Chapter 3: Chapter 2: I Can Rewind!_2
If it were just about washing hair in the washroom, that would be manageable, but now Yan Junze is worried that there might be dangers involved in the process.
At least after midnight, that little girl in red would appear in the washroom. Washing hair under such circumstances would be even more thrilling than being taken to the execution ground to be beheaded.
Now it seems that this Golden Finger appears to be quite useless!
After issuing the task, it just lets him go off to complete it without caring for anything else, what if he encounters danger during the process?
With continuous whimsical ideas, Yan Junze's thoughts were tangled between the Spacetime Atlas and the assigned task of washing hair, keeping him awake. Unbeknownst to him, time passed by slowly, and the hands of the clock in the living room moved to point towards two o'clock.
Just then, Yan Junze's eyebrows furrowed slightly, feeling as if a shadow had passed by the window of his bedroom.
The shadow moved so slowly that when Yan Junze noticed something off, and immediately put on his glasses to look out, he could still see the passing shadow.
His bedroom was adjacent to the public corridor outside the house; normally, by opening the window, he could see neighbors passing by his window, and with a sound-activated light outside the corridor, the light would project the silhouette of the passing person onto the window, making it very clear to see.
The passing figure was a bit hunched over, with uneven footsteps.
Soon, the uneven footsteps faded, and the shadow vanished as well.
It looked like some neighbor returning late at night. Yan Junze guessed that activities like playing cards and late-night snacking, no matter in what spacetime, essentially hold the same place in people's hearts and have not changed.
It's quite normal, as there are many people with such preferences.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, knock, knock, knock, a series of crisp knocking sounds emerged, and judging by the source of the sound, it should be on his own door.
The previous two nights when the knocking had sounded, Yan Junze had only heard it in a drowsy state. He had been deep in sleep and did not attend to it, only to recall the occurrence the next day.
But at this moment, Yan Junze's heart inexplicably clenched, because his mind inadvertently connected the figure that had just passed outside the corridor with the person knocking on the door.
Given the person's walking pace, the time it took for them to pass by the window and reach his own doorstep seemed to match exactly.
Whether it was the same person or not, Yan Junze felt like his heart was about to leap out of his chest, his back breaking out in a cold sweat again.
So late at night, someone walking in the corridor with such uneven steps, and silently knocking on someone else's door...
This person couldn't possibly be Batman.
He did not get out of bed to respond but instead instinctively pricked up his ears to listen for any movement in his parents' room next door.
The bedroom door of his parents opened, and it seemed that his father, Yan Daguo, had stepped out, with very light footsteps.
After a while, Yan Daguo stood in the hallway outside the bedroom, motionless, with the intermittent knocking still coming from the entrance of the living room.
Yan Junze just lay there, slightly raising his head, staring at the doorway of his bedroom, his breathing nearly coming to a halt.
Yan Daguo remained still, standing quietly outside the bedroom door, the eerie atmosphere so oppressive that Yan Junze found it hard to breathe.
At that very moment, the knocking suddenly stopped.
The uneven footsteps were heard again, passing by the living room door, moving along the public corridor, the hunched-over silhouette reappeared outside the window of Yan Junze's bedroom, slowly passing by.
Yan Junze could swear, at that moment, his nearsighted eyes behind his glasses were wide as bull's eyes, intently staring at the shadow passing by outside the window.
The uneven footsteps, like stepping on his heart, matched the rhythm of his heartbeat in a strangely harmonious way.
Although the shadow was no longer visible, the sound of footsteps could still be heard, as if the person was leisurely climbing the stairs, and only then did the footsteps fade away completely.
A door closing sound came from his parents' bedroom, and Yan Daguo returned to the bedroom at that moment. From start to finish, no one in the house said a word.
So freaking weird!
Yan Junze's thought had just settled when he was startled again. The Spacetime Atlas in his mind surfaced once again.
[Detection of new Different Dimension Energy and Dimensional Transverse Wavebands in progress...]
[Analysis successful, translating...]
[Translation successful, task established, display now?]
Yan Junze had never expected that in just such a short while, a new task had been captured.
Without much thought, he immediately brought up the thought of "display," and then the second task appeared.
[Task Name: The Old Woman Knocking at Mid-Night;
Task Level: Anxiety-Inducing (Intermediate);
Task Background: The neighbor, Granny Ren, has been distressed lately, for her children haven't visited her for a long time, and she misses them very much, especially her little grandson Yu Xiaochang. However, Granny Ren is no longer able to tell them. Can you help her?
Task Instructions: At two in the morning, open the door for the knocking Granny Ren;
Task Reward: 200 points of Different Dimension Energy;
Task Punishment: Unknown;
Task Tips: 1. The Evil Spirit cannot be locked down; 2. There are branch tasks awaiting to be triggered;
Note: Granny Ren is not mute.]
At this moment, Yan Junze noticed another node light up in the Spacetime Atlas in his mind; the line connecting the two lit-up nodes also brightened slightly, showing that this segment of the spacetime line had been fully connected.
Initially, Yan Junze could clearly see only one node light up on the Atlas, and the second node must have been activated after the reception of [The Old Woman Knocking at Mid-Night] task, due to some reason.
Although he didn't know the reason, Yan Junze was clear about what the line connecting the two lit-up nodes meant, the Rewind timeline.
Between the two time nodes, represented a timeline that could be revisted.
For example, if Yan Junze were to place the first time node as the current moment, and the second node five minutes later, as time progressed, he would be able to initiate a rewind at any point before reaching the second time node, instantly reverting back to the moment when the first time node was placed.
Rewind must be performed consciously, meaning only when one has deliberately placed two time points to form a timeframe, can the timeframe be used to rewind.
If the timeframe is exceeded, it won't work, and without deliberate placement, rewinding is also impossible.
Receiving two tasks consecutively enabled Yan Junze to have the ability to rewind. This time, the Golden Finger finally became complete.
He might try the [Hair Washing] task, but now Yan Junze didn't dare to attempt a rewind, because the energy between the two time nodes looked extremely weak.
If he were to really proceed, he feared that he could only rewind once, and then the entire Spacetime Atlas would dim and stop running. The two hard-earned lit-up nodes couldn't be wasted like that.