When Zhang Shi regained consciousness, he felt dizzy and his vision was blurry.

"Ring ring~"

The Soul-Binding Bell rang on its own in the backpack, making a series of crisp sounds that invigorated Zhang Shi.

Coming to his senses, Zhang Shi found himself inexplicably at the village entrance.

The towering, dark walls of the courtyard still stand there, and the dark red wooden doors are tightly shut, as if they have never been opened.

Zhang Shi was puzzled. In his memory, he was hit by the dark light shot out by the black tiger and then fainted. After waking up, he found himself at the entrance of the village for some reason.

"brush!"

Four white lights flashed in succession. Zhang Shi's eyes narrowed, and he quickly took out his old Duan sword to be on guard.

As the light faded, four figures appeared outside the courtyard wall.

Upon recognizing the four people, Zhang Shi trembled uncontrollably, his face turning extremely pale. The four were none other than Zhao Feng, Wu Qing, Ge Dalong, and himself.

At this moment, Zhao Feng looked around and blurted out a sentence that Zhang Shi found somewhat familiar.

"Where did this village come from in this wilderness? Could there be an indigenous civilization here?"

Zhang Shi recalled the scene when he was first teleported to this instance.

Right now, the scenes that happened before are replaying before my eyes.

Zhang Shi shouted and waved wildly in front of the four men, trying to get their attention. But they seemed unable to see or hear him. Zhang Shi reached out to touch them, but he felt as if he had no substance; his fingers passed right through his teammates' bodies, seemingly within reach but unattainable.

"Holy crap, am I dead?"

With this thought in mind, Zhang Shi hurriedly opened the system panel to check, and fortunately, he and his teammates were all in good condition.

Zhang Shi refused to believe it and tried to send messages to everyone again, only to find that his chat system was temporarily locked, and he could neither view nor speak.

Watching Zhao Feng smash his axe against the wooden door, only to be repelled by an invisible wall of air, Zhang Shi realized his current predicament.

"Everything that's happening here has happened before. Could I have traveled to a parallel universe?"

Zhang Shi placed his palm on the wooden door and could clearly feel the cold touch emanating from it.

"I am not in a spirit state, so I should not have become a kind of evil spirit."

Glancing at the thick fog around him, Zhang Shi hesitated, wondering whether he should venture deeper to investigate. He still possessed the Soul-Binding Bell, and according to its description, it seemed capable of dispelling the fog.

On a whim, Zhang Shi walked to the edge of the mist and stretched out a hand into it.

"Ring ring!"

The Soul-Binding Bell suddenly started shaking on its own again, and the crisp sound startled Zhang Shi awake.

Zhang Shi suddenly felt a strong sense of unease welling up inside him and quickly pulled his hand back.

Looking back, he realized that he, one of the four, had already descended into the dry well.

For some reason, Zhang Shi felt an inexplicable unease when he looked at the dry well.

The series of emotional changes made Zhang Shi secretly wary. Since waking up, his senses seemed to have become even more acute.

This feeling is indescribable and inexplicable, similar to a sixth sense, mysterious and enigmatic.

Driven by curiosity, Zhang Shi approached the dry well. At that moment, three people on the well were peering down from the wellhead.

Zhang Shi cautiously peered down, and with the help of his miner's lamp, he found his vision exceptionally clear. Beneath the scattered pieces of wood, a skeleton came into view.

Zhang Shi, who was underground, was collecting wood blocks, almost touching the skeleton, while the four-person group ignored the skeleton as if it were nothing.

Zhang Shi carefully observed the situation down in the well.

The skeleton appeared to be quite old; its clothes were tattered and covered in dust. Beside the skeleton was a slender metal object, which looked like a short stick and reflected a metallic sheen under the headlamp's light.

What caught Zhang Shi's attention the most was that the skeleton was wearing a wristwatch on its arm. Although it was covered in dust, Zhang Shi could still recognize its design at a glance.

"It's a system wristwatch; this corpse belongs to a survivor."

Meanwhile, Zhang Shi, who was down in the well, had already collected the wooden plaques and looked up at the well opening. His astonished and panicked expression was clearly captured by Zhang Shi above the well.

At this moment, some of the mysteries that had plagued him since entering the instance were finally revealed, and Zhang Shi suddenly understood many things.

"It turns out I've been scaring myself all along."

After completing the memory loop, Zhang Shi was clear about his current state.

"It seems that it is not a parallel universe, but that there are indeed two versions of me in the same time period."

"If nothing unexpected happens, I will experience the events in the village again as the fifth person."

Zhang Shi clenched his fists. No matter what the reason for all this, he was determined to unravel the mystery of the Village of Doubts and rescue his friend.

"In this way, there are many opportunities to act."

...

The three men above the well had already dragged Zhang Shi out of the well, their expressions quite interesting.

Zhang Shi turned his gaze back to the dry well. Although the miner's lamp was no longer shining, the scene inside was still clear to his eyes.

Having made up his mind, Zhang Shi took out a rope, secured it to the outside, tied the other end of the rope around his waist, and slowly slid down the well wall.

Before long, Zhang Shi landed at the bottom of the well, facing the skeleton, and the discomfort became extremely intense.

The eerie experiences in the village had robbed Zhang Shi of any fear of these skeletons. Even if one of the skeletons suddenly came back to life, Zhang Shi's emotions wouldn't fluctuate much.

Zhang Shi took the metal rod from the skeleton's hand and recognized it as the Holy Silver Crossbow.

Unable to determine whether it was the same crossbow bolt as Wu Qing's, Zhang Shi put the bolt into his backpack and turned to look at the skeleton's wristwatch.

After taking off the watch and fiddling with it for a while, Zhang Shi found that the watch could no longer be activated. He didn't know if it was damaged or if it was unusable because of the original owner's death.

Zhang Shi climbed out of the dry well. In front of the dark red wooden door, Ge Dalong was arranging and combining wooden plaques. Before long, he had assembled the chilling couplet.

Zhang Shi, one of the four, affixed the wooden sign to the door, and the door slowly opened, allowing the group to enter the village.

Zhang Shi observed the entire process, and after following the four into the village, he didn't rush to leave. Instead, he lingered by the wooden gate, preparing to wait for them to come to him.

Sure enough, the four of them hadn't gone far when two mud monsters emerged from the courtyard wall, ignoring Zhang Shi's presence, and each of them braced one side against the wooden door to close it again.

Zhang Shi saw this and, not wanting to alert the monster and affect the course of events, suppressed the urge to act immediately. He waited until the mud monster left before heading towards the ancestral hall.

Inside the ancestral hall, the group of four had already engaged in combat with Black Tiger.

Zhang Shi deliberately appeared in front of the black tiger, and seeing that it seemed unable to see him, he completely relaxed. Ignoring the fight between the two sides, he took out the key he had obtained earlier and turned to look at the underground steps in front of the ancestral hall.