Rules Ch.171

Chapter 171: Slim (End)

Orff had to suspend his live coverage of the case halfway through.

He had been infected.

Even though he strictly followed Misha’s instructions—not eating raw food and not drinking untreated water—he still rapidly lost weight within just a few days. He was also constantly overwhelmed by an intense feeling of hunger he couldn’t control, always wanting to eat.

Just after investigating Gracie’s case and learning that those who had taken the first-generation SSU weight-loss pills might have tapeworms inside their bodies that could mature early and lay eggs, contaminating the surrounding environment, Orff immediately became alert and went to the hospital for a medical examination.

Gracie’s case had drawn both the FBI and pharmaceutical companies’ attention to Dalami Central Hospital. Worried that going there directly for a checkup might put him under surveillance, he didn’t go to a hospital in his own city. Instead, he went to a medical examination center in a neighboring city.

The round trip took some time, and by the time he confirmed that there really was a large tapeworm in his intestines, Orff felt both disgusted and frightened.

Fortunately, when he returned to the university feeling drained, the black pills he had previously ordered had arrived.

The black pills were a highly effective drug for killing mutated tapeworms. After swallowing one, Orff experienced a bout of stomach cramps and had to sit on the toilet for a while.

When he came out, he felt as if his body—and even his soul—had become lighter, though he wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination.

Based on his body’s subsequent reactions, Orff judged that the tapeworm inside him had indeed died.

The illness was cured, but he no longer dared to continue living in the school dormitory.

Orff’s weight had been normal before; it was only in the past couple of days that he had suddenly become extremely thin. This meant the tapeworm infection must have been very recent. But damn it—he swore he had been extremely careful with everything he ate and drank. There was no way he should have gotten infected!

“Maybe you got infected while taking a shower?” Everly guessed casually.

Tapeworm eggs need to enter the digestive tract in order to develop, so in theory, parasitic infection requires them to be “swallowed.” Simply taking a shower would normally make infection almost impossible.

But this is a horror film, after all. No matter what kind of creature it is, once you add the word “mutated” in front of its name, anything becomes possible. Everly could even imagine the director and screenwriter brainstorming the idea of “infection through bathing/skin contact,” and how they must have thought it was a brilliant way to make the audience feel deeply unsettled…

Orff: [Help! It’s terrifying—I don’t want to keep living in the school dorms. Can I come stay with you?]

If it were before, Everly might have flat-out refused. But now, well… considering that his hacking skills were actually somewhat useful, she was willing to accept him.

Besides, as the protagonist of a movie, he probably wouldn’t do anything too awful… Of course, with that weak little frame of his, he wouldn’t be able to beat either her or Misha anyway, so in Everly’s eyes, Orff was still fairly safe.

So that afternoon, the forest ranger’s cabin gained a new resident.

To show his sincerity in surrendering, the new resident brought supplies: food and water, some diesel fuel, a few magazines, a box of board games, and a game console. Once he arrived, he obediently handed everything over and didn’t dare keep anything for himself.

Queen Everly and King Misha were greatly pleased, and immediately accepted the newcomer. They also ordered Orff to get to work right away—they wanted the latest updates on the Gracie case.

Orff also wanted to know. He had always been a very curious person; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been reckless enough to wander onto the dark web back then.

After a flurry of complicated operations on the computer, Orff told them that the FBI had already obtained solid evidence and, under the pretext of “activities endangering national security,” had shut down and secretly taken over Rakucho Pharmaceutical’s U.S. branch.

At present, the company’s U.S. website was under FBI control. As the source of the tapeworm eggs, the white pills had been directly removed and marked as “out of stock.” The pink pills and black pills, however, were still being supplied, since eliminating either of those two would turn into a disaster for those who had already taken them.

At the same time, after obtaining the pharmaceutical company’s confidential research data, the FBI had clearly also discovered the potential risks posed by the SSU fat-burning capsules.

In summary, the points where problems could occur were:

1. Failure to take the pink pills on schedule** would cause the tapeworms to become overactive, damaging the body or even leading to death.

   This issue, after several waves of media coverage, was now relatively unlikely to occur.

2. If the white pills were taken for six months but the black pills were not taken in time**, the tapeworms inside the body would continue to live until reaching maturity. At that stage, hermaphroditic tapeworms would begin to split off gravid proglottids containing eggs, which would be excreted into the environment with the host’s feces, infecting other humans and animals.

   This problem currently only existed in those who had taken the first-generation white pills. The improved second-generation white pills were only launched in the U.S. in April, and it was only early June now—far too soon for the second-generation worms to reach maturity. Therefore, second-generation eggs theoretically only existed in the improved white pills and within the pharmaceutical company’s factories.

3. For those who had taken the original first-generation white pills**, the tapeworms inside them could potentially be accelerated into early maturity due to abundant nutrients.

   In other words, even if a person who had taken the first-generation white pills later took the black pills as instructed after six months and killed the tapeworm, there was still a chance that, within those six months, they could unknowingly become a carrier spreading first-generation eggs.

4. If a host already had tapeworms in their body, and then accidentally ingested mutated tapeworm eggs or was invaded by a live mutated tapeworm—where the new parasite belonged to a different “generation” from the existing one—then the competition between the two types of tapeworms would cause the host to die rapidly. After death, the worms would emerge from the body and attack other people.**

Gracie and the six people who died at the central hospital had died because of point 4. In addition to these cases, according to the FBI database, several similar incidents had recently emerged across different parts of the United States.

And it was foreseeable that in the future, such deaths would only become more frequent.

On one hand, as time passed, those who had consumed the first-generation white pills had tapeworms inside their bodies that were approaching maturity. In some individuals—similar to Gracie—who suffered from binge-eating tendencies, the first-generation worms matured early and had already begun continuously releasing eggs into the outside world through the host’s feces.

On the other hand, the continued popularity of SSU had led more and more people to take the second-generation white pills, allowing second-generation tapeworms to take root in many bodies.

When these people, completely unaware of the danger, later ingested eggs shed by the first-generation worms, it was like a bomb buried inside the body finally detonating. Both second-generation and first-generation worms would, driven by intense competitive instincts, rapidly develop and lay eggs. In the end, the living human body would become nothing more than a nest for tapeworms—until all its value was drained, and the person would be discarded by the parasites and die just like Gracie…

“Damn it, how exactly do those FDA guys even review imported drugs? How did such an obviously harmful drug even get approved for sale?”

“This is a conspiracy! It must be the Japanese government, dissatisfied with us, colluding with Country K to secretly orchestrate this whole thing in an attempt to destroy the United States! When did they even defect to Country K?!”

“Arguing about this now is useless. The key is to find a solution.” A blond man in a suit interrupted the argument and looked across the conference table at the researchers in white coats. “What about the black pills? Can they effectively kill the mutated tapeworms?”

One of the researchers stood up somewhat nervously and adjusted his glasses.

“If there is only a single mutated tapeworm in the body, the black pills are absolutely effective. However, according to the institute’s experimental data, when multiple mutated tapeworms are present in the same host, taking black pills may, with a certain probability, cause all of them to enter a frenzied state, break through the host’s intestinal wall, and kill both the host and themselves together.”

“Therefore, at present, for patients infected with multiple tapeworms, we have not yet found a definitive cure.”

Hearing this, the officials seated around the conference table erupted again in outrage:

“Under no circumstances can this information be made public! Seventy percent of the acetaminophen used to produce the black pills depends on imports. If other countries find out, they will definitely take advantage of the situation, manipulate prices, and harm our interests!”

Others, however, kept their focus on solving the immediate problem and continued pressing the researchers:

“What should be done about those eggs?”

“Similar to ordinary tapeworm eggs, disinfectants, high temperatures, ultraviolet irradiation, and common drugs like albendazole can all effectively kill the mutated tapeworm eggs. However, our research has found that these eggs can infect a host through direct skin contact. Therefore, in terms of transmission routes, mutated eggs are far more dangerous than normal ones,” the researcher said.

“Ugh… damn it!”

With that statement, the conference room once again broke into chaotic discussion.

…

The above exchange came from a meeting video Orff had obtained.

The organization holding the meeting was a new department called the “Strategic Preparedness and Response Administration.” It was said to have been specially created by the federal government in response to this sudden public health crisis. It integrated military, police, and medical resources—including the FBI—and coordinated with 27 federal agencies as well as state governments. Its sole purpose was to resolve the chaos caused by SSU fat-burning capsules as quickly as possible, with minimal cost, minimal public backlash, and maximum speed.

Not long after secretly copying the meeting video, Orff ran over to Everly with a pale face and told her that his intrusion into the government intranet had already been discovered. The other side seemed to have mistaken him for a spy sent by Japan and was now trying everything they could to trace him back.

“I used multiple layers of disguise in advance, and I cleaned up my traces afterward, so they still shouldn’t be able to find me right now. But if they keep investigating… with how alert they are, they’ll definitely catch me!”

“Got it. From now on, don’t go digging up any more information. A new department has already been formed, so the federal government will probably take action soon and resolve this. What we need to do is wait.”

Everly patted Orff on the shoulder, signaling him to relax.

After that, life at the little cabin continued in peaceful calm, while outside, chaos and violence were unfolding.

For example, at the state university, after Orff’s case, dozens more students were gradually infected by tapeworm eggs.

For ordinary people, the symptoms were mostly just rapid, extreme weight loss and an insatiable appetite. Their lives were not immediately in danger. However, four of them had taken SSU and were also hosts to second-generation tapeworms.

Inside these four bodies, the two types of tapeworms inevitably clashed and competed. Before long, like Gracie, three of them died painfully in hospital beds. The remaining one, for some reason, did not go to the hospital and instead died in a classroom filled with students.

It was said that when that last person died, their body collapsed with severe bleeding, and blood flowed down the tiered classroom steps from the back row all the way to the front.

There were only two worms inside that person’s body, but it was enough to send the entire classroom into panic.

Students screamed and ran through the hallways of the building. Hearing the commotion, students in other classrooms thought another school shooting had begun. Soon, panic spread from one classroom to the entire building, and a serious stampede occurred. After the incident was tallied, nine students had died in the crush.

Similar tragedies were not limited to schools. They were happening sporadically in other parts of Dalami City—and even across the entire United States. After all, Gracie was not the only one who had ingested first-generation tapeworm eggs; there were many, many others.

In a short time, related videos and conspiracy theories flooded the internet. Some cult-like groups even took the opportunity to openly recruit followers, claiming that only by believing in their deity could one be spared from disaster.

The already chaotic United States became even more disorderly. Crimes such as looting, vandalism, arson, cult “sacrificial rituals,” kidnapping, and human trafficking began to appear one after another.

Seeing the situation spiral further out of control, the U.S. government could no longer stay on the sidelines and finally began to take action.

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