Chapter 44: Chapter 40: The Infection Begins

Gu Ji turned around abruptly and saw a young white man among the crowd enjoying the sunset sea view on the deck, covering his mouth. As far as he remembered, he hadn’t seen this person have any close contact with the man in the brown hat, but he wasn’t sure about lunchtime.

“Hope it’s just a coincidence…”

In the evening, the sea breeze on the deck was salty and moist. Most tourists were lightly dressed, so catching a chill and coughing were quite normal, especially for the elderly with white hair, whose resistance was weaker.

He slowly approached, carefully observing the limbs of the elderly man and the young white man. There were no signs of redness under the skin, muscle activity was normal, and the red veins in the whites of their eyes had not increased. It didn’t look like the onset of a viral infection, which slightly eased his worries.

It was only five o’clock now.

If these two were indeed infected by the man in the brown hat, it would be terrifying. A four to five-hour incubation period was almost as fast as the outbreak speed for Type A flu, but regular flu wouldn’t cause red spots all over the body or be that contagious.

Short incubation period, high contagion, severe symptoms.

If a virus had these three traits, it was effectively a super nuclear bomb.

The first batch of infected people would experience a concentration of symptoms within five hours and spread the virus exponentially through crowd activities; one infects ten, ten to a hundred. In just two or three days, the cruise ship would be completely overrun!!

All the ship’s passengers would be covered in red rashes, with ulcers and bleeding.

Even imagining such a scene was chilling.

…

By dinnertime, Gu Ji didn’t dare enter the buffet restaurant again and only observed from outside. Dinner had fewer guests than lunch, likely due to other entertainment dispersing people. Luckily, aside from the elderly man and the white man, he only noticed one Japanese woman with symptoms of coughing and fever.

He returned to his room, swiped the card, and pushed the door open.

Ito Meiyu was hiding under the covers in a daze. Seeing Gu Ji enter, she immediately got up to greet him, “Sister, you’re finally back, are you done with your work?”

“All done.”

Gu Ji responded, subconsciously glancing over, the vast expanse of fair skin caught his eye. Though not overwhelmingly voluptuous, it carried a youthful vibrancy, like a budding cherry blossom.

Oh boy, undressing so quickly…

Though he wasn’t as lecherous as Gao Bo, he was still a normal-thinking man, taking a few extra glances shouldn’t hurt, right?

“Meiyu, I’m still not over my cold, can we turn off the air conditioning for a while?”

Gu Ji found the central air conditioner controller and asked.

He didn’t actually feel cold, quite the opposite, he felt hot. His main goal was to shut off the ship’s air renewal system because if the virus could spread through air or aerosols in the semi-enclosed cruise ship environment, using the central air conditioning would only increase the risk of contagion.

Ito Meiyu nodded, her twin ponytails bouncing.

“Phew…”

Turning off the air conditioning, Gu Ji grimaced as he took off his hat and mask, releasing trapped heat. After wearing them all day, his skin was red and swollen, with deep red marks behind his ears and on his cheeks, painful and itchy.

“Oh my goodness, Sister, your face!”

Ito Meiyu was startled and quickly jumped out of bed, opening her suitcase, “Sister, let me apply some medicine for you…”

“No need, I’ve gotten used to it.”

Gu Ji waved off the offer, but the girl came over with two tubes of cream, “This is fusidic acid cream and clindamycin gel, they treat seborrheic dermatitis and acne, preventing skin infection.”

She said, then squeezed a dab of each onto his face, gently spreading them along the swollen areas with a cotton swab. The cooling sensation was quite soothing.

“A girl’s skin is most important; you only have a cold, there’s no need to wear a mask all the time.”

After applying the ointment, Ito Meiyu gently blew on his face, “All done!”

Gu Ji couldn’t help but be moved by the girl’s kindness and soft demeanor. He pursed his lips and handed her an N95 mask from the medical kit, “It’s better to be cautious. This cruise ship is a semi-enclosed environment. Once the flu breaks out, it can spread explosively.”

Ito Meiyu looked slightly surprised, accepting the mask, “I don’t really understand, but thank you, Sister. I’ll be careful…”

The next day.

Gu Ji was woken by the sunlight. He rubbed his eyes and turned to look at Ito Meiyu, who was already up, sitting on the sofa staring out the window.

“Sister, you’re awake? The ship should be arriving in Kagoshima soon. Let’s disembark and have some fun together!”

Ito Meiyu turned her head, smiling as she suggested.

“Sure.”

The visitors would definitely debark at Kagoshima; staying there wouldn’t be much help anyway.

While washing up, he looked at himself in the mirror, feeling something was off, especially with the sleek, long black hair, which was quite a hassle to wash.

Being a girl was indeed more troublesome than being a boy.

With some difficulty, he finally dried it. Gu Ji was reluctant to put on the cumbersome gear again, thankfully Jian Na had brought some folded patches, easy to stick on, wearing a white T-shirt, enjoying the feeling of freedom, it was indescribably comfortable.

When he finished freshening up, the ship’s horn sounded, and it started moving slowly towards the shore. The cabin’s broadcast system announced to visitors that they had arrived in Kagoshima.

Gu Ji walked out of the room, just closing the door.

“Cough cough…”

A violent cough came from up ahead, he looked up to see a slicked-back Japanese tourist. Not only him, but his wife and child also showed uncomfortable expressions.

He raised an eyebrow, pulling down the brim of his black baseball cap slightly, “Meiyu, put on your mask.”

“Ah? Oh, okay…”

Ito Meiyu fished a mask out of her pocket, hurriedly putting it on.

They followed the flow of tourists towards the elevator, but along the way, there weren’t just coughs from the slicked-back man’s family; there were at least three or four others as well.

“Forget waiting for the elevator, come with me.”

Gu Ji had a bad feeling, quickly pulling Ito Meiyu through the crowd, heading to the back of the ship, and pushed open the fire escape door.

“Wow, Sister, how did you know there’s a secret passage here?”

Ito Meiyu thought they were taking a shortcut.

They arrived in the first-floor public area hall.

“Cough cough cough…”

“Cough!”

“Oh, I feel so bad, my head hurts!”

“I’m never sleeping with the air conditioning on again. I think I have a fever, my whole body feels off!”

…

In the center of the hall, a large number of tourists were gathered waiting for the cabin door to open for disembarkation. Gu Ji didn’t understand Japanese, but just the ones complaining in English about feeling unwell were four, and the number of people coughing and having fevers was as many as twenty or thirty!!

This was bad!

The virus had already started to spread!

Gu Ji hurriedly stopped a security officer preparing to maintain order, and said urgently, “Seal the cabin doors immediately, contact the cruise medical room, Kagoshima Prefecture Crisis Management Bureau, Police Headquarters, and Prefectural Hospital Bureau for emergency management, an infectious disease has broken out on the cruise! Quickly!”

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