"Hey, have the bandages on your eyes been removed?" The familiar female voice came from the end of the corridor. Hesta looked sideways and saw a very tall young woman.
This was the first time Hesta saw Chiba Masaki after taking off the bandage on her eyes.
She wore men's khaki overalls, a simple gray-white cotton shirt, and a pair of rimless glasses on the bridge of her nose. The lenses were light yellow pentagons, and the gray eyes behind them looked very sharp.
Chiba has black hair tied into a high short ponytail. There was a mouse gray coat on his arm, and a pair of black boots on his feet.
This is twenty-year-old Chiba Masaki.
Hesta stood up, "Miss Chiba?"
"This is my first 'meeting', please give me some advice." Chiba extended her hand to Hesta, and Hesta shook it lightly. She felt that the texture of Chiba's hand was very special.
"Let's go, I'll take you to the monastery." Chiba shook the car key in his hand, "I just picked up a new car today."
…
Chiba's new car is a burgundy old-fashioned foldback car. She has modified the console in the car. She loves the design of the brass levers. She has replaced the car windows, air conditioner and radio operating console. Lever.
The car smelled of tobacco, and in the gap between the window and the console, Hestad saw a pack of half-smoked women's cigarettes.
"You smoke?"
"Do you mind?" Chiba started the car, "I don't have to do it in front of you."
"It doesn't matter."
Along the way, the two of them didn't speak again. Until they were near the border of the Severn Mountains, a group of people wearing white protective clothing stopped them.
These people wore the badges of the Third District Security Team and set up roadblocks on the main road. Only after Chiba showed his ID did they let them go.
"Has the road been closed?" Hesta asked.
"Yes, there have been no new cases of chelitis in the livable areas of the third district for almost ten years. The higher-ups attach great importance to this matter," Chiba replied. "In the future, the Severn Mountains should be designated as a new area. The quarantine area is prohibited from entering or exiting unless necessary."
Hesta looked at the scenery outside the car window. They gradually became familiar from strangers. Hesta felt her eyes burning a little. The car was taking her towards the place where she had lived for more than three years - a place that was destined to fall into chaos. barren.
"arrive."
The car stopped near the top of the mountain, and Chiba got out of the car with Hesta.
From a distance, Hesta could see the stone top of the church that was burned black.
The two were walking side by side, and Chiba took the initiative to speak: "More than 20 children in the monastery have been sent to public nurseries. Someone will take care of them."
Hesta heard it, but didn't respond.
She walked along the stone corridor, through the collapsed church, and towards the confinement room - the two-story old house was completely dark, but it still maintained its basic architectural structure.
Returning to the confinement room again, the wooden door here had long been burned to ashes. Just one month later, grass has grown in the cracks in the wall.
Hesta stepped across the stone threshold and saw three or four strange-shaped iron cages in front of her - their steel bars had melted in the fire.
Hesta walked silently to the iron cage where Bo Heng was originally imprisoned. She knelt on the ground and reached under the iron cage.
Among the ashes, she touched the asbestos cloth wrapping Bo Heng's newspaper clippings. Its surface was stained by the rain of the past few days and was still a little damp.
For a moment, Hesta's limbs were a little stiff - if Bo Heng escaped on his own, there was no reason for him not to take the book with him.
"What is this -" Qianye was about to ask when she saw a few tears falling on the asbestos cloth one after another. Hesta still turned his back to her and did not turn around.
The girl opened the asbestos cloth, and the newspaper clipping book inside still maintained its original shape. However, the entire book had been carbonized. Both the news from District 14 that Bo Heng had carefully cut out and the handwriting he left inside were no longer legible. .
Chiba didn't ask any more questions, "...I'll go down and have a cigarette."
"Wait, Miss Chiba," Hesta turned around, her eyes red, "Do you understand the reason? Regarding... this infection..."
"The specific report hasn't come out yet, we have to wait until next week." Chiba frowned slightly, "But I have a guess, will you listen?"
"Um."
"We have detected some chelating bacteria spores in the jungles of the Severn Mountains. Although the concentration is very low, it will not cause illness if inhaled... but this at least shows that there were already spores in this area before Dean Alma became infected. Chelation activity. Does your dean have a lot of contact with wild animals?"
Hesta was stunned for a moment. She lowered her head and answered after a long time: "Sometimes there are some injured animals... such as baby birds. If the dean encounters them... he will take care of them."
"It can't be birds, chelation disease only occurs in mammals." Chiba said, "I guess it's squirrels, mice and the like - there are quite a lot of them in this area."
Hesta looked at Chiba, "If Dean Alma is infected with chelitis, she will feel it... right?"
"Yes, that's right."
"I don't understand..." Hesta murmured, "Then why... didn't she say anything?"
"Ha," Qianye raised his hand and scratched his head, "This cannot be explained clearly in a few words..."
This sentence fell in Hestad's ears, and for a moment she felt a certain overlap of fate.
She was quiet for a while, "Then Miss Chiba, would you like to talk to me in detail?"
"This... of course." Chiba pointed to the door, "But let's talk after we get in the car. It looks like it's going to rain again."
"good."
From Chiba, Hesta heard the ins and outs of chelitis for the first time.
This terrible infectious disease originates from a type of fungus that grows in the deep sea, the polydentate fungus, and its variant that grows on land is the chelator fungus.
The multi-toothed coordinating fungi of the deep sea are shaped like jellyfish. They usually lie dormant in the sea below 200 meters, and only come up to shallow waters during the breeding season.
The mycelium of P. multidentate is generally no more than 5 mm, and its body is 99.3% water. It was originally just an ordinary fungus among many fungi on the seabed. However, in the dark and high-pressure underwater world, it is different from some The biflagellate organisms began a long period of endosymbiosis and eventually evolved into a type of parasitic vesicle worms.
These cyst worms cannot live without the multidentate coordination fungi, and their survival and reproduction depend entirely on these small, gravel-like fungi.
With cystozoites, these deep-sea fungi suddenly become ferocious. Gradually, the polydentate bacteria began to be able to control mammals that were hundreds of thousands of times larger than themselves. Once mammals in the sea were infected, their bodies became a breeding ground for the polydentate bacteria. During this period, animals will actively approach their own species and release disease-causing spores to them. When the insides of the animals have been eaten away, their remains will inflate and explode like balloons, sending the multidentate fauna one last time further into the water.
For a long time, this was only a problem that troubled some marine scientists and animal protection organizations. It was not until 4412 that the first case of infection among human fishermen appeared near the Cook Islands in the Long Tail Ocean.
Initially, patients experience persistent low mood, laziness, reluctance to do things and social avoidance, and severe insomnia—all classic symptoms of depression. So after seeking medical treatment, the patient quickly received a diagnosis of depression and started taking medication, but it had no effect.
This symptom lasted for about a month. The patient's mood suddenly returned to normal. Not only that, he began to become outgoing and lively. However, people soon discovered the abnormality - the first to be killed were his wife and children. The patient used The axes split open the skulls of relatives and hid their bodies in wardrobes.
As if he was possessed by a demon, he began to extend his demonic claws to the neighbors in the street, and was discovered when he tried to take away the neighbor's children by force.
After being exposed, the patient was tied up and captured by the angry residents. People took off his gloves and discovered that the patient's arms below the elbow joint had become as thick as thighs and turned a horrifying bright red. At the same time, his index finger, middle finger, ring finger and little finger have been firmly bonded together, and he can only use his thumb to make some simple grasping movements - this situation is just like the claws of a lobster.
Hence the name "chelation disease".
