Chapter 114: What Is This?

“Has the horse been eating the feed?” Li Rui wondered if it might be related to the forage.

“The beans in the trough haven’t been touched at all; it’s just eaten some dry grass,” the stableman Liang quickly reported. He had called Li Rui over because the horse’s feeding behavior seemed unusual.

Li Rui looked inside the manger, which was filled with fodder. He pushed aside the top layer of grass and saw black beans and yellow beans beneath. However, some of the ‘black beans’ looked strange. Taking one up, Li Rui examined it closely and then asked Liang, “What is this?”

He held out the ‘black bean’ in his palm, watching Liang’s expression carefully.

“It looks like a black bean, but it’s larger and has a rougher surface,” Liang replied.

These black beans were unlike the usual kind; their surfaces bore grayish-white and dark brown patterns. Though they resembled black beans, they were slightly bigger.

“Are you sure you don’t know what this is?” Li Rui asked again, though he already had his suspicions. He was deliberately questioning Liang because, in past years, some soldiers had mistakenly eaten wild castor beans, thinking they were wild hazelnuts.

Before the shell is removed, the fruit’s outer skin is green and covered in spines. Once peeled, the seeds inside resemble castor beans—similar to black beans but somewhat larger. Usually, it’s easy to tell them apart, but the uninformed often confuse them.

“Sir, I really don’t know,” Liang admitted, growing nervous under Li Rui’s repeated questioning. He feared that the presence of this item might have caused some trouble, which was why Li Rui kept pressing.

“This is a castor bean, and it’s poisonous. I recognize it. Do you know how many of these beans Teng Yi has eaten?”

The castor bean and its leaves are toxic, yet they are also used in traditional medicine, depending on the dosage and method of use. So if Teng Yi had truly consumed these beans, it could be very dangerous. Nevertheless, from his current mental state, Teng Yi seemed relatively fine.

Castor bean poisoning usually causes vomiting, persistent diarrhea, fever, rapid heartbeat, low blood pressure, convulsions, and if untreated or if the intake is large, death occurs within three to five days.

“Sir, I only added feed once yesterday. The rest was given to A Xin to handle,” Liang said, realizing the situation was more serious than he had thought. If anything happened to Teng Yi, he, as the stableman, would be responsible. But then he recalled that he had asked A Xin to help with feeding.

“Besides you, someone else fed Teng Yi? Didn’t I say that feeding Teng Yi should be done by a dedicated person?” Li Rui’s voice was stern and angry. He had specifically assigned a single stableman to care for Teng Yi’s feeding, and now this was not being followed. How could he not be upset?

But looking at Liang, it didn’t seem he was lying. Liang was an experienced stableman who had cared for horses for many years without incident. Perhaps there was another reason—further investigation was needed.

“I know my mistake. The other stableman who was with me went home to visit family, so the stable was short one person. I was too busy to manage alone, so I brought in a young apprentice from the manor to help,” Liang explained, kneeling down in apology when he saw Li Rui’s anger. Currently, with only one person, it was indeed hard to keep up, so seeking help was understandable.

“Bring the other stableman who helped you here. I want a thorough investigation into how these castor beans ended up in Teng Yi’s feed. Or is there someone deliberately sabotaging him?” Li Rui said, seeing Liang’s fear and understanding the situation. He said no more but insisted on bringing A Xin for confrontation to find out where the problem truly lay.