I can rewind time to prevent death

Yuko shook her head and said in Japanese, "I don't understand what you're saying, Mr. Yan."

"I wasn't asking you," Yan Junze also shook his head. "I was merely stating the facts."

Yuko looked confused. Her face was pale, but she didn't appear to show any other abnormalities.

"What's in your right hand?" Yan Junze tilted his head, signaling her to move the right side of her body out from behind the door.

Yuko instinctively shrank back, shook her head, and indicated that she couldn't understand Yan Junze's words.

"A knife? Gasoline?" Yan Junze guessed.

Yuko's eyes widened, as if she genuinely had no idea what Yan Junze was talking about.

At that moment, without warning, she suddenly raised her left hand and fiercely pressed the light switch by the door, instantly turning off the light in the storage room.

The storage room plunged into darkness, with no sound emanating from within.

Yuko was breathing heavily, but she deliberately suppressed the noise, retreating slowly until she was half a meter outside the storage room door, straining her eyes wide open to try and see what was happening inside.

But the room was so dark that she couldn't see anything.

Standing outside the door, Yuko didn't dare make a sound and merely waited quietly.

About ten seconds later, the light in the storage room suddenly turned back on, revealing Yan Junze's figure standing by the doorway, his left hand stretched out, pressing the light switch.

The moment the light came on, Yuko trembled in shock, the slender, sharp knife tightly held in her right hand slipping to the ground.

Seeing the knife drop, Yan Junze spoke, "You can stop pretending now. Even though you can't speak Huaying, you can understand most of it."

After pausing briefly, he asked, "Did you think I was like Kurosawa Tsuyoshi, that being plunged into darkness would spell disaster for me?"

Yuko's face grew paler, and she retreated slowly.

Yan Junze immediately stepped forward, continuing, "When it was about to get dark, you overheard my conversation with Kurosawa Tsuyoshi outside the house. Although you didn't catch everything, you learned that the darkness was a disadvantage for us."

Yan Junze remembered that at that time, the rain had just stopped, and the pattering sound of raindrops hitting the roof had ceased, allowing voices from outside to be heard in the storage room closest to the eaves.

Still, the sound wasn't perfectly audible; otherwise, Yuko Ito wouldn't have tried to use the same trick, shutting off the light to kill him.

Yan Junze shook his head and sighed, "Do you realize? You're probably the only person in the world who, as an ordinary human, has killed—or indirectly killed—a Reaper."

Yuko continued retreating, but Yan Junze didn't let it go. He took another step forward.

At that moment, Yuko's gaze shifted slowly from Yan Junze's face to behind him, a barely concealed terror appearing in her eyes. Instinctively, overwhelmed by fear, Yuko covered her mouth with her hand, staring fixedly behind Yan Junze.

Yan Junze froze, then turned his head to look.

At the same moment, Yuko suddenly crouched down, grabbing the handle of the knife that had fallen to the ground. Before she could straighten up, she lunged straight at Yan Junze.

Just as the knife was about to pierce Yan Junze's chest, a sharp pain simultaneously struck her abdomen and chest. She was sent flying backward, crashing into the wall before slumping to the floor, curling up and groaning in pain.

Yan Junze had already turned back, shook his head, sighed, and withdrew his Control Field. "I've encountered cunning, treacherous strangenesses before, but to meet someone even more deceitful and sinister than strangenesses—that's a first for me."

As he finished speaking, he gestured towards the corpse in the storage room. "Junichi Eki—that should be your doing, right?"

"Baka!"

Yuko raised her head and shouted, her face distorted in pain from the agony in her abdomen. Her skin flushed deep red, lined with fury as if rage was seething within her.

But just as Yan Junze had predicted, she could understand some Huaying, though she herself couldn't speak it.

"No," Yan Junze muttered, puzzled. "Why is it that after you killed him, the strangenesses he manifested didn't come after you for revenge?"

Before he could finish speaking, realization struck. He nodded to himself. "I think I know why now."

Rewind!

Time reversed to the moment when Yan Junze and Daisuke Kitahara were about to leave the Ito residence.

The two had reached the courtyard gate. Daisuke Kitahara opened the gate and stepped back politely to let Yan Junze exit first.

At that moment, Yan Junze suddenly grabbed his arm and gestured for silence.

Daisuke Kitahara froze, unsure of what Yan Junze intended, but cooperatively remained quiet and stepped back to close the courtyard gate again. Neither man stepped outside.

Yan Junze pointed in the direction of the hallway and pulled a bewildered Daisuke Kitahara to one side of the corridor leading back towards the house. They crouched down.

Hidden by the raised corridor steps, crouching here ensured they wouldn't be seen.

Daisuke Kitahara realized Yan Junze had perhaps discovered something and, for some reason, couldn't explain it outright. Instead, Yan Junze had feigned leaving to create an opportunity to hide.

But hadn't the strangeness already been resolved through Yan Junze's passive Spiritual Method? Could this "Buddha-like" Exorcism Method leave lingering risks after resolving a strangeness?

Suspicions began to form in Daisuke Kitahara's mind, but now wasn't the time to ask questions.

After crouching silently for a while, Yan Junze tugged Kitahara's arm once more and stood up. The two started tiptoeing towards the tea room.

About five minutes later, a slender figure emerged from the storage room, stepping carefully onto the narrow path under the eaves, moving forward cautiously step by step.