—I did. Dreamed all night, one after another. They say too many dreams mean bad sleep quality.
—Did you dream about… who the seventh ferocious slip is on?
Wan San fell silent. He frowned deeply, trying to recall. After a moment, something seemed to click—and his gaze snapped straight to Cao Yan Hua.
Cao Yan Hua was gulping air, his mouth ringed with mustard-yellow salt and pepper, his tongue feeling swollen. “Me?”
…
Yan Hongsha was the last to come out, yawning, hair like a bird’s nest. She pushed the door open and froze.
Four people—three sitting, one lying down—eight eyes all staring straight at her.
She grew uneasy. “Why are you all staring at me? I just got up late. You didn’t even wake me.”
Wan San asked bluntly, “Er Huo, did you dream about me last night?”
Yan Hongsha reacted violently. “Who are you? Why would I dream about you? Of all people, why you? What are you saying, you—you—”
She stumbled over her words, then blurted out the last sentence: “H-how did you know?”
Before Yan Hongsha even got out of bed, Wan San and the others had already made a preliminary deduction.
Based on the generative and restraining cycle of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth:
Metal restrains wood—Mu Dai dreamed of Luo Ren.
Wood restrains earth—Cao Yan Hua dreamed of Mu Dai.
Earth restrains water—Wan San dreamed of Cao Yan Hua.
Although Luo Ren was the only one who hadn’t slept, following the logic: fire restrains metal—he should have dreamed of Yan Hongsha. And water restrains fire—Yan Hongsha would most likely have dreamed of Wan San.
Yan Hongsha’s reaction confirmed it.
Cao Yan Hua was furious. The sandwich he was halfway through only fueled his rage. “This seventh ferocious slip still hasn’t shown itself, but it’s sneaky as hell, Little Brother Luo. This is classic sowing discord. If we weren’t strong-willed, we’d already be suspecting each other!”
Luo Ren smiled faintly. Cao Yan Hua’s words made some sense, but thinking it over carefully, something felt off. This kind of discord was too easy to expose. If the goal was mistrust, it’d make more sense for all arrows to point at one person.
Cao Yan Hua ground his teeth. “That means the seventh ferocious slip is close by. It can’t be Aunt Pingting or Uncle Zhang—they’re too far away. It has to be someone nearby to influence us. Think—who have we been in contact with these past few days? Cao Jiefang is one!”
Cao Jiefang was pecking at fallen salt and crumbs by the couch. Hearing his name, he jolted in fright, feathers standing on end.
Who else? Old Ding the Ninth, who lived outside Fengziling Village. That charlatan barely counted—but they’d talked on the phone yesterday. Who knew, maybe evil power could travel through radio waves.
But no matter how they thought about it, Cao Jiefang seemed the most suspicious.
“This ‘hiding,’” Cao Yan Hua analyzed, “has to be unintentional, completely unexpected. Jiefang is just a chicken, and it’s even done some good deeds before. Those surface details could easily blind us. Little Brother Luo, better to kill the wrong one than let it slip through—I suggest the five of us transfuse blood into Cao Jiefang and see if we can force the seventh one out.”
Cao Jiefang kept pecking, oblivious.
Yan Hongsha felt it was nonsense. “Leave Jiefang alone. And besides, pumping human blood into a chicken—that’s not okay, is it?”
Luo Ren said, “Something still doesn’t feel right.”
He called the shaman.
The shaman was startled too. “Didn’t we say that with the Phoenix Luan Clasp’s power, you couldn’t be harmed by ferocious slip possession?”
Luo Ren said, “At this point, the whole situation is full of bizarre paradoxes. I need everyone to help me sort them out.”
The first paradox: those with the Phoenix Luan Clasp’s power cannot be harmed by possession vs. the ferocious slip being on one of them.
—If possession can’t harm them, then having it on any one of them is a blatant contradiction.
The second paradox: this situation being the seventh ferocious slip sowing discord vs. them being immune to mental influence.
—If the ferocious slip can’t affect their minds, how could it induce such targeted dreams to sow discord?
The third paradox: this being unrelated to the ferocious slip and instead a Phoenix Luan Clasp hint vs. the manuscript stating that those with the clasp’s power won’t be harmed by possession.
Round and round, contradictions everywhere—an unsolvable loop.
Luo Ren felt that the reason their reasoning had hit a dead end was that one foundational assumption they all accepted was wrong.
But which one?
Even the shaman couldn’t figure it out. He only said, “Wait a bit. I need to meditate in the valley,” and hung up.
Looking around, everyone seemed at a loss.
After a long silence, Mu Dai spoke. “Actually, I think it makes perfect sense for the seventh ferocious slip to be on one of us. Didn’t Cao Pangpang say it? The best hiding place is the most unassuming, the least expected. We’ve suspected everyone around us—even Cao Jiefang—but never ourselves.”
Yan Hongsha bit her lip and nodded. “I think so too. My grandpa always said that when you’re looking for something, the blind spot is right under the lamp. When I was little, I heard a story about a magic mirror…”
Luo Ren knew the story too. A princess had a mirror that could find anyone—heaven or earth, nowhere to hide.
A young man challenged it. He’d once saved an eagle, a big fish, and a fox.
The first time, he rode the eagle into the sky—but the princess held up the mirror and found him.
The second time, he hid inside the fish’s belly at the bottom of the sea—but the mirror still found him.
The third time, the fox dug a tunnel beneath the princess’s bed, and the young man hid there. That time, he succeeded.
Yes—it was the most reasonable explanation. But… still a paradox.
The day passed quickly. Luo Ren even began thinking about heading back. At sunset, the shaman suddenly called.
He was so excited his words tumbled over each other. “Little Radish, when I was meditating, I thought—if the final conclusion contradicts itself, then the basic premise must be wrong. So I tried overturning the known information piece by piece, and then—suddenly!”
His voice trembled. “I made a hypothesis—a Shaman Hypothesis—and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am! Wait—let me get some water!”
Footsteps clattered away over the phone.
Luo Ren swallowed, looked at everyone, turned the phone volume up, and said, “Close the windows and doors. Put the Do Not Disturb sign out.”
Everyone moved in unison. Then they gathered around the coffee table. The main lights were turned off, leaving only a dim floor lamp. The call button glowed.
Mu Dai suddenly felt anxious—afraid that at such a critical moment, something might happen in Fog Town and the shaman wouldn’t come back.
Thankfully, it was just needless worry. The shaman returned quickly.
His voice was solemn. “Listen carefully. Don’t interrupt or panic—let me finish.”
“My hypothesis is this: your dreams weren’t interference or discord caused by the ferocious slip at all. They are hints from the Phoenix Luan Clasp—and they are basically correct. The seventh ferocious slip really is on you. And not just one of you—each of you has it.”
Cao Yan Hua couldn’t sit still and opened his mouth to speak, but Luo Ren shot him a piercing look. His heart jumped, and he swallowed the words back down.
“I went back and reviewed everything I copied from the silk manuscript. There are two sentences I want to repeat. Listen carefully.”
“The first: Those who possess the power of the Phoenix Luan Clasp cannot suffer possession damage from the ferocious slips.”
“The second: The power of the seven stars attaches to the body, alters the heart, devours good and amplifies evil, strengthens the flesh, sharpens movement—and can even restore life.”
A tiny spark flashed in Luo Ren’s mind. He felt he was almost there—but the spark still needed fuel.
The shaman continued, “I suddenly realized that ‘suffering possession damage’ and ‘being possessed’ are two different things.”
That was it—the missing fuel.
Luo Ren’s mind cleared instantly. He leaned back on the couch and burst out laughing.
The shaman said, “Oh? Little Radish, you’ve figured it out?”
Luo Ren laughed for a long moment before saying, “Go on.”
The shaman cleared his throat. “Aside from altering the heart—devouring good and amplifying evil, the other effects of the seven-star power are actually beneficial. Put simply, it has many functions. If that one harmful function is shut off, then even if it attaches to a person, it causes no harm at all.”
Wan San cursed. “Holy hell.”
He’d gotten it too.
Yan Hongsha looked anxious. Did everyone understand? Mu Dai stayed calm. “It’s fine. Let them burn brain cells. We’ll listen.”
“In other words,” the shaman said, “they can attach to you, as long as the harmful function is completely shut down. Your blood reacts to ferocious slips that commit evil—but what if it doesn’t commit evil?”
“It’s like cancer genes. Everyone has them, but whether they turn into cancer depends on how they’re regulated.”
If the ferocious slip shut down its harmful function and committed no evil, then instead of poison, it became a kind of miracle herb. The Phoenix Luan Clasp’s power would lose its target—nothing left to suppress.
Mu Dai suddenly understood. “I get it!”
She stared at Luo Ren. “I remember when Luo Ren was injured by the leopard—Senior Brother and Qingmu both said he shouldn’t have survived. When he pulled through, I thought it was…”
A miracle. Love. Medical advances. Sheer willpower.
But in truth, was there no cause behind the effect?
Luo Ren smiled at her. “And do you remember—the leopard buried you underground?”
“I dug you out of the earth. Your chest was still warm. I thanked heaven, thought I’d arrived just in time, thought maybe your martial training let you hold your breath longer.”
Yan Hongsha’s heart jolted. She reflexively looked at Wan San. “Wan San—weren’t you also…?”
Wan San nodded. “It’s possible.”
In Cao Village, when Yafeng and Qingshan set them up and caused a collapse, he had been buried for more than two days.
Yet he’d recovered quickly. Afterward, he’d chalked it up to luck—his nose hadn’t been clogged by mud, and despite the collapse and rain, he’d held on until Hongsha arrived.
Now, thinking back, a chill ran through him.
Was it because of the seventh ferocious slip?
It hid silently, without revealing itself, shutting down “ferocity” and “evil,” dispersing itself quietly among the five of them—incidentally benefiting them. And it was precisely because of those benefits that it remained hidden so safely.
The shaman’s voice turned tense. “Little Radish, we’ve always said that ferocious slips may be intelligent. In their long struggle against the Phoenix Luan Clasp’s power, they’ve been evolving. If this were a war, this round is a new tactic developed after learning from repeated failures.”
The early ferocious slips failed, which meant the Phoenix Luan Clasp’s power had emerged—and that the ferocious slips’ defenses had partially collapsed. So, in secret, they regrouped, counterattacked, and prepared their final act.
The fourth slip deliberately began targeting Luo Ren and the others, recognizing each of them, identifying the enemy.
The fifth—represented by Yafeng—was the first assault. It was flawed but clearly directed. When it failed, Yafeng said, “You’ll end up like us eventually.”
That line wasn’t just foreshadowing the ultimate goal of the seven slips. In hindsight, it was deeply significant—because by then, the seventh slip was already in place.
The sixth slip—the leopard—launched a near-overwhelming assault, like a violent storm. They suffered terrible losses, nearly wiped out.
But from the broader view of the battlefield, whether the first six won or lost didn’t matter.
Because there was still the final killing move. As long as the seventh slip couldn’t be found, all attempts to trap the first six would eventually be undone.
The seventh slip was the mastermind behind the scenes. It never charged into battle, never bared its fangs. Calm as a mountain, it watched the others fall one by one, unhurried and unafraid.
To a degree, those failures were necessary sacrifices—meant to mislead and blind the enemy.
The game board was still firmly in its hands. It was the true core. Those shrugged-off defeats were nothing more than scratching through a boot.
It wanted them to never find it.
Because it was already on them.
On all five of them.
Maria Lian On CFRFGC Chapter 110