A narrow iron strip, its edges slightly curled and covered in rust.
Shen Le stared at it for a long time but could not tell what it had once been. Only the note attached to the box revealed its history:
A bayonet—or rather, a fragment of one. It had once belonged to a company commander of the Eighth Route Army. After his ammunition ran out, he used this bayonet to stab through the chests of three enemies in succession.
A palm-sized piece of iron, rotten beyond recognition, with jagged patterns along its edges.
According to the records brought by the Special Affairs Bureau, this piece had belonged to a member of a broadsword unit. The brutal marks on it were cracks that had split open when he cleaved down Japanese invaders.
A... crooked iron rod? An iron spearhead?
It was the twisted head of a red-tasseled spear, the weapon of an elderly militiaman. While covering the villagers' retreat, he used this ancestral red-tasseled spear to hold fast at the mountain pass—
"Locked himself together with an enemy and rolled off a cliff, leaving no remains. The villagers enshrined the spearhead and worshipped it during seasonal rites."
There was another strange object, shaped like a three-sided box. Shen Le racked his brains over every weapon he knew, but none matched it.
Only later did he learn that it was a broken rake tooth. It had belonged to an ordinary farmer, who had used this farming tool to smash a Japanese invader's head apart...
One after another, and then another. Fighting desperately, heedless of their own safety, heedless of the growing wounds on their bodies, they clutched that rake tightly until the moment they died...
Piece after piece, large or small, most covered in rust and utterly unrecognizable. They did not even