Chapter 2 Big News

  After being tossed about for a night, on the second day early in the morning, Su Tong washed his face and successfully saw a brand new "panda" in the mirror. His lower eyelid had a dark shadow on one side, and his upper eyelid was still slightly swollen. The whole person looked extremely haggard, but it was already late, and he didn't have time to fix it because he hadn't slept well. Su Tong washed his face with cold water and hastily grabbed his backpack and went out the door.

  Su Tong is 25 years old this year. Although her major was not journalism, she has been fond of this industry since childhood and has a good writing skill. After graduating from university, she was hired by the current newspaper company as a social news reporter. She has worked here for three years, with excellent work performance and high enthusiasm. During this period, another newspaper company extended an olive branch to her, hoping she would go there to do entertainment news, because entertainment news reporters need her kind of fearless and tireless spirit. However, Su Tong declined the invitation, despite the attractive salary and bonuses offered by the other side. Compared to celebrity gossip, Su Tong feels that people's livelihood topics are more meaningful to her.

  As soon as he arrived at the office, before his butt had even landed on the chair, Xiao Wang had already noticed something was off about Su Tong. Xiao Wang's real name was Wang Li, and she had joined the newspaper around the same time as Su Tong. They were also similar in age, and both had a carefree personality, often cracking jokes at each other's expense. Now, seeing Su Tong with two black eyes and yawning nonstop, she immediately came over with a mischievous grin and asked: "What's going on? Judging from your appearance, didn't you have a wild time last night? Did you sneak out to have some fun?"

  "I'd rather think that a lonely person like me can go wherever I want." The nightmare from the previous night still left Su Tong with some lingering fear, she didn't dare to joke around again and didn't want to say it out loud, afraid of being heard by others and thought to be so superstitious at such a young age, so she just casually made a joke to brush it off.

  "Come on, stop pretending to be pitiful in front of me. You can fool others but not me. Your problem is that your standards are too high." Little Wang said with a dismissive pout. "I'm telling you, this society is very practical. No matter what you say, whether it's wanting someone handsome or rich and powerful, at least there's a direction, a standard. It makes things much easier. But you, on the other hand, insist on looking for 'feelings'! What kind of standard is that? It's invisible, intangible, and can't be quantified. How are you supposed to find it? If your requirements weren't so vague and unrealistic, I'd probably be eating your wedding candy by now!"

  Su Tong smiled secretly and shrugged his shoulders without making a sound.

  Everyone has their own set of principles and standards when it comes to choosing a partner, which may be deeply rooted. For others, having a car, a house, and no loans might be the ultimate goal, but for Su Tong, as long as there's enough money for food and clothes, that's sufficient. However, the two people being together and feeling compatible is an absolute, non-negotiable requirement.

  "Xiao Su, the editor is looking for you." Su Tong was slightly distracted by the topic brought up by Xiao Wang, and someone calling her name from the other end of the office brought her attention back.

  Su Tong hastily agreed and got up to walk towards the editor-in-chief's office. He had just finished submitting all the manuscripts he needed to hand in yesterday, and Editor-in-Chief Dong had praised him for half a day. Now, early in the morning, he was summoned again, probably because there was another task.

  Knock on the door, after getting permission, Su Tong entered the office. The editor-in-chief, Old Dong, was over 50 years old, with high myopia and thick glasses. He always had a large tea cup by his side, filled with health-preserving herbal tea, which was also the case today. When Su Tong entered, he was holding the cup, blowing away the hot air and the floating citrus slices, while sipping slowly. Seeing Su Tong come in, Old Dong gestured for her to sit down across from him at his desk, raising a small finger on the hand holding the cup, pointing to the computer screen, saying: "The article you submitted yesterday about caring for elderly orphans was well-written, I estimate it will have a great response after publication. Your improvement over the past few years has been rapid, becoming more and more mature!"

  Su Tong hurriedly waved his hand and smiled somewhat awkwardly: "The editor has already spoken."

  "Hey, don't be so modest, you've been with me for a while now. I have an idea of your abilities. Among the young people in our group who don't require much attention from me, you're one of the top ones," Old Dong said with a wave of his hand, then put down his tea cup and turned serious as he spoke to Su Tong. "Now there's another big news story for you to work on. Although it may not seem like a sensational piece at first glance, based on my experience, if we dig deeper, I'm 90% sure we'll find something. Two days ago, a key elementary school in our city organized a spring outing for students to the Changqing Mountain Forest Park. As a result, one of the classes had a student suddenly faint and was sent to the hospital for treatment. It's been almost four hours now, and not one of them has woken up yet."

  "I saw it on the morning news before I left home this morning." Su Tong nodded, indicating that he had some understanding of the matter, "But it seems that the TV station didn't conduct any in-depth investigation into this matter."

  "So, what others haven't paid attention to yet is exactly our opportunity. I want you to conduct a series of investigations and interviews on this matter, trying to get ahead of other media outlets, especially TV stations, and dig out the underlying reasons." Old Dong gave the instruction. He was a veteran in the newspaper industry for decades and felt very dissatisfied with the phenomenon that fewer people read newspapers while more people watched TV. Therefore, he often couldn't help but want to compete with TV and even new media in his daily work.

  Su Tong was originally a person with extraordinary enthusiasm for news, and after hearing Lao Dong's work arrangement, he immediately accepted it. After leaving Lao Dong's office, he took his backpack and rushed to the hospital directly.

  Regarding the sudden and unexpected situation that occurred at that key elementary school, Su Tong had a general understanding. The TV news this morning mentioned it briefly, but it wasn't a serious report, rather a segment where enthusiastic citizens provided news tips. The incident happened suddenly, originally the school was taking advantage of the warm spring weather to organize a trip to the famous Changqing Mountain Forest Park in the suburbs, everything else was normal, except for one class of seven first-grade students who sneaked away during lunchtime and didn't return by the afternoon assembly, the teacher in charge hastily arranged people to search everywhere, finally finding the seven children who had secretly left their group at an abandoned building on the other side of a small hill near their rest area.

  Seven children were found, but the situation was not good. They were all lying down in the yard of an abandoned building when they were found by their anxious teachers. Some were lying near the gate, some on the stone steps at the entrance, and one child was leaning against a big tree in the yard, standing crookedly. Although the seven children were boys and girls with different postures and positions, they all had one thing in common: they had completely lost consciousness and could not be woken up no matter what.

  The school was caught off guard by this sudden turn of events and hastily ended the spring outing, arranging for teachers to send the other unaffected children back to school first, then notifying parents to pick them up. The seven unconscious children were rushed to the hospital for examination and treatment. It has been a day and a half since the seven children were sent to the hospital yesterday afternoon, but not one of them has shown any signs of waking up. Apart from apologizing, the school does not know how to resolve this issue. The hospital still has not provided a specific diagnosis, and is still in the observation phase. Parents are anxious, which is why someone called the TV station's morning news hotline for citizens, hoping to draw attention to the matter.

  The host of the morning news program made a routine comment on this call, and the parent who called to reflect the situation also mentioned that the children did not have any external injuries. Seven first-grade students suddenly had this happen at the same time, so naturally the first suspicion was food safety and hygiene issues, whether there was a possibility of food poisoning. The host said during the program that they would conduct further investigation and understanding on this issue. As for whether this matter will really be included in the program's work focus after the end of the program, no one knows, so Old Dong arranged for Su Tong to understand the situation early in the morning, hoping to take the initiative.

  Seven children had no external injuries, and according to the parent's description at the time of reflection, it was as if they were asleep. But normal children don't sleep that dead, and after a day and a half, they still can't be woken up? Even if they accidentally took some kind of sleeping pill, the effect should have worn off by now. Su Tong found this very strange and hoped to get a reasonable explanation from the hospital.

  From the newspaper office to the hospital is not far, Su Tong left the newspaper office just after the working hours had just passed. As a healthy baby who rarely enters the hospital, when she came to this side of the hospital, she was still startled by the lively scene here. So early in the morning, the hospital's lobby was already bustling like a vegetable market, with many people coming and going, including patients coming for treatment, family members accompanying them, and relatives visiting, from time to time there were also ambulances rushing over, emergency personnel pushing stretchers while reminding people around to pay attention to avoid collisions, hastily sending patients in or driving away to pick up other patients.

  Su Tong tried to make way for others, although she had work tasks at hand, but compared to those who were in a hurry to see a doctor or pick up medicine, the other person's time was obviously more precious. Su Tong looked at those patients who came with their families, with painful or worried faces, and felt deeply moved. Everyone's life experiences are different, some people may be poor all their lives, while others are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, never having to worry about food, clothing, or other basic necessities. However, no matter how vastly different their circumstances, when faced with illness, everyone is equally helpless, disease does not discriminate based on wealth or status, and birth, aging, sickness, and death are all inevitable processes that apply to everyone.