The Last Ratcatche

Chapter 1: Midnight Invasion
Moonlight bled through cracked windows into the abandoned granary where Zhang Jian, the village head, knelt beside a jagged hole in the floor. The scattered rice grains glittered like broken teeth under his flashlight. His calloused fingers dialed a number burned into memory: "Lao Chen? We need the 'Iron General' again."

Chapter 2: The Steel Whisperer
Chen Tieshan, 62, was the last craftsman in East China who still forged metal rat traps by hand. His One Way Door Cage—reinforced with self-designed "anti-escape barbs"—were modeled after 1950s Shanghai plague-control designs. While the world bought plastic glue trap, Chen hammered zinc-plated steel in his smoke-filled workshop. "Rats learn faster than humans," he’d growl between sips of bitter tea. "Only the clang of metal reminds them of predators."

Chapter 3: The Duel
Infrared cameras revealed their nemesis: a one-eared Norway rat, its fur scarred from decades of surviving poisons and traps. This warlord would send juveniles to test cages, even stuffing corn husks into trigger mechanisms. Chen responded by welding serrated "wolf teeth" along the doorframe. "Let’s see if your whiskers outsmart my steel," he muttered.

Chapter 4: Storm’s End
When the typhoon hit, the rat army mobilized. Chen arranged his cages in a kill zone, each baited with sesame-oil cotton balls. At 3:17 AM, thermal imaging captured the showdown—the one-eared rat king reared up, paws slamming the cage door... only to trigger the secondary lock, its flesh snagged on Chen’s barbed teeth.

Epilogue: Legacy
Months later, agricultural officials found Chen’s yellowed 1984 National Patriotic Health Campaign Certificate beneath his tools. Now, his grandson livestreams sales of stainless-steel traps to foreign buyers, the click-clack of the mechanisms echoing the same deadly rhythm that haunted rats for generations.