Chapter 256
Chapter 256: They Are All Hallucinating From Poison Like Eating Mushrooms
[Wait, what is going on, did she show her true form?]
Jiang Tea Tea’s heart gave a hard jolt. She started to doubt herself and quickly lowered her head to look.
Human hands, human legs, a human body.
She was human from head to toe!
[Hey, how did they find out she is a tree spirit?]
[They are even shouting that they are hungry at me. What, do they want to eat me?]
“Leaves, they are really leaves.” Sui Xuan Chu staggered over to Jiang Tea Tea, reached out and yanked her hair. He pulled off a piece, held it in his hand, and lifted it up to look: “Yo, my roommate really is a tree. I plucked a nice green leaf from her head. Look, it is really green!”
Huang Da Zhuang also came over to tug Jiang Tea Tea’s hand, saying: “What do you mean leaves, nonsense. This is clearly branches and leaves, so thick and strong.”
Cheng Lin Yue sat down on the ground, hugged Jiang Tea Tea’s leg, and rubbed her face against it: “Yes, yes, such a thick tree. I like this thick trunk. It is so comfortable to hug.”
Orange Sparrow Yan Yu, Cheng Xiao Ting, and Zhang Ting Zhou, the four of them came over too and surrounded Jiang Tea Tea in a circle. Their eyes were hazy, their movements unsteady, silly smiles all over their faces: “Sister Tea is so fierce, so sturdy. She has so many branches, and her leaves are so green.”
“Heh heh heh, what do you all say? Sister Tea has so many branches. Should we trim some branches for her and thin out the leaves so she can grow thicker, taller, and bigger?”
“Hahaha, my schoolmate is a tree. I am going to stand at the very top of the M31 Star System and announce to all the common citizens of the M31 Star System that my schoolmate is super cool and awesome, and make all those grandsons die of envy.”
“Right, right, who else has a comrade-in-arms as awesome as ours? A tree. Where in the M31 Star System do you see a tree turning into a person? She is so cool, she really is, I love her so much.”
“I love her so much too. I want to tie a swing to her branches and swing under her tree and make all those grandsons die of envy.”
They crowded around Jiang Tea Tea. Some hugged her arms, some hugged her legs. Whoever wanted to touch her head touched her head, whoever wanted to touch her hands touched her hands. Every one of them was baring their teeth in goofy grins with no attack power at all, laughing like a bunch of fools.
Jiang Tea Tea stood in the middle, surrounded by them. She looked at them, blinking her eyes, then turned her head to look at the big clay pot at the side that was giving off the fragrant smell of poison.
She understood. She got it now. She had even thought through where to bury them already, but they were not seeing her demon form. They were poisoned.
Because of the poisoning plus a lucky coincidence, they could see her true form. It was not that she had really shown her true form.
She really had not expected that the formula she worked so hard to create, using thirteen kinds of poison in a fight-poison-with-poison method to turn it into a detox agent, would have such powerful impact!
No wonder that, back in the Demon Realm, on the mountain estate where the Fallen Immortal refined medicine, there was not a single living thing that dared to breathe loudly, except for him and the demons who came to ask him for pills.
Jiang Tea Tea struggled free from all the arms and legs wrapped around her. She was just thinking about how to make them return to normal when her light-brain wrist terminal rang.
She raised her wrist to look. It was a call from Chong Ming.
She swiped to answer. Before she could speak, Chong Ming’s deep voice came through: “Jiang Tea Tea, how is it over there?”
“There was a small accident.” Jiang Tea Tea glanced at Sui Xuan Chu and the others. After she pulled free from them, they had all collapsed limply on the floor in unison. It was like they imagined themselves to be bugs, wriggling on the ground in strange ways and making rustling sounds like chewing leaves.
Chong Ming’s voice tightened: “What kind of small accident?”
Jiang Tea Tea tapped to turn on the camera for a video call: “See for yourself.”
Through the screen, Chong Ming looked at the seven people wriggling on the ground, then he turned his own camera around.
Jiang Tea Tea looked at his video, so shocked that her jaw almost dropped to the floor: “Th-this, when did this happen?”
He was not in his office now, but out on the office floor outside his office.
The staff on that floor should have been like Chong Ming, strict and serious, working in a proper and correct way.
Now not a single person was working. Some were taking off their clothes and dancing. Some were shouting about big grasshoppers and running everywhere to hit big grasshoppers with things. Some were croaking like frogs. Some had turned into their beast form and were rolling all over the floor. Some, like Sui Xuan Chu and the others, had turned into bugs and were wriggling on the ground. There were also some crying and wailing like the sky was falling.
Chong Ming turned the camera back at himself: “This all happened within ten minutes. It is not only my office floor. The entire Imperial Military Headquarters has been hit, except for some people with level S supernatural abilities.”
“Luckily, Cai Xi Chao, Cheng Yuan, and a few others are still clear-headed. The deployment at the Imperial Military Headquarters has been taken over by the automatic systems for now.”
“You tell me, who is the culprit who knocked out my whole Imperial Military Headquarters?”
Who was the culprit who knocked out his whole Imperial Military Headquarters?
Who else could it be?
Was he not asking while already knowing the answer?
Jiang Tea Tea, who always dared to take responsibility, let out an awkward dry laugh: “Well, sorry, the culprit is me. I did not think the poison broth I cooked would knock out so many people. I thought I only knocked down Sui Xuan Chu and the other seven.”
“I am really sorry. This is my first time cooking this poison. I have no experience.”
“By the way, did Cheng Yuan check the people on your side? What did he say?”
Waterloo. A demon life’s Waterloo.
It was as embarrassing as when she soaked in the river and almost floated up dead.
[There is no way to go on living like this.]
Chong Ming took her embarrassed expression all in and said: “Cheng Yuan already checked. He said it is mild poisoning. It will not affect their supernatural abilities, and it will not harm their bodies. It is just like being drunk, wobbling around and seeing hallucinations.”
“He has gone to mix medicine now. Once the medicine is ready and we pour it straight down their throats, the poison can be cleared. It is not a big problem.”
Jiang Tea Tea patted her chest in relief: “Thank goodness, you scared me to death. I thought they were poisoned too deeply and would be hard to treat!”
Being like drunk people and seeing hallucinations made her think of a nine-tailed cat demon from Yundian in their Demon Realm.
That cat demon liked to go into the mountains after rain to dig up mushrooms. No matter if the mushrooms were poisonous or not, as long as it dug them up and picked them, it would gobble them down.
Even though its spiritual power was not weak, it still got mushroom poisoning eight or ten times. After it got poisoned, it would either practice cultivation like crazy, or fight like crazy, or start hallucinating and think it was still a little kitten, treat other Great Demon Stage demons like old mother cats, and pull at their clothes to look for milk.
Chong Ming answered her: “Yes, it is not a big problem. You do not need to worry too much.”
Jiang Tea Tea put away the big clay pot. The medicine inside was full to the brim, but not a drop spilled. She volunteered: “I will go find Cheng Yuan and help pour the antidote?”
Chong Ming was silent for a moment: “All right, go.”
Jiang Tea Tea gave him a proper salute: “I promise to finish the mission. I am hanging up!”
She cut off the call on her light-brain wrist terminal. Before leaving, she looked at Sui Xuan Chu and the other seven, who had been wriggling on the ground like bugs earlier. Now they had already “broken out of their cocoons into butterflies”, waving their arms, turning into butterflies that should fly and dance, except they just could not get off the ground.
To help them return to normal sooner, Jiang Tea Tea quickly rushed toward the potion room where Cheng Yuan was.
On the way, the guards she met were either standing there polishing guns for no reason, or taking apart guns, or wiping the walls, or rolling all over the floor. There were even some pretending they were big tree branches while quacking “quack quack quack quack” like ducks.
When Jiang Tea Tea found Cheng Yuan, he had finished mixing the detox agent. There were several big barrels of deathly black potion.
Each barrel weighed more than a hundred pounds. You just took a tube, sucked up a tube full from the barrel, then poured it into the mouth of anyone showing symptoms.
Jiang Tea Tea, Cheng Yuan, and several people with supernatural abilities above level S, including Kong Que, who had just come with Zhong Li He to see Chong Ming, the commander in chief, each carried a barrel in their left hand and a tube in their right. Whenever they met someone with symptoms, they would squirt a tube full into that person’s mouth.
The people who got a mouthful of potion at first had no reaction. Then a strange mix of five different flavors shot straight to their heads. After that rush, they woke up and then clutched their mouths and started dry heaving.
The door of Chong Ming’s office was wide open. The sounds of retching from outside rose and fell without stopping.
Zhong Li He listened until he even wanted to throw up himself: “Chong Ming, you are really something. You really do trust your schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea.”
She had knocked out his entire Imperial Military Headquarters. He not only admired that skill of hers, he even wanted to give her a thumbs-up and loudly praise how awesome she was.
Chong Ming lifted his eyelids and looked at him: “She is the mother of my youngling, my future partner, and the future commander in chief of the three armies. Of course I trust her.”
Zhong Li He took a big step to move next to him and asked: “You are really training her to be the commander in chief of the three armies? She fits all your expectations?”
Chong Ming raised his chin a little, pride in his voice: “Did you not already know? She does not just meet all my expectations. She surpasses them.”
Zhong Li He’s sapphire eyes rolled: “She spent one night with you and got pregnant with your youngling. That shows she matches you very well. Have you never thought about…”
Chong Ming knew what he wanted to ask and cut him off: “I had already accepted a long time ago that I would not have any younglings. Now that a youngling has come, I am very happy.”
“I never thought of letting her stay in the Imperial Palace all the time just to give birth to younglings. She has many kinds of supernatural abilities. She should stand high above and shine brightly.”
“Mm, it would be best if she can take my place within ten years, the crown prince can take the throne, and I can step down and stop working, and just live off the two of them.”
Zhong Li He: “?!!!”
He really should not have asked that extra question.
Asking that one question was no different from tearing open a bag of dog food himself and scooping two bites into his own mouth with his paws.
Seeing Zhong Li He regretting his own nosey question, Chong Ming gave him a finishing blow: “I cannot explain it to a male like you who has no partner and no younglings.”
Zhong Li He almost choked from anger. What was wrong with him not having a partner or younglings?
Was it that he could not find a partner?
No. It was that being single was happy, and being single was free.
Otherwise, with his looks and his beast form, what kind of partner could he not get, what kind of phoenix egg could he not produce?
As more and more people at the Imperial Military Headquarters woke up and joined in pouring the potion, in less than an hour all the poisoned people had been given medicine and were fine.
Jiang Tea Tea took out the medicine she had simmered in the big clay pot. She did not know if taking this medicine would detoxify them, kill them, half-kill them, or cause some other totally unexpected result.
Cheng Yuan tested her medicine. The result was that it looked extremely poisonous, but in fact the properties of each herb were blending together in a clever way.
According to the black medical arts he had studied, things like acupuncture and fighting poison with poison were normal but bold ways to detoxify.
But faced with this cauldron of medicine, even Cheng Yuan could not tell if it would actually work, if it could be used, or how it should be used.
Seeing Cheng Yuan staring at her cauldron of medicine and struggling inside, Jiang Tea Tea asked: “How about I drink a bowl first, and after nothing happens, we let others have a bowl?”
Cheng Yuan snapped out of it and refused without thinking: “No. You cannot drink it. Absolutely not!”
She had five younglings. If something happened, that would be one corpse with six lives. Who would dare let her drink it?
Even if all eighteen generations of his ancestors stood right here, he still would not dare.
Cheng Lin Yue weakly raised her hand at the side: “How about I drink it?”
Huang Da Zhuang also raised his hand: “And me…”
Cheng Xiao Ting did not hesitate: “Me, me, me…”
Orange Sparrow and the others also raised their hands: “Me, me, us.”
Sui Xuan Chu did not back down either: “Me!”
Jiang Tea Tea looked at the seven of them. They really did share blessings and hardships. They knew it was poison, yet they did not hesitate at all.
“No.” Cheng Yuan refused. “You are all too young to drink this medicine. I will find a few white mice to test it first…”
“I can, I can.” Huang Da Zhuang suddenly interrupted Cheng Yuan again: “Healer Cheng, Sister Tea, I can.”
Jiang Tea Tea looked at Huang Da Zhuang. His beast form was a big golden dog. He was the first beastman she had felt close to after she arrived here.
Now he was the first to stand up to test the medicine. She should have agreed, but what came out of her mouth was a refusal: “No. Listen to Healer Cheng. We will find a few white mice to test it first.”
“It is okay, Sister Tea.” Huang Da Zhuang opened his light-brain wrist terminal: “Look, my dad and mom sent me a message. They said that our ancestors, back when technology and medicine were not so advanced and our human form was not stable, would automatically awaken a herb-recognizing supernatural ability when they were hurt or poisoned.”
“In the last more than one thousand years, when technology has developed fast and medicine has become advanced, and injuries and poisoning can be healed anytime and anywhere, no one in the clan has awakened this supernatural ability. But it cannot be denied that our race has a natural, hidden supernatural ability to recognize herbs.”
“If I drink this medicine and get poisoned, I might awaken the herb-recognizing supernatural ability. I can find herbs for myself to eat and detoxify myself. I will not let myself die. Believe me.”
Jiang Tea Tea was still hesitating.
Huang Da Zhuang pushed again: “Sister Tea, let me test it. The fact that I could awaken my supernatural ability and go from a useless male with no powers to where I am today is all because of you. It is my luck to have met you.”
“I believe I will keep being lucky. Give me this chance. At worst I will just turn back into a useless male again. I am already very used to that. I will not have any mental shock.”
“Besides, I am doing this for the infected hosts, for the public. I believe that if something happens to me, my idol, my heartthrob idol, will not treat my parents badly and will even give me a hero’s title. No matter what happens, I will have gained.”
Jiang Tea Tea looked at him, her gaze growing deeper and deeper. She thought it over again and again, then made her decision: “All right. Let’s go. We will find a mountain with a wide area covered in many kinds of herbs. After you drink the medicine, if something happens, it will be easy to find herbs.”
Everyone present had no objections to his proposal. They started searching for a mountain on the capital planet that had a wide area covered with many kinds of herbs.
After many people searched, they found a mountain with the widest plant coverage. The whole group went there in a big, mighty line.
When they arrived, they put all kinds of instruments, trackers, and surveillance devices on Huang Da Zhuang, half of all the gear they brought.
Huang Da Zhuang changed into his beast form and lay on the ground with his mouth wide open. The medicine was poured straight into his mouth.
Jiang Tea Tea made a spiritual power seal on him. She stared at him without blinking, watching him and feeling the changes in his body.
The healers, researchers, bodyguards that Cheng Yuan led, and Sui Xuan Chu and the others, all stared at Huang Da Zhuang without blinking.
The medicine took effect very fast. One second Huang Da Zhuang was still fine. The next second he suddenly did a death roll on the ground, foamed at the mouth, his heart sped up, and his blood flowed backward.
The instruments of the surveillance system beside him let out sharp, deadly alarm sounds.
The other healers and researchers nearby cried out when they saw this and scolded them: “This is bad. His current state is poisoning. It is the sign that he is about to be poisoned to death.”
“I told you this fight-poison-with-poison method that only exists in black doctor studies is not suitable at all for beastmen with supernatural abilities in the interstellar space age.”
“Schoolmate Jiang Tea Tea, Healer Cheng Yuan, you two are too rash. You used such an excellent dual supernatural ability beastman as an experiment. In my view, you are not trying to find a detox agent, you are trying to take his life!”