Chapter 44: Pandora's Box

  The woman looked at our reactions and understood what we meant. She pointed to the portrait and said, "This is my husband. He died three months ago. After his death, the child fell ill and was taken to three hospitals, where many doctors were consulted but none could cure him."

  She was both a widow and an invalid, and when she got to this point, she couldn't help but burst into loud sobs, covering her mouth with her hand.

  This woman's voice is still a bit sharp, and I'm so heartbroken when she cries. I thought before that she hadn't seen a doctor yet, but now it turns out that she had been seeing doctors for three months, and they were all helpless, what kind of serious illness did her son have?

  Pan Zi was the first to speak, and he also intentionally raised his voice, shouting at the woman, "I'm telling you, sister, take us to see your son quickly, don't let us just stand here admiring the scenery, which one is more important, you still haven't figured it out?"

  The woman also reacted and repeatedly said that Officer Xing was right. She then took us to another room and pointed at the bed, telling us to take a look.

  I found that this woman is quite unique, and the room where the ancestral tablets are placed is connected to this room by a door. Arranging it like this doesn't seem to be afraid of being affected by evil spirits. And on this bed lies her son.

  This kid is only about 7 or 8 years old, I don't know what he was like before he got sick, anyway now he's so thin that you can hardly see his human form, it's just a skeleton with skin wrapped around the bones.

  This is nothing, a large area of dark bruise on his forehead, not like blood, should be the skin slowly fading, in addition, he closed his eyes tightly, did not realize that someone came over, and was shivering with his lips, looking very uncomfortable.

  I thought to myself, what kind of illness is this? Why does it look so strange? I had a guess and asked Ah Feng, "Has the child been poisoned?"

  Lu Yifeng didn't rush to answer me. He sat down next to the child, pulled down the child's pants and poked his thigh with his finger.

  When I received him, this child had a pit on his leg and was obviously swollen. And he's already so thin but still swollen, which says a lot.

  Lu Yifeng stared at me and Panzi, but actually he was just thinking about things, unintentionally looking at us. The two of us didn't have any good suggestions, so we could only shut up, and the room suddenly became quiet.

  The woman kept glancing at us with her eyes, and her mouth moved several times, wanting to ask questions, but fearing that it would disturb the work of the police officer, so she forcibly endured it.

  After a while, Lu Yifeng had an idea and said, "This child needs to receive intravenous fluids. You find a coat rack, I'll prepare the medicine."

  I followed his instructions and rushed into action, but I was quite confused in my heart because the infusion required physiological saline, where can we get this thing.

  When I and Panzi moved the clothes rack back, Ahfeng was taking out some medicine from his bag, including a small bag of physiological saline.

  I'm speechless, this special agent's backpack, even if it's for travel preparation, still has to carry so many things.

  This medicine doesn't have instructions, and I don't understand what it specifically is. Anyway, Lu Yifeng found a table, busied himself with it, and before long had mixed it up.

  We were administering intravenous fluids at his home and fearing an adverse reaction, we stayed by the boy's side waiting.

  During this time, we chatted for a while and brought up the topic of this woman again.

  "Older sister," said Lu Yifeng, "may I ask impolitely, can you tell me in detail about your child's illness and your husband's death?"

  The girl looked up at the stars and was questioned by the official, she didn't dare not answer, and with a sob, she began to tell us.

  Her husband works as an editor at the local newspaper, and five years ago he brought back a box, saying it was Pandora's box, and that family members must not open it, or disaster would strike. She also remembered her husband's words, and they even put the box on top of the cabinet, so that the children couldn't touch it.

  Three and a half months ago, one day, she brought the child back from her mother's home and found her husband sitting on the bed with an iron face. The box was also opened. She was stunned at that time and asked her husband what was wrong. But her husband didn't say anything and put the box back in the cabinet.

  She was nervous for a while, thinking that the box would bring evil to her family, but nothing strange happened later, and she gradually forgot about it. Until three months ago one afternoon, someone in the town said that her husband and child had fallen into a well, she rushed over, but when they were rescued, her husband was already dead, with an unusual redness all over his body, and the child's body was fine, but his mind was not good. She thought the child was scared, plus her husband had just died, so she put all her energy into handling the aftermath.

  No sooner had we finished with the funeral than our child fell seriously ill, getting thinner and more serious by the day. We later found out what happened next.

  She talked for a long time, and after listening to her, I felt a bit stuffy in my heart, sympathizing with the old sister's experience.

  Lu Yifeng comforted her for a while, then asked, "I see you've always thought it was the Pandora's box problem. Can you take out that box and let me take a look?"

  The girl nodded, moved a stool, stood beside the cabinet and took down the box.

  The box was all black, about the size of a book. If it weren't for the three "star officials" present, she would have been scared to scream when touching the box. When she handed it over to Lu Yu Feng, her hand still trembled slightly.

  Lu Yufeng didn't believe it and wasn't afraid at all. Panzi's face looked strange, and he let out a soft cry.

  His tone was clearly meaningful, in case this box really had something strange about it, wouldn't opening it be asking for trouble?

  But Lu Yifeng said to Panzi, "Let's take a look at the secret in the box. If it's really related to the child's illness, we can also treat the symptoms."

  I nodded in agreement. Lu Yifeng slowly opened the box again.

  I was wondering what could be inside this big or small box, but I never thought that it would actually be a Xinhua Dictionary.

  Pan Zibao was already slightly out of breath, but when he saw the situation clearly, he chuckled and pointed, saying, "If a dictionary is Pandora's box, then there are countless such boxes in this world."

  Lu Yufeng was quite serious, and he took out the dictionary again to flip through it. I watched from the side, but I didn't notice anything unusual, however Lu Yufeng suddenly furrowed his brow.

  Then he put the dictionary back and let the woman take it away.

  The woman was very obedient, and we chatted about something else. After the child finished his infusion, she took us to another tile-roofed house to rest.

  This tile-roofed house still has a kang, and we're not that kind of delicate people. After thanking her, we each started washing up.

  We've been busy all day and are already tired, so we went to bed and turned off the lights.

  It wasn't until midnight that the woman knocked on the door with great force, waking both of us up. Lu Yufeng was closest to the door, so he put on his clothes and got out of bed to open it and ask what was wrong?

  The woman burst into tears when she saw Ah Feng and said, "Officer Xing, something's wrong! My child is in a terrible state. If you don't go see him, I'm afraid he won't make it till dawn."

  I was alarmed and thought to myself, "Could it be that Ah Feng's IV treatment has gone wrong? Not only did it not cure the illness, but instead made the condition worse?"

  I wanted to call Panzi down from the kang and go with Afeng to take a look. However, Afeng stopped us and told us to continue sleeping, saying he could handle it himself.

  Although I was a bit reluctant, but after thinking about it, what could the two of us do to help? We were just nominal star officials anyway.

  Waiting for Ah Feng to leave, I didn't have the heart to sleep and specially kept the light on, waiting for him to come back so I could ask how he was.

  After about half an hour, Ah Feng hurried back, but he didn't speak to me, and instead pulled out a syringe from his bag.

  This syringe is filled with a milky white liquid, and my heart skipped a beat as I thought to myself, "What if this thing is another stimulant or something? Can't Ah Feng save people like this?" It might make the kid feel better in the short term, but what happens after the medicine wears off?

  Before I could even finish what I was saying, he zoomed off again.

  When I came back again, the milky white medicine was gone, and the syringe was filled with bright red blood.

  It seems that Ah Feng has drawn blood from that child again. I don't understand why he did this, so I asked him a question.

  Lu Yufeng sat down beside the kang, gave a bitter smile and said, "I'm just an amateur in pharmacology. If Li Feng's wife were here, that would be great - she's an expert on medicinal products."

  I only knew that Li Feng was a policeman, and after being in contact with him for so long, I had never heard him mention his wife. How could Ah Feng say that his wife was actually a very impressive person?

  I really wanted to take the opportunity to ask about Li Feng's wife, but at this time I reacted to another thing and scared me out of a cold sweat.

  I tentatively asked Ah Feng, "Brother, will you really be able to diagnose illnesses or not!"