Chapter 656 — No Longer in Love with Arrow Bro

Carrying Gu Mengyao on her back into the school clinic, Shen Yushu was about to lay her on the infirmary bed, only to find several students already sprawled across it in disarray. A crowd of students and teachers filled the room besides; whatever had happened, something was clearly wrong.

"Another one?" The school doctor frowned at the sight of Shen Yushu shouldering Gu Mengyao through the door, cold sweat beading on his forehead. "How can there be so many? Why hasn't the hospital's ambulance arrived yet?"

The successive faintings and collapses left the school doctor at a loss. He could see no cause for the unconsciousness; every one of these students presented the same symptoms -- a bloodless face, and quickened breathing.

"Dr. Li, how do things stand?" Dean Wang Zhifeng hurried over the moment word reached him. Taking in the clinic packed wall to wall with teachers and students, he frowned at once. "Those of you with no business here, teachers and students alike -- out. Don't crowd in; the air's foul."

Wang Zhifeng's word carried weight. Teachers and students alike filed obediently out of the clinic, though, these being their own classmates and closest friends, none of them cared to go far. They lingered in the corridor, pacing, unwilling to leave.

But one person did not go. Shen Yushu still held Gu Mengyao tight, sitting anxious at the corner of the bed. Wang Zhifeng knew her, and of course would not drive her off -- until his eyes fell on Gu Mengyao in her arms, and he started in alarm. Wasn't this the chairman's daughter? She had collapsed too?

Sweat broke out across Wang Zhifeng's brow in an instant. Questioning could wait. He snatched up his phone and called Principal Ding Binggong, reporting the situation on the spot.

"Principal Ding, where are you? More than a dozen students here have collapsed unconscious -- and among them is Chairman Chu's daughter, Gu Mengyao..." Beyond his depth, Wang Zhifeng had no choice but to call Ding Binggong.

Ding Binggong had gone to a meeting at the education bureau and had not returned to school for lunch, instead grabbing a bite with the principals of several other schools. When Wang Zhifeng's call came through, his face drained of color. He did not even stop to explain to the other principals; he said only, "Something's happened at the school," then hustled the driver out of the restaurant and into the car before asking again, "Wang, what did you say? More than a dozen students unconscious? Gu Mengyao among them? What on earth is going on?"

"I've only just arrived myself -- I don't know yet! Dr. Li, what is wrong with these students? How did so many of them faint all at once?" Only now did Wang Zhifeng free himself to turn to the anxious Dr. Li at his side.

"Director Wang, I don't know either. I've never seen symptoms like these, and I can't say for certain whether it's an acute infectious disease. I've already called the emergency center; the hospital's ambulance should be here shortly," Dr. Li said carefully.

While Dr. Li spoke, Wang Zhifeng's phone was still on, so Ding Binggong heard every word on the other end. His head roared. If anything went wrong at the school, never mind the damage to its reputation -- the group itself might well be dragged down with it.

"Wang, I'm on my way back right now. You must hold things together -- whatever happens, nothing must happen to those students!" Ding Binggong ordered, his voice tight with anxiety.

"Understood. I'll do all I can to keep the situation in hand." Wang Zhifeng nodded, his face heavy. But he knew the situation was already beyond any one man's power to control, for even as he spoke on the phone, more unconscious students were being carried in by teachers -- and not just one or two.

The thought gave Wang Zhifeng a splitting headache, even as his mind raced to find the cause of what had come over these students. If he could not find it, more and more of them would go down like this, and by then it would be far too late.

But if even Dr. Li did not know the specifics, how could he -- a man with no medical training -- possibly know?

So all Wang Zhifeng could do, while waiting for Ding Binggong, was pray that the hospital's ambulance would come faster, so the students could be taken to a proper hospital for treatment as early as possible.

Shen Yushu was stunned. She had assumed Gu Mengyao had fainted from sheer fury at her -- but it now seemed that was not the case at all. A great many others were showing the same symptoms as Sister Yaoyao. What had happened to them all?

Yet if anything, this made Shen Yushu more worried than before. Had it been fury alone, it would have been easy enough to deal with. Now it was surely something else entirely, some other cause, and Shen Yushu grew frantic. Without thinking, her mind went straight to Wei Zhao.

The last time she had been dying, it was Wei Zhao who saved her -- so she resolved to find him and have him save Gu Mengyao.

Shen Yushu fumbled for her phone and dialed Wei Zhao's number, but she waited and waited until the call auto-disconnected, and Wei Zhao never answered. She tried again, with the same result: no one picked up.

"Damn you, Arrow Bro, where have you gone? If anything happens to Sister Yaoyao, I've decided I'll never like you again! I'll never forgive you -- not for the rest of my life!" Shen Yushu muttered through gritted teeth, seething.

In the time they waited for the ambulance, several more students were brought into the clinic unconscious. By now, twenty-eight students in all lay in the infirmary, waiting for the ambulances to carry them off to the hospital.

In the meantime Dr. Li made several more calls, pressing the emergency center and asking them to send additional ambulances -- for it would take at least seven or eight to carry all these students.

Still, in the hours that followed, right up until the first class of the afternoon, not another student was brought to the clinic. It seemed, at last, that this wave of collapses had for the time run its course, and both Wang Zhifeng and Dr. Li breathed a sigh of relief.

Ding Binggong arrived at the school almost simultaneously with the ambulances. The students were lifted aboard one by one. Shen Yushu naturally refused to leave Gu Mengyao behind; she accompanied her all the way onto the ambulance, and since Ding Binggong and Wang Zhifeng both knew her, they made no move to stop her, boarding that same ambulance themselves with her.

Dr. Li, meanwhile, stayed behind at the school with an ambulance that had arrived later, holding the fort in case any more students should collapse -- so they could be sent to hospital at once.

"Sister Yaoyao, you have to hold on!" Shen Yushu clutched Gu Mengyao's hand, close to tears. She was terrified, dialing Wei Zhao's number again and again -- and still he would not answer. For the first time in her life, Shen Yushu felt a flicker of resentment toward Arrow Bro.

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