The First Witness

This flow follows Kwang Jingshu from skeptical physician to imprisoned witness of the plague’s concealed origin.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

Dutiful Physician

Dutiful Physician Public Duty Kwang Jingshu still treats rural patients despite exhaustion, poor roads, and institutional neglect. Moral Habit His revolutionary sense of responsibility makes him answer a call that younger doctors avoid. Foreshadowing That ordinary act of service places him directly before the extraordinary disease.

Patient Zero

Patient Zero Impossible Body Kwang Jingshu examines a bound child who has no detectable pulse yet continues to attack. Medical Terror The boy’s severed limb and bloodless wounds destroy every familiar clinical assumption. Recognition The physician understands that the patient is not merely ill; he is the first visible proof of reanimation.

State Arrest

State Arrest

Years Of Survival

Years Of Survival Broken Region Kwang Jingshu returns to a devastated Chongqing where power, water, and population have nearly vanished. Continued Service He makes house calls despite age and wartime injuries. Transformation The witness becomes a caretaker, preserving a small civic world after national authority collapses.

Final Reassurance

Final Reassurance Old Friendship Kwang Jingshu remembers Gu Wen Kuei, whose warning once carried the weight of prophecy. New Children A child’s ordinary respiratory illness briefly restores the possibility of a future. Answer He repeats the old reassurance honestly now: survival remains possible because people continue caring for one another.

before New Dachang

during the New Dachang outbreak

immediately after the outbreak

after his escape

postwar ending