The doctor's surname was Wang, so people called him "Little Wang next door". When Little Wang saw Chen Xu, he was happy, but after hearing Chen Xu explain the situation, he was no longer happy and said, "Hurry up and get some saliva for a checkup."
During the examination, Liu Lingtian recovered. He was held down by Wang Dong and the others and couldn't move, so he stared at Chen Xu with a furious look. However, Chen Xu didn't care. He yawned, stretched, and chatted with Guan Yi next to him, acting as if it was none of his business. This made Liu Lingtian even more eager to kill the guy!
A dozen minutes later, Dr. Wang came out. Liu Lingtian smiled coldly and looked at Chen Xu provocatively, as if to say, "Fine, you've been saying I have rabies, haven't you? Well, let's see the results!"
But soon, the smile on Liu Lingtian's face gradually froze, because everyone around him fell silent, and everyone saw the solemn expression on Dr. Wang's face.
Wang Dong hurriedly asked, "Doctor, is he really alright?"
Dr. Wang's expression was grave. He said to Liu Lingtian, "Young man, you'd better call your parents over."
The words weren't loud, but they struck like a bolt from the blue. Liu Lingtian's expression froze instantly, and he looked as if he'd been struck by lightning, his face turning deathly pale! He trembled all over, and if Wang Dong hadn't caught him in time, he probably wouldn't have been able to sit up.
"How could this be? How could this be?" Liu Lingtian no longer cared about Chen Xu at this point, repeating these words like a helpless baby. Wang Dong hurriedly asked, "Doctor, it should be alright, right? Can't a rabies vaccine fix it?"
Dr. Wang wanted to look down on this guy who lacked common sense, but considering the tense atmosphere, she calmly explained, "The rabies vaccine is only effective immediately after an animal bite, before the virus enters the body. Once the virus enters the body and spreads..."
Dr. Wang didn't say what he was going to say next, but everyone knew what he meant, and their faces turned pale. Even Chen Xu and Guan Yi were no exception!
Liu Lingtian, who was standing nearby, suddenly fainted, causing a flurry of activity as everyone rushed him into a hospital room.
"Doctor, something's not right," Guan Yi said, pulling Dr. Wang aside after taking Liu Lingtian to the ward. "I remember that rabies is something that can be prevented by vaccination, and even if you are bitten, you can still get vaccinated!"
"That depends on how long it takes," Dr. Wang said, adjusting his glasses. "The main purpose of vaccines is prevention. If someone is bitten by a dog and treats the wound immediately before getting vaccinated, the virus can be more effectively eliminated, preventing it from entering the body. But it's not 100% effective. The purpose of vaccination is to induce antibodies in the body. These antibodies can prevent the spread and infection of the virus, while also clearing it. However, some people are unaware of being bitten and wait a while before getting vaccinated, which may be too late."
"So that means..." Guan Yi's pretty face turned deathly pale. She couldn't help but grasp Chen Xu's hand beside her and asked in a very low voice, "I heard that the mortality rate of rabies is one hundred percent..."
Dr. Wang sighed and nodded. At this moment, Chen Xu also became anxious. His consistent belief… and indeed many people's belief… was that even if infected with the rabies virus, it would only require a rabies vaccine, nothing serious. But he hadn't expected that once infected with this virus, it was completely incurable! This made him nervous, and his initial thought of seeing Liu Lingtian realize his mistake, cry and beg for forgiveness, thanking him for saving his life, vanished.
“We still need to continue the examination,” Dr. Wang said. “Please notify his teacher and parents as soon as possible, and also tell his roommates to isolate all the things he used. Although the rabies virus does not survive in the air for long, it’s still good to be careful.”
Chen Xu's eyes lit up: "So that means there might still be hope for him?"
Dr. Wang sighed: "Look, the most dangerous thing about the rabies virus is that it infects the spinal cord and meninges. Treatment for infections in these two areas is currently a gap in human medicine. Once you are really infected... then I'm really sorry."
Guan Yi's face turned pale upon hearing this, and she almost fell over. Chen Xu quickly reached out to catch her and help her up, comforting her and saying, "Don't be so nervous. It's not certain. Let the doctor check it out first."
Dr. Wang said that the examination would have to wait for his parents to arrive because a spinal cord examination requires a lumbar puncture to draw spinal fluid, which is no small matter and requires the consent of the other party's family. Moreover...
At this point, Dr. Wang blushed slightly. Chen Xu asked anxiously, "And what?"
Dr. Wang shrugged: "Money, actually, that's the main thing. With our hospital's technology, a lumbar puncture is a piece of cake, but the problem is that just doing it costs a lot of money, not to mention the anesthesia and medications. If you pay, we can do it right now!"
"How much!" Guan Yi immediately said, "I'll pay for it first."
Chen Xu looked at the fairy with some surprise, and suddenly felt a little sour in his heart. Then he immediately cried out that something was wrong... Knowing that this fairy was a trap, he would not be stupid enough to go in. Moreover, Chen Xu always felt that fairies of this level were not something that a commoner like him could afford to be near. And now he saw that this fairy seemed to be very rich.
Guan Yi was actually quite wealthy, because when Chen Xu saw that the total price on those messy bills was over six thousand yuan, this vixen paid it all with her card without batting an eye. So he couldn't help but nudge the woman and say, "You're so generous!"
Guan Yi shook his head: "Let's just get this sorted out first. Anyway, the sooner the better. I can't just ignore it, can I?"
Chen Xu felt a hint of sourness in his words: "Do you feel like you owe him something? Or are you starting to change your mind now?"
"What are you talking about?" Guan Yi rolled her eyes at Chen Xu and said, "Seriously speaking, this has nothing to do with me, and I don't feel like I owe him anything. I don't even know how many guys I've rejected. If I felt indebted to every single one of them, you might as well just cut me into countless pieces and give them to them."
"Then why..."
“We’ve finally met, so I don’t need a reason to help out,” Guan Yi said. “Anyway, I can help with this right now, and it’s better to get it checked out as soon as possible. We can’t just keep putting it off like this.”
Hearing this, Chen Xu felt he needed to look at this woman differently, after all, more than six thousand yuan was no small amount, yet she didn't even blink an eye.
Guan Yi then said, "If you were in that situation, I would help too."
"What a wonderful woman!" Chen Xu thought to himself, but then he noticed a hint of a smile in her eyes and immediately realized something was wrong. He spat and laughed, "Damn it, are you cursing me to get rabies too?!"
Guan Yi smiled, then lowered his head and said, "I hope he's alright."
Seeing how genuinely sad she looked, Chen Xu realized he was starting to like this enchantress. She was generous and approachable, unlike some girls who were spoiled and arrogant. Talking to her was never boring. And there was no need to pretend to be reserved or gentlemanly, or deliberately show off one's superior side. It was easy to talk to her, and even making slightly risqué jokes was no problem… Plus, she was so beautiful, truly, truly an irresistible enchantress!
Chapter 41 Hope
Because it was very late, the lumbar puncture could only be done tomorrow. Wang Dong waved his hand, leaving himself and one of Liu Lingtian's roommates to keep watch, and sent everyone else back to sleep.
After Chen Xu escorted Guan Yi back to his dorm, he was immediately surrounded by Wu Yuan and his buddies, who bombarded him with questions: "Third brother, how was it being with the beautiful girl?!"
"I heard you two went on a date together?"
"Tsk tsk, third brother, not bad! Keep it up and seduce this vixen!"
Normally, Chen Xu would have argued with them, but he wasn't in the mood now. He sighed and said, "I just got back from the hospital. Liu Lingtian... he really does have rabies."
"Huh?!" All three of them were surprised. Qin Xiaoan said, "No way, did you get vaccinated? If you got vaccinated, you should be fine."
Well, another white one. Seeing even Dong Qingjie nodding beside him, Chen Xu sighed. It seems many people still don't understand how terrible rabies really is; they all think a single vaccine can solve the problem.
Wu Yuan quickly opened Baidu and searched for information. His expression changed drastically as he asked, "Third brother, is that guy definitely infected? Has the meninges or spinal cord been infected?!"
Chen Xu shook his head and said he didn't know yet. The doctor would perform a lumbar puncture tomorrow to collect spinal fluid for testing, but based on the saliva test... the situation was not optimistic.
Qin Xiaoan and Dong Qingjie were completely confused. After Wu Yuan explained it to them, their expressions changed drastically, and they both asked, "What should we do then?!"
Chen Xu grabbed his hair and said, "I don't know either. We can only wait for tomorrow's results."
Wu Yuan and the others exchanged glances and fell silent. Although they had all been quite annoyed with Liu Lingtian, their annoyance was limited. It was unreasonable to wish for someone's death over such a trivial matter. Wu Yuan and the others assumed Chen Xu's "waiting for tomorrow's results" referred to the results of the isosceles puncture and spinal fluid examination, unaware that Chen Xu was actually waiting for Xiao Min's results.
When he returned, he had already asked Xiaomin. The "Health Doctor" program did not provide any treatment methods for rabies. After asking this question, the information Xiaomin received from the Health Doctor was only "After being bitten by a dog or other animal, you should clean the wound as soon as possible and go to the hospital to get a rabies vaccine..." It did not mention how to treat rabies if one is actually infected with the rabies virus.
Therefore, Chen Xu could only try his luck and asked Xiao Min to conduct a full computer search using the keyword "rabies" to see if she could find any treatment methods.
However, this task is enormous because although much data has been lost from the hard drive, the available space is still considerable. In particular, the computer contains many text files, mostly several kilobytes or tens of kilobytes in size; the number of searchable files could easily reach hundreds of millions!
With so much data, even someone as efficient as Xiaomin couldn't search it all in a short time. So Chen Xu could only wait for her search results; otherwise, there was nothing he could do.
We can only hope that Liu Lingtian is lucky and hasn't been infected with his spinal cord.
The next day, Chen Xu and Guan Yi went to the hospital together. When they entered Liu Lingtian's ward, they saw a middle-aged woman holding Liu Lingtian's hand and crying, while an elderly man who looked quite old sat on the edge of the bed, covering his face with his hands. Wang Dong was sitting next to them, comforting the two elderly people.
Upon seeing Chen Xu and Guan Yi enter, Wang Dong immediately greeted them, saying, "Uncle Liu, these are Chen Xu and Guan Yi. It was Chen Xu who discovered Liu Lingtian's condition yesterday, and that's why he insisted on having us bring him to the hospital for a checkup. Otherwise, none of us would know about it yet."
Liu Lingtian's father looked up. His hair was short and covered in silver strands, his forehead was etched with deep wrinkles, and his skin was dark. His face, which looked like it had endured countless hardships, was filled with sorrow. He held Chen Xu's hand, unable to utter a word for a long time. Chen Xu could feel the calluses and roughness on his hand and sighed inwardly. This old man was probably a late-life father, and seemed to be born into a farming family, but unexpectedly, he was facing such a predicament at this time.
Chen Xu winked at Wang Dong and mouthed, "Are the results out yet?" Wang Dong didn't speak, but simply nodded heavily.
Although they had already considered that the chances of not being infected were very low, they still held onto a sliver of hope. But when Wang Dong confirmed it, they all shuddered… Rabies! A 100% mortality rate!
After exchanging a glance with Chen Xu, Guan Yi sat down next to Liu Lingtian's mother to comfort the poor woman. Chen Xu's hand was being held by Liu's father, who kept saying thank you, which made Chen Xu feel guilty... What was there to thank him for? He hadn't helped at all!
Seeing the bloodshot eyes of Wang Dong beside him, Chen Xu said, "Boss, you should go back to sleep first. We can handle things here." At this moment, Liu Lingtian, who was lying on the bed, also said, "Boss Wang Dong, you should go back first. I'm really sorry about what happened yesterday. And Mom and Dad, could you please go out for a bit? I have something I want to talk to someone about alone."
Hearing this, Chen Xu obediently started to walk out. But unexpectedly, Liu Lingtian called out from behind, "Chen Xu, could you stay for a moment?"
"Me?" Chen Xu pointed to himself in surprise, while Guan Yi was also somewhat puzzled but also relieved. They both assumed Liu Lingtian would let Guan Yi stay, and Guan Yi was wondering what he could say if he stayed? Comfort him? Or continue to reject him?
After everyone left, Liu Lingtian told Chen Xu to sit down, and then said, "I just had a lumbar puncture, so I can't sit up right now. I can only lie here and talk to you. I'm really sorry about what happened yesterday."
Chen Xu quickly waved his hand and said it was nothing, but Liu Lingtian said calmly, "I went too far yesterday, and I must apologize to you. If I had really hurt you yesterday, I think my dad would have beaten me to death, and I probably wouldn't want to live either."
"Don't say that," Chen Xu sat down and forced a smile. "It's no big deal for classmates in the same department to have a little conflict. You should rest well and not think too much about it. You can treat me to a drink after you're discharged from the hospital, and everything will be fine."
"I'm afraid I won't have that chance." Liu Lingtian gave a bitter smile. "I know very well that the mortality rate of rabies is 100%. But it's strange, I was terrified when I heard the news last night, but after the lumbar puncture today, I didn't feel anything at all. There are two things I can't let go of now. One is that I was so sorry to you yesterday. If I had really hurt you, I wouldn't be able to die in peace."
"Don't say such unlucky things, like 'dying'!"
Liu Lingtian waved his hand, interrupting Chen Xu, and said, "There's one more thing, and that's about my parents."
Chen Xu originally thought he was going to talk about Guan Yi, but after hearing this, he mentally slapped himself, blaming himself for not thinking of this at this point.
Liu Lingtian said, "You saw my father just now, right? How old do you think he is?"
Before Chen Xu could answer, Liu Lingtian continued, "My father is 59 years old this year, but he looks much older than his actual age. Because my father was a farmer, the kind who toiled in the fields all his life. He didn't have me until he was almost forty. Even so, my father was always very strict with me from a young age. Later, he opened a pharmaceutical factory and made a lot of money, but he was still very strict with me. He never gave me any pocket money growing up, and he wasn't good at disciplining people. When I was a child, I was playful, and he would even beat me with a belt without saying a word. I used to resent my father, thinking that he didn't love me at all. But now, seeing him in so much pain, I realize that I was really wrong. In this world, only parents are truly the closest to us."
Chen Xu nodded upon hearing this, but remained silent, knowing that Liu Lingtian simply wanted to say something, and that his best course of action was to be a good listener.
Liu Lingtian continued talking, some about his father's early years, and some about his childhood. Chen Xu listened quietly. He knew that Liu Lingtian needed to confide in him, or that he felt his days were numbered and wanted to say something frankly, but he didn't know why he was talking to him.
From Liu Lingtian's words, Chen Xu learned that Liu Lingtian's father was just a medicinal herb farmer in his early years. He worked hard in the fields and was covered in weeds. It wasn't until after the reform and opening up that Liu's father saw the business opportunities in pharmaceuticals. So he started to transform from a medicinal herb farmer into a pharmaceutical merchant. After making his first fortune with medicinal herbs, he began to prosper. Later, he established a pharmaceutical factory, which boosted the economic development of the surrounding area.
Mr. Liu was a traditional, simple Chinese farmer. Even after he became wealthy, he maintained a simple lifestyle. He was willing to donate a lot of money to help the surrounding herb farmers prosper, but he was always very strict with his own children. Moreover, because Mr. Liu had little education and firmly believed in the saying "spare the rod and spoil the child," Liu Lingtian always felt that his father treated him badly. But now, seeing his father, who had never shed a tear in his life, cry, Liu Lingtian felt that the person he had wronged the most was his father.
Hearing these words, Chen Xu felt a pang of sadness. Mr. Liu had a son late in life, but now he was facing the tragedy of a parent outliving their child. He wanted to comfort Liu Lingtian, saying that the incubation period for rabies is very long, perhaps ten or twenty years, and the outcome might not be what he imagined… but the words stuck in his throat.
"Xiaomin, Xiaomin, have you found out yet?!" After leaving the ward and seeing the sad faces of Liu Lingtian's parents, Chen Xu felt that he would do anything to cheer them up! So he rushed into the bathroom and practically yelled at his watch!
Xiaomin's voice replied: "Searching. There are more than three million files with information on 'rabies', with a total text length of 1.8 billion words. We have already searched 73%, and most of them are news media reports. There is no specific information on the drug that treats rabies."
"Still haven't found it?!" Chen Xu scratched his head in frustration, but after a couple of scratches, he suddenly realized, "What did you just say? Specific information? You mean, there's a drug that can treat rabies?!"
“Yes,” Xiaomin replied, “Judging from the time and the content of the reports, the earliest related report appeared on March 12, 2045. A pure Chinese medicine called ‘Rabies Buster’ successfully treated a rabies patient. This is also the first recorded case of rabies treatment. ‘Rabies Buster’ has been mentioned in many subsequent reports. I am currently searching for the formula and specific information of the relevant drug.”
Chen Xu's eyes lit up: "They can even find the recipe?!"
Xiaomin replied that if the hard drive data is not corrupted, it can be searched because she found detailed information about the drug in the data directory. However, she still needs to search to determine if the data for the drug still exists.
"It must exist!" Chen Xu stood up, almost shouting, "Xiao Min, no matter what method you use, you must find this drug!"
Chapter 42 The First Pot of Gold (Part 1)
Chen Xu felt that he had always been a good person.
He is a good person, not an overly kind person, nor a saint, just a good person.
After leaving the restroom, Chen Xu felt as if he had taken a packet of Zhang Guozhou's Stomach-Strengthening Powder after being constipated, and then had a smooth and relieved bowel movement. Because now he had hope.
Rabies has a long incubation period, so even if it drags on for ten days, half a month, or even half a year, there's no guarantee that anything will happen. Of course, it's best to resolve it as soon as possible, but even if Xiaomin can't find the data now, she should be able to recover after some time! Moreover, pure traditional Chinese medicine is different from Western medicine; as long as you know the formula, you can prepare it immediately, provided that the raw materials aren't too hard to find. However, Chen Xu believes that as long as the raw materials exist in the world, they can always be found.
As for the possibility that future societies will develop drugs to combat rabies, Chen Xu is not surprised at all.
Science is advancing, and many intractable diseases are being conquered step by step. Take tuberculosis, for example. Before the advent of antibiotics, this disease was considered incurable and highly contagious. But once antibiotics were available, the problem was immediately solved… Of course, we won't discuss drug resistance now, but tuberculosis is no longer an incurable disease!
The universe and all things are interconnected and mutually restraining. Although Chen Xu did not believe in Taoism, he firmly believed in this saying. Some illnesses could be resolved with certain medications, but these medications had not yet been discovered. Once they were discovered, it would be a very simple matter.
Thinking of this, Chen Xu went to comfort Old Liu. He secretly pulled the sad old man aside and said, "Uncle, don't be too sad. Nothing is absolute. My father owns a pharmaceutical factory and is currently researching this. I heard that he has made progress. I can ask him for advice."
"Really?" Old Liu's eyes lit up, then dimmed again. He sighed and said, "Young Chen, you don't need to lie to me. I work in the medical field. Rabies isn't something an ordinary person can research and develop. There are just too many issues involved. You've already done our family a great favor. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't know anything right now. It's true that if we try hard now, there's still a glimmer of hope, but once his disease develops, we won't have any chance at all."
Chen Xu was most afraid of seeing people like that, so he quickly waved his hand and said, "No, please don't say that."
"I'm speaking from the bottom of my heart!" Old Liu wiped away his tears. "When the results of the spinal fluid test came out today, we felt like the sky was falling! But we still want to thank you. Anyway, it's always better to find out early than late. Even if it really couldn't be saved, you gave us some last time to be with him!"
As the old man spoke, tears began to fall. Chen Xu was so moved by his emotions that he felt a lump in his throat. Just then, Chen Xu suddenly felt a vibration on his wrist. His face lit up with joy, and he quickly said, "Uncle, don't be sad. I'll call my dad right now and ask them if they've found anything. Don't worry, there will be good news!"