Fang Yangqin spoke in an orderly manner, briefly summarizing the statements to help Shen Hao clarify the sequence.

"About a month after the first death, similar deaths started occurring one after another in Xiushan Village. Usually, the person would get sick and die violently on the same day, all within less than five hours. The symptoms at onset were similar to an ordinary cold—just feeling weak and sleepy. Once they fell asleep, that was it. Half an hour after death, black patches would appear on the body..."

Shen Hao listened to Fang Yangqin’s summary while flipping through the dossier in his hand. Whenever he encountered a point of confusion, he would interrupt and ask, "When did the Wanhe Port side first sense the possibility of an epidemic?"

"It was when those government officials who handled the first death dropped dead in their homes. At the time, the government head wanted to report it upwards, but the Chief Officer suppressed it, worried that news of an epidemic would affect his own promotion. Originally, this Chief Officer was set for transfer to Pingshun City next year to take over as Chief Officer."

"Bastard! Where is that person now?"

"In prison."

"Do not let him die, and do not let him have an easy time—if we don’t peel three layers of skin off him, he will never realize how much trouble he’s caused."

"Heh, that goes without saying."

"Go on."

Fang Yangqin continued, "After Xiushan Village, things completely spiraled out of control. Many from the village fled, some hid in Lin Village to escape the disaster, others simply ran into Wanhe Port city. There’s no way to track exactly where everyone went. In the end, the Wanhe Port Government Office kept covering up and went as far as threatening the refugees, telling them if they dared to spread rumors, their household farmland would be confiscated, and even after the disaster, they could never come back. So, now, the rumor outside is mostly about flooding."

"Afterwards, people died in village after village—so many you couldn’t count. At first, the government office would organize teams for local burials, but soon, everyone was terrified and refused to do it. So, on both sides of the official road, they dug hidden pits, forcing the old and weak in the villages who couldn’t escape to help drag the corpses and throw them in the pits."

"Later, ten government officials died, and no one dared enter the disaster zone anymore..."

The physician nearby listened, his face flushed with anger. Because, according to conventional epidemic response in this world, the primary strategy is quarantine, which prevents the epidemic from spreading further. But proper quarantine requires immediate action—even letting one or two people slip out ruins everything. Wanhe Port’s handling completely disregarded the critical window for epidemic containment; now, the situation is irrecoverable.

"Send word to Fengri City—report the situation as having long gone out of control. We don’t know how many have fled Wanhe Port, nor where they’ve gone. Recommend screening every migrant entering the city, and containment measures must be enacted urgently—send as priority."

"Yes." Wang Yiming took the order and rushed off.

Shen Hao rose from his seat, glanced at the dimming sky, and turned to the physician, "The primary outbreak site should be Xiushan Village. Shall we head there now?"

"Of course!"

So Shen Hao personally led the team, leaving Wang Yiming and Fang Yangqin behind to hold the fort, and raced off toward Xiushan Village.

It was evening by the time they left the official road. Following the directions of a local Xuanqing Guard General Flag who guided them, they trekked another half-hour through mountain paths before spotting Xiushan Village nestled in a ravine.

"There weren’t many villagers here to begin with—thirty-one households, one hundred twenty-five people total. Confirmed deaths number one hundred seventeen; the rest are missing."

"Are the death counts still tracked?" Shen Hao frowned, asking, as he hadn’t seen these numbers in the dossier nor heard them from Fang Yangqin before.

"No way to track, but since Xiushan Village was the first site, the government office kept a tally at first. After that, everything became chaotic."

Instead of rushing into the village, the physician circled its perimeter, documenting all environmental and plant details—so professional that Shen Hao couldn’t follow his reasoning.

Once inside, the village was dead silent, the dusk shadows lending a further eerie gloom.

They lit torches. Following the description in the dossier, Shen Hao’s group found the first affected household—a small courtyard on the eastern edge of the village, enclosed by bamboo fencing, with three sets of thatched houses inside.

Shen Hao ordered most to wait outside; anyone below Gathering Spirit Realm was not allowed in.

The physician’s cultivation happened to be Gathering Spirit Realm First Layer; fearless of the epidemic, he entered first, with Shen Hao right after.

Inside the house, there was a strange smell—both the physician and Shen Hao noticed it right away.

"This smell is odd—not musty, nor corpse-like. Just strange..."

"Maybe something rotten?"

After so long, it made sense for the house to smell of decay, but why such a peculiar scent? It was even unsettling.

"This is..."

Following the scent, they opened a basket in the corner; inside were fruits beginning to rot, resembling pears. The odd smell came from them.

Shen Hao thought: So this is what rotting pears smell like? Is it really this strange?

But the physician was far less casual. Using a stick, he carefully skewered one of the fruits and tapped it. Due to rot, the flesh easily separated, revealing the seed inside.

Shen Hao was still puzzled by the physician’s actions, but seeing the seed, he realized he’d almost missed a vital clue—the fruits in this basket were not pears at all.

Would a pear’s seed grow into the shape of a skull? One with a wide, mocking grin?

"What is this thing?"

"Ghost Head Pear."

"Ghost Head Pear?"

"Yes. A toxic plant that can induce mental confusion, also used in alchemy as a poisonous ingredient. It looks nearly identical to wild pear, and tastes similar too."

Shen Hao: "Is this the source of the epidemic?"

"No. Ghost Head Pear is poisonous but does not cause epidemics—otherwise, it wouldn’t be used for alchemy. I’m curious how a household of ordinary people ended up with so much Ghost Head Pear. Normally, Ghost Head Pear only grows in places heavy with corpse qi, rich in yin, rarely touched by sunlight, and damp—usually, these are places ordinary people seldom go, and even cultivators must search hard to find them. How did a regular family manage to collect so much of it?"

Also, if memory serves, there is no Ghost Head Pear produced here in Jingxi—it only grows in Jingnan."

The physician was just confused, but Shen Hao out of habit turned confusion into suspicion. A toxic material appearing in an ordinary home was strange enough, and now it was coincidentally linked to an epidemic. Could there be a connection?

"Do you think it’s possible this household mistook them for wild pears, and in gathering them, somehow contracted the epidemic?"