boss, even if someone's going to give a gift, it should be me, the subordinate, giving the gift to the boss... so... what kind of act are you putting on?"
Without saying a word, Zhou Ziwei opened the suitcase, revealing more than a hundred pieces of jadeite fragments still covered in mud.
"This is..." Gu Dongfeng was old and his eyesight wasn't very good, but he still quickly noticed the tempting patches of green peeking out from under the mud, and he was immediately shocked.
Zhou Ziwei and Li Yifeng worked half the night yesterday to dig out all the jade fragments buried underground. Of course, they didn't have time to clean the mud off each piece of jade fragment.
However, Zhou Ziwei still wiped each of the hundred-plus pieces he was preparing to send to Gu Dongfeng a little. Although he didn't reveal all the color of the jade inside, even someone with poor eyesight wouldn't mistake the things in the box for stones anymore.
With his slightly trembling hands, Gu Dongfeng picked up the jade fragments from the box one by one and examined them carefully, occasionally letting out exclamations of amazement.
"This is... this piece with purple eyes... this piece is icy colorless jadeite... and this is a rare five-colored floating flower jadeite... my god... there's even a top-quality glass-type imperial green jadeite... although it's a bit small, it's still the most exquisite piece of jadeite I've seen in recent years... this..."
Holding the few pieces of the finest jadeite fragments in his hands, Gu Dongfeng's cloudy eyes shone with excitement. But then he sighed, carefully placing the jadeite back into the box, shaking his head with regret. "What a pity," he said, "such fine material... such good material has been rarely seen in the last ten years or so. If I had seen it a few years earlier... I would have gladly given up a few years of my life to carve them into the most perfect ornaments myself. What a pity... Oh, Xiao Zhou... I didn't expect you to have such good stock. But... what do you mean by bringing it here... Don't you know my hands are failing? Seeing such good material, although I'm very tempted, I'm simply powerless to do it!"
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziwei realized that Gu Dongfeng had misunderstood him, and quickly explained, "Grandpa, what are you saying? I didn't come here to ask you to carve it for me. Didn't I just say that I came here today to give you a gift? These jades... are my gift to you. So, are you satisfied?"
"What...you mean these were all given to me...given to me?"
Gu Dongfeng was startled and hurriedly waved his hands, saying, "No, no, are you kidding me? This... do you know how much this box of jade is worth? Even if we don't count the smaller jade scraps, this is worth at least 20 million... Although I promised to be an advisor for your jadeite rough exchange, I haven't done anything yet. How can I accept such a valuable gift from you all at once? No... absolutely not."
"These jadeite pieces are worth more than 20 million."
Zhou Ziwei was stunned for a moment, then couldn't help but smile wryly.
It wasn't because he felt the jade was more valuable than expected, making it a bad deal to give it to Gu Dongfeng.
Instead, he felt that his judgment on jadeite was outdated. His experience and knowledge about the quality and price of jadeite were extracted from the remnant soul of a jade carver. However, that jade carver was a death row inmate who was executed three years ago. Before his execution, he had already been imprisoned for an unknown period of time. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei's assessment of the value of jadeite based on the experience he gained from that jade carver was quite inaccurate.
When Zhou Ziwei was selecting the materials to give to Gu Dongfeng, he had already roughly estimated their value. In his opinion, although he had specially included a piece of top-quality imperial green jadeite of glass type among these hundred-plus pieces, it was the smallest of the seven pieces of imperial green jadeite he had dug up. It was not even the size of an egg yolk, so it shouldn't be worth much money.
Therefore, even if he were to calculate all the materials, he estimated that these hundred-odd pieces would only be worth around ten million at most.
But now, Gu Dongfeng has only looked at a few of the better-quality pieces and has already given an estimate of over 20 million, which is more than double the price Zhou Ziwei estimated...
This shows that Zhou Ziwei's knowledge of jade is far from sufficient. If he wants to start a powerful jewelry company that mainly deals in jade ornaments, he must find a manager who is at least more knowledgeable than himself.
"Hehe... How about it? Regret it now! Then hurry up and put it away!"
Seeing Zhou Ziwei's stunned expression, Gu Dongfeng assumed he was distressed by the value of the jadeite. He chuckled and said, "This old man is practically buried. Although I haven't saved much in my life, it's enough for my wife and me to live on in our old age. So... even if your things are valuable, they're useless to this old man. You should keep them for yourself! Once your jadeite rough exchange is established, you'll need a lot of initial investment. That's when you'll need the money. If you don't need these jadeite pieces, I can help you find a buyer. I guarantee you won't lose out."
Zhou Ziwei smiled and shook his head, saying, "Why would I regret it... These are really gifts for you, and you have to accept them because... in fact... these things should have belonged to you in the first place."
"It should have belonged to me?" Gu Dongfeng was taken aback upon hearing this. He then picked up another piece of jade, looked down at the dirt stuck to it, and finally realized, saying, "I know, these... these were dug out from under our Gu family's old house?"
Zhou Ziwei nodded and said, "That's right... that's why I said these things originally belonged to you."
"No, no, no..." Gu Dongfeng sighed and said, "Little Zhou... you're a really good young man, I'm impressed. These days everyone's obsessed with money, and you're actually giving away the treasure you dug up yourself... I really don't know whether to call you kind or stupid... I've already sold you that house, so the treasure I pulled out from under it is naturally yours too... It's worth over twenty million..."
"Oh, if a renowned artist were to personally carve these jadeite roughs into finished products, their value would at least triple. You know this, yet you still willingly give them away… Alright, I appreciate your kindness, but these things are truly useless to me now. Sigh… If it were two years ago, before my hands started trembling like this, even if you refused to give them to me, I would have begged you to let me carve these fine pieces for you. But now… sigh… you might as well take them all!"
As Gu Dongfeng finished speaking, he looked down at his hands, which were still trembling slightly as he held them in mid-air. His expression was filled with sorrow, and his heroic demeanor at the end of his life made Liu Xiaofei, who was standing beside him, unable to hold back her tears.
Zhou Ziwei was also feeling uneasy, but then an idea struck him and he couldn't help but say, "Well... old man, as you know, I have some knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. I might be able to take a look at your hand."
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 163: Miraculous Healing
"What...what did you say?"
Gu Dongfeng, who was staring down at his slightly trembling hands and mourning his artistic career, was struck dumb by Zhou Ziwei's words. He jumped up from the sofa, grabbed Zhou Ziwei's shoulder, and said excitedly, "You mean... my hands... there's still... there's still hope for a cure?"
Zhou Ziwei had just said it casually, but he didn't expect Gu Dongfeng's reaction to be so strong. He quickly replied with a wry smile, "This... Grandpa, please calm down... What I mean is... I have some medical knowledge, so maybe I can take a look at your hand, but before I examine it carefully, I can't guarantee that I can really cure it... You'd better not have too high hopes for me."
Zhou Ziwei said this because he saw that Gu Dongfeng was too excited, so he specifically reminded Gu Dongfeng. Otherwise, if Gu Dongfeng had too much hope and he couldn't cure him... then at Gu Dongfeng's age, he didn't know if he could withstand the blow.
To everyone's surprise, Gu Dongfeng didn't seem to take Zhou Ziwei's reminder seriously. He was still excited and said incoherently, "Haha... It's okay... I know... I know, Xiao Zhou... Ah... No no no... Boss Zhou... Dr. Zhou... I know your medical skills are very good. Just take care of me... As long as you can cure my hands, even if it costs me my old life, I will give it to you without hesitation."
Zhou Ziwei shook his head helplessly, knowing that it was mostly because he had cured Liu Xiaofei's eyes that the old man had gained confidence in him. He had only not expected that he could also cure Liu Xiaofei's hands. Now that he had brought it up, Liu Xiaofei's expectations had been greatly aroused. He figured that it would be useless for Zhou Ziwei to say anything more now.
The fact that Zhou Ziwei cured Liu Xiaofei's eyes was originally kept strictly confidential, but this matter could be kept from others but not from Gu Dongfeng. Even the police must have some knowledge of this matter, but the police certainly wouldn't know as much detail as Gu Dongfeng.
Liu Xiaofei, who was standing nearby, also knew that what saddened her uncle the most was that his hands were shaking so badly that he could no longer continue his lifelong passion for jade carving, which had caused him to lose his appetite and sleep poorly for the past two years.
If Zhou Ziwei could really cure his hand, it would be like giving him a second life, so how could he not be excited?
Having personally experienced Zhou Ziwei's miraculous "medical skills," Liu Xiaofei naturally had more confidence in him than anyone else. Seeing this, she quickly said, "Yes... Brother Wei, your medical skills can even cure my eyes. My uncle only has tremors in his hands. You can definitely cure him, right?"
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziwei didn't say anything more, and could only nod, saying, "Of course I will try my best to treat Grandpa Gu, but whether I can cure him or not, I can't say for sure right now... Come on! Grandpa Gu, give me your left hand first, I'll take your pulse..."
Traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis emphasizes "observation, auscultation, inquiry, and palpation." Since Zhou Ziwei is now pretending to treat patients using traditional Chinese medicine, he naturally has to do a good job of these performances first.
After persuading Gu Dongfeng to sit down, Zhou Ziwei had Gu Dongfeng extend one hand and place it flat on the coffee table. Then, Zhou Ziwei extended three fingers and gently placed them on Gu Dongfeng's wrist. He then closed his eyes and pretended to be calm and collected.
Zhou Ziwei had also extracted the soul memories of a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, so his knowledge and experience in traditional Chinese medicine were equivalent to that of a veteran doctor who had treated patients for half his life. Therefore, his pulse diagnosis of Gu Dongfeng was not entirely pretentious.
After taking his pulse for a while, Zhou Ziwei asked Gu Dongfeng to open his mouth, looked at his tongue coating, then examined Gu Dongfeng's eyelids and asked about his recent eating habits.
After much fuss, Zhou Ziwei finally got down to business. He sat down again and had Gu Dongfeng stretch out both hands and place them flat on the coffee table. Then Zhou Ziwei also stretched out his hands and covered Gu Dongfeng's hands.
Tremors in the hands and feet of the elderly are a difficult condition to treat, mainly because the organs of the body gradually age and the nerve endings in the body gradually wither, resulting in a serious decline in the body's control over the will.
Therefore, to cure hand tremors, you must first restore the vitality of the withered nerve endings.
Zhou Ziwei's greatest reliance is his soul power, but for the time being, he lacks experience in using this wonderful energy. So Zhou Ziwei can only use it to treat his own or others' external injuries or neurological ailments.
Gu Dongfeng's problem also happened to be related to his nervous system. Zhou Ziwei had thought of this possibility beforehand, which is why he volunteered to treat Gu Dongfeng.
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei kept his soul power at a peculiar vibration frequency, slowly permeating into Gu Dongfeng's palms. He felt the withered and twisted appearance of the nerves distributed in his palms, and knew that this was the main problem causing Gu Dongfeng's hands to tremble.
Without holding back, he immediately channeled a large amount of his soul power into Gu Dongfeng's body through his hands. Then, with an overwhelming amount, he temporarily forced the soul power belonging to Gu Dongfeng's nervous system to retreat back into his sea of soul.
Then Zhou Ziwei used a large amount of soul power to soak Gu Dongfeng's entire nervous system, from his hands upwards to below his brain, into his soul power, using the massive amount of soul power to slowly nourish the withered nerve endings...
This treatment method is extremely extravagant. Injecting one's own soul power into another's body will cause the soul power to be consumed very quickly. And since Zhou Ziwei has stretched the battle line so far, the rate at which his soul power is consumed has reached an astonishing level. Almost every few seconds, Zhou Ziwei's soul power will lose the energy of a remnant soul.
Under normal circumstances, even if Zhou Ziwei wanted to treat Gu Dongfeng, he would never have used such an extreme method.
He could have injected only a small portion of his soul power into Gu Dongfeng's body, starting from the tip of one of Gu Dongfeng's fingers, gradually nourishing the nerve endings there, and then slowly pushing it upwards little by little.
Although this process will take longer, probably ten or eight days, to allow Gu Dongfeng's hands to gradually return to normal, Zhou Ziwei will lose countless times less soul power.
However, Zhou Ziwei has no awareness of conserving his soul power at all; in fact, he seems to be deliberately wasting it.
Because he had already planned that when he left Tengchong, he would definitely go to the Bat Cave again to replenish the soul power in his sea of souls.
During this period, Zhou Ziwei did not consume much soul power, so the space he could replenish was very limited. If he had not used his soul power much after replenishing it last time, the capacity of his soul sea probably would not have expanded. Therefore, he naturally had to make the most of his time to waste some soul power so that he could replenish more soul power this time.
Zhou Ziwei spent a good ten minutes and consumed the energy of nearly two hundred remnant souls before he finally felt that the nervous system from Gu Dongfeng's fingertips to his brain had regained its vitality, and only then did he stop.
This massive depletion of his soul power left Zhou Ziwei looking rather unwell; his face was slightly pale, and he appeared somewhat exhausted.
Seeing this, Liu Xiaofei disregarded the fact that her cousin was still nearby and immediately took out a tissue to wipe the sweat from Zhou Ziwei's forehead. Then she asked anxiously, "How is it? Can my cousin's hand be healed?"