Chapter 39: The Sinister Hallucinogenic Mushroom

"A token of our agreement?"

Clutching the rather peculiar wolf tooth in my hand, I could feel a faint warmth radiating from it. I held it up to the moonlight, examining it closely. Under the silvery glow, the tooth seemed to emit a subtle, pale yellow light, breathtakingly beautiful.

Subconsciously, I brought the wolf tooth to my nose and took a sniff. A unique, delicate fragrance, like that of a young girl, drifted into my senses. I felt my face flush instantly.

"Alright, Sanqi, stop daydreaming! Hurry up and clear the battlefield. Gather those weasel pelts, the 'fire sticks,' and the 'fried flour'—we’ll have plenty of use for them in the woods later."

Hearing Master Lao Chen’s hunter jargon, I nodded. "Fire sticks" meant shotguns, and "fried flour" meant ammunition. He was telling me to collect the firearms from the fallen hunters.

Ten minutes later, panting, I looked at the three backpacks stuffed with food and drink, including canned goods, compressed biscuits, and beer. The other two backpacks were filled with the weasel skins.

Master Lao Chen, a cigarette dangling from his lips, remarked, "These weasel pelts are much cheaper than wolf fur! A good-quality wolf pelt can fetch several hundred yuan on the black market, but these... they’re not worth much. Even a nice one is only worth a hundred or two." He poked through the pelts casually as he spoke.

I asked in surprise, "One or two hundred? Really, Master Lao Chen, is the price difference that vast?"

"Indeed," he nodded heavily. "For one thing, the reputation of the 'Yellow Immortal' (weasels) is quite potent in many places, especially in the three northeastern provinces; you can see it in how those hunters behaved. Because everyone believes in this, the demand for weasel fur drops. When people don't buy, hunters don't hunt them, creating a perfect closed loop."

After he said this, I had a sudden realization: perhaps without the trade, there really would be no killing.

***

Once we had finished tidying up, we lay down beside the campfire. Since our tent had been burned, we used the weasel pelts to cushion ourselves and covered ourselves with another, keeping us quite warm by the fire.

Gazing at the brilliant starry sky, I asked, "Master Lao Chen, do weasels really possess magic?"

He turned to look at me, shaking his head. "I don't know."

I met his gaze and whispered, "Master Lao Chen, I saw..."

He gave a faint smile. "Sanqi, sometimes what your eyes see isn't necessarily the truth. I don't know if that weasel had become a spirit or if it truly had magic, but I have a fair idea that it was exploiting something in these old woods."

He sat up and pulled the pot from the campfire. It was still half-full of the leftover snake stew. He squinted into the pot for a long time before fishing out a sodden, mushy mushroom. He said to me, "The reason those hunters went mad and ended up in that state was entirely because of this mushroom."

"A psychedelic mushroom?" I scrutinized it, then frowned. "But that shouldn't be! Those were veteran hunters; how could they fail to identify something so basic?"

Master Lao Chen sneered, pointing toward a pile of mushrooms nearby. "They could identify them, certainly, but look—they picked the mushrooms and left them aside. That gave the weasel an opening. It could easily have slipped the psychedelic ones into their stash before they realized it."

I nodded, deep in thought. "So, Master Lao Chen, I understand. The weasel was playing on their psychology. Once they consumed the psychedelic mushrooms and began hallucinating, it used their fear of retribution for killing weasels to convince them that the 'Yellow Immortal' had come for revenge."

I paused, feeling that something was still off. "But that doesn't add up, Master Lao Chen. We didn't eat any of those mushrooms at the start, yet I clearly saw the shadow of a weasel in the fire..."

Master Lao Chen let out a long sigh and nodded. "Exactly. That is the truly sinister nature of the weasel, Sanqi! You have no idea how it makes us hallucinate. While I can discern part of its methods, most of it remains a mystery to me."

"It feels like these weasels are almost as cunning as humans," I remarked with a sigh.

"Humans?" Master Lao Chen blinked, then gave a cold, sharp laugh. "Sanqi, humans are far more terrifying than any weasel."

My eyes suddenly darted to the pot of snake soup, and I hurriedly said, "Wait, Master Lao Chen, we... we drank this soup, didn't we?" I glanced around nervously, terrified of falling into a hallucination.

"Hahaha! Don't worry. This mushroom can induce hallucinations, but I already gave you something earlier to counteract it!"

I froze, then remembered that while we were lying on the mountain, he had handed me a blade of grass to chew on. That must have been it. I felt a wave of relief wash over me.

"Alright, Sanqi, get some sleep. I'll take the first watch; you can take over in the second half of the night," he said softly.

"Understood!" I smiled, nodded, and pulled the pelts around me, closing my eyes.

Soon, accompanied by the crackling of the campfire, I drifted into a deep sleep.

In my dream, I saw the girl who had been riding the wolf. She looked at me calmly, making me blush. Suddenly, she dismounted, gave me a sweet smile, and then knelt, placing her left hand over her right, bowing her head until it touched the ground.

I was utterly shocked. What... what did this mean?

Just as I was about to step forward to ask her, I felt someone poke my waist. The dream dissolved. I opened my eyes to see Master Lao Chen looking at me, his eyes bleary with sleep. "Sanqi! It's past midnight. Take your turn to watch."

"Oh, right!" I sat up, wrapping the pelts around my shoulders. Master Lao Chen, who had been preparing to sleep, paused, thought for a moment, and tossed me a pack of cigarettes.

***

The Great Khingan Mountains were silent as the grave at night. Darkness enshrouded everything, broken only by the occasional call of an unknown animal in the woods.

I cradled the shotgun, a cigarette in my mouth, scanning the surroundings. Perhaps out of boredom, I subconsciously began to ponder my dream. Why had that girl acted that way? What could it signify?

Without thinking, I pulled the wolf tooth from my pocket and felt it in my palm. I recalled Master Lao Chen saying that he had reached some sort of agreement with that girl, and that this agreement would only benefit me, never harm me.

What kind of agreement could it be?