Death Regression

Ning Zhe walked into the house, but did not see his Grandfather or Grandmother.

He turned on his phone and glanced at the time:

June 06, 2018, the 22nd day of the fourth month of the Lunar Calendar, 07:27 AM.

At this hour, his Grandfather should have gone to fish at the reservoir outside the town, and his Grandmother was likely setting up her vegetable stall on the Old Street of Ancient Tablet Town; there was no one in the Old House.

Ning Zhe walked under the old Camphor Tree, brushed the fallen leaves off a wooden stool, and sat down to examine himself. He found his clothes to be perfectly neat, with no dust or bloodstains, and the injuries he had sustained in He Family Village were gone; his physical condition was just as it had always been.

It was as if he had never entered He Family Village.

If not for the fact that he could still easily transform into a Magpie and fly onto the branches, he would have even thought his previous experiences were a dream.

"Right, Aunt... she shouldn't be dead, right?" Ning Zhe picked up his phone to unlock the screen, opened his contacts, and scrolled to the bottom, but he did not see the contact saved as "Feng Yushu."

"So that's how it is?" Ning Zhe frowned slightly; he felt he could understand the logic behind this.

Unlike Ning Zhe, who had entered that Weird Place early in the morning, Feng Yushu had been pulled into He Family Village around 7:00 PM. At that time, she had been planning to bring a cup of coffee to her husband's room, and after pushing open the Room Door, she had entered that place.

"If the time of returning to reality coincides with the time of leaving it, that means the current Feng Yushu has not yet entered He Family Village. She will return from that shattered world at the moment she pushes open the hotel room door after 7:00 PM tonight."

A thought couldn't help but surface in Ning Zhe's mind: "Does this mean that if I go to the Village Clinic now, I can see a Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu who haven't died yet?"

And Zhang Yangxu; he had entered He Family Village later than him as well. Perhaps he and Xie Sining were still alive in the real world...

Thinking of this, Ning Zhe stood up, walked quickly through the leaf-strewn courtyard, left his Old House, and stepped onto the streets of Ancient Tablet Town.

Ancient Tablet Town was Ning Zhe's Hometown, a backward rural town with no pillar industries. Everything in the countryside appeared quiet and peaceful. There were few people on the streets in the early morning, save for a few students who had just finished their morning study session sitting in the early-opening Breakfast Shop, with steaming vapors drifting toward the sky.

The Shopkeeper and his wife were acquaintances of Ning Zhe. Before he even got close, he heard the middle-aged woman wearing a checkered apron holding a strainer and calling out to him enthusiastically: "A Zhe, when did you get back? Is school on break? My daughter didn't even tell me..."

"No, I took leave to come back. They say the town is going to be demolished soon, and my family's land is being requisitioned. Since there's no one in the family who can read, I had to come back and take a look," Ning Zhe replied casually.

Using Alipay to scan 2.5 yuan for the Breakfast Shop, Ning Zhe took three steaming Pickled Cabbage Buns and a cup of Soy Milk from the Shopkeeper.

Walking down the street while gnawing on a bun, Ning Zhe took out his phone and entered Feng Yushu's number from memory.

Before long, the call connected, and a calm, gentle female voice came through the speaker: "Who is this..."

"Hello, my name is Ning Zhe."

"Ning Zhe? Do I know you?" Feng Yushu's voice was somewhat puzzled. There was a faint sound of wind coming from her end; she must have been answering the phone in an open area like a car or a Gas Station.

"Then I must have dialed the wrong number, sorry, sorry." Ning Zhe took a sip of Soy Milk and said, "But we will meet again in the future, in another place."

"What are you talking about..." Feng Yushu was full of confusion, but Ning Zhe had already hung up the phone.

Ning Zhe finished the bun in his hand in a few quick bites and tossed the plastic bag and the Soy Milk cup into a sanitation bin by the side of the road.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was around, he turned into a hidden alley, and a moment later, a black-and-white Magpie flew out from the alley.

The place where Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu were interning was the Village Clinic of Ancient Tablet Town, a designated medical insurance unit located across the street from the Dragon King Temple by the bridge. Ning Zhe spread his wings and glided over the morning town. The warm sunlight fell in wisps, and the gentle breeze brushed through the gaps between his feathers, feeling very comfortable.

Before long, Ning Zhe arrived above the Village Clinic.

He landed as nonchalantly as the sparrows perched on the nearby power lines, stood on a Money Tree potted plant in front of the clinic, and quietly watched the scene inside.

The clinic, like the barbershop and the Breakfast Shop, was a business that opened early. It wasn't even eight o'clock yet, but there were already patients waiting for treatment. A woman holding a child sat on a Bamboo Chair, looking at the child's flushed face with worry; it seemed the child had developed a fever in the middle of the night, which was why they had come for a checkup so early.

Ning Zhe had also been brought here by his Grandmother early in the morning when he was a child.

Soon, Doctor Lin of the Village Clinic came out after washing his face and brushing his teeth. After briefly asking about the symptoms, he inserted a mercury thermometer into the child's armpit.

"Let's measure the temperature first. You sit for a while, I'm going to buy some breakfast and will be back in a few minutes." After Doctor Lin finished speaking, he walked out of the clinic door and also saw Ning Zhe, who was standing quietly on the Money Tree.

The worry on the face of the woman holding the child faded a little, and she said with a smile: "A Magpie standing on a Money Tree, Doctor Lin, you're going to make a fortune."

"Making a fortune from treating illnesses isn't a good thing." Doctor Lin chuckled and teased the Magpie on the Money Tree. Finding that Ning Zhe didn't fly away, he smiled even more brightly and strolled out the door.

Ning Zhe waited patiently until Doctor Lin returned home with his breakfast and finished diagnosing the child's condition. Only then did the two young people, who could be described as a talented man and a beautiful woman, arrive at the clinic together to start their shift.

They were none other than Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu.

For modern young people, as long as they could get up before 9 o'clock, it counted as an early start.

Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu arrived at just the right time. Doctor Lin had just finished giving the child an injection, so he asked Ye Miaozhu to go to the pharmacy to fetch medicine according to the prescription, while Gu Yunqing consciously walked to the clinic entrance and pushed open the door that had only been half-open.

Then, a thud was heard from the pharmacy; Ye Miaozhu, who had just pushed open the pharmacy door, collapsed in front of everyone.

Ning Zhe watched all of this silently. Inside the clinic, Doctor Lin, who was eating breakfast, and the woman holding the child were both startled by Ye Miaozhu's sudden collapse. At the clinic entrance, Gu Yunqing's body also leaned powerlessly against the door he had just pushed open, slowly sliding to the ground, no longer breathing.

Both of them were dead.

"As expected..." Some things in Ning Zhe's heart were confirmed.

Just now, the time had arrived, and Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu from He Family Village had returned one after another.

But what returned were two corpses.

I wonder, when seven o'clock tonight arrives, will the Feng Yushu returning from He Family Village be a living person or a dead one?