Hanshan Temple, located just outside the city of Suzhou, is one of the top ten famous temples in Chinese history, and since the Tang Dynasty, countless literati and writers have left their mark here. One of the most famous is Zhang Ji's "Fengqiao Night Park", in which the poem reads: "Hanshan Temple outside the city of Gusu, the bell rings in the middle of the night to the passenger ship. The midnight bell of Hanshan Temple has also become a major feature of the temple, attracting many believers to come to worship the Buddha and pray for blessings.
During the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty, this ancient temple had a horrific case of extermination, and overnight, all the monks and pilgrims in the temple died tragically, and none of them were spared. Who did this?
On the day of the incident, it was the 60th birthday of the abbot of Hanshan Temple, and he invited many pilgrims who often come to the temple on weekdays to listen to the Dharma and share vegetarian food. The pilgrims all happily went to the appointment, bringing incense and gifts, to Hanshan Temple. The temple is bustling with people smiling and serving pilgrims.
At dinner time, the chef of the temple prepared a special dish for everyone, there is a bamboo forest behind the Hanshan Temple, it is lush all day long, the chef is also a person who understands wild food, and the vegetarian food is famous far and wide, coinciding with the big birthday of the host, he made a bowl of fragrant somen noodles for the guests, one takes the meaning of longevity, and the other is beneficial to the body and mind.
The abbot and pilgrims alike praised the dish and praised the chef's skills. The chef was also complacent, secretly tasted the soup and thought it tasted good.
After the meal, the abbot and pilgrims chanted and prayed in the main hall until late at night. The chef is in the kitchen tidying up the dishes and chopsticks and preparing for a break. Unexpectedly, as soon as he lay down, he felt dizzy and weak, and his limbs were weak, and he immediately fell unconscious.
Early the next morning, another group of pilgrims came to Hanshan Temple, wanting to worship the Buddha with incense. However, they waited for a long time, but they did not see the temple door open. They wondered in their hearts, Hanshan Temple would never open so late, could it be that something happened?So, they pushed open the temple door and walked into the temple, trying to find the monks in the temple.
However, as soon as they entered the temple, they were frightened by the sight before them. I saw that the temple was full of corpses, both monks and pilgrims, all of whom were purple-faced, stiff-bodied, and died in a miserable state. The pilgrims were terrified, not knowing how these people died, and not knowing who the ** was. They hurriedly ran out of the temple and reported the case to the government.
When the government learned of this, it was also shocked, and the county order did not care about the promotion to inquire about the case, so he immediately sent a servant to investigate, and he also rushed to the scene of the crime in a small sedan chair. They examined the bodies carefully and found that they had all died in the same state, but there were no external injuries on their bodies.
They searched the inside and outside of the temple again and found no suspicious traces. This made them very confused, what kind of case is this?
Just when they were at a loss, they found the unconscious cook in the kitchen, and everyone rescued him, and after a while, the cook woke up slowly, and the room was surrounded by people in the public gate, and the cook was startled, and hurriedly struggled to get up.
When the county magistrate saw that the cook reacted so strangely, he made a look at his subordinates, and everyone rushed up and tied up the cook, and the cook saw such a battle, and hurriedly shouted that he was wronged, and the county magistrate didn't care about returning to the county office, so he directly began to ask about the case on the spot, but the cook himself couldn't tell what was going on back and forth. I just remember that he made a noodle soup with mushrooms, and then he fainted.
They listened to him and felt a little strange, so they followed him to the backyard.
There, they saw some very large and beautiful mushrooms, and two holes, in which white gas was bubbling and hissing sounds. They curiously took a closer look and took a few steps back in fright. It turned out that there were countless poisonous snakes hidden in the mouth of the cave, and those mushrooms were actually poisonous mushrooms.
Only then did they understand the truth, it turned out that the chef mistakenly put poisonous mushrooms into the noodle soup as mushrooms, which caused the whole temple to be poisoned and died. And he himself did not die because he only drank a mouthful of soup, but was in a coma for a while. They asked him again that the mushrooms came from **, and he said that they were picked from the dirt mountain in the backyard.
They went to check on the dirt mountain again and discovered an amazing secret.
Originally, this dirt hill was called "Snake Mountain" by the locals because there are many poisonous snakes inhabiting the mountain. Because of the expansion, Hanshan Temple occupied part of the Snake Mountain, and dug up the soil on the mountain, making the Snake Cave exposed. And those mushrooms are so big and beautiful because they absorb the venom of snakes. These mushrooms are more poisonous than ordinary poisons, and once consumed, they will die instantly.
The county magistrate understood all this, and sighed in his heart, this is really a providential disaster. In order to calm the panic of the people and give an explanation to the deceased, he decided to clean up the snake mountain, burned one of the snake caves with fire, and left the other snake cave as compensation for the snake. He also ordered Hanshan Temple not to be expanded, to restore the original appearance of Snake Mountain, so that the snake has a place to live. Since then, Hanshan Temple and Snake Mountain have been safe, and similar tragedies have never happened.