I remained seated on the decapitation platform for the whole time to give them courage. If I did that, they would trust my abilities to deal with the situation. In addition, it could also suppress the bandit ghosts as I wasn’t scared of them.

The fire burned strongly, and the crowd had surrounded the fire and the platform. At this moment, I suddenly had the feeling that I was in the Civil War era, and those people wearing the Kuomintang uniforms were my soldiers.

After sitting on the decapitation platform for a while, I found that my pants were wet. Bewildered, I reached my hand to check and found some blood.

Damn, why is there blood on the platform?

I jolted up instantly, shining my flashlight over it.

I was immediately shocked. I didn’t expect that the beheading platform—which remained clean during the day—would start to ‘bleed.’ It seemed as if the blood was oozing from the stone, turning into tears that streamed down from the platform.

The group noticed my strange actions right away; everyone turned to have a look. A small commotion arose in the crowd when they saw the bleeding platform.

“Brother, what’s going on?” Lin Longshan immediately ran toward me, sounding flustered.

I didn’t answer. I touched the stone to check and it felt warm; the blood had a similar temperature.

I took Lin Longshan’s axe and hacked at the platform. It only left a small dent, but it was enough.

I checked in detail and found that the inside of the stone was blood-red. It meant that blood had emerged from the stone platform.

“This is a sponge stone.” I immediately soothed everyone by saying, “This kind of stone can absorb blood. I’m sure that someone had poured blood on it during the daytime. The stone absorbed it and the heat of our bonfire made the blood seep out…”

“Is it human blood?” someone asked immediately.

I shook my head. “It’s chicken blood.”

Li Mazi and I joined hands and dug the soil underneath the platform. About a dozen minutes later, we took out a carton box which was soaked in blood. The carton box was all worn-out, partly due to the muddy soil where it was buried.

My heart throbbed as I could guess what the box contained.

I carefully opened it. Indeed, it was just as I had guessed. It was a box full of chicken heads.

I could imagine what had happened there in the morning.

Someone had snuck in, bringing with them more than a dozen chickens. They chopped off the heads and placed them on the decapitation platform. In the end, all the heads fell off the platform. Each of those chicken heads represented one person, and as they had failed the decapitation platform challenge, they would be beheaded according to the bandit’s rule.

It meant that the people I had brought with me would die!

Li Mazi and Lin Longshan knew the story. They exchanged looks after they saw the chicken heads; they could see the fear in each other’s eyes.

I immediately blinked, signaling them to not tell the others. Otherwise, if these workers were overcome with fear and lost their fighting spirit, they would die.

I took out the chicken heads and counted carefully. There were only fifteen, but I had brought nineteen people with me.

A possibility popped up in my head.

 There are only fifteen chicken heads here... does it mean that the other four chicken heads passed the beheading platform challenge? Are they now newly-recruited bandits? 

 Who are the four new chosen bandits? And who placed the chicken heads here...? 

I asked Lin Longshan, “Did all of your workers come here?”

Lin Longshan shook his head. “No, five or six didn’t come. What’s wrong?”

“Why didn't they come?” I asked.

“They said they wanted to go home.”

“Did you pay them their salary?”

“No, I didn’t.” Lin Longshan looked at me in puzzlement. He had no idea why I was asking this.

“How much do you owe them?”

"Around twenty thousand renminbi, I guess.”

"Oh, are they

that

loaded with cash that they don’t need your twenty thousand renminbi?”

“Impossible. They normally live frugally. They consider money more important than their lives,” Lin Longshan answered.

I took a deep breath. “Call them. Let’s see if we can contact them.”

Lin Longshan asked gingerly, “What happened?”

“It’s a long story. You just need to do as I say!”

Lin Longshan shook his head again. “There is no signal here. I can’t call them.”

“Sigh!” I sighed and replied, “Forget it. I’m afraid that the person behind this is one of them.”

“What?’” Lin Longshan was immediately enraged. “Those bastards dare to do this to me? Anyway, how did you know?”

“If I’m not wrong, one of them has to be a descendant of the bandits,” I explained, “Perhaps he wants to recruit some of you to rekindle his ancestor’s glory. That’s why he wanted to choose suitable candidates among you guys. These chicken heads are the evidence.”

Lin Longshan was infuriated. “Don’t let me catch him, or I’ll skin him alive!”

Once they heard that it was a living person orchestrating everything, the workers relaxed a bit. Then, they angrily began to curse at the suspects.

“Guys, be careful,” I said, “Keep your eyes open. Just shoot if someone shows up!”

They nodded and started observing the area.

More blood oozed out from the beheading platform. Shortly after, the entire platform was covered in fresh blood. I took out the coins and stringed them together with a red thread. Then, I wrapped the thread around the platform.

But just as I was doing that, I heard someone shoot. A lumberjack whistled and yelled, “Someone’s over there!”

I looked in the direction he had pointed. Sure enough, there was a swaying figure hanging on a tree.

The person didn’t seem to be hurt despite being shot; he swayed for a while and then settled down.

“Who are you?” I shouted with a serious tone.

The person didn’t answer.

Right then, someone else screamed, “Another one’s there!” I turned around and saw another figure hanging on a tree not far behind us.

The worker didn’t hesitate and immediately shot the figure. The bullet pierced through the shadow, who didn’t move in the slightest.

Yet, when the soybean fragments struck the shadow, they left behind some bright spots. The shadow wiggled as if in pain, but it quieted down shortly and swayed in the wind.

More and more shadows appeared…

All the shadows hung on the trees, some hung by their necks, while others were hung by their feet. In any case, they all looked gruesome.

Everyone was startled by this sight; they all seemed ready to make a run for it.

It was critical to keep our cool in this moment. I warned them, “My shotgun won’t show any mercy if any of you run and mess up my plan.”

The group of workers were reluctant, but they continued shooting. More and more shadows were hit, and their shrieks were endless.

However, the shadows quickly adapted. They began to hide behind the trees, thus making our attacks ineffective.

Then, I heard Lin Longshan cry out, “Erhu, why are you standing up? Sit down, quick!”

I turned around and saw the man called Erhu taking out a dagger and trying to cut his own throat.

I charged over at my fastest speed, kicking Erhu and seizing the shotgun in his hand.

However, it was too late. Although his head wasn’t cut off, Erhu’s throat had been slit open. Blood spurted out with every breath. The workers were clearly shaken by the events and huddled closer.

Li Mazi shot at the sky once. “You motherfuckers, don’t blame me for being merciless if you dare to retreat!”

His threat worked.

I stepped forward and checked Erhu to see if we could save him. However, before I could do that, I heard someone screaming, “Old Hong, what are you doing?!”

I didn’t have time to care about Erhu. I jolted up and saw another worker about to cut his throat.

“Crap!” I shot Old Hong’s arm without hesitation. Old Hong screeched and curled up on the ground.

I waved my hands, signaling people to be careful. Then, I went to wrap Old Hong’s wound.

However, Old Hong raised his hands and clutched my neck as soon as I approached him. “I’m going to strangle you! I’m going to strangle you…”

He was possessed. Without hesitating, I drew my Sirius Whip and swiftly coiled it around his neck. At the same time, Li Mazi came and grabbed Old Hong’s legs to prevent him from struggling free!

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