Chapter 157 Grape-flavored popsicles and K virus...
Children all have some kind of animal-like nature, and they like to hide delicious and fun things for next time. Coincidentally, he knew where the child hid the thing.
Xu Duan quickly called home using the regular phone number in Jin Yue's office and told them to put on masks and sleeves. He then searched from the bottom shelf of the second bookcase on the left side of the study and found a pile of children's toys there. He also found a small biscuit box in the pocket of a toy car. When he opened the box, there were several round white pills inside.
"Don't move yet, put the things back, cover them, wash your hands with soap several times, and then remove the mask sleeves. Don't throw them away or keep them."
Shu Linong was still reluctant, but he knew the matter was urgent. His son-in-law had never spoken to him in such a serious tone, so he could only do as he was told.
Xu Duan asked the others to look after the child while he drove home himself to bring the things to the hospital.
The pills were packed in a small box with two layers of sealed bags on the outside. Xu Duan called Aunt Wang from the laboratory to deal with it.
Professionals are professionals. Aunt Wang put on her work clothes and was fully armed. She took out all the pills and packed them separately in moisture-proof and light-proof bottles. She took out one pill first and studied it.
"It smells like grapes and looks like fruit candy."
Therefore, almost all ignorant children have no resistance to it and will put it in their mouths once they pick it up.
"At present, it seems that the outer layer is a sugar coating, and the inner layer is a specially treated attenuated virus. The viral load is very, very high, but we don't know what the specific virus is yet."
Soon, Shu Jinyue finished feeding the medicine, coaxed Su Xing to sleep, and handed him over to someone he trusted to watch over him. He put on a mask and came out, "What's wrong? What did Su Yue say just now? Why is my second brother here too?"
Xu Duan said with a sullen face, "There are five more pills like this, all found in their toys."
Shu Jinyue's expression changed, "Do you suspect someone poisoned me?"
After all, ordinary people cannot get these virus pills carefully disguised as candy, and there is no technology to disguise them easily, let alone let a few children pick them up casually.
"Have you asked the child where he found it?"
"It's behind the gate."
The gate of the Shu family was renovated by Xu Duan. It is a very wide maroon iron gate. The advantage is that it is easy to open and close, but the disadvantage is that there is a gap under the gate. When it was installed, it was taken into consideration for rainy days. They were worried that if the drainage in the yard was not good, the water might flow out from under the gate. There is a public ditch at the door. The yard is full of vegetables planted by Teacher Shu. He would be so sad if they were drowned.
Who knew that the problem was that gap? It would have been very easy to stuff a few small "fruit candies" in from the outside if one wanted to.
It just so happened that during the days before the Chinese New Year, because the supermarket opened, the whole family was busy and the children were kept at home and were not allowed to run around. It just so happened that they loved playing house and war games behind the gate, and from time to time they would put their ears close to the ground to listen to the sounds outside.
"Su Yue said that she found the 'candy' before the Chinese New Year. She couldn't tell exactly when it was. She just said that her brother found it and gave it to her. She couldn't bear to eat it, so she hid it in the back of her car."
It's like this, Su Xing is Su Yue's little follower, he just follows his sister's lead, and always gives his sister the good things first. He must have been unable to resist "tasting" one himself after "paying tribute" to his sister.
"She said they like grape flavored things best."
This is true. Ever since they moved to the new home, they have been talking about eating grapes since they saw the grape vine in the yard that never bears fruit. They were so greedy that they really could not resist anything with grape flavor. For this reason, Xu Duan even asked Pan Wei to send back some grape-flavored erasers from Guangzhou. The two little ones secretly bit them twice, and when their mother found out, they refused to change their ways, so she simply threw all the erasers away.
"I suspect this poisoning was specifically aimed at our children." Shu Wenming gritted his teeth, "I asked Xiao Ping'an, he didn't see the candy, and he didn't eat it, but he also likes grape-flavored things."
Knowing that they like this flavor and specially making it with this flavor is clearly a targeted poisoning. And it seems that not many people know that they like this flavor, since they are all family members anyway.
Xu Duan frowned, "Where's the nanny? Why hasn't she come yet?"
Ever since Su Xing fell ill, Jin Yue called her bodyguard and nanny and asked them to return to the city early if there was nothing going on at home. She would pay them overtime and she never made things difficult for them. She gave them a week off before the New Year so that they could go back to their hometown to buy New Year's goods.
But until noon today, only Li Zhongyong and Zhang Shouyi returned, the nanny had not yet arrived at work, and the phone of one of them could not be reached.
"Before they left, they left me the phone number of the brigade headquarters in their hometown. I called Aunt Li, but it was an empty number. There was no such number."
Shu Wenming touched his chin and said, "Is it her fault or is there some ulterior motive? Let's wait and see. Give me her hometown address and I'll go look for it myself."
Xu Duan shook his head. "I have a comrade over there. Ask him to take someone to check it out."
He was particularly attentive and serious about everything concerning children. He was the one who selected the nannies, so he naturally knew their situations very well. He even asked someone to go to the local area to investigate their family situations and reputations. Now it was very easy to find their hometowns.
"Just stay home and watch over it. We will be very busy during this period."
Shu Jinyue didn't have time to reminisce about the past, and immediately asked Ma Shuhui to send someone to get a small package of pills. It was inconvenient for her to move around, so she would not go to the epidemic prevention station.
Unexpectedly, it was Ma Shuhui who came here in person. "Director Ma, why did you come here by yourself?"
Ma Shuhui was so busy that she was overwhelmed. "I called the city and found out that no other districts in the city had similar cases. This time, the case should have first appeared in Xinqiao Street in our district. I just don't know where this 'patient zero' is."
Shu Jinyue thought to himself, it’s hard to say, maybe it’s his own Su Xing.
She had a general understanding of the two children's situation. They fell ill later than Su Xing and lived in Xinghua Hutong. Teacher Shu always liked to take them there in the evenings. When the children played, they would hug each other and put their heads together. It was very easy for them to spread any respiratory disease... Maybe it was Su Xing who really passed it on to them.
"Okay, I'll go back first. I'll bring the pills back with me. If there's any progress in your treatment, let me know as soon as possible so we can give them to those children as soon as possible."
"The children?"
Ma Shuhui sighed, "Yes, now we have verified that there are eight other children in Xinghua Hutong who have the same symptoms, but the adults treated them as colds and gave them medicine, and did not take them to the hospital, so they did not discover it. There are also three children who were hospitalized for other reasons, and later it was found that they also had low to moderate fevers that could not be reduced."
That being said, including Su Xing, there are at least 14 cases discovered so far. We don’t know how many others have not been discovered, and how many are in the incubation period but are already contagious.
Shu Jinyue felt a chill in his heart. This was no small matter.
People of this era don't know, but she has witnessed two major pneumonia pandemics. At the beginning, there were only sporadic cases, but by the time they attracted attention, the disease spread at a speed of one to ten, ten to a hundred, and a hundred to ten thousand. The intensity of the infection was so severe that not only children could not withstand it, but many adults were in danger of their lives.
"Director Ma, this matter must be reported to the city immediately. If there is any need for me, I will do my best."
Ma Shuhui was also exhausted. "Okay, I understand. Now we just have to wait for the city's arrangements. We should be prepared for a protracted war."
After so many years of peace, their vigilance has decreased.
Shu Jinyue has worked in the epidemic prevention station for so many years and has encountered such large-scale infectious diseases several times, such as tuberculosis and schistosomiasis, but those are known infectious diseases for which humans already have mature response strategies and a set of scientific treatment guidelines. This time, the unknown pneumonia is not only highly hidden, but also completely unknown.
The unknown is the most terrifying thing. You have no idea whether a docile kitten or a man-eating lion is hidden beneath the calm surface.
After Ma Shuhui left, Shu Jinyue hurried to see Su Xing. After having a general direction, the effect of Chinese medicine came quickly. About an hour later, Su Xing's temperature dropped, but Jin Yue did not dare to take it lightly and still stayed by the bed.
After all, his fever has been going down every day these days. The key point is not whether the fever will recur, but whether it will go down.
"I'll go in and guard it. You come out and rest for a while." Xu Duan said at the door.
Shu Jinyue shook his head. The child slept restlessly. His little face was no longer red, but his mental state was still not very good. He needed to be fed water, hugged and comforted from time to time. But for Su Xing now, his father whom he has not seen for more than half a year has become a stranger and has no comforting effect at all.
“Why isn’t Su Yue afraid of you?”
Xu Duan smiled, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes became thin and long, as if he had aged several years. No one knew what he had experienced in the past six months.
"At first, he didn't recognize me. It took him a long time to coax me into remembering who I was."
When he left, the child could not walk steadily and could not be considered to have learned how to walk. When he came back, the child could already run and speak long sentences.
The more Shu Jin listened, the more sad he felt. "Why did you come back so suddenly?"
The last time he called, he said he would be back a month after the New Year, but now it seems like it will take at least twenty days, and he actually came back early.
"Jiang Weijun told me about Su Xing's illness."
In order not to make him worry, Jin Yue of course couldn't contact him, so he didn't tell him. It was two days ago when Sun Ailan and Niu Xiaobing came to pay New Year's greetings, and saw Zhao Wanqiu sighing. Jin Yue was not there, so they asked about it. Then he went back and told his brother-in-law Jiang Weijun. Jiang Weijun thought it was a serious matter, so he immediately called his friend to inform him.
When he received the call, he was still in the Soviet Union. Fortunately, the work had been basically completed. He immediately left Long Gongan to clean up the mess and tried to find a way to return home.
"Have you finished your business? Wouldn't it be bad to just walk away like this?"
“It’s been taken care of.”
Shu Jinyue wanted to ask more, but the situation did not allow it. "Then how did you come back?"
"I came back with the truck driver. Wang Laowu now has a big business, which has spread all over the Northeast. It just so happened that I took a ride with him."
It's Wang Laowu again. This guy is really capable. He has helped Xu Duan so many times. On the surface, the two seemed to have no connection. Unlike Long Gongan and Li Xiangdong, they had normal interpersonal interactions. This bachelor Wang and Xu Duan were like people from two different worlds, with no intersection at all. Even if their families didn't know, they actually had a very good relationship in private.
If someone had told Jin Yue fifteen years ago, on the day when the Wang family came to cause trouble, that her future husband would become good friends with the reckless bachelor Wang who punched her second brother, she would never have believed it even if she was beaten to death. She would have cursed them for talking nonsense and saying it was outrageous!
But the truth is even more outrageous than imagined. The overly radical and reckless Wang Laowu saved Xu Duan at least twice over the years, and she also reluctantly saved Wang Xiaohong once.
"It's better if other people don't know about our relationship. It makes things easier for us." He said softly through the door. Jin Yue stuck close to the door and listened carefully. It was just like when she was trapped in Lijia Village, she was inside and he was outside.
The two chatted for a while, and Jin Yue yawned.
"You should also go to sleep for a while. I'll be watching over you and your mother outside."
Su Yue had been taken back by Shu Wenming, and Li Zhongyong and Zhang Shouyi had also returned. Jin Yue was not too worried. "Okay, call me if you get a call from Director Ma."
Little Xingxing seemed to be much more comfortable. His originally curled-up sleeping position changed to a wide open space. Jin Yue took his temperature again and found that it didn't go up, which was good.
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Let's talk about Xu Duan. He had been guarding the door of the ward. Halfway through, he received a call from Ma Shuhui. It turned out that when Liu Jinbu from the epidemic prevention station led people to check door to door, he found 6 children with fever, both boys and girls, the youngest was three years old and the oldest was seven years old. Counting the previous 14 cases, they found the following pattern: the infected people were mostly between 1.5 and 8 years old, both boys and girls, mostly preschool children, with only mild fever as symptoms, without cough, sputum, headache, palpitations, chest tightness, etc. Even with a stethoscope, the lungs and breath sounds were normal, but a chest X-ray showed a serious lung infection.
Moreover, when conducting an epidemiological survey on these young patients, it was found that none of them had ever eaten the "grape-flavored candy" and they just played normally outside their homes.
It can be said that the information collected from children aged two or three is unreliable, but children aged six or seven can already explain things clearly, so Ma Shuhui suspects that the source of the virus this time may be the only child who ate the "candy".
"I understand what Director Ma means. If there is a need for my child to cooperate with the investigation, we will fully cooperate." After Xu Duan finished speaking, he suddenly asked, "Are all these cases in the Liuye Hutong and Xinghua Hutong areas?"
"right."
Xu Duan had a rough idea. He asked his father-in-law, and learned that Su Xing's activities during this period were either at home, or going back to Liuye Hutong with him to play, or going to Xinghua Hutong to visit his two sisters, which was consistent with his movements. And these infected children are the ones who often play with him.
After hanging up the phone, Xu Duan was still a little confused. The one who had the most contact with Xiao Xingxing and was the closest to her should be Xiao Yueliang, but Xiao Yueliang was fine. It seemed that when this virus infects people, it specifically targets those with weak resistance. Not everyone can be infected.
Soon, news came from an old comrade-in-arms that the missing nanny had been found.
"When we found her, she was feeding pigs in the pigsty. She looked confused when she saw us. She told the truth no matter what we asked her. We visited her neighbors and village officials and found that she should be fine. We also checked her phone number and found that the number she left was different from the real phone number of the village office. She is illiterate and it must have been an unintentional mistake."
Xu Duan asked a few more questions, and it seemed that the nanny was indeed ruled out as a suspect.
"Xu Tuan, what do you think? Should we send her back to the city now, or..."
"I won't send her off yet. Please help keep an eye on her and don't let her get too far."
"Well, just tell me what you want, Captain Xu. It's no trouble at all. You haven't asked us once in all these years. We will definitely handle this matter for you."
"Okay, you're welcome. I'll wait for you to come to the bookstore and have a drink with my brothers."
After hanging up the phone, Xu Duan hurried home and called his four children to ask them carefully about anything unusual during this period.
Mengmeng and Yaya have grown up. Some are studying, some are following the patients. They are not often in Jinyu Hutong. They can't say anything. But Xiaopingan is at home every day. He knows a lot.
"My younger brothers and sisters were playing behind the gate. They were very obedient and would not open the door when we told them not to."
"Brothers and sisters don't go with strangers, and don't go to strangers' homes to play."
"Brothers and sisters don't eat food given by strangers."
Yes, they don’t eat what others give them, but they eat what they pick up from the ground by themselves.
Xu Duan thought that the person who poisoned them should be someone who was very familiar with their daily routine. He thought about the "acquaintances" around him, from Liuye Hutong to Jinyu Hutong, then to Jinyue Hospital, Xinghua Factory, Mingyue Garment Factory, and even Wenli Supermarket... but did not find anyone suspicious.
The Shu family has always been kind to others. Even Aunt Li, with whom they had conflicts in the past, is not the kind of person who would do such a thing. He and Shu Wenming might have made some enemies while working outside, but after checking, it seems unlikely. Only the situation on Jin Yue's side is more complicated.
Because she comes into contact with many people, including patients, family members, colleagues, competitors, and subordinates. Could it be that there is a patient who was not cured or whose treatment effect was not ideal? Could it be a rival with a conflict of interest? Could it be the subordinate she fired? After all, it was too easy to find where she lived.
It takes time to check so many suspicious objects one by one.
"Let's check Jin Yue first. Assuming there is no problem with her, and if we rule out the possibility that someone she knows committed the crime, who else could it be?"
Shu Wenming hesitated to speak.
Xu Duan understood, "You mean, you're worried that this time it's not actually directed at Su Xing and Su Yue, but another act of revenge against Xiao Ping An?"
Shu Wenming nodded. Ever since he knew that it was poisoning, he really had this suspicion. He still remembered clearly that he was poisoned by the son of Long Gongan. By infecting an innocent and healthy child, they were taking revenge on a child with congenital heart disease. These people had no bottom line at all.
Fortunately, they have protected Xiao Ping'an very well over the years and taught him some self-protection methods. In addition, his immunity has been greatly enhanced through Chinese medicine conditioning. Last year, he was taken to Beijing for heart surgery. Xiao Ping'an is now no different from a normal and healthy child. So those people poisoned him again, but he didn't get poisoned, but Su Xing got poisoned instead?
Shu Wenming felt guilty when he thought of this possibility.
"Don't feel guilty. This incident may have nothing to do with Xiao Ping'an." After taking a sip of water, Xu Duan continued, "They threw the medicine behind the gate. Xiao Ping'an is too young to pick up food to eat. It's obvious that they are targeting younger children."
“That’s right.”
"If someone can do this, they must be an acquaintance, or someone who can often walk around the streets with a legitimate reason, or even a professional..."
At this point, the children were talking about something, and Xiao Pingan suddenly said loudly: "Huh! Grandpa always secretly gives his brother two popsicles, and they are grape flavored. I saw him throw away two popsicles."
"You ate two too, you ate the cream ones!"
"I eat the glutinous rice, not the cream. You guys eat the cream!"
Xu Duan didn't care why they were arguing, but Xiao Ping'an's words cheered him up, "You said your brother likes grape-flavored popsicles the most?"
"Yes, the auntie who sells popsicles knows all about it. Every time we buy them, she keeps the grape flavored ones for my brother and gives me the glutinous rice ones."
“When did this auntie who sells popsicles start to appear in this generation?”
The children couldn't explain it clearly, so Zhang Shouyi continued, "It should be last spring, around the Qingming Festival. He came here to sell popsicles for a while, but then he rarely appeared."
Later, he and Li Zhongyong felt that there was no problem, so they stopped stopping the children from going out to buy popsicles.
"Do you remember what the auntie who sells popsicles looks like?"
The children had good memories and began to chatter about the person's characteristics: "Fat auntie."
"As tall as Second Aunt."
"Short hair and a gold tooth smile."
"It's not a gold tooth, it's a silver tooth, a silver-white tooth, the big front tooth on the upper left."
"She wears size 35 shoes, and I've seen the marks left by the shoes in the mud!" Mengmeng suddenly gave a very useful clue.
After all, a woman who is as tall as Xu Wenli and is also fat only wears size 35 shoes, which means that this woman has a pair of very small feet that are extremely disproportionate to her height and body shape. You have to know that Xu Wenli is not short, she is almost 1.7 meters tall. She usually wears size 39 shoes, which is normal.
After all, a person's feet are constant and will not fluctuate in size, and the front teeth are gold or silver, which are very easy to disguise. If it was really a gang crime and poisoning, she would not leave such a conspicuous feature. It should be a "feature" deliberately disguised to confuse outsiders.
As the saying goes, when you have more children, you have more solutions. In such a short period of time, Xu Duan has collected all the information and reported it. I believe it will not be difficult to find her.
"There are many popsicle wholesale factories now, but there are not many grape-flavored popsicles. It should not be difficult to find the wholesale records of grape-flavored popsicles in factories that can produce grape-flavored popsicles before and after the Qingming Festival last year."
Not many families have refrigerators these days, and popsicles are basically sold freshly bought and not kept outside for too long, which makes it easier to lock on to the target.
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As for Shu Jinyue, he felt half relieved and slept for more than seven hours. He was woken up by Su Xing's small slap.
"Mother!"
"Sister! Jia Jia! Ah!"
"Do you want to go home to your sister?"
"Yeah!" The little guy's face was no longer red, his temperature was no longer high, and the nurse fed him some medicine. He was in good spirits.
Shu Jinyue saw that it was the time of his daily fever. "No fever?"
"No, we measure him every hour."
Shu Jinyue took the temperature record and looked at it. After taking the medicine, the temperature was indeed gradually decreasing, and it remained at normal for several hours.
She hugged the child and said, "Dear, when you recover, we can be discharged from the hospital."
She felt a little happy in her heart, because Su Xing's recovery proved that the prescription she used was effective, and that traditional Chinese medicine could contain this infectious disease!
Just as I was thinking about it, Ma Shuhui called me, "How is Jin Yue? Is the Chinese medicine effective for the child?"
"Yes, the temperature is normal now. If the fever does not recur for three consecutive days, a chest X-ray can be taken for re-examination."
"Great! Regarding this virus, the province reported it and found that this virus was not first discovered in our Dragon Country. There have also been some sporadic cases in Country A. A conservative estimate is about 300 cases. So far, 14 children have died. The mortality rate within one week after the onset of the disease is about 4.7%, and the severe disease rate is 20%. It is named K virus abroad."
K virus? You may not have heard of it, but it doesn’t matter. Shu Jinyue will let the world know that traditional Chinese medicine can not only cure chronic diseases, but also shine in the treatment of acute and severe infectious diseases!
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