24: Chapter 24 Grind the stone into powder!

"Gag—-"

Brother Bao knelt in the muddy water of the trench, his hands tightly gripping his own neck.

It felt like something was stuck in his throat, neither going up nor down. It was a piece of Guanyin soil he had just forced down. Without water, the dry clod of earth hardened in his esophagus, like a rough piece of cement scraping against the delicate mucous membrane.

[System Prompt: You have consumed "Guanyin Soil". Satiety +5. Acquired negative status "Intestinal Obstruction (Mild)". Description: This stuff can fool the stomach, but it can't fool the intestines. If it is not expelled in time, you will die from abdominal distension.]

Brother Bao looked at the status bar, tears and snot smeared all over his face.

In the real world, he was the top streamer in the gaming category, boasting tens of millions of fans. Even instant noodles he ate required two extra eggs. But here, for a pathetic 5 points of satiety, he was digging for food on the ground like a dog.

"Can't swallow it?"

The Company Commander walked over.

His lips were cracked like two pieces of dry bark, and a bit of white powder still lingered at the corners of his mouth—that was the bit of toothpaste they had shared earlier.

The Company Commander squatted down and pulled out a dark object from his waist.

It was a stone.

Not an ordinary stone, but a piece of granite that had been burned by fire and soaked in blood.

"Smash it for me," the Company Commander threw the stone in front of Brother Bao, then handed him the empty enamel mug. "Smash it to pieces, grind it into powder, and then you can swallow it."

Brother Bao froze.

He looked up at the Company Commander's emaciated face.

"Company Commander... This... This is a stone..." Brother Bao's voice trembled. "Eating this... will kill people..."

"Dying if you don't eat it too," the Company Commander didn't look at him. His gaze swept over the trench, fixed on the mountain peak in the distance, half of which had been flattened by artillery fire. "If you eat it, your stomach will feel heavy, and you won't feel hungry. Only with strength can you pull the trigger."

The surrounding soldiers were all busy with their heads bowed.

No one spoke, only the dull sound of stone hitting stone.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was like a bizarre percussion performance.

That sixteen-year-old young soldier was desperately grinding the clods of earth in the mug with a large stone. His wrists were as thin as dry twigs, and his hands were covered in chilblains. Every movement would cause the wounds to crack open, seeping out a bit of blood that mixed into the dirt.

"Brother, look, once it's ground fine, it looks just like flour." The young soldier grinned at Brother Bao, revealing two rows of mud-caked teeth. "My mother used to make white steamed buns; the flour was this fine."

As he spoke, he stuck out his tongue and licked a bit of the powder in the mug, actually showing a look of satisfaction on his face.

Brother Bao felt his stomach churning violently.

This was not flour.

This was dirt! This was stone grit!

How on earth did these people survive?

Real World, Livestream Room.

The suffocating sense of oppression in the footage spread through every corner along the network cable.

No bullet comments.

The keyboard warriors who usually liked to spam the screen, stir up trouble, or be sarcastic had all vanished. The livestream room, with five hundred million concurrent viewers, was as quiet as a graveyard.

Brother Bao took off his VR helmet.

He couldn't take it anymore.

The real, rough, earthy smell still echoed in his mouth, and the pain of a foreign object blocking his esophagus made it almost impossible for him to breathe.

He staggered out of the bedroom and rushed into the living room.

On the table sat a takeout order. It was what he had ordered before entering the game: a plate of braised pork, a plate of oil-braised prawns, and a large bowl of crystal-clear white rice. The takeout was already a bit cold; the fat from the braised pork had congealed on the surface, radiating an alluring luster.

Brother Bao grabbed his chopsticks.

He was hungry.

Although his physical body in reality wasn't hungry, his mind was still stuck in that extreme panic of starvation. He picked up a piece of braised pork and stuffed it into his mouth.

Soft, sweet, the fat melted on his tongue.

This should have been the ultimate enjoyment.

But in that instant, the face of the young soldier suddenly flashed in his mind.

That mud-caked face, the expression of smiling and saying it was like white steamed buns while licking stone powder.

"Gag—-"!"

Brother Bao violently rushed into the bathroom and started vomiting violently into the toilet.

The braised pork he had just eaten came up along with his stomach acid.

He knelt on the cold tile floor, looking at the pile of filth, tears flowing uncontrollably.

Was that braised pork?

No.

That was sin.

He remembered how, during his previous livestreams, for the sake of showmanship, he would order a table full of dishes and only take one bite of each before throwing it away. He remembered getting angry when takeout was late and slamming the food container onto the delivery rider's face.

"I deserve to die..."

Brother Bao slapped himself.

The crisp sound of the slap echoed in the empty bathroom.

He crawled up and rushed back to the living room. Looking at the takeout, more than half of which remained, he didn't touch the chopsticks again, nor did he throw it into the trash can.

He picked up the bowl of cold rice and mechanically stuffed it into his mouth, one bite after another.

No side dishes.

Just plain white rice.

The feeling of every grain of rice being crushed in his mouth reminded him of the sound of grinding stones.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

...

At the same time, the internet exploded.

The clip of Brother Bao vomiting the "braised pork" rushed to the top of the hot search list within a minute.

No mockery, no meme references.

In the comment section were tens of thousands of photos.

Someone photographed their own freshly finished plate, not a single drop of sauce left.

Someone picked up the half-eaten steamed bun they had just thrown in the trash, brushed off the dust, and quietly finished eating it.

A food blogger with the ID "Foodie Xiao Mei" deleted all her Mukbang videos and posted a status update consisting of only three words:

"I'm sorry."

This was not just a game.

This was a judgment.

A judgment from seventy years ago.

Su Yun sat in the pitch-black server room, watching the data frantically jumping on the backend.

Emotion Value: +10 Million.

+50 Million.

+100 Million.

Those red numbers were like boiling magma, representing the guilt, shock, and awakening of countless people.

He clicked open the system backend and posted a server-wide announcement.

[Explanation Regarding the "Guanyin Soil" Mechanism]

There was no sentimental copy, only a black-and-white photograph.

In the photo, a skeletal Volunteer Army soldier was holding a handful of dark soil, bringing it to his mouth. His eyes were hollow and numb, but his hand was gripping it tightly, very tightly.

Below the picture was a line of small text:

"This is not game lore. This is the real lunch for the Third Company at Feihu Mountain in 1950."

At this moment, the entire internet broke down in tears.

The voices that were previously clamoring on the forum about "the developer abusing players" and "the mechanism being unreasonable" completely died down.

Instead, a topic named #PleaseLetThemEatTheirFill# instantly detonated across all major social platforms.

"Su Yun! Open the top-up channel! I beg you!"

"I have a month's salary, I'll give it all to you! Can you change the Company Commander's food to a steamed bun? Even a cold one is fine!"

"Stop making them eat dirt... It hurts to watch..."

Su Yun looked at the private messages, his fingers hovering over the keyboard for a long time.

Finally, he lightly typed a line of code.

[System Prompt: Detecting strong "support" intent from the player base. Special function "Cloud Supply" is loading...]

But that was not for now.

Feihu Mountain was still hell right now.

...

In the game.

Brother Bao put the helmet back on.

He logged in.

The phantom pain in his stomach was still there, but he didn't complain anymore.

He silently picked up the stone and, imitating the young soldier, hammered the clods of earth in the mug, one strike after another.

"Grind it finer," the Company Commander's voice came from beside him. "If it's fine, it won't scratch your throat."

"En," Brother Bao responded, his voice hoarse.

Just then, a sharp whistle came from the sky.

Not an artillery shell.

It was an airplane.

An American F-80 fighter jet swept low overhead. The racks under its wings were empty, clearly having just dropped their ordnance.

"Take cover!" the Company Commander roared.

But the plane didn't drop bombs or strafe.

It just arrogantly lowered its altitude, and from the open cockpit canopy, the American pilot wearing sunglasses threw something down.

Thud.

A paper box fell onto the snow outside the trench.

The box broke open, and its contents scattered everywhere.

It was chocolate.

And several colorful leaflets.

The leaflets showed a roast chicken and a cup of steaming coffee, with Chinese text underneath: [Surrender. We have hot coffee and turkey here.]

That sweet aroma of chocolate drifted into the trench with the cold wind.

For these men who had eaten stone and toothpaste for three days, this was the most malicious temptation.

Gulp.

Someone swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

The young soldier stopped what he was doing, his eyes fixed on the piece of chocolate only a few meters away from him. It was wrapped in gold foil, revealing a corner of dark brown sweetness.

He was only sixteen.

He had never eaten chocolate in his life.

"Don't look," the Company Commander said coldly. "That's rat poison."

The young soldier flinched and lowered his head again, continuing to grind his stone.

But Brother Bao saw it.

He saw tears hanging in the corner of the young soldier's eye. It was physiological tearing, the most instinctive craving of the body for food.

A nameless rage suddenly flared up from the bottom of Brother Bao's heart.

These Americans.

Killing wasn't enough; they had to attack the spirit too.

What did they take these starving soldiers for? Beggars? Monkeys in a zoo?

"Son of a bitch!"

Brother Bao suddenly jumped out of the trench.

"What are you doing?!" the Company Commander exclaimed.

Brother Bao ignored him. He rushed out of the trench, picked up the chocolate and the leaflets.

At the American position, several American soldiers in observation posts were watching the spectacle through binoculars. They had bet that this Chinese soldier would pick up the chocolate and share it like a dog.

Brother Bao stood in the snow.

He tore open the chocolate wrapper.

Then, in front of all the Americans, he threw the chocolate onto the ground and stomped on it fiercely.

Crushed.

Mixed with dirt and snowmelt, it became a pool of black mud.

He then grabbed the handful of leaflets and pulled out his lighter, igniting them. The flames danced in the wind, and the roast chicken and coffee turned to ash.

"I'd rather eat dirt than your dog food!"

Brother Bao roared toward the American position, his voice cracking like an injured wolf. "If you have the guts, come up here! See if I won't bite you to death!"

Bang!

A gunshot rang out.

A spray of blood erupted from Brother Bao's shoulder, and his whole body tumbled back into the trench.

"Are you trying to die?!" the Company Commander grabbed his wound, cursing, but his hand was trembling.

Brother Bao grimaced in pain, but he smiled.

He looked at the young soldier who was still grinding stones, and pulled out the finely ground Guanyin soil powder from his pocket.

"Eat this," Brother Bao said. "This is clean."

The young soldier looked at him, then looked at the trampled pile of chocolate, and nodded hard.

"En! This one is fragrant!"

Boom—!

The American retaliation arrived.

It was a 155mm howitzer shell that directly hit the machine gun nest on the left side of the trench.

Dirt exploded, and smoke filled the air.

Jack was thrown to the ground by the blast wave.

Just as he tried to get up, he realized something was wrong with his right leg.

It felt light.

As if it didn't exist.

He looked down.

His leg was gone from the thigh down. There was only half a pant leg soaked through with blood, hanging on a few white fascia.

His leg was gone.

No doctor.

No anesthetic.

Only a medic, his hands covered in blood, holding a rusty saw, looking at him with a face full of terror.

"Hold still..." The medic's voice was choked with sobs. "If we don't saw it off... it will get infected... you'll die..."

Jack looked at the saw.

Its teeth were already dull and stained with someone else's flesh scraps.

Fear. A fear deeper than death surged up his spine to the crown of his head.

"Don't..." Jack shrank back, his voice trembling unnaturally. "Don't saw... I beg you... Don't saw..."