Forty days in Poveglia
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Saturday, Jan. 18th. 2020.

It's the Minor New Year today.

The department had a reunion after work today, found a Northwestern style restaurant near our school. Pork with bean paste is really delicious, just too oily, and too sweet. Nasrolla drank too much sweet ale till he became dizzy, which made everyone laughing.

So cold today, the cold wind drilled into my collars while I left the restaurant, and awakened me from alcohol dizziness. Got ma's call arriving at my dorm, she said she bought some beef tripe and had them well cooked, so I can have enough well-cooked beef tripe to eat this New Year, and asked me if I went home on 29th.1, she missed me.

Still have some jobs to finish, let the New Year come earlier, don't want to work.

Sunday, Jan. 19th. 2020

Still have to work today, alas, fortunately it's the last day.

Got pa's call after getting up, he said he couldn't return home this year. His company's schedule made he probably unable to leave during the New Year break. Almost forgot to brush my teeth before leaving for the department, while I was busy on calling ma and telling it to her, fortunately didn't really forget.

Received a notice in the morning, there was a site in Fujian where experiment error led to a huge explosion and the Foundation informed that every site should pay attention on laboratory operation to avoid similar incidents taking place again. Symbolically sent it to the Department Group, I knew a department full of anthropologists and linguists would pay little attention to such things anyway, after all, a language couldn't just jump out from the laboratory and start biting people.

When I went to the department to hand in materials, I heard two Level 1 researchers whispering, and stopping whispering while they saw me. Strange.

Met Wendell while having lunch. He told me that there was something like pneumonia in Hankou recently, and asked me not to go to Hankou. Refunded my train ticket back home from Hankou and bought another one from Wuchang.

Ah, shouldn't drink milk tea anymore, I'm already so fat…

Monday, Jan. 20th. 2020

Finished all my projects today!

Got my eldest uncle's call, said they're planning a reunion of everyone in our clan here in Wuhan today, and asked me if I have time to attend.

My ninth younger sister brought her fiancé back this year, a handsome boy from Hanchuan. His surname was Zhang and I can't quite remember his name, maybe could remember it some time later if necessary. During the feast they announced that they would get married on 6th. of the first lunar month2 in Zhuankou, not far from where they live, then the focus of everyone there shifted to that there were only me and my fifth elder brother among my generation that haven't got married, and they couldn't expect my fifth elder brother to get married because of his coming out from closet. Laughing with them until not being able to laugh anymore. Alas, they always like to talk about the bad things.

After a long time of drinking, I don't know who began to talk about the pneumonia, and then it didn't take a long time to become a keyboard politics show of all three generations. Anyway, I only care about my food, didn't listen carefully.

Why can't people be kinder to themselves? It's so annoying.

Tuesday, Jan. 21st., 2002.

Various news exploded in the Department Group, all about the damn pneumonia.

Zhong Nanshan said that people in Wuhan shouldn't leave Wuhan if not necessary, what the heck? Never thought it to be so serious.

Felt that I maybe cannot go back home this year. Explained the situation to ma carefully and refunded the train tickets.

Bought some river snail rice noodle by internet.

Wanna eat zhahujiao sauce…

Wednesday, Jan. 22nd., 2020.

Got a video call with ma in the morning. Ma told me she visited my youngest uncle today if I can't go back home. Greeted everyone, grandma, youngest uncle and aunt.

Everyone on the Internet was scolding. Alas, don't have much to say, too disturbing.

Patients reported in Huanggang, more serious than I have ever thought.

Varitas asked me if I wanna have some barbecue in the cafeteria in the morning, it's obvious that he was very worried too.

Eggplants with meat sauce is so delicious!

Thursday, Jan. 23rd. 2020.

Lock down, uh-oh.

The river snail rice noodle arrived in the morning, the delivery center worker said that the express delivery service was about to stop too. Went to the supermarket and bought more river snail rice noodle on the way back to my dorm.

Don't have the mood to browse Weibo, everyone is so unreasonable.

In the evening, I saw the director telling us that the Foundation can't contact anyone to evacuate the whole sites from Wuhan and asked us to wait until things are getting better.

The only good news is the beginning time of next term is postponed, I can have a rest before preparing the teaching plans.

Friday, January 24th., 2020.

Everyone in my high school classmate group was complaining. There were lockdown in Xiantao, Qianjiang, and Zhijiang, so horrible. And someone said that he heard someone else saying there would be a lockdown on Jingzhou soon, then everyone began complaining.

Patients were reported everywhere, it were really more than in Wuhan, no doubt anymore. Such a mess.

Going around in the afternoon, the school was dead quite. Come back to cook some river snail rice noodles, then got ma's call. The city was locked down, she was locked in my youngest uncle's house and cannot go back home, and didn't even bring any clothes to change.

Ah… What can I do…

Prayed to the direction of my hometown in the morning and regarded it as a sacrifice to my ancestors. Although I knew it was of little use, it just calmed down my mind. Nasrolla began praying to Allah in the Department Group as well. Everyone is just hoping to calm their minds…

Saturday, Jan. 25th., 2020.

Got terrible mood for a whole day and wasn't even able to say "Happy New Year". I wrote suicide notes twice and tore them twice. Bad news came one after another, whether it was from the media or from my acquaintances.

Some high school classmates studying medicine said the situation was awful, whether in Wuhan or Shashi, awful, really awful. They were short of almost everything, those who weren't directly treating the patients just had one face mask per day, how could it be enough…

And a lots of news from the Internet, especially the tag "there wasn't just Wuhan in Hubei". Sincerely, even I've seen so much shit around Wuhan and all the other cities in Hubei for twenty years, could I still be astonished by while seeing what they did this t Nevermind, won't browse something like this for now, or I would get mad first. Randomly browsed public information from local media a few days ago, what the fuck were them???

[Undistinguishable because of blurry handwriting]

Sleep, don't care about the shit anymore.

Sunday, Jan. 26th., 2020.

The director told us the department administers that he asked the Foundation for help and didn't got any respond, so there could be no evacuations anymore, and he asked us to deal with the mood of staffs. Wendell became mad immediately, and began to scold the bureaucrats who do nothing when dealing with issues the moment he left the office.

I didn't meet anything disgusting while announce the news, everyone said they can understand. Some stunned boys led by Wendell who just attended the Foundation and thought it omnipotent were about to begin a riot. Wendell was desperately stressed out in the office with his cellphone in his hand, and I can even hear he was forced to "putain" and "tabarnak" from time to time. Everyone is so hard.

Got QB's message after just lying down in my bedroom at night, and he asked me whether I want to play some TRPG, after all it's already very boring.

Ok, it's already very boring.

Before going to bed ,I suddenly realized the steam spring festival promotion, and bought KCD and Odyssey, which should be enough to play for a long time.

Sunday, Jan. 27th., 2020.

The off-site staffs should send videos and body temperature data to check in every day, and all the data should be registered by the department leaders and vice-leaders. Fortunately there weren't many off-site staffs, just over 20.

The last one who sent the videos, Bachuan, sent the videos near noon. She explained it as drinking too much coffee last night and oversleeping this morning in the video while caressing her cats. Maybe finally find someone to talk with, she began talking from the registration of the community to that her parents fried cage-free chicken for three days. When I saw half of the video, my attention was all on the cats.

Ah, wanna go downstairs and caress the cats we got here, but Varitas always thought I would do something to the two cats… Cats are so good…

Monday, Jan. 28th., 2020.

Got calls from my ninth younger sister early in the morning, her marriage ceremony was postponed to an unplanned date. I asked their situation, both of the couple was very well, they went back to Hanchuan the day before the lockdown, where there was an ongoing lockdown and they couldn't leave.

Heard that several Indian researchers from the campus were evacuated, and foreign employees from other countries gradually received evacuation orders from the consulates or the embassies.

Cooked myself a pack of river snail rice noodle at noon. While I was cooking, I saw the same news in several groups that three people from the Site logistics, who worked in the cafeteria, department were sent to hospital this morning, and were refused by several fever clinics because of lack of beds, and were quarantined in the logistics dorm now. I've never seen people so desperate, aiya

Got calls from the director about something urgent after lunch. When I arrived, I saw the director with a really bad mood on, he told us that there were notices from the Foundation that suggested us to quarantine ourselves and wait for the end of the lockdown, and asked us tell those who led by us as little as possible, or there could be something chaotic happened. The director didn't speak it clearly, perhaps the Foundation didn't speak it clearly either, but everyone knew it equaled to that the whole 91 was given up. I don't think the Foundation would take the risk of large-scale exposure as well, after all, there are several sites in Wuhan, and the related news are concerned by almost the whole country. Evacuating such an amount of people would be known by hundreds of millions of people in less an hour.

Then Sowrd asked if we can contact the university or the government to evacuate ourselves, the answer he'd got was both has been tried, with no possibilities. The entire meeting room was in silence. After the meeting, I heard someone weeping in the closet with voices pressing down, but cannot recognize who it was.

Didn't eat anything in the evening. After playing TRPG in a small group and just preparing to sleep, I saw the message.

Bachuan was diagnosed positive.

Tuesday, Jan. 29th., 2020.

First time did I realize what an outbreak is.

The cafeteria ceased the service indefinitely, because the logistics department was doomed. I've heard that 17 or 18 people were sent to the hospitals last night, still fucking useless. The whole Site group was full of cursing and crying in various languages.

Bachuan didn't send any new messages after telling us she was diagnosed and quarantined yesterday. Although we didn't know where she was infected, but it's still horrible. Some of other off-site staffs reported symptoms alike as well and were waiting for results. The rest were temporarily safe.

I was going out and dumping the rubbish while I met Wendell with deep dark circles under his eyes, we had some chitchat and he said he would probably follow the evacuation orders from the embassy after some time. I could only smile bitterly. Envy, how can I say I don't envy?

There were only five packs of river snail rice noodle left, I shall eat them sparingly.

Wednesday, Jan. 30th., 2020.

Played video game for a whole day, didn't leave the bedroom, didn't browse anything from all the groups, and the work of registration was left to someone else. KCD is really fun, I didn't realize it was so fun before, or I would buy it earlier.

While browsing the information before bed, I saw days ago there was someone invoked for "psychological anti-epidemic". Am I undergoing some psychological anti-epidemic now? I don't know either, the only thing I know is that I already don't want to care about how many new patients are reported from the Site, and only want to be a pig.

Oh Qin Shao, cheer up.

But how can I really cheer myself up under such circumstance? I don't even know what tomorrow would be like.

Thursday, Jan. 31st., 2020.

Found a cinema ticket from my trouser while washing clothes. Sheep Without A Shepherd, the one I didn't have time to watch for a long time and finally watched together with a few elder brothers I hadn't seen for a long time on the evening of 20th. The ticket had already begun fading, the texts were very blurry. Heck, it was really like something happened in my last life in retrospect, but it was in fact just more than ten days ago. I took it from my trouser and squeezed it in my desk. Hope everything could be better, I could go to the theater again one day.

Playing video games for a whole day again, even don't wanna write diaries.

Friday, Feb. 1st., 2020.

WiFi was temporarily broken, oh the shitty net service of the Site.

The site began distributing food today, which was placed before every bedroom. Mine was almost crushed by me while I went out for throwing away rubbish. Mainly vegetables aside from a bag of rice, pak choi, radish, garlic, and a little pork. The food was sent by the medical department guys, who had sufficient protective measures. I asked in the groups, someone said those food were from the logistics warehouse, and were sent to everyone else to cook themselves.

Tried to stir fried some of them, turned out I didn't mix the pak choi and salt well, it tasted awful.

Got my second eldest uncle's call in the afternoon. He asked me whether I was at home, the old couple, he and his wife, ran out of food, while the RT-Mart near their house has shut down, and he didn't dare to go to the common market because he just finished chemotherapy in the first half of last year and began feeling better lately, and asked me whether I can deliver some food to them. I told him I was quarantined in Wuhan, didn't manage to go back home. My second eldest uncle just mumbled for a while, and hung up the call. The line was kept busy when I called back.

Browsing the clan group in the evening and found third younger aunt said she brought some food to uncle. But they said the traffic in Shashi downtown was nearly stopped as well. Her husband brought some bacon, salted fish and Chinese cabbage in a tricycle, should be enough for some days.

Thought about plenty of things while in the bed and couldn't sleep, got up and played KCD.

Friday, Feb. 2nd., 2020.

Woke up at 3 pm. I've played video games overnight last night, fortunately I wasn't at home, or ma would possibly scold me for a whole day.

One of my students asked me that he forgot to bring his computer back to countryside and might not be able to finish the tasks I assigned before the winter vacation, and I casually responded him. If not be able to, then let it be, it would never be too late to finish the tasks back to school. Although I even don't know when would the next term begin, and when could they be back to the school. The school already had informed that the beginning time of the next term should be postponed, but until when? Only the hell knows, Damn!

Panic was still spreading. I saw some stockholders spilling sorrow in my high school classmates group in the evening. Although I wouldn't lose all my money, perhaps I wouldn't earn anything for months. Aiya, until when would the projects I planned to apply for in the middle of this year, whether the ones of the university or the ones of the Foundation, be postponed after all these things happened? Even thinking about it made it troublesome.

Let it over sooner…

Saturday, Feb. 3rd., 2020.

The patient data of Jianli and Honghu were exploded. I saw the classmates from Jianli cursing in the group very early in the morning, with everyone related being cursed. Perhaps it was the first time in my life that I've ever seen so many kinds of curse words in Jianli dialect, and I even want to write a paper about it.

Forget it, what am I thinking.

Saw the news from one of my old classmates that even the dentists were sent to the front in the afternoon. Really don't know they are how many people infected…

The sky is still cloudy, with no sunlight to be seen. Ran out of my river snail rice noodle as well.

Perhaps the only good news today is the news that Hubei would start working routine on February 14. Although I doubted anyone could be sure that the working routines could be started on 14th., I hope so, although it seems to be highly unlikely.

Sunday, Feb. 4th., 2020.

812 was dead, or should I say, a corpse of 812 was found. The medical Department is still researching it to see whether there is signs of virus. I hope not.

But even so, there were more and more people with suspected symptoms. The bigger problem is that although the temporary policy of the site is not to go out as much as possible, there are still some people who regarded it as shit and hanged out on the school playground, then were caught by patrolling medical department and MTF and were sent back. And we have to admonish them to finish the job aftermath.

All boring, yes, I know you guys are boring, I'm boring too. But what can we do? I know you can't just stay in the bedroom with nothing to do, but there is nothing outside too, nothing, what can we do? It's a special period, I thought we could make concessions to each other and understand each other, but in the end there is still someone who makes everyone uncomfortable.

Fuck his mother

My younger brother called me in the evening, the son of my youngest uncle. He told me my ma was so boring that she forced him to dance, to sing, and to stand a pose of soldier for everyone, and asked me if I can talk to my ma about it. I called ma, and cried for half a night, until ma comforted me and told me it was shameful. But sincerely, I really don't want to think about such things, I really hope there could be some skip which is able to let all of these things pass quickly, even if it's simply able to let me sleep for half a year. I really don't want to bear it anymore, every day is suffering.

Didn't even have mood to play TRPG.

Monday, Feb. 5th., 2020.

Ma told me they ran out of meat, with only some salted pork liver. My youngest uncle didn't prepare much food, after all, my ma should return home after three days of visit. Fortunately there was still vegetables in the garden.

My classmates returned home said that the take-out services around Shashi was completely forbidden, didn't even have exceptions of untouched delivery. I don't really know what can one do if ran out of food.

The result of autopsy of the 812-hell-know-how-many came out, malnutrition caused by hunger. I don't know whether it meant that there is a parallel universe where 812 starved to death.

The whole Site group was wailing.

Got the internal statistics in the evening, the proportion of symptoms in the whole site has exceeded 20%. Wept for half the night, and felt myself unable to do anything.

There was news that there was universities postponed the beginning time of next term officially to May 1st.

Tuesday, Feb. 6th., 2020.

Nunca cree en el rey.

Don't wanna say anything else.

Tuesday, Feb. 7th., 2020.

The community began registering everyone's situation house by house. Fortunately, we're directly registered by the university, so we don't need to worry about some documents exposed, temporarily.

An inform was sent in the group that the epidemic prevention work and material distribution work would be going to be taken over completely by the university and related community. If there are someone governing everything, which means, Varitas could be able to directly kill and eat the fish he fed in the bathtub.

But sincerely, I hate red pak choi bolts, and they have sent red pak choi bolt for days. In addition, it could be basically determined that beginning work routine on 14th. is garbage under the damn circumstance we're facing.

And how should I get this year's project budgets…

Wednesday, Feb. 8th., 2020.

Everyone from the three MTFs participated in the quarantine and curfew alerting work showed respiratory symptoms, over twenty of which were severe, and there were some guys even maintained by life support systems.

When the news came out, the Site group… I can't even liken it to be exploded, perhaps be nuked. Perhaps it was the first time I realize there were so many people in 91 that just the flood of information could stutter my cellphone.

Three dead 812 were found in the underground garage, of course, the original one was still wandering next to them.
My eighth younger sister called me and talked about the situation at home for a while. No cars were allowed to go on the street, so she had to walk a kilometer with her feet this morning before buying a lot of snacks and bringing them home. Envious of having snacks. Although she also said that the situation back home was still not optimistic.
The medical department has made little progress so far, vaccine or something else, no progress at all.
Maybe that's the case … I feel like I can't see the road ahead.

Thursday, Feb. 9th., 2020.

Alas, both side don't treat people as people.

Friday, Feb. 10th., 2020.

The fourth dormitory building of the Site was quarantined. 153 of the total 200 people living in had fever. The majority of them were from the department led by Sowrd.
I tried to contact Sowrd in the afternoon, but I never got anything back.
According to the Site announcement, more than 50 cases of severe ill patient had appeared in the Site, basically all of them were relying on the ventilators to keep them alive.
No matter what we try, we would finally end up with a finale that we couldn't even have the spare time to mourn ourselves. I felt like the lady who banged gongs on her balcony yesterday, but I don't even have a gong to bang.
Not even have a gong to bang…

Saturday, Feb. 11th., 2020.

Varitas told me he went to the underground garage while signing for the materials, and the there were thin corpses of 812 everywhere, with some of them having bitten signal. But obviously, there would be no one to concern about it, those who would feed it usually couldn't even guarantee their own safety now.

Or are they constructing their own false fantasy and thinking they could survive at last?

He said the original 812 has already been very thin, he gave it a slice of dried fish spared from his own food, and the little cat only weakly meowed.

No doubt there were corpse everywhere, I don't know how many times had it waited until it finally got a slice of dried fish.

Wendell left today. I asked him, if there was still future existed, would he come back, or find a site to work directly in North America?

He responded me after a long time, with an meme of facepalm.

Sunday, Feb. 12th., 2020.

Two more buildings were quarantined, with a total of five used for dormitories.

I got angry to the director. The director said, because of a series of confidential documents, we could not contact mobile cabin hospitals before the Foundation approved it. Otherwise, he feared that no one in the Site could be able to take the responsibility after the epidemic. But aren't human lives comparable to any shitting files?
The director said, no, here is Foundation, they aren't comparable.
I have forgotten what I said in the next over ten minutes. The first thing I can remember after I recovered my sanity was that the director told me with a bitter face, yes, he knew it, he knew it all, but he cannot do anything. If I really wanted to do something, I could contact the university and let them help sending the Site personnel as university employees, just for safety. But he couldn't guarantee that whether I would be blamed and be forced to become someone never existed.
If I were the protagonist of a hero movie, perhaps I would be able to say, yes, I'm willing to take the responsibility. But I'm just a researcher after all. I considered for a long time, but all I could answer is, I dare not.
The director gave me a strained smile. He said, you know it, you dare not, neither do I.
It was still cold outside while I came out from his office. The weather forecast said it would snow days later.

Monday, Feb. 13th., 2020.

An MTF member who previously showed symptoms died in his dormitory very acutely. He was originally one with mild symptoms, but then died abruptly and alone in the middle of night. By the time the medical department got the news, they came and took his corpse away for bio-safety disposal.

I asked QB for some details while cooking at noon. The guy was in fact very young, just passed 20, and didn't graduate from college for a long time, strong and powerful. At last his whole lung had turned white on the CT diagram, suffocated to death. I sighed for a while, but still can only concern about the meal in front of me.

The director said the request of contacting civil hospital has been handed in, although there is still no response.

The 812 corpses flooding through the garage is still concerned little. Although perhaps it could guarantee that the 812 of our universe not die too soon.

Tuesday, Feb. 14th., 2020.

Day of abusing bachelors, although I'm not quite abused this year.

I've been playing KCD for a whole day. Don't quite want to care about things related after being mad to the director, the doctors of medical department would be more professional than we poor and weak scholars anyway, and they know what to do. It's really good to be someone not concerning about anything.

Sowrd didn't respond me for over four days, although he was always online.

The amount of severe patients in the Site doubled overnight.

Some of the spared meat became smelly because I don't have a fridge.

Wednesday, Feb. 15th., 2020.

The request of contacting civil hospitals was rejected, the reason was still confidential policies.

I didn't want say anything when got the news, just answered "Received".

It snows, and it didn't snow heavily like this for years. Every color, black, yellow, red, at last become white and blank.

I can't see where the road is. All I can see is a rut downstairs extending shallowly. After a while, it's covered by the snow, cleanly and sheenly.

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