Wilderness Redemption Tour

"Arthur, you..." Lin Yan looked worried, hesitant to speak. Arthur's current appearance was obviously not due to overwork as he had thought before, but was sick.

Charles also looked at Arthur with concern, "Arthur, your body...why don't we go another time..."

Arthur listened to what the two said. After he stopped coughing, he spat out a mouthful of phlegm, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, shook his head and forced a smile: "I'm fine, just a minor problem. After I rescue John and Josiah and I'm not busy anymore, if it's still like this, I'll go to the clinic in the city."

At Arthur's insistence, the four-member rescue team set out again.

After setting out again, Sadie looked at Arthur's slightly hunched back and said with regret, "It would be great if Pastor Swanson was still here. Although his medical skills are average, he is at least the only doctor in the camp. Based on Arthur's symptoms, he should be able to determine what disease Arthur has."

"He was coughing so hard just now, the disease he has should be related to his lungs." Lin Yan slowed down and walked parallel to Sadie, and asked her at the same time: "Did you notice when Arthur started coughing? When did his complexion start to look abnormal?"

He believes that women are more sensitive and have more say in this regard than careless men.

Sadie's eyes wandered as she recalled for a moment, then she said as she thought, "I remember that when the camp moved from Cape Clemens to Shady Belle, Arthur's face looked a little pale, and he started coughing even earlier, since he was rescued by you from the O'Driscoll gang."

"Could it be because the injuries Arthur suffered when he was captured have not healed yet?" Charles saw the two men talking to Arthur as they walked. He slowed down and listened to a few words, then joined the conversation out of concern for his companions.

"That shouldn't be the case..." Lin Yan shook his head uncertainly. "Arthur only suffered some minor skin injuries when he was captured. Although he looks miserable, he will be almost healed after a few days of rest. Wasn't Josiah more seriously injured than him? He has been resting in the camp for more than a week and is fine now."

"So what's this disease Arthur has? I noticed he coughed quite frequently when I was with him these past few days, but the one just now was the most serious one."

"It's related to the lungs... It's related to the lungs..." Sadie kept repeating Lin Yan's conclusion in a low voice. Gradually, a bad premonition emerged in her mind, so she lowered her voice and said the only disease she could think of that was related to the lungs in this era: "You think, Arthur might have tuberculosis..."

At this time, tuberculosis, a disease with a high mortality rate, had been raging in the United States for decades. Although the infection rate and mortality rate were not very high, the cure rate was almost zero. Even if a patient infected with tuberculosis did not die in a short period of time, what awaited him would be endless coughing until his lungs completely lost their function or caused lesions in other organs, causing the patient to die in an extremely painful way.

Charles obviously knew how serious tuberculosis was. When he heard Sadie's guess, his face changed and he instinctively denied it: "No way, Arthur is such a strong guy..."

Halfway through his speech, he realized that Arthur was not as strong as he remembered, so he changed the topic and said, "Isn't it said that tuberculosis is highly contagious? We live with him every day, so how come we are fine?"

Sadie spread her hands and said, "I'm not an expert in this area. I just said the possibility I can think of. Maybe it is, maybe not. Who knows."

"Tuberculosis..." Lin Yan stroked his beard and recalled everything he knew about this disease. Even in the 21st century when medical care is more advanced, a chronic disease like tuberculosis cannot be cured. Rather than cure, it is better to say control. Medication is used to prevent the virus in the body from spreading further, and then slowly, bit by bit, kills the tuberculosis virus. It may take several years from getting sick to being cured, and during this period, the patient must always take medicine. However, tuberculosis is not as contagious as imagined, and if the infected person has a strong resistance, even if he is infected with this disease, he may not develop the disease for life.

"If Arthur..." Lin Yan deliberately glanced at Arthur who was walking in front of him when he spoke, and lowered his voice and said, "If Arthur really had tuberculosis, how could he develop the disease so quickly based on his previous physical condition? I think it might be a disease more serious than tuberculosis."

"what?"

"how is this possible?"

Sadie and Charles exclaimed at the same time, and their voices even reached Arthur's ears. He turned around and looked at the three people walking side by side not far behind him in confusion, and said unhappily: "What are you three whispering about so close to each other? Are you saying bad things about me?"

"Hey... Hey..." Being stared at by the real owner, the three of them felt guilty at the same time. After Lin Yan reacted, he quickly "explained": "No. How could it be. We were just discussing whether to send Josiah back to St. Denis or return to the camp with us after rescuing him. Isn't his home in St. Denis! If you send him back to St. Denis, you can find a clinic on the way to get a physical check-up today."

"Is that it?" Looking at the three people nodding in unison, although he was still a little skeptical, Arthur finally chose to believe it.

"Okay, let's stop chatting and get everything ready. We'll be there soon." After saying this, Arthur turned his head away again.

Sadie took advantage of this last moment to ask, "Is there any disease more serious than tuberculosis?"

Charles on the other side was also looking at Lin Yan expectantly, and it was obvious that he was also quite curious about this topic.

Lin Yan said the worst result with a serious expression: "It's lung cancer..."

In order not to affect Sadie and Charles' emotions, Lin Yan did not explain to them in detail the horror of lung cancer. He just said briefly, "Lung cancer is much more terrible than tuberculosis" and said no more.

The Copperhead Territory is the easternmost piece of land in the Bluewater Swamp that extends deep into the Lanahechie River. Looking at the map, this small protruding piece of land looks very much like a snake's head, hence the name Copperhead Territory.

Before coming here, Arthur told me that there was a pier for local fishermen. Lin Yan thought that the pier was at least of a certain size. But when he actually saw it, he was a little disappointed. The pier in front of him was almost the same size as the abandoned pier of Lakai by Thomas and his men. It was pitifully small and could only accommodate four small boats at the same time.

In fact, four is an excessive number, because there is no one in this place at all. There is only one wooden house standing alone on a piece of flat land not far from the shore.