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墨書 Inktalez
The boys were so frightened that they collectively took two steps back. Wang Xiaoya suddenly pointed at the back of the puppet, exclaiming, "There are characters!"
Lin Dahe flipped the puppet over, revealing faded vermilion symbols scrawled on the burlap. He recognized the last few symbols—they were from the "Qian Zi Wen" that Cui Xiaoman had taught him, but they were deliberately written in a jumbled manner.
"This is Ma Widow's handiwork," Zhao Ergou spat. "Last month, when Li Blacksmith remarried, she buried this thing in their foundation!"
Just as Lin Dahe was about to ask more, a sudden crisp sound came from the end of Field Ridge. Cui Xiaoman stepped on a dry branch, snapping it, her pant legs rolled up to her knees, and her Short Scythe was covered in grass clippings. From a distance, she spotted the puppet and her eyes widened in surprise.
"Give it to me!" she snatched the puppet away. As her fingertips brushed against the embroidered needles, she suddenly recoiled with a hiss. The needle tips glimmered with an eerie blue light—clearly poisoned.
The boys scattered in shock. Cui Xiaoman's face flushed red as she gripped the puppet tightly, her knuckles turning white. "I’ll settle this with her!"
"Wait." Lin Dahe suddenly reclaimed the puppet. In front of everyone's astonished gazes, he swiftly pulled out all the poisoned needles. Like a magician, he produced a length of red string from his pocket and quickly tied the puppet into a strange shape, inserting two branches for arms.
"Watch closely—" he hung the modified puppet on a bamboo pole. When the wind blew, the branch arms spun around with a 'clap-clap' sound. "The latest model of scarecrow, specially designed to scare away sparrows!"
Wang Xiaoya was the first to laugh out loud. The children quickly began to imitate him; some tore off headbands to wrap strips of cloth, while others wove small figures from straw. Within half an hour, over ten bizarre Bird Scarecrows stood around the experimental field, one particularly elaborate even wearing a tattered straw hat contributed by Zhao Ergou.
"Competition!" Lin Dahe raised a bamboo pole like a flag. "In three days, whoever makes the best scarecrow to scare away birds will win a bag of sesame candy!"
The children's cheers startled all the sparrows in the field. Cui Xiaoman sulked on the edge of the field when she suddenly felt someone nudge her elbow—Lin Dahe quietly slipped something into her hand: those seven poisoned needles, carefully wrapped in leaves.
"The Heartbreak Grass only grows near the Nitre mine," he whispered. "The juice on these needle tips has been stored for at least three years... How did Aunt Ma manage to get these?"
Cui Xiaoman's pupils constricted. Last year, her father's medical book mentioned that this poison was used by border troops to deal with captives. Just as she was about to speak, urgent hoofbeats suddenly echoed from the village entrance.
A courier sent by the One-Armed Veteran was covered in dirt and hadn't even had water before pulling out a notice: "The provincial government has issued an agricultural encouragement notice!" The official seal on the coarse paper was still wet, and what stood out most were six large vermilion characters proclaiming "Exemption from Three Years of Labor."
Just as Lin Dahe reached for it, Seventh Uncle's jujube wood cane suddenly blocked his way. The old man had appeared without them noticing; dew still clung to his beard. "Young man, you can't accept this notice."
The children fell silent immediately. Seventh Uncle pointed his cane at the small print at the bottom of the notice: "Those selected must submit their secret methods for crop yield into 'Nong Zheng Ji Yao'..." The old man sneered, "Last year in Liu Family Village, Wang Daosheng submitted his secret method and three days later, their granary mysteriously leaked."
Cui Xiaoman suddenly snatched the notice and held it up to the sunlight for closer inspection. At the edge of the official seal was a nearly transparent pinhole mark—exactly like what her father received when he was called up for military service.
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