The Medical System

[There were many kinds of fungi in the world that could secrete carcinogenic mycotoxins. The most common included Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus ochraceus, Penicillium, and Aspergillus. These fungi typically grew in damp, warm, poorly ventilated environments, such as harvested crops, stored grain, fruit, and feed. When they infected these materials, they produced carcinogenic mycotoxins.]

[Aspergillus flavus could produce several toxins, including Aspergillus flavus toxin B1, B2, G1, and G2, while Aspergillus ochraceus could produce several toxins, including Aspergillus ochraceus toxin A, B, and C.]

[Other fungi currently known to secrete carcinogenic mycotoxins included Aspergillus niger, Gibberella, Botrytis, Sclerotinia, Arthrinium, Claviceps, Alternaria, and Sclerotinia.]

"Current international reports indicate that customs inspections have detected large quantities of ocean freight, most of which carries a mutated strain of Gibberella, with a smaller portion carrying Botrytis. Inspections found that most of these goods were infected during handling in their places of origin. Similar incidents are occurring one after another, and patients affected by mycotoxins have already placed enormous pressure on local medical systems..."

"Aspergillus ochraceus toxin infection detected in Australian kangaroos. Examination of the carcasses revealed lesions in the liver and kidneys..."

"India's medical system has collapsed. Tens of thousands are unable to obtain treatment..."

As Xu Chen read through the material, he searched for news using related keywords. He had no idea until he looked, and what he found shocked him: this bizarre fungal infection had swept across the globe and placed enormous pressure on the world's medical systems. In quite a few places, those systems had collapsed outright.

After the initial brief outbreak, many countries had suppressed the news to protect their image. Eventually, they could no longer keep a lid on it, and everything came to light at once. Now, most were appealing for help everywhere.

The medical system was the most important indicator of a country's public health. Its collapse meant that most people in the country could not get treatment. Apart from those already admitted to hospital wards and those who could throw money at staying alive, everyone else could only wait to die.

Once the medical system collapsed, the death rate would rise sharply.

With modern medicine and medical systems, however, bringing a medical system to collapse was actually very difficult.

If someone obtained the Black Death, smallpox, or Spanish flu, which had once nearly wiped out nations, and an anti-human, anti-morality extremist released one of them in a city, even a few hundred deaths would indicate government inaction. A death toll in the thousands would outright constitute a major incident.

But wiping out a proportion of the population? Bringing society to a standstill? That would probably be rather difficult.

To bring a modern medical system to collapse, it would have to be a disease that had never broken out before and had no targeted treatment.

Xu Chen noticed that the fungal infections overseas seemed different from those along the coast at home. The infections overseas did not seem nearly as horrific. After all, from what he had seen in his internship group, the patients had barely looked human anymore.

Overseas, however, it seemed to be spreading only through the environment, with few human infections.

The people who fell ill had mostly ingested large amounts of mycotoxins from their environment.

Xu Chen had learned during his internship that the most immediate effects of mycotoxins were actually liver damage, immune system suppression, neurotoxins, and digestive problems. If a fetus was involved, there were also fetal development problems. As for cancer, it was induced by prolonged exposure to small doses.

That Aspergillus flavus was an enhanced version. It also had the ability to directly rob the human body of nutrients and tissue fluid, and its symptoms included infection and destruction of deep tissue. It was far more violent than the overseas version; by comparison, liver damage and the like were minor problems.

Fortunately, because the Aspergillus flavus infection was so obvious and had been reported promptly, it had been forcibly contained. But to prevent the mutated Aspergillus flavus from spreading again, the government was still assigning people to develop drugs.

Xu Chen wrote a line on a sheet of paper.

[A weakened version of the fungal infection has broken out overseas]

Besides that line, the paper on his desk also bore what he had written earlier.

[Song Tian's father has cancer]

[Mycotoxins can cause liver damage, immune system suppression, neurotoxins, digestive system shutdown, cancer, and so on]

[An enhanced version of the fungal infection broke out at home and has been contained]

[Taihao disease broke out at home and has been contained]

He looked at them for a moment, then crossed out the last one. Xu Chen frowned at the several passages, always feeling that something was wrong with them. A flash of inspiration told him the problem might lie there.

Then he suddenly remembered a news report he had come across by chance and wrote it down.

[Pressure on domestic medical and public health services has surged]

After writing it, he stared at it. Finally, after thinking for a while, he shook his head helplessly, crossed out everything he had written, and wrote a conclusion underneath.

[The sharp increase in pressure on domestic public health services may have been caused by tritiated water entering the inland water cycle, resulting in more patients...]

Before he had finished writing, his heart gave a sudden jolt, and he became wary and uncertain.

Why am I so sure? Was the sharp increase in pressure on domestic public health services caused by tritiated water? That can't be right. Shouldn't I check first before reaching a decision?

Xu Chen looked at the words he had crossed out and copied them down again. When he looked at the last passage, he felt a multitude of thoughts spring into his mind, but each was so confused that he could not make out its content.

He tried to write. Although he was clearly thinking of nothing, what came out was still... [The sharp increase in pressure on domestic public health services may have been caused by tritiated water entering the inland water cycle, resulting in more patients...]

Xu Chen suddenly remembered Old Ge. He had been thinking earlier that since Cthulhu could deal with Old Ge, He could naturally kill him too.

Now, He might have made a move against him.

He became afraid, then felt a surge of unwillingness. He looked around; nothing in the dormitory was out of the ordinary. He thought that since he had already confronted Him head-on, it was obvious He would not let him go. He wanted to see just what Cthulhu was hiding, even if he died, so he suppressed his fear and began searching online.

He soon noticed a news report. After the alert was raised at home, the authorities had dealt with it promptly. In sparsely populated areas on the first topographic step, they had carried out large-scale artificial rainmaking to intercept water vapor. They had also closely monitored the rainwater that had already reached inland areas and built many water treatment plants.

It could be said that, apart from the coast, the impact elsewhere had been reduced to a minimum—so low that it would never put pressure on local medical systems.

Then Xu Chen searched some more and found that the places experiencing a sharp increase in medical pressure this time were not limited to the coast. Strange diseases were breaking out inland too. This definitely was not caused by tritiated water vapor alone.

Xu Chen had seen that there were numerous immune disorders, which could not be caused by radioactive substances, or even easily caused by toxins.

He immediately thought of Song Tian's father. He opened his phone, browsed through his father's medical records, and found several reports he had not understood before. He caught the key words on them: the bone lesions were presumed to be caused by immune system dysfunction.

He froze for a moment, then picked up his pen and wrote on the paper.

[Cthulhu's methods were ineffective, so He is suspected of using other methods to make people in the country ill]

[Did Cthulhu notice us because of our measures? Is He using a different method of causing illness from the one used in other countries?]

[Cthulhu's goal remains to reduce the world's population. It is like eliminating pests in a field: when one pesticide doesn't work, He switches to another.]