Chapter 49: Carotid Endarterectomy

  Director Wang said coldly, "Originally, I didn't want to use a heavy tone on you since you're ill, but I think it's necessary to scold you awake. Whether your fetus can be kept or not isn't up to me to decide, it's up to your physical health. You can call me heartless and cruel, but you've already become so fixated on having a child that you've fallen into an abnormal state. Is having a child really that important? To the point where you don't even take care of your own body, what kind of mother is that? If you continue like this, it'll be hard to save even your own life!"

  Qing Cheng burst into tears again, and Qing Jiang kept comforting her.

  "In short, hurry up and go to the hospital for a check-up." After Qing Jiang and Qing Cheng left, I quickly pulled Director Wang over to take a look at the cut on Ruo Lan's neck.

  Director Wang carefully examined Rouran's neck and gently pressed the protruding tumors with a cotton swab he carried with him.

  "How did this happen? Have you had surgery on your neck? And it's incredibly precise surgery, too unbelievable."

  "This, this was left by that two-faced freak baby, but generally, surgical scars shouldn't be like this, right?"

  "Look at the position of these three incisions, all located on the neck's carotid artery. This strange baby cut open your carotid artery, originally you would have bled to death, but you didn't. These several lumps are caused by the pressure of blood vessels wanting to spurt out, and also because the strange baby did not sew up the wound with needle and thread, but rather seemed to use some kind of Chinese herbal medicine to heal your three incisions, ultimately resulting in these three lumps."

  "Yulan's carotid artery was manipulated? This is too terrifying, if there's even a slight mistake, Yulan will lose her life."

  I'm still scared when I think about it.

  "What I'm more interested in is why this creature did that," said Director Wang. "If it wanted to harm you, there was no need for it to heal your wounds."

  Director Wang's words suddenly confused us! Yes, if the Double-Faced Monster Baby really wanted to kill Rouran, it had countless chances to do so. From the moment it kidnapped Rouran, every minute it could have killed her without any effort.

  All three of us realized this problem, and it's a very superficial one. We didn't realize the contradiction in it until now. The Two-Faced Demon Baby wasn't trying to kill Kiriwol, but was performing some kind of surgical procedure on her neck with an unknown purpose, and even helped to heal her wound afterwards.

  I asked Director Wang: "Director Wang, can you check what the purpose of this surgery is?"

  Director Wang shook his head and said, "I don't know. Because it's already happened, so I can't see anything. However, looking at your friend, Yulan, I think you're ill."

  "What's wrong with me?" Director Wang said, "Although you don't have a serious illness, I noticed that your lips are pale, and most importantly, I saw some small movements that even you didn't notice."

  Dr. Wang looked at Kui Ruo Lan and said, "When you look at people, you always blink at a high frequency, and the corner of your mouth involuntarily twitches upwards on the right side. —— Based on my experience, I think there are parasites in your body. So, I suggest that you and Qing Cheng go to the town hospital for an examination first."

  I looked at Ruo Lan and found that it was indeed as Director Wang said, every few seconds, Ruo Lan would blink her eyes and then twitch the corner of her mouth to the upper right.

  I said: "Actually, we suggested that you go to the hospital for a check-up. Now it's just in time that an ambulance has arrived here, so let's all go to the hospital together."

  Kui Ruo Lan knew she was indeed ill and could only accept such an arrangement. The town people's hospital car came quickly, but due to the limited space in the car, only Qing Jiang, Qing Cheng, and Kui Ruo Lan were allowed to get on first, while I and Chen Qiu Yang followed behind on a motorcycle.

  This is a hospital of moderate size, but most medical equipment is available.

  Kui Ruo Lan was arranged to go for relevant checks immediately, including X-ray and B-ultrasound.

  The test results came out quickly - there were parasites in Kui Ruo Lan's blood vessels. This result was too scary, and Chen Qiuyang and I had never heard of it before that there could be parasites flowing through the blood vessels of a human body.

  The doctor in charge of Akane Iro said, "Blood vessels are the channels through which living organisms transport blood. Depending on the direction of transportation, they can be divided into arteries, veins, and capillaries. Arteries carry blood from the heart to the body's tissues, while veins return blood from the tissues back to the heart. Capillaries connect arteries and veins and are the main sites for material exchange between blood and tissues. This is a type of parasitic worm called schistosoma. It is commonly found in nature, especially in rural areas with humid water. However, this is also my first time discovering that there are two extremely small schistosomes inside her blood vessels. Currently, these two schistosomes are in her carotid artery. They are still small and won't pose a life-threatening danger for now, but it's hard to guarantee that they won't cause the blood vessel to rupture and lead to massive internal bleeding, putting her life at risk after they grow up."

  The doctor rummaged through his bookshelf, pulled out a book, checked the contents page, flipped to the page he was looking for, and handed it to me saying: "The leeches in her blood vessels are like this, but this picture is of natural leeches, and those that can survive in her blood vessels will definitely be different. However, the overall shape is roughly like this."

  I looked at the picture of leeches printed on the light paper, and another wave of nausea rolled over me. I originally hated this kind of soft-bodied animal very much, such as nose mucus worms. However, when I first saw this leech, it was even more disgusting than the nose mucus worm...

  In the picture, the head of the leech is shaped like a fan. The body is yellow, and what's most disgusting is that there are five black stripes on the body, which are smooth and slippery to the touch. Just looking at the picture makes me feel sick.

  There's actually this kind of thing flowing around in Ailian's blood vessels? It's so damn disgusting.

  I've known since I was a kid that there can be many parasites living inside the human body, such as roundworms surviving in the intestines. When I was young, schools would distribute deworming pills to students, and during that time, I saw pictures of roundworms: some were very small, like white silk threads, while others were quite large, resembling earthworms but with a pinkish body color.

  At that time, I thought about having such pink worms in my belly and felt very uncomfortable and terrified.

  When I was in the orphanage, I once saw a child who had eaten deworming pills and soon felt that his nostrils were extremely itchy and swollen. He thought there was something moving in his nostrils, so he reached into his nostrils and pulled out a pinkish-red roundworm. Later, the doctor said that fortunately, the roundworm crawled out of the nostrils; if it had crawled into the brain, the consequences would have been unthinkable.

  Chen Qiuyang saw the picture of the leeches and suddenly realized, slapping his forehead, "I've seen this thing in the mouth of the two-faced monster baby! At that time, it made me feel so disgusted! Thirteen, now I finally understand. The three flesh tumors on Lanlan's neck were actually the two-faced monster baby cutting them open yesterday and putting these two leeches into her blood vessels! Now I understand, everything was done by the two-faced monster baby! The culprit is it!"

  I also strongly agree with Chen Qiuyang's statement, everything is related to this double-faced monster baby. However, the doctor poured a basin of cold water on me and said: "Yesterday? Don't joke around. These two parasites may be very small, but based on my speculation, they have been there for at least over 10 years. It's impossible that they just got in. I'll help you contact a biologist tonight to see if we can infer the time based on the relevant test data.

  "What's to be done then? Doctor, can you operate on her?"

  "This operation requires extremely high technical skills, we are a county hospital, dare not do it. Sorry."

  "I understand."

  The three of us strolled in the hospital's courtyard, where there was a long corridor with no roof, only row upon row of bamboo strips laid horizontally, wrapped in lush grapevines. We sat down and Ruo Lan said: "Everyone, don't look so worried, it's not like it's terminal illness or anything! Can you guys please stop looking like you're saying goodbye to a corpse?"

  I forced a smile and said: "Let's buy tickets back to Longcheng. The medical conditions of the several large hospitals there are extremely high in all aspects, at the world level."

  "Now I've found out about this disease, can you re-examine the case of the two-faced baby?"

  "I said: 'Yu Lan, your meaning is——'"

  "That's right. We always thought that the three scars on my neck were left by the Two-Faced Demon Baby when it hurt me. But now, all the evidence shows that the Two-Faced Demon Baby actually saved me that day. It was the one who used its mysterious method to remove the parasitic worms from my body, and there were still two more that hadn't been fully removed when you arrived to save me. So, when it came back the next day to take me away again, it was actually trying to save me, but we almost killed it together!"

  I quickly went through the whole thing in my mind, and all the evidence proved that Kui Ruo Lan's speculation was highly likely to be correct. The killer, who had two faces like a monster, kidnapped Kui Ruo Lan and discovered that she had leeches in her blood vessels. He then used some plants to anesthetize her in the wooden house and extracted the leeches from her blood vessels.

  Huī Ruòlán felt a bit down, she said: "I knew it wasn't a bad person. Since the town hospital can't do this surgery, I've decided to go back to Léi Gōng Lǚ Guǎn and let it help me."

  "I said, 'But this is just our speculation and there's no real evidence. What if our guess is wrong? Then Yulan will be in danger. Moreover, even if the wooden house monster did help Yulan with surgery before, we set a trap for it later and Yulan ambushed it. We can't know whether it will hold a grudge because of this. This concerns life and death, we absolutely cannot take it lightly.'"