Plague Doctor

Chapter 123: Nightmare Illness

Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Lonelytree

Inside a sickroom not far away, Gu Jun saw Chen Wenwei’s friend, the patient called Mai Lei. Mai Lei was also a young man at twenty-five years old. He was seated on the bed facing the window. The muscles all over his body were shivering slightly. His facial muscles had seriously contracted. His eyes sunk deeply into their sockets, his eyeballs were bloodshot, and his gaze appeared to be staring into the edge of madness.

“Nightmare Illness advances quickly,” Prof Qin added. “Mai Lei was infected after reading a post online. He saw it six days earlier than Chen Wenwei, but he was already now in the illness’ middle state. Many of his symptoms are similar to multiple system atrophy (MSA).”

In fact, MSA was the most common diagnosis given by normal doctors before Nightmare Illness was known. This was because the symptoms of MSA also included difficulty with sleeping and speaking as well as problems with the central nervous system. On top of that, the medical world had not come to understand the exogenesis of MSA yet.

“Patients in the middle stages are still conscious, but their mental state is extremely weak. They are agitated, hostile, and offensive. This matches the symptoms of long-time insomniacs. Drugs like Oxcarbazepine used to treat bipolar disorder have some alleviating effect on them.”

Gu Jun nodded with some understanding. While Nightmare Illness would not directly make one go crazy, MSA, the inability to sleep, would push any normal man into madness. Long-time insomniacs usually had offensive tendencies. If there was another person who was the cause of the patient’s insomniac, this would be much more obvious. This was why altercations were frequent in university dormitories; sleep was very important for a person’s mental and physical health.

Once the group walked into the sickroom, Mai Lei reacted much greater than Chen Wenwei. With his shaking body, he lurched toward them. “Save me! I just want to sleep, that’s all...”

“Mr. Mai!”

The two guards from the Action Department shouted back at him. One of them went to press him back while the other readied the taser. Even though his voice was not that clear, they could still hear what Mai Lei wanted to express.

“Sorry, please don’t...” Mai Lei retreated in a hurry. His face was carved in pain and horror. “Sorry!”

Following the agitated yelp, Mai Lei suddenly hacked with intensity. His hand flew to his mouth, and when he pulled back, there was a bloody tooth sitting in his palm. Looking at the tooth, the horror on Mai Lei’s face deepened. A howl that sounded like a cry escaped from his throat. “Ah...”

However, Prof Qin, Tang Zhifeng, and the rest did not seem surprised by this situation. One of the guards grabbed the tooth and deposited it inside a medical bag.

Gu Jun’s heart sank watching this. However, for the time being, he could only focus on his job. He walked forward to look into Mai Lei’s oral cavity. The patient not only suffered from tongue atrophy, even his gums had atrophied. A few molars on both of his jaws were missing, and the remaining teeth were all loosened as if they would drop with a slightly powerful yank. The canine tooth that had just dislocated left a very deep groove on the patient’s upper left jaw, but no blood leaked out. It appeared like the cells in his gums had already died from necrosis...

After they exited the sickroom, Prof Qin said, “During the middle stage, the tissue in the patient’s oral cavity will atrophy, and their teeth will fall out one by one. This means that they have trouble consuming food, and they have to be sustained on liquid food. Furthermore, their immune system will worsen; at the late stage, some of the patient’s immune system will completely collapse.”

For now, Phecda did not have many patients in the late stage. Instead, most of them were advancing toward the late stage. This was because most of the victims would have already committed suicide before then.

In another sickroom, Gu Jun saw a patient in the late stage. The middle-aged man was strapped to the bed. He was already incoherent and had lost his ability of speech. He was completely immobile because he was sedated. Dehydration was clear on all parts of the patient’s body. From the outside, the man had the appearance of a skeleton. His face was like a skull with a layer of jaundiced skin stretched over it. His gaze only spoke of emptiness and chaos; there was no light left that suggested humanity.

“Should they still possess mobility, patients in the late stage will move toward high ground and jump.” Prof Qin sighed. “We currently have no idea what is behind this. If they fail to commit suicide and are not sedated, the victims will enter a somniloquy-like hallucinative state. They stop reacting to outer stimuli. The only thing they will do is constantly moan and struggle.”

‘Moving toward high ground?’ Gu Jun was reminded of flight for some reason. According to Sigmund Freud, the desire to fly was due to intense pressure, and the patient wished for quite literal flight from their problems. The leap of death that these victims committed was their symbolic of their desire to escape from pain.

His head was pounding. Images of people jumping from buildings crowded his mind. Was that a trigger of the illusion, or was that just his imagination? Gu Jun tried to focus on the image, but it was like grasping at smoke...

‘It’s not going to work...’ he grumbled to himself. ‘There is no close connection. Perhaps the locale or scenario is not suitable. The feeling is not intense enough for me to grab hold of it.’

After exiting into the corridor, Gu Jun told Prof Qin and Commander Yao seriously and helplessly. “I did not experience any accurate ESP connection.”

He did not dare jump to a hasty conclusion, but it appeared like Nightmare Illness might not have too deep a connection with the foreign world, the Son of Steel, or the Son of Misfortune. This was something he had not encountered in his childhood, so the strong feeling that overwhelmed him when he first encountered the cadaver of the Malformed Banyan Disease victim did not return this time.

At the time, even without the mental power training, he could already trigger the illusion of the pool of cadavers. ‘Wait a minute... cadavers?’

Once the thought crossed his mind, the wisp of smoke appeared to thicken.

“ESP?” Tang Zhifeng was startled. ‘Isn’t that something from parapsychology?’

The disappointment was clear on Yao Sinian and Prof Qin’s faces. The hope that they had riding on Gu Jun’s arrival had been vanquished.

“Gu Jun, you just returned, and your mental power has suffered from the exam yesterday. There is no need to rush.” Prof Qin attempted at a feeble consolation. “You need to go back to your dormitory to get a good sleep. Tomorrow morning, these three patients will go for a lobotomy as a form of experimental treatment. Why don’t you come back to visit them after that?”

‘Lobotomy?’ Gu Jun could not help but frown. That was a kind of surgery that was frowned upon by the medical field, but then again, what choice did they have?

“ESP... is it the kind from parapsychology?” Tang Zhifeng asked. He was not sure where Prof Qin had picked up Gu Jun.

“That’s right.” Yao Sinian nodded. Any suspicion he had of it had been cleared after seeing it in action personally. “Zhifeng, you will find out more soon enough.”

It was not that Tang Zhifeng questioned the two seniors, but he was so set in his belief that he found it hard to believe the research of Nightmare Illness was moving into the realm of pseudo-science...

“Prof Qin, I have an idea.” Gu Jun interrupted. ESP indeed was related to the mental state, but it was also related to many other things. He said calmly, “I wish to take a look at the dead bodies of the victims of the Nightmare Illness. It is best if I have the accompaniment of my friends like Cai Zixuan and the rest. The cadavers would be perfect if they are soaked in formalin.”

Images of death would intensify his senses. That had been proven many times. With regards to Cai Zixuan and his friends’ presence, Gu Jun merely wanted to replicate that scene from back then as much as he could. He could not be sure, but there might be some influencing factors to his friends’ presence.

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