Chapter 134

Chapter 134

Wen Miao had only just finished messaging Wen Xin when her phone received a message from Yu Jingtong.

Earlier, after Wen Xin said Meng Ran might be ill, Nan Mu had suspected that Xu Lei had killed for Meng Ran’s sake. Everyone had fully agreed with that theory, but there was no evidence to support it, so Wen Miao had reached out to Yu Jingtong, hoping she could use the hospital’s networked system to look into Meng Ran’s recent medical records.

And the reason Yu Jingtong was messaging her now was that she had already found the relevant diagnostic and treatment records.

According to the contents of those records, Meng Ran was indeed sick. Judging by the date of her first hospital visit for examinations, the onset of the illness should have been nearly eight months ago. However, based on Meng Ran’s test reports, her condition had progressed very quickly, worsening considerably over the past two months.

Clearly, this was also why Xu Ziran had told Wen Xin that Meng Ran had not been doing well lately. It seemed Meng Ran’s episodes had not been frequent before, and she had kept them well hidden. But recently, her condition had worsened to the point where she could no longer control it, which was why Xu Ziran had noticed something was off.

Wen Miao scrolled through Meng Ran’s pathology report, but there were too many technical terms in it, so she could not really understand much.

Fortunately, Yu Jingtong must have anticipated that, because she soon sent over a voice message explaining it.

“For this patient, the current trigger site of the episodes is in the brain, but the specific cause and name of the illness have not yet been clearly diagnosed. The doctor’s recommendation is further examination. The brain CT scan does show abnormalities, but the features are not very similar to a brain tumor, so the hospital did not immediately provide a specific confirmed diagnosis. I just checked her hospital file. The symptoms the patient described are very similar to the postoperative syndrome Gu Zhishu developed after his brain surgery.”

After listening, Wen Miao’s heart sank. Yu Jingtong’s explanation essentially confirmed Nan Mu’s theory that Xu Lei had acted for Meng Ran’s sake.

What was even more chilling to think about was that Meng Ran and Gu Zhishu had similar symptoms. Taking that together with what the nurse had said after Gu Zhishu’s surgery-that Gu Zhishu’s unbearable headaches resembled the previous symptoms of the patient who had undergone surgery at the same time as him and then recovered afterward…

In other words, Gu Zhishu’s postoperative symptoms were similar to Jia Lingyuan’s preoperative symptoms, and also similar to Meng Ran’s symptoms…

If Nan Mu’s deduction was truly correct, didn’t that mean the people who had taken Su Yu and Zhaodi also suffered from the same illness?

Then…

Why would Meng Ran, Jia Lingyuan, and the others all have the same illness? It definitely could not be a naturally occurring disease. Otherwise, there was no way identical-and uncommon-medical cases would appear within such a small circle…

What could be causing it?

It definitely could not be hereditary.

Back at the Orphanage, Wen Miao and Gu Zhishu had both had their blood types checked, and their blood types were different.

So if Wen Miao and Meng Ran had the same blood type, while Gu Zhishu and Jia Lingyuan had the same blood type, that meant the two of them could not possibly be related by blood.

…

In the past, she had heard of married couples who lived together developing the same illness one after another because of similar lifestyles or eating habits.

But… they weren’t married couples. At most, they were people who worked in the same place.

Could that really make them susceptible to the same condition too?

Wen Miao could not think of any other possibility, so she could only forward the information Yu Jingtong had sent her to Nan Mu first.
A little while later, Nan Mu replied.

Nan Mu: [Got it. Let’s talk in person tomorrow night.]

After reading the message, Wen Miao was just about to ask why they had to wait until night when she suddenly remembered that tomorrow was Monday. They had work.

Wen Miao: [dejected.jpg]

Before long, Nan Mu sent an image back too-a meme of someone “patting the doggy’s head.”

Wen Miao couldn’t help laughing. She sent him a “good night,” then exited her chat with Nan Mu and opened her conversation with Wen Xin.

Their chat was still stuck at half an hour ago. Wen Xin had told her that he would go over by himself first to see whether Wen Tangtang was there, and if she was, he would call Wen Miao over.

But more than half an hour had passed. It shouldn’t take that long just to go over there and check whether someone was there, right?

As Wen Miao thought about it, she sent Wen Xin a message asking if he had reached the laboratory building and whether he had found Wen Tangtang.

“Wen Miao? Lights-out is soon. Aren’t you going to wash up?” her roommate asked casually as she came out of the bathroom.

“Coming, coming.”

Wen Miao finished typing the message, hit send, then hurried into the bathroom to wash up as quickly as she could.

By the time she was done, she figured Wen Xin should have replied.

But when she took out her phone, the chat window was still empty. There was nothing there at all.

“What is going on?”

Muttering to herself, Wen Miao sent Wen Xin a voice call.

But after a long while, Wen Xin still didn’t pick up.

Wen Miao had no choice but to hang up and call his phone instead. To her surprise, no one answered that either.

“Did his battery die?”

Wen Xin wasn’t the type to leave things unfinished. Whether he had found Wen Tangtang or not, by all rights, he should have sent her a message back.

The more Wen Miao thought about it, the more worried she became. She knew Wen Xin had only gone to the laboratory building, and it was still on campus, so nothing major could have happened. Even so, she felt deeply uneasy.

After hesitating again and again, she finally decided to call Wen Tangtang and ask what was going on.

Originally, Wen Xin had wanted to find out what exactly Wen Tangtang had been up to lately, which was why he had deliberately avoided calling her. But given the current situation, there was no time to worry about investigating Wen Tangtang anymore.

As Wen Miao dialed Wen Tangtang’s number, she was still thinking about how she should cover for Wen Xin if Wen Tangtang asked what he had gone to do. But after spending all that time mentally arranging her words, the phone on the other end went unanswered as well.

Why were neither of them answering? Wen Miao was afraid something had happened, but she was also worried that maybe the two of them had argued-one phone out of battery, the other deliberately refusing to pick up…

All she could do was send an “angry” emoji in their three-person group chat.

Wen Miao: [Why are neither of you answering your phones? It’s nighttime. Can you at least reply to a message? Don’t you know other people will worry?]

Wen Miao: [Please reply after you see this.]

Wen Miao: [Within five minutes, you will re-ply-to-me-right-now!!!]

===

Five minutes later…

There was still no reply in the group.

Wen Xin’s phone still couldn’t be reached.

Wen Miao’s heart sank lower and lower, until at last it could no longer bear the weight and plunged into a bottomless abyss.