I can rewind time to prevent death

If a neighborhood like this experienced strangenesses, the people living there had ways to reach the heavens, allowing them to skip the queue and directly bring in an exorcist to clear away the strangeness.

However, in older neighborhoods, they wouldn't be afforded such special care. The residents there were ordinary people, whose only option after experiencing strangeness was to queue up and carefully avoid the dangers.

Of course, the FH Community where Yan Junze lived was an exception. Although it was an older neighborhood, if you compared it to the rest of Shuntian City, aside from the Exorcist Team's office building, there was probably no place safer than here.

If the wealthy elites knew that almost all strangeness had been banned here, their heads would probably burst from eagerness, flocking here without caring about the living environment.

The day after returning home, Zhang Xiaomo called to inform him that the higher-ups had already approved the issuance of a set of Magnetic Shielding Clothes for Yan Junze, and now he could submit his application.

Tianmeng had stock of Magnetic Shielding Clothes, and it would take at most a few days to approve and deliver them to the Shuntian Exorcist Team. At that time, Yan Junze could go and pick them up.

In the call, Yan Junze asked, "Xiaomo, with the current degree of rampant strangenesses, do you know which cities in Huaying Great Capital have been completely sealed off? As in, cities that have become uninhabitable because of the strangeness."

Zhang Xiaomo first fell silent for a moment, then said, "I've told you before that the largest Spirit Bridge appeared in Yannan District, right at Mata Town in Yannan District. Mata Town has been sealed off to this day, and no one in the town has survived."

After a pause, she continued, "There's also Zhen City in Luoxia District. Zhen City is a city on the edge near the desert. Although no Spirit Bridge erupted there, after the strangeness outbreak, the number of strangeness was exceptionally high. All residents were forced to relocate to other cities. It took a lot of effort on our part at the time."

"Are there any others?" Yan Junze asked.

"Then there's Gokri City in Aries District. The city is quite small, only about a third the size of your Shuntian, but also plagued with an abundance of strangeness. The entire city has fallen, and the surviving residents have all relocated." Zhang Xiaomo said, "Lastly, there is Grange in Shou Zheng District, but the strangeness in Grange is almost cleaned up. A relocation plan is currently being introduced, and the original residents will be moved back in batches."

"Besides these, are there any other similar cities?" Yan Junze asked.

"No, those are all I know of. Why do you ask?" Zhang Xiaomo wondered.

"A couple of friendly strangenesses I know have disappeared. I'm a bit worried about them," Yan Junze stated bluntly.

There was nothing to hide between him and Zhang Xiaomo, and she had always been tight-lipped about his affairs, never mentioning them to anyone, including her own teachers at the Tianmeng Exorcist Team headquarters.

Zhang Xiaomo rolled her eyes on the other end of the call. Since when had he become close with strangenesses? In her view, the relationship between exorcists and strangenesses was either "hostile" or "utilitarian and controlling." Otherwise, staying with strangeness would almost inevitably shorten one's lifespan.

Besides that, there were no other benefits.

But if she knew the function of Yan Junze's Spacetime Atlas, she wouldn't think so.

Within the [Evil Spirit Solid Lock] node, not only could it perfectly shield Jian Junze from the influence of strangeness, it could also nourish them and help them grow. This was a win-win situation.

Yan Junze could control and utilize the strangeness effectively, and because they could grow, they willingly cooperated and worked for him.

As far as Zhang Xiaomo knew, Xiang Er was also a very strong strangeness. However, Xiang Er had attached to a perfect female corpse, which was stitched together from countless pieces of other corpses. Yan Long, the Spirit Culturator, had treated it with some kind of solution, and by using other special methods, made the female corpse perfect and decay-free, even enhancing Xiang Er's strength.

Besides that, due to the shielding from the female corpse, even though Xiang Er wasn't locked down in a node, its Yin Energy wouldn't affect Yan Junze even with prolonged contact.

"How about this." Zhang Xiaomo said, "I'll send you the details of these cities, and you can take a look for yourself."

"Alright," Yan Junze nodded, "Are you coming to Shuntian on a business trip these days?"

Zhang Xiaomo giggled, "Why, do you miss me?"

"Sigh, I don't know what's wrong with me, maybe it's nostalgia. After returning here, I've unexpectedly found myself missing the time we spent together at Rock." Yan Junze said with feigned emotion.

"Well then, I'll take a leave of absence, and we can go back to Rock for a seven-day trip down memory lane," Zhang Xiaomo replied with a smile.

"Can't we pick a place with tourist value?" Yan Junze also laughed.

Zhang Xiaomo said, "There's a natural reserve called 'Peach Blossom Source' just outside Shuntian that's pretty nice. Last time, there was a strangeness that ate someone in there. I was the one who cleaned it up, chopped its head off."

Yan Junze looked embarrassed, "Don't you think that kind of description is a bit of a mood killer?"

"Hahaha..." Zhang Xiaomo covered her mouth and laughed heavily, it took more than ten seconds before she said, "I can't get any time off right now. We were already short-handed, and these past few days I've been helping Uncle Guo out, keeping busy."

"No worries, the people need you," Yan Junze said. "It's perfect for me to rest at home for a while and check where those two strangenesses I'm looking after have gone."

"Call me if you need anything."

The call ended.

Soon after, Zhang Xiaomo sent information on three cities – Mata Town in Yannan District, Zhen City in Luoxia District, and Gokri City in Aries District.

Since Shouzheng District's Grange had already begun to return to normal life, the chances of the Back-faced Woman and Ke'er being there were not great. Yan Junze mainly focused his attention on the three cities of Mata Town, Zhen City, and Gokri City.

Among them, the chances of the Back-faced Woman and her daughter being in Mata Town in Yannan District were relatively small because that was where the largest Spirit Bridge in Huaying District had appeared, still sealed off to this day. Exorcists surely had heavy guards posted.

Under such circumstances, the possibility of the Back-faced Woman and Ke'er entering Mata Town became very slim. Otherwise, they would have been discovered and exterminated by the exorcists before even entering the town.

That left Zhen City in Luoxia District and Gokri City in Aries District as the cities with the highest likelihood of their appearance.

Yan Junze carefully reviewed the data for these two cities. Zhen City was a city on the verge of desertification, located on the edge of the Great Capital's Huaying District in Luoxia District.

To the west of Luoxia District was the center of the Great Capital Huaying, and to the north was a vast desert, an uninhabited region.

Zhen City was situated right on the edge between the city and the desert.

Yan Junze had a bit of an impression in his memory; once, when he activated his Semi-Spirit Body, he had shared a perspective with the Back-faced Woman and saw her standing on a street devoid of people, with paper and trash blowing in the wind everywhere, and even the shops on both sides of the street were in ruins.

And he remembered that the names of the shops were written in the common script of the Great Capital Huaying.

As for Gokri City in Aries District, it had always been a settlement for minority groups within the Great Capital Huaying. According to local culture, although the common script of Huaying was used, there was an additional line in the local minority script below it.

That is, they used bilingual labeling.

Whether it was textbooks, the names of shops on the streets, or local television dramas and films, all used this bilingual labeling method.

Yet Yan Junze hadn't seen any bilingual labels on the storefronts on the street, which meant there was a good chance the Back-faced Woman and her daughter were not in Gokri City.

Therefore, the city with the highest probability of their presence was Zhen City in Luoxia District.

"If they really are in Zhen City, what could they be doing there?" Yan Junze was puzzled.

He clicked on Zhen City on the map of the Great Capital Huaying, looked at it seriously for a while, and learned in detail about the city's basic information.

Before the strangeness erosion, Zhen City had been developing slightly better than Shuntian City. Although on the edge of the desert, it had received strong support from the Great Capital's officials, so the town's standardized construction had a certain scale, with all public facilities basically complete and per capita income significantly higher than that of Shuntian City.

But now, it seemed to be a perfect portrayal of a modern Dead City, a stinging irony.