Plague Doctor-Chapter 514: The Defective Baby

When Deng Ximei arrived that afternoon and encountered the 3 negative selection babies, she shared the same feeling as Gu Jun. These abnormal babies appeared to carry the presence of the foreign civilization. In other words, the more numerous these babies, the closer the ties between both worlds and the greater the influence the Black Goat of the Woods would have on Earth. 

Weirdly enough, Deng Ximei had looked at more than a handful of abnormal babies before she departed for Eastern State, and this familiarity never arose. Why was it limited to Eastern State's babies? This was clarified when Gu Jun and Deng Ximei travelled to nearby cities and did not trigger that familiarity again. After some research, it showed that the mothers of these 3 babies spent their pregnancy at Eastern State as well. Based on that, an evacuation specifically meant for pregnant women was initiated. For a city as large as Eastern State, there were about 10000 pregnant women. To have an evacuation without inciting public terror was hard. However, it had to be completed. The longer they stayed at Eastern City, the greater the chance their children might be corrupted by negative forces from the foreign world. 

Eastern State was no longer a place suitable for pregnant women and for birth. However, those too close to their birth week could not be moved. They stayed and were looked after by medical workers. However, there were still too many uncertainties. If this was contagious, would it cause another outbreak when they gave birth in other cities? 

On the 3rd day of the tragedy, the number of global abnormal babies broke through 100000. Not all of them managed to survive that long though. Unfortunately, even under normal circumstances, there would be early deaths among babies but the mortality rate among abnormal babies was triple the normal rate. Among the deaths, there was no positive selection, 20 percent was from stabilizing selection, and the rest was all negative selections. Their cause of death was all different, heart problems, lung problems, blood problems… Some of the babies were allergic to air. They suffered from horrible rashes 10 minutes after birth. They could not stop crying and had difficulty breathing. Their lungs failed within an hour of birth. 

Other than that, more and more disfigurement appeared among the negative selections. Pupilless eyes in Xu Qiuyue's case were considered light. When Gu Jun went through the images and reports of the abnormal babies, an anger rose within him. There was a baby whose arms were shaped like hooves. Instead of hands, his wrists were extended into hooves; another baby had flimsy limbs. X-ray showed that all his limbs had no bones and only cartilage. On the surface, it looked like he had limbs similar to the tentacles surrounding the Black Billy Goat. These two babies' disfigurements had clear influence by the Black Goat of the Woods but there were other disfigurements as well. 

The issue was that most of the mothers went for obstetric examinations, and the result showed that their foetuses were fine but they still gave birth to disfigured babies. This revealed another problem in this tragedy, obstetric examination was unreliable in deterring and spotting this tragedy. The mother of the baby who had tentacles as limbs had 4D ultrasound inspection, and it showed that she was going to have a healthy baby. The father grabbed the stack of heavy x-ray and demanded the doctor for explanation in choking voices. No one could answer him. In the images, the fetus was yawning, stretching his fingers, gumming his palm… The images showed that the baby was developing just fine, he had perfect arms and legs. Not one obstetric examination suggested there would be a problem. The last obstetric examination the mother had was one week prior to the birth so what happened in that one week?

During birth, both of the parents saw clearly their child was not swapped. He was born like that, as a monster. The appearance of similar cases suggested that either the mutation occurred right before birth or the X-ray imaging had been rendered unreliable by supernatural energy. 

The more Gu Jun looked at the X-ray reports, the more unsettled he felt. He was turning into Yu Chi, he felt like a noose was tightening around his neck. With each baby's cries, the noose closed further until his breathing got cut off. Just the thought of the pain of the family, the babies… He could not sit, could not stand, could not meditate. 

Yes, the voice was correct. Without this tragedy, there would be babies born with natural handicaps, negative selection would always exist but… the number would not be so high and the disfigurement would not be that serious. This was an unmitigated disaster. 

Gu Jun tried to make himself go to sleep, telling himself, "I need to sleep, I need to rest so that I have the stamina and focus needed for the upcoming dissection surgery." Since the news broke, he had very little sleep and it was taking a toll on his body. If this continued, even if a Black Billy Goat was hauled into the morgue, he wouldn't stand up right without fainting. 

"Remaining time: 309:26:47, Dissection Completion rate: 0 Percent."

Time was running out. This was another noose that clenched further and further. Gu Jun was unable to sleep no matter what and he decided to find Wu Siyu to chat with. Wu Siyu never had the problem of insomnia, no matter how bad the situation, she would be able to digest it. 

"How about I sing you a lullaby? It might help ease your tension." She suggested. Gu Jun nodded and she sang. "Meow, meow, meow…" Surprisingly enough, it did work. Later, Wu Siyu said that she learned the song from the Ulthar cats. Cats normally would not have insomnia so when that happened, it would be a very serious case so their lullabies were extremely effective. 

At the same time, the headquarter's Medical Department conducted many researches. The abnormal babies were the study group, normal babies were the control group. They came from the same hospital. The research targets were the mothers. They were investigated and interviewed; specifically on how did they spend their pregnancy? Were they exposed to particular factors during pregnancy, like the ingestion of certain food or drugs, travels, what had they done that might have caused this issue? The Medical Department hoped to get some similar factors from their stories that would yield statistical meaning. The moment they found the connection between the abnormal babies and proved that they were not completely random, steps could be taken to avoid it. 

This was also to prevent similar information from reaching individuals, who might use this to create more abnormal babies. 

It was worthnoting that within Phecda, some of the members were welcoming new members into their families as well. They were not spared. There were abnormal babies among them as well. 

So far, they still could not tell how different the growing experience abnormal babies would be among themselves and compared to normal babies. 

300 hours were left for the mission and it was the morning of a new day. Lucky rushed into the room where Gu Jun was resting. "Found it, found it! Babyfat's group has found the monster! The location is about several hundred metres wide, it's inside a cave!"