I can rewind time to prevent death

At the very moment the woman in the mirror parted her hair, it’s fair to say that He Zheng’s heartbeat involuntarily began to quicken.

Suddenly, the scene in the mirror rendered him utterly dumbstruck, and he was overcome with a tingling numbness in his hands and feet.

Upon separating her hair, the woman revealed cheeks devoid of any features, with only slightly concave areas where the eye sockets should be, a subtle protrusion for the nose bridge, but where the mouth should have been, there was nothing but flatness, no sign of lips whatsoever.

The faceless woman!

He Zheng quickly came to his senses.

That woman combed back her hair then hung it behind her ears, fully exposing the featureless visage to He Zheng.

She could still speak, yet with no lips to be seen moving—only the entire dressing mirror vibrated faintly as she talked.

"Now that you’ve sat down, let’s tell stories. I like listening to stories, especially horror stories," the woman in the mirror slowly spoke up.

He Zheng sneered, "Sorry, but I’m an Exorcist, and I’m here to get rid of you, not to listen to your stories or tell you any."

With that, he prepared to unleash the High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle at the mirror.

However, at that moment, He Zheng discovered that he could no longer move the arm and fingers that he had placed on the dressing table.

This realization shocked him, and soon he found that his entire body, seated on the stool, had become as if petrified, unable to move at all.

The only thing he could move was above his neck; everything below it was completely immobilized.

"Let’s tell a story, or you won’t be leaving this place," the woman laughed sinisterly. As she spoke, she began to draw an array of makeup tools from the drawers of the mirror’s dressing table.

He Zheng quickly tried to calm himself down because by the look of things, it seemed that he wasn’t in immediate danger. If it really came down to it, he would have to crush the High-Energy Collapse in his hand.

Typically, a High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle was thrown and only activated upon impact, but the situation was different now. If possible, He Zheng could also crush it directly in his hand.

Once crushed, it would create a shockwave that could repel him away from the dressing mirror, thus escaping the control of the woman in the mirror. At the same time, there was a good chance that the shockwave might also injure the woman in the mirror.

Of course, the best course of action right now was to go along with the woman in the mirror’s plan and wait for an opportunity to move his fingers and crush the High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle.

"You said we’d tell a story, so what are you doing now?" He Zheng asked.

"I like it this way, telling a story while doing my makeup," she replied.

The woman in the mirror didn’t stop, skillfully laying out the foundation brush, eyeshadow brush, sponge ball, eyebrow pencil, powder puff, and then opening over ten different makeup boxes, covering the surface of the mirror’s dressing table.

The current scene looked very eerie.

The room was without any light except for the faint glow from the flashlight He Zheng held in his left hand.

But He Zheng believed that even if it were entirely dark with not a hint of light, the woman in the mirror could still apply her makeup with ease.

"What story should I tell?" After a moment’s silence, and upon seeing the woman had started applying makeup, he finally inquired.

The woman was adept in her movements, applying makeup, and said, "Let’s each tell a horror story, the shorter the better, the more brilliant the better, preferably with a twist in the end that catches me by surprise. Maybe then, you can leave here unscathed."

He Zheng chuckled coldly, unable to move his body, but his right hand kept trying to crush the High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle, he said, "Fine, but I’m not too familiar with this, why don’t you start?" @@novelbin@@

The woman, graceful in her actions, by now had drawn her eyebrows and nose bridge, her movements fluid without any hesitation or thought, she began, "No problem, I’ll go first. This story is called—Makeup."

She paused, then in an even tone began her story.

"A man wanted to play a prank on his girlfriend and decided to dress up as a ghost to scare her. So the man used the spare key his girlfriend gave him to enter her apartment early, before she returned home. While she was still out, he used lipstick, an eyebrow pencil, and other tools found in the room to paint a horrific makeup on himself.

Since it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, he wasn’t sure how it looked, so he went to the bathroom to check his reflection in the mirror."

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"What he saw was so terrifying that the lipstick-made lips seemed stretched, his eyebrows drooped, and his skin appeared to dangle from his face, grimacing and grinning—in fact, he scared himself. Thinking this would surely faint his girlfriend, he quickly washed off the makeup.

Later, when his girlfriend came back, he told her what he’d planned, only to find her expression turn into one of utter horror..."

"Why?" He Zheng couldn’t help asking.

"His girlfriend told him that the bathroom mirror had been broken for days, removed and never replaced with a new one."

As she finished, the woman in the mirror had already drawn her own eyeballs: "How about that story?"

"Hmm, not bad," He Zheng nodded without any trace of fear or surprise.

At that moment, he saw the woman’s freshly applied eyeballs suddenly seem to move quickly.

Even though his body couldn’t move, He Zheng felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He didn’t have any scary stories to tell. Normally, He Zheng wasn’t fond of reading stories, let alone taking the time to sit down and read them.

Agreeing to tell the Person in the Mirror a story was purely to buy time, so that he could activate the High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle and use the Exorcist’s methods to quickly deal with this eerie woman.

But now, he discovered that although he could slightly move his fingers, he still couldn’t muster enough strength to actually burst the Hidden Buckle.

There wasn’t enough time.

So He Zheng racked his brains for a story, and the Person in the Mirror spoke up at that moment, "It’s your turn..."

"Let me think," He Zheng said.

He frowned, trying to recall any scary story he’d heard or seen somewhere, but despite racking his brain, he couldn’t come up with anything.

At this moment, the Person in the Mirror, having finished drawing her brows, nose, and now her lips, kept her painted eyeballs moving subtly. They seemed to be watching He Zheng outside the mirror or perhaps something else, giving off an oddly eerie vibe.

Suddenly, He Zheng froze. He found these eyes eerily familiar.

Then He Zheng remembered a story he had seen on a website before. It was somewhat familiar, but nevertheless, it could be considered a tightly-paced short story.

"I’ll begin then. My story is very short," he cleared his throat and began, while continuing to put all his effort into pressing the High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle between his fingers.

"In an ordinary family, every evening as dusk approached, a six-year-old boy would stand on the sofa, looking out the window, waving his hand and mumbling something. His mother didn’t notice at first, but she later found her son’s behavior strange. Unable to contain her curiosity, she asked, ’What are you doing?’ The boy replied, ’Mom, I’m saying goodbye to uncle.’"

"Uncle? The mother’s face turned pale when she heard this because they lived on the sixth floor. No one could be outside the window where her son waved each day. Horrified, her voice trembling, she asked, ’Son, there’s no one outside, where is this uncle?’ At this point, the boy pointed to the sky, ’There, Uncle Sun.’

As He Zheng finished speaking, the Person in the Mirror, who had been applying her makeup, paused for a moment before continuing, while saying, "This isn’t a scary story."

"Don’t you want a twist? My story started off with suspense and horror and indeed ended with a twist," He Zheng said, breaking into a sweat.

At that moment, he found he could essentially move his right hand.

At the same time, the Person in the Mirror had finished applying her lipstick, and the hands that had been moving across her face finally came to a rest.

The woman smiled at He Zheng, who stared blankly at her, no longer applying makeup, as if he had just seen an extremely bizarre scene. He even forgot to press the High-Energy Collapsing Hidden Buckle in his hand.

Or rather, he could now move his fingers, but he still didn’t have enough strength to actually press it down.

What he saw was the Person in the Mirror’s face after makeup, and that face eerily matched his own.

Aside from their figures and hairstyles, the face was a perfect replica of He Zheng’s own countenance.

Upon seeing the other’s eerie appearance, He Zheng froze for a few seconds. Then, an inexplicable sense of panic overwhelmed him, and he exerted all his strength to press the Hidden Buckle in his hand.

However, at the same moment, the woman in the mirror slowly raised her hands, and likewise, He Zheng involuntarily raised his outside the mirror, as if his body was no longer under his control.

He Zheng’s facial expression distorted with fear as he found himself performing the same motions as the Person in the Mirror.

Yet at that moment, the woman grew a face of her own — truly as if she was looking at her own reflection.

Then the woman retracted her raised hands, slowly reaching towards her own neck, and He Zheng, outside the mirror, also uncontrollably reached for his neck, gently grasped it, and then began to tighten his grip — gradually his breathing became difficult.

While He Zheng’s hands tightened around his neck, the veins popping out, the Person in the Mirror, though wearing his face, displayed a mysterious smile, watching him quietly. She, too, tightened her grip on her neck viciously, as if it didn’t belong to her at all.

Just as He Zheng felt like he was about to faint, his arms were suddenly grabbed by another pair of hands, and his neck was promptly released, allowing him to finally catch his breath.

Refocusing his gaze and looking up, he saw a stranger beside him, holding his hands. And in front of him, on the dressing table — that is, in front of the vanity mirror — were numerous makeup boxes.

And the person in the mirror was clearly He Zheng himself, with no one else present.