Three days later, Xue Yaoyao and Zhang Si came to the western suburb with officers from the government office, leading more than 500 villagers to the remote valley where they had arranged to be quarantined beforehand.
Not all of these 500 people were infected by the plague, but some of them came for help because they were unwell, had coughs and typhoid, suspected that they had the disease, and were afraid to die.
Some of them were also suspected of being sick by villagers and were sent here by force.
The total number of infected people in various villages in the county is around three hundred.
The numbers seem low, not only because the outbreak is well controlled, but because the infected are dying so fast that there are only so many living infected, and the number of dead infected is no longer well documented.
It is also because of the speed of death that patients have no other choice but to seek help from the Living God.
The onset of the disease in just a few days gives patients who refuse to cooperate no chance to make a mess.
Fortunately, the unique geography of this county, coupled with the fact that the population is used to living in scattered settlements, and the villages are far apart from each other, gave Xue Yao a relatively long time to react.
Xue Yao arrived in time to stop the rituals, distribute soapy disinfectant water, exterminate fleas and rats, and request the cooperation of the government in disposing of the bodies of the exterminators, thus slowing down the rate of spreading dramatically.
It is also thanks to the fact that the plague is still in the stage of adenomatous plague, and the pneumonic plague has only just begun to emerge, and has not yet become too contagious.
Successfully getting the patients to cooperate with the quarantine gave Xue Yao hope of defeating this plague.
As the group rushed to the mouth of the valley, Xue Yao had the patients scatter and sit on the ground, and personally began to distinguish the patients' illnesses.
Adenomatosis and pneumonic plague must be isolated separately.
The former has a slightly lower mortality rate, and with medication, there is hope for survival.
The latter is highly transmissible, with an almost 100% mortality rate, and can only be sent to another location for isolation alone.
Xue Yao divided the patients into three groups, the glandular plague was within the valley, the pulmonary plague was sent further away, and those who couldn't be distinguished were sent to a separate place for isolation.
The patients were housed in tents in groups of four, and the errand boys were allowed to boil Chinese medicines according to different prescriptions every day, almost one kind of medicine for each tent.
Only herbal formulas can be used as herbs are available locally.
Over the years, the antibiotics that Xue Yao brushed out of the mall were basically all penicillin, and the portions were not large, so he still had to save them in case the future prince went on an expedition and was injured and infected.
There was also a small amount of streptomycin against the plague, which, at a course of seven days, was only enough for one person and was negligible.
There was no choice but to try all the important recipes of the old ancestors that I had seen in the records.
The patients brought to the quarantine area were in various stages of illness, and 20 to 30 people were dying every day.
The pneumonic plague quarantine area developed even faster, and by the next day a third of them were already dead, too late for medicine.
The concentration of deaths was so horrific that the patients in the quarantine area felt as if they were in hell.
On the evening of the third day, several patients attempted to escape the quarantine area, only to find the exit from the valley blocked and guarded by guards with swords.
The patients immediately went back and called up all the patients who could still move, saying that the Taoist priests from the capital were trying to lock them up with the epidemic ghosts and die together, and that the valleys had all been sealed off, so that they could wait for the God of Plague to claim their lives.
And so the first riot began, Xue Yao was woken up in his sleep and followed the errand boy who rushed to report the fire to the quarantine area.
The patient must not be allowed to make a big deal out of things and must be calmed.
Otherwise, if word gets out and causes panic, any new patients that show up in the future will surely find a way to escape, which will have a serious impact on isolation efforts.
In the dead of night, Xue Yao stood outside the exit of the valley, the torches around him reflecting the green and gray faces of the dying men inside the fence in an eerie manner.
"Why are you holding us? We haven't broken any laws!" A patient slammed his body against the fence door.
The surrounding magistrates subconsciously took a step back.
Xue Yao, however, didn't move a muscle and spoke blandly, "Folks don't misunderstand, this fence is a sacred wood that is enchanted by the poor Taoist's magic power and used to seal off the epidemic ghosts, and it's not used to imprison innocent people."
Someone cried and yelled, "Didn't you say you would drive away the plague for us? Instead, everyone who came to this place died!"
"Take it easy, everyone sit down on the spot so as not to aggravate your condition." Xue Yao remained nonchalant, "Please think about this, all the patients sent here are patients haunted by epidemic ghosts, if they didn't come here, wouldn't they have died?
You have already survived three days in this eight trigrams array, and some of you have been infected for three days before you came here. As you know, once you are haunted by this kind of epidemic ghost, you will die in two to five days, and if you don't come here, you will only die faster.
When the infected are concentrated together, it looks like the number of deaths is high, but in reality, it is more dangerous for you to go back to your respective homes. Stay here, insist on taking the medicine, and after surviving seven days, there is a fifty percent chance that you will be cured, and after surviving fourteen days you will be cured, and you will have anti-epidemic spirit elements in your body, and you will no longer have to worry about being haunted by this kind of epidemic ghost."
The patients' grievances have finally subsided.
The trouble started out of fear, and Xue Yao's assurances of recovery and "resistance" to the epidemic gave the patients hope.
After another four days, there were actually patients in the quarantine area who were getting better.
Once this disease is cured, antibodies are produced, so patients who get better are left behind by Xue Yao to deal with treatments that require dangerous contact.
The prescription that made the condition better was also singled out and focused on using by Xue Yao.
Because each tent used a different formula, in just seven days, Xue Yao had selected three formulas with remarkable efficacy from them, and the controllability of the condition had increased dramatically, and the patients' trust in him had become even more solid.
In particular, patients who had recovered from their illnesses simply treated Xue Yao as if he were the Goddess of Mercy, with a sense of duty and devotion.
Half a month later, the county's infection rate had dropped dramatically, and fewer and fewer patients were being brought to the quarantine area each day.
When Xue Yao walked down the street, the common people knelt down as if they had seen the gods descend, kowtowing in gratitude.
However, not long afterward, the way the bodies of the sick and dead were handled in the quarantine area by burning them was leaked out by one of the yamen involved in the burning.
The problem that Xue Yao least wanted to face still erupted.
He thought of many ways to fool people, such as, "It must be burned before the infected ghost is detached from the body so that it can be burned along with the infected ghost, otherwise the infected ghost will be transferred to another living person. "
This is acceptable to the villagers who have not contracted the disease, and some of the family members of the patients can reluctantly accept it, but most of the patients themselves cannot accept it.
Patients may run away or retaliate against the community if they don't cooperate.
However, if the body is not incinerated, the patient's family will take the body back, and may quietly hold a simple funeral ceremony, and once tossed another batch of new patients.
It has to be fast and furious.
Unexpectedly, after the story spread, almost the entire county's population sided with Xue Yao.
Even without waiting for Xue Yao to explain, some villagers came forward to support all of the Living God's methods of exorcising the plague.
Facts spoke louder than words, and Xue Yao's final phase of epidemic prevention had caused the plague in several villages to disappear completely.
The number of patients sent to the quarantine area went from hundreds per day to two or three per day.
In the eyes of the whole village, he is a god, a good god who saved the people of the county.
This understanding and cooperation gave Xue Yao a deeper understanding of this group of "superstitious fools".
They also know how to be grateful and recognize right and wrong, it's just that environmental education doesn't give them the opportunity to be exposed to progressive ideas.
The continuation of life leads to a better future, and although the process is slow and arduous, it makes Xue Yao feel honored to be a part of this fight against the plague.
The leakage of the secret of the incineration did not bring about a riot, and Xue Yao went to the quarantine area to supervise it every day as usual.
Arriving at the quarantine area early that morning, a magistrate came to report that a patient was missing from one of the tents.
Xue Yao hurriedly had his men split up to search.
The group searched intensely all morning and actually ended up finding a pit in the corner of the valley where the missing male patient was half-buried in.
What kind of performance art is this?
With a dumbfounded look on his face, Xue Yao had the man dug out and interrogated.
The man knelt on the ground and confessed to Xue Yao, saying that he didn't think he could hold out any longer and didn't want to bother the officials with digging a pit to bury him, so he dug it for himself.
His comment made the surrounding government officials laugh and mocked him, "You are quite good at saving us the trouble".
Others irritated him by saying, "Don't bother, we'll drag you to the back of the mountain and burn you when you're dead".
As soon as the man heard that it was going to be burned, he kowtowed to Xue Yao, saying that his daughter was only three years old, so could he wait until she grew up and married before burning it.
The common people of this place believe that when a person dies, he can't be reincarnated with fewer arms or legs, and his body is burned and his soul is lost.
The man thought he was dead and still had a soul to watch his daughter grow up.
The surrounding magistrates were laughing at his stupidity in digging a pit to save everyone trouble, but Xue Yao didn't say anything, lifting his hand to let him stand up and faintly said, "It's time to drink the medicine at this hour, hurry back."
The man refused to get up and looked pleadingly up at the Living God, trying to get him to promise not to burn himself.
Xue Yao walked up and grabbed him by the arm, forcibly pulling him up, frowning fiercely, "If you want to see your child grow up, drink your medicine on time, what can you do by burying a corpse here? Get well, corpses don't make good fathers, living does."
In the afternoon Xue Yao followed the team transporting the corpses and went to the back of the mountain to supervise the burning.
Everything has to be done personally, because the oil used to burn the body is military petroleum, very expensive, and if you don't keep an eye on it, the errand boy may greed a few pots back himself, and the body will be in trouble if it doesn't burn completely.
Unexpectedly, when the door was opened to transport the bodies on this day, a group of patients suddenly rushed out of the quarantine area, holding up stones and tree branches and firewood sticks, rushing towards the exit!
"Back off!" Zhang Si pulled Xue Yao behind him.
The surrounding magistrates gripped the hilts of their swords in unison and yelled a warning, "Don't come over!"
A group of patients who do not want to be burned premeditated a night, decided to take the dregs of the medicine back to their own to let the pharmacy dispensing medicines to recuperate, so as not to stay here to lose their lives but also to be burned.
There was a muffled "bang."
Zhang Si kicked the leader of the troublemakers, and the rest of the hundreds of patients immediately bypassed Zhang Si and attempted to escape, but were again stopped by the guards.
The patients weren't much of a fighter at all, but they were outnumbered, and there were only about a dozen guards on duty during the day, several of whom had their faces scratched by the patients' seven hands.
Fearing that he had been infected by the epidemic ghosts, the guards choked with fear and drew their swords, not hesitating to cut over the sick man who had scratched and bitten them.
In the midst of the chaos, Xue Yao hurriedly yelled, "Don't move your sword! Don't get blood on it! Knock them out!"
A group of guards scrambled to put away their sabers, and the hand push and kick couldn't stop the mass of sick people coming from all directions, and more and more guards fled.
Xue Yao greeted one of the guards to help close the fence gate together, and when he turned his head, he saw two patients darting over, and the guards immediately threw down their chains and fled for the road.
Xue Yao scrambled to pick up the chain and prepared to lock the wooden fence, but the two patients had already run over and grabbed his hand, preventing him from locking the door!
"Let us out!"
Seeing that his arm was on the verge of being pinched by a patient, Xue Yao hurriedly let go and gave up on locking the door as several patients poured out like vicious dogs!
Xue Yao was unable to dodge, and was violently pushed by two of them, stumbling backward and about to fall, when he was suddenly stabilized by a hand grabbing his arm.
Followed by a few muffled sounds, the two patients who had rushed out the door were kicked back, and a white-clothed figure stepped in front of Xue Yao.
Xue Yao looked up and exclaimed, "Your Highness the Crown Prince!"
"Stand back!"
Without further ado, a few more men rushed out in front of them.
The Crown Prince had only just found Xue Yao through the eunuchs, and without figuring out who this group of populace attacking Xue Yao and the officials were, he drew his sword and stabbed at one of the people rushing towards him!
"Your Highness! Don't get blood on it!"
In a flash of lightning, Xue Yao took an arrow step forward, pulling the Crown Prince with one arm and turning on tiptoe to protect him.
Warm blood sprayed on his back, Xue Yao hurriedly pulled away the Crown Prince, Zhang Si also knocked over the remaining troublemakers at this moment, turned around to see the Crown Prince and hurriedly came forward to greet him.