I Am Diagnosed as a Medical Titan

Chapter 187: Chapter 139: Miracle

The sound of the girl’s suppressed sobs faded behind him.

Jiang He struggled back to the locker room.

A sudden wave of nausea washed over him...

He braced himself against the wall as his vision began to darken.

A ringing started in his ears, like the static from an old television.

He slid down against the door, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

As he unzipped his hazmat suit, the urge to retch surged again.

He bent over and threw up into the trash can.

Tears mixed with cold sweat, dripping from his chin onto the floor.

”If I hadn’t...”

he muttered to himself.

Before he could finish, his vision went completely black, and the ringing in his ears abruptly stopped.

His body went limp, and he slumped to the floor...

...

”Jiang He! Jiang He!”

The sound of frantic footsteps echoed down the hallway.

Chen Hao, drenched in sweat and clutching his phone, was sprinting through the critical care building.

Half an hour ago, Shen Yu had called him.

On the phone, she had told him he absolutely had to find Jiang He and personally see to it that he got some sleep.

But he couldn’t get through on the phone.

He had searched the emergency room, the doctors’ offices, and the on-call room, but couldn’t find him anywhere.

That is, until Chen Hao pushed open the door to this private locker room.

”Holy shit!”

”Old Jiang! Don’t you scare me!”

Chen Hao reached out to pat Jiang He’s face, but his skin was ice-cold to the touch.

He quickly checked Jiang He’s carotid artery. The pulse was extremely fast and faint.

”Yizhou, Xu Chen, get over here, quick!”

”...Boss?! ...Chen Hao, what happened?” Gu Yizhou asked, his face a mask of anxiety.

”I don’t know! I found him like this!”

Xu Chen grabbed Jiang He’s wrist to check his pulse. ”He can’t lie here. We need to get him to a ward and on an IV, now!”

「Ten minutes later.」

In a vacant room in the respiratory ward.

Jiang He was lying on a hospital bed with an IV catheter inserted in the back of his hand. A glucose solution was dripping into his vein.

Yang Xu, who had been urgently called over, watched the heart rate on the monitor gradually stabilize and let out a long sigh of relief.

”It’s nothing serious. He’s just exhausted.”

Gu Yizhou stood at the foot of the bed, a complex look in his eyes.

He thought back to the night Jiang He had saved his girlfriend.

’I always thought I worked hard, but compared to Jiang He, I’m nothing.’

Chen Hao pulled a chair over to the bedside and sat down. Staring at the IV bag, his eyes began to sting.

’Buddy, you’ve got to take it easy. My dad will have my hide if I don’t look after you...’

Xu Chen gave Jiang He a long look, then said, ”They’re still short-staffed out there. I’m going back to help.”

Chen Hao nodded. ”You go. I’ll keep an eye on him here.”

Xu Chen: ”Okay. Call me if anything changes.”

...

「At the same time.」

The central laboratory of the Oncology Research Institute.

A dozen of the nation’s top virology experts were gathered around a computer.

”Professor Li, have you finished verifying the raw data on the D drive?”

”Finished... No errors. The primer design, amplification conditions, it’s all correct.”

”Look here. In the reverse genetics procedure, he did in fact knock out the polybasic sequence at the hemagglutinin protein cleavage site, which means...”

”It means the recombinant virus has completely lost its high pathogenicity and can only survive under specific conditions.”

”Exactly. It’s safe.”

Just then, Professor Zhang, who was in charge of monitoring the cell transfection status, walked briskly out of the cell culture room.

He was holding a freshly printed test report.

”Old Zhang, how is it?”

”Everyone... the transfection efficiency of the 293T cells is extremely high!”

A series of low gasps erupted in the lab.

Professor Zhang continued:

”I just took a sample and ran an early quantitative real-time PCR. We already have a clear detection of high nucleic acid expression from the recombinant virus! Jiang He’s eight-plasmid system ran perfectly! The system is incredibly stable. If we just continue to culture it for another forty-eight hours, we can absolutely harvest a seed strain with an extremely high titer! What’s more, preliminary sequence alignment shows that the antigenicity is a perfect match with the wild-type strain!”

You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

Four hours ago, when they had first stepped into this lab, every one of them had been prepared for a long, drawn-out battle.

They had estimated that, even with the best luck, screening for a matching vaccine seed strain in the lab would take two months.

”...He just saved us a full two months.”

”A miracle... This is truly a miracle. For one person to do this in such a short time, having to figure out the conditions along the way... It’s impossible to explain with conventional logic.”

”Forget conventional logic. Now isn’t the time to investigate how he did it. The facts are right in front of us: he did it, and he did it perfectly.”

Shu Yuelong took out his phone and quickly dialed the number for Minister Lin Zhenhua of the provincial department.

”Minister Lin, it’s me, Shu Yuelong.”

”Director Shu, what’s the progress?”

”Minister Lin, listen to me. Contact the manufacturers immediately. Tell them to get the production lines ready. We don’t need to wait two months.”

”What?”

”We have the seed strain. The system Jiang He left is fully operational. The virus rescue was successful, the titer meets the required standard, and the pathogenicity has been knocked out. As soon as we complete the subsequent amplification, purification, and verification, we can begin mass production immediately!”

”...So soon?”

”That’s how it is.”

”Alright. I understand.”

He hung up.

Shu Yuelong immediately went through his contacts and dialed Jiang He’s number.

He had to thank this young man personally.

He had to tell Jiang He what a monumental thing he had done.

The phone rang for a long time.

”Hello?”

”Hello, this is Shu Yuelong from the National Disease Control Center.”

”Director Shu, hello. This is Jiang He’s classmate, Chen Hao.” On the other end of the line, Chen Hao glanced at the still-unconscious Jiang He on the hospital bed before stepping out of the room.

”Where’s Jiang He? Is he there with you?”

Chen Hao sighed. ”He’s sleeping. He’s on an IV drip.”

Shu Yuelong paused. ”Is he sick?”