The Lucky Farmgirl

Chapter 2403: Chapter 2377: Discovery

Manbao took out a concave porcelain piece the size of a fingernail and drew out a thick, short needle to prick the man’s finger. She looked up at the patient; since he was lying down for acupuncture with needles on his back and head, he dared not move and naturally didn’t know what Zhou Man was doing.

Sensing his finger being pressed several times, he didn’t dare move, assuming Zhou Man was performing acupuncture.

Manbao extracted the blood and, using the cover of the blanket, concealed the item in the classroom. Just as she was about to press gauze to his finger to stop the bleeding, Manbao noticed a slight yellowness between his fingers and some dirt under his nails.

It seemed Manbao had seen this on Number 121 as well.

Manbao frowned slightly. Since those selected were slaves, even while they were recuperating, the Imperial Hospital paid great attention to hygiene. They were not only bathed and given clean clothes, but their fingernails and toenails were also trimmed.

During this time, they weren’t required to work; basically, they just ate, chatted, and sunbathed, and had even cut their nails twice, so how could they be so dirty?

Manbao put down his hand, turned around to inspect another person’s hand, and indeed found some yellowness and grime under his nails too.

Manbao frowned and asked the two, "What did you do yesterday?"

The two, lying down, looked bewildered, "We didn’t do anything."

Manbao paused and asked, "You know Fang Xu, right?" Fang Xu was Number 121.

The two, unable to move their necks, nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes, we often eat together."

"You were together yesterday as well?"

"Yes."

Director Xiao entered with others after discussing prescriptions, just in time to hear Manbao asking the two, "What did the three of you do yesterday? Start from when you got up."

The two hesitated, "We didn’t do much, just washed up, ate, and wandered around a bit. We didn’t go out, nor did we go near the fence."

Manbao asked, "I see your fingernails are a bit dirty. How did that happen?"

"Oh, that’s probably from threshing straw."

"Why were you threshing straw?"

"To feed the cows," the two said. "There’s a cowshed not far where they’re raising cows. We saw that the caretakers were busy, so we helped them a bit."

Director Xiao’s expression changed slightly. He glanced at Zhou Man and then stepped forward to ask, "You only threshed straw and didn’t get close to the cows?"

When repeatedly questioned, the two became somewhat scared and quickly denied, "No, we didn’t get close to the cows."

Imperial Doctor Lu slammed the table in frustration, "Stop lying. Tell the truth about why you went to the cowshed. If you don’t, we’ll have you severely punished."

Director Xiao glanced at him, indicating he should restrain himself a little. Intimidating people should have its limits. Now that they’re sick, if they don’t confess, are they really going to be dragged out and punished?

Before his warning glance was even withdrawn, the person lying on the bed burst into tears and said, "I’ll talk, I’ll talk, we’ll all talk."

One of them said, "We did actually go to feed the cows. They all say that cows that have had pox won’t be wanted outside, and by the time we leave, the cows will be distributed to us."

He continued, "We thought that even though the cows had smallpox, so had we, so we weren’t afraid. If we could get a cow, it would be easier to farm and work. We just went to take a look."

The other continued, "There are seven cows in the cowshed, and they eat quite a bit of straw every day, which must be mixed with beans after threshing. The soldier taking care of them only has one hand, so we went to help. We didn’t do much, just threshed some straw and mixed two buckets of feed for them."

Director Xiao asked them, "How many cows did you feed by hand?"

"Just, just two."

Manbao asked, "There are seven cows in total, why did you only feed two?"

"Those two cows were familiar and different from the other five. The other five cows looked cumbersome, and we all thought they weren’t good for plowing, so we didn’t feed them."

Director Xiao turned and left immediately. Manbao wanted to follow, but Director Xiao ordered, "You stay here to monitor their acupuncture. Come over after it’s done."

Manbao just had to stay behind.

Manbao sat in a chair watching them.

The two were nervous, sweating and asked, "Sir, aren’t we allowed to touch the cows?"

Manbao said, "In theory, there’s no harm. You’ve already had pox, but... the pox hasn’t healed yet. The antibodies in your body might not have fully formed. Did you touch the pox rashes on the cows?"

"No," the two said immediately, "We have pox rashes ourselves. They look disgusting, so why would we touch them?"

They continued, "We just patted their neck and mouth, avoiding the pox rashes."

Manbao was speechless for a moment.

Seeing she hadn’t spoken for a while, the two were apprehensive, "Sir?"

Manbao said, "This was also an oversight on our part. We thought since you had been vaccinated, there was no need to avoid contact, but we were wrong."

Manbao calculated the time and, after it was up, pulled out their needles and asked, "Besides the three of you, who else went into the cowshed?"

The two looked at each other, and under Zhou Man’s gaze, they lowered their heads and listed several names.

These were all the people they knew.

Manbao nodded, checked their temperatures, and got up to find Director Xiao and the others.

They were standing in the cowshed, having almost understood the situation. Director Xiao said, "All seven cows have pox. These two cows showed pox the day before yesterday, and yesterday was their peak fever day."

"Was this the reason for the infection?"

Director Xiao said, "Not necessarily. We need to continue investigating. Check everyone first."

Certainly, determining a disease’s cause is the hardest. People aren’t like the worms in their bellies that you can see and know the entire course of their illness from start to finish. The most harmful things can only be guessed at.

Director Xiao instructed the cowshed guard, "Keep a close watch. Don’t let anyone near the cowshed."

He turned to everyone and said, "Let’s go back and do a census. Gather those with similar symptoms and see who shows repeated symptoms."

The four of them worked all day, checking on all the patients and splitting them into groups. Finally sitting in the chairs to summarize, Manbao said, "Currently, twenty-seven people still have a fever. Besides those two, everyone else has a low fever with no signs of repeat pox."

Director Xiao noted this, and Manbao added, "I asked them, and twelve people recently entered the cowshed. Besides the three of them, no one else shows symptoms yet."

"Sixty-seven people have confirmed that their scabs are mature and about to fall off. Fifty-eight are nearing maturity."

Imperial Doctor Liu sighed, "It’s almost done."

Manbao nodded, "Considering the proportion of these people, cowpox hasn’t failed, yet with death cases, it can’t be considered a success either."

Director Xiao said, "Once the cause is clear and a few more days pass, when the cowpox matures, the next group must also be vaccinated."

Manbao, Imperial Doctor Liu, and Imperial Doctor Lu agreed.