Chapter 370 Water Source Turns into Poisonous Soup!

The girl struggled to open her eyes and shook her head: "It doesn't hurt... it's just numb... I feel like this hand doesn't even belong to me anymore..."

Su Yue's heart sank.

Necrosis of nerve endings. This is no longer a simple skin lesion.

She took out her stethoscope and listened to her heart and lungs. The heart sounds were faint, and there were obvious rales in her lungs.

"Open your mouth."

The girl opened her mouth. Her gums had an eerie bluish-black color, typical of heavy metal deposits—either lead lines or mercury lines.

Su Yue straightened up and examined several more patients. The symptoms were almost identical.

Hair loss, tremors, mental abnormalities, tenderness upon percussion of the kidney area...

All the clues point to the same answer.

Su Yue walked out of the warehouse, took off her mask, and took a deep breath of the air mixed with sand and dust.

“It’s not an infectious disease.” Su Yue looked at Gu Beichen and Yu Ming, her tone certain. “It’s poisoning. Chronic, cumulative heavy metal poisoning. It’s most likely mercury, or thallium.”

"Poisoning?" Yu Ming exclaimed in shock. "We do have mines here, but they've been shut down for years! And we've been drinking this water for decades without any problems, how could this suddenly happen..."

Su Yue interrupted him: "Director Yu, has anything unusual happened at the mine recently? Or have any strangers come?"

Yu Ming paused for a moment, then seemed to remember something, and his expression turned somewhat unpleasant.

“Speaking of strangers… there is one.” Yu Ming lowered his voice. “It’s Lin Wan’er. She was transferred back half a year ago, and she’s still the same as before, not saying much. It’s just…”

"What is it?"

"Recently, I've often seen her hanging out with some local hooligans, acting all mysterious. Sometimes she even goes to the abandoned mine in the middle of the night, saying she's going to collect stones."

Su Yue gave a cold laugh.

Picking up stones? More like picking up deadly poison.

“Gu Beichen.” Su Yue turned to look at her husband.

Gu Beichen understood immediately, his hand resting on the holster at his waist, his eyes instantly turning cold.

"Company Commander!"

"arrive!"

"Take some men and seal off the abandoned mine. Don't let a single fly out. Second Company Commander, bring that Lin Wan'er to me. If she dares to resist, shoot her on the spot."

"yes!"

The soldiers quickly dispersed and disappeared into the night.

Su Yue put her mask back on and said to Ming, "Cut off all food and water supplies for all patients and replace them with the supplies we brought. Also, separate the critically ill patients from the mildly ill patients. I need to start detoxification treatment immediately."

Beneath this endless expanse of yellow sand lies not only evil, but also a life-or-death struggle about to unfold.

Su Yue looked at the few withered chimneys.

Lin Wan'er, this time, let's see where you run to.

Just as dawn was breaking, a heart-wrenching scream rang out from the makeshift medical point at Red Star Farm.

"Hold him down!"

Su Yue held a vial of tranquilizer in her hand, her forehead covered in sweat.

The man on the hospital bed was skin and bones, yet he unleashed an astonishing strength that nearly overwhelmed four or five strong men.

The man's skin was like a piece of rotten paper, peeling off at the slightest touch to reveal the dark red flesh underneath.

The most frightening thing was his knees and elbows, which were swollen like steamed buns, with severely deformed joints. His fingernails had long since fallen off, leaving bare nail beds covered in pus and blood.

"No...don't burn me...it hurts..." the man roared, his throat sounding like it was full of sand.

The needle is inserted into the vein, and the medication is injected.

The man twitched twice, then finally stopped moving.

“This is the third person to show symptoms of epilepsy.” Su Yue tossed the syringe into the tray and took off her gloves.

"It must be sealed off immediately!"

An elderly man wearing gold-rimmed glasses suddenly slammed his hand on the table. He was Qi Weidong, the leader of the expert team from Beijing.

"These symptoms, including skin ulcers, neurological damage, and high fever, clearly indicate some kind of mutated ancient virus! Or perhaps a variant of the plague!"

Qi Weidong pointed to the rows of mud-brick houses outside, spittle flying everywhere: "If we don't completely isolate this farm and centrally destroy... no, centrally cremate all the patients, once word gets out, it will be a catastrophe!"

"Cremation?" Su Yue looked at him coldly. "Professor Qi, the person isn't dead yet."

"They're going to die sooner or later! For the safety of the majority, a small number must be sacrificed!" Qi Weidong's face flushed red. "I'm the team leader, listen to me! Notify the troops to put up barbed wire. Within a ten-mile radius, no one is allowed to leave!"

The young doctors who accompanied them looked at each other in bewilderment, some of them already heading to get their protective suits.

"Let's see who dares to make a move."

Su Yue slammed the medical record book onto the table with a loud bang.

"Professor Qi, you've been practicing medicine for thirty years, and you've been treating illnesses by 'burning'?"

Su Yue walked over to the patient who had just calmed down and took his hand, which was covered in sores.

"I saw it clearly."

She pointed to a thin white line at the base of the patient's fingernail.

"These are the Mie curves. Typical signs of heavy metal poisoning."

Su Yue then pried open the patient's eyelids and pointed to the bluish-black deposits around the edge of the gums.

"This is lead wire."

"There's also hair loss, polyneuritis, and visual field defects." Su Yue let go of his hand, took out a freshly drawn blood test report from her pocket, and slapped it directly onto Qi Weidong's chest. "White blood cell count is not high, lymphocyte count is normal, and there are no signs of viral infection. However, there are four pluses for protein in the urine, indicating kidney failure."

"This is poisoning. Thallium poisoning, mixed with excessive levels of arsenic and mercury."

Qi Weidong hurriedly took the form, glanced at it, and looked somewhat embarrassed, but still stubbornly insisted: "This...this is just an isolated case! This place is so desolate that even birds wouldn't bother with it, where would heavy metals come from? Unless these people collectively drank arsenic!"

"Then go check the water they're drinking."

Su Yue ignored him, turned around, picked up the sampling box, and strode out.

"Gu Beichen, come with me to the river."

Gu Beichen stood guard at the entrance, like a gatekeeper. Upon hearing Su Yue's words, he waved and led two soldiers after her without hesitation.

The only water source for Hongxing Farm is a tributary called the Blackwater River.

It's currently the dry season, the riverbed is exposed, the water is murky, and it has an unpleasant earthy smell.

Su Yue squatted by the river, took out a glass test tube, and filled it with water.

She took a bottle of reagent out of the box and put two drops in.

Almost instantly, the water in the test tube turned an eerie orange-red, followed by the precipitation of black flocculent matter.

"This is..." Director Yu Ming, who came along, turned pale with fright.

"The arsenic content exceeds the standard by at least five hundred times." Su Yue held up the test tube and waved it in the sunlight. "This is not water, it's poisonous soup."

She put the test tube back in the box and looked up along the river.

In the distance, between two barren rocky mountains, several chimneys belching black smoke can be vaguely seen.

"What's that place over there?" Su Yue pointed in that direction.