This scene gave Chu Zhiyuan quite a fright.
However, he still endured the nausea and undid the boy's clothes.
Sure enough, the boy's entire body was covered by these disgusting red rashes. Especially around his waist, layer upon layer of rashes were stacked, looking extremely creepy.
After the red rashes on the boy's waist stacked and rotted, they even turned into something scaly, like a hard shell growing on rotten flesh.
Moreover, only the waist area had these scaly growths, which were connected all the way around the waist in a circle.
Yun Lianmeng stepped closer to observe. That circular thing even reflected light. Suddenly, as if she had thought of something, she pointed at it and blurted out,
"Chu Zhiyuan, look. Doesn't this look like snake scales?"
Thanks to Yun Lianmeng's reminder, Chu Zhiyuan finally remembered. He suddenly realized and said,
"I remember. This... this is shingles!"
If one were to ask why Chu Zhiyuan was so sure, it was because he had seen it before.
A few years ago, the Taoist temple was in a dilapidated state. No one came to the temple. Chu Zhiyuan was the only one left to guard it.
One day, as usual, Chu Zhiyuan was standing in a daze at the entrance of the Taoist temple, staring blankly at the road ahead.
But on that particular day, a very strange woman came.
Even in the middle of summer, she wore a big mask and a scarf, covering herself up tightly, only showing a pair of eyes.
When Chu Zhiyuan saw that someone had come to the temple, he immediately went to greet her.
However, when the woman saw Chu Zhiyuan approaching, she sprang back like a spring, putting a long distance between them.
This left Chu Zhiyuan's outstretched hand hanging in the air awkwardly. He then retracted it, realizing that she didn't like to be around people.
So, the woman walked in front, and Chu Zhiyuan obediently followed behind.
When she arrived at the Taoist temple, she looked around furtively, as if she was hiding from someone. Chu Zhiyuan originally wanted to lead her to the main house.
When she stopped, Chu Zhiyuan quickly walked up beside her.
But unexpectedly, as soon as he got in front of her, she quickly slipped into a room and left the door ajar.
The woman hid behind the door, only showing her eyes. She waved her gloved hand at Chu Zhiyuan, motioning for him to come in.
When Chu Zhiyuan entered and was still puzzled, the woman suddenly lifted her shirt.
This scared Chu Zhiyuan so much that he rushed to the corner of the room and didn't dare to look up. He mumbled,
"Please talk to me properly, ma'am."
But the woman ignored him and walked straight up to Chu Zhiyuan, leaving him nowhere to hide his gaze.
Only then did Chu Zhiyuan notice the scales on the mysterious woman's waist. They were exactly the same as those on the boy's waist in front of him now.
Chu Zhiyuan recalled what the woman had said. She said this was called shingles.
Although Chu Zhiyuan had been living in seclusion in the Taoist temple, he still knew that shingles was a disease, even though he had never seen it before.
He asked the woman why she didn't go to the hospital.
But the woman spoke very strangely. She always talked to herself and didn't listen to what Chu Zhiyuan said.
The woman mumbled in a jumbled order. Chu Zhiyuan barely managed to understand her meaning.
The woman meant that this disease couldn't be cured. She had come to this Taoist temple for a solution after being advised by a wise man in the village.
The wise man had told her that there was a girl in this Taoist temple who could cure this disease.
Chu Zhiyuan just thought it was strange. After explaining to her that he had been the only one in the Taoist temple for more than a decade, the woman instantly collapsed to the ground and wailed,
"It's retribution! It's all retribution!"
After knowing that there was no hope of a cure, the woman left the Taoist temple absent - mindedly.
This little episode didn't leave a deep impression on Chu Zhiyuan's memory. That's why he only suddenly remembered it when he saw shingles again.
Now, he associated the woman's words about looking for a girl in the Taoist temple and suddenly thought of Ning Yitao.
"Could that woman have been looking for Ning Yitao?"
Chu Zhiyuan wondered in surprise.
However, if Ning Yitao stepped in, this matter would surely be easy to handle.
Thinking about it this way, that woman really didn't look for the wrong person. She just came too early.
The wise man in that woman's words was really remarkable. He could even figure out that she should look for Ning Yitao.
Now, Chu Zhiyuan didn't have time to think too much. He tightened the clothes covering his mouth and nose and opened the straw mats behind the boy. As expected, they all had the same symptoms.
Even their clothes and scarves were exactly the same.
Moreover, these people's faces weren't rotten, nor did they show signs of death. They just looked like they were sleeping.
Looking at such a large number of them, Chu Zhiyuan couldn't help but get goosebumps all over his back.
Generally speaking, this was a curable disease. But the strange thing was that the people here just let it spread completely.
Once shingles encircled the body, the patient would surely die.
And the people in front of him had died because of shingles.
Yun Lianmeng stood beside him and locked eyes with Chu Zhiyuan, who had just looked up.
Both of them understood at once. The key now lay with the people in that village.
Nowadays, shingles wasn't a serious disease.
In Chu Zhiyuan's understanding, shingles was just an ordinary skin disease.
But he had underestimated it.
Living in the deep mountains for a long time, he hadn't noticed that the symptoms of these people were completely different from the medical definition of shingles.
Moreover, this was a contagious disease.
Now, Chu Zhiyuan had stepped into this area full of corpses of people who had died of shingles without any protection.
Chu Zhiyuan couldn't escape.
When they turned back to look for the people in the village.
All the old people who had been sitting in front of their houses basking in the sun when they first arrived had disappeared.
Even when Chu Zhiyuan knocked on every door to inquire, no one opened the door.
Finally, Chu Zhiyuan started knocking on the doors again and again impatiently. He just didn't intend to let the people inside rest.
This action completely angered the people inside, but it also gave Chu Zhiyuan a little clue.
The person inside said in annoyance,
"You've been contaminated by something dirty and still dare to run around in the village. Stop knocking. No one here will open the door for you."
"Something dirty?"
What did that mean?
Chu Zhiyuan looked at Yun Lianmeng in confusion. She seemed to understand something and suddenly realized.
Yun Lianmeng suddenly started tugging at Chu Zhiyuan's clothes.
This sudden action startled Chu Zhiyuan.
He was stunned for a moment and didn't stop Yun Lianmeng.
He misunderstood. Chu Zhiyuan said shyly,
"Actually, if you want to... we can find a more appropriate time."
Hearing this, Yun Lianmeng knew he had misunderstood. With a black - faced expression, she pulled open Chu Zhiyuan's shirt. After seeing clearly what was on his skin, Yun Lianmeng said seriously,
"It's over. You've been infected."
Chu Zhiyuan woke up as if from a dream. He lowered his head and sure enough, there was a faint red mark on his waist.
The bumps were extremely ugly, but they were exactly the same as the shingles they had just seen on those corpses.