A dozen minutes later, the two sat facing each other at the table in the guest room. Anirias drank most of the French red wine in one gulp, as if it were water. Before Zhou Ziwei could even ask a question, she simply leaned back and passed out drunk.
"Holy crap... what is she doing!" Zhou Ziwei thought Anirias had a huge capacity for alcohol because she was drinking so fast, but who knew... the bottle of red wine wasn't even empty yet and the woman was already this drunk.
Zhou Ziwei had Xiao Xin scan Anirias's brain again and discovered that Anirias wasn't faking being drunk this time, but was genuinely drunk to the point of unconsciousness. Seeing the slightly menacing red patches on Anirias's snow-white skin, Zhou Ziwei realized that this woman's alcohol tolerance was not only poor, but also... she was actually allergic to alcohol.
Knowing full well that she can't drink alcohol, yet still drinking so quickly... then her only goal is to get drunk as fast as possible.
Once she was drunk, she could temporarily escape Zhou Ziwei's questioning.
It's obvious... this woman is using this stupid method to buy time, but why is she trying to buy time?
Zhou Ziwei frowned and remained silent...
Volume 2, The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 444: The Fox
Zhou Ziwei thought for a long time, even asking Xiao Xin to help him analyze it, but he still couldn't figure out why Anirias was delaying.
However... this didn't stump Zhou Ziwei. Since he couldn't understand why Anirias was stalling for time, he decided to stop her from doing so...
So Zhou Ziwei, in a very uncouth manner, carried the completely drunk Anirias to the bathroom and threw him on the floor. Then he picked up a basin of cold water and poured it over Anirias's head.
"Ah—" Anirias exclaimed, sitting up in a daze, wiping the water off her face, her bewildered eyes darting around before finally focusing on Zhou Ziwei.
“You… how could you…” Anirias glared at Zhou Ziwei, but under Zhou Ziwei’s expressionless gaze, she gradually lost her temper. Originally, she wanted to angrily rebuke him, but in the end, she could only utter a few silent complaints.
Zhou Ziwei coldly stared at the woman before him, soaked to the bone and appearing even more alluring, like a beautiful serpent. He snorted and said, "Don't try to stall for time anymore. I'll give you five more minutes. If you still refuse to talk... then I'll have no choice but to use hypnosis on you. Don't worry... even if you refuse to cooperate, I can still hypnotize you. And at most, forced hypnosis will only cause you to completely lose your mind; there shouldn't be any danger to your life. You can consider whether you want to talk voluntarily or let me hypnotize you..."
“I…” Anirias shrank back in fright at Zhou Ziwei’s words, then said with a bitter smile, “I… do I have a choice? Fine! I can tell you everything, but… I hope you can save my sister, okay? As long as you can save my sister, then I, Kyzylem, will do anything for you!”
"Oh... so your name is Kyzylmer, what a tongue-twister... You asked me to save your sister, so... someone is threatening you with your sister's life and death. Hmm... the only person capable of threatening you, the fourth-ranked beauty snake among the world's top ten assassins... is that the Black God who manipulates the entire Black Network behind the scenes, isn't he?"
Kyzylmer shook his head and said, "I suppose so! But... the person who actually made the move certainly couldn't be him... Yesterday, my sister fell into their hands, and they immediately contacted me. The person who made the move this time is nicknamed Fox. He's not one of the world's top ten assassins, but... in many ways, he's more terrifying than most of the top ten assassins." Fox is a master of disguise and can transform into anyone at will, even male or female, old or young. He doesn't have much martial prowess here, and his marksmanship is mediocre, but he is extremely cunning and treacherous, and is especially valued by Brother Black God.
"The fox kidnapped my sister from the capital and then sent people to find me... He said that for some reason, my sister is now completely devoted to you and refuses to cooperate with them. So the fox threatened me, saying that since my sister is unwilling to do something, then I will have to take her place. In any case, no matter what means I use, I must get you to tell me what you obtained from the pilot plane. If I fail... they will kill my sister immediately. And regardless of whether I achieve my goal or not, I must stall you as much as possible, preferably tricking you into spending the whole night with me... As for why they insist on me stalling for time, well... I have no idea."
Kyzylmer's words startled Zhou Ziwei slightly, then his expression changed slightly, and he said in a low voice, "You mean... that fox... has amazing makeup skills and can disguise himself as anyone?"
Kyzylem nodded and said, "Yes... so normally, if he hadn't revealed his identity himself, I would never have recognized him even if we met on the street. And... it's said that apart from the Black God, no one has ever seen the fox's true face before..."
Zhou Ziwei frowned slightly, his eyes scanning the soaking wet Kyzylmier before him. Suddenly, a thought crossed his mind: Since foxes can transform into anyone's appearance, even faking age and gender, then doesn't that mean... maybe this Kyzylmier is actually the fox in disguise...?
The thought that he had probably just kissed a cross-dresser to the point of exhaustion almost made Zhou Ziwei throw up his dinner from the night before.
Well… fortunately, he scanned Kyzylmer's body again with his soul power, even… carefully studying the specific structure of Kyzylmer's lower body. Finally, he confirmed that regardless of whether this person was really Anirias's sister, or whether her name was Kyzylmer, at least one thing was certain… she was indeed a genuine woman, and that was enough. Even if this woman was actually a little ugly, at least it wouldn't make Zhou Ziwei lose the courage to live and the confidence to face life.
Zhou Ziwei wasn't sure whether to believe Kyzylem's words. Sigh... It seemed that Zhou Ziwei wasn't very good at interrogating people, and it wasn't as direct as using hypnosis. These words were just Kyzylem's own words, and Zhou Ziwei had a hard time telling whether they were true or false.
However, when it was difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood, he had no choice but to consider the worst-case scenario.
Delaying time... This is what Zhou Ziwei fears most. He wonders what the fox wants to do with this.
However, even if he didn't know, it didn't matter. Zhou Ziwei did a simple deduction in his mind and came to the correct answer. Just think... why would the fox send Kyzylmier to hold Zhou Ziwei back? It was obviously because the fox wanted to do something without Zhou Ziwei.
So, if we reason backwards, it becomes clear: if Zhou Ziwei hadn't been dragged here by Kyzylmer, what would he have done? Obviously… he would have gone back to the master bedroom to do some intimate things with Wang Xuewei or Liu Xiaofei…
Could it be... that fox actually...?
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei's eyes suddenly flashed with a fierce light. He lowered his head and gave a soft shout. Without having time to pay attention to Kyzylmier anymore, he jumped up and kicked the guest room door open, then ran desperately towards the master bedroom...
With a loud "bang," Zhou Ziwei kicked open the door to the main courtyard of the Zhou family mansion. He then saw a person who looked exactly like him sitting in the main hall of the mansion, holding a cup of tea with a few green leaves floating in it, leisurely sipping it.
Liu Xiaofei, on the other hand, was lying on a sofa next to her, her face flushed, fast asleep. It seemed that she had either been drugged or hypnotized.
Zhou Ziwei turned his head and looked around, but he didn't see Wang Xuewei anywhere. His face immediately turned completely gloomy.
"No need to look anymore..." The man sitting there who looked exactly like Zhou Ziwei smiled slightly and said, "I've already sent your first wife away. Even if you wanted to chase after her now, you couldn't, hehe... But I still didn't expect that bitch to reveal me so quickly. Damn it!"
Zhou Ziwei ignored the imposter and instead went over and picked up Liu Xiaofei, who was unconscious on the sofa. He touched her forehead and pulse, and when he realized that Liu Xiaofei had only been drugged with a strong sedative and was not in any danger, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Then Zhou Ziwei stood up, narrowed his eyes slightly, and immediately contacted all the Kun pets he had released around the Zhou family compound through soul communication.
Zhou Ziwei had considered that the black market assassin network wouldn't let him off the hook just because he had handed over everything he brought back from the pilot plane. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei put a lot of effort into monitoring and protecting the security of the Zhou family compound.
More than a dozen Kun pets were stationed at various key locations around the Zhou family compound. If any external enemy were to attack at this time, they would have no chance of escaping the surveillance of these dozen Kun pets.
However… Zhou Ziwei clearly overlooked an important issue: even if an enemy attacked, they didn't necessarily have to fight their way in from the outside… That fox and his men had likely already infiltrated before Zhou Ziwei returned. Zhou Ziwei simply had his Kun pets guard the important positions around the Zhou family compound, so how could he have discovered their little tricks? If he had known this, he should have placed a Kun pet inside the main courtyard as well, then everything would have been foolproof.
Now that things have already happened, Zhou Ziwei can only try his best to salvage the situation. Although the person who looks exactly like him is sitting there calmly, holding a teacup and sipping tea, Zhou Ziwei can tell from the ripples that the person's heart is definitely not as calm as he appears on the surface. He is probably afraid, but he is also very likely nervous.
If he was afraid, it might be because he knew that if he fell into his hands, he would surely die. But if he was nervous, it was very likely because Wang Xuewei had just been kidnapped and might not even have left the Zhou family compound yet. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei naturally dared not be negligent in the slightest and quickly used his Kunchong to investigate every suspicious person in the entire Zhou family compound.
However, after a quick investigation, no suspicious persons were found, which made Zhou Ziwei break out in a cold sweat.
If... those people have already disguised Wang Xuewei as someone else and taken her out of the Zhou family compound, hiding her in the city or quickly driving her away from Dangyang City, then it will probably not be so easy for Zhou Ziwei to find Wang Xuewei again.
The most crucial issue is that the fox possesses extremely powerful makeup skills. He can easily transform Wang Xuewei into a stranger, or even a man. In that case, even if Zhou Ziwei were to use the police to set up checkpoints and blockades throughout the city or even the province to search for her, he might not be able to find her.
So the most important thing now is to find out how long Wang Xuewei has been kidnapped, and what she looked like and was dressed when she was kidnapped. Only by knowing this information can Zhou Ziwei decide what to do next.
So Zhou Ziwei began to connect with the souls of those Kun pets and look up the images they had seen some time ago.
Because Zhou Ziwei's previous orders to these Kun pets were only to guard various parts of the Zhou family compound to prevent outsiders from sneaking in, but not to prevent people inside from leaving, these Kun pets would not react at all even if they saw someone leaving the Zhou family compound. However, the people they saw coming and going during this period would definitely remain in their memories.
Since Zhou Ziwei didn't know when Wang Xuewei was kidnapped, he had to start investigating from the time after dinner, because he had seen Wang Xuewei during dinner, and at least before that, Wang Xuewei was definitely not under the control of the fox.
However, this means it will take some time to find out.
When the fake Zhou Ziwei, who was sitting on the sofa sipping tea, saw that Zhou Ziwei hadn't immediately made things difficult for him after discovering Wang Xuewei's disappearance, nor had he rushed out to search for her, but had simply stood there quietly in a daze, he couldn't help but feel slightly surprised, but at the same time, he breathed a sigh of relief. He then took a small sip of the scalding hot tea and revealed a smile that seemed to indicate he was confident.
“Mr. Zhou, I suppose you understand that it’s too late to catch up now. So let’s sit down and have a proper talk, shall we?” The imposter Zhou Ziwei put down his teacup and gestured for him to sit down.
Zhou Ziwei snorted and said, "Do you know how annoying you look?!"
"What did you say?" The imposter Zhou Ziwei was slightly taken aback, and his voice involuntarily rose a few decibels, but even the loudest voice could not hide the guilty feeling in his words.
"I said you look really smug!" Zhou Ziwei said, and at the same time, he moved suddenly and swiftly approached the man, grabbing his left hand that he had just put into his arms. With a slight shake, a delicate pistol fell to the ground with a "clang".
"Slap slap..." Zhou Ziwei then raised his hand and slapped the guy more than a dozen times, left and right. Finally, he grabbed the guy's scalp and ripped off a mask with a wig attached.
"It really is a good thing!" Zhou Ziwei looked at the mask over and over again, and couldn't help but admire the exquisite craftsmanship of the person who made it.
If it's just an ordinary mask, there will definitely be a seam between the mask and the real skin, which is easy for anyone with a keen eye to spot.
This mask, however, completely covers a person's head, with the seam extending all the way down to the neck. With the clothing covering it, it becomes extremely difficult for anyone to spot any flaws.
Moreover, the mask is extremely thin and fits snugly against the skin. When the person wearing the mask makes a certain facial expression, the mask will also change accordingly, without giving a stiff feeling.
However, since the mask sticks so tightly to the skin, it takes some effort to remove it. Normally, to remove the mask, you should first apply a special solution to it and continuously massage your face to loosen it up, making it easier to remove.
However, Zhou Ziwei certainly didn't have that much patience, but his dozen or so resounding slaps still achieved the same effect.
After a dozen slaps, the man showed no change while wearing the mask, but once the mask was removed... the real face underneath had already turned into a pig's head.
Blood kept seeping from the man's mouth and nose. He stared at Zhou Ziwei in horror, his heart filled with hatred and fear. He couldn't understand how Zhou Ziwei, knowing full well that his wife was in the hands of his men, dared to attack so recklessly. Didn't he care about his wife's life or death?
"You...you dare hit me...you will definitely..."
The imposter Zhou Ziwei, enraged, pointed at Zhou Ziwei's nose and threatened him in a cold voice. But before he could finish the last word "regret," Zhou Ziwei slapped him on the forehead. He then felt a wave of dizziness and immediately lost consciousness.
Zhou Ziwei originally wanted to use hypnosis to put this guy to sleep and interrogate him properly, but at this moment he had already searched for clues about Wang Xuewei in Kun Chong's soul memories.
About six or seven minutes ago, Zhou's driver, Lao Wang, helped Hu, the kitchen maid, into a minivan and drove out of Zhou's garage, telling the gatekeeper that Hu had suddenly fallen ill and needed to go to the hospital.
Zhou Ziwei remembered that Hu Sao had just brought him and Kizilmer some food and wine. How could Hu Sao have fallen ill again in just a few minutes? Therefore, Zhou Ziwei could conclude that Hu Sao, who looked unconscious and was being carried into the car, was most likely Wang Xuewei, who had been drugged.
As for that driver, Lao Wang… he was undoubtedly a fake too. He was probably either the fox from the black market assassin network that Kyzylmer mentioned, or one of the fox's men. As for the idiot who had just stayed here pretending to be Zhou Ziwei while feigning composure… Zhou Ziwei didn't think he was the fox. He was probably just a pawn the fox had placed there to buy time…
Foxes are cunning and timid, so why would they be alone in a dangerous place?
Volume Two: The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 445: Unfortunately, the guess was right.
Six or seven minutes had already passed, enough time for the car to travel a long distance. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei dared not delay any longer. Otherwise, if the people who had kidnapped Wang Xuewei changed to another car along the way, it would be even more difficult to find them again.
However, Wang Xuewei was also worried about things at home. Liu Xiaofei was still unconscious, and Zhou Ziwei had no idea whether there were other enemies lurking in the Zhou family compound. In addition, there was also Kizilmer, who was also an unstable factor. How could Zhou Ziwei not be on guard?
Before chasing after the car, Zhou Ziwei returned to the room where Kyzylmier was staying as quickly as possible.
To their astonishment, they discovered that Kyzylmier had vanished without a trace.
This woman can run fast enough, but where can she run to?
Zhou Ziwei sneered and suddenly released countless strands of soul power, instantly covering the entire Zhou family compound within his soul consciousness.
However, despite using such an almost all-pervasive scanning method, Zhou Ziwei still couldn't find any trace of Kyzylem after a short while, which immediately surprised him.
"It's impossible for her to have escaped from the Zhou family compound in such a short time. She must still be hiding in this compound. So... where is she hiding?"
Zhou Ziwei felt a sense of confusion, but he obviously didn't have time to search carefully at this moment. If he delayed any longer, he was afraid that he would never find Wang Xuewei again, and he might regret it for the rest of his life.
"Don't let me catch you again next time."
Zhou Ziwei gritted his teeth and decided to rescue Wang Xuewei first. However, he was worried that Liu Xiaofei would be harmed by Kyzylmer, so before leaving, he immediately transferred all the Kunchong from various corners of the Zhou family back. Half of them stayed in the main courtyard to guard the unconscious Liu Xiaofei, while the other half went to guard Zhou Zixu.
Although there were many people in the Zhou family compound, there were only two people who were worth the effort of the black market assassin network to kidnap. Moreover, these were the only two people Zhou Ziwei cared about the most. As for the other servants, security guards, and the like, Zhou Ziwei had no time to care about them.
Eight minutes had passed since the other party left. If Zhou Ziwei were to drive after them, it would be highly unlikely he could catch up. Moreover, it was already dark, so Zhou Ziwei no longer had many concerns. He immediately released a ball of attribute-less energy from his middle dantian, which instantly transformed into wind energy, creating a small tornado that enveloped his body and propelled him into the air. He then raced after the van in the direction he had seen through Kun Chong's soul memories...
Zhou Ziwei was relieved that the van hadn't headed towards the city center; otherwise, if it had driven a little faster, it would have been able to enter the bustling city in less than ten minutes.
Although Dangyang is just a small city, there are still thousands of vehicles on the streets. Finding a car in such a huge traffic flow is obviously not an easy task.
Since that person was heading towards the national highway in the suburbs, he couldn't have gone very far in eight minutes. Zhou Ziwei could ride the tornado and catch up with him very quickly.
Tornadoes don't fly particularly fast, but in the darkness of night, they are much more concealed than cyclones. If they fly a little higher, people on the ground can't see clearly that there's a person inside even if they see them.
Even the slowest tornado is much faster than a car. Zhou Ziwei flew at breakneck speed and reached the national highway in less than a minute. He then saw a row of vans parked at the intersection with the national highway. It looked like the same van that had driven out of the Zhou family compound earlier.
Zhou Ziwei frowned immediately. He didn't believe that the other party would be foolish enough to park their car here and wait for him to come and rescue them.
Despite knowing this in his heart, Zhou Ziwei still somewhat refused to give up and flew down a little, releasing a wisp of soul power to quickly scan the inside of the car.
Sure enough... the car was empty, not a single person in sight.
Both Wang Xuewei and the driver, who might have been a fox in disguise, had already left long ago.
Zhou Ziwei stood still, his brain rapidly analyzing the situation.
The other party abandoned the car and left. There are three possibilities.
One possibility is that Wang Xuewei was abducted and forced to leave on foot, disappearing into the forests along the national highway. Another possibility is that a waiting car was already parked there, and they transferred to another vehicle to leave.