Taking action secretly... it's not impossible, but Zhou Ziwei felt there was no need for it.
The beautiful snake's mastery of that heavenly voice was indeed a very advanced skill, far surpassing even Zhou Ziwei's self-created techniques for utilizing soul power. However... Zhou Ziwei wasn't particularly interested in it. After all, even if he learned it, he was unlikely to stoop to the level of grotesquely dancing and singing incoherently while facing an enemy. Just imagining such a scene would leave Zhou Ziwei utterly dumbfounded, let alone actually putting it into practice.
Another point is that although this beautiful snake has mastered an extremely advanced technique for releasing soul energy, she obviously does not have the ability to replenish or absorb soul power. In other words, the skill she has mastered is essentially a suicidal skill for her. Every time she uses it, it will cause a strong and irreversible damage to her soul.
For an ordinary person, the average soul power is around a dozen or so. Even for a master like the beautiful snake, whose soul power might be stronger than that of an ordinary person, it would not exceed one hundred.
Each time the beautiful snake woman unleashes this heavenly sound, it consumes five to eight soul power. So how many times can she use this skill in her lifetime?
Seeing that the beautiful snake woman fainted because her spell was interrupted, Zhou Ziwei could conclude that the soul power she had left was probably not enough to maintain her normal life force. This meant that... she probably didn't have much time left to live! In that case... what difference would it make whether he killed her or not?
However, just as Zhou Ziwei was about to ignore this beautiful snake and let her fend for herself, Wang Xuewei suddenly wrapped herself around his neck like a clingy kitten, whispering sweetly in his ear, "Ziwei, look how pitiful this sister is... It seems that if no one comes to her rescue in time, she might not be able to hold on... Good husband, I know you're the most capable, so... why don't you help her?"
Although Zhou Ziwei felt quite comfortable being hugged by Wang Xuewei, he wasn't so easily swayed by her words. Upon hearing this, his expression darkened slightly, and he said in a low voice, "I don't quite understand why you two treated her like this, but I do know... the reason she fell into this coma was entirely because she used a very insidious mental attack. If I hadn't interrupted her in time, then... at least you two would have definitely died from her singing. Hmph... she went to great lengths to kill you, but you turned around and worried about her life or death... I don't think there's anything noble about repaying evil with kindness; it's simply a foolish act."
Volume 2 The Assassin's Nightmare Chapter 428 Peeping into Memories
Zhou Ziwei's words caused Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang to fall silent for a while. After a long pause, they both sighed softly and then looked at Zhou Ziwei with serious expressions, saying, "We know what you said makes a lot of sense, but... we also believe that whatever she did to us before, it was out of desperation. As long as... as long as you can give her a chance, we guarantee we can persuade her to switch sides and join us. How about it, Ziwei... look how pitiful she is, give her another chance, okay?"
Zhou Ziwei glanced at the beautiful snake lying in Chu Qiutang's arms again with a strange expression, and suddenly realized something...
Perhaps the Heavenly Melody that this clever snake woman used at the end wasn't really a purely offensive move? She probably knew in her heart that even if she used all her strength in the Heavenly Melody, she wouldn't be able to do anything to Zhou Ziwei. So she changed the Heavenly Melody from an offensive move to a completely different effect—transformation.
Zhou Ziwei was 100% certain that Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang were both perfectly lucid and showed no signs of being manipulated. Their minds were also very calm, and their words did not seem to be spoken impulsively.
Then Zhou Ziwei could basically confirm that the beautiful snake had indeed done something to the two women. However... what made Zhou Ziwei somewhat helpless was that the beautiful snake's methods were too clever, because she did not try to control the two women's thoughts and behaviors, but only made them increase their favorability towards him.
Most of the time, one person's liking for another person comes inexplicably. Handsome men and beautiful women can easily win the favor of the opposite sex, but between people of the same sex, this liking is even more illogical. However, the beautiful snake clearly grasped some of the rules of human emotions and used such a small trick to make Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang develop a lot of liking for her out of nowhere.
Or perhaps the beautiful snake had done the same thing to Zhou Ziwei, but Zhou Ziwei's soul strength was on a completely different level from the beautiful snake's. If Zhou Ziwei was a mountain, then in front of him, the beautiful snake's soul was like an ant.
As the saying goes, strength can overcome technique. When the true strength of two people is vastly different, then any skill is just a passing cloud. It is completely impossible for the beautiful snake to leave any trace in Zhou Ziwei's soul.
After understanding the reason, Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt that things were not going well.
If he insists on killing this beautiful snake, then even if Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang don't necessarily turn against Zhou Ziwei because of it, it's inevitable that they will have a grudge against him from then on.
Even if Zhou Ziwei simply stood by and watched without offering any help, he would still likely have to bear the resentment the two women would feel towards him afterward.
If the beautiful snake were to die right before their eyes... then Zhou Ziwei would have to be prepared to be overwhelmed by the tears of the two beauties.
Before going to the pilot plane, Zhou Ziwei might not have cared about the feelings and thoughts of the two women. Since this beautiful snake had offended him, he would have just slapped her to death. But now... Zhou Ziwei had already had the most intimate relationship between men and women with them, and he was not a heartless person. Naturally, he could not completely ignore the thoughts and attitudes of the two women.
After hesitating for a moment, Zhou Ziwei finally gave in to the pleading looks of the two women and sighed helplessly.
However, Zhou Ziwei did not make a decision immediately. Instead, he first had a spiritual-level exchange with Xiaoxin in his mind.
"Xiao Xin... could you do a scan and see if this woman has a chip implanted in her brain?" Actually, Zhou Ziwei could do this himself, but to perform an internal scan, especially one close to the brain, he would need to channel his soul power into a vibrational frequency similar to a soul roar to barely complete it. This would consume a great deal of soul power. Now that Zhou Ziwei had Xiao Xin as a free helper, why not use him? Why bother doing it himself?
"Shin-chan knew his master would say that, so I finished scanning early this morning."
Xiao Xin's voice rang out triumphantly in Zhou Ziwei's mind, saying, "This beautiful lady does indeed have a chip in her brain, but... this chip in her brain was probably inserted six or seven years ago. Compared to the chip I possessed, it's a very outdated model."
Zhou Ziwei was not satisfied with the result and immediately asked, "I don't care what model of chip is in her head. I just want to know if you have the ability to destroy the transmitter of that chip so that the black network can no longer connect with it?"
"No problem..." As soon as Xiao Xin heard that there was something to do, he immediately shouted excitedly and said, "Master, as long as you put your hand on this beautiful woman's head, and then use your special soul energy to connect me with the chip in that beautiful woman's head, and then temporarily hand over the control of that wisp of soul energy to me, I am confident that I can completely sever the connection between that chip and the black net within three seconds."
Of course… in those three seconds, the chip might have time to send its final set of data to the black network. The black network's mastermind might then use this last set of data to determine that the chip is under attack. Once the mastermind makes this determination, it will immediately send a command through the black network to activate the chip's self-destruct program. This process could take only two and a half seconds… Therefore, while I can crack the chip's connection, I don't have absolute certainty that I can sever its connection to the black network before it self-destructs. Whether or not to take action is up to you, Master.”
Zhou Ziwei hesitated slightly upon hearing this, then asked again, "This... if the chip in her head were to self-destruct, how much damage would it cause? Would we both be injured in the explosion?"
Xiao Xin then replied, "According to my calculations, it shouldn't be the case. Although the chip's self-destruction force theoretically extends to a radius of two meters, if you were standing close to that beautiful woman when the chip exploded, you would inevitably be caught in the crossfire. However, I've scanned the alloy suit you're wearing, and its toughness is terrifying. There's no metal on Earth that can compare to its hardness and flexibility. I believe that unless you're directly hit by a high-powered missile, you can simply ignore ordinary conventional weapons. Although the chip's explosive destructive power is astonishing, this is only relative to its size, which is only about the size of a fingernail. In reality, its explosive power is roughly equivalent to a standard hand grenade! This level of explosive power poses absolutely no threat to you."
"It's good that there's no threat." After confirming that this matter wouldn't affect him, Zhou Ziwei finally made up his mind to help the beautiful snake remove the connection between the chip in her brain and the black network! Zhou Ziwei was almost certain that if he really saved the beautiful snake, then Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang would definitely insist on taking this woman with them.
Zhou Ziwei had gone through great lengths to capture the chip in his brain, and he didn't want to leave a mobile surveillance camera next to him.
Or perhaps Chu Qiutang is right; this beautiful snake was indeed forced to obey the orders of the black market assassin network to come here and attack Zhou Ziwei.
The reason why the beautiful snake had to obey the orders of the black market assassin network was probably largely due to the small chip inside her head.
Therefore, if Zhou Ziwei cannot help her eliminate the threat of this chip, then even if he lets the beautiful snake go this time, this woman will eventually come back to cause him trouble again under the manipulation of the black market assassin network.
And now... if we can successfully eliminate the threat of the chip in this woman's head, then perhaps without anyone persuading her, she will directly turn against the black market assassin network.
After all, being a puppet is certainly not a pleasant experience, and once a puppet can remove the ropes binding them and enjoy the feeling of freedom, they would never want those ropes to be put back on them.
As for the risks that forcibly severing the chip in the snake woman's head in this way would pose to her... that was not Zhou Ziwei's concern.
It's not that Zhou Ziwei is cold-hearted, but logically speaking, he was originally in a hostile relationship with the beautiful snake, so why should he care about the life or death of his enemy?
Next, Zhou Ziwei carefully explained the importance of the matter to Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang, stating that he could help the beautiful snake and even bring her back to life, but there were two points that needed to be made clear first.
First, before rescuing the beautiful snake, the chip in her head must be dealt with. Although this might pose a great danger to her, if this step is not taken care of, Zhou Ziwei would rather ignore her life or death and just leave her there to fend for herself. Otherwise, if they have someone like her who can be tracked by the black market assassin network at any time, they will not be able to escape the black network's pursuit even if they go to the ends of the earth.
Secondly, Zhou Ziwei could forgive the beautiful snake for trying to attack him this time, but if she dared to harm him again in the future... then Zhou Ziwei would absolutely not show any mercy and would kill her without hesitation, and no amount of pleading would be of any use then.
Zhou Ziwei will only rescue the woman if Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang agree to these two conditions.
After hearing this, the two women hesitated for a moment, discussed it with each other for a few more minutes, and finally agreed to Zhou Ziwei's two conditions.
Their hesitation stemmed from their concern that Zhou Ziwei might actually kill the snake woman while processing the chip in her brain. They had no objection to Zhou Ziwei's second point.
After all, although they had a strange fondness for the beautiful snake, no matter how strong that fondness was, it could never surpass their feelings for Zhou Ziwei. Therefore, if the beautiful snake were to harm Zhou Ziwei again in the future, then not only Zhou Ziwei, but even the two of them would never forgive her.
"In that case, you should retreat a bit!" Once Zhou Ziwei made his decision, he didn't hesitate and immediately shooed Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang away to prevent the chip in the snake woman's head from exploding and injuring them.
After Zhou Ziwei saw that Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang had retreated far away, he immediately placed his left hand gently on the back of the beautiful snake's head, and then released a wisp of soul power, which slowly penetrated into the beautiful snake's head with a very unique vibration frequency. After a moment, this wisp of soul power came into contact with the chip implanted in the back of the head and surrounded it.
The rest was naturally left to Xiao Xin to handle. Zhou Ziwei carefully maintained the stability of this wisp of soul power, but handed over the actual control to Xiao Xin.
Three seconds passed in a flash. Although he knew that even if the chip in the snake woman's head really self-destructed, it wouldn't hurt him, Zhou Ziwei still couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.
After all, even if you don't die, being blown up certainly won't feel good.
"Haha... It's done."
Xiao Xin's voice finally rang in Zhou Ziwei's mind again: "I didn't expect that severing the connection of this black network is really not easy. It took a little longer than I expected. But luckily, the chip in this beauty's brain is an old model from a few years ago, so the signal transmission reaction speed is much slower. If it were the same model as my chip... sigh, then this beauty would probably have been blown into a pile of minced meat by now."
Zhou Ziwei didn't care about the process; as long as Xiaoxin successfully completed it, that was enough.
However, Zhou Ziwei did not immediately withdraw his hand. Instead, he said to Xiaoxin in his mind again, "Xiaoxin, try it and see if you can read the data stored in her chip."
"Hmm... perhaps Master wants to peek into this beautiful woman's inner world... Hehe... that would indeed be a very interesting thing, but..." Xiao Xin said somewhat helplessly, "This chip has been implanted for six or seven years, and it has already successfully copied all of the beauty's memories and transmitted them to the Black Network's main brain. The data stored in this chip is very limited now; it should be the beauty's scattered memories from the recent period, which were only copied by the chip recently and haven't had time to be transmitted back to the Black Network's main brain yet. Hmm... it's all read now. I'll organize it slightly and then send it to your mind!"
"Only some scattered memories?" Zhou Ziwei said with a hint of disappointment, "That's fine then. You should still send me this memory first. Maybe I can find information about that mysterious Black God in it... Oh... By the way, since this chip has the ability to copy the host's memories, see if you can reactivate this ability. We can have her copy all of the beautiful snake's memories again. Once the copying is complete, we can read all of her memories, right?"
"Great... Peeping into a beautiful woman's memories, I like this." Xiao Xin's wicked voice said in Zhou Ziwei's mind, "However, the chip in the beautiful woman's head is a bit too rubbish. To copy all her memories, it will probably take at least fifty days. Master, you'll have to be patient!"
"Two months? No problem..." Zhou Ziwei agreed without hesitation, "Set it up right away! As long as this woman doesn't die within two months, we can try to read her memories then!"
Zhou Ziwei wasn't really interested in the beautiful woman's private life; he just wanted to achieve some kind of psychological satisfaction by spying on her memories.
In fact, what Zhou Ziwei was most interested in was the beautiful snake's heavenly voice. Although Zhou Ziwei could not learn to dance seductively or sing love songs like the beautiful snake, he should be able to learn some characteristics of this skill from the beautiful snake and learn from this method of improving the utilization rate of soul power.
In addition, Zhou Ziwei also wanted to learn more about the black market assassin network and the mysterious Black God by reading the memories of the beautiful snake.
As long as there are real gains, it's worth waiting another two months.
Reading the residual data in the chip and then reactivating the chip's function of copying the host's memory was much more difficult than simply blocking or destroying the chip's connection with the black network. It took Xiao Xin about half a minute to finally finish all of this. Afterward, he had Zhou Ziwei withdraw the soul power that had been input into the snake's head.
Next, Zhou Ziwei's task was to treat the beautiful snake. Having completed the above tasks, even if Wang Xuewei and Chu Qiutang didn't want Zhou Ziwei to help the beautiful snake, he would have no choice but to take action.
Otherwise, all his efforts would have been in vain if this beautiful snake woman had died within two days.
The symptoms of the "beautiful snake" include depletion of vitality. If this were taken to any major hospital in the world, and any expert or professor were consulted, it would be impossible to come up with an effective treatment plan. At most, they could only give the patient an IV drip to barely maintain the patient's bodily functions, and then it would be a matter of doing their best and leaving the rest to fate.
Volume Two: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 429: The Beautiful Snake
The "Snake Beauty" ailment, which is like a terminal illness for ordinary people, posed no challenge to Zhou Ziwei. Everything was quite clear: the Snake Beauty's half-dead state was simply due to excessive consumption of her soul power, which had reduced her already limited soul power to a dangerously low level.
Saving her is simple; just give her the right amount of Soul Pearl.
Zhou Ziwei then reached into a hidden compartment in his alloy suit and pulled out an ordinary soul bead. He roughly estimated that the soul bead was condensed from the soul of an ordinary US special forces soldier. This US soldier's soul energy should be stronger than that of an ordinary person, probably more than fifteen but less than twenty.
Zhou Ziwei did not weaken the soul bead any further, and directly stuffed it into the mouth of the beautiful snake.
Since this beautiful snake is skilled in using soul power for attacks, even if she doesn't have a way to absorb soul power to replenish her losses, she will still have more opportunities to expand her sea of souls than ordinary people by calling upon soul power.
It's only a mere dozen or so soul powers; surely it wouldn't burst her sea of souls!
Of course... if Zhou Ziwei were facing someone he cared about, even if he knew there wasn't much danger in doing this, he wouldn't act so recklessly, even if there was only a tiny risk. Ultimately, it's because this beautiful snake woman isn't someone he cares about.
As Zhou Ziwei had predicted, the beautiful snake's sea of souls was indeed much wider than that of ordinary people. After the beautiful snake swallowed the complete soul bead, it immediately turned into a cloud of mist-like soul power, which was quickly absorbed by her sea of souls until not a drop was left.
Zhou Ziwei estimated that even if he took out two or three more soul beads like these, the beautiful snake would easily absorb them all.
However, the beautiful snake is still hostile to Zhou Ziwei. Zhou Ziwei only needs to revive her and will not waste any more soul beads on her.
The beautiful snake had no injuries or illnesses to begin with; she had only fainted because her soul power had been depleted to a dangerous level. Now that her soul power had been fully replenished, she woke up slowly in less than half a minute.
After regaining consciousness, the beautiful snake was immediately pleasantly surprised to find that her life force, which had been almost completely depleted due to overuse, had recovered to about one-third of its original peak level.
The beautiful snake was overjoyed. Could it be that in her battle with Dead Ash, she finally completed her mission at the last moment, successfully defeating Dead Ash and allowing the lower-level Black Network members who came with her to bring the three people back to headquarters alive? Therefore, the Black God had made an exception and rewarded her with a bottle of incomparably precious Water of Life ahead of schedule?
Although the beautiful snake clearly remembered that her heavenly voice was interrupted by Zhou Ziwei when it was only halfway through, and she didn't seem to have been unconscious for very long, how else could her severely depleted life force have recovered to this state on its own?
Slowly opening her eyes, the beautiful snake immediately saw two beautiful women standing in front of her, looking at her with concern. The surrounding environment was exactly the same as before she lost consciousness, and there was no sign that she had been moved.
how so.
After a slight pause, the beautiful snake realized that she had only been using the Heavenly Melody for a short while when she discovered that Zhou Ziwei was completely unaffected by her unique and invincible attack method. She was immediately alarmed, estimating that even if she used all her strength, she would have absolutely no confidence in taking down Zhou Ziwei. If she failed this time, her fate would likely be the same as that of the Insect King.
The beautiful snake was unwilling to perish here so inexplicably. After hesitating for a moment, she quietly changed the strong psychological suggestion released by the Heavenly Melody due to the burning of life force, changing it from harmful to friendly.
Her melodious and gentle singing voice seemed unchanged, but the psychological suggestion hidden in the song was completely different. It was no longer used to harm people, but was just a way to secretly express a friendly attitude to the three of them, making them unconsciously develop some goodwill towards her.
Of course... the beautiful snake didn't dare to expect to affect Zhou Ziwei as well, but as long as she could make the two women around Zhou Ziwei develop a good impression of her, she would have already succeeded halfway.
Now it seems that this is indeed the case. You can tell from the genuine concern in the eyes of these two women that they truly care about me.
The beautiful snake was overjoyed and immediately asked the two women who had saved her. She didn't believe that these two seemingly ordinary women could have saved her life.
Upon learning that Zhou Ziwei had fed her a pill that caused her to wake up immediately, the beautiful snake was thrilled and became excited.
Unexpectedly, besides the Water of Life in the hands of the Black God that could replenish her depleted life force, there were other things in the world that could achieve the same miraculous effect. She must find a way to get her hands on more of those magical pills.
Zhou Ziwei, who was carefully observing the beautiful snake woman from a short distance away, snorted coldly. He could tell from her cunning eyes that she had no good intentions. So he slowly walked over, unabashedly grabbed a handful of low-level soul beads, waved them in front of the snake woman's eyes, and then stuffed them back into the hidden compartment of his alloy suit. Only then did he speak: "Just now, while you were unconscious, I completely severed the connection between the chip in your head and the black network. Hmm... that means you are now basically free from the control of the Black God. So, what are your plans now? Will you stay with me, or go back to serve the Black God? Don't worry... for the sake of my two friends, at least this time, no matter what you choose, I won't attack you again. But remember, this is the first and last time. If I ever find you doing anything detrimental to me again... then don't blame me for being ruthless."
When the beautiful snake saw Zhou Ziwei's large hand slashing down decisively from the void, her heart tightened slightly, as if that hand had landed on her vulnerable neck, giving her a sense of fear that she had only ever felt when facing the Black God.