I can rewind time to prevent death

As the college entrance exam neared, the entire senior year exuded an inexplicable sense of tension.

All subjects in Shuntian No.3 Middle School's senior classes had entered an intensive review phase, where each day was filled with ceaseless explanations of key points and difficulties, and a myriad of different types of problems for practice.

Yan Junze was okay, but Zhou Dali, Bao Jie, and Jiang Ruixin all seemed to struggle.

As for Zhou Jiajie, whom Bao Jie had a crush on, it was said that he had already obtained a guaranteed spot at Tianmeng University through his family's connections. The criteria he met to get this spot were unknown.

But Bao Jie also aspired to attend Tianmeng University. Unlike Zhou Jiajie, she didn't have such a family background, so she was even more determined to study hard.

Zhou Dali was also putting in the effort, except his goal was Tianmeng Sports Institute, an institution where one could forge their way with physical strength, without needing much of a brain.

Academic scores? Nonexistent.

When Zhou Dali stood out at the Tianmeng District high school sports meet in March, at least three sports colleges extended offers to him. However, Comrade Dali also had his obsessions.

He would only consider Tianmeng Sports Institute, which made him a solemn promise: as long as his academic score exceeded 30 points (passing is 50), they would admit him exceptionally.

In Yan Junze's view today, Zhou Dali must have been deceived by the institute.

For anything worth doing, a certain level of difficulty is necessary to spark desire and persistence. If something is too easily obtained, it won't be truly cherished.

Zhou Dali was exactly like this, dismissing offers from other colleges outright.

Yan Junze speculated that regardless of Zhou Dali's academic scores, with his outstanding athletic performance and potential for growth, Tianmeng Sports Institute would still admit him exceptionally.

Putting pressure on him now and making him work harder couldn't do any harm.

During a break after class, Bao Jie took out a portable camera and taught Yan Junze how to clip it to his shirt front for filming.

This camera had substantial storage and could continuously record videos for about two hours. It automatically switched to night mode and produced extremely high-quality footage compatible with various editing software for post-production.

Bao Jie had sponsored the portable camera temporarily, which Yan Junze planned to borrow for a while. After testing it and finding the results quite good, he had Bao Jie help him order one online.

"Are you sure you don't need our help?" asked Bao Jie.

"No need, it's easier to act alone," Yan Junze nodded.

However, it was evident that these three were having mixed feelings, their hearts not in sync with their words, clearly conflicted about taking risks with Yan Junze again.

With the college entrance exam approaching and the heavy academic workload, their reluctance was understandable.

Truth be told, after they completed the "Peeking From the Crack in the Wall" task, Bao Jie, Jiang Ruixin, and Zhou Dali were scared post-event, but they still felt a sense of achievement.

Of course, if Yan Junze had told them that they had died N times before the Rewind, who knows whether the trio would have torn the protagonist apart on the spot.

After preparing the gear for the evening operation, the conversation quickly turned to the trending video.

With "Peeking From the Crack in the Wall" going viral, to everyone's surprise, Jiang Ruixin's popularity rose the fastest among them, and she even acquired a resounding nickname—Big-eyed Girl.

This nickname originated from the scene where she stared down a corpse.

Far from scaring people as Jiang Ruixin had imagined, that moment made many netizens grow fond of the candidness of the Big-eyed Girl.

Under peer pressure, Jiang Ruixin reluctantly registered her own account on the "Open Your Eyes" video platform.

She initially wanted to use the nickname "Big-eyed Girl," but after finding out the name was already taken, she added a "1" to make it "Big-eyed Girl1."

After clicking next, the system indicated that name was taken as well, so she had no choice but to register as "Big-eyed Girl2."

To distinguish herself from the previously registered Big-eyed Girl users, Jiang Ruixin uploaded her real photo, choosing the one with the best selfie angle and closest to her appearance in the videos.

As expected, not long after registering, the followers of "Big-eyed Girl2" shot up to 100+, with many netizens commenting below, asking if "Big-eyed Girl2" was the real person from the "Peeking From the Crack in the Wall" video.

By the time school ended, Jiang Ruixin's followers had already soared to 3000+.
Explore stories at empire

Since she had filled in her real identity information, and her information verification page had been officially stamped with an authentication badge by the video platform, with a small print introduction: the Big-eyed Girl from the popular video "Peeking From the Crack in the Wall."

In the eyes of Yan Junze, Bao Jie, and Zhou Dali, Jiang Ruixin seemed to be getting increasingly full of herself as the day progressed.

Once school was over, Yan Junze called home to inform his family that he was going to study at Zhou Dali's place in the New Century Residential Area and expected to return home before 9 pm.

Li Man cautioned him with a few words and didn't think much of it.

After leaving school, Yan Junze planned to treat everyone to a meal with the money he had earned, and Bao Jie invited Zhou Jiajie along, but Zhou Jiajie declined.

According to Jiang Ruixin, Zhou Jiajie was angry with Bao Jie because after the video went viral, Zhou Jiajie found out that they had actually gone to the Jianye Building that night, but Bao Jie deliberately deceived him by saying they hadn't.

There was nothing to explain about the lie.

Yan Junze didn't care about that, and just outside the school, he ordered a few dishes at a little restaurant, got a small hotpot going, and with a bottle of chilled drink for each person, they thoroughly enjoyed their meal.

"Be careful later on."

After they finished, Bao Jie and Jiang Ruixin reminded Yan Junze to be cautious, then left together.

Zhou Dali and Yan Junze took the bus, arriving at Zhou Dali's place in the New Century Residential Area after three stops.

The area had seven gardens, and between the first and second gardens was that public square with table tennis tables, badminton courts, basketball courts, and on top of that, a flat little plaza.

Every evening, the aunties danced energetically on this little plaza.

The eerily haunted restroom was located in the upper left corner of the public square.

It was quite spacious, meant to provide convenience for those playing and relaxing in the area—but now it was anything but convenient.

Ever since the woman in red high heels started appearing frequently in the restroom, the number of people playing in the square had dwindled, save for a few tenacious auntie dance troops that continued their dance routines unabated.

"It's still light out now; do you think the woman in red high heels will appear at this hour?" Yan Junze asked, standing in the square with Zhou Dali and eyeing the public restroom not far away, backpacks on their shoulders.

"Her appearances don't differentiate between day and night," Zhou Dali said definitively, "But if you were to go in now, too many people would see you, which might not be convenient for your investigation."

"Let's go around 8 pm then," Yan Junze nodded.

He went to Zhou Dali's home, where Dali's parents—who were both quite tall—demonstrated the significance of genetics.

Yan Junze hung around for a while, and around eight o'clock, he made an excuse to leave. He left his backpack at Zhou Dali's house, took the portable camera with him, and headed straight for the public square restroom.