Fang Yangqin spoke in a very organized manner, briefly describing the confession he had obtained so that Shen Hao could understand the context clearly.
"A month after the first death occurred, similar deaths began to appear one after another in Xiushan Village. They usually died suddenly on the same day they became ill, less than five hours before and after. Moreover, the symptoms of the onset were similar to those of ordinary wind cold, except that I feel weak and want to sleep, but I die as soon as I fall asleep. Black spots will appear on my body half an hour after I die..."
Shen Hao listened to Fang Yangqin's brief description while looking through the files in his hand. When he encountered doubts, he interrupted and asked: "When did Wanhekou feel that there might be a plague?"
"I sensed the problem when the government servants who handled the first death suddenly died at home. At that time, the government chief advocated reporting it, but the officer in charge suppressed it. He was worried that if the news about the plague spread, it would affect his promotion. Originally, This chief officer can be transferred to Pingshun City to take over as the chief officer next year."
"Asshole! Where is that man now?"
"In prison."
"Don't let him die, and don't let him take it easy. He won't know how much trouble he has caused until three layers of skin are shaved off."
"Haha, this is inevitable."
"continue."
Fang Yangqin continued: "Xiushan Village completely lost control after that. Many people in the village were scared away. Some went to Lincun to escape the disaster, and some simply ran to Wanhekou City. It is impossible to know where they went. Investigate. In the end, Wanhekou Yamen could only bite the bullet and continue to conceal the report and threaten those who fled. As long as they dare to go out and talk nonsense, their population will be confiscated. They will never come back after the disaster. So now there are rumors outside. The most common ones are floods.
After that, people died in one village after another, too many to count. At the beginning, the yamen would organize people to bury it on the spot, but later everyone became afraid and was unwilling to do it. The Yamen dug the hiding pits on both sides of the official road first, and asked the old and weak people in the village who could not escape to help take the bodies out and throw them into the pits.
Later, more than ten government officials died, and no one dared to enter the disaster area..."
The doctor next to him turned red and angry when he heard this, because according to the common method in this world to deal with the plague, it is to blockade, so as to prevent the plague from expanding its scope. But if you want to block it, you must react immediately. If one or two people are left out, it will lose all meaning. Wanhekou's approach undoubtedly completely ignored the critical period of dealing with the plague, and now the situation is irreversible.
"Call the news to Fengri City. It is said that the situation here has been out of control for a long time. It is unclear how many people have poured out of Wanhekou and where they have gone. It is recommended that all refugees entering the city be interrogated and circled. The ban is imminent. Expedited delivery."
"Yes." Wang Yiming took the order and left in a hurry.
Shen Hao stood up from his seat, looked at the sky, turned to the doctor and said, "The starting point should be Xiushan Village. Let's go there and have a look now, how about that?"
"It should!"
So Shen Hao personally led the team, leaving Wang Yiming and Fang Yangqin behind, and galloped all the way towards Xiushan Village.
We got off the official road in the evening, and following the guidance of a local Xuanqingwei general who led the way, we walked on the mountain road for another half an hour before we saw the beautiful mountain village in a mountain col.
"There are not many people in the village, with a total of 31 households and 125 people. One hundred and seventeen people are confirmed dead, and the whereabouts of the rest are unknown."
"Is there any statistics on the death toll?" Shen Hao asked with a frown. He had not seen the deceased in the file before nor heard Fang Yangqin mention them.
"There is no way to count it, but because Xiushan Village was the first place where the accident happened, the government office also counted it at first, but things got messy later."
The doctor did not rush into the village. He walked around the village and recorded all the surrounding environment and vegetation. He was so professional that Shen Hao could not understand it.
After entering the village, it was quiet inside, which made it even more eerie with the darkening sky.
Lighting torches, Shen Hao and his party found the first family where the accident occurred according to the description in the file. There is a small courtyard on the east side of the village, with a bamboo fence on the outside and a three-door thatched house inside.
Shen Hao asked most of the people to wait outside, and those who were not at the God Gathering Realm were not allowed in.
The doctor's monk happened to be at the first level of the God Condensation Realm and was not afraid of the plague. He entered the room first, followed by Shen Hao.
There was a very strange smell in the room, and the doctor and Shen Hao felt it immediately.
"The smell is very strange. It doesn't sound like dampness or corpse smell. It's very strange..."
"It must be the smell of something rotten?"
After such a long time, no one should have lived in the house. It is normal to be a bit rotten, but why does it smell so weird? Upsetting even.
"This is......"
Following this strange smell, I opened a basket in the corner. There were some rotten fruits in it, which looked very much like pears. That strange smell comes from this thing.
Shen Hao thought to himself: So this is the smell of rotten pears? Is it so weird?
However, the doctor who came over was not as relaxed as Shen Hao. He carefully inserted a fruit with a stick and then knocked it. Due to the rot, the rotten pulp was easily peeled off, revealing the fruit inside. nuclear.
Shen Hao was still wondering what the doctor was going to do, but when he saw the core, he realized that he had almost missed an important clue. The fruit in the basket was not a pear at all.
Will the pit of a pear grow into a skull? It's still the kind of skull that grins like it's mocking wantonly.
"What is this?"
"Ghost pear."
"Kitouli?"
"Well, it's a poisonous plant that can cause trance. It's also a poisonous medicinal material used in alchemy. It looks almost exactly like a normal wild pear, and tastes similar to a wild pear."
Shen Hao: "Is this the source of the plague?"
"No, the ghost pear is poisonous but does not cause plague, otherwise it would not be used to make elixirs. What I am curious about is how an ordinary family can have such a large basket of ghost pear in their home. It stands to reason that Guitou Pear only grows in places with strong corpse Qi, strong Yin Qi, little sunshine and humid environment. Such places are usually inaccessible places. Monks have to spend a lot of time searching if they want to collect them. How can an ordinary family touch it? What kind of place did you go to?
And if I remember correctly, we don’t have Guitou pear here in Jingxi, only in Jingnan. "
The doctor was just confused, but Shen Hao turned his doubts into doubts out of habit. It was strange enough for a poisonous material to appear in an ordinary family's home, but it also caused an unknown plague. Is there any connection between the two?
"Do you think this family thought they found wild pears and were infected with the plague by something while picking them?"
