The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 630

Chapter 630

Despite driving there as fast as they could, Nicole and the others were still too late.

Outside the alternative medicine research institute in Grayport, crowds of sick people had gathered in the smog, desperate for medicine and treatment. Coughing erupted from every direction, sending droplets into the atr

Soldiers had set up a security perimeter around the main entrance, and no one was allowed through.

Nicole immediately turned the car around and headed for the back entrance.

She explained their situation honestly and asked to be let inside. But without authorization, the staff at the entrance refused to admit anyone.

Nicole had no choice but to say, “I’m one of Dr. Chapman’s students. He personally asked me to come. Could you please let him

know I’m here?”

The institute employee guarding the entrance still refused.

Nicole smiled, stepped out of the car, and discreetly pulled a five-pound bag of rice from beneath her oversized coat. She handed it to him.

“Please, just help me get a message to him. Whether he lets me in or not is up to him. If anyone gives you trouble, I’ll take responsibility.”

These days, five pounds of rice was hard for anyone to turn down. The guard hesitated, then finally agreed to risk a reprimand

and contacted someone inside for her.

Half an hour later, an assistant in protective gear came out and led them inside.

The research institute wasn’t large to begin with, and now, it had taken in more than a hundred patients at once. They were divided into groups based on severity, from asymptomatic and mild cases to severe and critical ones. Every makeshift ward was full, and patients even lined the hallways.

The smog had arrived without warning and overlapped with polar night, making everything worse.

Patients weren’t the only ones getting sick. Several doctors at the institute had come down with symptoms over the past two days, too. They were so short-staffed that some of them kept working even while sick.

Even so, Mitchell made room for Nicole and the others, clearing out two rooms in the residential wing.

The institute didn’t have a veterinarian, so Cola had to be treated like any other patient. Mitchell even came over himself to

examine him.

After checking both Poppy and Cola, he confirmed that their symptoms matched the early stages of the infection.

“Their symptoms are still mild. Good thing you caught it early. Treatment usually works much better at this stage.”

When he saw that Nicole and Zeph still had no symptoms, Mitchell looked curious. “What have you two been doing to avoid getting infected?”

“We’ve been growing the herbs from the formula you gave me before. After you warned me about the smog, we started brewing them every day and drinking the tea.”

Mitchell nodded. “The formula helps. Whether it can actually cure the infection depends on how severe the case is and how well the patient’s body can fight it off.”

Then he added, “Someone from Westbridge recently donated a large amount of medicinal herbs. Professor Dixon has been working out different formulas for different symptoms.

“You can go to the dispensary and have some prepared. If you’re already sick, it can help treat the symptoms. If you’re not, it

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may offer sottie protection.”

Nicole took the opportunity to ask, “How’s the research going?”

Mitchell’s eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion.

“There’s no single miracle treatment for something like this. All we can do is adjust the herbal formulas based on each patient’s symptoms and keep testing what works.

“The biggest problem is how fast people deteriorate once their condition turns serious. Sometimes we barely have time to observe what’s happening before we have to change course.”

Poppy and Cola were placed in one room, while Nicole and Zeph stayed next door.

There was a good chance both of them were already infected and simply hadn’t shown symptoms yet. They had already prepared themselves for that possibility.

Poppy and Cola were stable enough to manage for now, so Nicole and Zeph decided there was no point sitting around waiting to get sick. They might as well help.

The institute was desperately short-staffed, and the illness was spreading at a terrifying pace. If everyone simply waited for the researchers to perfect a treatment, there might not be many people left to save by the time they succeeded.

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