Chapter 84: The Village That Rewound Time
The entire village seemed to enter a strange new state.
Silence descended.
Not the silence of death.
But the calm before something ancient awakened.
Inside the buried coffin, Shen Yu suddenly felt the body in his arms tremble violently.
"Hmm..."
Yun Han’s eyes flew open.
The peaceful expression she had worn while sleeping vanished, replaced by raw panic.
Her pupils trembled as she stared toward the sealed coffin lid above them, as though she could see through layers of wood and earth.
"...It’s coming."
Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.
Yet it carried a fear unlike anything Shen Yu had heard before.
He frowned.
"What’s coming?"
Yun Han didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she looked at him with complicated eyes.
There was worry.
Sadness.
Reluctance.
Almost...
A hint of desperation.
Without warning, the bright crimson wedding robe covering her body began to fade.
Ashes drifted silently into the darkness.
The vibrant red cloth that had symbolized her wedding slowly disintegrated into black dust, scattering between the two of them.
Beneath the robe...
There was no flesh.
No living body.
Only an elegant white skeleton.
The bones themselves were beginning to crumble.
Tiny cracks spread across them like drying porcelain.
"What..."
Shen Yu’s eyes widened.
"Yun Han!"
She smiled faintly.
It was a smile filled with resignation.
"I don’t have much time."
Before Shen Yu could speak again, Yun Han suddenly reached for his arm.
Her fingers were no longer soft.
The uneven nails of her skeletal hand gently pierced his skin.
A sharp sting spread through his forearm.
Shen Yu instinctively frowned but didn’t pull away.
Instead, he watched quietly.
Using the tip of her nail...
Yun Han slowly carved a strange spiral-shaped symbol into his arm.
The pattern twisted inward like a whirlpool.
Ancient.
Mysterious.
Unlike any language Shen Yu had ever seen.
"What does this mean?"
He looked at the mark in confusion.
"If..."
Yun Han struggled to continue speaking.
"If you can understand it someday..."
She stopped.
Her expression became increasingly anxious.
"No..."
"There isn’t enough time."
Suddenly—
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
An overwhelming pain exploded across Shen Yu’s back.
His entire spine twisted violently.
Every muscle in his body convulsed.
The familiar pressure returned.
"No..."
He gritted his teeth.
"So it’s happening again..."
A sharp stone edge burst through his back.
Blood splattered across the cramped coffin.
The tombstone that had once disappeared was growing again.
It erupted from his spine with terrifying speed.
The force shattered the groom’s already fragile corpse beneath them.
Bones exploded into powder.
Rotting flesh scattered throughout the coffin.
Before Shen Yu could react—
A stone hand emerged from behind the monument.
Then another.
Slowly...
A gray figure crawled out.
It possessed Shen Yu’s face.
His smile.
Even his eyes.
Only...
Its grin was impossibly twisted.
"Hehehe..."
The stone version of Shen Yu tilted its head.
Its smile widened.
Then—
Darkness swallowed everything.
His consciousness vanished.
"...Shen Yu."
"...Shen Yu."
"...Wake up."
Warm sunlight touched his face.
Birdsong echoed softly nearby.
The scent of fresh grass replaced the smell of blood and decay.
Shen Yu slowly opened his eyes.
"...What?"
He stared blankly ahead.
The horrifying coffin had disappeared.
Instead...
He stood inside a peaceful country courtyard.
Bright green grass covered the ground.
Several chickens pecked lazily at scattered grain.
A pair of ducks waddled beside a small pond.
Outside the courtyard...
A stone-paved road stretched through the village.
Smoke curled gently from nearby chimneys.
Children laughed somewhere in the distance.
It was peaceful.
Too peaceful.
"...Cemetery Village?"
Shen Yu murmured uncertainly.
It looked completely different from the nightmare he remembered.
Or...
Did he remember it?
Behind him came several surprised voices.
"What happened?"
Mohan stood several meters away, looking equally bewildered.
Beside him were Luxian and Taishan.
The three of them wore identical expressions.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
They looked around repeatedly, as though trying to understand where they were.
Luxian blinked several times.
"...Didn’t we..."
She suddenly stopped talking.
Her brows furrowed.
"I..."
"I can’t remember."
Shen Yu frowned.
His own memories suddenly became hazy.
He remembered driving toward Cemetery Village.
He remembered arriving at the entrance.
Then...
Nothing.
Everything afterward seemed to have been erased.
The horrifying wedding.
The coffin.
The ghost bride.
The tombstone creatures.
All of it seemed buried beneath an invisible fog.
The four of them stood silently for nearly a full minute.
No one spoke.
Finally...
Mohan was the first to regain his composure.
"This isn’t right."
His expression gradually darkened.
"I clearly remember simulating the entrance countless times."
"There should have been a checkpoint before entering the village."
"So..."
He slowly surveyed the peaceful surroundings.
"Why are we already inside?"
No one answered.
The question lingered in the warm afternoon air.
Mohan closed his eyes.
His ears glowed faintly.
Future Echo activated.
Or rather...
It should have.
Several seconds passed.
Nothing happened.
His confident expression slowly cracked.
Again.
He concentrated harder.
Still...
Silence.
"...Impossible."
He opened his eyes abruptly.
"No."
"No!"
He activated the talent repeatedly.
Nothing.
Not even the faintest future whisper reached him.
His face instantly turned deathly pale.
"My ability..."
"It’s gone."
Without Future Echo...
He suddenly felt naked.
Powerless.
The confidence that had always supported him collapsed in an instant.
Almost instinctively, he grabbed Taishan’s shoulder.
"Taishan!"
"What about you?"
"Can you still use your talent?"
Taishan slowly clenched both fists.
Then loosened them.
A trace of surprise appeared on his usually stoic face.
"My strength..."
"...is gone."
"I feel..."
"Weak."
"My talent isn’t responding."
Luxian also hurriedly closed her eyes.
The faint white glow that usually appeared around her pupils never emerged.
She tried several more times.
Nothing.
"My Memory Projection..."
"It disappeared too."
Her voice trembled slightly.
One after another...
Their supernatural abilities had completely vanished.
Only Shen Yu remained standing quietly.
Unlike the others...
He wasn’t trying to activate anything.
Instead...
His gaze drifted toward an invisible screen only he could see.
Mirror Flower, Water Moon
Cooldown Remaining:
22 Hours
1 Minute
32 Seconds
Shen Yu frowned.
"...Strange."
His skill still existed.
It hadn’t disappeared.
It was merely...
Cooling down.
Which meant only one thing.
"I’ve already used it."
His heartbeat quickened.
"But..."
"I don’t remember using it."
Before entering the village...
The cooldown had definitely ended.
So why...
Was the timer counting again?
Fragments of forgotten memories seemed ready to surface.
Yet every time he tried recalling them...
An invisible force pushed them back into darkness.
The contradiction made his head ache.
He silently looked toward Mohan and the others.
None of them seemed to notice anything unusual about him.
A gentle breeze drifted through the village.
The afternoon sun shone warmly overhead.
Children laughed somewhere beyond the neighboring courtyard.
Dogs barked lazily.
Smoke rose peacefully from cooking stoves.
Everything appeared so ordinary.
So warm.
So harmless.
Yet...
Shen Yu felt an indescribable chill crawling along his spine.
After several long moments of silence...
Mohan slowly stepped out from behind Taishan.
His expression had become unusually serious.
"...Something’s wrong."
Very wrong.
The village was too perfect.
Too peaceful.
Almost...
As if someone had carefully reconstructed every happy memory of an ordinary countryside village.
And somehow...
That perfect tranquility felt far more terrifying than all the ghosts they had faced before.