The various heads were covered in blood, with rolling, bulging eyes. Strangely, their eyes didn’t have any pupils, displaying only the sclera. Their icy looks gazed towards me, containing endless resentment and hatred! 

In that small instant of time, I thought I had brain hypoxia. I was so startled that I almost screamed. 

Despite my reaction, I was keenly aware that everything set before me was just an illusion. Immediately, I grabbed the willow twig and whipped it at Li Mazi and Yin Xinyue.

The two stopped struggling and, slowly, they lifted their heads to look at me. 

I pulled at their hands, saying, “We should leave this place before talking. We need to exit this willow forest as soon as possible.” 

Li Mazi trembled, looking at me as I turned to look at Yin Xinyue. When her eyes met mine, I saw that Yin Xinyue had the same frightened look as Li Mazi. The look on her face was as if she was staring at a monster. 

“Are you okay?” Looking at the duo’s facial expressions, I knew something was wrong, and I hurried to address them. 

Li Mazi opened his mouth first. “Little Brother Zhang, are you a ghost or a human?!” 

“Of course, I’m a human!” I didn’t know whether I should cry or laugh after I heard that. “We should get out of here!” 

Li Mazi said, “No, you're lying. I just saw you wearing a chain of heads. You wanted to cut my head off too!”

Yin Xinyue nodded. “Brother Zhang, I saw you crazily pulling my hair…”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Just what kind of things did these two see? In comparison, my hallucination was much more boring; I had simply mistaken them for two tree stumps.

I decided to quickly get over with it. “Everything was just an illusion. There’s something wrong with that old willow. We should seize this chance and rush back to the village.” 

This time, I made sure to advise them, “No matter what you hear, do not turn around. Even if you hear your mom calling you home for lunch, don’t turn back. That’s the only way we can escape this willow forest.” 

Eventually, when we escaped from the forest, the chilly air surrounding us vanished. Scared, I turned around to see the ominous forest. I still felt the fear creeping throughout my heart. 

What was that thing inside the willow forest?

By the time we exited the forest, it was completely dark.

When we arrived at the old man’s house, Li Mazi angrily kicked the door open. He raised his fist, ready to cause trouble. 

The old man had already put on his coat and lit up his kerosene lamp, awaiting our return. 

I didn’t know why, but my heart instantly relaxed when I saw him. The terror I had just experienced was slowly suppressed. 

The old man’s eyes scanned us before he asked, “Why did you come back so late?” 

Coldly, I threw the bunch of willow twigs onto the ground in front of him. “Speak. Why did you try to harm me tonight?” 

The old man laughed. “This task was meant to train you guys. You’ve no experience, and unless you’re trained properly, when you get to the graveyard, you will all be brought out as corpses!” 

After speaking, the old man squatted down, carefully checking the willow twigs. Then, he shook his head, “Not enough; pick more.” 

Li Mazi was instantly enraged, shouting, “If you want more, go get it. Even if you kill me, I’m not going back to that forest. No human being should be subjected to a place like that!” 

The old man said, “Don’t get all riled up. I’m just joking.” 

Paying no attention to us, the old man began to haul out various tools from his house, including a hammer, nails, and a roll of colorful thread. He was ready for the mission. 

The old man hammered the steel nails into the ground and then folded a willow twig, wrapping it with the colorful thread. Soon, he had woven a human-shaped doll.

Li Mazi was captivated by the old man’s mysterious actions. He wasn’t mad anymore, choosing instead to squat and observe, asking the old man what his creation was. 

The old man smiled and explained, “This nail is seven inches long, and it comes from the coffin of a woman who was raped to death.  

“The spool of thread was made from dead human hair. 

“And, about the oldest and biggest willow tree in that dark forest, it was watered with fresh human blood weekly. That was how it had grown so big and tall.” 

Those were all Yin materials with extremely evil energy. It seemed that the old man wanted to use poison to treat poison, planning to use this little doll to erase the resentful energy attached to that golden silk quilt!

I took a deep breath, looking skeptically at the old man. “This thing… will it work?” 

The old man snorted. “Of course! I’ve been an otherworldly merchant for dozens of years. I’ve eaten more hardships than you have rice. This trick works all the time. I have never failed before!” 

Although the old man said so, I was still suspicious. 

I could see that the old man had just said that to coax us. If he had cared about us, when we visited the willow forest, he would have given us some advice. 

Even so, it was undeniable that, while standing before this old man, we couldn’t help but look inexperienced and inept. 

The old man moved smoothly, clearly displaying his experience. Eventually, the unruly willow twigs were folded and combined into little human-like dolls with arms, legs, and bodies. After this was done, he used cinnabar to draw eyes and a nose for them.  

Looking at the line of dolls, I couldn’t help but smile. “Why do you have to make so many of them?” 

The old man answered, “I want to make the golden quilt think that these dolls are humans and kill them. Once it has dealt with those dolls, I believe that the amount of resentful energy contained within the quilt will have been significantly depleted. At that time, we can take action.” 

I was enlightened. 

Then, the old man used a pair of scissors to cut some small pieces of twig and placed them in between the dolls’ legs. 

Seeing this, Li Mazi burst out laughing. Yin Xinyue blushed, muttering, “Old pervert.” 

I couldn’t help but ask, “Why do you need to make them so real? Why do these little dolls need a penis as well?” 

The old man said, “You aren’t aware of this, but even though this toy is small, the effect that it has cannot be understated. The golden quilt hates men the most, so it kills only men. With this tiny addition, the quilt will know that our little dolls here are all male. If you provided the quilt with a genderless or hard to identify object, it wouldn’t work.” 

I thought for a moment and couldn’t help but praise the thoughtful old man. The old man sighed. “I have this knowledge because I’ve experienced a lot of things. In this otherworldly merchant business, if you’re not attentive to things like this, you’ll die rather quickly.” 

After he made the little dolls, the old man gave them some rough fabric clothes.  

From a distance, it was hard to tell if they were real, tiny humans, or just some twigs…

Seeing how it was around 11:30 PM, the old man handed me the little dolls, saying, “Go, hurry! Remember, when you go to the graveyard, just throw these dolls to the quilt. Try your best not to show yourself. We don’t want to lose our bait before we get the prey.” 

“If it doesn’t work, you must run away. Even if you encounter something unexpected, you should never look back. Do you hear me?” 

After our experience in the willow forest, we were sure to keep every word from the old man in our hearts. Even a slight moment of carelessness could bring about a great disaster.