I can rewind time to prevent death

Yan Junze immediately went to the next room, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.

The destruction in this room was more severe; the door could only be opened halfway, so Yan Junze had to squeeze his way through.

He swept the room with his flashlight first; all the furniture inside had been burned to ash, none in decent shape or able to be opened. If that was the case, then the so-called treasure definitely wouldn't be here—it would have been incinerated long ago.

Yan Junze walked into the inner room.

There was a large bed, but it too was burned beyond recognition, only a few blackened rods that seemed to belong to the bed frame were toppled to one side; above was the night sky, the roof had been burned away long ago.

At one end of the bed, a large clump of black objects was piled on the ground, indistinct and unclear.

Yan Junze simply switched on two flashlights and scrutinized the pile of black objects more closely. It looked like garbage after burning, but the sheer volume of it, now comparable to the size of the charred bed next to it, was startling.

What on earth was it?

The laughter from before had definitely come from this room; of this, Yan Junze was certain.

Was the issue with this pile of black objects, or was there something buried underneath?

With this thought, he to find an iron shovel or something to dig through this pile to see.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Just as he was about to go out looking for something, he suddenly noticed that the pile of black matter in front of him seemed to move slightly.

Yan Junze stepped back, staring intently at the pile of strange matter.

Indeed, it moved again, and then, like something waking from a sleep, it slowly "stood" up, limbs stretching out in all directions.

"Hehehehe..."

That familiar laugh sounded once more.

At that moment, under the illumination of two flashlight beams, Yan Junze finally saw clearly the true nature of the black pile in front of him.

It was a pile... of bodies!

As the fire approached, six children clung together, and their final fate was that they could no longer separate even in death.

The black mass had now completely stood up, and from Yan Junze's perspective, he could see four children's heads, each looking in different directions, but only seven feet and six arms were visible.

The limbs were distributed in various positions, making it impossible to distinguish whose arms and legs belonged to whom in this big charred pile.

Of course, Yan Junze knew that what he was seeing now were just the Evil Spirits of the six children who had died in the fire; the real bodies had long been cleaned up from the scene.

At least, it wasn't at the time when the strangeness erupted.

"Hehe..."

"Someone's here!"

"Just one person?"

"Brother..."

The heads all opened their eyes, mouths beginning to move, and started conversing.

Yan Junze felt his stomach churn at this sight and was about to vomit, retreating several more steps involuntarily.

But thankfully, none of them, unseeingly, called him "Uncle."

"Let me see."

A child's voice came from behind the mass of bodies.

Then, the pile of corpses turned in a direction, revealing the heads of another boy and girl—two more children. Of course, this side also had limbs that were mutilated and fused together.

Normally a charred body could not be identified as male or female, but Yan Junze noticed that one of the heads wore a burned butterfly clip that had melted into the skin and could not be removed.

This must have been a little girl.

He slowly retreated to the edge of the door.

"Brother, are you here to play a game?"

The pile of corpses moved slowly following him, the moving feet indistinct, as if it were a pitch-black mass rolling forward.

At this moment, Yan Junze noticed that after the pile of corpses rolled over, a hand from within the pile seemed to have picked up a pitch-black, long, stick-like object—it appeared to be a wood carving blackened by fire.

However, the arm quickly put it down again, and the wooden sculpture tumbled into the depression where the pile of corpses had been lying just moments earlier.

Yan Junze's pupils contracted briefly.

"Yes, I came to play a game," he replied, "It's too narrow in here, let's go outside to play."

As soon as he finished speaking, he slipped out through the door, which couldn't be fully opened.

He backed away into the courtyard and stood there, waiting to see how these little ones would come out.

Before long, the half-open door panel shook, then caved inward, and the entire door panel disappeared without a trace.

A massive cluster of pitch-black corpses appeared at the doorway. First, they blocked the doorframe, and then with great effort, they squeezed out en masse, the pile staying intact as it rolled out.

"Shall we play Drop the Handkerchief?"

A child's voice suggested.

Yan Junze was perplexed. Of course, he knew the game Drop the Handkerchief, but under the current circumstances—six children were indeed all here, but damn it, they were all stuck together. Such a big clump; how to play Drop the Handkerchief? Left hand dropping to the right hand? Which one is the left hand?

"Sure!"

"Sure!"

"Sure!"

The other children expressed their consent one after another.

Feeling confused, Yan Junze then heard a chilling child's voice come from within the pile of corpses, "Big brother, you sit down with your back to us first, we'll be right over."

Suddenly, Yan Junze somewhat understood, nodded his head, turned off his flashlight, and sat down on the ground.

Soon after, sounds of pulling and tearing came from behind him, like chunks of frozen meat being pried apart by a great force, producing a grating, sickening noise.

This sound repeated over and over, and in Yan Junze's mind, he pictured the scene he had just witnessed, where the pile of corpses split into a multitude of disjointed limbs and body parts, becoming a collection of incomplete corpses.

"This one's mine..."

"Where's my leg?"

"The hand is mine!"

Voices kept coming from behind Yan Junze, with content that sent chills down one's spine.

After a short while, footsteps sounded, and a boy walked up next to him, peeking down with only half a head remaining, giving Yan Junze a giggling smile as he sat beside him.

Yan Junze saw that the boy was incomplete, with some pitch-black areas melded into a mass.

Once seated, the child fell silent and motionless, fitting his status as one of the dead.

Not long after, a second child approached Yan Junze's other side with heavy steps, sat down without looking at Yan Junze.

Yan Junze turned his head and saw that the youngster's feet were completely misshapen, and it was a mystery how he had managed to walk over given he only had one hand.

Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth.

The fifth child was the only girl among the six.

A butterfly clip used to pin back her hair was completely embedded in the skin on the left side of her forehead, a token of her femininity, with her face blackened and indistinct.

Finally, the sixth one arrived, sitting directly opposite Yan Junze.

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This one exuded a fierce air, and even though the features on his face were blurred, one could still sense a sinister presence.

As soon as he spoke up, Yan Junze knew he was the one who had told him to sit down earlier.

"One of us has run away, a coward and a scaredy-cat, and we need to find him out!"

"Lucky for us, big brother came to join us," the first child who had arrived next to Yan Junze tilted his half-head, grinning at him, "Otherwise, we would be one player short for the game!"

"If you're going to talk, please don't face me with your face, thank you," Yan Junze said, without looking sideways.