Plague (23): What you want

When the system issued the announcement, Wang Mingming, who was regretting on his sickbed, sat up in shock: “What? What happened?” How did it suddenly go from easy to hell level? And this infectious disease was impossible to defend against. If it weren’t for his luck in drawing a blood-locking talent, he would have been dead by now. Could this difficulty still be called easy level?!

But with only a thin layer of skin left, he could only lie on the hospital bed, powerless and furious, inhaling oxygen while waiting to die.

In the suburbs, Li Shengnan also saw this announcement: the special NPC Nie Cheng, hell difficulty. She perked up, recalling that the name sounded somewhat familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before.

Right, there might be information online. Li Shengnan typed in two characters, nervously biting her nails, waiting for the search page to load.

By the way, she found it: Nie Cheng, the youngest general in A country, only thirty-five years old, a first-class merit awardee, who had commanded multiple battles and achieved great military feats. Moreover, not only was he capable, but he also came from a prestigious family, which was why he could firmly control the military power in S City.

The S City mayor, who had a round face and a chubby build, was indeed the secretary of S City during peacetime, the nominal highest official. However, in times of chaos, only those who hold military power have a say.

She searched for the Huaxi Hospital attack incident and indeed found Nie Cheng’s trace in the related photos. She knew her guess was correct; that attack was likely a fishing operation, targeting players who were restless and wanted to cause trouble!

The difficulty had increased. Could it be that this special NPC obtained some machine to detect players, capturing them and then eliminating them all?!

Needless to say, Li Shengnan’s brain was obviously much sharper than Wang Mingming’s. She almost deduced half the truth relying on her intuition and clues.

Her body trembled for a while, and she really wanted to run up to Nie Cheng and shout that she was a good citizen, that she had never done anything against public order, and that she was completely harmless to society.

However, the possibility of doing this was that before she could get close to Nie Cheng, she would be shot by him. She silently cleared her browsing history on her phone and then blocked the door with heavy objects. It had already been 25 days, and there were only five days left! Li Shengnan, you can do it!

After the officials he had “invited” witnessed the changes in the patients, Nie Cheng lifted their house arrest. After all, voluntary cooperation was more beneficial for advancing his plan than being coerced into working.

This time, the group held a new meeting, but this time, there was an additional participant sitting in the main seat—Nie Cheng.

After more than an hour-long meeting, the S City elites, dressed in full protective gear, were escorted out of Huaxi Hospital by a military truck.

There was no way around it, the sight of patients exploding into a mist of blood was just too terrifying. Huaxi Hospital was the place with the most patients, and even though there was a glass door between them, they still felt particularly unsafe. When sitting in the conference room, just thinking about that scene made them feel like there were a row of nails under their butts, and they couldn’t feel comfortable no matter what.

Professor Zhu and several other medical experts returned to the laboratory, but they had lost the joy they had when they left. Their faces were extremely dejected, and they looked like they had lost their souls.

Nie Cheng only glanced at a few people on the monitor. At this moment, he didn’t care about the experts’ feelings. The vaccine had failed, and he needed to focus on preparing for major tasks like the eradication plan. He didn’t care whether these doctors were happy or not.

In his view, failures had little value, at least at this stage.

“What? Our vaccine failed, but it shouldn’t have. The experiment clearly had no issues.”

The head, Professor Wang, was red-faced and furious: “This is impossible, I am willing to use myself as a test subject, let me inject this vaccine!”

The old man had looked even more haggard than his actual age during this period, and now his blood surged, his face was flushed, and his whole body was trembling.

The young doctors and assistants around him hurriedly advised, “Professor Wang, please don’t get angry, using yourself as a test subject is too dangerous.”

Professor Zhu’s lips trembled; he wasn’t wearing a mask, and his face was particularly pale under the plastic face shield. “Professor Wang, it’s true. I saw with my own eyes that those people who got vaccinated ended up getting infected with x12. The previous batch of vaccinated patients also mutated. General Nie said that this is the final form of the infectious disease. The vaccine we developed catalyzed the progression of the disease, causing the mutation to occur earlier.”

“But their condition clearly improved after getting vaccinated, and all the data indicates they are recovering.”

A medical student speculated, “This condition is similar to a terminal lucidity. The cells’ vitality is maximally activated, creating the illusion of improvement and recovery. In reality, the cell activity is excessively heightened, leading to the rupture of their cell membranes, resulting in widespread redness and swelling. Eventually, the cells burst, exploding into a mist of blood.”

Professor Wang shook his head and said, “The situation you described is completely inconsistent with medical principles!”

The medical student couldn’t help but retort, “The very emergence of this virus is itself inconsistent with common sense. It’s a brand new virus; isn’t it normal for it to undergo unreasonable changes?”

As a young person, he naturally had a heart that dared to question authority, and the more he talked, the more he felt he was right: “There are many things in the world that cannot be explained by science. This new infectious disease can even be transmitted through sweat and tears, which has never been a mode of transmission before. Maybe it’s some kind of ancient virus or something.”

The zombie virus was even less scientific; this blood disease sounded much better than the zombie virus.

Professor Zhao, who appeared gentle but was actually very resilient, said, “Our previous vaccine failed, possibly because we were on the wrong track. Just give us some more time, and we will definitely develop a new vaccine!”

“Yes, the number of new patients now is much better than before, thanks to General Nie’s order to lockdown City S initially, preventing the disease from spreading.”

Many people were very dissatisfied with Nie Cheng’s actions before, but after realizing the terrifying nature of this new infectious disease, they all began to praise Nie Cheng.

But only Nie Cheng knew that time was running out. It was already the twenty-fifth day, with five days left on the countdown. The failed medical staff had no chance to research a new vaccine.

Every time, at the end of each instance, if the infectious disease was not resolved, the city of S would be completely flattened by the descending sanctions in a frenzy, and the time in the instance would reset.

His life would restart amidst those brilliant streaks of light like meteors, and then begin to endlessly repeat the cycle of thirty days. To be precise, it was actually twenty days, since he had no complete memories of the first ten days.

In the previous cycles, he could never abandon all the sick without evidence. Even if he could give the order, many of those soldiers had family and relatives who would fall ill. In the previous cycles, proposing such an idea would only lead to faster failure.

And when the vaccine development succeeded and the infectious disease revealed its hideous side, even if he wanted to implement the plan, there wouldn’t be enough time.

Nie Cheng closed his eyes. The extra three days were not entirely useless; if he seized the time, he might be able to change the fate of all the citizens in S City.

Although this was very cruel, from a rational perspective, Nie Cheng was also doing it for the survival of the majority of healthy people. He might still fail, and everything would restart in despair once the time came, but at least he tried, and he wouldn’t regret failing.

It was now the early morning of the 25th day, and outside it was pitch black. Nie Cheng, however, had no intention of sleeping; he planned to push forward with the implementation of the plan as soon as possible.

“Knock, knock, knock.”

At this time, someone politely knocked on Nie Cheng’s office door in the middle of the night.

To see Nie Cheng, one must first go through a notification, and then his deputy would knock on the door. These three knocks were clearly not made by his deputy.

Nie Cheng suddenly felt tense, his gloved hand reaching for his sidearm.

Before he could respond, the door creaked open, revealing a figure in a white coat standing at his doorstep. It was a blood-stained white coat, not the protective gear he was familiar with.

His adjutant and the other soldiers guarding the door stood like two rigid statues, making no move towards the newcomer.

The visitor was none other than the terrifying doctor from Nie Cheng’s memories—Wen Yi.

A ghost of a deceased doctor, due to his existence, the T0 vaccine could successfully emerge in every cycle.

He once thought that Wen Yi was the culprit behind the infectious disease, but later discovered that it was not; Wen Yi was merely a bystander who exacerbated the situation.

The terrifying doctor simply enjoyed watching the despair on the faces of citizens as their hopes were crushed after being raised.

In one cycle, Wen Yi chose not to intervene, so the vaccine was not developed in advance, and the virus still broke out on a large scale after 29 days, resulting in even more devastating consequences for City S than he had seen in previous cycles.

At this point, what did Wen Yi want from him? To see him make a fool of himself? Or to add insult to injury?

Wen Yi was holding a light blue insulated lunch box, the same one that was used to bring food to Wen Yi before.

However, since it wasn’t convenient to cook in the hospital, the lunch box was cleaned and left unused in their shared dorm.

The young doctor, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, ignored Nie Cheng’s wariness and hostility, placed the lunch box on the table, and with a refined and elegant motion, said, “This is what you wanted.”

“Are you here to bring me food? I’m not hungry.” Nie Cheng wouldn’t eat the food sent by Wen Yi; he was afraid the other party might poison it.

Wen Yi smiled at him, “Aren’t you going to open it and take a look?”

Nie Cheng seemed to guess a possibility; he moved his throat and instinctively licked his dry, cracked lips.

The lunchbox was opened, revealing a row of light blue, slender glass tubes inside.

Nie Cheng’s voice tightened further: “What is this?”

Wen Yi said, “The X12 vaccine you wanted.”

Nie Cheng replied, “The vaccine is useless; it’s a failure.”

Wen Yi’s lips curled into a smile: “X12-T0 is indeed a failed semi-finished product, but X12-T1 is not.”