Plague Doctor

“Last night, many of our colleagues fell ill… including Elder Qin.” Tang Zhifeng sighed.

Gu Jun’s brows creased as his heart sank. Pain flickered across his face. ‘Even Prof Qin…’

“Elder Qin’s surgery is arranged to be held half an hour from now.” Tang Zhifeng’s eyes were slightly rimmed red. “The surgery for the others will be performed at the same time. Ah Jun, you will be required to conduct the severance procedure for all of them.”

“Oh.” Gu Jun opened his lips to say something, but in the end, all he could manage was a nod. The consensus at the Medical Department was, once a patient started to show symptoms, the surgery would be arranged as soon as possible to prevent irreparable damage to the necrosis of the nervous system. Since there was still no common doctor who could resist the mental disturbance during the severance, the responsibility fell squarely on Gu Jun’s shoulders.

The previous night, twenty-five colleagues had succumbed to Nightmare Illness. The cases were recorded not only among the researchers who studied the dream but also among the colleagues working in the autopsy building and surgical building. It appeared as if those who had come into contact with the victims of the Nightmare Illness, even the dead ones, had a chance of being infected. Phecda’s understanding of its pathology was thrown for a loop. Furthermore, Prof Qin’s situation seemed to suggest that Nightmare Illness might have a latent period. A lack of symptoms at first did not mean that one was absolutely safe.

A pall of depression hung over the research center. All the precaution that they had taken was in vain; no one could tell whether they would be the next victim or not. Soon, Gu Jun was given the list of the latest victims. As he read through it, his heart sank into the abyss.

Brother Qiang and Surgeon Zhu were both on the list. They were part of the group who had participated in the autopsy of the victims.

‘F*ck…’ Gu Jun cursed under his breath, trying to suppress the agitation and resentment in his heart. Brother Qiang and Surgeon Zhu had taken him under their wings when he first joined Phecda. They were kind and taught him everything they knew. Why did something like this happen to such wonderful people? And of course, he did not forget Prof Qin. They had fallen one after another.

Shrouded in this complicated emotion, Gu Jun put on his scrubs and entered the sterile surgical room to participate in Prof Qin’s surgery. The old man over sixty was lying on the slab. He was already injected with full-body anesthetic and glossopharyngeal sectional anesthetic. His face was as white as the dead.

The atmosphere inside the room was palpably heavy as the crew silently made incisions, peeled back the scalp, and drilled the holes in the skull of Elder Qin. Gu Jun was then ushered over to complete the severance. The moment the metallic ring was ejected, Prof Qin’s wrinkled eyes flew open. His supposedly numb lips and tongue started to move to make this extremely strange sound. The mental pressure weighed on everyone in the room. As others fell back, Gu Jun powered on to sever the other parts. After all the nervous tissue was destroyed, he moved from this surgical room to another to repeat the same process on the others. Prof Qin, Brother Qiang, Surgeon Zhu, and his other colleagues from Eastern State Phecda…

Seeing all the familiar faces take on the mask of madness and illness before his eyes, the agitation deep in Gu Jun’s heart grew.

‘Why? Why is this happening? What have they done to deserve a fate like this?’

It was worth noting that during a few of the operations, Phecda attempted an experimental surgery. During the severance step, the main surgeon was required to put on a brainwave insulation helmet provided by the scientific research department. The main surgeon handled one side during the surgery while the first and second assistants handled the other. Then, the medical crew needed to rest for a while before they could continue lest they risked the danger of brain hemorrhage. After a few of such experimental surgeries, the doctors still reported some discomfort from the mental attack, but it was not so bad that they would collapse. This meant that the method was viable. However, Phecda still saw room to improve. Their next step was to design a medical robot specifically to help with this complicated surgery.

When all twenty-five surgeries were done, it was already 4 pm. Gu Jun walked out of the surgical room and hurried to the conference room in the Psychology Building. Yao Sinian and Tang Zhifeng were already seated there. Elder Tong was in attendance via Skype.

“Ah Jun, thank you for everything.” Even though Yao Sinian was not infected, his face was as pale as the others. “It must not have been easy to perform… those operations. Thank you.”

The discovery of this treatment had given the people in the emergency unit a temporary resurgence of hope, but now that hope had been stamped out. The number of Nightmare Illness cases in Eastern State had reached a record high. And according to the new batch of patients, the old man in their dream was still telling them the number 12. If Gu Jun was correct, just how many more people needed to succumb to this horrendous illness before the old man revealed the next number? If mass evacuation was ordered, thus depriving the old man of his food, would the range of the Nightmare Illness be contained and eventually die out?

“Commander Yao, we need to stay on top of this. We have to do something.” Gu Jun could not help but demand action. He was done being on the backline; he was done watching his friends and mentors walking the lonely road toward death.

Yao Sinian was silent. It was not that they had not been doing anything. They had simply failed to reach a new breakthrough. This new batch of patients had brought them a new problem, one that Yao Sinian was sharing now. “The Medical Department is seriously understaffed. We have to summon in the substitute medical members all over the city, and the number of arranged surgeries is so high that some of them will have to be done in the normal hospital and medical school.”

Gu Jun knew that the so-called substitute medical members referred to people like Prof Gu, Xu Hai, and Senior Zhang Lin. They had never encountered the abnormal before, so it meant that the mental pressure would damage them more… But he also knew that every medical member in the Eastern State had to contribute in this crisis. Though, in this case, the contribution might be their lives…

‘No!’ Gu Jun shook his head. ‘There has to be another way. I only need to search for the truth among the messy information…’

He was reminded of the zombies and the abyssal mission provided by the system. ‘What kind of reward will I get from completing it? Either way, I’m sure it’ll be of immense help in this situation. I cannot stand by and do nothing anymore. I have to complete this mission no matter what.’

Zombies, a graveyard, a bloated corpse… he was still missing something. He needed information. Surveying everything, Gu Jun realized that there was still a missing link that he knew nothing about, the case that Elder Tong was a part of back then. It might be the detail that tied everything together. Gu Jun had followed up on every possible lead except this one because over the past three days, whenever he brought it up, Elder Tong would say that he would tell Gu Jun when the latter was in a better mental state.

“Elder Tong.” Gu Jun now turned to the monitor. “Please tell me everything about the case back then. We cannot wait anymore.”

Elder Tong’s face in the conference room at the headquarters took on a pall of severity. His voice was hoarse. “I have been keeping you away from it because some information about this case is related to spells and some strange, inexplicable things… No one can tell what will happen if a person with high spirituality is exposed to them, especially someone like you. That is why I have been delaying telling you about it, but it appears like we have no other choice.”