Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 2: Chapter 1: Abnormal Death

He had no other memories of her.

Maybe they had crossed paths at other times, but time has a way of washing away even what one believes to be unforgettable memories. This was especially true for a mere acquaintance from school.

Adults and children see things differently. Many problems that once seemed incomprehensible could now be met with a nod of sudden understanding.

But when it came to this girl, she had been on his mind constantly for the past few days. It was like a riddle that had arrived eight years too late.

They were hardly close. The thing he couldn’t wrap his head around wasn’t her death—

—it was why she had called him late at night the day before she died, just three days ago.

Zhang Shutong had missed that call.

He had a habit of silencing his phone before bed. When he woke up and saw the missed call from the contact labeled "Lu Qinglian," he puzzled over it for a good while.

’A wrong number?’

That would be anyone’s first thought.

Eight years had passed; it was doubtful she even remembered who he was. Still, relying on his faint, positive impression of her, he called back. The call didn’t connect.

He didn’t think about it for long. Then, the next afternoon came.

Zhang Shutong received the news of Lu Qinglian’s death.

He wasn’t one to go out much. To be blunt, given their distant relationship, he normally wouldn’t have attended the funeral. At most, he would have asked a mutual acquaintance to deliver a gift on his behalf.

But because of that one phone call, an event that should have had little to do with him was now inextricably linked to him.

This was especially true after yesterday, when he learned from a police inquiry that she rarely ever used a cell phone.

She was a young Temple Priestess who lived on the mountain. He had always thought of her as being like a fairy. Perhaps after all these years, she had truly grown into one—an ethereal being who didn’t partake in the mortal world.

She had spent all these years watching over that mountain, and the only call she made the day before she died was to Zhang Shutong.

To be honest, he couldn’t stand it. The feeling was suffocating.

The police must have asked the islanders about their relationship. He wasn’t sure how the news got out, but after that, the rumors spread like wildfire:

Some said he was her boyfriend and was planning to break up with her, fed up with her cold personality and poor family background;

Some said it was a call for help;

Others claimed it was murder, and that she, sensing something was wrong, had tried to reveal the killer’s identity to him.

Then there were the superstitious rumors, involving ghosts and gods.

In any case, Zhang Shutong had heard at least five different versions. He didn’t know much of the inside story himself, only that she had supposedly slipped and fallen into a lake. Her death had been officially ruled an accident.

’...I’ll just treat it as an accident for now.’

In truth, Zhang Shutong didn’t care much for the truth. He was here to see if there was any way to save her.

An accident on the island eight years ago had given him this ability.

And it was because of that incident that he’d sworn he would never return to this island. If it weren’t for the funeral, he would have kept that promise.

It was a classic case of being careful what you wish for. Unfortunately, he was the protagonist of that story:

He remembered it was the summer vacation after his middle school entrance exams. Around that time every year, the Cyan Snake Temple always held a festival.

He and a few of his best friends had gone to join in on the fun, but the place was so packed with people they couldn’t squeeze through the crowd.

Boys being boys, he had snuck around to the back of the temple to climb the wall. But he wasn’t careful; he stepped on some loose rocks, tumbled straight down the mountainside, and lost consciousness.

When he came to, the sky was dark, and he found himself lying on a bed in a clinic.

His friends later told him what happened. He had been unconscious on the mountainside behind the temple with a nasty cut on his head when an old woman found him.

He was incredibly lucky. If he hadn’t been, who would have ever thought to look for someone there?

His parents wanted to thank her, but his rescuer had simply vanished.

This brush with death granted him a superhuman ability.

And on that very day, the course of his life was changed forever.

Zhang Shutong named this ability "Rewind."

The trigger mechanism was specific: if something bad happened near him, he would be sent back to a critical point in time right before the event.

It was usually a few minutes, or sometimes a few days, before.

It was as if something was forcing him to stop the bad thing from happening;

He would be dragged into it, whether he wanted to be or not.

And if he didn’t resolve the issue, the rewind would trigger again, trapping him in a loop.

If you asked him what he thought back then, the answer was simple. He was just thrilled. After all, rewinding time sounded like a world-saving superpower. It was awesome.

"—I’m the only one."

No boy his age could resist a thought like that.

In the beginning, Zhang Shutong did indeed perform many "good deeds," in the conventional sense.

After he started high school, in his first year alone, he used Rewind to prevent several car accidents on his daily bike ride to school.

That was probably around 2013, right when *The Amazing Spider-Man* came out. He walked out of a midnight screening, and as the wind blew against him, he walked all the way home in one go. He didn’t feel the cold, as if he’d been greatly inspired.

The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man might not have been real, but at least in his own neighborhood, he was.

He never ran into any supervillains, but that year he managed to stop two domestic violence incidents, one affair, and a home invasion.

Then there was his new high school life:

Students who were suicidal over a failed confession;

Students who wanted to jump off a roof because of academic pressure;

And those dealing with all sorts of problems at home...

He gradually became overwhelmed. Rewind would often trigger every few days.

He was happy that he could help people, of course. But each time, it left him completely exhausted.

That summer, he developed a crush on an upperclassman. He’d always been pretty popular, and once they got to know each other, they made plans to see a movie after their monthly exams. However, Zhang Shutong stood her up.