During the isolation period, Gu Chaobei confined himself to his cabin, with ample time to ponder. The more he pondered, the more he found everything he had seen in Prince Xia's cabin to be bizarre, feeling that many mysteries lingered around it. Thus, he decided to share a room with a live chicken.
Hearing Old Gu's words, Hu Lanfang understood and quickly went downstairs. She grabbed the live chicken, put it in a bag, and placed it at the cabin door for Gu Chaobei to use as he pleased.
After his wife left, Gu Chaobei savored a few bites of the three-cup chicken, feeling his wife's affection.
After eating for a while, he remembered the live chicken. He opened the cabin door, quickly dragged the bag with the live chicken inside, and then opened the bag.
Man and chicken, they looked at each other, faces blank.
The healthy-looking hen stood before Gu Chaobei, stunned for a few seconds, then flapped its wings and strutted around, attempting to find an escape route.
Gu Chaobei grabbed the chicken, held it up in front of his face, blew a few breaths at it, and then stuffed it into the bathroom.
Gu Chaobei feared the creature would defecate everywhere, making the carpeted cabin difficult to clean. If it defecated in the bathroom, it would be easier to clean, so he directly stuffed it into the bathroom.
However, Gu Chaobei did not expect that just as he was about to throw the chicken into the bathroom, he suddenly felt the force was not right.
Ah, the chicken actually died in his hands.
Gu Chaobei instinctively tried to stop his throwing motion, but it was too late. The chicken was thrown by him onto the bathroom floor, legs splayed, already dead.
Immediately, the strange feeling from before had an explanation: the feeling of rigor mortis after death, the transition from a living body to a corpse.
Gu Chaobei was a doctor, so he was particularly sensitive to this feeling of life suddenly ebbing away.
Seeing the chicken dead, Gu Chaobei couldn't help but touch his nose with an embarrassed expression, and then, with the professionalism of a doctor, began to study it...
Gu Qingcheng, her mother, and Mi Guo were playing a table football game in the kitchen.
Upon hearing that her father intended to experiment with a live chicken, Gu Qingcheng inexplicably became absent-minded.
Just then, the call bell in the kitchen rang frantically, startling all three of them.
Gu Qingcheng had extended a rope from her father's cabin upstairs to the kitchen downstairs, with two bells attached. If Gu Chaobei needed something, he would pull the rope, and the bells downstairs would ring, letting them know to go upstairs to find him.
"What's wrong with your father?"
Hu Lanfang pushed the table aside with a "whoosh" and stood up abruptly.
When it came to Gu Chaobei encountering trouble, Hu Lanfang was always the quickest to react.
Gu Qingcheng and Mi Guo only had time to run upstairs behind their mother.
Hearing the "thump thump" of footsteps outside the cabin, Gu Chaobei said from inside:
"Don't panic, I'm fine. Stay calm!"
"Old Gu, what on earth happened?"
Hu Lanfang ran, panting, and clutched her chest.
"Alas, I conducted an experiment with a live chicken, and I've come to a bad conclusion. But don't worry, I'm not in mortal danger for the moment."
Gu Chaobei knew that if he didn't explain, his family would speculate even more.
"What is it, Old Gu?"
Hu Lanfang was so anxious she was almost in tears.
Gu Qingcheng felt once again that her parents were truly in love, and she was merely an appendage to their love.
"It's like this, didn't I just bring a live chicken in for an experiment?
It died shortly after coming into contact with me, and it died quite strangely: its tongue protruded, its legs stiffened, and its muscles became rigid. This should be a viral infection.
Gu Chaobei knew that only by recounting his experiences could he gain his family's cooperation. Otherwise, his wife's worry would not let him go, and she would definitely force him to explain everything. So, he decided to hide nothing.
"You're killing me with worry! What does a dead chicken have to do with you?" Hu Lanfang refused to accept the reality.
"Alas, it has a lot to do with me. This chicken was fine before it came in, very healthy, right? It died in my hands, which is definitely not normal. It died within a minute of being with me, do you think this is a big deal?"
"Oh, this?" Gu Qingcheng quickly advised, "Perhaps it's a coincidence. It was already dying, so it happened to die when it came into your hands. It's not your fault."
"Wrong. I have already dissected the chicken, and I saw its internal organs were black and slowly decaying, rapidly liquefying. Most frighteningly, before it died, it walked on its tiptoes, not like a normal chicken's gait. Its head was also extended forward, and its tongue protruded. This is a manifestation of neurological dysfunction.
As I continued the dissection, I discovered that its brain was also liquefying. By the time I finished the dissection, its brain had completely liquefied.
So, its abnormal gait was due to the virus eroding its brain nerves."
Upon hearing this, Gu Qingcheng's heart skipped a beat. She remembered her father taking something from the storage cabinet earlier, and the system had given a prompt. She had been focused on the board game and hadn't paid attention to what her father had taken.
After all, her parents took things from her storage cabinet every day, sometimes a bottle of soy sauce, sometimes a bag of salt. She couldn't possibly check every notification.
So, she quickly went back to check the notifications. Indeed, her father had taken surgical masks, a scalpel, and rubber gloves. These tools should have been used for dissecting the chicken, indicating that he had indeed dissected it.
"Dad, how are you feeling now?" Gu Qingcheng asked anxiously.
"I'm fine for now, but please don't come into contact with me. After all, if the chicken contracted the illness from me and died, I am the source of the infection."
Gu Chaobei gave a wry smile.
"What are your symptoms now? Is it serious?"
Gu Qingcheng kept questioning. Not being able to see him made her the most anxious.
"I'm fine so far," Gu Chaobei still had the energy to laugh. "What puzzles me is that I'm still fine. Seeing the chicken like that, I performed various neurological tests and found myself to be the same as before, perfectly fine."
Gu Qingcheng and Hu Lanfang felt a little relieved upon hearing this.
Hu Lanfang patted the cabin door and said:
"Old Gu, let me in."
"No, don't rush. None of you should rush. I've decided to continue isolating myself here and observe for a while longer!"
Gu Chaobei pondered his own symptoms, feeling that he still shouldn't endanger his family.
Hu Lanfang's heart broke upon hearing this. She said:
"No matter what, I want to be with you."
"It's alright, I'm not in mortal danger for the moment, don't worry. I asked you to come up precisely to help you face this calmly."
"Dad, this must be related to you treating Prince Xia's illness, right?"
Gu Qingcheng calmly recalled.
"That's right." Gu Chaobei nodded with approval. "As expected of my daughter. Prince Xia's illness this time was indeed quite strange. I was afraid you would be scared, so I didn't tell you before. But since I might also encounter such a situation, I have to tell you so you can be prepared."
Then, Gu Chaobei began to describe Prince Xia's symptoms.