Plague Doctor

After the vomiting, the team still conducted gastric lavage on him to pump out the remaining 50 grams of soil. Then his vitals slowly dropped down to slightly higher than average level. All 10 participants of the clinical experiment showed the same result. After consuming the soil, they all showed symptoms of food poisoning like stomach ache and vomiting. 6 of them even vomited blood.

The medical team conducted a gastroscopy on all the 10 patients. They discovered there were bloody scars on their intestinal walls and gastric mucosa. This was probably due to the patients’ rapid ingestion of soil. The harsh particle of soil grated against their fragile organ walls. The medical teams immediately applied anti-bleeding treatment and hooked the patients up to IV and blood glucose. Acute haemorrhage of the intestinal tract was nothing serious, the more serious issue was the change to the patients’ state of mind.

After the experiment, all 10 patients became so agitated, they almost lost their mind. 5 patients, including Wang Jinbo had to be sedated. They kept howling for a different type of soil. They levied horrible words at the doctors and nurses. The patients cursed them for trying to take their lives.

If the patients had no appetite or could not perform normal food consumption, the doctors could still inject nutrient cocktails into their body to maintain their health. But the mental problem was a different issue. For now, they could use sedatives, but if the situation worsened, they would have to opt for induced coma and nervous impairment surgery…

Even if Phecda had the best resource, this was not a direction they wanted to take. Si Kouxian had experienced this conundrum before. The patients of Mutated Scale Disease complained of incessant itchiness and now patients of Locust Sickness had the desire for specific soil. Because of that, they might have the same pathological history, their minds were affected by some kind of ritual or dark forces. Phecda even suspected that force came from the mutated area. However, Phecda temporarily could not do anything to advance into the mutated area.

Were they supposed to give the patients the abnormal soil? Or should they go for nervous system impairment surgery? Lobotomy? These suggested clinical projects were sent to the command central. Nervous impairment surgery and lobotomy would cause irreparable damage while providing the patients with the abnormal soil might progress them to the next stage of the illness.

During Headmaster Chui’s autopsy, the medical team came up with a question: Was the patient infected first and thus had the desire to consume soil or did they first consume soil and got infected?

Now the situation with Mr. Wang presented another problem, the patients desired the abnormal soil for the soil itself or the locust eggs inside the soil? The size of the abnormal wasteland was quite large. Some of the soil contained clusters of locust eggs, some did not.

The first problem could not be clarified. A normal person would not suddenly gain the desire to eat dirt. Furthermore, there were still 300 plus people missing. They probably were mentally affected before they started to get the desire to ingest soil. However, there was no evidence to support that. No records could be found about Headmaster Chui’s first intake of the soil. But if they could clarify the second problem, then they could derive the answer for the first problem.

If the patients were first mentally affected and compelled to consume the locust eggs, if this was the pathological process, then no matter how many normal or abnormal soil they had ingested, as long as the patients were not given the eggs, they would not proceed to the next stage. In other words, these patients infected by Headmaster Chui still did not have any parasite inside their bodies, they did not carry any pathogen. If that was the case, as long as they were banned from interaction with the locust eggs and perhaps moved out from Mo Bei, it would help quarantine the spread of disease. In terms of treatment, the teams could try giving them Mo Bei soil or even abnormal soil without locust eggs.

However, the other possibility was the patients started to carry parasites once they were mentally affected. The moment they ingested the correct soil, the eggs would grow, and reproduce inside their bodies.

Or Headmaster Chui was only infected after ingesting the locust eggs but he became a pathogen carrier from it. The new patients infected by Headmaster Chui had parasites in their bodies through exposure to the carrier even though they had not personally ingested the locust eggs… This was the worst and most inexplicable outcome.

For now, Phecda had no idea where the 300 plus missing persons were and they could not tell what was so special about the abnormal soil other than the presence of locust eggs. From the analysis of the soil composition, the abnormal soil was no different from other soil samples taken from Mo Bei. It had no radiation poisoning.

Due to the worsening condition, the command central eventually gave the order to conduct another clinical experiment. The experiment had to be performed to gain the result.

Around 10 pm on the 17th of March, the quarantine base was busy. Wang Ruoxiang rubbed her temple and tried to focus.

6 patients would participate in this experiment. Four of them had just participated in the earlier clinical experiment with the normal soil, 2 of them vomited blood, 2 did not, one of them was sedated; the remaining 2 patients were not part of the previous experiment.

Due to the unknown pathological mechanism of Locust Illness, the whole experiment was dangerous. For now, all they knew was that the infected students and teachers had listened to Headmaster Chui’s speech and were present when he exploded.

The patients might start to breed parasites once they ingested the abnormal soil before eventually self-imploding. From that, the illness would continue to spread. All 6 patients would be carefully monitored but the command central would not be watching it live. In fact, not all members of the medical teams would be part of the experiment.

There were only 3 people working the frontline of this experiment. They were tasked to monitor the cameras and rush into the quarantine room if necessary. All 3 of them were prepared for possible infection. “I know how to read the patients’ mental state, I know spells and I am familiar with emergency rescue.” One of the three was Wang Ruoxiang who volunteered. She wanted to contribute after being quarantined for so long. Gu Jun was missing, Wu Siyu was mentally absent, Deng Ximei and the One ventured into the mutated area, it was about time she did something.

Elder Tong accepted her voluntary offer. The danger of this experiment was no less than entering the mutated area, but this was Wang Ruoxiang’s intention. Other than Wang Ruoxiang, the other two were the nurse, Lin Size and the Investigator Department member, Chen Xiang. Both of them knew the Ancient Seal.

The 6 experiments would not be conducted simultaneously. If the first patient caused great quandary, then the rest of the experiment would be halted. The participant of the first experiment was a 18 years old male student named Zhou Kewen. He was part of the previous experiment. He did vomit blood and was given sedative.

In the room, Zhou Kewen was half fixed to the bed. His legs were bound together but he could still move his hands. Despite the sedative, he was still quite active. The sickroom door opened and a drone cart moved in. The door was closed. The cart only had a 50 gram of brown abnormal soil on it. It did not contain any locust eggs.

“Ah, ah…” Zhou Kewen’s heart rate rose immediately as he started to struggle. Before the cart reached his bed, he already lunged towards it. The speaker at the corner crackled with Wang Ruoxiang’s voice, “Student Zhou, please try to control your speed of ingestion. Be careful to not injure your oesophagus…”

Her advice fell on deaf ears. Once Zhou Kewen’s trembling hands reached the soil, he stuffed them into his mouth. His expression was demented.