Chapter 545: Risking Life

Great... Sir?

"Bracelet... I give..."

The village woman watched the man stare straight at the bracelet in her hand, and she looked over, stammering.

Instinctively, she was reluctant and clenched it.

Although she said she would give it away, for some reason the bracelet in her hand seemed to have a magical power, making her unwilling to let go.

The strong sense of dissonance and struggle didn't give her much time.

The next second.

"Boom!!"

A mass of blood mist exploded, and amidst the debris, Zhang Tie caught the bracelet mid-air.

"Sorry..."

"You took the wrong thing..."

His voice was low.

Xiong Hanzi gripped the bracelet expressionlessly, letting the flying flesh bits fall on him.

The woman who had secretly taken the bracelet vanished, leaving only a pool of unidentifiable blood.

The nearby villagers were stunned by the sudden change, and only after feeling the fishy sweetness on their faces did they come to their senses.

"K-Killed someone! Killed someone!!"

Heart-wrenching.

They couldn't understand why the bald thug, after returning to the village, started killing; could it be he wanted to take back the jewelry he had given out?

They had never seen such a brutal scene.

A living person was blown into blood mist.

Even the blood corpses of the Great Xia border aren't this terrifying when they kill.

Zhang Tie paid no heed to the fleeing villagers, merely staring blankly at the bracelet.

For some reason.

At the moment he took the bracelet, he felt he had done the right thing.

Palpitations, daze.

Should he crush the bracelet?

In his memory, the key item of Chu Renmei in the mountain village corpse was the bracelet.

Perhaps crushing the bracelet would bring Lin Dui back.

But what if the bracelet is actually the thing that undoes Chu Renmei?

He couldn't fathom how the bracelet brought from the base could be something from the movie.

The confusion of logic and time left him unsure where to begin.

As he hesitated, the fleeing villagers nearby suddenly turned illusory.

The world spun, and a strong sense of time rushing overcame him.

The picture began to flow.

Before Zhang Tie could steady his mind, the sight before him made him involuntarily widen his eyes.

He saw the desolate village as if isolated from the world, and the villagers' movements began to speed up continuously.

He even saw himself as if watching a third-person recording.

In the fast-forwarding picture, he saw himself hesitating whether to crush the bracelet.

The next second, the 'him' in the picture chose to give up.

Hundred-fold, thousand-fold acceleration.

The villagers hid, and he temporarily left.

The villagers came out, panickedly discussing something, and he appeared again.

Just like in a constant test, the 'him' in the picture kept killing.

One... two... ten...

When he attacked the last villager, time also jumped to one month later.

In the hundred-fold accelerated picture, he saw himself desperately standing in an empty village, with the last corpse at his feet.

He roared to the heavens, unwilling.

Lin Dui did not revive; he had failed.

Time flowed again.

After the familiar dizziness, Zhang Tie regained control of his body and consciousness.

Stubble and ragged, he was listless.

"What is this..."

A flood of memories surged into his mind.

After killing the last villager, the imagined scene of Lin Dui reviving did not appear.

Instead, he was trapped in the mountain village.

In despair, he repeatedly tried to rush out, but each time he reached the riverbank, he was bounced back like hitting a ghost wall.

"Am I... trapped?"

"Is killing useless? Or am I killing the wrong way?"

He sat slumped beside the highly rotting corpse, Xiong Hanzi muttering to himself as he looked at his hands.

"Not right..."

It must be somewhere I didn't think of...

I must have missed doing something.

Time sped up... Have I arrived a month later?

Am I trapped to death here?

Killed everyone... but the problem isn't solved? Instead fell into a deadlock?

What exactly is the problem?

Zhang Tie felt his heart heavy, and couldn't help but give a helpless, bitter smile.

After taking a deep breath, his gaze wavered.

No! Killing people must be useful, the bracelet must be useful!

Otherwise time wouldn't suddenly speed up! Lin Dui said before, any abnormality means there's a problem!

Right! Now everyone's dead, Chu Renmei didn't appear! She can't appear!

But...

He racked his brains but couldn't understand.

In his mind, he couldn't comprehend: if Chu Renmei couldn't appear, why hasn't Lin Dui revived yet?

Wasn't Lin Dui killed by Chu Renmei?

I've already changed history!

If we say Chu Renmei can 'transcend' the timeline and appear behind Lin Dui.

Or perhaps this mission, the Secret Realm, has a problem, causing time to loop endlessly...

Then now she has disappeared...

How could previous events still happen?

His brain felt like it was about to explode.

Xiong Hanzi, obsessed, kept running around the deserted village, trying to find clues he had missed.

Night fell.

This time's deserted village had no trace of human habitation.

After finding nothing, Zhang Tie slumped and sat down in the center of the deserted village.

Lin Dui...

What on earth does 'replaying history' mean!

Causal Sequence reversal...

How am I supposed to reverse it?

For myself?

Should I reverse back to before my death? Or reverse back to the time of the amoeba worm instance?

But he had thought about it carefully.

Reversing back to that time would either get him killed outright, or at most grant him pseudo-Third Rank power.

What good is that?

If power were useful, Lin Dui would have used it himself.

Why leave it for him to solve?

He dared not use it lightly, feeling like a fly tangled in spider silk, dizzy and disoriented.

The stench of corpses came from nearby.

While thinking hard, he irritably threw the highly rotted corpse aside.

It's too stinky!

Just as he was about to throw the corpse into the fire, he suddenly realized where he had gone wrong.

Corpse?

Rotted!

Lin Dui's last words were about reversal...

Not aimed at me!

Like a sudden enlightenment.

Xiong Hanzi suddenly grew excited, slapped his forehead, and burst out cursing:

Damn it! I'm such a damn idiot!

How could I be thinking about such a simple problem!

He finally figured out the crux of the problem.

Lin An had him replay history, not cut it off!

Changing the past doesn't affect the present, but he can completely change what came before!

Although I don't know what principle this is, Lin Dui surely meant this!

For the first time, Zhang Tie excitedly howled wildly.

He felt as if he had just been enlightened.

Where's the corpse?

Where's the corpse of the woman who stole the bracelet!

In the gloomy deserted village, a tall, bald, muscular man madly searched for the chunks of flesh he had smashed.

Half an hour later.

He pieced things together from east and west.

Xiong Hanzi looked with frenzied excitement at the unknown powder, the silver hourglass in his hand tiny and exquisite like a toy.

Come back to life, Laozi!

Reverse causality!

If this damn place can speed up time, then it damn well can go backwards!

His face was ferocious.

Zhang Tie gripped the hourglass tightly, allowing the violent suction to drain his life force.

Suck! If you dare, suck me to death!

Silver light surged, and in an instant it illuminated the whole mountain village.

All that could be seen was the bloodstain on the ground, under the silver light, quickly congealing and finally forming a dazed village woman.

With the village woman's "resurrection," the entire desolate village seemed to hit a rewind key, rapidly reversing.

During the accelerated reversal, Zhang Tie's heart pounded wildly.

He saw himself crashing through the fence.

As time rewound back to the critical juncture.

At the same moment, the terrifying suction surged, and he felt a gravity like a black hole transmitting from the Causal Sequence.

Weakness welled up, and Zhang Tie, once as sturdy as an iron tower, instantly became skin and bones.

Fearless.

Xiong Hanzi fiercely raised his middle finger at the sky:

Fuck, if you've got the guts, beat Laozi to death twice!

Damn system!