The Second Candle
Lin Fan destroyed the surveillance cameras and quickly arrived at his company. Passing by the reception room where his past self had been, he checked the time. His past self from a day ago was now inside, absorbing the power of time.
If he could, Lin Fan really wanted to go in and tell him not to sell that precious time, and also to tell him to hurry back and save Brother Hei and the others. But a force was suppressing him; it was the shackles of the past. The past could not be changed, and if he touched that minefield, death would be the only outcome.
Taking advantage of the secretary's comings and goings, Lin Fan entered the office of that stingy boss and saw that the guy was drinking coffee behind his desk, completely ignoring Lin Fan waiting in the reception room.
Lin Fan stood there, without the slightest anger. After all, the time was already set; this person would die here tonight. Lin Fan used the power of time to observe this person and discovered that he was already an empty shell, a person without a future.
"First, we need to observe the escape route." Lin Fan squinted. If his future self killed the stingy boss and left behind decisive evidence, he would likely rush to the company to confess the crime. So it's better to be prepared.
Walking to the window, Lin Fan recalled the scene he had seen when he jumped from the second floor. The person who jumped down in the cloak was, without a doubt, himself. Lin Fan also understood his intentions.
"Did you leave your clothes there?" Lin Fan looked at the ground below the window, wondering if the image of himself had deliberately jumped to confirm the location of his clothes.
After pondering for a while, Lin Fan began to arrange his backup plan. Once everything was in place, he sat in his boss's office, watching all of Si Kou's actions. The sun was gradually setting, and everything was still underway.
Outside, the past self turns off the lights and leaves work. Meanwhile, the stingy boss and his secretary have a major battle in the office. Three minutes later, the stingy boss waves his secretary away and sits alone in his office chair, sighing.
Thinking of his wife at home, the middle-aged man picked up his phone to unlock it. Lin Fan also felt a sense of urgency. If he wasn't mistaken, the assassin should be arriving soon, and if he wasn't mistaken, then it would be his Future Calamity.
"Wait, what's going on?" Lin Fan watched as the stingy shopkeeper finished his cigarette and prepared to turn off the lights and leave. However, the Future Calamity did not occur. Instead, waves of past power surged towards Lin Fan, as if a hand was urging him to do something.
"This isn't right. Death is certain, but who killed him?" Lin Fan was confused again. According to the cause and effect, he received news of his boss's death first, which led to this action. The past urging also confirmed the boss's death.
"I'm the murderer?" Lin Fan stood up, watching the dead man gradually disappear into the distance, and realized that there was no future in this whole affair; it was all his own doing.
Watching his boss walk away, Lin Fan felt the increasingly terrifying impact of time and deeply understood its horror.
"I'm sorry." A strange voice rang out, and Lin Fan realized that his voice had become exceptionally terrifying due to the change made by the mask.
The boss also heard the strange sound and quickly turned around. He was struck by something invisible, and then a sharp object pierced his throat. A shooting star flashed by outside, and the object was discarded to the side like a fountain pen with its fingerprints wiped off in Lin Fan's hand.
A candle landed through the broken window. Lin Fan picked it up, opened the window next to him, and jumped down, just in time to see his past self jumping out from the second floor below.
The Time Clone was canceled, and the cloak, mask, and candle inside fell to the ground, becoming invisible due to the cloak's effect.
Lin Fan opened his eyes. The timing was perfect. He quickly grabbed a backpack and went out, hailing a Lin Fan. When he arrived at the company building, he didn't rush upstairs. Instead, Lin Fan went to the spot where he had jumped out of the window that day, praying that his belongings were still there.
It was almost midnight, and the surrounding lights were dim. When he saw the black cloak, he felt a sense of relief, after all, two days had passed. He packed his things into his backpack.
Lin Fan took the elevator to the company's floor and found quite a few people inside, including the boss's wife, the secretary, and police officers.
"It's you!" A policeman squinted at Lin Fan. "You were there last night too."
"It's just a coincidence." Lin Fan chuckled awkwardly. The policeman had also gone to Brother Hei's place last night. The two events were so close together that they naturally left a deep impression and might even lead the policeman to make some connections.
"Tell me, what were you doing last night?" The police officer took out a voice recorder and a notebook to record Lin Fan's words.
"Nothing much, just working overtime and leaving." Lin Fan glanced over there; the boss's body was still lying there, and not far away, the boss's wife was arguing with the secretary. Their affair in the office had been exposed.
"Two nights, and you've gotten involved in two murder cases. You're really unlucky." Sure enough, the policeman began to suspect Lin Fan.
"He's not unlucky." A voice came, and a tall young man walked out of the door. Lin Fan didn't know if it was his imagination, but he felt that the young man's eyes flashed with a red light.
"I was just casually strolling around, I didn't expect to catch someone important. Although I can't see clearly, the candle is on you, right?" Lin Tong smiled slightly, and an almost invisible Ouroboros flowed from his eyes, forming endless chains of restraint that bound Lin Fan.
Lin Fan's expression changed. He instinctively wanted to run away, but Lin Tong was much stronger than he was in Haunted Mountain Village. The Ouroboros were locked on Lin Fan's body, and although they had no power, they made Lin Fan completely unable to move.
"Is it above my head?" Lin Tong squinted, the red light in his eyes growing stronger, until he gradually saw the candle standing above Lin Fan's head.
"Seeing how nervous you are, it's not just because the treasure was discovered. Did you kill this person using the candle?" Lin Tong easily concluded, "As expected, most people are like that; once they gain power, they want to squander it."
"What should I do?" Lin Fan was anxious. He wanted to use his blood to launch an attack, but he was bound by something, which greatly suppressed his ability to control his blood. Even his power of time had become extremely sluggish and was very slow to activate.
"Candle, yes, light the candle." As if a switch had been flipped in his mind, Lin Fan remembered what the Masked Man in the toilet had said, "My candle is about to be lit."
So Lin Fan channeled the power of time within his body, continuously channeling it towards the candle above his head. Lin Tong frowned. Although he didn't know what the power of time was, he still sensed something was wrong. More Ouroboros flew out of his eyes, locking Lin Fan in place.
Just as the power of time was about to reach his head, the restraints tightened once more, rendering Lin Fan completely unable to move.