I can rewind time to prevent death

At this moment, Yan Junze didn't want to move hastily either.

After all, according to the task prompt, as long as he stayed in the same room with Teacher Zhang Tiantian, the task would begin.

It would be best just to stand there, keep it up for 10 minutes, no matter where Zhang Tiantian ran off to. If she could hide under the desk and not appear before him, even better.

Of course, reality was harsh.

Just as he was making his wishful calculations, from the far end of the office, near the window-side desk, came the rustling sound of flipping papers.

There was Zhang Tiantian's desk.

"Who's at the door?"

Zhang Tiantian's voice came through.

The sound of Yan Junze closing the door had still been heard by her.

However, judging by her voice, it seemed that Zhang Tiantian had already returned to normal.

"Teacher Zhang, hello."

Yan Junze braced himself and answered, taking reluctant steps, slowly walking into the office, soon spotting Zhang Tiantian's petite figure sitting at the innermost row of desks by the window.

Zhang Tiantian looked normal, as if the effects from before had completely vanished.

"Are you... a student from Class 3 (5)?" Zhang Tiantian looked up at Yan Junze, her hands sifting through a stack of mock exam papers.

Fortunately, at least she remembered his class, not reducing him to a mere passerby.

Yan Junze felt secretly relieved. As a man, whether he liked this woman or not, it was undeniably an honor to have a beautiful woman remember him.

Although, well, not entirely.

"Is there something you need?" Zhang Tiantian asked, lowering her head again, her right hand holding a red ballpoint pen while the left resumed flipping through the papers.

"The Dean of Students sent me to see how you're feeling now, Teacher Zhang," Yan Junze spoke up.

As he asked, doubts had already arisen in his mind.

For someone who had just been carried back to the office and laid on the couch, now she was sitting here marking papers as if nothing had happened—if it wasn't for her abnormality, then maybe she had amnesia!

Zhang Tiantian didn't reply.

In fact, after asking "Is there something you need?" her motion of flipping the papers had gradually stiffened and she once again fell into a frozen state.

Yan Junze's heart skipped a beat as he looked down at the mobile phone in his hand, which displayed a countdown of 8 minutes and 57 seconds left. Barely over a minute had passed since he entered.

In this situation, it was best not to draw her attention again.

Yan Junze didn't dare to expect Zhang Tiantian to answer him. In fact, at this moment, he hoped she wouldn't speak again.

It would be best if he became invisible before her, for this woman to completely overlook him and forget him entirely.

Yan Junze moved slightly, stepping backward with his right foot, stealthily retreating a step to increase the distance from the desk.

An unnerving atmosphere spread around this desk, giving him a momentary feeling as if he were dreaming, with everything becoming less real.

Especially the unmoving Zhang Tiantian, like a statue.

Just as he steadied himself after taking that step, Zhang Tiantian suddenly put down the papers. She didn't look up but instead, while seated, slowly turned backward in her chair to face the file cabinet behind her, her movements stiff and slow.

During this process, as the papers were brushed by the reversed backrest of the chair, they slid aside, knocking against a pen holder, which then tipped over on the desk and quickly rolled towards the edge.

Instinctively, Yan Junze felt the urge to step forward and steady the pen holder, but he restrained himself.

Crash!

The pen holder fell from the desk to the ground, breaking in two. Various pen refills, pencils, ballpoint pens, and disposable ink pens scattered across the floor, spreading beneath the desk and chairs.

Zhang Tiantian's back seemed to pause for a moment; still seated, she suddenly bent forward, apparently picking up the scattered pens.

Great opportunity!

Yan Junze once again backed away quietly, seven or eight steps, getting farther and farther from the desk.

The unsettling feeling inside him had somewhat eased, and the goosebumps on his skin had considerably reduced.

Phew!

Just then, Zhang Tiantian's body straightened up again, but she still faced the filing cabinet, her back to Yan Junze.

Because her body leaned forward and then straightened back up, her curly wavy hair was already in disarray. But Zhang Tiantian did not reach out to smooth it, instead just sat there with her hair tousled, sitting motionless.

The moment she sat up, Yan Junze trembled slightly out of fear, his stepping backward paused momentarily. When he realized there was no other movement, he resumed backing away.

At that moment, Zhang Tiantian suddenly spoke, "Student, have you seen my pen?"

She's lucid again?

Yan Junze, looking surprised, replied, "No... I haven't?"

"Please help me look for it, thank you," Zhang Tiantian said, her tone still seeming very stiff.

Yan Junze felt troubled. It was hard enough to quietly move back that far, and now he was expected to go there again?

He looked down at his phone again and at that moment fully understood the meaning of time crawling by.

So far, only a little more than two minutes had passed.

"Okay."

He verbally agreed, reluctantly returning to Zhang Tiantian's desk.

As he approached the desk, that creepy feeling once again spread throughout his body, making his scalp tingle and his limbs stiffen.

He certainly did not want to go to the side of the desk where Zhang Tiantian was sitting to look for the pen, so he crouched down on the opposite side of the desk and realizing the view wasn't great, he kneeled down and lay flat on the ground, peeking under the desk.

Several pens were scattered under the desk, along with half of a broken penholder.

Yan Junze pondered for a moment, then asked, "Teacher Zhang, which pen are you looking for? I can only pick up a few here for you, some have fallen under your chair."

"I don't want the others, I'm looking for the red one," Zhang Tiantian's voice was chillingly indifferent.

"The red one? But weren't you holding the red pen in your hand the entire time?" Yan Junze wondered.

Despite his doubts, he searched carefully and noticed that among the pens that had fallen under the desk, there were no red ones. So, he lay on the ground and peered intently under the chair where Zhang Tiantian was sitting.

Although Zhang Tiantian was sitting with her back to him, from his angle, he could just make out the lower part of her legs below her calves.

She was wearing a pair of shiny black high heels, and she seemed to have flesh-colored socks on because her calf muscles were exposed when she sat down due to wearing capri pants, which indeed looked somewhat attractive. Her skin on her feet was delicate, without an ounce of superfluous flesh.

However, at this moment, Yan Junze felt that the skin on Zhang Tiantian's ankles looked unnaturally white, frighteningly white.

Soon, he saw a red pen, but it had rolled under her chair.

"Teacher Zhang, that red pen might be what you're looking for. But it's under your chair; I can't reach it from here," Yan Junze said.

Before his words had finished, bang!

With her hair wild and tousled, Zhang Tiantian's head suddenly dangled down from the other side of the chair, her face upside down, her expression grim as she stared at Yan Junze.

Her head was upside down, leading to a blood-rushed face. Zhang Tiantian's eyes seemed almost bulging out, with a faint presence of blood vessels.

"Damn it!"

Yan Junze was startled into a sharp shiver by this sudden scare.

An iconic "reverse hanging kill" seen in ghost movies from the early '90s. Yan Junze never thought he would have the opportunity to experience it firsthand.

"Where is it?" Zhang Tiantian asked calmly, maintaining that position.

Yan Junze extended his index finger, suppressing the fear in his heart, and pointed to the right side of her upside-down head, "There... it's on your right side."