When the armored vehicle rolled over the last ice ridge, Chen Yao stuffed the hot satellite phone into the interlayer of her winter clothing.
Seven attempted calls were met with strange signal interference, and the wheat ear embroidery on the collar was rubbed raw by her thumb.
When the searchlight swept across the iron door of the warehouse, she saw Mou Xuan's black combat boots crushing a frosted glucose bag.
"Thirty-seven boxes of expired analgesics, twenty electrocardiographs without lead wires." Doctor Gu opened the wrinkled list of supplies, his reading glasses fogged up. "The scalpel used in last week's anatomy class was a boning knife sharpened by the kitchen staff."
Infectious disease expert Li tapped the petri dish with his rubber-gloved fingers: "According to the normal training process, aseptic operation alone takes three months of training." On the iron shelf behind him were three cans of alcohol of suspicious color. The labels showed that the production date was the third year before the disaster.
Medical student Sun suddenly placed the broken blood analyzer on the iron table, and the missing sensor interface made a hollow echo.
"Last month, when we dissected a group of mutant rats, the teaching material we used was a supermarket brochure." He slid his iodine-soaked finger across the instrument casing, "Can we dismantle the scrapped equipment and use it as a teaching aid?"
The warehouse fell into an eerie silence.
The material manager Zhou's hand holding the glucose box trembled, and the edge of the carton rubbed the metal surface of Mou Xuan's watch, leaving tiny scratches.
Just as Expert Li was about to speak, Mou Xuan had already tapped the edge of the culture dish with surgical scissors: "I'll give you 48 hours to come up with a plan."
The next morning, Nurse Qian screamed in the training room converted from the morgue.
The silicone tube she was holding with hemostats suddenly spurted out red liquid—it was a simulated blood vessel made by medical student Sun using a fire hose and food coloring.
"The systolic blood pressure has reached 180!" Medical student Sun deliberately turned the alarm of the monitor to the maximum. In fact, only the shell of the machine was still working.
"Shut up!" Nurse Qian's rubber gloves slipped in the mannequin's chest. When she found out that the so-called "chest-opening device" was a modified can opener, she finally broke down and tore off her mask: "This is just playing house!"
Medical student Sun picked up the fallen glass medicine bottle, which was an injection trainer modified from a can of freeze-dried vegetables.
"Last week, a real case, a 35-year-old male with a penetrating wound to the left chest." He suddenly lifted the white cloth-covered cart next to him, revealing half of the blackened mutant's limbs. "You fainted and vomited into your protective mask."
Suddenly, there was a muffled sound of heavy objects collapsing on the second floor of the warehouse.
Mou Xuan pushed aside the pile of glucose boxes. Material manager Zhou Zheng was kneeling in the broken glass trying to piece together the lead wires of the ECG monitor.
"The temperature sensor is on the shelf in Area D." Mou Xuan used a tactical flashlight to illuminate the hidden laser marks on the warehouse beams. "The ventilator tube you hid is now inserted into the dummy in Training Room No. 3."
Late at night on the third day, when Doctor Gu was suturing the wound of a mutant mouse used for teaching, he discovered that the medical student Sun had transformed a scrapped blood analyzer into a simple centrifuge.
When Nurse Qian successfully completed her first intravenous injection training, the old doctor's blood-stained gloves finally stopped shaking - even though she was inserting a prosthetic limb made of a car inner tube.
"The real-life practice will begin tomorrow." Mou Xuan unfolded the list under the emergency lights at three in the morning. Chen Yao smelled a strange bitter almond smell from his cuffs.
Before she could open her mouth, there was a sound of glass breaking in the southeast corner of the base - that was the isolation laboratory that Expert Li was in charge of.
When medical student Sun rushed into the smoke-filled room, he saw the old infectious disease expert beating the burning petri dish with a fire blanket.
"The alcohol purity is not high enough..." Expert Li's protective mask cracked, and his voice was as hoarse as a rusty bearing. "But those kids made a sterile operating box out of cans... maybe we can give it a try."
When the first ray of morning light pierced through the radiation-proof lead plate, Dr. Gu started coughing violently in front of the sink.
He quickly rolled the blood-stained tissue into a ball. The teaching poster on the wall was still shaking - it was an anatomical atlas made with mutant skin.
The sound of nurse Qian counting loudly could be heard in the corridor. She was testing the new recruits on how to perform a tracheotomy with a modified wrench.
When Dr. Gu's stainless steel tray hit the concrete floor, Nurse Qian was clamping the fourth silicone tube with a modified wrench.
The old doctor fell down like a puppet with its strings cut, and the back of his head hit the radiation-proof lead plate covered with a blood vessel distribution map - it was an anatomical diagram of the mutant drawn with burnt charcoal.
"Systolic blood pressure 60/40!" Medical student Sun pressed his homemade stethoscope against Dr. Gu's chest. The can lid connected to it by the rubber tube was still shaking slightly.
His index finger, which was stained with engine oil, suddenly stopped: "There is a ground-glass shadow in the left lung."
Mou Xuan's action of unzipping his winter coat brought up a gust of cold wind.
When he saw the black blood stains oozing from Dr. Gu's collar, the light of the tactical flashlight flickered on the first aid flowchart on the wall - that diagram was drawn with mutant rat blood.
The air, which smelled of disinfectant mixed with rust, suddenly became thick, and he heard a materials manager smashing a glass medicine bottle in the corridor.
"There are still three bottles of adrenaline in the No. 3 cold storage." Expert Li opened the collar of his protective suit. There were still burn marks on his neck from the laboratory explosion the day before yesterday. "But the streptomycin in the incubator..."
As Chen Yao's combat boots rolled over the icy stairs, Mou Xuan was pouring the last half bottle of glucose into Dr. Gu's intravenous catheter.
The deformed cardboard box in her arms pushed open the iron door of the training room, and the yellowed "Atlas of Surgical Procedures" slid out and hit Nurse Qian's feet - the 1998 publication date on the cover was half blurred by blood stains.
"The third-floor air-raid shelter in the ruins of the West District." Chen Yao bit open the wooden box wrapped with tape with her teeth, and rusty needle holders and a gauze roll covered with mildew rolled out. "There is a caravan wearing gas masks..."
Mou Xuan picked up the portable ventilator with a dented shell, and when his fingers ran over the nameplate, a layer of strange fluorescent powder got on them.
When he looked up to say thank you, he discovered that blood was seeping from the torn hole in the cuff of Chen Yao's winter coat - the shape of the hole looked like it was scratched by the mutant's claws.
"The blood pressure has risen again!" Medical student Sun suddenly shouted out.
The modified IV stand he was holding was leaking fluid, but Dr. Gu's fingers twitched twice on the surgical pad made of mutant rat skin.
Expert Li used tweezers to pick up the damp antibiotic bottle at the bottom of the box. "It's at least 20 years old." He shook the turbid liquid in front of the emergency light. "But with the distillation device given by the caravan..."
Suddenly, there was a crisp sound of metal colliding in the corridor.
Zhou, the material manager, stood frozen at the door holding a half-box of expired tetanus vaccines. Behind him was a crooked material cart - it was missing two wheels, and was rotated using mutant beasts' teeth.
"Deal with the pneumothorax first." When Mou Xuan put the breathing mask on Dr. Gu's face, he found spider-web-like black lines appearing on the old doctor's neck.
Chen Yao suddenly pressed his wrist, the fluorescent powder remaining on her fingertips glowing an eerie blue under the emergency light.
The radiation-proof lead plate on the ceiling of the training room suddenly vibrated like a buzzing sound.
Everyone looked up at the same time, but no one noticed that the surgical pad under Dr. Gu was oozing a pale yellow liquid - it was a disinfectant gel made from mutant fat.
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