Plague Doctor

At the Phecda Base deep inside Mo Bei City’s Chi Lin Town, the special training class that started around Lunar New Year would be over in another half a month. Over the course of the training, Chen Jiahwa’s life was harsh but fulfilling. He formed a deep bond with his partner Deng Ruotong. This was common for many trainees. It was not unusual for paired couples to get closer in enclosed space. None of the trainees knew how they did and whether they could join Phecda after their training ended, the only thing they could do was to give it their all.

Today was the day long awaited by the trainees because several VIPs would be coming over for guest lectures. Even though Wu Siyu and Gu Jun were not part of the line-up, they’d still get personal lessons from Lou Xiaoning, Peacock and Malachite. The lecture was scheduled around noon but before the lecture started, the trainees were told that the class was cancelled. Their main lecturer, Prof Shen announced with concern, “Students, there are some accidents that occurred at Mo Bei so they have to go attend towards it.”

Inside the big classroom, the students were silent as they looked at each other. They were nervous. What kind of accidents?

Chen Jiahwa shared a look with his partner, Deng Ruotong. They exchanged thoughts through micro expression, they both noticed Prof Shen’s tone was heavier than usual. ‘What is going on…’ Chen Jiahwa wished to know more but he knew he was still too inexperienced. Deng Ruoxiang took a deep breath and the faces of her old friends who perished in the legionella pneumonia epidemic floated before her eyes.

“Students, I know you have a ball of passion within you.” Prof Shen looked around and said encouragingly, “You’re all valuable seeds, but you still need time to grow. The best thing you can do now is to continue your training. This incident temporarily does not affect us and hopefully it won’t any time soon.”

The trainees understood the message. They all nodded.

…

At the same time, emergency physical checks were being conducted at Mo Bei Division’s Medical Department. After Tian Fuhou, Mai Dong, Ma Zhengxin and Bian Yi, the four suspected patients were quarantined by the disease control centre, they were arranged for various body checks and contagious disease inspection. Tian Fuhou had a nosebleed at the mutated tree farm and he reported feelings of nausea and listlessness. The people from disease control confirmed that the nosebleed was due to damage to the pituitary membrane. The nosebleed stopped after an ice-pack was applied. The old man said that he felt fine when he woke up that morning. Despite his age, he worked the tree farm every day so he had enough exercise to ensure a healthy body.

On the way to the medical base, Mai Dong and the rest showed similar symptoms. Mai Dong’s condition was the worst. She too suffered from nosebleed; While Ma Zhengxin and Bian Yi only reported feelings of nausea and listlessness. “There’s no pain.” Ma Zhengxin had trouble describing his feelings. “It’s like every bone and muscle in my body is slowing down, it is like car sickness in a way…”

Before the results came out, the doctors could not make any diagnosis. Other than the minor burn marks on Tian Fuhou and Bian Yi’s arms, they did not suffer any surface injury. And their symptoms were common enough for many illnesses.

But when the results arrived, the doctors at the base were shocked.

“There’s a relatively low level of lymphocyte, granulocyte, and blood platelets in their bodies, there’s also a delayed erythrocyte reaction…” The main physician, Yuan Yongqing said as he studied the blood test results. What kind of force would cause such severe damage to the patients in such a short amount of time? A thought crossed his mind. Deficiency of peripheral red blood cells, nausea and vomiting were typical preliminary symptoms for acute radiation sickness!

The diagnosis was perfectly rational but it was hard to believe. Atomic radiation? But Bei Mian Village was not close to any radioactive buildings, there wouldn’t be any sudden radioactive corruption… But the science could not be wrong.

But then again, there was a 300 cubic metre mutated land at Tian Fuhou’s tree farm. The remaining trees were still disappearing and the soil turning charred. The smell of death sucked away any life force, and everything was moving towards the apocalyptic. With the presence of abnormal forces, anything was possible.

“Grab the bolometers now!” The people at command central quickly mobilized. The result was sent to the headquarters. The members of Spell Department were dispatched. The Medical Department continued with biometric inspection of nuclear radiation injury on the four patients. Even though there had been new recent development in this field, the process was not as simple as a blood test. Blood routine examination was only useful for early detection but to find out the exact biometric radiation dosage, many other analytical methods had to be applied.

Tian Fuhou and the rest undertook trichoscopy, cytogenetics inspection, radiation-induced molecular study…

Gray (Gy) is the most common unit used to measure radioactive dosage. 1 Gy means that 1 joule of radioactive energy is found inside each kilo of the studied substance. Human body will have no acute sense of pain but will suffer from low blood cell count when exposed to radiation as low as 0.25 Gy; when radiation reaches 6 to 30 Gy, the human body will react with nausea, vomiting and stomach ache. Death is common at this stage if immediate surgery is not performed; When the radiation is over 30 Gy, the patients’ central nervous system will be damaged and symptoms include headache, blurred consciousness, fainting spells and so on. The chance of survival at this stage is very low… Of course, in unique cases where there is constant radiation exposure at a specific spot, there might be skin ulcers, mutation and so on as well.

In this case, if the four patients really did suffer from radiation sickness, then their radiation dosage would be at least over 6 Gy already… What awaited them was a long and painful suffering before death came as a release.

…

On the other hand, the Snow Dust immediately started their inspection of the mutated area once the military bolometers arrived.

“Lead, leader…” Liu Wenhan adjusted the bolometer and he stammered as he studied the data that came back on the monitor, “There’s radiation, there’s definitely radiation here!” That announcement sent a tremor through the command central and the site.

“Evacuate now! Evacuate now!” Lee Weiqian shouted urgently. The Snow Dust ran as fast as they could away from the tree farm. They had drawn faces. The airtight suit they had on was not fitted with professional radioactive protective gear. In other words, they too had been exposed to radiation.