Chapter 342: The Chaos in the Northwest (Part 5)
As the screening proceeded, more and more ordinary people with symptoms were brought in. The clinic was converted into a temporary ward. At Shen Tang's suggestion, patients were divided into different areas according to the severity of their illness. The first batch of masks, gloves, and protective clothing were supplied to doctors, apprentices, and martial arts practitioners who took care of patients. The latter were mainly responsible for physical labor involving contact with patients.
Even Dr. Dong looked on with envy.
Which man hasn't dreamed of one day becoming a scholar with a refined mind or a warrior with courage and bravery, roaming the world with a sword, punishing evil and upholding justice for the people? Doctor Dong naturally had such a dream too, but he longed even more for the existence of words that could cure all diseases.
But he knew it was impossible.
However, the literary/martial aura is really useful.
With these two things, the epidemic that terrifies ordinary people poses little threat to them, and they don't need to worry about getting infected when entering or leaving the ward. Dr. Dong wrote out the prescription and asked his grandson to get the medicine and brew it.
Before long, the air in the ward was filled with a faint medicinal fragrance.
The patient drank it, but there was no improvement.
Soon, the conditions of several new patients worsened, and their vomit contained conspicuous, glaring blood foam. Dr. Dong stayed in the ward, not daring to close his eyes all night. Shen Tang, Qi Shan, and Kang Shi were on standby, providing the patients with spiritual energy.
Most of the patients are ordinary people.
The meridians cannot withstand the infusion of literary energy.
If the dosage is too small, the effect will be insignificant; if the dosage is too large, the patient's meridians will be ruptured by the excessive qi before the disease even kills them.
This is a delicate task that demands extreme skill and attention to detail.
But the words could only delay the worsening of the condition.
Dr. Dong looked tired.
"Why doesn't clearing the camp and detoxifying it work?"
"...Forsythia, Coptis, Ophiopogon japonicus, Moutan bark..."
He adjusted his prescriptions and dosages one by one.
Prescribe medication based on the patient's symptoms.
Another person was found vomiting blood due to bulging fat.
I wrote a prescription for detoxification and swelling reduction.
The ward was filled with the agonizing screams of patients in their comas, and beneath the scent of medicine lay the stench of decay and death.
At the same time, most of her energy had to be devoted to investigating the source of the epidemic. Shen Tang had never felt that a night was so long and difficult to endure.
While Gu Chi brought back several patients, he also brought some bad news: he had not found the person causing the trouble.
"Either this person never existed, and the plague was a natural disaster; or this person left Fugu after succeeding..."
When Gu Chi wasn't busy with work, he liked to wander around aimlessly, as if sifting through Fu Gu again and again.
Remove all eyeliner, earliner, and other cosmetics that can be removed.
Fugu City is very "clean" now.
Shen Tang rubbed her eyelids, which hadn't slept much all night, and barely managed to clear her mind, going through the list of people entering and leaving the city in the past few days: "Wang Chao, have you checked the list of people entering and leaving the city in the past few days?"
Gu Chi said in a low voice, "I've investigated that too."
Most of them match.
There were no suspicious strangers or outsiders.
Shen Tang crossed her arms, suppressing her anger, and said, "That is strange—every plague has a source, and the timing is just so coincidental. I can't convince myself that there's no one behind this! How could it be a natural disaster?"
Gu Chi offered a new approach to the investigation.
This epidemic is almost identical to the one two or three years ago. Dr. Dong suspects it's caused by the lingering illness from that year; perhaps we can start from that angle. Why not investigate those two villages?
Shen Tang herself had no clue.
He then agreed to Gu Chi's proposal.
“I’ll trouble Wangchao to make the trip for this matter as well.” Seeing that Gu Chi’s complexion was not good, Shen Tang said, “Can your body still hold up? If not, I will hand over the task to someone else. With your complexion, you could be mistaken for a real patient if you were lying in a hospital bed.”
Gu Chi naturally wouldn't say that he couldn't hold on.
Shen Tang asked Li Li to escort Gu Chi.
Bai Su stayed in the observation area to keep watch.
If it weren't for the shortage of manpower and the lack of time, Shen Tang would have even considered sending someone to Shangnan to ask Gu Ren if he had any good solutions to the epidemic. We're all in the same boat now.
Oh, and Zhang He and Zhang Yongqing too.
"Zhang Yongqing's claim to fame seems to have been the Lingzhou Yiru epidemic? Although the symptoms of the two epidemics were different..."
Something flashed through my mind, but we were short-handed. We couldn't even reach Nan Gu Ren in time, let alone Yi Ru Zhang He.
Lin Feng and Tu Rong, the two children, had not yet developed their literary and martial talents, and it was not convenient for them to run around in the ward. They were asked to disinfect and sterilize the buffer zone between the ward and the observation area, change into other clothes, and then go to the observation area to help Commander Yang with his work.
For example, catching mice and exterminating insects and ants.
This is what Shen Tang meant.
She wasn't sure if it was the Black Death, but as the saying goes, better to kill a thousand innocent people than let one guilty person go free! Anyway, any rats, cockroaches, or insects—kill them first. All the captured corpses had to be burned; they couldn't be buried indiscriminately!
Hmm, Fugu City should raise more cats in the future!
Tu Rong stomped on a large rat and killed it.
Soldiers also poured hot water on ant nests.
Tu Rong wiped his sweat: "Will doing this really help?"
I've never heard of killing rats and watering ants to cure diseases. He's really ignorant.
Commandant Yang: "This is Lord Shen's intention."
He was puzzled, but still did as instructed.
He had seen epidemics before.
He had personally witnessed the horrific scenes of the human hell after the outbreak, so he understood even more how precious it was to have someone like Shen Tang as a pillar of support, who made swift and decisive decisions and managed everything in an orderly manner as soon as the epidemic showed signs of emerging.
Tu Rong pursed his lips.
"Don't be lazy, check if the fire is up yet!"
"Hehe, don't be angry, Master Yang, I'll go right away."
Tu Rong grabbed the rat by the tail with his gloved hand and swung it around as he jogged to check on the fire. This fire was not only meant to burn snakes, insects, and rats, but also to burn the dirty cloths stained with the vomit of the patients.
If a patient dies, the body will be used for cremation.
Commandant Yang laughed and scolded, "You little rascal!"
Tu Rong and his children were spoiled by Shen Jun. They were so childish, how old were they to still be playing with mice? But then again, this could be considered one of the unique cultural features of Fugu City.
Otherwise—
Why should literary scholars waste their literary energy on patients?
Only Shen Jun would dare to bring up something like this.
Similarly, only a few, like Qi Shan, dared to respond in this way.
For other scholars and intellectuals, commoners were merely ants unworthy of their attention; sealing off the affected areas and letting the patients fend for themselves was the prevailing choice. After all, with epidemics, as long as they were eradicated within a small area, it was considered a great victory.
After all, compared to the tens or even hundreds of thousands of ordinary people lost in the outbreak of the epidemic, the lives of a few hundred people in a few villages were nothing. But Shen Jun's actions suggested he was fighting tooth and nail for lives, unwilling to sacrifice even a single one…
Commander Yang was arrogant his whole life and refused to submit to many people.
The former governor of Sibao County is one of them.
This person had shown him great kindness and was also a close friend, while Shen Jun and Shen Tang were different; Commandant Yang and Shen Jun were even enemies.
The incident of intercepting the tax silver of Xiaocheng and then completely deceiving Commander Yang is a dark history that makes blood pressure spike just thinking about it!
However, with the subsequent life-saving grace, the sights and sounds along the way, and the witnessing of He Yin Fugu over the past few months, Yang Duwei's feelings for Shen Tang have become a mixture of too many complex elements.
(。-ω-)zzz
When I was writing about Tu Rong catching mice, I inexplicably thought of that anecdote about passing through Chechnya, a dog slapping someone, an egg yolk being shaken apart, and an earthworm being cut vertically...
(End of this chapter)
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