What followed was an even more ferocious and violent explosion. At that moment, Zhou Ziwei felt as if the entire Earth had exploded. Otherwise... how could there be such a terrifying explosion?
"Something's not right... This must be because my hearing has suddenly become too strong!" After Zhou Ziwei lay still in the snow under the boulder, the loud explosions that had been ringing in his ears gradually subsided. Then, after looking around at the snow-covered mountains where everything was still the same, Zhou Ziwei suddenly realized what was going on.
It seems that these so-called explosions were actually caused by him. This liquid soul power obviously has an almost abnormal effect on improving hearing. Even a snowflake falling to the ground would sound like a thunderclap to his ears, which had been enhanced many times over in one breath.
Upon closer reflection, he realized that he had been far too reckless this time. Last time, he had integrated a drop of liquid soul power into all the nerve endings in his body, and even had most of it protruding out of his body to entwine the heart of flame.
Even so, his body's sensitivity was heightened to a level that was almost unbearable for him.
This time... without careful consideration, he directly poured an entire drop of liquid soul power into the nerves related to hearing. As a result, the increase in his hearing could only be ten or twenty times. Perhaps, in that instant, his hearing was directly enhanced to hundreds or thousands of times.
Fortunately, Zhou Ziwei's entire body had been tempered by the Reincarnation Water, which made his eardrums incredibly strong. Otherwise, those amplified sounds alone would have ruptured his eardrums.
Honestly... how could I make such a basic mistake...
Zhou Ziwei smiled bitterly to himself and quickly extracted all the liquid soul power that had been injected into the nerves related to hearing. As a result, the whole world immediately became quiet.
Zhou Ziwei let out a long sigh of relief, but he had no intention of giving up. After the experiment, although he had suffered a lot, he had at least proven one thing: his hearing could indeed be improved almost infinitely under the infusion of liquid soul power.
Now, if he reduces the amount of liquid soul power he injects as much as possible, to within his current limit, his hearing will naturally improve significantly.
Zhou Ziwei immediately used his soul consciousness to mobilize that drop of liquid soul power again. Then, he carefully divided this drop of liquid soul power into a tiny fraction of less than one percent, and then used his soul consciousness to control this tiny fraction of liquid soul power to stretch it into a thin thread, and once again poured it into his auditory system...
The whooshing sound of the wind suddenly rang out in Zhou Ziwei's ears like the howl of a ferocious beast.
Zhou Ziwei frowned slightly, shook his head which was still a little dizzy from the shock, and then withdrew the wisp of liquid soul power without hesitation. After taking back half of it, he continued to pour the remaining half into his auditory system...
This time, the feeling was finally much better. Even with this amplification, the howling mountain wind was still somewhat piercing to Zhou Ziwei's ears, but at least it was within his tolerance. He could also accurately distinguish other subtle sounds mixed in with the mountain wind. Thus, this level of hearing enhancement finally had some practical value. After careful comparison, Zhou Ziwei was astonished to discover that even so, it had increased his hearing by more than thirty times compared to his normal level.
His hearing had improved more than thirty times, meaning that even sounds at a distance of about ten kilometers, as long as they weren't too faint, could be detected by Zhou Ziwei's ears. However, within this ten-kilometer radius, the howling wind was also amplified more than thirty times, becoming the dominant sound in the area. What Zhou Ziwei had to do was to isolate every subtle sound within this ten-kilometer radius from the deafening mainstream wind noise and analyze what kind of sound it was.
Sitting cross-legged in the snow once more, Zhou Ziwei filtered through the sounds he heard, letting out a soft sigh after a long while, then raising his head and gently shaking it. There were no suspicious sounds within a ten-kilometer radius, so the two foreigners and the two captured special forces soldiers were probably not in this area.
Without hesitation, Zhou Ziwei immediately withdrew the liquid soul power he had channeled into his auditory system, stood up, and sprinted more than ten kilometers away at an extremely fast speed. He then sat down again and listened intently. This time, it only lasted for less than half a minute before Zhou Ziwei suddenly opened his eyes, staring intently in the northwest direction, a look of intense joy on his face.
It must be them. Just now, Zhou Ziwei clearly discerned a series of mixed footsteps from the various noises that kept coming into his ears. After careful listening, he realized that it should be the sound of four people walking in the snow, but the footsteps of these four people sounded a bit strange.
Logically speaking, since those two special forces soldiers were captured by foreigners, they should at least have been tied up. People with their hands tied will definitely have a slightly worse sense of balance when walking. Especially on these icy and snowy mountains, even ordinary people with free hands and feet will find it very difficult to walk, and if their hands are tied, then stumbling and falling are inevitable.
But now, Zhou Ziwei heard that the four men's footsteps were very light, which seemed a bit unreasonable. Of course, it was also possible that the two foreigners thought the prisoners were walking too slowly with their hands tied, so they might not have tied them up at all, but just pointed their guns at the two men from behind, so the two special forces soldiers didn't dare to do anything funny.
However, Zhou Ziwei's careful listening revealed that the four people were walking in a straight line side by side. How could they effectively monitor the prisoners if they were walking alongside them? This was quite unusual.
Zhou Ziwei was puzzled for a moment, but he was too lazy to think about it too much. Anyway, as long as he went over and took a closer look, he would roughly know what was going on. So Zhou Ziwei immediately identified that direction, and with a movement, he instantly transformed into a faint shadow under the reflection of the snow and moon, and quickly ran towards the direction from which the footsteps came at a speed of nearly one kilometer per minute.
About five minutes later, Zhou Ziwei, with his eyesight improved tenfold, could clearly see four people walking in the snow ahead.
Sure enough, two of the four were exceptionally tall, while the other two were wearing special forces' cold-weather cotton-padded uniforms. The four of them actually lined up in a row in the snow, with their front shoulders pointing in a certain direction up the mountain. Judging from their expressions, they didn't seem like opposing sides at all, but rather like a group of close friends who had agreed to go hiking together.
These people are acting strange...
Zhou Ziwei frowned slightly, enhanced his hearing again with liquid soul power, and listened intently for a moment, but did not hear the voices of these people talking. He shook his head and moved closer to the four people.
If we get a little closer, we can hear them talking even without using the power of liquid soul, thus saving us the pain of using the power of liquid soul.
Walking in the snow makes a loud rustling sound, but fortunately, Zhou Ziwei had once fused with the soul of Xueying, so he had mastered a lot of ninjutsu.
The Japanese soldiers may not be good at other skills, but they are quite adept at sneaking around and playing tricks. Although Zhou Ziwei disdained to use those so-called ninjutsu, he could still make his way in and out of the enemy without making a sound by applying the stealth techniques of ninjutsu. Even when Zhou Ziwei got within a hundred meters of the group, none of the four of them noticed that there was an extra person behind them without their knowledge.
"I'm exhausted... Why aren't we there yet?!"
Zhou Ziwei followed for about five or six minutes before one of them finally broke the silence. To Zhou Ziwei's surprise, the person who spoke was actually a "captured" special forces soldier, and what he said was not Chinese, but fluent American English.
“Almost there… it’s just ahead…” A tall man pointed to a depression in the mountainside ahead and replied in English, “It’s there, that’s our destination. But you can send the signal now. By the time your comrades get here, the underground traces will probably have been blown away by the mountain winds… This damn place is no place for humans. We’d better finish this quickly so we can get back home sooner… There’s a pretty girl in Manhattan waiting for me to deflower her… Hahaha…”
“Alright… I’ll send the signal now…” Upon hearing this, the special forces soldier stopped in his tracks, then suddenly turned around and looked back in the direction they had come from…
When Zhou Ziwei saw the special forces soldier turn around, he frowned slightly. He hadn't figured out what had happened yet and didn't want to expose himself so quickly. So he paused slightly as the special forces soldier turned around, then lunged downwards and instantly disappeared into the thick snow.
The special forces soldier turned around and looked around, but couldn't see a single person. He couldn't help but wonder to himself. Just a moment ago, he had a feeling that he was being watched, which was why he suddenly turned around to check. However, everything in the snow was clearly visible, and there was nowhere for anyone to hide. Since he couldn't see anyone, the feeling of being watched must have been just an illusion.
After gently shaking his head, the special forces soldier slowly pulled out a miniature signal gun from his waist, aimed it at the sky, and fired a red signal flare with a soft "poof".
The signal flares come in several colors, each representing a different meaning. Red signifies a major discovery, meaning they have found the target cave.
After walking dozens of meters through the snow, Zhou Ziwei quietly poked his head out from an inconspicuous spot, looking up at the signal flare that had turned into a ball of red light high in the sky, his forehead furrowing even deeper.
The target cave has been discovered? How is that possible? Why would those two foreigners be so kind as to lead them to that mysterious cave?
Zhou Ziwei sighed softly, a hint of sadness showing in his eyes.
Without a doubt, these two special forces soldiers were likely spies who had been bribed long ago. Their goal was probably to set a trap to capture all the special forces soldiers involved in the search mission, thereby delaying China's progress in finding the mysterious cave.
Zhou Ziwei didn't harbor much hatred towards the two foreigners. After all, whatever schemes and tricks they used, they were doing it for their country. If you looked at it from a perspective of non-hostility, the actions of these two foreigners would only inspire respect.
These two special forces soldiers, who were actually traitors, were the people Zhou Ziwei truly hated.
I hope they aren't actually those kinds of people, and I hope my assumptions were just a mistake from the beginning!
Zhou Ziwei sighed inwardly, then his body sank back into the snow, darting ahead of the four towards the location the foreigner had pointed out earlier…
Volume Two: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 363: The Mysterious Cave
What came into view was a deep and endless cave.
After Zhou Ziwei circled around from the depression in the mountain, he immediately saw the dark cave entrance.
It's unclear whether there's a hot spring inside the cave or if it's connected to volcanic lava or something, but the temperature inside is quite high. Zhou Ziwei was standing at the cave entrance, and he estimated that the temperature here was at least seven or eight degrees Celsius.
A ring of solid ice formed around the cave, with only a narrow opening about half a meter in diameter visible through it. This was likely caused by the snow melting continuously under the influence of the heat inside the cave, only to be re-frozen over time.
No wonder all the caves, big and small, on this mountain were completely covered by snow, except for this one, which was exposed.
However, the cave is located in a rather hidden place, and it would be difficult to discover such a place unless one crawls into the depression in the mountain.
Zhou Ziwei used his soul power to scan the interior again and immediately discovered that the cave was not very deep, only about twenty meters deep before it ended. At the end, there was indeed a clear hot spring. The spring water gushed out and gathered into a pool about three meters in size in the cave. Warm spring water was constantly gushing out from the ground, but the pool did not overflow. It seemed that there was a way to drain the water at the bottom of the pool.
Seeing that the cave was only so deep, Zhou Ziwei knew that this could not possibly be the mysterious cave. He was not surprised by this. However, after taking a few glances, he still couldn't guess what those people wanted to do to lure all the special forces soldiers here.
It must be said that, in Zhou Ziwei's opinion, this cave was a good place to set up camp. At least it was warm inside, and he no longer had to wear those thick cotton-padded clothes that were as thick as those worn by polar bears.
Moreover, there's a hot spring inside the cave, making it incredibly convenient to take a hot spring bath whenever possible. It's only possible that this is the place! Otherwise, these special forces soldiers wouldn't have been able to take a bath at all during these past few days on this snowy mountain.
In addition, the entrance to the cave is quite narrow, so even large wild animals can't squeeze in. You don't have to worry about being trapped inside by a herd of animals.
Zhou Ziwei believed that those people would never be so kind as to give up such a prime location to the special forces search team.
If they wanted to lure them here, then they must have done something here that could definitely kill them.
With this in mind, Zhou Ziwei carefully scanned the cave again and soon found the source of the problem.
It turned out that... several large smoke bombs were buried in the snow next to the cave entrance, and two gas masks were hidden in a crevice next to the hot spring inside the cave.
After a slight pause, Zhou Ziwei basically guessed the plan of the foreigners and the two traitors. He estimated that they probably wanted to lure all the special forces search team members over, and then have the two foreigners lying in ambush outside take out the poison gas bombs buried in the snow and throw them into the cave. As for the cave entrance, they could simply smash the solid ice above it and let a large amount of snow rush down to fill the entrance completely.
In this way, the people inside would inhale a large amount of toxic gas in the confined space. Even if they didn't die immediately, they would definitely faint.
And in that case... there are naturally no good roads.
As for the two gas masks hidden in the cave, they were naturally prepared for the two traitors. However, under Zhou Ziwei's almost all-pervasive soul power scan, it was somewhat amusing to discover that the filter layers of the two gas masks were completely empty. This meant that... the two gas masks were merely for show and did not actually have any protective function at all.
And from this, it's not hard to see that... these two traitors had long been on the list of people those two foreigners were going to kill.
Zhou Ziwei shook his head inwardly. Hearing the footsteps of the four people behind him approaching, Zhou Ziwei quickly dodged and darted out from another part of the valley.
As he ran, Zhou Ziwei secretly used his force field to offset part of his body weight, so that his feet left no trace on the soft snow.
The ability to leave no trace in the snow... This kind of lightness skill, which Zhou Ziwei had always envied in martial arts novels, was now just a trivial matter for him.
Just as Zhou Ziwei concealed himself, the four men emerged from the mountain hollow. The two foreigners pointed to a narrow opening and said, "This is it... I doubt your signal flare will attract everyone all at once. So we won't act until we have enough people. Your task is to lure everyone into the cave without exception; don't let anyone escape."
Upon hearing this, the special forces traitor frowned slightly and said, "But... in principle, once this cave is discovered, it can be explored as long as there are three people present. And if it turns out to be not the target after exploration, we can only mark it and abandon it. At most, the captain will send one more person in for a second exploration. How can we let the entire team enter this cave? This... I have no way of tricking the whole team into this cave!"
The foreigner who had spoken earlier chuckled and said, "Don't worry about that. Although this cave isn't what you're looking for, it's absolutely irresistible to exploration teams like yours that plan to stay on the mountain long-term. Just let your captain take a look inside, and I guarantee he'll immediately order the camp to be moved here. If you don't believe me, you two can go in and take a look... Don't worry! Since we've approached you, we've already made a perfect plan, and there won't be any loopholes."
Then the four of them went into the cave and wandered around the hot spring. The foreigner then took out two gas masks that were hidden in the crevices of the rocks and told the two special forces soldiers that they could quietly come here to take out the gas masks and put them on after the poison gas filled the cave. This way, they could survive in the poison gas-filled cave for at least two hours. They would at most seal the cave entrance for a short time before prying it open to let the two of them out.
Of course... the entrance to the cave was only covered by broken ice and snow. Even if there was no one outside to meet them, if the two of them, wearing gas masks, could really hold out for two hours, they should be able to dig through the snow at the entrance in a little over an hour, even if they had to dig with their bare hands.
Zhou Ziwei listened to the four men whispering and plotting how to harm someone at the cave entrance. After a while, he grew bored. In fact, for an expert like him, such schemes and tricks were nothing but fleeting clouds. No matter how flawless their plans were, they couldn't possibly outwit him.
Therefore, Zhou Ziwei was too lazy to listen to what these people were discussing anymore. Originally, Zhou Ziwei wanted to just slap them all to death right now, but no one else knew that these two special forces soldiers were traitors except him. If he killed them here, he would probably be thankless and would be blamed and investigated by others.
It seems we'll have to wait until these two are exposed before making any further decisions...
Zhou Ziwei was getting a little bored here, so he turned around and moved back several dozen meters away. However, apart from that depression in the mountain, the area was completely bare, making it difficult to hide.
By the time all the special forces soldiers arrived, who knew how many hours it would take? Zhou Ziwei thought that if he stayed in the snow for those few hours, he would probably feel terrible, and he would have to continuously deplete his energy, which was not worth it.
If only there were another hot spring cave nearby...
Zhou Ziwei's mind raced as he thought about this. He guessed that there must be more than one hot spring emerging from the mountain, and that the mountain structure here should be relatively easy to form caves. However, if the cave entrances were not located in sheltered places, the heat emanating from these hot springs would probably not have melted all the snow at the cave entrances.
After a thought, Zhou Ziwei began to concentrate and release his soul power to quickly scan the surroundings. Sure enough, not long after, in a place where the snow was slightly sunken, only fifty meters away from the depression in the mountain, Zhou Ziwei used his soul power to discover that after the snow had penetrated six or seven meters, there was actually the entrance to a dark cave that was sloping downwards.
The thick layer of ice at the cave entrance suggests that there must be a hot spring or similar feature inside, or at least the temperature inside the cave must be quite pleasant.
Having found such a good place, Zhou Ziwei naturally wouldn't stay outside and freeze any longer. He immediately shrank back and burrowed into the snow. He quickly used his burrowing technique to pass through the thick snow layer and appeared directly at the dark entrance of the cave.
Sure enough, as soon as Zhou Ziwei entered the cave, he felt his body warm up considerably, and he no longer needed to constantly convert pure energy to provide his body with a continuous source of heat.
Zhou Ziwei was initially worried that the cave, being in a sealed state year-round, might lack fresh air, and even he wouldn't be able to stay there for too long at a time.
But when he actually crawled inside and took a gentle breath, he was surprised to find that the air was very fresh, and it didn't feel like he had been in a closed-off place for many years.
Could it be... that besides this entrance, this cave has another place that allows it to connect with the outside world? Otherwise, how could the air here be so fresh?
Puzzled, Zhou Ziwei slowly took a few steps into the cave.
Although the cave was completely dark, Zhou Ziwei's soul power made it easy for him to see without any difficulty.
He stretched his soul power as far as he could, extending it down the cave for sixty meters, yet he still hadn't reached the end of the cave, which surprised him slightly.
However, he also discovered a hot spring that was much larger than the one in the cave, about fifty meters inside.
However, the temperature of the hot spring water should not be very high, as a thin layer of ice has formed around the hot spring pool. No wonder the cave entrance has not melted because of the presence of the hot spring.
Zhou Ziwei was secretly pleased. Since arriving at the border post at the foot of Kashgar Mountain yesterday, he had not taken a bath. For someone who was used to taking a bath at least once a day, this was quite uncomfortable.
Now that a hot spring has been discovered here, and one that is sealed underground, Zhou Ziwei naturally wouldn't miss this opportunity.
Anyway, it's hard to say how long it will take before Chang Li and the others arrive after seeing the signal flare. Zhou Ziwei can take a hot spring bath in the meantime, which gives him plenty of time.
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei immediately quickened his pace, following the path explored by his soul power, and ran diagonally downwards until he finally arrived at the side of a large hot spring pool that was at least half a meter in diameter after running for more than five meters.