The next day.
Feng Yang stood outside Linjiang Village once again, watching the villagers work in the fields. A strange sense of fear welled up inside him, and he felt somewhat helpless.
He hadn't expected to be pulled back into the time loop.
In Feng Yang's view, this kind of phenomenon must have a limited range. To escape its influence, he had continued walking after leaving the village until he was completely exhausted. But to his surprise, even after going so far, he still couldn't break free.
He even began to suspect that this curse-like loop had no range at all. Perhaps, even if he fled to the ends of the earth, he would still be pulled back to Linjiang Village.
Being trapped in a time loop might not be a terrible thing in itself. But being trapped near a village haunted by ghosts and monsters made everything far more dangerous. Under these circumstances, Feng Yang was under tremendous pressure almost constantly.
Perhaps in the short term, he wouldn't seem affected, but a person's endurance is ultimately limited. Feng Yang understood that as time went on, he would eventually go completely insane in this endless cycle. He had to find a way to escape before his mind collapsed.
Just like the day before, while Feng Yang was thinking, the pig-headed man reappeared in front of the villagers. Tensions instantly rose between them.
Seeing this, a new question arose in Feng Yang's mind: when he first came to Linjiang Village, three pig-headed men had appeared. But yesterday and today, only one appeared. So, why weren't the other two trapped in this time loop?
Feng Yang frowned. Clearly, the only difference was that the one trapped in the loop had died once, and it had died near Linjiang Village. The other two had not been killed by the villagers and hadn't even entered the village.
He quickly analyzed the key point: So, as long as one doesn't enter Linjiang Village and isn't killed near it, one won't be affected by this cycle?
Understanding this, Feng Yang stopped paying attention to the villagers in the distance. He planned to leave Linjiang Village directly and put as much distance between himself and it as possible. But before leaving, he seemed to think of something. He took the long knife from his waist, cut a gash on his arm, and then used a stone to chip a small nick in the blade.
After doing all this, Feng Yang circled around Linjiang Village.
Night fell...
Feng Yang leaned against a tree, staring intently at the campfire in front of him. To avoid being pulled into the time loop, besides the preparations he had made during the day, he didn't plan to sleep tonight. Having two layers of preparation was naturally safer.
After all, the previous two times he had fallen into the loop, it had happened after he fell asleep. So, if he didn't sleep, would he be able to break it?
...
Time passed.
He didn't know when, but in a daze, Feng Yang found himself back at Linjiang Village once again. But unlike before, this time he seemed unable to find his own existence; it was as if he were observing everything from an outsider's perspective. This sense of unreality made him doubt his surroundings.
"Could he be in a dream?"
No, that was unlikely. Feng Yang quickly dismissed this guess because his consciousness was perfectly clear. Moreover, he could see every detail, all the villagers, the surrounding flowers and trees, even the insects in the air and the pebbles on the ground. A dream couldn't be this realistic.
Besides, he also discovered that when the villagers spoke, although he could see their lips moving, he couldn't hear a single sound.
Having transmigrated from modern society, Feng Yang quickly made a guess: perhaps everything happening in the village was an illusion, and these illusions seemed to be trying to tell him something.
He continued to observe.
After an unknown amount of time, Feng Yang saw a woman in white run into the village from outside. The moment he saw her, he instinctively wanted to back away, she looked almost exactly like the white-clad ghost he had seen that night!
But he quickly realized that he wasn't part of this illusion; he was merely an observer.
The woman in white went to the village chief. She took a parchment scroll from her bosom, showed it to him, and kept talking. After listening, the chief looked terrified. He took the scroll and made a gesture as if to tear it apart, but after a moment's hesitation, he abandoned the idea. He went to a tree at the village entrance and buried the scroll in the ground.
Then the scene shifted.
A handsome man in a long robe appeared at the village entrance, with the woman in white and the chief standing beside him. Feng Yang noticed a large character for "immortal" (仙) on the man's robe.
The man had an arrogant expression and seemed to be talking to the village chief and the others. After a while, apparently because they couldn't reach an agreement, his face showed a hint of anger. He stretched out his right hand and pointed at two children in the village.
The next second, as if cursed, the two children fell straight to the ground, their bodies turning completely black. Seeing their reaction, the man's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He laughed a few times and then walked away.
Seeing the man leave, the village chief panicked. He rushed forward to try to stop him. But the moment the chief stepped out of the village entrance, he trembled violently as if he had touched an electric fence. Within a few breaths, he collapsed to the ground, lifeless.
Clearly, the white light shield covering Linjiang Village had completely sealed it off.
As the village chief died, the scene before Feng Yang began to fade.
The next second, Feng Yang suddenly opened his eyes.
He found himself back near Linjiang Village. The sun was shining brightly, and villagers were working in the fields near the village. Not far from them stood a monster with a pig's head and a human body.