I Am Diagnosed as a Medical Titan

"I’ll take the blame and resign."

Shu Yuelong’s head snapped up, his face a mask of astonishment.

’Has Old Xu lost his mind? Staking his entire prestigious academic reputation, built over a lifetime, on an unofficial report from some undergraduate in Yangcheng?’

He opened his mouth to try and dissuade him, but when his eyes met Xu Wenpei’s, he couldn’t say a single word.

Finally, Shu Yuelong clenched his jaw and snatched the report from the desk. "Fine! I’ll go find the director right now!"

Watching Shu Yuelong’s retreating back, Xu Wenpei finally let out a sigh of relief.

He had passed the baton.

...

Meanwhile, in a residential compound for high-ranking officials twenty kilometers from the National Disease Control Center.

Zheng Liyan sat upright at his desk, his expression solemn as he stared at an email on his computer screen.

Sender: Jiang He.

Attachment: FASTA sequence file and BLAST comparison results.

Zheng Liyan pushed up his reading glasses, scanning line by line through the gene sequence and comparison data.

The more he read, the graver his expression became.

As the linchpin who had weathered countless major public health battles, his experience was vast.

Quadruple reassortment.

Those two words meant one thing.

The anti-influenza defense line that the human immune system had painstakingly built over the past few decades was as fragile as a paper screen before this brand-new, monstrous variant.

Zheng Liyan took off his reading glasses. A layer of cold sweat had broken out on his back.

If this were a conventional flu, or even the dangerous H5N1 avian flu, the rapid screening systems across the country would have sounded the alarm in time.

But this damned thing, it was so cunning. It had cloaked itself in the guise of a common seasonal flu, silently infiltrating dense populations...

If it weren’t for Jiang He... the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Zheng Liyan shot to his feet and strode over to his bookshelf.

He dialed a number and waited.

The call connected.

Zheng Liyan: "Sir, this is Zheng Liyan."

A steady voice came from the other end of the line. "Old Zheng? What’s wrong? You’re calling the special line this early."

"There’s a serious problem brewing in Yangcheng. We’ve discovered an unprecedented quadruple-reassortant novel influenza variant. The source is a foreign businessman from Mexico, and it has already caused two second-generation contacts to fall into a sudden, severe coma."

There was a moment of silence on the other end, then the tone turned sharp and serious. "Has the local CDC issued a report? Are the review results from the National Disease Control Center out yet?"

"Neither. However, I have the core gene sequencing report in my hands right now. An extremely talented junior worked through the night to produce it. The data is impeccably solid. There’s absolutely no doubt about it."

A long, oppressive silence filled the receiver.

More than a full minute passed.

The leader’s voice finally came through again. "Immediately. Fax the report to my office."

"Understood."

Zheng Liyan hung up, let out a long, heavy breath, and turned to the window.

Outside, dawn was breaking.

From the bold upstart Jiang He, to Lin Zhenhua at the Yangcheng Province Hall, then to Xu Wenpei at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and finally, passed into the hands of Zheng Liyan.

This unprecedented, bottom-up whistleblowing.

In just a few short hours, they had managed to erect the first line of defense against the grim reaper.

...

「Back in Yangcheng.」

Old Lin was driving his Jetta. He had just dropped off a passenger at the entrance of Tianhe Passenger Station when the road ahead began to shake violently, the images doubling.

Large beads of sweat streamed uncontrollably from his forehead down his cheeks, seeping into his eyes and stinging painfully.

The dry cough rattling in his throat was even starting to carry a hint of blood...

"I can’t... I really can’t take it anymore..."

Old Lin clenched his teeth, mustering his last ounce of strength to turn the steering wheel, trying to pull over to the auxiliary road to catch his breath.

Just then!

A blinding flash of red and blue erupted in his rearview mirror!

Two police motorcycles, sirens wailing, sped up from behind, flanking him on both sides. With a SCREECH, they cut him off, stopping horizontally right in front of his car.

Old Lin shuddered, slamming on the brakes.

Before the shaken Old Lin could even react, several traffic police officers in N95 masks had already rushed forward and yanked open his car door.

"Shut off the engine!"

Before the words had even faded, a negative-pressure ambulance came screaming to a halt right next to the taxi.

The door slid open with a RATTLE, and several CDC personnel clad head-to-toe in white protective suits poured out, carrying a stretcher and a first-aid kit.

Old Lin sat paralyzed in the driver’s seat, completely dumbfounded as he watched the crowd of people surrounding him.

’What’s going on? All I did was pick up a fare. What cardinal sin did I commit?’

"Are you Lin Jingfeng?!" the lead CDC worker shouted through his protective face shield.

Old Lin nodded numbly.

"What’s your temperature right now? Three days ago, did you pick up a foreign passenger in this area?!"

Old Lin opened his mouth to speak, but what came out was a series of gut-wrenching, violent coughs.

With each cough, his vision began to darken rapidly.

The anxious shouts around him seemed to be submerged underwater, growing more and more distant.

In the final second before losing consciousness completely, he vaguely felt someone lifting him quickly onto a stretcher as a cold tube was inserted into his nasal cavity.

In the midst of a bottomless falling sensation, Old Lin acted on instinct, his trembling hand reaching for his pants pocket.

Through the fabric, the hard shape of his wallet was still there.

The photo of his daughter’s beaming smile was still there...

"Temperature is thirty-nine-point-eight! SpO2 has dropped to eighty!"

"Get him on oxygen, face mask! Establish an IV line! Notify City Eighth Hospital to prepare a negative-pressure ICU bed! Move it!"

Amidst the shouts,

Old Lin quickly lost consciousness.