The assistant, drenched in cold sweat, still forced himself to enter under the drive of greed.
In his line of work, he made money off the dead, feasting on the blood of others. He had already come to terms with this when he entered the industry.
If spirits could be used to make money, why not corpses?
The assistant calmed down, drew out a small knife he carried with him, and planned to scrape a small handful of leaves from the ’tree man’.
He bent down, leaned closer, and vaguely felt that the person was still alive. When he touched the chest, there was no heartbeat or breathing, feeling more like a half-dead vegetative state.
The assistant felt that this place was not suitable for a long stay, and with a quick scrape of the leaves, he stuffed them into his pocket and fled in panic.
That night, the assistant brewed the handful of leaves, found a homeless man, and tricked him into drinking the tea. However, the homeless man was fine, was able to run and jump, and saw no spirits.
He didn’t know what went wrong. Feeling unsatisfied, he lay in bed, tossing and turning, pondering.
At this time, his girlfriend came over to play. After their intimacy, the girlfriend was thirsty and drank the remaining half pot of tea as barley tea—The next morning, when the girlfriend got up, she saw her deceased uncle and couldn’t help but scream.
Before the assistant could figure out what was going on, Oogami Nui came with a few bodyguards and kicked the door open. The latter found something strange about the tree man and discovered the camera at home. They immediately guessed the assistant’s crooked thoughts and beat him up.
The assistant repeatedly pleaded for mercy, claiming that he was momentarily possessed and promised never to make the same mistake again. Perhaps out of consideration for the years of teacher-student relationship, Oogami Nui was moved to compassion, didn’t kill him to silence him, but forced him to drink ’Ye Tea’.
Yes, the leaves from the tree man, after special roasting, were the so-called Ye Tea, also known as ’Forbidden Garden Mist Bud’.
According to Oogami Nui, the Fukuyama Family began cultivating Ye Tea in the Meiwa Era. Back then, a court lady of the Taoyuan Emperor, Ichijou Tomiko, suddenly went hysterical, claiming to see the spirit of Emperor Sutoku at the ’Rain Moon Tea Room’, caused by this very tea.
To prove her words were true, Oogami Nui unfolded a scroll of the ’Forbidden Imperial Medicine Recipe’. On the yellowed paper were leaf specimens marked, ’In the 3rd year of Tenmei, twenty exotic tea seedlings were offered from the Ruishan South Slope.’
In the autumn of the 7th year of Meiwa, the special envoy of the Taoyuan Emperor, Oinomikado Akimoto, buried twelve monks alive under the foundation of the ’Rain Moon Tea Room’ when overseeing the construction of the Wulin Temple at Arashiyama.
The following Obon Festival, a strange scene appeared on a stormy night—the pavilion suddenly appeared with ghostly shadows, and the Water Bell Cave emitted wailing mourns.
This was the origin of the Wulin Temple legend.
After the death of the Taoyuan Emperor, the remote Wulin Temple gradually became deserted. The Fukuyama Family, practicing medicine for generations, occupied and secluded themselves within, until Prince Akihito, guided by ancestral records, found this place, and they moved to the foot of the mountain.
The assistant still remembered vividly when Oogami Nui, after recounting the origin of Ye Tea, added in a gloomy tone:
"This isn’t tea, this is medicine, it’s the Elixir of Immortality."
Women who drink Ye Tea would experience specific hallucinations, seeing the spirits; Oogami Nui firmly believed this tea had divine properties, believing that drinking it allowed communication between the mortal world and the afterlife;
While men who drank Ye Tea would experience cork-like skin, moss-like fungi growing from the pores, vocal cords degenerating into hollow tubes, making sounds like wind in a bamboo grove during breathing, eventually causing the vitreous humor of their eyes to progressively crystallize and burst forth with Ye Tea buds, becoming an immortal tree man.
The assistant was terrified, thinking this wasn’t immortality, this was clearly dying to become fertilizer!
He had just drunk the Ye Tea as well, and upon realizing he might turn into a tree man, he repeatedly kowtowed, begging Oogami Nui to spare his life.
"This is a great blessing, you should cherish it, most people wouldn’t have this opportunity," said Oogami Nui, giving him a red pill, "The Fukuyama Family is constantly improving Ye Tea with remarkable results. With this medicine, we could become gods in the New World, we just need one person to test the medicine..."
The assistant was forced to test the medicine. Every once in a while, he had to take the red pill along with Ye Tea, continuing this for almost a year, during which he showed no side effects. Oogami Nui was pleased, thinking the improved medicine had worked and that the assistant had become immortal.
People’s greed is endless; with Ye Tea, Oogami Nui also wanted to monopolize the ’tea garden’, which is the Wulin Temple. So she took it upon herself to find Princess Nakako to recommend herself, attempting to swindle the property of the land but unexpectedly died during a Spirit Summoning Ceremony—The assistant did not know her intention for the trip, but Fushimi Roku and Minamoto Tamako, upon hearing this, had already guessed Oogami Nui’s motive.
Before leaving, Oogami Nui repeatedly warned the assistant, "You’ve drunk Ye Tea, no matter what, do not approach the matured tree man!"
"Why?" the assistant didn’t understand.
"Because the tree man can pollinate the immature seedlings," Oogami Nui had said.
At that time, the assistant didn’t understand what it meant, nor did he understand why tree men would appear at Wulin Temple, until now, with Prince Akihito’s corpse exposed, and the fragrance of tea in the air growing stronger, the itching all over his body, he finally realized why Oogami Nui had warned him.
Fushimi Roku had already let go early, stepping back several steps, but the assistant remained oblivious, continuing to narrate blankly—his skin visibly shrivelled, the stratum corneum growing thicker, resembling dried bark. When he finished the last sentence, his skin suddenly cracked, sprouting flesh buds resembling flower stamens.
Even though it was raining outside, fog rose within the hall.
Under everyone’s gaze, the assistant slowly stood up, his eyes growing increasingly cloudy. He walked forward in a daze, like a sleepwalker, passed through the hall, knelt before Prince Akihito’s corpse, and stiffly raised his hands, holding Prince Akihito’s wooden head, his body tilting slightly back before suddenly knocking it forward.
The assistant’s forehead split open, blood gushing out.
He seemed immune to pain, continuing to clutch Prince Akihito’s head, repeatedly kowtowing, until his skull cracked, and brain matter splattered, then collapsing softly in front of Prince Akihito.
Moments later, Prince Akihito’s wooden head cracked open like a blossoming bud, extending plant tendrils which bore into the assistant’s skull, making a ’glug-glug’ sucking sound.
Fushimi Roku found the scene familiar. After a moment of reflection, it matched a documentary on Cordyceps.
It was truly disgusting...
Even he felt a bit physically uncomfortable.
A moment later, Fushimi Roku realized that there seemed to be an actual problem with his body—an intense itchiness at the back of his neck, compelling him to scratch.
Ono Ken screamed loudly, turning to flee back to the bedroom; Yazaki Momo’s legs trembled, but her hand for taking photos was still steady; Minamoto Tamako and Fushimi Roku exchanged glances, realizing the gravity of the situation.
"Didn’t you say, the tea brewed by Lady Nakako, was picked from the backyard?" Fushimi Roku asked with a stern face.
"That is indeed true, but..."
Minamoto Tamako’s gaze fell on the doorbell, which could sense someone knocking without a circuit—this made her recall all the strange occurrences earlier: the sliding door on the second floor inexplicably opening, the appearance of a tree man at the pavilion during a rainy night... Coupled with the legend of Wulin Temple trapping lost travelers, she suddenly had a chilling suspicion.
"Perhaps... this old house is alive."