An overwhelming, almost obsessive desire to survive kept Yang Hongtao from finding any peace in that moment. The more restless he became, the more he felt the relentless sunlight seeping in, eroding his soul bit by bit. The bullet, once cold and inert, began to grow scalding hot…
He couldn't just sit there and wait any longer! Yang Hongtao knew that passively biding his time would only lead to his doom. But what could he do? He couldn't move, couldn't flee—inaction wasn't an option, yet action seemed impossible. Then, in a flash, the Six-Syllable Mantra sprang to mind again. Whatever its consequences, he'd already experienced firsthand the incredible power it held.
Sure, that power hadn't exactly brought him good fortune so far, but for someone teetering on the edge of annihilation, any change—any at all—was better than the slow, inevitable dissolution of his soul under the sun's rays until nothing remained. What was there left to fear?
So, with the mounting pressure of the encroaching sunlight bearing down on him, Yang Hongtao began to silently chant the mantra once more in the depths of his soul. It sounded simple, yet it brimmed with the profound mysteries of the universe:
Om Mani Padme Hum… Om Mani Padme Hum… Om Mani Padme Hum…
At first, his scattered focus yielded no results despite a dozen recitations. But this mantra, revered as Buddhism's most fundamental incantation for self-realization, wasn't called sacred for nothing. After repeated chants, Yang's frantic, burning anxiety began to settle, soothed by the rhythm of the six syllables. Under their subtle influence, even the weight of life and death started to feel as fleeting as passing clouds.
Once again, strange white rings emerged, born from the mantra echoing in his soul. This time, their reach was even greater. With each syllable he chanted, a massive character materialized in the air, transforming into a glowing ring roughly ten meters wide. These rings then contracted inward at a steady pace, shrinking down to a pinpoint before vanishing into the bullet that housed his soul.
Yang Hongtao sat at the center of this endless cascade of rings, quietly feeling them merge into his being one after another. At first, the sensation was subtle. But when he noticed a fragmented remnant of a soul—already shattered by the sun—being drawn in by one of the rings and forcibly fused into his own, he grasped the staggering power these mantra-spawned rings possessed.
That first thread of a broken soul slamming into his own startled him. It felt like someone had grafted a bloody hand or leg onto his body—an instinctive revulsion surged within him. But once that fragment fully integrated, he was astonished to discover it was like a miraculous tonic, a perfect boost for his soul.
Compressed by the rings' immense force, the remnant—stripped of any lingering consciousness—had been refined into pure soul energy. Without resistance or waste, it melded seamlessly into Yang Hongtao's essence, swelling his soul's strength in an instant.
Realizing the benefits of absorbing these remnants, Yang quickly cast aside his initial discomfort. What followed was an almost addictive rush, like an opium addict chasing a high—he craved the sensation of devouring soul energy.
The Six-Syllable Mantra flowed ceaselessly from his soul, and the eerie rings surged toward him like tidal waves on the Qiantang River, pulling in every scattered soul fragment within their reach. Each time he absorbed a purified wisp of energy, his soul grew stronger, and the rings spawned by his next chant expanded further, encompassing an even wider area.
Time blurred as he lost himself in the process. When the final shred of soul in the execution ground was consumed by his contracting rings, Yang Hongtao finally ceased his chanting. By then, the rings had grown from their initial ten-meter diameter to nearly sixty meters—enough to envelop the entire field.
The sun had long since shifted, its rays now piercing through the gaps in the stones to strike the bullet directly. Yet Yang, his soul bolstered tenfold, no longer feared the light. Already condensed far beyond an ordinary spirit by the mantra's initial compression, his absorption of over twenty fellow prisoners' remnants had solidified his soul into something almost tangible. Mere sunlight couldn't harm him now.
It was only then that he noticed something extraordinary: he hadn't just absorbed raw soul energy. Along with it came fragments of the prisoners' pre-death memories.
Of course, these were remnants ravaged by the sun for hours, so the memories were incomplete. Still, what endured were obsessions—deeply ingrained moments like a soul's proudest achievement, its darkest secret, or its mastery of a specific skill or field. Yang could sift through these chaotic shards with ease.
As he sorted through his newfound memories, Yang Hongtao was stunned to realize that none of the twenty-five prisoners executed alongside him had been ordinary. Excluding four whose souls had decayed too much for him to discern their identities, only he and a foreign language translator from a tourism company ranked lower on the social ladder. The rest? Elites—top-tier figures from various walks of life.
The combined obsessions of so many exceptional individuals formed a treasure trove of knowledge and experience. Gaining such a wealth of skills and insights out of nowhere felt incredible. Sadly, as a soul trapped in a bullet, Yang had no way to put them to use. Still, with no means of escaping his metallic prison, he turned to organizing these sudden influxes of memory fragments to pass the time.
It was a blessing, really—something to keep his mind occupied. Without it, the confinement might've driven him mad. But even a mountain of memories eventually runs dry. After countless days and nights, when every last fragment had fused into his soul, Yang was hit with a profound sense of isolation and despair.
This was a designated execution site, a place no one visited outside of its grim purpose. Day after day, Yang could only stare at a barren slope, crying out to a sky that wouldn't answer and an earth that wouldn't care. Fortunately, it wasn't long before the field welcomed another batch of condemned souls.
This time, seventeen prisoners faced the firing squad—fifteen men and two women. Among them was a tall, gaunt man, a notorious armed bandit wanted nationwide for over a dozen murders. After the shots rang out, their souls lingered, drifting aimlessly across the field, reluctant to depart until the sun rose and shattered them into pieces.
Yang hesitated only briefly before diving back into the mantra. Six radiant characters flared into existence, morphing into white rings that ensnared the broken remnants, compressing them into pure energy and jumbled memory fragments that flowed into his soul.
He had no idea what would've happened to those souls without his intervention. Would they have been whisked off to some underworld, or simply faded into nothingness under the sun's heat? He suspected the latter—and since these remnants had already lost their sense of self to the sunlight, he felt little guilt about consuming them.
Each new soul, even a mere sliver, granted him a burst of pure energy, strengthening and solidifying his essence. With every recitation of the mantra, the resulting rings grew larger. When he focused intently, he could stretch them to a hundred-meter diameter.
That hundred meters became the range of his soul's perception. Lacking physical eyes, he relied on the energy he radiated outward, sensing every blade of grass and pebble within his reach. This soul-sight was a hundred times sharper than human vision, offering a full 360-degree view—like having eyes on all sides of his head.
The drawback? His perception couldn't stretch far. Beyond a hundred meters, where his energy couldn't reach, there was only darkness. And if he pushed his energy too far, it would slip from his control, costing him a small portion when he reeled it back in.
The losses were minor, but they stung nonetheless. After consuming this latest batch of remnants, Yang tested his perception's maximum range once—then vowed not to risk it again.
The thrill of growing stronger was intoxicating, even as a mere soul. But truth be told, he relished collecting the fragmented obsessions from those remnants even more. It gave him purpose. Even the most trivial memory shards helped him whittle away the loneliness.
That might've been his existence forever—absorbing souls until his essence grew too vast for the bullet's mysterious webbing to contain—had a ragged old scavenger not wandered into the abandoned execution ground one day. The man picked up the bullet housing Yang's soul, unknowingly altering his fate.
By then, three more executions had taken place at the site, and Yang's perception had expanded to over 230 meters…