I can rewind time to prevent death

After he left, Yan Junze came out and approached the larger pit again, crouching down to examine it carefully.

Like the Crawler Monster earlier, the spot where the beggar was buried was in the same place, right beneath the smaller pit of the Crawler Monster.

Yan Junze didn't know why these dead things were buried here, but when he tuned in closely, he discovered there was a strange magnetic field in the area. This strangeness, however, was unusual, different from the rest.

Yet, what was specifically strange about it, he couldn't quite say at the moment.

After pondering, he lay down in the pit and, upon feeling around, tucked his arms in and started shoveling dirt over himself to bury his body.

Of course, he merely scooped a few handfuls of earth so it covered his body, but not deeply, leaving his face exposed to breathe.

There he lay, breathing deeply and quietly, expanding his senses, especially his sensing of the strange magnetic field.

The magnetic field around him gave off an indescribable, wonderful feeling, as if it was both powerful and weak.

Yan Junze had planned to release either the Crawler Monster or Long-tongued Zhenzhen, but an intuition was telling him that he shouldn't do so.

The magnetic field was too strange here, it was not the time to release any strangenesses.

As he lay there buried in the dirt, about seven or eight minutes later, Yan Junze's heartbeat suddenly began to quicken, an instinctive reaction to sensing something abnormal.

He could clearly feel the surrounding magnetic field beginning to fluctuate more frequently and becoming increasingly abnormal.

His ears twitched slightly, and from the big tree not too far away came an ancient-sounding "Ah" as the bark started to crack, creating an irregular fissure that extended up and down the trunk.

Fingers of a hand scraped at the edge of the fissure, and then a pitch-black head poked out from the crack, looking around.

Before long, the gap in the tree bark widened, and a gaunt figure squeezed out, standing in front of the tree, looking down with hollow eye sockets that seemed to have pupils revolving, staring at the person buried in the dirt.

"Ah!" the shadow exclaimed with excitement, its voice hoarse, "This time, my..."

Before it finished speaking, another short shadow squeezed out of the crack in the tree trunk. It had only one arm and looked down, saying, "He is mine!"

The next second, the fissure in the trunk stirred again, and another long-haired shadow crawled out. Her lower half was missing, and as soon as her upper body emerged from the crack, she immediately shouted, "He is my..."

"Fuck off!"

The second short shadow that had come out raised its sturdy little leg and gave the long-haired shadow a back kick, sending it right back into the fissure without allowing it to finish speaking.

"Line up!" the first shadows, the old one, turned around and said in a hoarse voice.

"Yes, line up!" the short shadow also turned back and roared angrily.

"I'm talking to you!" the old shadow stared at the short one.

The dwarf retorted, "I sensed it first just now, but you rushed out before me."

"Whoever comes out first gets the person." the old shadow stated firmly, allowing no room for negotiation.

"If we are being reasonable, my hand came out first." the short shadow lifted its little short arm.

"Bullshit, it was my head that came out first!" the old shadow retorted.

"My hand!" the short shadow insisted, "My fingers touched the bark first, then it was your head."

"Which finger?" the old shadow asked.

"This one!" the short shadow quickly held up his middle finger straight up to the sky, "Look clearly, it's this one!"

He waggled his middle finger vigorously at the old shadow.

"You little bastard, are you flipping me off!?" the old shadow exploded in anger.

The short shadow started, then quickly realized what he'd done and hurriedly lowered his middle finger.

"To be fair, I did see him stick his middle finger out first." the woman with only half a body somehow reappeared outside the fissure, straining as she pushed herself out, and spoke.

"Fuck off!" the old shadow kicked her back into the crack once more.

"You, come out, and be the judge." the short shadow immediately bent down, grabbed the woman's hand, and tried to pull her out to support his argument.

But as he bent over towards the crack in the tree, the old shadow, who had been still as a virgin, suddenly sprang into action like a fleeing rabbit, delivering a kick that sent the other tumbling back into the fissure while cursing, "Fuck off!"

The old shadow was the strongest among the residual strangenesses. Swearing, he turned to occupy the body of the man just buried in the dirt, but as soon as he turned around, he got hit squarely in the head with a heavy blow.

"Fuck off!" Yan Junze's voice sounded.

Three Black Spirit Pearls circled around each other, the black mist thickened, and with a powerful overhead strike, the old shadow was caught completely off guard, turned into a cloud of black smoke, severely wounded and no longer able to take shape.

Whistling, the black smoke quickly dove into the crack in the bark.

Yan Junze stood outside the tree, holding his club, and watched silently as the split bark slowly healed itself. In a short while, the crack in his view gradually vanished.

...

Half an hour later, Yan Junze returned to the Wan Family villa.

All the way back, he hadn't turned on his phone's flashlight but just headed towards the villa, discerning his way in the dark.

He was relieved to find that the clouds were thick in the sky, not letting through a sliver of moonlight, yet the night was not too pitch black.

Because he had to be wary of the sudden appearance of moonlight, Yan Junze occasionally looked up at the sky, moving with exaggerated steps, circled around the Wan Family villa, and finally saw the figure of the beggar at the backyard gate of the villa.