"Ah... how come there are dead people here too?"
Although Chen Linlin had heard the killer's frantic screams coming from the garage, she was completely unaware when Zhou Ziwei threw the dagger in the darkness. Now, as Zhou Ziwei arrived at the garage door, Chen Linlin saw the killer's body lying on the ground, dead, through the dim light inside. She screamed in surprise and jumped into Zhou Ziwei's arms like a cute koala.
"It's alright, it's alright... it's just a dead person, what's there to be afraid of?"
Zhou Ziwei gently patted Chen Linlin's back, comforted her a few times, then released her and picked up the dagger from the assassin's hand.
After all, Zhou Ziwei had already created an independent soul on this dagger, and it was quite handy to use now. Moreover, the little mosquito could suck the venom from the dagger later. So it was fine if he didn't pick it up before, but if he found it from another assassin later, he couldn't let it go to waste.
However, just as Zhou Ziwei picked up the dagger, he suddenly felt a cold wind blowing in his face. When he looked up, he saw a faint, illusory figure baring its fangs and claws as it pounced straight down from the sky.
This guy's ghost regained its senses so quickly!
The phantom was naturally the soul of the assassin who had just died. Zhou Ziwei had unintentionally absorbed more than ten souls by reciting the Six-Syllable Mantra, which almost caused his already near-maximum soul power to explode. Therefore, after killing those assassins, he dared not absorb any more of these newly dead souls.
Normally, newly formed souls would be in a daze for a period of time, merely wandering around their own corpses without much consciousness. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei didn't pay much attention to this kind of soul. However, he didn't expect that the soul of the assassin he had just killed could attack him so quickly. It was clear that it had regained some consciousness and knew that its death was caused by Zhou Ziwei, which is why it rushed towards Zhou Ziwei without regard for anything else.
Even a newly deceased soul, if it is still a complete soul, has a soul power that is at most equivalent to the energy of ten remnant souls. If the person has a strong will, it will be a little more, but it will generally not exceed twenty.
Such a soul naturally posed little threat to Zhou Ziwei.
However… when facing the attack of this soul, Zhou Ziwei suddenly realized that apart from using the Six-Syllable Mantra or the Soul Roar, he didn’t seem to have many other ways to deal with a pure soul.
If Zhou Ziwei were to allow this soul to enter his body, he could use his soul power to decompose it directly with a vibration frequency similar to a soul roar. However... this would still draw its soul power into Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls.
The problem is that Zhou Ziwei's soul sea is already full of soul power. Even if this one more soul power is added, there is a risk that the soul will be burst.
Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt a headache coming on. He realized that sometimes, filling one's soul sea too full could be a dangerous thing...
Volume 1: The Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 229: Soul Bead
If Zhou Ziwei had known this would happen, he would have just casually launched a soul roar at the ground or the sky to consume some of his almost overflowing soul power. Just one soul roar would consume hundreds of Zhou Ziwei's remnant soul energy. Normally, it would not be easy to collect so much soul power. How could he just idly waste it for fun?
Now that the time has come, it's too late to use it immediately. The soul entity arrived very quickly, almost in the blink of an eye, and then it stretched out its claws and viciously grabbed at Zhou Ziwei.
This soul body was only recently formed and is essentially an illusion. So, despite its menacing appearance, Zhou Ziwei wasn't worried about being actually scratched. However, while he wouldn't be scratched, it was highly likely that the ghost would take the opportunity to directly enter his body.
Zhou Ziwei wasn't quite sure if a newborn soul could infiltrate another life form. Theoretically, a living body should have a natural barrier effect on other souls, but that's not absolute. At least Zhou Ziwei wasn't sure whether he was a true reincarnated soul or just a wandering soul residing in this body.
If it is the latter, then it is very likely that it will not have any blocking effect on other soul entities at all.
Although it was relatively unlikely that the ordinary newborn soul would enter his body, Zhou Ziwei dared not take the risk again. If the soul couldn't enter his body, that would be fine, but if it did... then his soul and the newborn soul would be locked in a life-or-death struggle. If Zhou Ziwei wanted to eliminate the soul within his body, he would have to devour it; there was no other way. Moreover... the feeling of a soul entering his body was truly disgusting. Last time, when four evil bat spirits attacked his body in the bat cave, Zhou Ziwei was utterly disgusted. So this time, without any hesitation, Zhou Ziwei immediately released a massive amount of soul power from his forehead, directly surrounding the attacking soul.
Releasing so much soul power out of the body at once would consume it very quickly, but Zhou Ziwei wasn't concerned about that right now. He was worried about his soul sea being too full, so he used this method. As long as he continued to release a large amount of soul power out of the body, a considerable portion of it would be consumed after a while. And if he still couldn't deal with the assassin's soul by then, he could confidently recite the Six-Syllable Mantra again.
With a "whoosh," a massive amount of soul power flew out of his body and immediately formed a giant hand, resembling a giant spirit, under Zhou Ziwei's conscious control. It directly grabbed the illusory soul body, which was the size of a normal human body, into its palm.
Then Zhou Ziwei was surprised to see faint flashes of electricity constantly passing through the large hand conjured by his soul power, while the soul being contained in the hand emitted painful howls... Of course, this sound was just a small movement unique to souls, which Zhou Ziwei, a reborn old ghost, could hear, while Chen Linlin standing next to him was completely unaware.
It turns out that my soul power, which is imbued with electrical properties, can directly harm other soul entities.
Zhou Ziwei was both surprised and delighted to see this. If he had known this would happen, he wouldn't have been afraid at all. He would have just unleashed a wisp of his soul power and probably killed the soul entity in no time.
However, it was not as simple as Zhou Ziwei had imagined. Although the soul was completely surrounded by Zhou Ziwei's soul power and kept hissing under the intermittent flashes of lightning, it did not dissipate. Instead, it seemed to be rapidly shrinking under the damage from Zhou Ziwei's soul power.
Originally, after this soul body was generated, its shape and size were almost exactly the same as the person's in life, except that it was a virtual body composed entirely of soul power. However, this size and shape were rapidly shrinking little by little in the large hand that Zhou Ziwei had conjured from soul power. In just over ten seconds, the soul body had changed from the size of an adult to the appearance of a child, and the wailing sound still existed, with no sign of the soul dissipating.
Damn it, I refuse to believe I can't handle you!
Zhou Ziwei gritted his teeth and continued to use his consciousness to clench the giant hand tightly. Under his deliberate control, the soul in the giant hand shrank even faster, gradually turning into the shape of an infant... What Zhou Ziwei found most incredible was that when the soul underwent this change, it was not just its shape that changed, but even its facial features gradually changed as its body continued to shrink.
If the soul that was initially formed still retained the appearance of a middle-aged man, then after being held by Zhou Ziwei's giant hand for a while, even before its body began to shrink, its appearance had already transformed into that of a young man. Then its body began to shrink, and its appearance became increasingly childish, gradually transforming into that of a teenager, and then a child, an infant... In that instant, Zhou Ziwei seemed to be witnessing a living cycle of life and death, except that what he was witnessing was a cycle of life and death in reverse, allowing a soul to perfectly demonstrate before him a life form returning from the moment of death to the state of an infant, returning to the state of being at birth. This scene left Zhou Ziwei completely dumbfounded.
However, even when the soul shrank to the size of an infant in Zhou Ziwei's giant hand, it still didn't stop its shrill screams. This proved that the soul's consciousness had not yet dissipated. If Zhou Ziwei let go at this point, the soul might quickly return to its original form.
Left with no other choice, Zhou Ziwei could only continue to desperately clench the giant hand formed from his soul power, wanting to see what changes could occur to this soul body that had shrunk to the size of an infant.
The baby continued to shrink, slowly... the baby-shaped soul's wails became intermittent, and the soul's body began to lose its ability to withstand the pressure of the giant hand, slowly curling up, just like... just like the position a fetus maintains in the mother's womb, and then it continued to shrink, slowly becoming the size of a fist, the size of an egg, the size of an egg yolk... Every time Zhou Ziwei thought that he had compressed the soul to its limit, as long as he did not release the giant hand, the soul would continue to shrink.
Only when the soul, which was originally just a phantom, was compressed by Zhou Ziwei to the size of a grain of rice, did it suddenly make a soft "poof" sound. This rice-grain-sized thing seemed to undergo an unknown qualitative change due to being compressed to its limit, and its transparent state turned into a pitch-black color.
Only then did Zhou Ziwei realize that his soul power could no longer compress this thing even a fraction of a second.
In the blink of an eye, the entire process of compressing the soul body only took a few dozen seconds. Although Zhou Ziwei released a considerable amount of soul power, it was not actually consumed much during this time. According to Zhou Ziwei's estimate, he only lost about a dozen remnant soul energies. The capacity of the soul sea freed up by this consumption was only enough for him to absorb one more ordinary complete soul.
Zhou Ziwei shook his head inwardly, but he did not continue to intentionally consume his soul power. Now that he knew for certain that ordinary souls would not pose any threat to him, and that even without using his special ability to absorb the soul, he could easily kill a soul by releasing his soul power, he naturally had no need to intentionally consume his soul power anymore.
He quickly gathered all the soul power outside his body back into his sea of souls. Then, Zhou Ziwei saw that the soul body he had compressed to the extreme had completely transformed into a rice-grain-sized, pure black, pearl-like object, which was quietly floating in mid-air without moving.
Zhou Ziwei hesitated for a moment, then finally couldn't resist his curiosity and reached out to gently touch the black pearl in the air...
Huh... how could this be?
When Zhou Ziwei reached out and touched the black pearl, he felt absolutely nothing. This was normal, as a soul is not a physical substance and you wouldn't feel anything when you touched it. But what was strange was that although he couldn't feel that he had touched the thing, he was actually able to pick it up by pinching it between two fingers.
The black bead that had been floating quietly in mid-air now seemed to have a physical form, and Zhou Ziwei directly grasped it in his hand.
Zhou Ziwei was surprised to bring the object to his face and try to place it flat in the palm of his other hand. He saw that the pearl-like object was still quietly resting in his palm. However, Zhou Ziwei still could not feel the existence of the object through the touch of his palm. Even if Zhou Ziwei directly increased the sensitivity of his limbs to six times the normal level, he still could not feel it at all. He could not even feel the unique cold aura of the soul.
When Zhou Ziwei tried to slowly lift his palm upwards again, he felt the black bead rise slowly with his palm and remain steadily in his palm. However, when he slowly moved his palm downwards, the black bead immediately left his palm and remained quietly in its original position in mid-air.
This is really strange!
Zhou Ziwei stared wide-eyed at the object he had created, yet which even he couldn't understand, with utter astonishment.
Hmm... It doesn't fall with the palm, proving that this thing is still a weightless, massless ethereal object. But... it rises when the palm lifts it up, which seems to prove that this thing should be a solid object. So... is it a solid object or an ethereal object? This is truly bizarre.
Zhou Ziwei scratched his head, somewhat puzzled, then grabbed the bead in his hand again, and then completely closed his palm, clenching it tightly in his hand... Although he still couldn't feel the existence of that thing, he found that he couldn't completely clench his hand, which further confirmed that this thing was no longer a completely illusory thing.
"Hey... what are you doing? Why are you standing here and not moving? You... don't scare me!"
While Zhou Ziwei was fighting to the death with the spirit, Chen Linlin remained completely unaware. Through the sliver of light filtering through the garage door, she could only vaguely see Zhou Ziwei pull the dagger out of the corpse and then stand there in a daze. He then stretched out a hand and gestured in the air, looking extremely strange, which gave Chen Linlin a chill down her spine.
"Hehe... I'm fine, let's go! Let's get to your car first..."
Seeing Chen Linlin's terrified expression, Zhou Ziwei figured that if he told her that he had just turned a ghost into a pearl and was currently playing with it in his hand, he wondered if it would drive her to a mental breakdown.
As Zhou Ziwei spoke, he held the black bead in one hand and pulled Chen Linlin to the Bentley he had searched earlier, asking, "Which car was assigned to you by the organizers? Is it this Bentley?"
Chen Linlin couldn't see the car clearly, but when she heard Zhou Ziwei mention Bentley, she immediately nodded and said, "Yes... How did you know? Hmm... You can see it clearly even in such darkness?"
Zhou Ziwei, of course, wouldn't mention that he could borrow the mosquito's sensory system or use his soul power to scan instead of his eyes. So he simply said, "It's just seeing in the dark, it's nothing... You can do it too with a little practice..."
"Really...can I really do it? Then teach me!" Upon hearing this, Chen Linlin immediately became very interested and grabbed Zhou Ziwei's arm, gently shaking it.
“Uh… this…” Zhou Ziwei said, a little overwhelmed, “Okay! If you really want to learn, I’ll tell you… Well, if you want to develop the ability to see in the dark, then get up at midnight every day, light an incense stick three meters in front of you, and then stare at the burning incense stick without blinking… Well… this… you’ll probably need to stare at it for four or five hours every day, and if you practice like this for more than ten years, you’ll be able to see in the dark like me.”
"What do you mean, practice for four or five hours every night, and keep practicing for more than ten years..." Chen Linlin was completely defeated by Zhou Ziwei's words. Her face changed drastically and she shook her head repeatedly, saying, "Then you might as well just kill me, God... Not sleeping every night, and having to persist for more than ten years... In more than ten years, I will be an old woman. What's the point of me learning this damn thing?"
Zhou Ziwei chuckled smugly, his scheme having worked, and said, "Fine, if you don't want to learn, no one's forcing you... Oh... Where's the key? Do you have the key to this car?"
Chen Linlin shook her head again and said, "No... I don't even know how to drive yet, what would I need the car keys for? The car keys are always with the bodyguard... Ah... By the way, could you teach me to drive sometime? My dad is worried I'll hit someone while driving, so he's always refused to let me learn. Honestly... the fact that I can't drive is almost becoming a joke in the entire Hong Kong entertainment industry... No, this time I can skip learning how to see in the dark, but you absolutely have to teach me to drive."
Zhou Ziwei was once again defeated by Chen Linlin. Was this woman crazy? He wouldn't even let her see his true face, yet she would teach him to drive when she had nothing better to do?
After rolling his eyes slightly, Zhou Ziwei scanned the entire car again with his soul power. Only after confirming that no one had tampered with the car during the previous period did Zhou Ziwei feel relieved. He then removed the steel wire wrapped around his watch and opened the car door.
He then got into the driver's seat and, as usual, used a wire to pry open the engine lock a few times. At the same time, he found a screwdriver in the car and gently turned it inside the lock...
With a soft but steady "boom," the engine started, and several lights inside and outside the car turned on simultaneously, finally ending the darkness.
"Ah...that's great."
Having been in darkness for so long, Chen Linlin was suddenly blinded by the light. Although the light made her unable to see anything clearly, she still jumped up excitedly. She then stood outside the car door, grabbed Zhou Ziwei, and shook his head vigorously, saying, "You're amazing! You can drive without a key... Ah... I don't want to learn how to see in the dark anymore. Can you teach me this skill? Then I can steal my dad's limited edition sports car and drive it anytime I want."
"Okay, okay...stop fooling around."
Zhou Ziwei was so dizzy from Chen Linlin's shaking that he quickly said, "Why don't you take a look at that female celebrity lying on the ground over there? See if she's your friend. If she is, we'll take her with us. If not, then we'll leave her for now."
"Ah...where is he? Let me see..." As soon as Chen Linlin heard that there was someone else in the garage, she immediately stopped her obviously overly intimate actions with Zhou Ziwei. She rubbed her eyes hard, and after her eyes gradually adjusted to the light of the car headlights, she looked in the direction Zhou Ziwei was pointing. Then she couldn't help but exclaim, "Oh my god...it's Xiao Yushen!"
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 230: The Murderous Demon King
Seeing Chen Linlin's exaggerated reaction, Zhou Ziwei rubbed his nose and said, somewhat puzzled, "Who is Xiao Yushen? Judging from your nervousness, could it be that she... she's your girlfriend?"
"My girlfriend?" Chen Linlin was slightly taken aback at first, then realized what Zhou Ziwei was talking about. She glared at him fiercely and said, "What are you talking about... She's the most popular star in all of Asia right now. How could she possibly be with me... You really don't know her? Xiao Yushen... The female lead in 'City of Angels.' She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival two years ago for that movie. Her new album 'Crying Lotus' sold over 100,000 copies as soon as it was released. This... such a popular star, you... really don't know her?"
"Uh...is she really famous now? Does that mean I have to know her just because she's famous?" Zhou Ziwei shook his head, a little embarrassed. He realized he was really out of touch. After spending three years as a wandering ghost on the execution ground, he naturally didn't know much about what had happened during that time. After his rebirth, he had some free time to search online for some major events and news from the past three years, but he still couldn't keep up with all that news, let alone have time to pay attention to things in the entertainment industry. Naturally, he wouldn't know about this big star who had only become famous in the last two years.
“Since she’s not your friend, let’s just leave her alone. The troupe will come looking for her later… Wait here for a bit, I’ll go take care of those assassins and be right back.”
As Zhou Ziwei spoke, he prepared to get out of the car and take down the three assassins who had been knocked down by Little Mosquito.
Although the mosquitoes are very venomous and can knock people unconscious, Zhou Ziwei doesn't know how long they'll be unconscious or whether it will affect their strength after they wake up. Therefore, in order to effectively weaken the Night Elves, he must eliminate all of them.
Otherwise, he would miss this opportunity and who knows if these people would try to assassinate Zhou Ziwei again after they wake up? Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to oneself, and Zhou Ziwei didn't want to do such a stupid thing.
Before getting out of the car, he looked at the soul bead formed from the assassin's soul in his hand and hesitated slightly. He wondered if he should refine the souls of the unconscious assassins into such soul beads after killing them. Although Zhou Ziwei was not sure what such things could be used for, at least one thing was certain: these things were made of souls. If he absorbed them when his soul power was insufficient, he could probably convert them into pure soul power.
Although such a small soul bead contains very little soul power, at most only a dozen or so remnant soul energies, if there is an opportunity to store more in the future, it can accumulate into a large amount.
For example, right now, his soul power is already at its maximum. If he encounters another soul entity like this, he simply cannot absorb it directly. But once his life settles down in the future, he will definitely not have the opportunity to obtain so much soul power again. So where will he go to absorb soul power then?
Is he relying entirely on the super-powerful soul within the bullet in his chest? Even if that soul is incredibly powerful, it will eventually be drained. While electricity can replenish his soul power, it's only acceptable once or twice. He simply doesn't dare to frequently absorb electricity to replace his soul power.
Alternatively, Zhou Ziwei could go to places like hospitals or crematoriums to find newly formed souls. However... Zhou Ziwei wasn't the kind of vicious person. He wouldn't care at all if he directly absorbed the souls of these killers and terrorists, but he really couldn't bring himself to absorb the souls of a large number of innocent people after they died.
It should be understood that the soul is also a different kind of life, and since the soul truly exists, the concept of reincarnation may not be entirely unfounded. It's just that Zhou Ziwei doesn't yet know what kind of person can enter the cycle of reincarnation after death. But just because he doesn't know doesn't mean that the possibility doesn't exist. If he really didn't distinguish between right and wrong and devoured every soul he saw, that would definitely be a thing that goes against the natural order.
That is why Zhou Ziwei never went to hospitals or crematoriums to search for the souls of people who died of natural causes.
So after a slight hesitation, Zhou Ziwei made up his mind that no matter whether the souls of those assassins would attack him after they died, he would refine those souls into soul beads and store them away first.
Although refining a soul would consume roughly the same amount of his soul power, which seemed like a waste of effort, his soul power was currently overflowing, and he was thinking about how to use some of it. For now, he would just consider it as converting the soul power in his body to the outside, turning it into mobile energy that could be replenished to his sea of souls at any time.
So Zhou Ziwei unzipped one of the pockets on his jacket, preparing to put the dark soul bead into the pocket first.
Although this soul bead has almost no weight and can float into the air at any time, it also seems to have mass and can be blocked by any tangible matter. I believe that if I put it in my pocket with a layer of cloth as a barrier, it shouldn't be lost.
"This is unbelievable, she's Xiao Yushen... You really don't even care about Xiao Yushen?" Chen Linlin still seemed a little incredulous that Zhou Ziwei really didn't know Xiao Yushen, and even more incredulous that Zhou Ziwei would be completely indifferent to that sexy female star who was famous throughout Asia. This was a great opportunity to curry favor with Xiao Yushen... If he could just wake Xiao Yushen up now and tell her the truth, he believed that this sexy female star would be very grateful to him.
But... Zhou Ziwei didn't care at all, so... why did he save me?
Because Zhou Ziwei had shown great interest in Chen Linlin's body earlier, Chen Linlin had always thought that Zhou Ziwei had risked his life to save her in order to get closer to her, a female celebrity. But now... there was a female celebrity who was even more famous than her lying there, and Zhou Ziwei didn't seem to have the desire to even glance at her. Could it be... that this person was only interested in lesbians?
Just as Chen Linlin was lost in thought, she saw Zhou Ziwei putting a small, black bead into his shirt pocket. Curious, she asked, "Hey... what's that? A black pearl... it looks so pretty!"
"Huh...you can see what I'm holding?" Zhou Ziwei's heart skipped a beat upon hearing this, and he stopped putting the small soul bead into his pocket, his mind somewhat moved.
He was initially unsure whether the soul bead, formed from a pure soul, had truly become a physical object. However, he now knew that it was probably true. If the soul bead were still an ethereal entity, ordinary people would never be able to see its existence.