Chapter 45: The Mysterious Ailment

Xu Chen flipped through a portion of the documents and discovered that Senior Ouyang had thoughtfully requested statistics from a month ago, when the hospital was under low pressure, alongside the statistics for the current month. This could not help but move him a little.

He truly cared about his affairs.

Because Ouyang Xing had already categorized the data, Xu Chen easily divided the statistics into two separate piles, making the disparity immediately obvious at a glance.

The paper used for this month's statistics was more than double that of the previous month—a truly visible gap to the naked eye.

However, the specific situation still depended on the contents within, which were surprisingly categorized by hospital department.

After a brief scan, Xu Chen's expression shifted, as the department facing the heaviest pressure among them was none other than oncology.

Of course, calling it simply oncology pressure wasn't entirely accurate. Generally speaking, simple tumor cancer wasn't actually simple; the pressure it brought to the hospital was all-encompassing, involving various other departments as well, such as lung cancer.

Lung cancer typically originates as a malignant tumor developing within lung tissue, so preliminary diagnosis and treatment are usually evaluated and handled first by oncology specialists.

Oncology doctors possess in-depth understanding and professional experience regarding tumors, enabling them to provide comprehensive treatment recommendations.

Throughout the course of lung cancer treatment, other departments are also involved, such as radiology, surgery, and chemotherapy. Under the collaboration of these multidisciplinary teams, they jointly formulate the optimal treatment plan.

Furthermore, internal medicine physicians play a vital role. They are responsible for conducting comprehensive physical examinations, taking medical histories, and performing auxiliary examinations, providing supportive treatment, managing and preventing lung cancer-related complications, and carrying out post-operative rehabilitation and follow-up work.

Therefore, depending on the site of the cancer's onset, collaborative treatment by corresponding departments is generally required. Curing tumors and cancer cannot be attributed solely to the credit of the oncology department.

It can only be said that the patient falls under the jurisdiction of oncology.

However, as Xu Chen observed, while tumor and cancer patients were numerous, they had not yet reached an absurd degree. Nevertheless, these hospitals were still enduring patient volumes far exceeding their capacity, prompting him to continue reading.

Before long, he found himself utterly bewildered and completely at a loss.

"Idiopathic cryoglobulinemia, scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis? What on earth are these?" Xu Chen promptly pulled out his almighty smartphone to search, needing to determine what kind of illnesses these were.

Yet, after flipping further and finding essentially a massive stack of unfamiliar, unheard-of diseases, Xu Chen decisively turned to Ouyang Xing for help.

Ouyang Xing was reading a book while waiting for sample processing. Seeing Xu Chen approach, he looked quite surprised: "What is it? You've already spotted the problem this quickly?"

Xu Chen offered an awkward laugh: "No, there are some parts I don't understand."

"Tell me, what don't you understand?"

"Here, here, here..."

Ouyang Xing stared in bewilderment as Xu Chen pointed out nearly thirty percent of the document, much like a teacher telling students to skip the exam questions they didn't know first—except after the very first question, the skipping just went on endlessly.

Not a single one understood.

"Stop, stop. You're a medical student, the names are written right there and you still don't recognize them? Let me see, let me take a look first." Ouyang Xing snatched the documents away, flipped through them briefly, and also grew somewhat puzzled. He turned a few more pages and discovered that he couldn't recognize all the diseases either... which was rather awkward.

He blushed as he glanced at Xu Chen, then looked at the instrument processing samples beside him, looked back at Xu Chen, glanced at the instrument again, and promptly said, "Wait a moment."

Ouyang Xing walked away holding the documents. Xu Chen saw him seemingly searching for someone, asking questions back and forth inside the laboratory, before finally heading out the door.

After a short wait, Ouyang Xing returned clutching the documents once more. This time, his face carried much more confidence, alongside a hint of lingering doubt.

"Xu Chen, I've asked around clearly. These illnesses are basically rare diseases, uncommon in daily life. It's normal that you haven't heard of them."

Xu Chen grew puzzled once again: "Since these are rare diseases... they should be quite rare, right? If they appear in such a clustered manner, is that normal?"

Ouyang Xing smiled bitterly: "I'm wondering about that too. How is this normal? You must understand that rare diseases are rare precisely because of their low incidence rates and diverse clinical manifestations, making them difficult to diagnose. For so many rare disease patients to arrive all at once—no wonder the medical pressure has skyrocketed."

"Then... what could be causing this?"

"I have no idea. Based on the discussions I just had with others, most of these are immune-related disorders, with the majority being incurable and a few untreatable. To say the least, the patients' quality of life plummets drastically, and the factors that can trigger such conditions are bizarre and varied, with absolutely no fixed source."

"Then why are there so many patients?"

Ouyang Xing stared wide-eyed: "Are you speaking in riddles? We don't know."

"...What factors can trigger these rare immune-related disorders?"

"There are plenty, but they can be broadly divided into four categories: genetics, environment, immune system dysfunction, and autoimmune reactions. If you want to trace the source of these rare diseases, it's probably a lost cause; even immunology experts wouldn't dare make any guarantees."

Xu Chen frowned, flipping through the remaining documents. Aside from cancer and immune-related diseases, the incidence rates of other minor illnesses were also rising.

He rapidly flipped through the pages, then suddenly came to a halt.

He flipped back a page—nothing.

He flipped back another page, and the sight sent cold sweat crawling down Xu Chen's back.

Newborn malformations.

The document contained no further textual descriptions, simply recording the baby's symptoms: right-sided short-limb malformation.

Xu Chen searched through other materials containing related information and ultimately discovered 13 cases of newborn malformations. The most horrifying one was such that Xu Chen could imagine it purely from the text: it was a craniopagus parasiticus, where the parasitic twin had already preliminarily developed a face. With just a little more time, this parasitic twin would also possess its own life.

At that moment, he bitterly cursed why his imagination was so active; if only such text could just hollowly circulate through his brain and then be forgotten.

Right now, Xu Chen felt his sanity plummeting drastically just thinking about it.

Nevertheless, he forced himself to keep reading, since he still hadn't seen the cause.

Shortly after, Xu Chen stared in a daze at the two large characters written on the document: "Unknown."

Many of the world's eight major public hazard incidents bore a striking similarity to this, such as Japan's Minamata disease, along with other smog incidents. Hawaii also had high local radiation levels due to being a nuclear test site, resulting in numerous deformed infants, but those were basically caused by chemicals and radiation.

As a major agricultural province, Nanhua had virtually no chemical plants in sight; even if there were any, they were basically nowhere near the city limits. Yet all these hospitals were located right within the city—could chemical pollution be spreading inside the urban area?

Xu Chen gazed at those two characters, "Unknown," and dismissed the thought. If there were chemical pollution, the hospitals would not fail to detect it.