Chapter 126: Mysterious Virus?

Watching that meddling man lying on the ground, twitching just like a woman, with his skin growing that slack and his blood vessels writhing like a cluster of bloody worms, everyone was terrified.

Their first reaction was that this damn disease was actually contagious!

And it was the kind that spread purely through contact!

With this thought in mind, everyone involuntarily took a few steps back, while some hurriedly called the Epidemic Prevention Center.

However, they did not completely distance themselves from the man and woman because they loved watching a spectacle.

By this time, the woman had completely turned into a mummified corpse, while the man was still convulsing incessantly, the moisture draining from his body at a pace visible to the naked eye.

It would be a lie to say the surrounding passersby were not frightened by this scene, as it clearly exceeded the boundaries of their comprehension. Yet it would be an even bigger lie to say they were not curious, and quite a few people were currently recording videos.

Accompanied by the screech of brakes, a black sedan pulled up to the roadside.

Emblazoned on the side of the vehicle were the prominent characters: Chinan National Epidemic Prevention Bureau.

Throughout thousands of years of history, this world had been terrified by wave after wave of infectious diseases, which was why the efficiency of the Epidemic Prevention Bureau in this world was exceptionally high.

Two people stepped out of the car, completely swathed from head to toe in protective gear. Just looking at them, one could tell that ordinary viruses stood no chance of breaching their defenses.

"Who made the call? What on earth is going on here?"

In fact, this world had always possessed a rather peculiar quirk: people loved to hurl curses wishing contagious diseases upon others.

This often led to people frequently playing practical jokes on the Epidemic Prevention Bureau, summoning them in a rush only to find absolutely nothing wrong.

Therefore, when they saw such a large crowd gathered from afar, looking nothing like a virus outbreak, a surge of irritation welled up inside them.

At that moment, the crowd pointed successively toward the two figures lying on the ground, consciously clearing a path for them.

When the two epidemic prevention officers laid eyes on the figures on the ground, they grew utterly tense.

Their initial thought was: Did someone dig up a corpse that had been dead for hundreds of years?

Yet upon closer inspection of their clothing, bodies from centuries ago certainly wouldn't be wearing miniskirts and hoodies, would they?

Regardless, those two were undoubtedly mummies, and even with the stretch of their imagination, they could not fathom how these individuals had ended up like this.

They simply assumed someone had dumped corpses here, and overzealous citizens suspected the bodies harbored a virus.

Having settled on this conclusion, they decided to call the police, figuring such matters were best left to law enforcement.

With that thought, they looked toward the onlookers, intending to give them a brief educational lecture on what infectious diseases actually were, and the differences between contagion, bacteria, and viruses.

However, the moment they turned back, they caught sight of the crowd staring at them with looks of utter terror.

This left them rather puzzled.

Although they weren't particularly handsome, they were wrapped tightly from head to D and outside observers shouldn't have been able to see anything at all.

Then, however, they noticed these people pointing behind them, too shocked to utter a single word.

This stirred up a fresh wave of bewilderment. Was there something right behind them?

Harboring such doubts, they turned around with expressions of sheer disdain. But upon glancing backward, they saw that the male mummy—who had just been lying motionless on the ground—had now risen in a trembling fashion, creeping step by step right up beside them.

"What the hell!"

An involuntary curse escaped his lips, and instinctively, he lashed out with a backhand slap.

Yet this single blow caused the man's head to spin in a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation.

The head whirled like a top for four or five full revolutions before gradually coming to a halt, and then it slumped straight to the ground.

The sight nearly scared him out of his wits.

True, that instinctive defensive reaction might have carried a bit too much force, but surely it shouldn't have been enough to send a man's head spinning around that many times?

Wait!

Compared to making a man's head twist multiple times atop his own neck, wasn't the fact that a mummified corpse could still move around far more baffling?

Realizing this, he quickly stepped forward, wanting to examine what was actually wrong with this corpse.

Although he wasn't a professional medical practitioner, he had majored in medicine during college, so performing a rough examination of a corpse was well within his capabilities.

Just as he prepared to step closer, however, someone intercepted him.

"Don't touch him! The moment you make contact with him, you'll end up like that too. Just now, he only became like this after touching that woman."

As soon as those words fell, he was utterly stunned.

According to the implication of that person's words, the man had been perfectly fine a moment before, yet transformed into a mummy himself simply by touching the other female mummy on the ground?

This... how could this possibly be?

Did this not already transcend the scope of infectious diseases?

Nevertheless, he cupped his fists toward the kind stranger who had issued the warning: "Rest assured, the suit I'm wearing isn't just for show. There won't be any problems."

With that, he resolutely strode forward to investigate the condition of the male mummy.

Meanwhile, the other epidemic prevention officer who had accompanied him swiftly reported the current situation to his superiors.

However, when the leaders at the Epidemic Prevention Bureau heard about the situation here, disbelief was their immediate reaction.

"You're telling me a person was fine one second and turned into a mummy the next? What kind of horror story are you telling me?"

"I'm serious, Director! People at the scene recorded videos, and I've watched them myself—it's bizarre beyond belief, and it seems to spread through physical contact."

Realizing he wasn't joking, the superior on the other end of the line immediately ordered him to seal off the scene and dispatched a team of specialists to the location.

After hanging up the phone, he let out a long sigh of relief. As long as the bureau sent personnel over, the responsibility would no longer rest heavily on the two of them.

The most urgent task right now, however, was to cordon off the area promptly to prevent any unnecessary accidents.

With that in mind, he turned to inform his colleague who had gone to examine the mummy, only to find this fellow squatting motionless right beside the mummified body.

"Director Wang told us to seal off the area. Stop staring at that corpse; the specialists will handle it when they get here."

Yet the other person offered no reply, remaining crouched there with his head lowered.

A flicker of unease crept into his heart. He took a tentative couple of steps closer and saw that his colleague seemed to be wiping his own face?

"You're wearing a hazmat suit, why are you rubbing your face?"

The very next second, however, the man whipped his head around violently.

At that, everyone saw it clearly: he wasn't rubbing his face at all. Rather, he was clawing fiercely at his own face with fingernails that had grown alarmingly long without anyone noticing.

The face shield had already been shredded to pieces, exposing his somewhat weathered countenance.

Across his skin ran several bloody, raw gashes, evidently inflicted by his own frantic scratching just moments ago.

And more terrifying than all of this were his eyes, which had turned completely bloodshot, exactly like those of the two mummies a moment before.

"Are you alright?"

The remaining epidemic prevention officer was paralyzed with fear. He retreated slowly by two paces and asked tentatively.

At that moment, a passerby in the vicinity roared at the top of their lungs, "Does he look like he's alright to you?! Run for your lives!"

Instantly, pandemonium erupted across the entire street as crowds of people scattered in every direction like headless flies.

A massive wave of uninformed onlookers, upon hearing that an infectious disease was loose, joined the stampede of fleeing citizens, and the chaos snowballed rapidly.