However, there aren't many abnormal "little boys" like Zhou Ziwei. It's likely that once the other party witnesses Zhou Ziwei's extraordinary qualities, even if they notice some discrepancies in their appearances, they will immediately recognize Zhou Ziwei's identity.
Zhou Ziwei and Zhuihun paid no attention to the threat posed by the sniper rifles, and the other side clearly did not intend to make a move immediately before confirming their intentions.
This was mainly because Zhui Hun looked exactly like a native of the United States, which made it impossible for the people monitoring them to confirm their true intentions.
If it were two Chinese people who arrived, they would probably be invited for tea as soon as they got off the bus here.
Zhuihun pressed the doorbell, and an old woman's voice immediately came through the intercom, inquiring about the visitors' identities. Zhou Ziwei answered without hesitation, "We are Robert's friends. We are here to pick you up at Robert's request..."
A brief silence came through the walkie-talkie, while at the same time, the surveillance personnel lurking in the villas opposite and to the left and right of this villa immediately erupted into chaos.
They've been monitoring this place for so long, waiting for this—waiting for someone to come and pick up Robert's family.
If two adults were to arrive here, these lurking soldiers would immediately launch an attack without hesitation, capturing them before doing anything else.
But... now a little boy has appeared here, which has put the officer in charge of monitoring in a dilemma.
If the little boy who came to pick up Robert's family is the same Chinese boy who wreaked havoc at the docks, then... even if their forces lurking here were ten times stronger, it would clearly be insufficient. If they recklessly stepped forward to attack, the result would only be a tragedy. However... they have been guarding this place for so long, but if they retreat because of momentary fear, then what awaits them will undoubtedly be a merciless judgment by a military court.
Or if it is indeed confirmed that this little boy is the legendary Chinese boy, then even if they abandon this hunting mission, they will not be punished by their superiors.
After all, in the last battle at the dock, the M army mobilized tens of thousands of soldiers, ships, and aircraft, including land, sea, and air forces, and even deployed biological special forces, but still failed to capture the enemy. Therefore, it is reasonable for their hunting team of less than a hundred people to fail.
However, there is a prerequisite... He must first confirm that the little boy who appeared here is indeed a Chinese boy. There must be enough evidence to prove this before they can truly be exempted from military law. Otherwise, if it is just speculation... then obviously it will not work.
After only a few seconds of hesitation, the commander immediately issued a firm order: "All hunters, prepare to move out and execute Plan B: capture the prey alive!"
"You...are you really Robert's friends? But...you look like a five or six-year-old child to me?" After a moment, an elderly man's voice came through the intercom. It seemed that the person speaking now was Robert's father-in-law.
“Yes…” Zhou Ziwei calmly glanced at the miniature camera on the gate and replied with a smile, “Who says five or six-year-olds can’t be friends with adults? Hmm… Robert asked me to tell you something, that… the peach blossoms in his hometown are very beautiful, and he hopes that when the peach blossoms are in full bloom this year, he can drink peach blossom wine with his whole family under the flowering trees…”
“Robert…” another woman’s voice cried out, followed by a series of urgent and suppressed sobs, “Is he…is he alright? Where is he…can we…can we really see each other again?”
Zhou Ziwei smiled slightly and said, "You must be Sister-in-law Mania! Hehe... Believe me, I will take you to reunite with Robert."
“Okay, okay…of course I believe you…wait here, I’ll open the door for you right away…” the woman replied, both anxious and delighted. But then the old man coughed lightly, stopping her, “Wait a minute…even if he really is Robert’s friend, I’m afraid it’s difficult for him to really get us out of here! Silly child, don’t you know that so many unfamiliar faces have suddenly appeared around our neighborhood these past two days? Don’t drag others into this…um…you two outside, you’d better leave quickly! Otherwise…I’m afraid trouble will come your way.”
"If I were afraid of trouble, I wouldn't have come. Besides, even if I didn't want to cause trouble, it's probably too late."
Zhou Ziwei said nonchalantly, "They've already arrived..."
As Zhou Ziwei spoke, he slowly turned around and immediately saw at least twenty or thirty people rapidly approaching from all directions, forming a siege. Each of these people was armed with a state-of-the-art automatic rifle, wearing thick bulletproof vests, tactical helmets, and carrying a gun in their hands, a gun on their waist, a dagger strapped to their leg, and several grenades hanging from their chests. They were like heavily armed war robots. At a slightly greater distance, there were also people with shoulder-fired rocket launchers, also aiming at this direction, but they did not rush forward.
It seems these people are really well prepared... If the people who came to pick up Robert's family this time were just ordinary agents, or even an elite organization like the Dragon Group, if there were no more than five of them, they probably wouldn't be able to leave either, and would all be left here.
Zhou Ziwei didn't react much to this scene. He simply shook his head and said to Zhuihun, "Help me take care of them all! Oh... these soldiers have it tough. If it's convenient, please spare their lives! Please."
Zhuihun glared at Zhou Ziwei with a resentful look, and said with a bitter face, "You brat, we made a deal... you can't treat me like a bodyguard, how come you... now you're making me do everything!"
Zhou Ziwei, sounding completely innocent, said, "Of course I didn't treat you like a bodyguard... This is about confronting the violent machinery of a nation... How could a mere bodyguard accomplish such a feat? If it weren't for your status, and if it were a fat bastard like Morphy here, do you think I would have asked him to handle something like this for me?"
"Uh..." Upon hearing this, Zhuihun was speechless for a moment. After a long while, he said resentfully, "So... you're asking me to be your henchman to deal with these easy little shrimps? You're actually... you're actually giving me too much credit."
"That's not it!" Zhou Ziwei shrugged helplessly and said, "It's just that I have no one else to use, haha... I remember you said yesterday... that you used to teach several disciples, but these disciples were focused on martial arts training and didn't become assassins like you, so they didn't become famous in the world... haha... I wonder if you can still contact them now. If we could get them all to come out and stay with us... then... if there are similar small situations in the future, wouldn't you no longer need to personally take action?"
"Don't even think about it!" Upon hearing this, Zhuihun immediately glared at Zhou Ziwei, staring at him like a thief. "You really are something... You even have designs on my disciples! Hmph... Don't even think about it. I don't even know where my disciples are. You're such a scoundrel! You tricked me, the King of Assassins, into being your super henchman, and you're still not satisfied? You're still eyeing what you don't have... Hmph, hmph... You're too much! Even if I knew where they were, I wouldn't let you succeed."
Zhou Ziwei stuck out his tongue and said, "If you can't do it, then forget it. What's with the attitude... Since you said you're a super thug, what are you hesitating for when your employer is in trouble? Hurry up and get on him!"
"You..." Zhuihun rolled his eyes in anger, then glared at Zhou Ziwei hatefully and said, "Fine... you're ruthless. I'll slaughter a whole field of corpses for you to see!"
"Whatever..." Zhou Ziwei said indifferently, "Anyway, these are all you American people, and I have nothing to do with them, not even a penny. You can grind them all to dust if you want, I can't stop you!"
Upon hearing this, Zhuihun was once again defeated. He glared at Zhou Ziwei speechlessly, then gave up on arguing with this shameless guy. He snorted coldly, turned around with the combination lock in his hand, faced the rapidly approaching M soldiers, and roared. Then he reached out and gently patted the black combination lock... and then streaks of black light shot out from the combination lock.
It turns out that... the combination lock box in Zhuihun's hand was actually a transformation of his magical artifact, the Hundred Transformations. The Hundred Transformations was made up of hundreds of steel bars and could change into various shapes at will according to the spirit warrior's wishes.
To avoid being too conspicuous, Zhuihun usually transforms this magical artifact into the shape of a briefcase and carries it in his hand. In this way, even if he carries it all over the street, no one will give him a second glance.
And even if someone does notice him because of such a box, they are most likely petty thieves with the intention of robbing him.
In the past, Zhuihun had encountered quite a few unfortunate children who were completely oblivious to their own fate. Almost without exception, every poor child who was blinded by greed and tried to win Zhuihun's heart lost their life because of it.
The reason why it can be called "Hundred Transformations" is said to have another meaning, which is that... this super-large spiritual artifact can be broken down into up to one hundred smaller spiritual artifacts at the same time, which can then be used by the master to surround and kill the target.
However, to simultaneously control one hundred magical artifacts for a synchronized attack is no small feat, because it means that the user must divide their thoughts into one hundred parts and then control one hundred of these small magical artifacts separately.
It's not uncommon for spiritual warriors to be able to multitask; almost anyone who has achieved some success in cultivating spiritual power can do it.
However... it's not unusual to be able to focus on two, three, or even eight or ten things at once, but to be able to focus on a hundred things at once is simply an impossible legend.
Zhuihun is already considered a prodigy, but after so many years of training, he can only focus on thirty-six things at most. This is the highest level he can reach at this stage. Even if he controls another small magical artifact, he will be completely powerless.
However, there were only about twenty M soldiers rushing towards them, and together with the few carrying rocket launchers in the distance, there were only twenty-nine of them.
This is far from the limit of Soul Chaser; dealing with these people is naturally nothing for Soul Chaser.
With a single strike, twenty-nine beams of dark light separated from the magical artifact, which resembled a combination lock box.
These dark lights were naturally the small magical artifacts that had been separated from the Hundred Transformations. In fact, these small magical artifacts could be made up of several, dozens, or even hundreds of steel bars. However, when dealing with these ordinary soldiers, Soul Chaser didn't need to exert so much effort and simply sent out twenty-nine of the most basic Hundred Transformations steel bars.
Once a magical artifact is infused with sufficiently powerful spiritual energy, its flight speed can reach a speed close to the speed of light.
The speed of this process depends primarily on the strength of the spiritual energy injected.
Soul Chaser is an anomaly among spiritual warriors, and he reached the peak of the Great Spiritual Martial Master more than a decade ago. His spiritual power has also undergone a mutation, making it far stronger than that of an ordinary peak Great Spiritual Martial Master.
This resulted in the small magical artifacts he launched reaching speeds approaching the speed of light.
When a weapon's speed approaches the speed of light, it becomes an almost unbreakable life-reaping machine because by the time you see the weapon being shot at you, it has already hit you.
Only this speed can be considered to be the synchronization of the speed of light and the flight speed of the weapon.
In this situation, no matter how fast a person's reaction time or how agile their skills are, they are completely useless.
And so, in the instant that Soul Chaser lightly tapped the combination lock box, the twenty-nine menacing M soldiers immediately met their tragic end...
Volume 3, King of the City, Chapter 615: Too Open
The speed of the Soul Chaser's attack was so fast that no one had any time to react. With just a light tap on the briefcase, the weapons in the hands of the twenty-nine people were violently destroyed in the next instant. The scene was extremely bizarre, as if what they were holding were not advanced automatic rifles, but fireworks that were lit and exploded into a brilliant burst of fire at the same time, and then turned into a pile of scrap metal.
It was only because Zhuihun remembered Zhou Ziwei's instructions when he made his move that he managed to control the damage to the automatic rifles and rocket launchers, preventing the ammunition inside from exploding. Otherwise... the scene would probably have been even more spectacular.
The guns in the hands of the twenty-nine men suddenly exploded, startling everyone. Before they could react or make any move, they felt a heavy blow to the back of their heads, as if they had been hit on the head with a club in the street. Each of them felt as if a mountain was pressing down on the back of their heads. In the midst of the excruciating pain, they saw stars, and then their vision went black, and they immediately lost consciousness.
The versatile steel bars are pointed at both ends and rounded in the middle, so they can be used as arrows for shooting or as clubs for sweeping to smash people's heads. With the twenty-nine steel bars sweeping across, all the M soldiers who were about to launch a surprise attack on Zhou Ziwei and his men were immediately knocked to the ground.
Almost simultaneously, the weapons in the hands of the twenty-nine people exploded into worthless junk, and their bodies also lunged forward at the same moment, collapsing to the ground unconscious.
At the same time, the twenty-nine dark lights suddenly flashed and shot back to Zhuihun, all of them entering the combination lock-shaped device in his hand.
Truly worthy of being called the king of assassins of our time... his skills are indeed extraordinary...
Although Zhou Ziwei had fought Zhuihun before, their encounters were limited to a chase and escape; there had been no real life-or-death struggle. Therefore, Zhou Ziwei didn't really know the extent of Zhuihun's strength. But this time, he truly witnessed it firsthand—Zhuihun was simply "powerful"...
Looking back now, Zhou Ziwei feels incredibly fortunate. Luckily, he immediately fled as soon as he realized something was wrong, allowing Zhuihun to run far ahead without even seeing his face.
As a result, Zhuihun could only follow Zhou Ziwei's aura. Otherwise, if Zhuihun spotted him and then suddenly attacked... the consequences would be truly unimaginable.
Furthermore, when Zhou Ziwei realized the danger, he managed to escape underground. This was absolutely a brilliant idea. If he hadn't gone underground, which greatly increased his speed, he probably wouldn't have escaped Zhuihun's distraction and combined attack if he had been on land. It was simply too ruthless...
Zhou Ziwei was secretly amazed and couldn't help but give Zhuihun a thumbs up, showing an admiring expression, which greatly satisfied Zhuihun's vanity.
In the past, there were many people who praised his soul-chasing abilities. Anyone who had seen him in action, or knew him, had expressed fear and admiration for his terrifying methods, or uttered all sorts of nauseating praises.
However, Zhuihun only felt exceptionally satisfied and proud when he saw Zhou Ziwei's gesture of admiration. In Zhuihun's mind, Zhou Ziwei was a powerful being who could rival him, and he would only feel truly happy when he received praise from a master of the same level.
"Alright... those troublemakers have quieted down for now, please open the door and let me in! Oh... or you can pack your things and come with us right now! I don't think anyone can stop you from reuniting with your loved ones."
As soon as Zhou Ziwei finished speaking, a slight sound of a door opening came from inside. A woman who looked to be in her thirties opened the small door of the villa, peeked in, and was immediately horrified when she saw the M soldiers lying on the ground not far away. After a moment, she walked over tremblingly, opened the villa's main door, and looked at Zhou Ziwei and Zhuihun with a shaky expression, saying, "You...you...are my Robert's...friends from that side?"
Zhou Ziwei smiled and nodded upon hearing this, then lowered his voice and said, "Actually, he had to expose his identity this time in order to pick me up and some of my companions. Now he has returned to China and knows that you might be treated unfairly because of this. Moreover, he doesn't want to be separated from his family forever, so he entrusted me to bring you all back to his hometown..."
"Is that so!" The blonde, blue-eyed woman's eyes lit up, and she immediately nodded, opening the door and saying, "Then come in quickly! Those people... are they... all dead?" As she spoke, her gaze swept over the twenty-nine people lying on the ground not far away, her eyes filled with a look of fear and sorrow.
Zhou Ziwei shook his head slightly and said, "No... My friend is very measured in his actions. He's just letting them sleep for now. As long as they don't cause any more trouble, they can keep their lives. But if anyone else is reckless... then we have no choice but to go on a killing spree."
Zhou Ziwei deliberately spoke loudly, so loud that it could probably be heard clearly from hundreds of meters away. Clearly, his words were less a reply to Mrs. Robert and more a warning to the group of M soldiers lurking in the shadows.
"Ah... thank goodness they're not dead, thank God!" Mrs. Robert was clearly a very devout believer. Upon hearing that the people were alive, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief, made the sign of the cross on her chest, and began to pray incessantly.
Zhou Ziwei could only show the most basic respect to a believer. After she finished praying, he followed Mrs. Robert into the villa.
Zhuihun originally wanted to go in with them, but Zhou Ziwei frowned, pointed to another villa across the street, and said, "You'd better stay outside! If I'm not mistaken... there are extremely powerful heavy weapons installed in that villa. If we all go inside and they suddenly open fire... hehe... then we might not all escape. So... you'd better stay outside and keep watch. I believe that with you here, even if someone launches a missile or something this way, you'll have a way to intercept it, right?"
Hearing this, Zhuihun rolled his eyes again in anger and said, "What, you think I'm a patriot? Uh... never mind, I knew you weren't up to any good. Now you really think I'm your bodyguard, not even letting me in the door... Fine, I'll just guard the door for you from the outside."
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziwei rolled his eyes at him just as rudely and said, "You call yourself a housekeeper? Look at how aggrieved you sound, like you're some submissive little wife next to me. Tell me... with your arrogant attitude, how can you be a doorman? And what housekeeper would dare to call himself 'I' by his employer? Humph... I can't be bothered with you!"
After saying that, Zhou Ziwei ignored the bewildered Zhuihun and swaggered into the villa with Mrs. Robert.
The small two-story villa has rooms that aren't very spacious, but it's quite comfortable for a family of six.
Robert's parents had long since passed away. He got married in the United States. His wife was a native of the United States. They had two children, both of whom are now of school age. Their eldest daughter is thirteen years old and has already started middle school, while their youngest son is only eight years old and has just started school. He is quite mischievous.
In addition, Robert's parents-in-law also live with them. The two elderly people are quite old, but in good health. They are both over sixty years old. They used to run a small shop for a while, but now that they are older, they have sold the shop and are focusing on taking care of their two grandchildren at home.
Upon hearing Zhou Ziwei's arrival, the rest of the family, except for Robert's youngest son who was still quite young and only curious about Zhou Ziwei, who looked a few years younger than him, were caught in a dilemma after Zhou explained the purpose of his visit.
Should we go with Zhou Ziwei, or stay here?
They were now absolutely certain of Zhou Ziwei's identity, because the words Zhou Ziwei had spoken at the door were exactly what Robert and his family had agreed upon. Once Zhou Ziwei left the United States and did not return, he would likely entrust someone else to pick them up and leave together, and at that time he would say those words to show that he had been entrusted by Robert.
Robert wasn't a very competent secret agent. Unlike the agent in the movie "True Lies," he didn't manage to keep his wife in the dark for over a decade, unaware of his true identity.
After living with his wife for several years and having a daughter and a son, Robert finally couldn't help but reveal his secret to her when she was seriously ill, telling her his true identity.
Fortunately, Robert's wife was not the kind of radical nationalist who would break off relations with him just because he was a foreign agent. She was just worried that their future life might never be peaceful again.
Therefore, she repeatedly tried to persuade Robert to retire, or simply stop being a secret agent there, or stop being a soldier here. In short... living like this is like dancing on a tightrope; it always makes one feel terrified and unable to settle down.
Robert had promised his wife that he would consider the matter and explained that he might leave the country at any time and never be able to return. At that time, he would have to ask someone else to pick them up and bring them back to China for a family reunion. That's why they agreed on the coded message from before.
Robert's parents-in-law only learned about their son-in-law's true identity a few days ago after being approached by military personnel from the United States and spoken to privately. Therefore, they are now in a state of mixed feelings.
They are all native-born citizens of the United States and have a strong sense of belonging to their country, so they find it difficult to accept that their son-in-law is a traitor, which gives them a strong sense of shame.
So when the topic of leaving and going with Zhou Ziwei came up, the two elderly people refused almost without hesitation. This was not only because they did not want to leave M country, but also because they did not trust Zhou Ziwei. After all, who would see a five or six-year-old child running up to them and saying that he was going to take them abroad to settle down? I believe that anyone with a relatively normal mind would find it difficult to have a strong sense of trust in a child.
Zhou Ziwei rubbed his nose helplessly. He should have brought Chu Qiutang with him earlier. That girl would be much better at persuasion than him! Besides... Chu Qiutang looks like an adult, and her words have much more weight than his "child's" words. Sigh... When will this damn body ever return to a normal human form?
Seeing the elderly couple arguing with their daughter, Zhou Ziwei ignored them and instead started chatting and laughing with the two children.
Robert's youngest son, David, looked Zhou Ziwei up and down with great curiosity, then couldn't help but ask, "Hey... kid, where did you take my dad? Why did you say you were taking our family abroad... isn't that something only adults do? How can a kid younger than me do things that adults do?"