Chapter 1715: The Brain Specialist from Red City

The two high-level Brain Domain evolution bigshots, their bodies still hooked up to several tubes, remained in a comatose state, but the data on the monitors painted two starkly contrasting pictures.

The skeletal Professor Fu had a heart rate of 45 beats per minute, with periodic bursts of ultra-high-frequency gamma waves appearing on his EEG; the grey-haired Professor Guo had a heart rate of 120 beats per minute, with sustained disordered high-frequency fast waves appearing in his posterior cingulate cortex and temporoparietal junction, and his metabolic rate surging by 200%.

"We can preliminarily determine that Professor Fu is in a drug-induced ultra-deep neural suppression state; the gamma wave bursts are an endogenous neuroprotective rhythm—disturbance is harmful, and maintaining silence is the optimal treatment."

After diagnosing Professor Fu Tianfeng's condition, neurology expert Jiao Duo turned to another screen, his voice heavy. "Professor Guo's posterior cingulate and temporoparietal regions are showing abnormal discharges, accompanied by a 200% surge in whole-brain metabolism—his core cognitive network is burning. Targeted medication combined with hypothermia therapy should be administered as soon as possible."

The neurosurgeon from Hui-Three Inner City Hospital, who had arrived earliest, replied, "Professor Jiao, within half an hour after Professor Guo was sent into the examination room, Director Zhang Song, on the advice of the experts inside Territory Seven, employed hypothermia therapy."

Jiao Duo nodded. "Do we have the complete medication records for the first six hours after Professor Guo's onset?"

"Yes." The Hui-Three doctor immediately handed the medication records to Jiao Duo. "Hui-Three base is only stocked with these three routine medications—no targeted drugs. Professor Guo's personal supplies don't include this type of medication either. We've already submitted a medication request; the higher-ups are coordinating."

Medications were scarce during the Calamity years, and as for when the coordination would come through, that depended entirely on the higher-ups' ability to coordinate—the Hui-Three doctors appeared anxious but were inwardly calm. Guo Qingbin had twice attended the seminars hosted by Professor Fu, a top medical research expert at Hui-Three, and despite knowing the strict noise restrictions during meetings, had created noise at close range.

His behavior was brimming with malice.

Even though Hui-Three was a small base that couldn't rank nationally, their base's experts couldn't be bullied like this!

A member of the medical team sent by Red One University questioned, "There are dozens of Brain Domain evolvers inside Territory Seven—in principle, they can't possibly not be equipped with medications for treating Brain Domain hypermetabolism."

There was no one from Territory Seven in this tent. Another doctor on the Hui-Three medical team answered the Red One expert's question. "Territory Seven is a private research institute with insufficient funding, so they didn't purchase this type of medication. What they're equipped with is self-made medication."

Within the medical team sent by Hui City, an expert from Hui One University—who had long ago been blacklisted by Professor Fu Tianfeng—felt the thrill of watching dogs fight upon seeing the Red One University people get rebuffed by Professor Fu Tianfeng, and added with feigned seriousness, "Professor Fu's team used self-made medication when they were at Hui One. Although the medication he compounds is likely better than what's already on the market, it doesn't comply with the relevant regulations and cannot be administered to Professor Guo."

Another person from the Red One University medical group asked, "The experts who entered Territory Seven for inspection didn't carry medication either?"

"None of the experts carried medication for the condition." The experts who could enter Territory Seven for inspection all had decent relationships with Professor Fu Tianfeng—at the very least, they hadn't been blacklisted by him. Guo Qingbin was on the blacklist.

After Guo Qingbin created noise and caused Professor Fu Tianfeng to fall into a coma with obvious brain damage, at this point, any inspection expert with half a brain wouldn't use the medication they'd brought on Guo Qingbin: if they used the medication and saved Guo Qingbin, they might end up on Professor Fu Tianfeng's blacklist; if they used the medication and failed to save Guo Qingbin, as the medication providers they'd still have to bear corresponding responsibility and undergo a strict investigation.

Jiao Duo spoke up. "I've already contacted the relevant departments. The targeted medication can be delivered within one hour."

If Hui City base submitted the medication request layer by layer upward, waited for approval, then went to collect the medication and transport it over, Guo Qingbin would very likely have already become a vegetable. Therefore, while on the helicopter rushing over, Jiao Duo watched the video footage sent over from Territory Seven, confirmed that Guo Qingbin's condition was caused by using same-frequency evolution ability triggering severe brain pain, and immediately called the higher-up department to submit the medication request.

Hearing that the medication could be delivered within one hour, the members of the Red One University medical team finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Jiao Duo stared at the numbers jumping on the screen and instructed his assistant beside him, "Submit the application. I need to carry medication into Territory Seven's negative-pressure ward to treat Professor Guo."

The assistant asked, "How many people do you need to bring, and which medications and equipment?"

Forty-five minutes later, a military aircraft from Red One base, bypassing Hui-Three's no-fly zone, entered the airspace above Hui-Three's Northern District Three territory at low speed from the southern airspace. In accordance with emergency-state air traffic control requirements, the aircraft hovered silently at high altitude above the town ruins between Hui-Three's Northern District One and Northern District Three, and three high-level speed evolvers descended with the medication.

Eight minutes later, Jiao Duo, carrying the medication box alone, passed the inspection of the Ninth Center security team and Territory Seven's gate guards. After entering Territory Seven, led by security personnel, he crossed two internal defense lines, arrived at the entrance of the laboratory building, and underwent full-body disinfection.

It was too quiet here—apart from the wind, there wasn't even a bird call.

Four security personnel holding triangular spikes in the corridor all looked over at once. Jiao Duo, who had presided over and participated in countless disaster-elimination operations, instinctively raised his leg high and set his foot down lightly, minimizing his footsteps.

Inside the building there wasn't even the sound of wind; he had to stay quiet. If he made a sound exceeding forty-five decibels in the corridor, those four pitch-black triangular spikes would instantly slash his throat.

Professor Fu Tianfeng, lying in the monitoring room, was worth far more than his own life.

Before Jiao Duo's raised foot could come down, the security personnel who had brought him over made a gesture. Jiao Duo was all too familiar with the meaning of this gesture, and he nodded in agreement.

Then, he was carried into Territory Seven's laboratory building. On the way to the ward, Jiao Duo saw five researchers being carried by others; through the glass on the meeting room door, he waved a greeting to Zhang Song and the others inside, and then was carried into Guo Qingbin's ward.

After changing the IV bag, Jiao Duo didn't even glance at Guo Qingbin on the hospital bed, focusing entirely on the various data on the neural function monitor beside him.

Six minutes after the medication entered Guo Qingbin's body, the irregular, violently fluctuating EEG trace on the screen finally showed signs of fatigue.

At the eighteenth minute, the heart rate alarm light that had been flashing continuously for six hours went out, then began flashing again less than half a minute later. The monitor showed that Guo Qingbin's regional cerebral oxygen saturation, after crossing the critical threshold, had rapidly dropped back by another 2 percentage points.

Without the slightest hesitation, Jiao Duo immediately pushed the second maintenance dose of targeted medication into the infusion pump...

At the fifty-eighth minute, after Guo Qingbin's core body temperature dropped, it stabilized at 34°C. His regional cerebral oxygen saturation fluctuated several times near the critical threshold before finally stabilizing at the lower limit of normal, and the disordered fast waves on the EEG were replaced by a slow-wave background.

Jiao Duo raised his hand and pressed hard on his throbbing temple, made a gesture toward the camera in the corner of the wall, then turned and nodded to the Territory Seven medical staff beside him.

Luo Weiyi, the Red Eleven special forces operative who had carried Jiao Duo over, silently opened the door and walked in, hoisted Jiao Duo up and carried him out of the ward, through the long corridor into Territory Seven's emergency command room, and set him down in front of Zhang Song.