Mold Disease

"This is a type of Aspergillus niger discovered across the ocean. Compared to the Aspergillus flavus we have here, it's at least as bad, if not worse. But they do have some ability. According to them, they've already brought the spread of the fungal infection under control."

"Then how did you find out about it?" Xu Chen asked, suppressing his nausea.

"Academician Qi said there are still different versions of this terrifying mold disease around the world. Countries are all searching for a drug specifically effective against the mold. A fungus with such a high fatality rate won't be reported in the media, to avoid causing panic, so they can only talk about it in private. They made some deals with us, and we also learned a lot of information we didn't know before."

"When did this happen?"

"At the international health conference a while back. Don't you watch the news?"

Xu Chen thought about it. He had indeed heard something about it recently, but he hadn't paid it any attention.

"All right, then what did we learn that we didn't already know?"

Ouyang Xing smiled. "What do you think would happen if this mold wasn't kept under control?"

Xu Chen recalled the characteristics of the mutated Aspergillus flavus he had seen back then and shook his head. "Without any restrictions, a fungus that can infect any living thing would probably spread across the world in no time."

"You're wrong. The Americans revealed that this mold has a mechanism similar to the density-dependent transformation of locusts, which means it can only spread in places where large numbers of people are gathered."

"Tell me more."

"We stopped the spread of Aspergillus flavus disease here, so we never saw what it really looked like after spreading. It's understandable that you'd reach that conclusion, but things were different for the Americans." Ouyang Xing seemed to think of something, and there was a smile in his voice. "They took the full brunt of Aspergillus niger disease this time, so we got to see what it looked like once it had fully evolved.

"Their state of Corinnade was hit terribly. They didn't take it seriously at first and only implemented a quarantine policy later. They burned out a huge isolation belt, completely sealing off the dead zone of fungal infection. Then they discovered that the fungus could still spread across the isolation belt, but the symptoms were greatly weakened."

"According to their scientists, once this original fungus reaches a certain density and has large numbers of humans or animals as a substrate for infection, it gains an extremely strong ability to survive, spread, and infect, with no weaknesses at all. But after being isolated, the fungus evolves spores capable of long-distance transmission so it can spread across the gap, while becoming weaker in other respects.

"As a result, the fungus outside the mold dead zone is far less active than the fungus inside. Some weak strains are even as weak as mold in the natural environment, but they still retain certain properties of the original mold, such as... the ability to infect humans."

Xu Chen immediately understood why the fungal infections abroad were so weak. It turned out that even after the spread had been brought under control, some weak strains had remained beyond control. Even so, it seemed that this already weakened fungus was still extremely lethal.

"So the drug I developed doesn't target the terrifying fungus itself, but its offspring..."

Xu Chen looked sharply at him and found that Ouyang Xing was simply thinking hard about something. There was nothing unusual about him.

Lately, Xu Chen had been thinking about that old codger Cthulhu so often that any word he could connect to Cthulhu made him react. Xu Chen looked at Ouyang Xing, wondering if he was overreacting.

"Offspring? That's an interesting comparison," Xu Chen said, testing him.

"Oh, oh?" Ouyang Xing scratched his head. "You're right, I shouldn't use the word 'offspring.' I should call it a mutated subspecies... Strange, though, I think 'offspring' fits pretty well."

Xu Chen felt a little uneasy, but when he looked at Ouyang Xing, he really couldn't see anything wrong.

"Forget it, that's a minor detail. The main thing is, EXC08 can't beat the original, but the weakened version is a piece of cake, completely under our control!" By this point, Ouyang Xing was utterly excited. He pulled Xu Chen over to a workbench, where an incubator held rows of test tubes.

In the end, Xu Chen couldn't see anything out of the ordinary and could only give up. "Then isn't your drug already finished? Why were you so excited when you saw that notice?"

Ouyang Xing looked a little embarrassed. "Well, although the drug is almost ready, it's actually still got some way to go."

"So is it ready or not?"

"Ready-ish, ready-ish."

Ouyang Xing replied, "Although EXC08's toxicity has been greatly reduced, it's still highly toxic. The next step is to reduce its toxicity further. Otherwise, a few units of the current product would cause liver damage."

Xu Chen sighed. "You've got a long and difficult road ahead of you."

"Exactly! If we had the resources and funding, we could get better equipment for our research and speed things up by more than double. Once the drug is finished, our Nanhua University will be famous.

"You should know that although this weakened fungus isn't as strong as the original, its resilience and ability to spread are as if they've been specialized. That's where this drug will be extremely useful."

Xu Chen looked at the incubator in front of him and suddenly grew puzzled. What had he come here for again? Oh, right, he had come to investigate the makeup of the patient population in China.

Although he had gained a lot of information from Ouyang Xing that he hadn't known before, he had no use for it at the moment.

"Senior, I came to see you about something..."

Ouyang Xing immediately remembered. "Oh, oh, I completely forgot. I was going to wait until after you ate to talk, but I ended up dragging you straight here. Go ahead, let's see if I can help."

"All right, I'll get straight to it. Medical systems around the world have been under rapidly increasing pressure lately. You just told me that abroad, it's because of the fungal subspecies infection... But as for China, I remember we should have already contained the spread of that mutated Aspergillus flavus and wiped out the source. If we don't have that fungus here, why is there still so much pressure on the medical system?"

Ouyang Xing frowned at that too. "That does seem true. Could it be a global drug shortage? Or did customs fail to keep it out? Wait a moment. I remember our Dean Yang has quite a few students working at hospitals. I can ask for you."

Xu Chen nodded. He hadn't expected his Grandpa Yang to really have so many connections in the medical field. This was what people meant when they said someone had students everywhere.

"Hello, is this Senior Zhang? It's Ouyang Xing... Dean Yang's student. Yes, yes, I wanted to ask about your hospital's patient statistics... For research... Thank you."

"Hello, Senior Guo? That's right, it's me..."

Ouyang Xing really didn't take Xu Chen's request lightly. He made six calls and requested data from six hospitals. Since the data didn't involve patient privacy and wasn't particularly important, and he had also said it was for research, they basically all agreed readily.

More importantly, they had all once been Dean Yang's students, and they were willing to help a junior where they could.

He fiddled with WeChat for a bit, then printed the data on the lab's printer. The paper could be reimbursed anyway. He sorted the pages briefly and handed them to Xu Chen.

"These are patient origin reports from six hospitals, including two public tertiary hospitals. The sample is still a little small. I'll see what else I can do."

"No, no, this is enough." Xu Chen hefted the stack in his hand and was startled. This still wasn't enough? Any more and it could pass for a book.