The wide streets were deserted! Terribly silent! Only the whistling of the wind blowing through the dilapidated doors and windows could be heard.
Every household kept their doors and windows tightly shut.
The air was filled with a strong smell of lime powder mixed with the pungent and bitter odor of some kind of burning herbs.
"Plague God!"
"Get inside! Don't come out!"
"Those plague-causing bastards have been arrested by the officials!"
Stay away from them! Getting involved with them is a death sentence!
From behind the tightly closed doors and windows on both sides, terrified screams and vicious curses erupted instantly!
Countless eyes stared intently at them through the cracks in the doors and windows, their gazes filled with extreme fear, disgust, and hatred!
"Behave yourselves! Hurry up!" the officer urged Jiang Chan and the others to quicken their pace.
“Yesterday… yesterday Old Li went to Huichuntang for treatment…” an old man hiding behind a door said to the person next to him in a trembling voice. His voice was particularly clear in the dead silence of the street. “When Doctor Sun took one look… his face turned pale with fright… he said it was… the plague from the great epidemic in Yunzhou more than ten years ago! Exactly the same! Coughing up blood… high fever… he won’t survive more than three days!”
"Damn it! This is a plague!"
"Why didn't the government seal off the city sooner?!"
The cries of despair grew louder.
"Who knows! Nobody noticed it before..."
"It's over...we're all going to die..."
Fear and despair, like the plague itself, spread wildly behind closed doors and windows.
Jiang Chan remained expressionless, holding Xiao Tao's hand, and kept walking.
The officials escorted them not to any part of the city, but straight towards the city gate!
The heavy city gate opened a crack just wide enough for one person to pass through.
Outside the door, the soup kitchen that used to be there was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, there was a piece of wasteland that had been temporarily fenced off about half a mile from the city gate!
The wasteland was marked with a large, crooked circle of lime powder, inside which were dozens of dilapidated, drafty thatched huts. From a distance, it looked like a huge graveyard.
The air was thick with the smell of lime, the stench of excrement, and... a faint stench of corpses. Some patients, who had also been driven out, moved slowly between the sheds like walking corpses, lying or sitting, groaning and coughing in pain.
Several constables, also with their mouths and noses covered, stood guard at a distance, their eyes numb and indifferent.
"We've arrived! From today onwards, you'll stay here! Whether you live or die is up to fate!"
The lead officer stopped outside the white line, pointed at the shed area with his stick, and said in a cold and ruthless tone, "No crossing the white line! Violators will be killed without exception!"
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