Chapter 360 - 291: Anthrax Incident

Everyone quickly got busy, and before leaving, they repeatedly emphasized that he should rest well outside the city.

Fang Huai, of course, chose to sneak out of the tent.

When he entered the city, the road was actually open.

The first thing he saw was hope.

Heavy machinery had come in.

The excavators working on the streets had been waiting outside Beichuan since the 14th; they had all encountered it on their way, but unexpectedly, this wait turned out to be three days.

If it weren’t for this road, Beichuan should have been like Hanwang by now, with every building with people inside having been dug out.

Today’s Beichuan truly differed from yesterday’s—it also presented a scene similar to Hanwang’s.

Volunteers appeared on the streets and bodies were no longer left uncovered; they were neatly arranged by the roadside, properly dressed, without exposed chests or bellies. Those volunteers without tasks were tidying up the deceased’s appearances along the streets.

A few high-nosed foreign rescue teams were also searching everywhere; judging by their accents, they seemed to be Russians.

The sense of humanity was notably more present.

There were quite a few searching for survivors.

But Fang Huai felt somewhat oppressed.

Because the excavators were digging too boldly, yet the nearby firefighters did not stop them.

Were there really no survivors left?

Or were they speeding up the search underground?

Fang Huai patrolled the streets, which had been cleared by Major General Jin’s men and were thus relatively tidy, and looked around at the places he had felt hopeful about since his visit yesterday.

But he noticed the silhouettes of heavy machinery overturning buildings, and one after another rescue team was swiftly carrying out bodies from the rubble.

Those buildings had been overturned and indeed there were a lot of people.

But, like the elderly man he had seen in Hanwang, they were all motionless.

Fang Huai couldn’t help but walk over to the store from yesterday, to see if Chen Wu and those who had risked their lives to save others had been brought out.

Yet, by the time he arrived, they were already evacuating the area.

"What’s going on? Were the people rescued?" Fang Huai shouted upon seeing Captain Hu and his team packing up their equipment, looking like they were about to leave.

Turning his head and seeing Fang Huai, Captain Hu began to pack up a rather long telescopic rod and said,

"We found the person, approximately on the second basement level. The rescue space has been opened, but his lower body is tightly trapped. We entered the underground and gave him an IV of nutrients. Now we need to evacuate first and will continue the rescue when we return."

"Evacuate?" Fang Huai frowned. "Why evacuate?"

Pointing to the people hurrying about and carrying bodies from the ruins, Captain Hu explained,

"At 12 o’clock, all of us have to temporarily withdraw outside the city. The government has informed us that a highly infectious disease, anthrax, has appeared nearby and is highly lethal. The health department needs to intervene and confirm it before we can proceed with the rescue operations."

Hearing this, Fang Huai was stunned.

Memories also surged in his mind.

In his past life, epidemic prevention measures had been taken very rigorously during this earthquake, and there hadn’t been any spread of infectious diseases.

However, there had indeed been many rumors, and among them, many people made comparisons with ancient disasters and epidemics.

Not only that, but there were also claims that there were massive earthquakes everywhere, collapses everywhere, contaminations everywhere, urging everyone to buy water and run. Some even shortened the term "Longmen Mountain Fracture Zone" to claim the "dragon’s vein" was broken, wondering if the dragon’s vein in their brains was still intact.

Mostly, these were for clicks on websites, to attract attention, with some utterly absurd rumors purely the result of a prankster’s mindset.

This matter made Fang Huai recall many things.

In this era, where spreading rumors had a meager cost and clarifying them a tremendous one, Fang Huai felt it was far removed from his previous life. Despite all his calculations before coming here, he had not considered this aspect. If he had not heard it with his own ears, he would not have paid attention to this matter.

In his past life, Beichuan had to evacuate a large number of rescue troops seven days after the earthquake due to the potential collapse of Tangjia Mountain.

Starting from today, when the highway was cleared until the 19th, the mechanized troops had only been inside for a few days!

All things considered, only two days.

Fang Huai was so desperate to reach Tangjia Mountain, partly because he wanted to buy more time for the rescue troops.

Now that he had finally resolved the problems at Tangjia Mountain, the rescue troops were about to be delayed by these rumors, which infuriated him.

"Is there any concrete evidence for this?" Fang Huai asked.

Captain Hu shook his head: "It’s what the staff informed us... All the people in my team are elites from the Southwest region. This time, outside the usual structure, we entered Beichuan before the Firefighting Bureau’s disaster relief order, using the pretext of going out for training... I must bring them back unharmed."

With their expressions obscured by thick masks, neither could see the other’s face, but just through Captain Hu’s furrowed brow, Fang Huai could sense his difficulty.

Fang Huai felt he had no choice but to look at his watch.

It was 11:45.

"This is definitely a rumor!

Look, Captain Hu, you continue the rescue, and I will report this matter to the frontline command center immediately. If by 12:30 you haven’t received new instructions from the Beichuan Command, then proceed with the evacuation. Is that okay?"

Captain Hu’s heart was tangled at the moment. If he wasn’t leading a temporary unit’s training personnel, he would certainly not have agreed to evacuate and would have stayed to rescue the individual.

Fang Huai’s words once again tipped the scales heavily in his heart.

He also looked at his watch and, gritting his teeth, said,

"Reporting takes time, at one o’clock, I’ll give you an hour and fifteen minutes!"

Having said that, there was no further delay, and his movements were much swifter than before when he had been gathering his things to evacuate.

"Continue the rescue! Quickly! Li Guo, notify Ma Yang, they must continue to search and rescue on their end, and wait for orders!"

"Yes!"

The surrounding soldiers, as if granted amnesty, almost immediately turned around and plunged back into the ruins they had just left.

And Fang Huai ran towards the outskirts of the city with the fastest speed possible.

While running, he risked significant danger, loudly stopping a troop that was on its way out of the city:

"Continue the rescue! Continue the rescue! Wait for new orders!"

The ones organizing the withdrawal were the Explosion Assault Team, acting as government staff, executing the government’s orders to inform the troops to retreat.

At that moment, those at the front recognized Fang Huai yelling and halted.

One of them ran over, asking, "Commander Fang, what’s the situation? Has the order changed? We haven’t received any notification!"

Seeing several excavators also beginning to move out, Fang Huai didn’t have time to explain and said, "Stop them! Continue the rescue! Don’t delay rescue time, wait for new orders! I’m heading to the Command now! It’ll be quick!"

Fang Huai’s rank came into effect.

The Explosion Assault Team, a collective with immense honor, was the place in the hearts of the soldiers during this rescue mission. Hearing his words, they immediately turned back, shouting:

"Cease withdrawal, continue rescue!"

...

"Cease withdrawal, continue rescue!"

Those organizing the withdrawal were from the assault team, and Fang Huai stopped several groups of people along the way; following his words, they returned to continue the rescue.

Fortunately, he was always wearing an emergency rescue suit, and almost no one knew he was merely a soldier; talking about performance and contributions, Fang Huai was very persuasive.

Many from the assault team secretly guessed that Fang Huai, like the water and electricity Brigade Captain Chen, was an officer, just with a youthful face, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been appointed by the superiors as the deputy team leader.

The "secret" that Fang Huai was a soldier was known by the firefighters, but none of them spoke about it. After all, being led by a soldier was somewhat embarrassing.

...

"Report!"

When Fang Huai arrived at the Command tent, there weren’t many people inside. Major General Jin and Division Commander Wang, a few military officers, and two county government leaders were there; everyone else was busy outside.

Division Commander Wang and Major General Jin were at the table, seriously discussing something.

"Little Fang, why aren’t you resting? Why have you come out again?" Major General Jin, seeing Fang Huai, put down a document in his hand, touched his head as if with a headache, and spoke.

Fang Huai, looking at the insignias on their shoulders, felt they were far beyond his reach, and after thinking it over, still felt the urgency of time and went straight into the tent, getting straight to the point:

"Leadership, was the command issued by the Command?"

Division Commander Wang looked at Major General Jin but didn’t speak.

"It’s a message that came from Yingxiu Command," Major General Jin was straightforward in telling him:

"They found an injured soldier in Xuanping Township who was admitted to the hospital and said it might be anthrax, a virulent zoonotic infectious disease that can be spread by insects. After infection, most cases become severe, leading to sepsis and infectious diseases, and it is highly deadly and extremely dangerous.

Because we are very close to Xuanping, they called and warned us.

Now that traffic is partially restored, after discussing it, we decided to ask the nearby sanitary department with relatively intact facilities in An County to send someone for testing."

It wasn’t just baseless rumors? There was an actual issue?

Indeed, how could such a big incident be influenced by some online chatter.

After listening, Fang Huai’s thoughts flickered, and he accessed information about anthrax.

His military merit value decreased a bit.

However, at the moment the knowledge entered his brain, Fang Huai quickly felt something wasn’t right and continued to ask:

"Where did the message originate from? Has it been confirmed? Is it pulmonary anthrax, gastrointestinal anthrax or cutaneous anthrax?"

His question made everyone in the tent, busy with various tasks, look over.

Because Fang Huai’s questions were the same ones they had been asking some doctors just before.

Of course, they had asked in simpler terms: What is anthrax?

Upon hearing this, Division Commander Wang couldn’t help but frown and said:

"Most of the doctors with our troops this time are surgeons, but they also have some preliminary understanding of this disease. We checked some historical data just now!

It is extremely dangerous!

This disease has a long history!

During the Anti-Japanese War, the f*cking Japanese 731, along with Troop 1644, spread many anthrax bacteria over the Zhejiang and Jiangxi Region by plane, resulting in water sources there becoming unsuitable for drinking and even residential areas were affected by anthrax, which remained until 1963 when anthrax-caused diseases disappeared from the Zhejiang and Jiangxi region!

After they were defeated, they repeated their method, spreading the virus to the Central China region, reducing a village of five hundred people in the Jinhua suburbs to a mere fraction, with many families wiped out!

This is a favored weapon of biochemical warfare, studied by many countries’ biochemical troops, and it causes huge damage to the human body!"

(Chapter was banned for two hours and not released; reposting. If you see duplicate Chapters, do not subscribe.)