Chapter 19 Section VII

Every once in a while, Huifan would go out of the city from Yanxing Gate on horseback.Many people in Chang'an City know that Huifan has a manor with an area of ​​more than 300 mu in the east of the city. It is not the temple property of the three temples he manages, but his personal private property.However, many people don't know that Huifan also has a dilapidated abandoned garden with a size of only a few mu beside Longshou Canal not far from his manor. On May 18th, Hui Fan brought Cui Hao to this abandoned garden.It seemed that this was originally a garden with two or three courtyards, and it looked very dilapidated from the outside, but the inside of the garden, at least the front yard where Cui Hao was at this time, was cleaned up, obviously there were often people living here.

A famous Chenzhou bamboo mat was spread under the pergola in the courtyard, on which there were wine, food, snacks and fruits, but there was no one in sight. "Enjoy some snacks here, and I'll be back when I see someone." After speaking, Hui Fan rode away in a hurry.Hui Fan's attire today is a bit special, he only wears a very ordinary gray linen monk robe, white socks and green shoes, and he can't tell the identity of the three major temple masters at all. Cui Hao was a little curious about this garden.He found that the pergola in the courtyard was not the common ivy or wisteria, nor the precious grapes from the Western Regions, but a medicinal herb called Cuscuta.The strange aroma in the air suggests that there must be more rare plants in the back garden.

The fragrance of these rare plants is a great temptation to Cui Hao.He felt that he might have a morbid enthusiasm for plants, which also prompted him to visit every famous garden inside and outside Luoyang, the eastern capital, and made him a young man with extensive knowledge of plants that did not commensurate with his age. He took an early-ripening red-seeded melon from the table, and walked casually towards the back garden.Sure enough, behind it was a medicine garden with a size of two or three acres. There were hundreds of kinds of medicinal materials in one row, one clump, and one pot, and they were all well taken care of and grew very lushly.Cui Hao very much hopes that he can also have such a medicine garden, planting flowers and weeds here every day, it is really an infinite pleasure!He also felt a little funny, if he had a successful career in Chang'an, why worry about a small medicine garden?

Suddenly, he had a strange feeling in his heart, and found a smell hidden in the air under the strong fragrance of flowers. At the same time, he also found two or three strange plants under the farthest wall of the garden. When Cui Hao approached those plants, the strange smell became more and more intense.This is not the smell of plants, although Cui Hao saw a large area of ​​the highly poisonous drug that was banned by the royal family - kudzu. This kudzu is also called Hu Mancao. Its leaves are highly poisonous. After people eat it, they drink cold water and the poison will be released. Only sheep blood can detoxify this poison.However, this kudzu has a bitter taste and is difficult to eat, so very few people will eat it by mistake.Moreover, kudzu does not have such a strange smell, it is unbearably stench, and it seems to come from outside the wall in bursts.

There is a dilapidated corner door by the wall, the vermilion paint on the door has been peeled off, and the wooden boards have already cracked with large and small gaps.Looking through the gap, Cui Hao saw another small courtyard next door, where two people, one old and one young, were busy in front of a big stone desk.Cui Hao moved his eyes to a thick gongsun tree by the wall, and he finally discovered the source of the smell. There were two black objects wrapped in dense fishing nets hanging from the tree. Although they had been swollen and decayed for many days, it was still possible to tell that they were the corpses of two people.Below the corpse was a piece of fertile black soil, on which grew many strange red mushrooms, large and small.This mushroom is slender in shape, with a pointed head covered with fine fluff, and its body presents a coquettish red color.Cui Hao knew this kind of mushroom, because its shape resembles a brush used for writing, so it is called "Phantom Pencil", which is highly poisonous.

Looking at the two people beside the stone table, they both had cloth towels soaked in water covering their mouths and thick cloth bags on their hands.The older one is chopping several dried phalloides on the table with a bamboo knife, while the younger one is pouring the chopped phalloides into a stone bowl and grinding them carefully. Finally, the young man poured out a pinch of fine gray powder from the stone bowl, and the old man put the powder into a drunken red porcelain bottle.The porcelain vase was no bigger than a human palm. In the process of doing all this, the two have always been cautious, even a little trembling.

They should be more careful, Cui Hao thought.This poison, even if it accidentally gets on the skin, can make a person seriously ill.As long as you eat a little bit, you will not be able to drink cold water for life, and once you drink cold water, you will die. Cui Hao had never seen this kind of poison, but he had heard it from an old Persian.This is a highly poisonous poison produced in Middle Earth but modified by the Persians. It is called "bacteria medicine", and its production method is very complicated.First of all, they have to give a medicine lead—that is, a living person is fed a certain amount of kudzu and good food every day, but they are not allowed to drink cold water.When the man grows fat, give him a bowl of cold water and let him die of poison.The dead body is then hung from a tree, covered with fertile soil containing phallus mycelium.When the corpse rots and the juice drips on the ground, the phallus phallus grows, and the fungus medicine is made.

This is a very insidious poison, unlike kudzu which has a pungent smell, not only does it have no smell, it is said that it has a particularly delicious taste in the mouth.If you take this medicine and drink cold water, you will surely die. Cui Hao bumped into this kind of thing by accident, and he was a little scared in his heart.When he quietly returned to the front yard, Huifan was riding through the door. "How's this garden?" Hui Fan seemed not at all wary of Cui Hao. "Not bad. The flowers are very pretty." After seeing the scene inside, Cui Hao felt a little unspeakable fear of the food and drink at the banquet.

"I'm not hungry right now. Let's go back and eat again!" Cui Hao didn't want Hui Fan to be poisoned to death here.But he didn't say much, because after all, this is Huifan's own medicine garden. "Then just wait for me." Saying that, Hui Fan walked around the dilapidated main hall and walked into the back house. Before getting on the horse and going out, Cui Hao noticed that Master Huifan put a small drunken red porcelain bottle into the saddle bag.