However, the peaceful days did not last long, and a sudden change shattered the city's tranquility.
"Have you heard? There seems to be a flu outbreak in the city, and a lot of people are sick!"
"It's not the flu, I heard it's much worse than the flu! Once you get it, you have a high fever that won't go down, vomiting and diarrhea, and the clinics are all full!"
"That's scary? We'd better be careful and avoid going into the city."
At first, the news circulated only in a small circle, and people just treated it as a topic of conversation. But within a few days, an atmosphere of panic began to spread.
More and more factories in the city are shutting down, schools are closing, and people on the streets are wearing masks and hurrying about. Cold medicines and heat-clearing and detoxifying herbs in pharmacies have been snapped up.
Even in the strictly managed military compounds, people began to feel uneasy.
That afternoon, Su Wantang was sunbathing in the yard when she heard a commotion coming from next door.
It's Zhao Jing's house.
She saw Zhao Jing's husband, the political commissar, being helped out of the house. His face was flushed, his steps were unsteady, and he was coughing incessantly.
"Quick! Get him to the medical team! The political commissar has a high fever!"
Zhao Jing followed behind, her face covered in tears.
Su Wantang's heart sank.
The virus has already spread into the family compound.
The world in the military family compound changed overnight.
The once-loud bugle calls in the early mornings and the noisy laughter of children in the evenings were all replaced by deathly silence and suppressed coughs. Every household had its doors and windows tightly shut, and the air was filled with a strange, heavy smell of Lysol mixed with traditional Chinese medicine.
Panic, like an invisible vine, entangled everyone's heart, tightening its grip ever more.
The compound's infirmary became the center of the storm.
The lights shone brightly all night, and people hurried in and out, their faces all bearing the same anxiety. The only pillar in the infirmary was the old, gray-haired military doctor, Uncle Qian.
Uncle Qian is almost seventy, an age when he should be enjoying his retirement. But at this moment, he is wearing a white coat, his bloodshot eyes sunken in their sockets, having worked continuously for over forty-eight hours. He looks like a statue about to collapse, held up only by sheer willpower.
“Next!” he said hoarsely, almost squeezing it out of his throat.
"Uncle Qian, please take a break!" The young nurse's eyes were red-rimmed. "If you continue like this, your body won't be able to take it!"
"If I fall, what will happen to them?" Uncle Qian didn't even look up, his trembling hands taking the patient's temperature. "They are soldiers who have risked their lives with us, and their families too... I can't back down."
As soon as he finished speaking, everything went black before his eyes, and his body fell straight backward.
"Uncle Qian!"
"The doctor collapsed!"
Chaos erupted in the infirmary, and the last vestige of order collapsed. Desperate cries nearly lifted the roof off.
When Su Wantang arrived, this was the apocalyptic scene she saw.
She pushed through the panicked crowd and went straight to Uncle Qian, who had collapsed to the ground. She knelt down and placed her fingers on Uncle Qian's wrist; his pulse was weak and erratic.
"Get out of the way! Don't surround him, let him breathe!" Su Wantang's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable calmness.
In the chaos, people instinctively followed her instructions and stepped back a few paces.
Su Wantang took out a small brown paper packet from her pocket, containing several medicinal herbs ground into powder. She had taken this from her spatial storage and carried it with her in case of emergency. She poured the powder into a glass of water on the table next to her, dissolved it with warm water, and then carefully pried open Uncle Qian's mouth and fed it to him little by little.
The medicinal liquid had a strange, refreshing fragrance that contrasted sharply with the pungent smell of other medicines around it.
No one knew what it was; they just assumed it was some folk remedy she had gotten from somewhere.
But a miracle happened right before everyone's eyes.
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