Plague Doctor

Chapter 256: Silent Room

“This, this drug...” Uncle Dan’s voice was laced with excitement, and the faces of the people around him changed. In the petri dish, some of the area had formed clots of bacterial colonies in stationary phase, their growth speed was staggering; while in other areas, namely the spots which had been added with the tested drug, had no sign of bacterial colony formation. This medicine was effective against the new strain of legionella pneumophilia! It was effective!

A light cut through the darkness. He Feng and his team were so excited that they lost their power of speech. Even though a stream of cough evoked from them, hope renewed their hearts.

“It’s effective, Doctor Gu, your medicine is effective.” He Feng said between coughs, “We’re saved, we’re saved...”

Gu Jun’s breathing turned heavy. After a temporary blank in his mind, these thoughts appeared. ‘This disease is indeed not haemoptysis, because the foreign civilization already has the drugs to deal with this. The foreign civilization probably has mastered the pathology of this bacteria. How much did the Afterlife Cult contribute during the cultivation of this bacteria?’

Gu Jun quickly snapped out of it. Now was not the time for theorization, they were on a race against time. The ships had received the same drug samples already. He picked up his phone to call. “Command central, drug test no. 1 is effective! Please order a molecular and chemical analysis of it immediately!”

“Roger that!” A powerful voice came through. Gu Jun could hear cheering in the background. Now he handed the work over to the research team. The earlier they finished the analysis, the earlier they could manufacture this drug en-masse.

‘Hurry up, hurry up.’ Gu Jun urged. ‘This drug will be something history making, this is the dawn of a new era, not the pestilence.’ However he was not blindsided by his hope. He still had his anxiety. With humanity’s current scientific level, even the most experienced scientist might not be able to come up with the complete molecular structure of every substance, especially when it came to a drug that came from a foreign world. How many percent of it could be analysed and replicated would be a problem... Also it was still unknown whether the bacterial strain would develop an immunity against this drug or not. But now this was indeed a new ray of hope.

Currently Gu Jun had 20 anti-inflammation pills, 15 were on the ship and the lab had used 1 during the drug test so they had 4 left. Recently normal system missions no longer rewarded actual medicine anymore but old photographs to digest mental corruption, then again that could be viewed as some kind of ‘psychological medicine’. Gu Jun believed the pills had to be taken 1 to 3 times a day and 2 pills each time. To be honest, he had no idea about actual dosage, that was merely his educated guess. These 4 pills might just be enough to extend a patient’s life for one day. But the current patient number at this hospital had amounted to the thousands. Some of them were seriously ill and would not live to see the next sunrise. The first patient, Huang Guoxin died after 34 hours...

Gu Jun had no idea how long it would take for the researchers to come up with the result but he knew that most patients would not survive until that day. With that knowledge settling in his mind, his heart turned heavy but he tried to calm down. ‘I need to go and check on those early patients to see if I can trigger any illusion in their presence... Perhaps one of them might be a person of importance in this whole incident...’ This was not a logical thought but he was not dealing with a logical pandemic either... This pestilence had to be stopped and the number of patients had to be curbed.

With a heavy heart, Gu Jun had He Feng lead him, Peacock and Uncle Dan away from the lab towards the wards. Along the way they were still accosted by patients but this time the way was cleared much easier because most of the patients had been claimed by listlessness. A nudge and they crumbled like dominoes. Soon they arrived at a quarantine room. He Feng said between coughs, “This patient, Shen Haoxuan was infected by Huang Guoxin because he shared the same bus with the latter.”

“Okay.” Gu Jun pushed open the door and entered. The stench was separated by the gear. He saw a young man lying in the middle of the bed. His patient’s garb was dirtied by bloody saliva, corrupted lung tissues and other vomit. His cyanotic face was covered in the same filth.

“Uncle Dan, we have to save him!” He called out as he charged forward. Most of the patients died from asphyxiation due to the vomit clogging up their respiratory tract. Once he reached the bedside, he flipped over Shen Haoxuan’s eyelids, a pair of cloudy white eyes stared back lifelessly at him. Gu Jun gritted his teeth as he continued to help clean away the vomit and conducted heart resuscitation. However, no matter how hard he pressed, the young man in the bed showed no response. After a while, Uncle Dan said softly, “Ah Jun, he’s gone, he’s no longer with us anymore...”

“Ah...” Gu Jun groaned like a trapped beast. But who could he blame? There was a lack of hospital staff here.

“Aiz.” Uncle Dan sighed. It was always painful to witness the loss of a young life. This was not an old man in his seventies, this was a young man who had not even started his life’s journey yet. The land’s travellers were silent, they were looking at the manifestation of the Bloody Lung Disease in their legends...

“26 hours.” He Feng gasped in shock. “It has only been 26 hours since Shen Haoxuan registered at the hospital.” A young man should have a strong immunity system but he passed away faster than Huang Guoxin’s 34 hours.

“It’s probably the bacterial density in the air that has gotten higher.” He Feng suggested, “Through inhalation of these corrupted air, it exacerbated their conditions.” Gu Jun looked around, this was not a quarantine room, it was just a normal sickroom, there was not even a gas tank.

“Come, let’s go visit the other patients.” Suppressing the sadness, he left the room. They took a swift walk around the ward. Shen Haoxuan’s parents had both passed away as well. The couple was quarantined at the same time as their son did. They died about 20 hours after they were infected. Shen Haoxuan’s friend, Liu Hui had died as well, he died 27 hours after he was infected...

There were other patients who were confirmed to be on the same bus as Huang Guoxin. The bus driver, a young couple, a middle-aged woman, they were all dead. The next sickroom to visit was Doctor Huang Lin’s. Her symptoms showed around early dawn, and it had only been 20 hours since then. Gu Jun knew that Doctor Huang also graduated from Eastern State Medical University, she was his senior. They heard no coughing coming from inside the room and their hearts sank...

They walked into the room and saw Doctor Huang Lin collapse in her bed. She was surrounded by vomit as well as paper and pen that had fallen out of her grasp. Her pretty face was ashen and filthy. Her eyes were diluted and gave no response to light. There was no pulse and heartbeat. Doctor Huang Lin was also dead.

“Ah Jun.” Uncle Dan shook his head. He Feng coughed with difficulty. Peacock and the rest pulled back Gu Jun who tried to apply emergency rescue. Eventually Gu Jun stopped struggling. He picked up the medical history report on the bed and saw pages of the good doctor’s will, “My condition is worsening. Based on what happened to Huang Guoxin, I’ll lose my consciousness by tomorrow. I might not be conscious enough to write a will then so I’ll have to finish it now. I will write until I am unable to...”

Gu Jun studied the handwriting that was blurred by tear spots and he felt his own eyes brimming. “Senior, thank you for your service and rest in peace.”