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墨書 Inktalez
I, along with Old Qiao, announced the start of the competition. Suddenly, the surroundings fell into an eerie silence. Even though nothing was visible, everyone widened their eyes, fixated on my junior and Zongzi.
Old Qiao hesitated several times, worried that my junior might lose face and suffer at Zongzi's hands. He wanted to offer a word of caution but was genuinely curious to see how my junior would wrap Zongzi. After all, he was merely a theorist, full of ideas but lacking the courage to act. Now, all his hopes rested on my junior. Caught in a dilemma and feeling conflicted, he occasionally emitted half-formed sounds from his throat that didn’t form coherent words, which only made my junior more anxious. “Hey! What’s with the sighing? If you have something to say, just spit it out! It’s pitch black here; don’t even think about playing tricks!”
Old Qiao replied, “I’m willing, but will you listen?”
My junior was already frustrated with the lack of delay tactics but couldn’t show it too obviously. He feigned impatience and said, “Didn’t I tell you to speak up? Stop rambling like a woman! If you waste my time, can you handle the consequences?”
Old Qiao was much older than us; even at our ages, calling him "Uncle" wouldn’t be inappropriate. However, in Emerald Villa, we had sworn brotherhood together. We had shared joys and sorrows, escaped death together—our bond was one of life and death. Our personalities matched well, so we were used to speaking casually without concern for formalities. To outsiders, it might sound disrespectful.
A Li was already annoyed with Dui and scoffed at such blatant disrespect towards an elder.
Old Qiao hesitated again and suddenly sighed heavily as if he had made a significant decision. “Dui Er Brothers, you must absolutely… absolutely not let Zongzi bite you—this—”
Just then, a pained cry pierced the air, startling everyone. Old Qiao hurriedly struck a match; due to his nervousness, it took him four or five tries before it finally lit up. We saw that Zongzi had somehow leaped off the ground and was now crouched on my junior's back. To make matters worse, its thick tongue wrapped around my junior's neck like a Python Snake, constricting both his neck and face into a deep purple hue. The long, thin tip of its tongue was drilling into my junior's ear.
I recalled what my master often said: when spending the night outdoors in the wild, one must first find cotton to stuff in their ears to prevent centipedes or snakes from crawling in and devouring one’s brain—leading to death. There was once a child in our village who slept in a wheat stack overnight and ended up suffering from persistent headaches afterward. His mother was busy working in the fields and didn’t have time for him; when he complained about his head hurting while she was making dumplings one day, she absentmindedly hit him on the head with a rolling pin. It wasn’t hard at all, but it cracked open his skull like an egg. When they looked inside, they were horrified to find it crawling with centipedes; his brain had already been eaten away by them—those centipedes had even laid eggs in there… Ugh! That image would make anyone sick.
Could this Zongzi also have such a penchant? Stretching its tongue into someone’s ear to eat their brain?
In an urgent moment, I dared not voice these thoughts aloud for fear of causing panic among us. Instead, I quickly warned my junior: “Dui! Cover your ears!” I then pulled out my staff and swung it at that tongue but feared injuring my junior in the process. After several attempts to strike it down, the tongue seemed to sense my hesitation and became even more brazen; I found myself at a complete loss.
My junior’s face grew increasingly pale as he desperately pulled at the tongue wrapped around his neck with one hand while trying to grab hold of the flailing tip that kept drilling into his ear with the other. The tip was slick with white mucus and impossible to grip firmly. Frantic now, he shouted: “Chop… chop… hurry up! A Li! Why are you still standing there? Come on… cut it off!”
A Li fiddled with the bells on the Nine-Tailed Whip, calm and composed as she said, "Oh, now you remember your great-aunt? If you call me 'great-aunt,' I might consider helping you."
The junior brother rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Great... aunt... my... foot!"
"Hmph, stubborn as a dead duck! Let’s see how long you can hold out!" A Li feigned indifference, but Old Qiao was frantic, pacing back and forth. "My Big Sister, you can't just stand by and do nothing! He... he will be bitten to death!"
I was equally anxious, but A Li would never truly stand by and watch someone suffer. Stubborn as she was, she pretended not to hear their banter and shouted to A Li, "A Li, left and right, go!"
The Zongzi was cunning, hiding behind the junior brother and swaying from side to side, refusing to show its face. Its tongue, nearly a meter long, seemed almost sentient as it dodged our attacks time and again.
Moreover, the space was extremely cramped—like a half-dug pit that had been abandoned. The ceiling was less than two meters high, and it could barely fit two people shoulder to shoulder. Any more would leave no room to turn around. The Zongzi occupied the space of two people, using the terrain to trap the junior brother against the stone wall. We could only attack from either side, unable to form a pincer movement, which greatly weakened our combat effectiveness. If the Zongzi suddenly charged from one side, we would have a one hundred percent chance of being overwhelmed.
From the moment the junior brother was ambushed until we counterattacked took barely the time of half a matchstick burning. Once that match went out, we would be in serious trouble. Time was running out; my heart raced like ants on a hot pan. Old Qiao had never been this tense before, muttering incessantly, "Don’t get bitten... absolutely don’t get bitten..."
At that moment, an idea flashed through my mind—I didn’t have time to think it through. With all my strength, I leaped onto the junior brother. The three of us and the Zongzi were caught off guard and tumbled into a heap. Almost simultaneously, the junior brother opened his mouth wide and bit down hard on that tongue. The Zongzi let out a deep, beast-like howl of pain from its throat. In the next second, half of its bloody tongue sprang free onto the ground, twitching like a fish caught in a net before going still.
The junior brother was already blinded by rage; feeling liberated in an instant, he flipped over and jumped up, swinging his staff at the Zongzi. "His Grandmother's! I’ll chop you up!"
The Zongzi had lost half its tongue and was severely weakened. Seeing the junior brother provoke it further ignited its desire for revenge. It opened its massive mouth wide and lunged at the junior brother's neck in a frenzy.
Just then, the match burned out with a dull thud that shook the ground as if something heavy had crashed down.
Suddenly everything fell eerily silent. My heart raced; I wanted to call out to the junior brother to see how he was doing but hadn’t even opened my mouth when we heard a woman's sobbing coming from between us—exactly like what we had heard when we first fell down.
I was suddenly startled; my God, there was something here, watching us all along.
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