Tokyo: Rabbit Police and Her Evil Partner

Chapter 266: Forbidden Garden Mist Sprout
The assistant was so scared that he broke out in a cold sweat, but driven by greed, he still went in.

His job is to make money from dead bodies and to profit from their blood. He had thought this through clearly when he entered the industry.

Since the dead can be used to make money, why not corpses?
The assistant calmed down, pulled out the knife he carried with him, and planned to scrape a handful of tea leaves from the 'tree man'.

He bent down and moved closer, vaguely feeling that the man was still alive. He reached out and touched his chest, but found no heartbeat and no breathing, like a half-dead vegetable.

It was not advisable to stay here for long, so he scraped the leaves off in a few strokes, put them in his pocket, and fled in a hurry.

That night, the assistant soaked the tea leaves, found a homeless man, and tricked him into drinking the tea. As a result, the homeless man was fine, he could run and jump, and no ghosts were seen.

He didn't know what went wrong and felt unwilling to accept it. He tossed and turned in bed, thinking about it.

At this time, his girlfriend came to play with him, and the two of them applauded for love. After they were done, his girlfriend was thirsty, so she drank the remaining half pot of tea as barley tea. The next morning, when his girlfriend got up, she saw her deceased uncle and couldn't help but let out a loud scream.

Before the assistant could figure out what was going on, Onoue Feng came with several bodyguards to kick down the door. The latter found that the tree man was different and found the camera at home. He immediately guessed the assistant's evil intentions and beat him up.

The assistant begged for mercy, claiming that he was possessed by a ghost and promised that he would never do it again. Perhaps because of the relationship between master and apprentice over the years, Onoue Suu felt compassion and did not kill him to silence him. Instead, he took him home and forced him to drink "Nue Tea".

That’s right, the leaves from the tree man, after being specially roasted, become the so-called Nue tea, also known as “Forbidden Garden Mist Buds”.

According to Onoue, the Fukuyama family has been cultivating Nue tea since the Meiwa era. When the Emperor's daughter, Tomiko Ichijo, suddenly suffered from hysteria and claimed to have seen the ghost of Emperor Sutoku at the "Ugetsu Tea Ceremony", it was this tea that caused the evil.

In order to prove that what he said was true, he unfolded a scroll of "Forbidden City Imperial Prescriptions". On the yellowed paper were leaf specimens and a note saying "In the third year of Tianming, twenty exotic tea seedlings were presented from the southern foot of Mount Ruishan."

In the autumn of the seventh year of Meiwa, Emperor Momozono's special envoy, Oe Gomon Kenshige, buried twelve monks alive under the foundation of the "Ugetsu Teahouse" while supervising the construction of Murin-an in Arashiyama.

During the Obon Festival of the following year, a strange sight occurred during a rainstorm night: a ghost appeared in the pavilion and mournful cries were heard in the water harp cave.

This is the origin of the Wulin Temple legend.

After Emperor Momozono died, the remote Murin-an gradually became deserted. The Fukuyama family, who had been practicing medicine for generations, lived in seclusion there until Prince Fumihito found the place according to the family tree, and they moved to the foot of the mountain.

The assistant still remembers that after Onoue Tail finished explaining the origin of Nue Tea, he added in a gloomy tone:
"This is not tea, this is medicine, the elixir of life."

Women who drink Nue tea will have specific visions and see ghosts. Ojou Feng firmly believes that this tea has divine power, so drinking it can make people see through yin and yang.
When men drink Nue tea, their skin will become corky, moss-like hyphae will grow in their pores, their vocal cords will degenerate into hollow ducts, and their breathing will make sounds like wind blowing through a bamboo forest. Finally, the vitreous body of their eyes will gradually become cloudy and crystallize, and eventually burst into a Nue tea bud, turning them into an immortal tree man.

The assistant was horrified, thinking this wasn't immortality, this was clearly death and being used as fertilizer!
He had just drunk Nue tea, and when he thought about turning into a tree man, he kowtowed and begged for mercy, asking Ojou Feng to spare his life.

"This is a great fortune, you must cherish it, most people don't have this opportunity," Onoue sewed him a red pill and said, "The Fukuyama family has been improving Nue tea for generations, and it's very effective. With this medicine, we can become gods in the new world. Now we just need someone to test the medicine..."

The assistant was forced to try the medicine. He had to take the red pill with Nuecha every once in a while. This lasted for nearly a year, and he did not experience any side effects. Ojou Feng was very relieved. She thought the improved medicine was effective and the assistant had become immortal.

People's greed will always expand infinitely. After having Nue Tea, Onoue wanted to monopolize the "tea garden", that is, Murin-an. So she took the initiative to find Princess Kiko to recommend herself and tried to defraud the land and real estate, but she died accidentally during the spiritual ceremony. The assistant did not know the purpose of Onoue's trip, but Fushimi Kakashi and Minamoto Tamako had guessed Onoue's purpose after hearing this. Before coming, Onoue repeatedly told the assistant: "You have taken Nue Tea, no matter what, you can't get close to the mature tree man!"

"Why?" The assistant didn't understand.

"Because the tree people will pollinate immature seedlings." said Ooue Tail.

At that time, the assistant did not understand what these words meant, nor did he understand why a tree man appeared in Murin-an. Until now, when Prince Akishino's body was exposed, the tea aroma in the air became stronger, and his whole body began to itch, he realized why Oue Susamu had issued a warning.

Fushimi Shika had let go of his hand long ago and retreated several steps, but the assistant was unaware and continued to tell the story woodenly - his skin was visibly dry and his stratum corneum was getting thicker and thicker, like dry bark. When he finished his last sentence, his skin suddenly cracked and buds shaped like flower stamens emerged.

It was raining outside, but there was fog in the lobby.

Under the gaze of everyone, the assistant slowly stood up, his eyes becoming increasingly cloudy. He walked forward in a daze, like a sleepwalker, across the lobby, and knelt in front of Prince Fumihito's body. He raised his hands stiffly, holding Prince Fumihito's wooden head, leaned back slightly, and then suddenly knocked it upwards.

Snapped!
The assistant's forehead was torn and blood was flowing.

He seemed to feel no pain and continued to hold Prince Fumihito's head and kowtow until his skull cracked and his brains splattered, and then he collapsed in front of Prince Fumihito.

A moment later, Prince Akishino's wooden head cracked open like a blooming flower bud, extending dense plant tentacles and inserting into the assistant's skull, making a 'gurgling' sucking sound.

Fushimi Shika felt that this scene was very familiar. He recalled it carefully for a moment and the scene before his eyes overlapped with the documentary about Cordyceps sinensis.

It's really disgusting...

He felt physically uncomfortable watching it.

After a moment, Fushimi Shika realized that there seemed to be something wrong with his body - the back of his neck was extremely itchy and he wanted to reach out and scratch it.

Ono Xuan screamed loudly, turned around and fled back to the bedroom; Yazaki Momo's legs were trembling, but her hands were still steady as she took the photo; Gen Tamako and Fushimi Kaka looked at each other and realized that things were getting serious.

"Didn't you say that the tea that Mrs. Kiko brewed was picked from the backyard?" Fushimi Shika asked with a sullen face.

"That's true, but..."

Yuan Yuzi's eyes fell on the doorbell. This bell could automatically sense someone knocking on the door without any circuits. This reminded her of the various strange phenomena that had occurred before: the sliding door on the second floor opened inexplicably, and a tree man appeared in the pavilion on a rainy night... Combined with the legend that Wulin Temple trapped lost travelers, she suddenly had a creepy guess.

"Maybe... this old house is alive."

(End of this chapter)