plague
The four of them got off the carriage and saw rows of rooms filled with plague patients, all of whom were isolated there.
Gu Youtian thought she would be afraid of being infected, so he put on a manly demeanor and said, "Don't be afraid, girl! With me here, you won't get infected!"
Qi Yuan was silent for a few seconds, then said calmly, "I'm not afraid."
Gu Youtian was taken aback, thinking that the girl was pretending to be strong, so he didn't say anything more. Mu Qinghuai glanced at her and then looked away.
"Don't worry. With your cultivation levels, you won't be infected," Ouyang Lanyue kindly reminded them.
Gu Youtian: ...
The door opened, and the patient inside seemed to see hope; tears welled up in his numb eyes.
However, they lay sickly in bed, too weak to even lift their hands.
Patients with pain have several things in common: no nails, skin ulcers, sparse hair, rapid breathing, and extreme body movements.
Qi Yuan hurriedly asked, "What is this disease called? What are the symptoms? How did the first patient get infected? What do the infected people have in common?"
Faced with this series of questions, the other three were taken aback. Ouyang Lanyue answered them one by one: "Fish plague. Those infected have soft and naturally falling fingernails, their hair gradually falls out, their skin ulcerates, and they have difficulty breathing. The most serious symptoms are deafness and hoarseness. It is precisely because of this that I cannot investigate the cause of their infection. However, the first case was found on the riverbank where people were fishing, hence the name fish plague."
"Why don't they write?" Gu Youtian asked.
Mu Qinghuai: "Those who were infected were all ordinary people, and naturally they were illiterate."
“That’s right. At first, when they found out they were infected, they could still gesture and move around, but later they must have become weak and could only lie paralyzed in bed like they are now,” Ouyang Lanyue replied.
“It couldn’t be that they lost their hearing and became mute instantly upon infection; there must have been a transitional period, like the weakness in their fingertips. Young Master Ouyang, why don’t we start investigating what the people have been doing every day from today onwards? They won’t know when the plague is lurking. Although it’s a bit troublesome, it will still be effective,” Qi Yuan said earnestly.
Ouyang Lanyue was stunned. After thinking about it, she felt it made sense and readily agreed: "This method is feasible."
Mu Qinghuai spoke up: "What does this plague have to do with demons and ghosts? They sound like completely different things. And what about vengeful ghosts?"
This was exactly the question Qi Yuan was thinking about, and she looked at Ouyang Lanyue.
“Those infected with the plague will die within a month. The dead will turn into vengeful ghosts that devour their own corpses and attack the living. The plague and the monsters arrived at the same time, so it’s hard not to connect the two. The first patient has already died. He was an ordinary fisherman who was found with demonic energy on him. The king suspects that the plague was brought by a monster,” he replied.
Qi Yuan went directly to the bedside and began to take the patient's pulse.
Gu Youtian was shocked: "What are you doing, young lady?"
She ignored him, quickly put down the patient's hand, turned around and said, "But these patients don't have any demonic aura."
"That's why the current guess is that only the first person was infected by the monster, and the subsequent infected people were all infected by human-to-human transmission after this person," Ouyang Lanyue said.
"Wait a minute." Mu Qinghuai's tone was tinged with dissatisfaction. "Since there's an incubation period, we can't be sure of the exact time each of these patients was infected. Knowing that they'll die and become vengeful ghosts after a month, why did you let them all stay in one room? Do you think there aren't enough dead people already? Aren't you afraid that one of them will suddenly die, become a ghost, and devour the other patients?"
Ouyang Lanyue's smile froze for a moment before she said, "It was our oversight. We will report this to the King."
"What do you mean by reporting to the King? Can we be sure that the King will isolate everyone individually?" Qi Yuan asked, frowning.
Seeing the tense atmosphere, Gu Youtian quickly said, "Maybe it's just that there isn't enough space? It's alright, money can solve that."
As everyone can guess, it's all about money. The king has already given up on the infected; the reason he brought in the monks was only for the remaining uninfected citizens.
But they haven't given up yet.
Seeing the pain and despair on the faces of these patients, Qi Yuan felt a tightness in her chest. These people were full of energy before they were infected; they just got sick, and once they recovered, they would be fine.
Mu Qinghuai sneered: "That's easy. Ouyang, please tell the king that I will cover all the quarantine costs. There's still hope for these people."
"That would be best." Ouyang Lanyue smiled slightly.
Qi Yuan: "Alright. We are all cultivators and have no clue about their illness. Rather than staying here, take us to see the locked-up vengeful ghost."
“Okay.” Ouyang Lanyue readily accepted.
Sitting in the carriage, Gu Youtian asked, "Why didn't you kill the vengeful ghost? Once it transforms into a ghost, there's no way to save it. Why keep it alive?"
"Of course I'm not capable; I can't beat them," Mu Qinghuai said coldly.
He looked at his friend with a scrutinizing gaze. Clearly, ghosts were nothing to Ouyang Lanyue, so why didn't the Grand Preceptor take action?
Gu Youtian's expression changed, and he said urgently, "Grand Preceptor, please don't mind what Young Master Zhu Fu said; he didn't mean it!"
After he finished speaking, he realized that Ouyang Lanyue did not show any dissatisfaction and seemed to agree with Zhu Fu's words. Only then did he reluctantly shut his mouth.
Mu Qinghuai realized that Gu Youtian was speaking up for him, so his expression softened, and he said, "Thank you."
Gu Youtian was somewhat surprised that this young master was actually thanking him. He scratched his head sheepishly and said, "It's nothing, it's nothing."
This time the journey was longer, and the carriage traveled for quite a while.
"Get down," the driver said, turning around.
Qi Yuan climbed down the ladder and found that there was only a door in front of her. The nearby streets were deserted, and roars and banging sounds came from inside the door from time to time.
Gu Youtian was so frightened that he took a step back, but then he remembered that there was a woman next to him, so he took two steps forward and stood in front of Qi Yuan.
Ouyang Lanyue took out the key to unlock the door. Gu Youtian nervously swallowed, while Mu Qinghuai stood aside with his arms crossed, seemingly having no intention of making a move.
The moment the door opened, the vengeful ghost rushed forward. Gu Youtian shouted, "Don't be afraid, young lady! I'll protect you!"
Before he could finish speaking, a green figure rushed forward and quickly dispatched the vengeful ghost.
Qi Yuan looked at him calmly: "Nothing to fear."
Gu Youtian stared in shock at the corpse of the vengeful ghost on the ground, his mouth agape, stammering, "Miss Yang... Miss Yangmei, you..."
“I don’t need your protection. Thank you for your kindness.” Qi Yuan glanced at him.
Mu Qinghuai was taken aback and couldn't help but glance at her. Her words reminded him of someone.
One, the best person in the world.
His lowered eyes revealed tenderness and beauty.
Ouyang Lanyue clapped with a smile: "Miss Yangmei, you're quite skilled. Let's take a look at this ghost; the corpse will dissipate in a little while."
The three immediately crouched down to examine the body. Only Ouyang Lanyue stood aside watching their actions. Qi Yuan gave Ouyang Lanyue a complicated look, but then turned back to focus on the body.
Why didn't Ouyang Lanyue make a move?
"The body is fine, but apart from skin ulcers, he has no other symptoms. His hearing has returned, and he can shout," Qi Yuan said.
"Before he became a ghost, he had all the symptoms of fish plague. He recovered in every way except for his skin?" Ouyang Lanyue asked.
Mu Qinghuai: "Absolutely true."
"Grand Preceptor, could you please take us to the river where the fishermen were infected?" Gu Youtian asked.
“Of course,” Ouyang Lanyue readily agreed.
Gu Youtian suddenly hesitated: "That's just where the first infected person was discovered. Was he really infected there? Isn't there an incubation period?"
“Don’t worry. Fishermen make a living by fishing and usually stay by the river for several days at a time. They probably got infected there.” Qi Yuan said.
After traveling a short distance, the group arrived at the place where the "fish plague" had begun.
This is a very ordinary river; apart from being exceptionally deep, it doesn't seem any different from a regular river.
"Do you think that monster might be hiding in the water?" Gu Youtian muttered.
“Possibly,” Qi Yuan said.
Not far away, a burly man was arguing with someone, wielding a meteor hammer. The noise startled the four people. The man had scars on his face, a beard, and a very strong build.
The burly man happened to see the four people, immediately stopped arguing with the fishermen, and strode over.
Gu Youtian nervously held his sword above his head, his voice trembling: "You, you mustn't come any closer!"
The man ignored him and instead pointed at Qi Yuan disdainfully, saying, "Grand Preceptor, you didn't choose a strong person like me, but instead picked a weak woman? Can she handle those demons and ghosts with her appearance?"
"Hey! How dare you talk like that!" Gu Youtian retorted sharply. He had personally witnessed this girl instantly defeat the vengeful ghost; she was by no means a weak woman.
Ouyang Lanyue smiled but remained silent. He knew that Qi Yuan would take action on her own.
Qi Yuan didn't tolerate it and looked at him coldly: "Then what kind of powerful person is this young master?"
The man put away his meteor hammer, snorted, and said proudly, "I am 117 years old this year, and my cultivation has reached the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm. This is a realm that you and these two pretty boys can never reach in your entire lives."
"Heh." Mu Qinghuai couldn't help but let out a soft laugh.
The voice was so soft that the man thought he had misheard, seeing the mocking smile that hadn't yet faded from his face.
The man's veins bulged: "Pretty boy, who are you provoking? You couldn't reach my level of cultivation in eight hundred years."
Qi Yuan walked up to the man, calmly met his gaze, gave him a forced smile, and uttered a low "Huh?"
With a flick of her finger, she unleashed a powerful pressure.
The oppressive aura emanating from a Nascent Soul cultivator forced the man to his knees. His face showed terror and disbelief, yet he continued to struggle, and soon blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
He stared intently at the young woman before him, stammering, "Impossible! You, how could you? You must have used some kind of age-preserving magic, right? You old hag! You must be hundreds of years old!"
Gu Youtian put his arm around Qi Yuan's shoulder, inwardly shocked by her cultivation level, but outwardly he didn't show it. He said provocatively, "You think everyone is like you, old man? Our young lady here is genuinely young!"
Qi Yuan appropriately withdrew her oppressive aura. Even though she remained expressionless, the man still managed to crawl back a few steps, saying, "Impossible! You're only about ten years old! Only that one person in the cultivation world could reach this level of cultivation!"
"Who is it?" Gu Youtian asked curiously.
"Pray, pray for a lover!"
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