Chapter 76: Northern Plateau
The gray scabs on the thin man's body began to appear on the second night. At first, they were small clumps and small pieces, like moss on the skin, and you wouldn't notice them if you didn't look carefully. Later, the gray scabs gradually spread, and the surface hardened and dried, and cracked when touched, causing him to twitch and scream in pain.
Since the night before yesterday, he had been in a state of dullness and aphasia. No matter what people said or asked, he did not respond. At the same time, tiny bloodshot appeared in the whites of his eyes, and his spirit began to deteriorate. The only good thing was that the dullness and aphasia seemed to reduce his pain. He no longer cried out in pain because of the gray scabs on his body.
The bald man had the best relationship with the thin man. Seeing that the thin man was lying on the bed in a mess, he got a basin of clean water and wanted to help him wipe off the gray scabs on his body. Mainly, he wanted to moisten the dry scabs and hoped that he could feel more comfortable.
Unexpectedly, after one night, the gray scab spread even faster, and half of his skin became like this horrible state. It was really shocking at the first glance.
At that moment, Xu Tingfeng had to admit that what Chen Fa told him about the strange disease was very likely true. The thin man was not suffering from an ordinary cold and fever, he also suffered from that strange unknown disease, and apart from fever, aphasia, dullness and bloodshot eyes, Chen Fa could not provide more information about the disease.
Xu Tingfeng discussed with Lu Zheng and others, and they all decided to speed up the modification and reinforcement of the car and take Skinny Man with them to Youcheng to try their luck.
After all, there are troops in half of the city, and perhaps there are regular medical teams and facilities.
Little did they know that other townspeople would open the door of the thin man's residence and threaten to deal with him. Xu Tingfeng was furious, but compared to his anger, others were more afraid of the thin man who was "transforming", so they seemed to be angrier than him, and asked him why he concealed the thin man's situation.
"Who said zombies? Are you crazy? You want to deal with it before you figure out anything? Tell me how you want to deal with it!" Xu Tingfeng swept his eyes across the crowd, and everyone avoided their gazes one by one.
He had been fleeing with the other members of his team since the outskirts of Pincheng. Accidents had occurred frequently along the way, and he had saved more than one person. At this moment, when he glared at them, several people were still a little scared. They had never entered the house, and they just followed the crowd. Now that they thought about it, the idea of people turning into zombies was indeed a bit exaggerated. Maybe they were just confused because of the fever...
Originally, this unexpected situation had been brought under control thanks to Xu Tingfeng's timely arrival.
But at this moment, the thin man in the back room suddenly started screaming, a long-drawn out wailing sound, which was weak at first and then gradually became louder. Even though it was raining outside, everyone outside the house could hear it.
Those who previously thought that thin people might turn into zombies suddenly showed fear in their eyes.
"This has...changed, right?"
“Is the transformation over?”
"Oh my god, that sound is horrible!"
"What are you still standing there for? Get rid of him quickly! I don't want to be bitten by a zombie!"
…
"Brother Xu, the thin guy's voice is not right!" On the other side, the big guy, the braided guy and the bald guy were also anxious. They wanted to go into the house to check on the thin guy, but the terrifying screams in the house made several townspeople run to the door and block it.
They guarded the door and wouldn't let the big guys in, fearing that once they opened the door they would let the thin guys out.
On the side, Lu Zheng saw Shu Fu and Chen Fa at the edge of the crowd. Shu Fu pointed to the sky. Lu Zheng looked up at the sky. After all the commotion, the overcast sky had gradually darkened, and night had arrived.
He recalled the changes in the patients' conditions at night that Shu Fu had described before, and walked to Xu Tingfeng's side to remind him, "It's night time."
Xu Tingfeng understood immediately. He turned around and looked at Chen Fa in the crowd. He remembered her saying that they actually didn't know why these patients always made such shrill cries at night, but if they could figure this out, perhaps they could find a way to save Thin Man.
Xu Tingfeng walked directly to the door, holding the metal wrench in his hand, and asked everyone who was blocking the door to move away.
The two sides were in a stalemate. One side refused to give in in order to save his own life, fearing that Xu Tingfeng would protect his teammates for personal reasons. The other side was truly worried about the lives of his teammates, and the atmosphere became tense.
In the tense atmosphere, someone spoke up and said that even if the skinny guy was not a zombie, he must have a strange disease. It was very likely that he was bitten by a strange fish before and was infected with some unknown disease.
Now no one knows whether this disease is contagious, how it is transmitted, and whether there is any medicine to cure it, so the patients must be isolated, especially not allowed to contact other people casually. If this disease is like the flu, which can be transmitted through droplets or contact, then if they insist on going in now, it is tantamount to disregarding the safety of others.
Outside the crowd, Chen Fa looked at Shu Fu after hearing this, and Shu Fu was also looking at her.
They had experienced this, especially Chen Fa, who lived in the same place with the patient's family for two months, so they knew that this strange disease could not be transmitted through contact at present.
But if they had never come into contact with this kind of strange patient before, they would also think that what this person said makes sense.
The entire planet was hit by floods, leaving behind a large amount of garbage and corpses. If these garbage and corpses were not dealt with in a timely manner, they would rot and stink, which could easily give rise to diseases such as plague or new diseases.
Now that the thin guy has been bitten by a strange fish that appeared in the flood, it is reasonable to suspect that he has been infected with an unknown disease. It is also reasonable to suspect that the unknown disease may be contagious.
However, Skinny had been following Xu Tingfeng's team to repair and reinforce vehicles, and had risked their lives to go out and buy supplies so that the townspeople here would not starve to death. Now that he had gotten into trouble, the others immediately wanted to distance themselves from it.
So, they can understand it intellectually, but they don't agree with it emotionally.
"I was also bitten by a strange fish! But I am standing here now and nothing happened to me. This proves that his illness has nothing to do with the strange fish!"
"Just because you're fine now doesn't mean you'll be fine in the future. Maybe... it just hasn't happened yet..."
Xu Tingfeng was so angry that he laughed: "So now you want to quarantine me too? You'd better think it over carefully."
"If possible, you... and other people who went to Lucheng this time... Oh, and those three, it's best to isolate them first. If they are contagious during the incubation period, everyone will be in trouble..."
Xu Tingfeng sneered again: "Why don't you isolate yourselves as well? After all, we have been back for several days. We had dinner together on the first night. If it was going to be contagious, it would have been contagious a long time ago."
As soon as these words were spoken, the faces of the other townspeople changed drastically, and they looked at them with vigilance. At the same time, some people in the crowd turned around and looked at each other, recalling who had gone to the warehouse to eat with them on the first night.
Someone was watching and suddenly felt an itch in his throat. He couldn't help coughing a few times, and was immediately stared at by others. The person who was coughing immediately covered his mouth tightly and whispered in defense: "No... I, it's just... cough cough... my throat is a little itchy... cough cough... Hey, you have a cold too, right? I saw you wiping your nose yesterday."
This person was trying to shift the blame to someone else, but what he said was not a lie. The other person who was named panicked and said quickly: "Don't talk nonsense, I have sinusitis. It rains every day and my sinusitis often flares up. What does this have to do with a cold?"
On the side, Xiaoyi, who had reappeared in the crowd, also covered her mouth. She had been feeling a little sore in her throat these past few days, had been coughing at night, and had some cold symptoms, but they were not serious or obvious. Could she be... No! Impossible! She must be fine!
…
At the front of the crowd, the man with a bad temper and pigtails used the thin steel pipe in his hand to knock on the shoulder of the man who had just spoken: "Stop talking nonsense! Get out of the way! Otherwise, we will not be polite!"
The verbal conflict over there was about to escalate into a physical conflict, when Shu Fu suddenly felt the vibration of her bracelet.
She glanced down slightly and saw that the "notebook" icon representing the task was flashing on the bracelet.
Even without looking, Shu Fu knew what this meant. It seemed that - they had to move to another place.
Shu Fu's face was indifferent. She looked at Lu Zheng next to the crowd again, exchanged a silent look with him, and then whispered to Chen Fa: "Let's go, let's go back first."
**
[Complete the check-in task at Lixiang Wharf in Youcheng within ten days to get a 10% progress bar for level 4 raft. (Current progress of level 4 raft: 75%)
Note: Failure to complete this task will deduct 20% of the progress bar. 】
Shu Fu felt that after this mission, she would be able to reach 100% progress on the Level 4 raft. Therefore, although leaving the salt lake meant that she could no longer secretly release the raft for use at night, she still began to pack up with full energy.
The thin man's howling stopped after half an hour.
That meant that Lu Zheng and Xu Tingfeng had managed to subdue the mayor and other townspeople and successfully entered the house.
I don’t know what method they used to stop the thin guy from shouting. Maybe they just covered his mouth like the people in Yang Can’s team.
At around eight o'clock in the evening, Lu Zheng came over and knocked on Shu Fu's door. After hearing this, Shu Fu poked her head out of Chen Fa's container house next door and said, "Here."
The three of them have already packed their luggage and just had a simple dinner together at Chen Fa's place. Their backpacks, weapons and rain gear are also ready and they can set off at any time.
Seeing the three people sitting in the house in an orderly and quiet manner, Lu Zheng was stunned for a moment, then smiled helplessly: "I'm so sorry, I brought you here, originally thinking that I could provide you with a temporary safe shelter, but it turns out that you have to travel again in just a few days..."
"When are we leaving?" Chen Fa asked directly, "Tonight or tomorrow morning."
"Tonight, the rain is not too heavy today, so we will leave first. There is an abandoned gas station ten kilometers away. We can go there to rest for a while and then set off again after dawn tomorrow morning." Lu Zheng restrained his expression, "Meet at the warehouse in two hours."
"Has the car been modified?" Shu Fu asked.
"After working hard this afternoon, it's almost done. We'll push it to two hours later because there's still some finishing work to do. You don't have to pump the fuel out of the bus, we'll fill up the off-road vehicle's tank directly."
Shu Fu was a little surprised. She had put 60L of fuel into the bus that day. According to the usage, at least half of it was gone, which means only 30L was left. The fuel tank of the off-road vehicle should be at least 60L. If it is full, they will have to give them another 30L of fuel.
Seeing Shu Fu looking at him with wide eyes, Lu Zheng couldn't help but smile again: "Since we are all going to Youcheng together, I can't watch you run out of gas halfway."
Shu Fu nodded and asked, "Did Xu Tingfeng take the initiative to leave?"
"Yes." Lu Zheng nodded. This incident was actually a big blow to everyone in their logistics team. Before today, everyone was concentrating on reinforcing and modifying the bus in order to load everyone and take everyone to find a safer shelter.
From the beginning to now, no one has forced them to take on this responsibility. They all come from the same town, and it is not easy to survive together in such a turbulent and chaotic world. They stepped forward to take on the responsibility because they feel they are capable and they are willing to do so.
But they didn't expect that the townspeople who had walked together all the way would ask all of them to be quarantined because of an unknown disease.
Of course, from the perspective of others, what they said is right. They cannot risk the lives of the whole town, young and old. They just want them to be quarantined for a period of time. They don’t want to do anything to them. As long as they are still healthy and fine after a few days, the quarantine will naturally end.
The Salt Lake Scenic Area is not a private shelter for the supply team. It was found by all the townspeople together, and they have the right to demand that they be quarantined.
But they also have the right to refuse and leave.
The Salt Lake Scenic Area is not privately owned by them, and their supply team is also not privately owned by all the townspeople. Since they feel unhappy and don't want to stay here and don't want to bear this responsibility anymore, they should leave early.
Anyway, except for Xu Tingfeng and Lu Zheng who each have a younger brother, the others in the team are all alone.
After listening to Lu Zheng's story, Chen Fa asked another key question: "Do the townspeople know that you are leaving tonight?"
Lu Zheng shook his head: "Xu Tingfeng told them that there is still some reinforcement work to be done on the bus. We will work overnight and promised to consider the quarantine after dawn tomorrow."
"I'm afraid they won't believe it." Shu Fu held up his chin.
"It's okay to keep an eye on us, they can't stop us anyway." In fact, the mayor and several of the people who made the loudest noise were currently being forced to stay in the warehouse with them, and Xu Tingfeng planned to keep them tied up until they left.
Afterwards, Shu Fu asked about Thin Man's condition, and just as she had guessed, they had no way of stopping him from screaming, because judging from his physical condition, he was in great pain, so in the end they just knocked him out.
Afterwards, the bald man gave him an injection of sleeping pills to ensure that he would not make a fuss when he left tonight.
"What happened to him?" To be honest, whether it was Shu Fu, Chen Fa or Chen Yuezhen, they were all really curious about this, because they always heard faint screams coming from other small buildings at night. The sound was creepy, and they couldn't imagine what had happened to these patients.
"He's... cracked."
Shu Fu: “…What?”
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