Chapter 155 LSD

Yang Meng was not joking when he said he wanted to brew his own alcohol. True to his word, as soon as the guests left, he started building a clay stove.

Building a traditional earthen stove is truly not a task for an average person. In ancient times, specialized craftsmen were required for projects like building brick beds and stoves. They had to account for various factors such as airflow flues, return air grooves, and draft control rings; otherwise, the finished stove would fail to cook food properly.

Nowadays, this craft has almost been lost in cities, though some rural areas still retain such stove-building artisans. Traditional stoves are entirely earthen in structure, using only clay bricks and adhesive mud as raw materials.

Moreover, there are many traditional rules regarding stove placement. For instance, a stove should not be built in the northwest corner of a house. There is even a proverb: "Stove in the northwest, the family patriarch's downfall." It suggests that if the stove is located in the northwest, the master of the house is prone to illness.

While many people nowadays consider this to be feudal superstition, it actually has a solid scientific basis.

In ancient times, food could not be preserved for long periods. Having the stove in the northwest meant the kitchen was also in the northwest, a direction that receives a high frequency of sunlight, causing food to spoil easily. Consuming spoiled food over a long period naturally led to illness.

The wisdom of the ancestors should never be underestimated!

However, building an earthen stove was a piece of cake for Yang Meng. Even nowadays, every household in his hometown uses earthen stoves; how could he not know how to build one?

Once built, the stove could not be used immediately and had to dry completely. Waiting is the most boring part, but fortunately, Duan Bowen had made thorough preparations. The study was packed with books, and the kitchen was stocked with various kinds of food. This made it convenient for Yang Meng to stay indoors. Lying in bed, eating snacks, and reading books—if this wasn't enjoyment, what was?

While he was enjoying himself, someone else was losing patience.

At Xiantan Taoist Temple, Yunlong furrowed his brows tightly. "Junior Brother, you said Yang Meng would definitely come. Why hasn't he shown up yet?"

Yunhe frowned as well. "That shouldn't be... I heard Yang Meng wants to brew wine, and brewing requires good water. I specifically had Duan Bowen tell him the good water is here. Why hasn't he come to fetch any?"

Actually, Long Teng's initial arrangement to send Yang Meng to Handong Tiandi was a unilateral decision on his part. Although Handong Tiandi was built by the Long Group, only one rooftop duplex belonged to the Long family, and even that did not belong to Long Teng—it was left by Long Mingyang to Long Nanyao!

After all, Long Nanyao had been studying abroad in the West, and her mindset was westernized. That was the kind of residence she liked best.

The reason Long Teng blurted out Handong Tiandi was his firm belief that his father would agree to it.

However, right around that time, Long Mingyang called. After Long Teng mentioned the matter, Long Mingyang told him to have Yang Meng stay at the house on Fengnan Mountain instead.

This decision was made because, on that very day, Yunhe was playing a game of Go with Long Mingyang there.

Learning that Yang Meng was looking for a place to stay, wouldn't inviting him to Fengnan Mountain to be his neighbor be an excellent way to close the distance between them?

Furthermore, Long Mingyang had accidentally learned that Yang Meng had asked Duan Bowen to help find distillation apparatuses like stills and wooden steamers. Hearing this, he immediately knew Yang Meng wanted to brew wine. Therefore, he asked Duan Bowen to inform Yang Meng that Fengnan Mountain possessed excellent spring water, ideal for both making tea and brewing wine. Then, he simply sat in his temple and waited for Yang Meng to visit. Upon learning of this, his senior brother Yunlong made a special trip from Beijing. Considering who was currently most interested in Yang Meng, it was undoubtedly the people from "Shenwu". As one of the four directors of Shenwu, Yunlong had taken time out of his busy schedule to rush to Beijing, which showed how much importance he attached to Yang Meng.

Yet, after waiting for so long, Yang Meng showed no intention of coming up the mountain whatsoever. Yunhe simply could not understand it. Aside from Fengnan Mountain, there were no other good spots nearby; could Yang Meng really just be holing up at home all day? Was that something a young man of his age should do?

As it turned out, Yang Meng was indeed holing up at home reading books!

Even if he wasn't reading, he couldn't be bothered to go to Fengnan Mountain.

Run all the way up Fengnan Mountain to fetch water and then run back down? Was his brain filled with water?

He did want to brew wine, but things like distiller's yeast were merely props to throw people off the scent.

What was Yang Meng's true intention? To distill the fine wine of Yidi and see what effect it would produce!

He wanted to butter up that middle-aged male immortal. After all, when it came to the path of cultivation, he was completely groping in the dark like a blind man. Although he had been making steady progress along the way, after being brutally beaten by that person, he was practically developing psychological trauma.

Yang Meng's current mindset was to become strong, stronger, infinitely stronger!

While Yunhe and his senior brother were still anxiously guessing when Yang Meng would arrive, Yang Meng had already hopped on his motorcycle and headed for the city: Madman had called him and asked for his help with something.

"Madman, what on earth couldn't you say over the phone? Did you really have to make me make a special trip?" When he arrived at the police station, Ling Feng had been waiting anxiously at the entrance for a long time.

Ling Feng dragged Yang Meng into an empty, secluded corner and mysteriously fished a small plastic bag out of his pocket. "Mengmeng, take a look and see if you recognize this stuff."

Looking at the contents of the bag, Yang Meng said speechlessly, "Sugar cubes? What are you trying to do? Treat me to coffee?"

Ling Feng snorted coldly. "Treat you to coffee with sugar cubes? Then you'll be in for a world of pain. There's LSD inside."

Hearing this, Yang Meng gasped sharply. "LSD? Are you talking about the legendary king of psychedelics?"

"That's the one! And that's why I asked you to come help today," Ling Feng said.

Looking at the sugar cube in the plastic bag, Yang Meng's expression turned grave as well.

The LSD Ling Feng mentioned is actually the abbreviation for Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.

In fact, many medical discoveries are products of failed experiments. For instance, Viagra was originally developed as a specialty drug to treat heart conditions; while it proved largely ineffective for the heart, it became a source of confidence for certain men. LSD is much the same: it was originally synthesized in 1938 by the chemist Albert Hofmann when he was trying to develop a new medication to treat migraines, only for him to end up creating this substance.

It is no exaggeration to say that among all psychedelics in the world, if LSD claims to be second, no one dares claim to be first! A single dose requiring just one-tenth the weight of a grain of sand can induce hallucinations in the user lasting anywhere from four to twelve hours. However, this substance is somewhat unstable and extremely sensitive to oxygen and ultraviolet light. Therefore, when used, it is typically absorbed into materials like blotter paper, sugar cubes, or gelatin before consumption—much like the sugar cube currently in Ling Feng's hand.

Just how strong are the effects of this LSD? To put it simply, for a long period, it was actually utilized as a chemical weapon! And the organization that conducted the deepest research into LSD worldwide was none other than the CIA on the other side of the ocean.

Early on, the CIA didn't go by that name, but was instead called the Office of Strategic Services, abbreviated as OSS. At the time, they gathered a large group of experts in neurophysiology with the sole purpose of inventing an "interrogation auxiliary drug"—what modern films refer to as a "truth serum"—to force suspects into divulging intelligence.

To achieve this goal, they employed a variety of drugs, such as pentothal and amobarbital, as well as scopolamine, to create a so-called "honesty drug." People who took it developed an overwhelming urge to talk, but these drugs were difficult to control in dosage and prone to causing fainting, making them low in practical utility.

After the OSS was renamed the CIA, this research continued. The CIA went even further, directly attempting to use various compounds as interrogation drugs to deliberately get subjects addicted before questioning them, but this approach easily led to the deaths of the subjects. They were forced to look for alternatives once again.

What they eventually found was that substances like LSD could lower a person's guard. However, LSD was not a good choice for a "truth serum" either.

Because LSD possesses powerful hallucinogenic effects, administering it to a subject during interrogation meant the information they provided would essentially be nonsensical hallucinations, as the user could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion. Almost everything they said would be falsehoods.

Nevertheless, the CIA did not abandon its research on LSD; instead, it transformed the drug into an "anti-interrogation agent." If an agent were captured, they could take the opportunity to ingest LSD so that during subsequent interrogations, they would babble incoherently. Back in the day, the CIA's assassination plot against Fidel Castro even included a plan to feed him LSD to drive him mad...

During its research on LSD, the CIA also achieved a major industrial feat: at the time, they sustained a pharmaceutical company—Eli Lilly and Company grew to become the largest pharmaceutical enterprise of its era precisely by taking on CIA contracts to manufacture LSD for their research.

The novel *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* was conceived and written by author Ken Kesey while he was working at a psychiatric research center. That very psychiatric research center was, in fact, a psychedelic research facility funded by the CIA.

Unfortunately, after expending massive amounts of manpower and resources, the CIA ultimately discovered that LSD had no other practical use besides being a hallucinogen, leading them to finally abandon the project.

Yet, LSD exploded in popularity.

The famous hippie movement essentially revolved around four pillars: sex, music, marijuana, and LSD.

The most terrifying aspect of LSD was its overwhelmingly potent hallucinogenic effect. While other drugs measured dosages in milligrams, LSD was measured in micrograms, making it the undisputed "king of psychedelics."

However, because the hallucinations induced by the drug were so intense, incidents of users committing murder, suicide, suffering mental breakdowns, and causing traffic accidents frequently occurred. Some users even permanently lost their sanity due to overdoses, earning the drug the moniker "crazy pills." Because of this, LSD was banned from production and sales, classified as an illegal substance worldwide, including in China.

Due to the extreme difficulty of synthesizing LSD, it had never gained widespread popularity domestically. However, in recent years, it had begun showing signs of a resurgence among the younger demographic.

They would soak specially printed sheets of small paper in an LSD solution to create tiny, hallucinogenic paper tabs dubbed "acid stamps." They looked extremely inconspicuous, yet their hazards were not to be underestimated.

The words Ling Feng uttered next left Yang Meng even more shocked: "Liu Zhaoting is dead."