Zhou Ziwei could have simply had the ladybug attack the people in the car, or even just knock down the driver. Then he wouldn't have needed to pay attention to the others. A car was speeding along a mountain road when the driver suddenly died... If the people in the car could have survived that, they would have won a five million yuan lottery prize.
However, Zhou Ziwei already had other plans, so he didn't want the other side's people to die inexplicably at this time, as that would probably scare away all the pursuers.
The people in the car behind were also worried that Zhou Ziwei might suddenly do something strange again. After all, the scene at the clothing store during the day had been spread by the parties involved, and almost all of Qiao Mulin's men knew about it. However, most of them still had a bit of doubt in their hearts.
They couldn't understand how someone on another street could remotely injure someone from so far away. Now, after all this time, all they saw was Zhou Ziwei frantically fleeing in his car. The people behind him breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how good Zhou Ziwei's driving skills were, as long as they kept chasing, there was always a chance of catching up. And since he kept running, it was clear that he wasn't confident he could deal with them. This made everyone breathe a sigh of relief...
Soon it got dark, and there were no streetlights on the winding mountain road. In this pitch-black environment, the mountain road became even more dangerous.
The drivers of the jeeps and the sports car were all experienced drivers who frequently traveled this road, but even they had to slow down under these circumstances, no matter how familiar they were with the road.
However, they soon discovered that the car in front hadn't slowed down much, as if the darkness posed no problem for it at all.
Are the people in the car in front crazy?
As the car in front drove further and further away, everyone felt like they were going crazy. Under these circumstances, they didn't think they could catch up. So the people in the cars started to contact each other through the walkie-talkies and prepared to ask their boss whether they should abandon the operation.
But just then, one of the drivers suddenly noticed the car in front of him had taken a side road. He paused for a moment, then excitedly shouted into the walkie-talkie, "Look... guys... that idiot took the wrong road... haha... he drove into that dead-end road that was abandoned years ago... now he can't escape no matter how fast he drives... hahaha..."
The others then noticed this as well, and couldn't help but shout excitedly. They then unconsciously sped up their cars and frantically chased after the fork in the road.
"Ah... Mr. Zhou... Mr. Zhou, you... you seem to have taken the wrong road!" Luan Yuqing quickly realized that the road they were on was obviously in disrepair, and the road surface was very bumpy. Driving on this road was as thrilling as riding a roller coaster. Luan Yuqing felt like her internal organs were about to be shaken out of her throat.
"Uh... really?" Zhou Ziwei replied in a pretentious manner, and then stopped the car behind a sharp bend. At this point, he had no choice but to stop, because about a hundred meters ahead, a pile of rocks that had rolled down from a landslide blocked the road.
"Oh no... what do we do... they might have guns!"
Luan Yuqing saw the road blocked ahead through the headlights and assumed that Zhou Ziwei had been forced to stop. She became very nervous and, hearing the approaching car behind her, she broke out in a cold sweat.
"It's okay...you don't need to be afraid...I promise you won't die."
Zhou Ziwei, however, didn't seem worried at all. Instead, he found a pack of cigarettes in the car, lit one, put it in his mouth, jumped out of the car, pointed to the almost 90-degree bend ahead, and said, "If the cars behind us go around that bend and suddenly see our car stopped here, what do you think their reaction will be?"
Luan Yuqing couldn't understand why Zhou Ziwei would have the leisure to ask her this question under these circumstances. However, seeing Zhou Ziwei's calm and composed demeanor, as if he had everything under control, she felt slightly relieved. After a moment's thought, she said, "I think if they suddenly see your car stopped here, they should... they should brake immediately, right? After all, this place is very close to the bend. If they don't brake, they will definitely crash into our car."
Zhou Ziwei nodded and then asked, "If the car in front suddenly stops, what about the other cars following closely behind? Do you think they'll be able to stop in time?"
“Well…” Luan Yuqing hesitated and said, “It depends on the driver’s reaction speed and whether the distance between the cars is too close. If the cars are following each other too closely, they are very likely to crash because they can’t brake in time. But… the road here is not good to begin with. I don’t think they would squeeze together on this kind of road, would they?”
"I bet they'll crash because they can't brake in time... Haha... That would save us a lot of trouble, and since they'd die in a natural car accident, we wouldn't have to worry about the police bothering us."
Zhou Ziwei leisurely exhaled a smoke ring, then smiled and looked at the bend ahead, his eyes full of anticipation.
Upon hearing this, Luan Yuqing felt an urge to faint. She wondered if Zhou Ziwei was really hoping that a bend in the road would cause all the pursuing cars to collide with each other. The drivers weren't idiots; how could they make such a stupid mistake? Even if one or two cars accidentally collided, it was impossible for all five cars to be destroyed at once.
Then, to Luan Yuqing's utter surprise... Zhou Ziwei's jinx actually came true. As soon as the first SUV rounded the bend, it saw Zhou Ziwei's Audi parked not far away. To avoid a collision, it naturally slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a quick stop.
Then the second SUV also emerged from behind the bend. The two vehicles were not far apart, but not very close either. Even though the car behind couldn't see what was behind the bend because of it, it should have heard the car in front brake suddenly. So under normal circumstances, the car behind would still have time to brake and stop.
But for some reason, the driver of that car seemed to be stunned and forgot to step on the brakes. The car continued to speed forward at the original speed and crashed into the car in front with a "bang".
Then came the third car, the fourth car... The four SUVs crashed together like a string of candied hawthorns. Two of them rolled down the slope next to them, while the other two were smashed to pieces and lay on the road.
Only the BMW sports car at the back didn't collide with the four cars in front, but... it couldn't escape its terrible fate either. When it went around the bend, it seemed that not only did the brakes fail, but the steering also failed. It couldn't turn the corner and went straight off the steepest part... crashing cleanly down the cliff.
"No way! Really... could this really be true?"
Luan Yuqing was a little dumbfounded. Although she knew Zhou Ziwei was very capable, if the other party hadn't had a gun, Luan Yuqing probably wouldn't have worried at all about these people posing any threat to her with Zhou Ziwei by her side. But she never expected that Zhou Ziwei didn't even have to lift a finger. He just casually stopped the car at a sharp bend on the mountain road, and he was able to force the other cars to crash into each other and destroy them all.
Could it be that... the other vehicles really didn't have time to brake, which is why they collided?
Luan Yuqing certainly didn't believe such nonsense, especially the last BMW sports car, which actually drove straight off the cliff... That's just too unbelievable!
However, the clever Luan Yuqing naturally wouldn't pry into the truth at this time. She naturally thought of the mysterious black line in the clothing store that was almost invisible to the naked eye, and vaguely guessed what it was.
However, she also knew that it was best to appear ignorant about such mysterious matters. As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat, and she didn't want to anger someone because of excessive curiosity. If his question involved any secrets that couldn't be known, it was not impossible that she would be killed by him to silence her.
Just as Luan Yuqing had guessed, apart from the first car which immediately slammed on its brakes and stopped upon seeing Zhou Ziwei parked not far away, the other cars that followed, when they also tried to brake suddenly upon seeing the incident ahead, all discovered that their brakes had inexplicably failed.
Of course, this was all the work of the ladybugs. These tiny creatures are only about the size of a grain of rice, and they fly around on the mountain road without a second thought.
Although the ladybug was small, its intelligence was no less than that of an ordinary teenager. Under Zhou Ziwei's guidance, it quickly figured out what brake lines were. So, as soon as Zhou Ziwei stopped the car at the turn, the ladybug immediately began to act, destroying all the brake lines on the cars one by one. As a result, when the first car stopped as usual, the drivers of the cars behind reacted in time, but it was of no use. In the end, a tragic accident occurred, resulting in the death of the driver and the car being destroyed.
Seeing so many people die in front of her, Luan Yuqing's face turned pale. Although she knew that if these people didn't die, she would be the one to die after they caught up with her, Luan Yuqing still found it hard to accept the bloody scene before her.
Zhou Ziwei, the instigator of the entire tragedy, showed no emotional fluctuation whatsoever, as if the dead in front of him were just a bunch of chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs.
Having already died once and spent three years as a wandering ghost on the execution ground, even the kindest and softest-hearted person could face death with equanimity.
What's more, this time he was facing the death of his enemies... Although they originally had no enmity, since these people had come here with weapons, they naturally had no intention of letting Zhou Ziwei go.
Zhou Ziwei would never show mercy to those who wanted to kill him, and for him... every enemy was a great source of nourishment. In the blink of an eye, Zhou Ziwei had already gained a lot of soul power, and unexpectedly discovered that among those who had just died, there was actually a retired pilot.
Volume 1: The Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 174: The Bat King
After such a long period of familiarization, Zhou Ziwei was able to integrate the memories of a soul relatively quickly. As for those soul memories that were mostly useless, he would remove them from the sea of souls like garbage.
Although his sea of souls is constantly expanding, it cannot be filled with useless garbage.
Of the dozen or so newly absorbed souls, apart from the retired pilot's soul memories, the others were of little use. After merging with these memories, Zhou Ziwei could quickly master the knowledge and experience of flying an airplane, a field he had never explored before.
So Zhou Ziwei only retained the soul memories of the retired pilot, and after expelling all the other soul memories, he threw away his cigarette butt, leaned into the car, and said to Luan Yuqing, "I wonder if Qiao Mulin was in the car that crashed earlier. You wait here for a while, I'll go down and take a look."
"Ah...this...I...I'm scared!"
When Luan Yuqing heard that Zhou Ziwei was leaving, she was so frightened that she trembled slightly. No matter how brave she was, she was still a woman after all. Moreover, a shocking multi-vehicle collision had just happened in front of her, and the dead bodies in the cars were still there. If Luan Yuqing looked up, she might see bright red blood flowing out from the crushed cars.
With Zhou Ziwei here, she could maintain her composure. But if Zhou Ziwei left, she really didn't know if she would break down.
"No...please, don't go, okay?" Luan Yuqing grabbed Zhou Ziwei's sleeve, pleading almost in tears.
Zhou Ziwei shook his head with a wry smile and said, "Whether Qiao Mulin is dead or not is related to your future safety. We need to find out for sure! Don't be afraid. I guarantee that as long as you stay in this car, you will be absolutely safe. No one can hurt you, believe me..."
"Oh... then... then you must come back soon!"
Hearing Zhou Ziwei's assurance, Luan Yuqing, who had been terrified, immediately stopped being afraid. After what happened at the clothing store during the day, Luan Yuqing's trust in Zhou Ziwei had almost reached a blind level.
Hearing Zhou Ziwei say almost the same things he said during the day, her anxious heart was immediately comforted. Even if Zhou Ziwei said he was going back to Tengchong alone and that she should wait here by herself, she would no longer be afraid.
She believed that with Zhou Ziwei's guarantee, even if real demons and monsters came, they wouldn't be able to harm her.
So, in the end, Luan Yuqing let Zhou Ziwei leave with peace of mind. She locked all four doors of the car, then sat alone in the car, listening to the car CD player. She completely relaxed and stopped paying attention to the scene outside, less than twenty meters away, where there were a bunch of completely mangled cars and piles of bloody, mangled human flesh inside...
Zhou Ziwei said he was going down to check if Qiao Mulin was in the BMW sports car that had fallen off the cliff. Of course, this was just a lie to fool Luan Yuqing. His real purpose was to replenish his soul power, which he had lost over the past few days, in the Bat Cave before leaving.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have deliberately expended so much of his soul power to treat Gu Dongfeng's hand tremors.
The bat cave is indeed very dangerous. If Zhou Ziwei hadn't dived into the underground river from that swamp last time, he probably would have died there.
However, that was mainly because Zhou Ziwei's soul power was in the process of upgrading, which made him an eye-catching lantern. It was impossible for those ghost bats not to notice him.
Zhou Ziwei deduced that he had just undergone an upgrade in his soul power, and it was impossible for him to have a second upgrade in such a short time. Therefore, he planned to sneak into the outside of the bat cave again, quietly absorb a few ghost bats, and replenish his sea of souls to its fullest extent.
However, to Zhou Ziwei's surprise, it was probably because his previous intrusion had caused the death of a group of ghost bats that alerted the Bat King. When he ventured deeper into the valley where the bat cave was located this time, he discovered that there were ghost bats constantly patrolling back and forth outside the cave. Moreover, these patrolling ghost bats were divided into two groups, with one ghost bat in each group gathered together, forming a strange formation, and flying back and forth in strict discipline along a certain route.
With so many ghost bats gathered together, if Zhou Ziwei were to rashly recite the Six-Syllable Mantra, he could probably gain around three thousand remnant soul energy in one go. However, Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls doesn't have that much capacity, so doing so would be tantamount to courting death.
However, Zhou Ziwei carefully avoided the two patrol teams and waited for a long time not far from the bat cave, but not a single lone ghost bat appeared.
After a long while, Zhou Ziwei finally lost his patience, realizing that if he continued to wait like this, he might not get anything even if he stayed up all night.
So he steeled himself, and after getting a little closer to the swamp where he had escaped last time, he hid in a patch of grass, keeping a close eye on the swarm of bats patrolling back and forth in the air.
He planned to forcibly absorb several bats from the bat patrol team and then escape directly from the swamp.
He certainly couldn't absorb the entire swarm of bats at once, so he had to carefully adjust his distance from the bat swarm, trying to absorb only three or four ghost bats.
Zhou Ziwei currently has about a thousand remnant soul energies stored in his sea of souls, and his current soul energy capacity is estimated to be a little over two thousand.
Based on the experience of absorbing the ghost bats last time, the soul power contained in each of these ghost bats is roughly equivalent to the energy of three hundred remnant souls, so absorbing three to four ghost bats is the ideal number.
However, the patrolling ghost bats were usually clustered together in groups of ten and were always in flight. It was not easy to get the distance right so that you could absorb the souls of three or four ghost bats. That's why Zhou Ziwei didn't dare to do it before.
But now that the wait has been fruitless, he can no longer worry about the danger.
Before long, one of the bat patrols slowly flew over from low altitude. Zhou Ziwei raised his head, increased his eyesight to the maximum of six times, and carefully observed the movements of the bats in the sky.
He first let the swarm of bats fly over his head, then focused intently on calculating the distance between himself and the last bat.
Forty meters, fifty meters, sixty meters... Just as the fourth to last bat in the sky flew to a position sixty meters away from Zhou Ziwei, Zhou Ziwei suddenly recited the Six-Syllable Mantra in his soul.
Instantly, six light red halos enveloped every corner within a radius of sixty meters. The last three ghost bats that landed in the bat patrol were swept by the six halos one by one without any suspense. Instantly, the souls parasitizing the bats' bodies were scraped out, decomposed, and finally transformed into pure soul power that was stored in Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls.
The fourth-to-last bat, however, narrowly escaped being struck by the six beams of light because it inexplicably increased its flight speed the instant Zhou Ziwei began chanting the Six-Syllable Mantra.
As the new soul power replenished his sea of souls, Zhou Ziwei instantly realized that the soul power in his sea of souls was approximately 1,700 remnant soul energies, which was less than he had anticipated. He had originally thought that each of these ghost bats would have an average of about 300 remnant soul energies, but the souls of the three ghost bats he had just absorbed were noticeably weaker.
At the same time, Zhou Ziwei also discovered that the capacity of his soul power seemed to be larger than he had originally estimated. Now he had 1,700 remnant soul energies, and his soul sea did not feel like it was about to be filled. So the capacity of his soul power should not be just over 2,000, but probably could hold at least 2,500 remnant soul energies.
This means that Zhou Ziwei can still absorb the souls of two or three more ghost bats to barely fill his sea of souls.
However, Zhou Ziwei dared not make such a plan again at this moment, because the commotion caused by the absorption just now had completely caused an uproar in the entire valley.
It was unclear how the ghost bats transmitted their information, but in the blink of an eye, it seemed that all the ghost bats in the valley, including those in the bat cave, knew that intruders had arrived. Just a few seconds later, Zhou Ziwei saw ghost bats of all sizes swarming towards him from all directions.
Zhou Ziwei was so frightened that his soul almost left his body. He no longer dared to covet those ghostly bats and quickly jumped up, running towards the swamp.
However, to Zhou Ziwei's utter surprise, just as he approached the swamp and was about five or six meters away, a huge black shadow suddenly flashed out from a cave on the cliff opposite the swamp. The shadow was as big as a small dark cloud, and its speed was astonishing. In the blink of an eye, it had already glided across the sky above the swamp, carrying a stench, and rushed towards Zhou Ziwei.
"Damn it, it's that Bat King!"
When Zhou Ziwei saw the huge black shadow rushing towards him, his keen eyesight immediately revealed its appearance. He realized that it was the same giant bat king that the ladybug had encountered when it sneaked into the bat cave last time.
He was immediately alarmed, realizing that it was too late to dive into the swamp. He could only hurriedly channel a large amount of soul power into his legs, instantly increasing their agility to six times the limit.
Normally, Zhou Ziwei would only dare to increase the sensitivity of his hands and feet by three times, because he found that for every doubling of the sensitivity of his limbs, the sense of touch and pain in that part would increase by more than ten times. So, normally, increasing the sensitivity of his limbs by three times was about the limit he could tolerate.
But now, facing the giant bat king's attack, he dared not hesitate or hold back at all, knowing that if he paused even for a moment, he would probably lose his life here.
As Zhou Ziwei increased the agility of his legs, he instantly mobilized a large amount of soul power from his sea of souls, and then suddenly opened his mouth and let out a silent roar.
Soul Roar... This is a method of manipulating soul power that Zhou Ziwei learned from the soul memories of these ghost bats. It can be used to create a powerful attack, and now he will use this method to deal with the king among the ghost bats.
This was the only method Zhou Ziwei could think of to attack the Bat King. He had originally planned to wait until the Bat King flew close and then use the Niu-style Tai Chi Chuan technique of borrowing force to fight the monster hand-to-hand.
However, although Niu-style Tai Chi is very powerful, this Bat King is no ordinary creature either. However, given its enormous size and the fact that its own strength must be quite terrifying, Zhou Ziwei was not confident that he could defeat this behemoth.
The chances of defeating it, at least in the short term, are extremely slim.
If Zhou Ziwei is entangled by this bat for even a few seconds, then all the ghost bats that have swarmed into the valley will arrive in an instant. At that time, even if Zhou Ziwei has three heads and six arms, he will definitely not escape death.
Furthermore, if Zhou Ziwei dared to recite the Six-Syllable Mantra at this moment, he would be absolutely certain that he could kill this king of ghost bats with a single blow.
But if that were the case, Zhou Ziwei himself would definitely be bursting from the bloating.