After an absence of eight long years, Zhang Shutong returned to the island where he grew up.
—To attend the funeral of a junior high classmate.
The funeral home was located on the southern part of the island, next to the newly built road that circled the lake.
Leaning against the roadside guardrail and gazing into the distance, on a clear day, the lake reflected the crystal-clear sky, like a sapphire jewel.
When the wind blew, the clouds rippled along with it, a sight that soothed the soul.
Today, however, the lake was the color of lead.
The sky was overcast.
The moment he stepped out of the funeral home, Zhang Shutong tightened his trench coat.
The cold was biting.
He had left in a hurry and forgotten to add another layer of clothing.
It was warmer inside the funeral home, but the mournful music was dizzying.
He had only stayed for a while before deciding he'd rather endure the cold outside.
The formalities were almost over, but they had all been classmates, a special bond that made it improper to leave immediately.
To kill time, he glanced at his phone.
It was just past two in the afternoon.
The funeral wasn't over yet, and people were still arriving sporadically from all over.
Just then, Zhang Shutong saw two old ladies walk by, muttering something.
"What a pity. Such a pretty girl. I watched her grow up."
"I know. So young, why couldn't she see a way out? Now her family line has ended."
"Who knows? And what about that young boyfriend of hers? Didn't they say he called to break up with her just the day before? He's a real heartless bastard..."
Zhang Shutong sighed softly at their words, biting the inside of his cheek—a small habit of his when he was speechless.
He'd lost count of how many similar rumors he had heard today, to the point where he no longer had the energy to refute them.
One of the two people in their conversation was, of course, the deceased classmate.
And the other, that "heartless young boyfriend," if he wasn't mistaken, was him.
That was precisely why he hadn't dared to reveal his identity throughout the funeral, keeping his distance from the crowd.
Otherwise, even with ten mouths, he wouldn't be able to explain himself.
But the reason for this completely unfounded misunderstanding was rather convoluted.
It probably all started a few days ago:
He received the obituary of his female classmate the afternoon before yesterday.
It was all so sudden.
By the time he had hurriedly booked his tickets, transferred several times from the city where he lived, and taken a boat to the island, it was already this morning.
But now, with the funeral almost over, his mind was still struggling to process the news.
It was more shocking than sorrowful.
Zhang Shutong was twenty-four years old this year.
At his age, he had imagined his interactions with classmates would be at someone's wedding.
If he ran into an eager couple, perhaps he'd even be celebrating with them over a meal and sharing a few jokes.
But he never could have imagined that the first classmate gathering he'd attend after graduation would be a funeral.
Zhang Shutong was never a nostalgic person; otherwise, he wouldn't have gone eight years without returning to the island.
Even so, a faint sense of regret stirred within him upon hearing of the girl's passing.
In truth, "girl" wasn't quite the right word, but his memories of junior high were all frozen eight years in the past.
Junior high was a four-year system.
He had moved to the island at thirteen due to his parents' job transfer, and after graduating, they moved to the neighboring provincial capital.
He was only sixteen when he left.
Naturally, his impression of his peers was of their youthful faces.
In his memory, she was a very beautiful girl.
She had a cool, distant personality, always wore her hair in a high ponytail, and had good grades.
But she wasn't the stereotypical good girl.
The girl spoke little, was used to being alone, and her whereabouts were often a mystery.
Their school was built on the outskirts of the island.
Outside the school gate were two roads: one leading to the town inside, and the other to the mountain behind it.
Every day after school, the girl took the second path.
It was unclear if the mountain path led to her home.
He only knew that while everyone else was heading home to do homework, she would sling on her backpack with a certain flair, as if she were off to save the world after school.
It was this sense of mystery that made many of the boys in their class like her.
But she always had an air that kept people at a distance, so few could strike up a conversation with her, not even other girls.
To use a popular phrase nowadays, even if she wasn't the "white moonlight" of his heart, she was at least the kind of person who, years later, would make the dim, hazy memories of youth shine a little brighter.
But the reason she was so memorable wasn't just her beauty; it was because she was quite "special" compared to the other junior high students.
Just as every "white moonlight" girl has a legend behind her, the island named Yanlong Island was not without its own ancient tales.
The island was surrounded by water on three sides and backed by a mountain on the fourth.
On the mountain stood a temple called the Green Serpent Temple, its origins lost to time.
He only remembered that the locals were devout believers, and incense burned there year-round.
He later learned that, besides being a student, the girl's other identity was that of the Green Serpent Temple's shrine keeper.
Only she and her grandmother were at the temple.
During major festivals, she would take leave from class, let her ponytail down into shoulder-length hair, and return to the temple to help for several days.
But the term "shrine keeper" felt rather foreign in modern life.
He and his close friends had even argued about it several times:
Some said a shrine keeper was a Taoist priest, others said a nun, and some even said a sister.
Then someone else would chime in with, "What nonsense, sisters are a foreign thing. She's obviously a shrine maiden..."
In any case, for a long time, his impression of this female classmate was an imagined image of a celestial maiden with flowing robes and loose black hair.
Once, she came to class without changing, wearing a long, cyan robe.
She paid no mind to the others' stares, sitting in the classroom like a girl who had just returned from cultivating immortality.
It wasn't a crush, but putting himself in their shoes, he imagined it would be the kind of thing where, many years later, someone would find her wedding photo on social media, and a group of them would collectively mourn the end of their youth.
But what Zhang Shutong saw instead was a black-and-white funeral portrait.
Beyond that, his memories were few.
Perhaps they had other interactions back then, but time was enough to wash away many things he once thought were unforgettable, let alone a classmate with whom he was merely acquainted.
Adults and children see things differently.
Many questions that were once incomprehensible could now be understood with a simple nod.
But when it came to this girl, she had been on his mind for the past few days, like a puzzle that had arrived eight years too late.
The two of them weren't close.
What he couldn't figure out wasn't her death—
But why she had called him late at night the day before her death, which was three days ago.
Zhang Shutong had missed that call.
He had a habit of silencing his phone before bed.
When he woke up and saw the missed call from a contact named 'Lu Qinglian', he pondered it for quite a while.
A wrong number?
That would be anyone's first reaction.
After eight years, it was uncertain if she even remembered him, but based on his good impression of her, he called back, but the call didn't go through.
He didn't think much of it for long, until the next afternoon;
Zhang Shutong received the news of Lu Qinglian's death.
Actually, he didn't go out much.
To put it coldly, with their level of friendship, he normally wouldn't have gone, at most asking a familiar classmate to deliver a condolence gift on his behalf.
But it was because of that phone call.
Something that should have had little to do with him was suddenly and profoundly connected to him.
Especially yesterday, when he received an inquiry from the police and learned that she rarely used tools like a mobile phone.
She was a shrine keeper who lived on the mountain.
He used to think she was like a celestial maiden, and perhaps after all these years, the girl had grown up to truly become one, detached from the mortal world.
For all these years, she had remained on that mountain, and the only call she made the day before she passed away was to Zhang Shutong.
Honestly, he couldn't quite handle it.
It left a heavy feeling in his chest.
The police had probably asked people on the island about their relationship.
Then the news must have leaked from somewhere, and all sorts of rumors spread like wildfire:
Some said her boyfriend had called her, planning to break up, complaining that her personality was too cold, her family's financial situation was poor, and so on.
Some said it was a call for help.
Others claimed it was a homicide, that she had sensed something was wrong beforehand and had revealed information about the killer to him.
There were also superstitious tales involving ghosts and gods.
Anyway, Zhang Shutong had heard no less than five different versions.
But he didn't know much about the inside story either, only that she had supposedly lost her footing and fallen into the lake.
It had been ruled an accident.
...Let's just call it an accident for now.
Actually, Zhang Shutong didn't care much about the truth.
He came here simply to see if there was any chance of saving her.
An accident on the island eight years ago had given him this ability.
And for that very reason, if it weren't for this funeral, he probably would have never returned in his lifetime.
It was a classic case of being careful what you wish for.
Unfortunately, he was the protagonist of that story:
He remembered it was the summer vacation after the junior high entrance exams.
Every year around that time, the Green Serpent Temple would hold a festival.
That day, he and a few of his best friends went to join the fun, but the place was so crowded they couldn't squeeze in.
Boys are wild by nature.
He snuck around to the back of the temple to climb the wall alone, but he accidentally stepped on some loose gravel, tumbled down the mountain, and lost consciousness.
When he woke up again, the sky was dark, and he was lying on a bed in a clinic.
Later, his friends told him that he had been unconscious halfway up the mountain behind the temple with a gash on his head, and that an old woman had found him.
He was lucky to be alive.
If his luck had been any worse, who would have thought to look for someone there?
His parents wanted to thank her, but the person who saved him had simply disappeared.
This near-death experience granted him an extraordinary ability.
And on that day, the trajectory of his life was completely altered.
Zhang Shutong named this ability 'Rewind'.
The specific trigger was that if something bad happened around him, he would return to a critical point before the event occurred.
Usually a few minutes, or a few days, prior.
It was as if someone was forcing him to prevent the bad thing from happening.
Willingly or not, he would be dragged into it.
And if he didn't resolve it, the rewind would trigger again, trapping him in a loop.
If you asked what he thought at the time, it was actually very simple.
He was just excited.
After all, time travel and all that sounded like a world-saving superpower, super cool.
"—I am the one and only."
No boy of that age could resist such a thought.
Initially, Zhang Shutong did indeed do many "good deeds" in the conventional sense.
After starting high school, in the first year alone, he prevented several car accidents on his daily bike ride to school thanks to his rewinds.
That was probably 2013, around the time The Amazing Spider-Man was released.
He left the cinema after a midnight showing, the wind blowing against him, and walked all the way home without feeling cold, as if he had been greatly inspired.
The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man might not be real, but at least in their neighborhood, he was.
Although he never ran into any supervillains, that year he successfully stopped two cases of domestic violence and one affair, saving three marriages.
And then there was his new high school life:
There were those who couldn't get over a failed confession.
There were those who wanted to jump off a building due to academic pressure.
And there were those with all sorts of family problems...
He gradually became overwhelmingly busy, with the rewind often triggering every few days.
Being able to help others certainly brought him joy.
Though he was exhausted every time.
At the time, he had a crush on an upperclassman.
It was summer.
He had always been quite popular, and once they got to know each other, they made plans to see a movie after the monthly exam.
However, Zhang Shutong stood her up that day.
It wasn't because he didn't care.
A young mother was sitting in the lobby of the movie theater.
The woman was crying uncontrollably, and uniformed police officers had cordoned off the area.
From snippets of conversation, he learned that a child had gone missing.
Before he could react further, the next moment, the rewind triggered.
That day, he rewound a total of five times before finally finding the abducted child, after which he collapsed at home, utterly exhausted.
But that summer date seemed to have become a reality he could never reach.
It was also on that day that Zhang Shutong discovered a terrifying truth.
He could help others escape their wretched pasts.
But he was the one who ended up trapped in the past.
The rewinds continued to trigger, uncontrollably.
From Monday to Friday, for anyone else, it was a week's time, but for him, it felt as long as a month.
Finally, in his third year of high school, he nearly broke down from the incessant rewinds and was almost diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, the reason being that he had many "memories" that didn't exist.
During the worst period, he holed himself up in a rented apartment, afraid to have contact with the outside world.
He relied on takeout for every meal and had to wait until the middle of the night if he wanted to step out for a breath of fresh air.
Then he took a leave of absence from school.
For the sake of treatment, he moved with his parents to a city farther away and transferred to a new school.
Something miraculous happened.
The frequency of his rewinds decreased significantly.
Trivial matters no longer sent him back in time.
But it only decreased.
Like an eternal nightmare, the ability he gained by accident at sixteen had completely changed his life.
He couldn't live normally, so he could only strive to keep going.
Later, he managed to graduate from university.
Because he had to minimize contact with others, he moved out on his own and found a remote job.
He had saved some money over the years and could support himself, but sometimes, in his quiet room, he would think about the future.
His parents growing old, getting married, having children... where was his future?
He couldn't see it yet.
Now, he still didn't like to go out much, and his life wasn't particularly great.
But at least he had escaped the endless rewinds.
In the midst of these days that stretched out with no end in sight, two days ago, he received the obituary of his junior high classmate.
His experiences over the years had made him a person who feared trouble.
He used to be forced into all sorts of incidents, which was pure misery.
But this one time, Zhang Shutong wanted to proactively use his ability to hear the contents of that phone call.
Thus, after an absence of eight long years, he returned to the island that had changed his life.
But it had been two hours since he arrived on the island.
A short while ago, he had gone to the memorial hall and stood by the body for a long time, yet the rewind still hadn't occurred.
He shouldn't have held out hope.
Gazing at the distant lake, Zhang Shutong sighed.
He had considered this before coming; the prerequisite for a rewind was that the event had to happen around him.
He wasn't present when she died.
Although he knew the chances were slim, he still wanted to try.
But reality, well, it was as real as ever.
In the end, he couldn't change a thing.
The day was calm, without wind or waves.
The lake was a nearly frozen, leaden color.
He leaned against the guardrail and lit a cigarette, one he had been given at the funeral.
He himself had quit a long time ago.
He just lit it out of habit, not smoking it, just holding it between his fingers and watching the smoke drift away.
He didn't feel heavy-hearted.
One has to learn to make peace with reality, a lesson he had learned long ago.
Powerlessness, despair, self-abandonment—he had experienced all these emotions in his past.
In the blink of an eye, eight years had passed.
Now, returning to the shore of this lake, he recalled the past without the turbulent emotions he expected, just... a faint regret.
And so, there was no reason to stay any longer.
Just as he was about to inform someone at the funeral home, a hand suddenly clapped him on the shoulder.
He turned around to see a young man with short hair and a cheerful face.
It was his best friend from junior high.
His best friend's name was Du Kang, like the Du Kang from the famous line, "How to relieve sorrow? Only with Du Kang wine."
He had always had a carefree personality.
He had stayed in their hometown all these years, taking over his family's small restaurant.
He was an expert on everything about the island, and it was he who had informed Zhang Shutong of Lu Qinglian's death.
The other man had been helping at the funeral and now had a moment of free time, so he came out to chat.
"You son of a gun, you finally decided to come back?"
Seeing his childhood friend after so many years still felt familiar, but Zhang Shutong didn't know how to respond to the question, so he just shrugged and smiled apologetically.
"I'll show you around in a bit. Qingyi couldn't make it, but Ruoping and the others are here. How about we all have dinner together tonight?"
Zhang Shutong could only decline again.
He really wanted to go, but he really couldn't.
He was afraid someone would have a little too much to drink and start complaining about their life...
In that case, he might never be able to leave.
"You haven't changed a bit."
The repeated rejections made the smile on his best friend's face falter.
Du Kang complained:
"Just like in school, you barely say a word. You always wear black. Oh, and wearing a trench coat in this cold, what are you trying to prove? Though all the girls thought it was cool and mysterious. I never understood why you and Qingyi were the most popular."
He thought to himself that it was a misunderstanding.
He had simply left in a hurry, and all his clothes at home were black anyway; he wasn't trying to look cool at all.
And why do you have that impression? I didn't even know that myself.
"Don't be stubborn. We haven't seen each other in so long, just listen to me for a bit."
Just as Zhang Shutong was about to say something, he bit the inside of his cheek, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
The two of them stood by the roadside for a while.
Du Kang rubbed his face, took out a cigarette and lit it, then finally spoke after a long pause:
"So, should we talk about her?"
Zhang Shutong knew "her" meant Lu Qinglian.
Du Kang had always had a crush on their old classmate.
He seemed to recall a time when some girls were badmouthing Lu Qinglian behind her back.
When he found out, he threw their backpacks into the boys' bathroom and was sent home for a few days.
He was a man of action and had even confessed his feelings, but he was rejected.
It was hard to say if anything substantial had happened between them over the years, since they both stayed on the island.
He figured Du Kang must be feeling terrible.
He adopted a listening posture, but the other man just stared intently at the lake and said suddenly:
"She was murdered."
Zhang Shutong froze.
"I'm telling you, someone killed Lu Qinglian! I've told several people, but they don't believe me at all."
Du Kang took a harsh drag from his cigarette:
"I just saw her last week. She was completely normal, busy repairing the statues in the temple. Nothing was wrong at all. Do you really believe the rumors that she killed herself because she was depressed?
"And the story about slipping and falling into the water, too. She usually stayed at the temple, sometimes visiting the school to spend time with some kids. Why would she go to the lakeside for no reason? And in the middle of the night... what the hell, was she going night fishing, or swimming?"
He grew more agitated as he spoke, finally slamming his fist on the guardrail in front of him:
"Her body was found in the 'Forbidden Zone'.Shutong, you still remember the Forbidden Zone, right?"
After a moment, Zhang Shutong recalled the meaning behind those two words.
It was actually a nickname they had given to a few areas on the island during their chuunibyou phase.
"The Temple," "The Base," "The Forbidden Zone," and so on.
"The Temple" was the easiest to understand; it was the Green Serpent Temple in the mountains.
"The Base" was a large, abandoned drainage culvert where they often played after school and treated as their secret hideout.
And the "Forbidden Zone" referred to a certain area of the lake on the north side of the island.
Because the terrain was low and it received no sunlight year-round, the surroundings were always desolate, with sparse weeds and few fish.
Almost no one ever went there.
The reason it was called the Forbidden Zone was both complex and straightforward—
Because people had died in that stretch of water, and more than one.
Faded memories began to surface in his mind.
There were two incidents Zhang Shutong remembered vividly:
One had happened before he moved to the island.
Travel to and from the island required a boat, and the ferry terminal was open from eight in the morning to six in the evening.
The story went that a dozen years ago, a group of university students were staying on the island and had spent an exciting day in the nearby town.
By the time they rushed to the terminal, it was already evening, and after waiting for a long time, there was no sign of a ferry.
It was the dead of winter, and it was snowing heavily.
With their noses running from the cold, they certainly couldn't wait by the shore all night, and the last bus back was gone.
Just as the group was frantically trying to figure out what to do, a fishing boat suddenly pulled up.
It turned out to be a kind local fisherman who took pity on them and offered them a ride.
The fishing boat was large, so the group of more than a dozen people set off.
The first half of the journey was smooth, but halfway through, the boat inexplicably sank.
The strange part was, when the group was found, the fishing boat was floating on the lake, perfectly fine, neither capsized nor leaking, yet more than a dozen living people had drowned.
No one knew what had happened in between, and the place where the boat sank was the aforementioned Forbidden Zone.
A special task force was supposedly formed, and the official investigation concluded that the heavy snow that night had weighed the boat down, and when the snow melted, it naturally floated back up.
Because his mother used to tell him this as a ghost story to scare him, Zhang Shutong had always remembered it.
As for the second incident, though his memory was hazy, its implications were clearer.
It happened in their fourth year of junior high, when a girl from their class went missing.
But before he could recall more details, Du Kang interrupted him:
"Do you remember that murder case?"
That was it, that murder case.
In their fourth year of junior high, a violent incident occurred on the island, and the victim was a girl from their class.
At first, the girl just didn't show up for class.
Back then, it wasn't like now with all sorts of class group chats for reporting things.
Communication between the school and parents was lacking, so neither side paid much attention.
But in the end, it was the parents' irresponsibility that led to the tragic outcome.
They waited a whole day after their child went missing to report it, delaying the search and rescue.
By the time the girl was found, she had already been murdered.
Her body was also found in the "Forbidden Zone."
Their homeroom teacher at the time also resigned in disgrace, and the school brought in counselors to provide psychological support.
Combined with the deliberate avoidance of the topic by adults, many details became blurred.
He only remembered that she was the daughter of a wealthy family, with a pair of very spirited and beautiful eyes.
Her voice was crisp, with a hint of arrogance.
If Zhang Shutong had any distinct impression of her, it was probably that she always wore a red scarf.
Even in class.
The reason he remembered was that his deskmate had told him she was "putting on airs."
Later, someone stepped on her scarf, and somehow she blamed him for it, glaring at him with those eyes of hers.
Also, shortly before she disappeared, he thought he had seen her somewhere outside the school...
He was frowning, trying to remember, when Du Kang said abruptly:
"Shutong, you might have forgotten, but I've always remembered one thing. Do you remember what date that girl disappeared?"
Then, Du Kang stated a date coldly:
"It was December 10th."
"None of you remember, but that day happened to be my birthday, so I clearly remember that one of our classmates was absent.
"Now look at what day it is today."
As he spoke, Du Kang shoved his phone screen in his face.
When Zhang Shutong saw the date, his pupils contracted.
Today is December 12th.
Doesn't that mean that two days ago was...
"Could the police—" Zhang Shutong suddenly felt a chill.
"Not likely. Qinglian had no fatal injuries when she was found. And the island is covered in surveillance cameras now, not like back then. Besides her, no one else was seen."
Du Kang sounded deflated, but he still said, unwilling to give up:
"But that's why I'm so frustrated. If you want hard evidence, I can't find any, but the coincidence is just sitting there. I can't rest without a reasonable explanation.
"I've been dreaming about Qinglian these past few days. I dream she's by the lake, just like before, not saying much... I'll wait until tomorrow. Once the funeral is taken care of, I'll go to the town archives. Maybe I can find some other details about that old case."
He looked at his best friend's face, remained silent for a moment, and finally said apologetically:
"Let me know if you find anything. Even though I can't be of much help, at least..."
"Don't say that, Shutong. We all have our own difficulties these years. This isn't like when we were kids and swore to be best friends forever. It doesn't really matter if you help or not. This is something I want to do. It's not right to drag you all into it. I'm just..."
Du Kang paused, crushing the cigarette with his hand:
"I'm just a little jealous of you.
"There are a few things I've been holding back. I'll feel better once I say them. Tell me, why wasn't I the one who got the call?
"It was just after 11 o'clock, right? I go to bed much later than that, so I definitely would have answered. If I had answered, I would have rushed over no matter what, and maybe she wouldn't have died.
"But why did she call you, someone she hadn't contacted in eight years? I know those rumors are fake, but when they talk about a boyfriend, I... I'm sorry."
His shoulders slumped.
"Let's stop talking for now. I still have things to do. You might not know, but Qinglian was the only one left in her family. She used to have her grandmother who she relied on, but she passed away a few years ago. So there's no one to handle the funeral arrangements, just me, Ruoping, and a few others.
"Sorry for the poor hospitality this time. Come visit more often in the future."
Saying this, he forced the same cheerful smile from when they first met, but it looked a bit strained.
Zhang Shutong didn't reply, just patted him on the shoulder:
"Let me help too."
And so, in the end, he didn't leave after all.
...
The plan was to take the boat off the island in the afternoon, which would allow him to catch the last high-speed train tonight.
That way, he could be home by tomorrow evening.
He had arranged a tight schedule, not because he had anything urgent to do, but because he was worried that something might happen and trigger that damned ability of his.
But now, the plan had deviated quite a bit.
By the time they finished, the sky was already dark.
Du Kang had booked a hotel for him and refused to let him pay.
Originally, some people were calling for dinner, but everyone was tired after a long day, so their spirits weren't high.
They just scarfed down a few mouthfuls of boxed meals and called it a night.
After eating, they chatted about their embarrassing moments from back in the day, and unexpectedly, the conversation turned to him.
"Well, well, the little boyfriend," a girl named Ruoping chuckled, covering her mouth.
Zhang Shutong knew she was doing it on purpose, teasing him with the day's rumors, taking advantage of how close they used to be.
"How do you all know about that?" he said helplessly.
"It's all over the island. Remember our homeroom teacher back then? He specifically asked me today, 'Where is Zhang Shutong?' It's not a question of whether we know or not anymore, it's about which version you believe."
"Actually, besides the boyfriend, the call for help, and revealing the killer's information, there's another version. Do you want to hear it?"
"What?" Ruoping's eyes widened instantly.
"She visited me in a dream," Zhang Shutong said, recalling with a serious expression.
"In the dream, she asked me, 'That Feng Ruoping has always been such a gossip, why is she still the same?'"
"Zhang Shutong, get lost—"
Then, a few of the classmates who had come from out of town perked up, shouting about going to a bar or karaoke to relax, only to remember that the island had no such things.
Not then, and not now.
It did, however, bring back long-forgotten memories of his school days for Zhang Shutong.
The island was called Yanlong Island.
Though it was called an island, it was really no different from a town surrounded by a lake.
It wasn't exactly backward, just had an air of being cut off from the world.
He hadn't been happy when he first moved here, complaining about the lack of things to do.
The island had no shopping malls, no movie theaters, no amusement parks, and no KFC or McDonald's.
But he quickly blended in.
Adventuring in the mountains, fishing in the lake, eating local specialties like fried shrimp cakes and fish congee at temple fairs and festivals, which had their own unique flavor.
The lotus seeds were sweet in the summer.
In a way, even if you wanted to be a bad kid, there wasn't much room to go astray.
A small island, a large lake, deep mountains, a temple with ancient legends, and a group of young boys and girls...
Their school was built on the outskirts of the island.
Climbing to the roof of the academic building, you could smell the cool lake breeze and see the surrounding scenery.
If you wanted to go on a date with a girl you liked, you had to take a boat to the nearby town, but you had to be careful not to be late, because the last ferry home was at six o'clock.
And since they had classes during the day and no one was free on weekends, "secretly taking a boat with a girl you like to see a movie" became a dream that the boys yearned for but never acted upon.
If he could do it all over again, perhaps there would be a different answer.
Sometimes, such thoughts would arise.
A deceased classmate, a missing girl.
And a normal life.
As human beings grow older, they discover what a precious thing a pill of regret is.
Zhang Shutong had many pills of regret in his hand, but not a single one he could take himself.
He could never return to his own past.
When the sky turned completely dark, although it was somewhat against the rules, they bowed three more times before the funeral portrait and parted ways in front of the funeral home, bidding each other farewell.
Before they left, Du Kang had something to say:
"I just looked it up online. The killer from that old case was never caught. There were some fishermen's testimonies saying they saw someone in the Forbidden Zone before the incident... I'll look into it more when I get home."
On the way back to the hotel, Zhang Shutong kept thinking about that sentence.
...It would be one thing if the killer was really one person, but what were the chances of such a coincidence?
No, that was no longer a coincidence, but a full-blown horror story.
First, he took a shower.
Lying on the bed, he thought about the day's events.
All that remained was Du Kang's irrational speculation.
Just because it happened on the same day and at the same location, he concluded it was a serial murder case.
What about the motive?
Would the killer from back then dare to come back and kill again instead of staying hidden for the rest of his life?
That would take some serious guts.
But if it really was a homicide, then Lu Qinglian's phone call...
Zhang Shutong shook his head, feeling he was overthinking things.
After all, it had been eight years.
He glanced at his phone again.
The time was 8:34 PM.
The wind was picking up.
Unable to sleep, he got dressed, buttoned his trench coat up to the first button, borrowed a flashlight from the hotel's front desk, and stepped out into the cold wind.
There were few cars on the road, and the streetlights weren't very bright, but thankfully, the hotel Du Kang had booked was close to his destination.
Following his memories from years ago, he walked for about ten minutes, climbed over the guardrail of the lakeside road, and landed on a patch of overgrown wilderness.
—Ahead lay the body of water known as the Forbidden Zone.
There was no moonlight tonight.
He switched on his flashlight, and the lake's surface appeared deathly pale.
He couldn't hear the calls of frogs or insects, only the stench of silt.
Looking around, he could see traces of trampled dead grass, likely left by the police during their search a few days ago.
Zhang Shutong crouched by the lake like this, waiting until the night wind made his body stiff.
So this was where the shrine keeper girl named Lu Qinglian had ended her life.
The reeds by the lake rustled, and he suddenly felt as if a lifetime had passed.
But what could he do?
He laughed at himself.
No evidence, no clues, and even the rewind he could rely on was useless.
Ultimately, he wasn't like Du Kang, who had a decade of obsession fueled by an unrequited love.
Since he couldn't return to the moment before her death, what he had done was the most he could do within his power.
But I'm still so sorry.
Zhang Shutong thought as he stared at the lake one last time.
I couldn't answer your call, and I couldn't find the truth.
He apologized in his heart and slowly stood up, his body stiff.
It's getting late. Time to go back.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, Zhang Shutong pulled out his phone.
The wind grew stronger, and the weeds around him suddenly began to stir.
Then, a sharp, cold object pierced the back of his neck.
His phone fell to the ground.
In the last moment before his consciousness faded, he saw the time light up on the screen.
December 12, 2020.
8:59 flashed, then jumped to 9:00.
Rewind, triggered.