Stop it, the country really can't fit any more bans on the domestic entertainment industry.

Late at night.

In that cramped secondhand house in the county town, the incandescent light bulb emitted a buzzing sound, and the light flickered.

The middle-aged couple who fled their hometown out of fear did not go to bed early as usual.

You know, after watching that live stream in the morning, the two of them felt as if the sky had fallen and the earth had collapsed.

But life goes on.

So, during the day, the two of them were busy at their respective workplaces, not daring to take out their phones to even glance at the live stream, afraid of seeing something that would cause their hearts to stop. They buried their heads in the sand like ostriches, trying to numb their tense nerves with their busyness.

Even now, in the dead of night, that sliver of hope begins to gnaw at my heart again.

"Honey...why don't you want to take a look?"

The daughter-in-law sat on the edge of the bed, her face ashen, her eyes filled with a conflicted look of wanting to look but not daring to.

The middle-aged man sat on a small stool, a cheap cigarette between his fingers, the ash piled up long and he didn't flick it off.

Hearing this, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

After a long silence, he took a deep drag on his cigarette, threw the butt on the ground, and stomped it out.

"look!"

He gritted his teeth, as if making a firm decision, "Let's see how far that celebrity's digging is going. If he's finished and left, we...we might be able to sneak back and dispose of those things."

Clinging to this last sliver of unrealistic hope, his rough, calloused hands trembled as he pulled out the phone with the shattered screen.

I skillfully opened the software and found the replay clip of this episode of "Mushroom House".

The video has started playing.

The first half of the content was pretty much as they had expected.

The young man named Li Mo'an was still tirelessly wielding his hoe on that dirt road.

"Clang, clang, clang."

Each impact made the couple's hearts tremble.

Looking at the piles of rusty iron lumps that had been dug out, the middle-aged man felt a little breathless. Those were his grandfather's handiwork, a sword hanging over their heads.

However, as he watched, the man's expression softened slightly.

"Look, it doesn't seem like a big deal."

He pointed at the screen, raising his voice slightly, as if to bolster his courage, "This young man dug it out and just left it there; it didn't explode. The police went, but they dug along with them, so it seems they didn't find it was real. As long as they haven't found it, we're still safe."

The daughter-in-law nodded, her tense expression relaxing slightly: "Yes, it didn't explode... It's been decades, it's probably broken by now, just scrap metal."

The two comforted each other, and their anxious hearts seemed to slowly settle back down.

however.

The video progress bar has reached the second half.

When the simply dressed village woman appeared on screen, followed by a swarm of villagers, the atmosphere in the room instantly froze.

"What...what's going on?"

The daughter-in-law's eyes widened as she pointed at the screen. "Second Aunt? What's she doing there?"

Then, they heard the conversation that made them lose their minds.

"Could you let us take them? They look pretty heavy. We could make some money selling them as scrap metal."

"Thump."

The middle-aged man's heart skipped a beat.

Selling scrap metal?

That's a bomb! That's a deadly weapon filled with high explosives! And you're still taking it away? Selling it as scrap metal?

Before he could react, the scene in the video had already spiraled out of control.

Those villagers who usually seemed honest and unassuming all went crazy at this moment, rushing forward to snatch the death warrants that could send the entire village to its doom.

"They've gone mad...they've all gone mad..."

The middle-aged man's lips trembled, and he almost dropped his phone.

He watched as, on the screen, Aunt Zhang, who lived at the east end of the village, happily picked up a hand grenade with a wooden handle.

It was a Japanese Type 98 hand grenade with a wooden handle. Although the wooden handle was a bit worn out, the cast iron body was solid.

Aunt Zhang even tapped the thing on a roadside stone a couple of times, seemingly testing its feel, muttering, "This thing's good, top-heavy. I'll take it home and use it to block a door, or to chop garlic in the kitchen, it'll definitely work!"

"Smash...smash garlic?"

The daughter-in-law's voice was shrill and distorted. She gripped her husband's arm tightly, her nails digging into his flesh. "That's a hand grenade! That's a hand grenade that explodes! She used it to smash garlic?!"

However, this is just the beginning.

The scene shifts.

A young man, whom they had watched grow up, was carrying a round mortar shell on his shoulder, gesturing happily to the camera: "I saw Peng Peng using this as a hammer quite well, so I'll take it back and use it to crack walnuts. The shell is hard, so I can crack them one by one!"

Let's look further ahead.

A little kid, only five or six years old, was holding a disc-shaped thing in his hand—it was a Type 93 anti-tank mine!

The child placed the landmine on the ground and spun it around like a top.

"Don't move! Don't poke me!"

The middle-aged man watched this scene and couldn't help but scream at his phone screen, large beads of cold sweat rolling down his forehead.

Although that thing is for anti-tank purposes and requires a large amount of force to trigger, that's a standard from decades ago! The springs inside are probably rusted and brittle by now. Who knows if poking it with that little stick will directly trigger a chemical reaction?

The couple stopped breathing completely.

They originally thought that as long as they hid, and as long as the bombs were still buried in the ground or piled up by the roadside, even if they exploded, it would only blow up the road or create a crater, and at most injure a person or two.

But now...

That's the whole village!

Dozens of households, hundreds of people!

Almost every family, young and old, received these treasures.

This isn't distributing props; this is clearly the King of Hell giving away his year-end grand handout!

At that moment, that small phone screen appeared to them as a giant powder keg on a countdown.

At the end of the video.

The young man named Li Mo'an stepped forward.

His expression was calm, even possessing a convincing air of authority, as he addressed the villagers who were looting:

"These hammers can only be used for three days."

"Three days."

"Because the structure will become unstable after three days."

"...it will still explode."

When Li Mo'an said this, his tone was calm, as casually as if he were saying, "The milk will expire in three days."

But to the couple watching on screen, those words sounded like an ultimatum from hell.

"Three days...three days..."

The daughter-in-law mechanically repeated the two words, her eyes instantly becoming unfocused.

Images flashed through her mind: Aunt Zhang cracking garlic with a hand grenade, Er Gouzi cracking walnuts with a cannonball, and the child playing with a landmine...

These images spun wildly in her mind, like a revolving lantern, finally converging into a deafening roar.

"boom--!"

She could almost see the entire village reduced to ashes in the flames.

Those familiar smiling faces, those elders who watched them grow up, those children with snot bubbles still hanging from their noses... all gone.

"ah......"

The daughter-in-law managed to squeeze out an extremely faint moan.

Immediately afterwards, her eyes rolled back, her body went limp, and she fell straight backward.

"Old woman!"

The middle-aged man reacted quickly and caught her, but his own legs were trembling so badly that he couldn't stand up. He could only slump to the ground, holding his unconscious wife in his arms.

"It's over...it's all over..."

The man stared blankly at the darkened ceiling, only one sentence echoing in his mind.

Previously, they could still cling to a sliver of hope and hide like rats in a corner of this county town.

They felt that as long as they didn't admit it and as long as no one found out that it was their own father who buried it, this matter had nothing to do with them.

The bombs were piled up by the roadside, some distance from the villagers' houses. Even if they exploded, it would just be an accident.

But now?

Those bombs were taken home.

It was placed on the stove, under the bed, and in the child's toy box.

This is like planting dozens of time bombs next to the pillows of everyone in the village!

This is going to wipe out their entire village!

Once it explodes, it won't just be an accident; it will be a massacre! An entire family wiped out!

The culprits behind all this were their kind-hearted old man and the couple who knew the truth but chose to run away instead.

Overwhelmed by immense fear and guilt, they could hardly breathe.

In that instant, in this dimly lit, musty-smelling room...

The middle-aged man felt as if the sky above him had truly collapsed.

And then.

"Old woman! Wake up! Wake up!"

The middle-aged man knelt on the ground, his thumb digging so hard into his wife's philtrum that his nail almost dug into her flesh. His wrinkled face was filled with panic, and cold sweat streamed down his temples, dripping onto his wife's pale face.

Several seconds passed.

"Well--"

The daughter-in-law gasped, like a drowning person just surfacing, followed by a violent cough.

She opened her eyes abruptly, and before her focus was fully engaged, a wave of overwhelming fear washed over her.

The moment she saw her husband's face clearly, she grabbed his arm tightly, as if grasping at a last straw. Her nails dug deep into his flesh, causing the man's mouth to twitch in pain.

"His dad! Waaaaah..."

The daughter-in-law didn't even bother to get up; she just collapsed to the ground, her mouth agape, wailing and sobbing. Her voice was so heartbreaking that it was painful to hear.

"Let's turn ourselves in! We can't hide anymore!"

"We have to tell the police! Tell them those are real! Otherwise... otherwise the whole village will be blown to bits!"