Many people may think that Tai Sui is just a "mysterious power" imagined by the ancients, but in 1992, some people claimed that they really discovered "Tai Sui", so what exactly is "Tai Sui"?
01
A shocking discovery by the villagers
It all started on August 22, 1992, when the season was a good time to catch firewood.
On that day, Du Zhanmeng, a villager who lived in rural Shaanxi, ran out of firewood for the fire at home, so he went to the river at the edge of the village to collect firewood.
Just as he was about to finish the day, he suddenly saw a "foreign body" looming in the shape of a lump of flesh next to a pile of firewood in the river.
This aroused Du Zhanmeng's curiosity, and he wondered what the hell was this.
However, for the sake of safety, he decided to test whether the thing was a living creature first, so he touched the "meat ball" with a "hook" (a long wooden stick) used to find out if it could move.
After touching it several times in succession, Du Zhanmeng found that it did not react at all.
So he boldly salvaged it, and after salvaging it, he found that this "meat ball" looked a bit like a fossil, soft to the touch, and even a little sticky.
He approached the lump and sniffed it, but there was no smell either. What the hell is this? He stared at this meat ball and thought about it for a long time, and he also came up with a reason.
So Du Zhanmeng decided to take it to the village to see if anyone in the village knew him.
When they arrived in the village, the villagers also curiously surrounded this "meat ball" and talked about it. But after talking about it for a long time, no one could tell what this meat ball was.
Because there was still farm work to be done at that time, Du Zhanmeng put this "meat ball" at the entrance of the village and rushed back to work in the fields.
When he returned, he didn't pay much attention to it.
Who knew that when I passed by the entrance of the village the next morning, I found that this "meat ball" was still in its original place, and it had not moved at all.
He took a closer look, and this "meat ball" still maintained the same as yesterday, and there was no peculiar smell at all.
This made Du Zhanmeng very puzzled, it stands to reason that on such a hot day, anything left outside will rot and stink even for half a day.
However, this "meat ball" did not change in the slightest, so he brought this "meat ball" to his home and prepared to study it again.
When he arrived at home, he used a knife to cut open this "meat ball", but after looking at it for a long time, he did not find anything special about the inside of this "meat ball".
Suddenly, he had an idea, can this thing be eaten?
So with the attitude of trying it out, Du Zhanmeng cooked the cut part of the meat ball with water and tasted it.
At first, he didn't dare to take a big bite, but he took a small bite and found that the taste was okay after chewing it in his mouth, so he ate it boldly.
Later, he gave the rest of the "meat ball" to his family, and after they tried it, they all found the taste of the "meat ball" acceptable.
A few days later, something unexpected happened.
It turned out that when Du Zhanmeng was going to eat this "meat ball" again that day, he was surprised to find that the place that was cut with a knife had now grown back.
At first, he thought it was his own delusion, so he rubbed his eyes with his hand, and when he opened his eyes again, Du Zhanmeng found that he was not mistaken.
This magical phenomenon really frightened Du Zhanmeng, you must know that he has grown so big, but he has never seen such a fantastic thing.
After relieving himself a little, Du Zhanmeng felt that this matter was not trivial, so he hurried to the local county seat and reported this "earth-shattering discovery".
02
Scientists do their research
The situation reported by Du Zhanmeng immediately attracted the attention of the county, so an investigation team was immediately sent to his home to investigate.
The news of the discovery of "magical creatures" in his home soon spread throughout the country, triggering countless media reports.
At the same time, many people from other places came to visit, including a biology professor from Shaanxi surnamed Yang.
At that time, the county's investigation team was studying this "meat ball" at Du Zhanmeng's house, and after Yang Xingzhong arrived, he explained his identity to the investigation team.
The two sides hit it off and soon began to study the "meat ball".
Looking at the fleshy object in front of you, which looks like a "fossil", you can't tell what it is just by its appearance.
Professor Yang then gently touched the surface of this "meat ball" with his hand, and found that it was extremely soft and sticky.
Since there was no clue from the outside through observation, Professor Yang cut the "meat ball" and tried to understand what the main ingredients were inside the "meat ball".
When cut open, it was found that the inside of this lump was mainly milky white, and it was more tender than the surface.
Judging from the characteristics of this meat ball, a thought suddenly flashed in Professor Yang's mind, could this be the Tai Sui recorded in the ancient books?
Thinking of this, Professor Yang's heart was extremely excited.
If this thing is really Tai Sui, it will be a major discovery in the history of Chinese science!
Professor Yang put forward his ideas to the experts present, and through everyone's discussion, they all felt that the "meat ball" in front of them was likely to be "Tai Sui".
03
The "legend" about Tai Sui
The earliest record of Tai Sui can be traced back to more than 2,000 years ago, and the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" tells a story about Tai Sui.
A group of villagers, while plowing their fields in the mountains, suddenly dug up a fleshy object half a meter long, which they were very curious about because they had never seen anything like it before.
Some people stepped forward to touch it, and found that the object felt very soft, and one of the brave people used the sickle he carried with him to cut off a piece of this fleshy thing, put it in his mouth and tasted it, and the taste was very similar to meat.
So I kept it at home for the next time. But who knew that after a few days, the place where the flesh had been cut off would grow again.
At that time, the ancients could not make a reasonable explanation for this bizarre phenomenon, so in view of its "dead and resurrected" characteristic, they all believed that eating it could eat immortality, which is also the origin of the name Tai Sui
Li Shizhen of the Ming Dynasty, in his book "Compendium of Materia Medica", described Tai Sui as follows.
This reishi-like thing resembles meat. Therefore, Tai Sui also has another name, that is, meat Ganoderma lucidum.
At the same time, Li Shizhen also regarded Tai Sui as an edible ingredient and medicinal material, believing that regular consumption would have the effect of prolonging life.
Later ancients began to worship Tai Sui as a sacred object, and once they encountered it, they had to keep it intact. Destruction would lead to disaster.
Later, with the passage of time, Tai Sui also extended from the original "medicine" to a prince and a high-ranking person, which means that in life, do not fight with powerful people, otherwise it will bring disaster.
04
The mystery of Tai Sui is revealed
After receiving this hypothesis, everyone was very excited, but due to the poor scientific equipment in the county, further research could not be carried out.
So Professor Yang decided to bring this suspected "Tai Sui" thing to the university laboratory.
At the same time, this matter has also attracted great attention from the leaders of the city, and they immediately called on the key scientific research units in the city to transfer scientific research talents, set up a project team, and go all out to cooperate with Professor Yang's research work.
In addition to the support of manpower, the city also equipped Professor Yang with the most advanced testing equipment at that time.
With the support of manpower, coupled with the help of advanced equipment, the results came out quickly.
It turns out that nearly 30% of the sample is slime mold, but it is a complex similar to a mold organism, and since there is no hyphae during growth, it has a slimy appearance.
In addition to this, it also prefers moist environments, such as piles of rotten leaves, which will help it grow.
One-third of the composition of this sample has been studied, so what substances are the other parts made of?
In view of the backwardness of scientific methods at that time, research came to a standstill for a while, and it was not until 2007 that the research on this "meat ball" made progress again.
At that time, a team of scientists from Northwestern University used a method of separation and rearing to isolate two main slime molds from the samples, and these two kinds of slime molds are very common in nature.
Now that the main ingredients of Tai Sui have been revealed, the next step is to figure out what the other parts of the sample are?
In 2010, a laboratory in Shaanxi Province finally extracted a white flocculent in the sample, which was later found to be called polyvinyl alcohol after being tested by the most advanced precision instruments at that time.
It is a chemical and raw material, mainly used in the textile industry and the medical industry, and cannot be automatically generated.
Since then, the mystery of Tai Sui has finally been revealed, but when all scientists are puzzled, how did Tai Sui have so much polyvinyl alcohol in his body? There is still no answer to this question.
However, it is certain that Tai Sui is not edible, and it is nonsense to say that it prolongs life
05
Tai Sui's growing environment and planting
As a slime fungus complex, Tai Sui especially likes the deep soil where it grows, and places that do not like high temperatures are more suitable for its growth.
It mainly survives by swallowing bacteria and organic matter in the soil, and it is not animal or plant, and its growth will be accelerated when it encounters a suitable environment.
If it grows close to a water source, its "flesh" will absorb too much water, and the flesh will be softer.
Of course, the environment in which Tai Sui grows is not limited to the soil, such as the lake and the surface of the field.
Since 1992, the existence of Tai Sui has also been found in other places in the mainland, such as in 2015, in Sichuan, there were fishing enthusiasts who found a 15-pound Tai Sui when they were fishing
In the same year, a community resident in Liaoning accidentally found a super Tai Sui weighing more than 100 catties in a fast field, which also caused a lot of sensation in the local area at that time.
For those who want to use water to cultivate Ganoderma lucidum, first of all, general water will not work, you must use mineral water, because the minerals contained in it are necessary for the growth of Ganoderma lucidum.