Lin Mengya fingered through the documents and realized that apart from letters that contained descriptions of the symptoms, there were some written prescriptions from the doctors in the areas affected by the pandemic.
The prescriptions might not be useful, but from the drugs the physicians prescribed, she was able to make some educated guesses.
The first few components of the prescription contain herbs that help detox and cool down the body.
However, the components that came after included a drug called the Bone Transplant Flower.
The name of this drug could be found in the music score for the green stringed instrument. Although it was not frequently used, it was one of the components of a prescription called “Marrow Cleansing Powder”, which was commonly used to stimulate blood circulation and relax muscles and joints.
The prescription was obviously meant to treat the pandemic, why should its efficacy be to stimulate blood circulation and relax muscles and joints?
Apart from the Bond Transplant Flower, there were many other medicinal drugs listed that were meant to help the healing of wounds after a bone injury.
Based on the information from the letters, the pandemic was aggressive and the fatality rate among the infected was very high.
Could the disease cause harm to the human bones?
This seemed to be too bizarre!
Seeing that Lin Mengya had gone into deep thoughts, Long Tianyu could tell that she must have gathered some details of the situation.
Not wanting to disturb her, he sat silently beside her and waited.
After a long time, Lin Mengya finally exhaled and began tidying up the letters and pieces of paper containing the physician’s prescriptions to hand them back to Long Tianyu.
“Did you manage to figure anything out?”
Long Tianyu took over the letters and flipped through them. He had no idea what these were, so naturally, there was nothing much he could do to help Lin Mengya.
“Something is very strange about the outbreak of this disease. Just look at this prescription. Although there is nothing special about the first few components in it, the following herbs appear very strange. I need to ask your opinion about something.
Lin Mengya sat up and freed herself from Long Tianyu’s embrace as she spoke with a serious tone of voice.
At her serious attitude, Long Tianyu nodded. He knew that the situation was far more difficult to handle than he had imagined.
“How long would it take to break every bone in a person for people like you, who practice martial arts?”
The question caught Long Tianyu by surprise. He did not know what this was leading to.
However, since Lin Mengya raised the question, he thought about it for a while before giving her an answer.
“I’ve heard of a kind of martial arts called Powerful Diamond Strike. Once a person masters this, he would be able to break every bone in another person’s body using just one strike of it. However, not even I have witnessed it. As for me, I would probably take at least fifteen minutes.”
Lin Mengya naturally believed Long Tianyu’s words.
Although Lin Mengya had no idea about things regarding martial arts, she knew that he was very skillful. Qinghu had once told her that he would only be able to take a dozen of Long Tianyu’s strikes if he were to get into a serious fight with him.
And Qinghu was once the master of the Peach Blossom Dock, who struck fear in people even at the mention of his name. His skill far transcended that of the limit of commoners.
If even a person like him took fifteen minutes to break all the bones of a person’s body, it would take much longer for a commoner to break even one bone.
However, from the letter that Lin Mengya read, almost all the infected people would die in a bizarre manner after the effects of the disease came on.
It seemed that every part of the body would fold in the opposite way from its normal position simultaneously.
He would also vomit out the broken pieces of his internal organs from his mouth.
Normally, a person’s internal organs would be protected by the ribs as well as multiple layers of muscles.
Now, it seemed that the rib bones had moved out of place and caused them to throw up pieces of their internal organs.
In that case, the bones and muscles meant to protect the internal organs of a person had on the contrary become the prime culprit that constricted the organs.
Moreover, there was a large amount of a herb similar to the Bone Transplant Flower written in the prescription.
Therefore, the prescription seemed to be used for treating bone fractures rather than treating the disease of the pandemic.
Could it be because the infected person already exhibited such frightening symptoms during the first stage after catching the disease?
After organizing her thoughts, Lin Mengya looped her hair behind her ear and began explaining her suspicion to Long Tianyu, speaking with a low voice.
“Based on the description in the letter as well as the physician’s prescription, I suspect that the disease of the pandemic attacks man’s bones. Nevertheless, the bones are hard and strong, no one would take much notice of it at the beginning. It’s normal for people to suffer pain and soreness around the body. Perhaps it does not cross the mind of the people that these were symptoms of the disease.
Lin Mengya gave the situation much thought and decided that she would only pick some information which she was certain of to tell to Long Tianyu.
“However, by the time the infected enters the later stage of the disease, it’s late. Because the infected did not receive effective treatment, by the time he realized that he had been infected, the disease had spread to the bones. Within a short period of a few days, the bones of the infected would have grown in the opposite direction. Finally, the infected would become like what was described in the letter. He would curl his body into a ball, but the limbs would be bend in the opposite directions, making him look abnormal. This is my preliminary analysis. Nevertheless, I would want to personally dissect the corpses for a closer examination when I get to the areas affected by the pandemic.”
Long Tianyu knitted his dark brows when he saw how Lin Mengya was able to make such a detailed analysis of the things he had missed, just by going through the letter and prescriptions.
She would be of great benefit when they arrived at the affected areas.
As for performing dissection on the corpses—
“How about we ask someone else to do the dissection, while you look on by the side? There were only a handful of survivors among the hundreds of thousands of infected cases in Yun State. Your safety is of utmost importance.”
Lin Mengya naturally knew that Long Tianyu meant well. After all, the dead bodies were also a very effective contagion.
However, the old ways differed greatly from what she learned in modern anatomy.
She reached out her small hand and placed it on Long Tianyu’s big nervous hands as she tried to reassure the man who was full of concern for her.
“I’m alright. You should know that my mother was the only disciple of the Chief Elder of the Pavilion of herbs. For this reason, I was fed special herbs even before I was born. My body naturally has antibodies that can combat common pandemics. It means I won’t be infected. I suppose even royals like you don’t even have such a privilege.”
Lin Mengya was not spouting nonsense.
Modern people would be given vaccinations from the time they were born.
By doing so, even widespread pandemics such as smallpox could be effectively prevented.
Nevertheless, Lin Mengya felt there was something fishy about this pandemic.
She could be said to be a well-read person, who was also a medical graduate, but this was the first time she had seen such a bizarre virus that dislocated all the bones in a person’s body within a few days.
Subconsciously, Lin Mengya had the feeling that this pandemic was not simple. Why did reversing all the bones in the body sound so familiar to her?
Her mind started making a search through her memory.
Finally, Lin Mengya had a brainwave and her eyes lit up in that instant.
She grabbed Long Tianyu’s hand excitedly and said, “Xiao Yixin! Xiao Yixin! Do you still remember him, Long Tianyu?”
Long Tianyu could not help but wondered why Lin Mengya looked so excited.
Was Xiao Yixin not the hideous-looking hunchback they met back in the inn?
Back then, Long Tianyu was indeed a little bothered about him, but now Long Tianyu remembered him clearly.
“Erm, I remember him. Why? How is he related to the current pandemic?”
After regaining her composure, Lin Mengya nodded vigorously.
“He said that he had ended up in his state because he had been poisoned. At that time, I felt his pulse and thought that he had ended up that way because medication had reversed all the muscles in his body. However, he would have taken the medication long ago. The effects of the medication should have worn off!”
Naturally, Long Tianyu, being an extremely intelligent person, immediately understood what Lin Mengya was trying to get at.
Making a guess based on Lin Mengya’s words, perhaps the so-called pandemic this time was in reality not a natural calamity but a result of man’s doing.
“Moreover, pandemics usually break out in densely populated areas. You said that this time, the outbreak started in a little town known to few people. I suppose if you send some men to investigate this, some foreigner must have visited this little town just before the outbreak of the pandemic. Or very possibly, someone was testing out the virus at that place. Unfortunately, we are just speculating since we don’t have any concrete evidence.”
Her excitement had gradually turned into helplessness and a sense of defeat.
Now that the pandemic had spread far and wide. Not to mention the little town, all the cities in Yun State where the outbreak was most serious were becoming ghost towns.
Lin Mengya felt panic rising in her when she realized that the innocent commoners had been implicated in this fight for power and even their lives had been endangered.
“There will be. If that is the case, we have to return to the capital city first. If the pandemic is the result of someone’s intentional act, I’m afraid someone might be eyeing the throne and my father would meet with trouble.”
Lin Mengya had made quite some analysis, but Long Tianyu had given an even deeper thought about this.
Yun State was the ancestral home of the Long Family. Even up to this day, many aristocratic families had originated from the Yun State.
If the pandemic was truly started by men, like what Lin Mengya said, not only within the Yun State, even the people living in the peripherals would go into a state of panic.
Some of the powerful families might even be uprooted.
If that were the case, Dajin would be thrown into great turbulence.
Therefore, he had to tell this to his father, the emperor, lest the country became unstable.
“That sounds good. Oh yes, I wonder how Baishao is recovering from her injuries. We have to go fetch her. Also, let’s go visit Xiao Yixin on the way back. If he’s still there, let’s bring him along with us too. If I’m right about my guess, Xiao Yixin would be the key to solving the mystery of the calamity.”
There was worry in Lin Mengya’s bright watery eyes as she fiddled with the back of the silk blanket.
Before the first wave subsided, another one had begun to rise. Troubles just kept coming.
While they traveled on in the swaying horse carriage, each absorbed in their thoughts, their eyebrows were tightly knitted and their eyes filled with mixed emotions.
Outside the horse carriage, the night was dark. At some point, when no one noticed, the new moon had hidden behind the dark clouds.
Darkness had cast a shadow over this side of the world.