Extreme germ phobia

Chapter 285 Work Arrangement
Zhu Yiming's words hit the nail on the head, or rather, every immune person who encounters this situation will have similar doubts to some extent.

Lu Wei sighed, barely suppressing the urge to roll his eyes: "What are we studying you for? We know your situation, and there are indeed some studies that require your cooperation, but the short-term goal of the research is how to prevent phantom lung bacteria, and the long-term goal is to cure phantom lung disease. Research related to immune individuals only accounts for a very small part of all the research projects, understand? Very small!"

"Hey, hey, what's the rush!" Zhu Yiming laughed carelessly. "I was just asking casually."

"I'm not in a hurry." Lu Wei calmed himself down. "To tell you the truth, we have taken in a large number of infected people on this ship. They are the real research subjects."

He paused and then said, "Most of the staff on the ship are ordinary people. As you know, it's too dangerous for ordinary people to come into contact with infected people. Even if you wear full protective gear, you can still get infected. So we really need immune personnel like you to participate in the research work... Don't worry, you won't work for free. You'll get the same pay for the same work, plus a subsidy."

Zhu Yiming was quite surprised: "That's good?"

"There's nothing we can do; there are just too few immune individuals," Lu Wei said.

As they were talking, the plane had already flown over the Hua Tuo and slowly landed on the flight deck.

The deck was deserted. Led by Lu Wei, the trio entered the cabin, where Lu Wei explained as they walked: "The ship's rules are: when going forward, use the starboard side; when going backward, use the port side; when using the gangway, go up first and then down; at night, you must use the inner passageway; you are not allowed to run unless in an emergency; if you are seasick, you must carry a plastic bag with you; and you are not allowed on the deck at night, otherwise you might fall into the sea and no one would know..."

The trio was dizzy from hearing all the rules. Ou Yang glanced at Lu Wei and thought to himself, "Is he not even going to pretend anymore?"

The regulations that Lu Wei just mentioned are all rules for warships, which immediately confirmed the identity of the Hua Tuo.

After entering the cabin, I walked along the passageway for a few minutes before finally seeing the other people.

Accompanied by Lu Wei, the three of them underwent a comprehensive physical examination, including both routine and non-routine tests, and even experienced a CT scan and an MRI.

The results were not as optimistic as expected. Jiang Yuwei had the least problem, which was still endocrine imbalance.

Zhu Yiming's situation was a bit complicated. After receiving the test results, the doctor immediately asked him about the incision on his abdomen.

Upon hearing that he had been shot and had part of his intestines removed, the doctors present all frowned.

Zhu Yiming asked nervously, "Doctor, am I alright?"

The doctor gently pressed on the incision a few times: "Didn't you notice any difference before and after the surgery?"

"Yes, I do." Avoiding medical help is unwise, so Zhu Yiming answered honestly like a schoolchild, "There's always a dull, persistent pain inside the incision. It's not obvious, but it's constant. Also, after the incision heals, I always have diarrhea. Doctor, am I alright?"

"It's not a big problem, it's just that you didn't rest well after the surgery and need to rest for a while."

Zhu Yiming immediately breathed a sigh of relief: "Oh, that scared me to death! It's good that you're alright, it's good that you're alright!"

As they spoke, the doctor's gaze fell on Ou Yang: "You're Ou Yang?"

Ou Yang was a little confused: "Yes, that's me."

The doctor smiled: "We've always known about you, but we never expected to meet you in person today."

Zhu and Jiang looked at Ou Yang together, thinking to themselves, "When did you become so famous?"

Ouyang was also puzzled. Could it be that, like the staff on the shore, he also knew what he had done in the New Eden?
No way?
"You can go out for a bit!" the doctor said very naturally.

All the medical staff, including Lu Wei, left.

Zhu Yiming and Jiang Yuwei didn't leave, and the doctor immediately said, "I have a few words I'd like to say to him alone."

The two looked at each other and had no choice but to leave.

The doctor closed the door himself, turned around and extended his right hand: "Let me introduce you, Zhou Jimin."

When Ou Yang saw that his name tag read "Chief Physician," he politely shook hands and said, "Hello, Dr. Zhou."

The name Jimin is truly fitting for a doctor surnamed Zhou.

"Have a seat," Zhou Jimin sighed. "You provided a batch of research materials to the higher-ups, didn't you?"

Ou Yang was quite surprised and nodded: "That's true."

"Some of the information is related to you, right?"

Ou Yang had never mentioned this before, and upon hearing this, he fell silent for a long while before saying, "The higher-ups already know?"

"The higher-ups don't know yet." Zhou Jimin tapped the test results. "I only just found out myself."

Ou Yang suddenly realized that it was the test results that had exposed him.

"Don't worry, I didn't keep you here for any other reason than to chat with you for a bit." Zhou Jimin reassured you first. "As you know, your situation is rather special. Although your body doesn't produce spores, we can find hyphae. Strictly speaking, you are actually a virus carrier."

His gaze was intense: "We've come into contact with at least 800 to 1,000 infected people, and this is the first time we've encountered such a situation. Therefore, you yourself have very important research value."

Ou Yang couldn't help but say, "Dr. Zhou, please stop with the preamble and just get to the point."

"Then I'll get straight to the point." Zhou Jimin adjusted his glasses. "I hope you'll cooperate with us and do some necessary research, is that alright?"

Ou Yang countered, "How do we coordinate? By slicing?"

Zhou Jimin laughed: "Have you always thought that research necessarily involves slides?"

"Isn't it?"

“Of course not.” Zhou Jimin laughed even more heartily. “It’s not as dramatic as a slice. At most, we’ll take some tissue samples from you. For example, which has higher research value: a live dinosaur or a dinosaur carcass?”

Ou Yang nodded: "I understand, I can cooperate, but my situation is not an isolated case."

Zhou Jimin's smile vanished: "What do you mean?"

“We encountered a special infected individual,” O’Yan said. “It was incredibly fast and had unimaginable strength.”

Zhou Jimin was immediately stunned: "You mean, there's someone who looks like you, but you weren't infected while he was?"

The wording wasn't precise, but the meaning was fairly clear, and Ou Yang immediately nodded: "That's right." Zhou Jimin gasped: "Could you elaborate?"

Ouyang briefly explained the situation, and when he mentioned that the infected person's body was covered with hyphae, he couldn't help but ask with concern, "Will I end up like him, with my whole body covered in hyphae?"

Zhou Jimin picked up the examination report, looked at it, and shook his head: "It's not certain yet, but judging from your current condition, the mycelium should have reached some kind of symbiosis with you, and this situation has lasted for almost half a year, so I think the possibility of it getting worse is not high, and even if it does happen, it won't be too soon."

Ou Yang's lips twitched. Is this how you comfort someone?
Zhou Jimin put down the report: "Then there is even more need for research. Only by solving the mystery of you can we find a way for the mycelium to continue to grow."

Ou Yang didn't know what to say. So, I've gotten myself into this mess?

Zhou Jimin then worked on the computer again, adding a gene sequencing to Ou Yang's genome: "Don't worry, I will start the research as soon as possible."

Ouyang lamented, "Is this what I want?"
"Do you have any thoughts or requests?" Zhou Jimin asked. "Tell me, and I'll try my best to help you resolve them."

"It's nothing," Ou Yang shook his head. "I'll cooperate no matter how they study it!"

Although the phantom lung bacteria in his body are different from others, as long as the hyphae exist, there is a possibility of spore production.

He wanted to return to Tokyo University instead of staying in the United States, and eliminating the mycelium in his body was the prerequisite for everything!

Zhou Jimin nodded emphatically: "Don't worry, I will do my best."

When he left, Ouyang was preoccupied with his thoughts.

Zhu Yiming and Jiang Yuwei noticed that he was in a bad mood, so they tacitly chose to remain silent and neither of them asked what had happened.

As soon as the trio arrived on the ship, Lu Wei acted as their guide, showing them around the Hua Tuo: "This ship has a displacement of over 10,000 tons and more than 200 staff members, most of whom are doctors, nurses, and researchers."

"Because of the special nature of Pneumocystis jirovecii, the ship is divided into four major areas and several sub-areas." Lu Wei explained as he walked. "The four major areas are the living area, the research area, the isolation area, and the support area. The living area is further divided into the front area and the rear area. The front area is for ordinary people, while the rear area is for immune individuals. In order to prevent infection, people in the rear area must undergo comprehensive disinfection before entering the front area."

He paused here: "There's no intention to discriminate; it's purely for safety reasons."

Ou Yang said, "No need to explain, we all understand."

Zhu Yiming and Jiang Yuwei nodded together.

They knew better than anyone on the ship the dangers of pneumococcus. Disinfecting them and allowing them to enter was already a great achievement. If they were to be more radical, simply refusing them entry wouldn't be excessive.

"The research area goes without saying, it's where research is done; and then there's the quarantine area, where all the research subjects are."

Lu Wei's expression was heavy: "The situation in the isolation area is quite complicated. It is also divided into two areas, left and right. The right area contains hundreds of infected people who have entered the growth stage and have completely lost consciousness. They cannot be separated from human care. Your job is to take care of them, feed them, give them medicine, observe and record their daily changes."

"What the heck?" Zhu Yiming almost thought he had misheard. "Are you kidding me? How are you going to take care of infected people in their growth period? Isn't this pushing them into a fire pit?"

"It definitely wasn't direct contact."

“Even direct contact is not allowed.” Zhu Yiming strongly resisted. “No, I just don’t understand, what’s the point of taking care of infected people?”

“Of course it’s meaningful,” Lu Wei said seriously. “The purpose of the research is to see what kind of effects various drugs have on infected people. The two-stage goal is to find the most effective drug combination, and the long-term goal is to find a way to help infected people in the growth stage return to normal.”

"Are you kidding me? They're in their growth phase, how can they go back to normal?"

“We can’t see any hope right now, but we can’t just give up because we have no clue what to do, can we?” Lu Wei glared at Zhu Yiming with dissatisfaction. “If we give up and retreat when we encounter difficulties, can we win a 1v17 battle? Can we succeed in developing nuclear weapons and satellites? Can the Chinese people stand tall?”

Zhu Yiming was speechless. It wasn't that he couldn't win the argument, but rather that he couldn't find a way to refute them.

Ouyang interrupted at the opportune moment: "What about the left district? Where do they live during the budding stage?"

“Yes, but the germination stage is much better than the growth stage. They can take care of each other, and there’s not much we need to do.” Lu Wei sighed. “Regardless of which area, all the infected people who participated in the experiment came to the ship voluntarily and signed a body donation agreement beforehand.”

“We really want to cure all our infected compatriots, but so far we still can’t find a way to treat phantom lung disease. We can only give them various drugs whose efficacy is still unclear, and do our best to slow down the disease. Also, in order to observe the drug’s effects, some people are in the experimental group and others are in the control group.”

"There's a control group too?" Ou Yang exclaimed in surprise. "Isn't this a bit too cruel?"

Lu Wei took a deep breath: "For the sake of the research, there was no other way, and this was decided by the higher-ups. Moreover, we found a very special case. As far as I know, he only took some common drugs for the brain. Everyone thought he was definitely beyond saving, but the strange thing is that his condition was actually brought under control!"

The three of them were stunned. Ou Yang asked curiously, "How did you manage to control it? Did you take the right medicine?"

“No.” Lu Wei shook his head. “We’ve tried all the medications he took, and they were completely ineffective. The higher-ups speculate that it might be because of his unique constitution, which puts him right on the borderline between immunity and non-immunity. That’s why he got infected with the spores, but it didn’t develop to an uncontrollable stage.”

Ou Yang was a little dizzy. Was this even possible?

He later learned that the immune individuals on the ship not only needed care during their growth period, but also had to have their emotions soothed during their budding period.

Lu Wei suddenly looked at Jiang Yuwei: "You're a medical student, right?"

“Yes!” Jiang Yuwei blushed. “But I only finished my first year of college.”

“It’s alright,” Lu Wei chuckled. “We have many excellent doctors here, so you can continue your studies.”

Jiang Yuwei was stunned; she simply couldn't believe it was true.

“Zhu Yiming!” Lu Wei switched targets. “You can continue your live stream and convey the most authentic side of the United States to the domestic audience, including the infected people, the epidemic areas, and the country itself.”

Zhu Yiming was also stunned, his face full of disbelief: "This is possible?"

"It's not a question of whether it's possible or not, but rather that we must let the people in China know what the real situation of the epidemic is like, so that everyone can be psychologically prepared to fight the epidemic."

"That serious?" Ou Yang's heart sank. "The epidemic has already spread?"

Research on Pneumocystis ulnaris is still ongoing, and if the epidemic spreads to other regions at this time, the consequences would be unimaginable!
"No, not at all." Lu Wei shook his head. "It's just prevention. It's always better to be aware in advance than to be caught off guard when disaster strikes, right?"

That's what they say, but that was a real epidemic area. It might not be as exaggerated as the biological disasters in movies and TV shows, but it was still more cruel and bloody.

The former is merely artistic embellishment, while the latter is the real world; the sensory impact is on a completely different level!
Moreover, Ouyang felt that if there was no risk of the epidemic spreading again, the higher-ups would only report the embellished situation to their families and would never expose the true epidemic area to everyone!

(End of this chapter)