The long saber, stuck in the root of the tree, pressed down upon my shoulder. Half-sitting on the ground with my back against the hollow, Ding Sitian shielded me from what was in front. In my haste, I gripped the blade with one hand while using the other, reaching past Ding Sitian, to push against Old Sheep Skin’s hands gripping the hilt. Yet, this was utterly futile; the Kangxi Treasure Blade pressed down inch by inch.

Ding Sitian also tried to help me hold back the blade, hoping the two of us could escape from under the steel, but firstly, she lacked the strength, and secondly, there was no room for maneuvering within the narrow confines of the tree hollow. My legs were pinned by Ding Sitian, making it impossible to lift my foot to kick Old Sheep Skin away.

The only sound left in the tree hollow was the grinding of teeth from tension and overexertion. At that moment, Fatty, whose face had been blackened green by the weasels, struggled to pull himself up from the ground. Seeing me, Old Sheep Skin, and the others writhing in a mess of blood, his eyes immediately bloodshot, filled with homicidal intent. His Model 14 pistol was nowhere in sight. As he got up from the earth, he happened to brush against Old Sheep Skin’s hunting rifle; he snatched it up and aimed it squarely at the mindless Old Sheep Skin, ready to fire.

Ding Sitian, seeing Fatty about to deliver a killing blow, perhaps intended to cry out a warning, but trapped beneath the sharp edge of the blade, her body covered in blood, her throat stiffened with terror, she could only part her mouth without emitting a sound. The immense mental pressure finally exceeded what she could bear; her vision went dark, and she collapsed.

I, too, was extremely anxious. I knew that if Fatty could just tackle Old Sheep Skin, it would alleviate our predicament. I tried to call out a stop, but my situation was similar to Ding Sitian's. I exerted all my strength just to block the saber pressing on my shoulder; my body was numb to the pain, entirely in a state where one wrong move meant collapse. My nerves were stretched to the breaking point; my mouth wouldn't obey my will to speak; all I could manage was gritting my teeth.

Old Sheep Skin had completely devolved into a mindless, walking corpse, but the two wizened weasels, noticing Fatty’s action, exhibited a fierce glint in their eyes. Old Sheep Skin seemed to react to some signal; just as Fatty raised the hunting rifle, he suddenly yanked the saber back in a sweeping cut. With a kacha sound and a flash of cold light, the muzzle of the rifle in Fatty’s hand was cleanly severed.

Seeing the rifle broken, Fatty let out a shout and lunged at Old Sheep Skin. Old Sheep Skin, having exerted all his might to sever the rifle with the Kangxi Treasure Blade, swung the saber wide, driving it deep into a nearby tree root. Unable to pull it free quickly, he was knocked to the ground by Fatty’s charge. He opened his mouth and bit down hard on Fatty’s side neck, tearing away a chunk of flesh and skin. Fatty, relying on his thick hide and sturdy neck, and growing more vicious the more blood he saw, pinned Old Sheep Skin down, and the two wrestled in a tangle.

In past scuffles, Fatty rarely met his match, as very few people operated on the same plane of sheer brute force. I remember that in his childhood, Fatty wasn't nearly as bulky as he was now, and no one called him "Fatty" or "Little Fatty." In the first grade, he contracted nephritis. Back then, the treatment for nephritis in the hospital relied entirely on oral medication; no injections were given. After taking the prescribed medicine, his illness did clear up, but his body immediately began to balloon. However, in that era, being "fat" was absolutely a good sign; no one talked about dieting. Fatness meant prosperity, health, and the girls back then preferred to marry heavier men, unlike the current trend of "the poor are fat, the rich are thin." Furthermore, since his body gained mass, Fatty saw considerable benefits. Before, when he was only fierce in temperament and sharp in tongue, he often lost out in fights with older kids. But once he got heavy, he leveled up; he started bullying anyone, beating up anyone he disliked. His signature move, the 'Human Press,' involved slamming the opponent down and then spreading his limbs above them, crushing them flat. This terrified children from surrounding schools and all age groups.

Yet, despite his imposing physique and sheer, bloody recklessness, Fatty couldn't immediately subdue Old Sheep Skin. Old Sheep Skin was utterly disconnected from his senses, his gaze vacant, snapping and biting randomly like a mad dog. His grip was like iron pincers; once he latched onto something, he wouldn't let go, his fingernails digging deep into the flesh.

I had nearly died under the blade just moments ago. The gash on my shoulder was serious but still had sensation; it likely hadn't hit bone. Old Sheep Skin's retraction of the blade gave me a moment of respite. I quickly tore a piece of my shirt to bind the profusely bleeding shoulder. Seeing Fatty grappling with Old Sheep Skin, locked in a death struggle, I knew if they continued this deadlock, someone would die. Moreover, since Old Sheep Skin was not in his right mind, any accident—especially if Fatty killed him by mistake—would mean I couldn't account for it back home.

Of course, all this chaos was being engineered by those two aged weasels. Old Sheep Skin was merely an instrument for their murder plot, having been knocked senseless. But I couldn't think of a way to counter weasels that could read minds in the moment, so I prepared to move, intending to help Fatty restrain Old Sheep Skin.

I crawled forward one step, extending my arm toward Old Sheep Skin, when I felt a sharp tug on the scalp above my left temple; someone had grabbed my hair from behind. Hair grows according to the crown's whorl; hair on the crown, back, and sides all follow specific directions of growth. Pulling hair with the grain is manageable, but I was crouched low, leaning forward, and the hand from behind yanked my hair upward, nearly ripping my scalp off. This pull of hair felt like a torment reaching into my very core.

I knew instantly who it was without looking back: it had to be Ding Sitian, who had fallen unconscious earlier. Her mind had also been subdued by the weasels, rendering her unable to distinguish friend from foe. I didn't know the specifics of the old weasels' dark arts, but logically, they could only control those in a state of unconsciousness, similar to folk corpse manipulation—a hypnotic technique used on the deceased. My grandfather told me that before the Liberation, similar witchery existed in our village. People in deep sleep were immune to their control; instead, their souls could be directly snatched, perhaps because the Sanmei Zhenhuo (Three-Fold True Fire) in the body was extinguished during unconsciousness, leaving only faint embers at the head and shoulders during sleep. The 'Yellow Immortal Nun' we encountered at the Yellow Great Immortal Temple was nothing compared to these two snow-white old weasels; their mastery was too profound, leaving no apparent weakness.

Now, every move we made was anticipated by the weasels; we couldn't harm a single hair on them. Two of our four people had lost their minds, and everyone was injured; death for one of us was just a matter of time. No matter how hard we struggled and fought, only our own side bled, giving us no chance of victory. Thinking of this plunged me into a profound despair and fear, even causing me to lose the will to resist further.

But that thought was quickly overridden by pain. The more pain I felt, the greater my rage, and a fierce resolve hardened me to fight to the end. I felt a scorching, intense pain as Ding Sitian yanked my hair. I didn't have time to pry her hand away, so I tilted my head sharply, trying to ease the tension on my scalp. As I turned my head, I felt an icy, metallic touch against my temple. Ding Sitian, I realized, had somehow picked up the Model 14 pistol that had fallen to the ground. As I shifted my head sideways, the muzzle, pressed down by her hand, was perfectly aimed at my temple.

My heart seized up. After my fathers’ generation fought the eight-year war to achieve victory, and now, as the world revolution was seemingly about to succeed, I was about to be killed by a Japanese-made Nambu Type 14, shot by my close comrade Ding Sitian. This death would be so humiliating and tragic—always striking when you least expect it, always twisting in the direction you least desire. In that instant, I asked myself: is this fate?

The moment stretched from the cold, hard muzzle pressing against my temple to the sound of the trigger being pulled—it lasted perhaps only a second or two, but to me, it felt agonizingly long. Time and the chaotic thoughts in my mind seemed to slow down invisibly, transforming into slow-motion, frame-by-frame footage tinted red.

The surrounding sounds also seemed to fall silent in my hearing; the only noise left was the click of the trigger of that "Bastard Box." After an eternity of waiting, even that sound suddenly vanished. The trigger hadn't been pulled all the way back. The Model 14, designed to imitate the Luger system but inherently flawed in its construction, combined with the heavy impact it had just sustained from being slammed down by Fatty, had jammed at this critical, life-or-death moment.

The Bastard Box was notoriously known as a suicide gun, as a jam on the battlefield meant certain death. But the gun jammed against my temple, effectively saving my life. I hadn't had time to feel fear just before, but now I had no time for lingering dread or relief. I reached up to grab the muzzle, intending to pull Ding Sitian backward off me.

Unexpectedly, Ding Sitian delivered several hard punches right onto the wound on my shoulder from behind. I had hastily bandaged the injury with a piece of clothing, but it hadn't stopped the bleeding at all. Struck from behind, the pain shot straight to my marrow; blood seeped through the cloth, dyeing my entire shoulder crimson.

Fatty, meanwhile, had managed to pin Old Sheep Skin down. Old Sheep Skin was still biting viciously onto a piece of Fatty’s flesh, his eyes wide with fury, struggling desperately. But he made no sound. By now, the four of us were drenched in blood; we couldn't see each other's faces clearly in the resulting gruesome scene, which looked terrifying.

The two weasels in the corner of the hollow climbed onto the ceiling, using the roots for support. Clearly worried that the bloody melee might affect them, they backed away slightly, clinging to the dead bark of the old tree, turning their heads to watch the fight with malicious glee. Their strange, wicked green light flickered and swirled in their eyes. While stifling the pain and holding down Ding Sitian, I glanced up at the pair. As their green light struck me, that feeling of complete mental and physical exhaustion washed over me again.

I dared not look into the weasels' eyes again, though I had mentally cursed their entire ancestry a thousand times over. My bleeding was continuous, and I was rapidly losing strength. If this crisis wasn't resolved soon, there would be no hope of survival. I had always believed the weasels' soul-stealing and mind-reading powers were exerted through their eyes to disrupt human minds. If I could just find a way to blind them, we could escape this predicament.

I seized an opportunity, grabbed a handful of mud and sand from the ground, and flung it at the pair of weasels. A white blur flashed across the top of the hollow; the weasels had already dodged. But I hadn't expected a handful of sand to work anyway; I only hoped to disrupt their movements, giving Fatty and me a chance to deal with them. Although these two old weasels could predict human actions, the terrain within the hollow was narrow. If Fatty and I attacked simultaneously, utilizing the geography, we might have a chance to capture them.

The two cunning weasels seemed to see through my intention, approaching me with a hint of mockery. I cursed internally, "You long-haired beasts, you push too far!" But I knew that even if I reached out to grab them, no matter how covert my movement, I would only grasp air. I forced myself to ignore them.

By this time, Fatty had managed to secure Old Sheep Skin's hands with his belt. Seeing me restrain Ding Sitian, he started to move over to help. But as soon as he stood up, the bound Old Sheep Skin suddenly sprang up too, delivering a headbutt directly to Fatty's abdomen. Fatty was caught completely off guard. And despite Old Sheep Skin being a thin old man, having lost his mind, he possessed incredible strength; even two or three strong young men might not have been able to hold him down now.

The collision was solid. Fatty was knocked backward, splayed out, and his back slammed heavily against the inner wall of the tree trunk, as if hitting a collapsed wall. The impact shook the hollow, causing another piece of the Guanyin Vine blocking the entrance to fall away. The gap between the edge of this remaining hollowed-out old tree and the ancient vine widened again, significantly improving visibility at the bottom of the hollow. Although the gap was large, the vine was covered in sharp thorns, preventing even a cat-sized weasel from climbing through. They and we remained within an almost completely enclosed, narrow space.

Amidst this chaos, I suddenly noticed that as the light inside the hollow grew brighter, the two weasels seemed greatly startled. They zipped quickly into the still-pitch-black corner. However, the ghostly fire in their eyes had dimmed considerably, no longer feeling so spine-chilling.

My mind cleared instantly. It turned out these two old weasels were afraid of light; the stronger the light, the dimmer the ghostly glow in their eyes. Ding Sitian, whom I held, gradually calmed down, likely because the change in light weakened the weasels' power to control human minds. My limbs felt increasingly weak, but I knew this divinely granted opportunity was like being saved from the abyss; if I didn't seize this chance to kill these long-haired beasts, we might never know peace.

Thinking this, I ignored the relentless bleeding, reached out, and gripped the long saber embedded in the tree root, intending to pull it free and decisively dispatch the pair of old weasels. But in the blink of an eye, both weasels in front of me vanished without a trace. The Guanyin Vine above dropped again, this time completely blocking the gap allowing light in. The tree hollow plunged into darkness so complete that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.