Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Since the stray dogs started picking bottles and he started selling bottles, Zhang Zian had dealt with the same group of people at the waste acquisition station. He could tell by their accent that they were from the same place, probably from the same village. Maybe they came together to Binhai City to find work. This was very common.
When he discovered that a new group of people came today, he thought that something had happened in the village of the previous group such as an important wedding or funeral. Thus, they collectively left to return to their hometown and planned to return after finishing their business back home. This was understandable.
However, the new driver gave him a completely unexpected answer.
The driver was about to leave when he finished talking, but Zhang Zian quickly held him and asked, “Weird disease? What strange disease? Just tell me! Don’t leave me hanging like that and finish the story!”
“Just drop it…” The driver smiled bitterly, but his smile was uglier than crying, “I really don’t want to talk about this. Do you think we wanted to come to this shift? Was there any other way? Anyone who knows a little bit more about what happened is really scared, and rumors are flying all over… If the head tells you to go somewhere, you have to go even if you don’t want to! ”
The more he said this, the more Zhang Zian wanted to know. The more he spoke, the more he couldn’t hold the secret.
“How can that be? I saw them two days ago! They were fine at the time!” He retorted deliberately.
He tried to think about it. When he saw that group of people two days ago, they didn’t seem abnormal at all but were at most a little unspirited. This wasn’t surprising. After all, they had a regular schedule and often stayed up late to play cards or something. Besides, the weather was so hot and these people were almost always out in the sun.
Sure enough, the driver saw that he didn’t believe it and felt immediately anxious. He said, “Why would I lie to you? I heard that they were calling ambulances last night when they found that something was wrong with them!”
“What was the problem?” Zhang Zian asked.
Now that he knew, the driver no longer tried to hide it and told everything he knew. Of course, it is impossible to know too much inside information at his level. They were all just rumors that he heard. After all, once words were shared, details get tweaked. Perhaps only 20% of the information was true.
It turned out that they were fine the morning the day before yesterday, but slightly dull in their movements and senses. Other colleagues joked with them, but they did not answer. Had it been in the past, it would have already been a lively affair.
In the afternoon, they became more laidback and couldn’t even finish the work as usual. They spread out one by one on the bed or chair, looking sick.
Other colleagues noticed their anomalies around this time, but everyone came from the countryside so they were strong enough to endure hardships. Otherwise, no one could work in a place like a waste station. Usually, no one gave much thought to a headache and fever. They thought they were suffering from heatstroke, so they gave them some cold water and let them sleep.
Yesterday morning, after these people fell asleep, the symptoms became worse. After waking, they were sitting beside the bed with empty eyes like zombies.
Other colleagues greeted them for breakfast but were ignored. When they bid them farewell to head to work, they still ignored them.
Someone kindly walked to a person’s side and wanted to see if he had a fever hot enough to have driven him mad. As soon as he touched the person’s forehead, the person suddenly began jumping up and down. The poor guy didn’t know how to react. Then, he hysterically punched and scratched the former, even going so far as to bite him
Fortunately, other colleagues saw that something was wrong and quickly pulled them apart. Had they not intervened, the former would’ve been beaten badly. Even if this were the case, he bled from the corners of his nose and his body was bruised with multiple injuries.
The latter was surprisingly strong. Even the strongest guys could hardly restrain him and had to tie him to a chair.
After that, his colleagues were wary of the other people with the same symptoms and rushed to tie them down to their beds.
While they were tying these people up with ropes, some of them acted like a salted fish and resigned to being bound. Others, however, resisted fiercely like the first guy.
After they tied them all up, the other colleagues were scared and found the whole situation strange.
Although these people were uneducated, they usually liked to watch CCTV’s law statements. They were worried if their actions would lead to lawsuits for illegal detention.
There were still people who thought of the more terrible aspects. They were worried that they collectively got rabies? Someone in the village was bitten by a dog before, but after a while became ill and wanted to bite any human he saw.
Upon hearing this, the man who was scratched and attacked was so scared that he fell to the ground.
People also speculated more bizarre situations, saying that they’ve been living in the wild country. Did ghosts attack and possess them? Or did they run into evil and offend Huang Daxian?
After some discussion, they finally agreed to call the police.
After the police arrived, they learned about the situation. Since the people looked like they had rabies, the police quickly called the CDC to send an ambulance.
After the laboratorians of the CDC came, they performed a preliminary examination of the people then called in those who were not infected for related questioning.
A policeman was watching the entire thing, so even the people who always acted tough answered the doctor’s question honestly.
Unsurprisingly, the doctor mainly asked whether the people had been bitten by a dog before and had been vaccinated against rabies.
The others shook their heads and talked a lot, presumably meaning that one or two of them might have been bitten a long time ago. It was not clear if they had been vaccinated against rabies or not. The rest didn’t remember being bitten by a dog.
At that moment, they calmed down a little and noticed something different from the doctor’s attitude and questioning. Upon retrospect, how would several people have had simultaneous rabies attacks even if they were infected?
Rabies patients also seemed to be afraid of water, but some of them had plenty of cold water when they got up last night as well as this morning.
In that case… did they anger the Mythical God, Huang Daxian?
After the doctor and the police discussed the situation, the broken bungalows where those people usually lived were all closed off and prevented others from going in or out.
All the sick people were taken to hospital by ambulance.
Staff who did not get sick were also taken to the hospital for a blood test, after which they were told not to tell anyone else what happened.
However, it was difficult to keep secrets during this Digital Age and the news was quickly leaked.
Although garbage collecting was very simple, it couldn’t stop for a day in the modern city. The superior thus transferred a group of people from other waste stations to replace all the employees in this station.
The driver and his men were just transferred in from elsewhere today. They were unfamiliar with this area and were therefore late.
