Chapter 528 The Source of the Toxin
Li Gang was initially enjoying his fish head with smug satisfaction, mocking Chen Yang. However, upon seeing Chen Yang's serious expression, the fish head suddenly lost its appeal.
His chopsticks stopped mid-air. He looked at Chen Yang and said, "Chen Yang, you're cursing me. Be careful, or I'll smash your head right now."
"Let me tell you, don't think you can go against me just because you've won over Zhou Shanshan with sweet talk. You're still a low-level security guard."
Chen Yang chuckled, looking at the fish head. "This fish head is indeed problematic, or rather, this Eight Immortals Fish is problematic."
Upon hearing this, Qin Ming immediately shook his head. "That's impossible. I caught this fish."
At this moment, the cook sitting below looked around and then suddenly stood up, walking towards Chen Yang. "Mr. Chen, what do you mean by that? Are you suspecting that I poisoned this fish while cooking it? How could I possibly do such a thing?"
Chen Yang laughed and waved his hand. "No, no, no, I don't mean poisoned. I mean the fish itself has a problem."
"Let me ask you, do the mentally ill people in the village eat a lot of fish heads?"
Qin Ming immediately shook his head. "How is that possible? How can mental illness be related to fish heads? We in Qingshui Village have been eating this Eight Immortals Fish for a hundred years."
"And I also love eating fish heads. Because I'm a good fisherman, my family eats this fish almost every day. The fish heads used to be mine, but after my son returned, the fish heads became his... the fish heads... the fish heads..."
As he spoke, Qin Ming frowned. "My son does love fish heads, and because our family dotes on him, the fish head of the Eight Immortals Fish always goes to my son."
At this moment, a villager sitting on the left suddenly stood up. "My grandfather, my grandfather also loved fish heads. Before he went mad, he did eat Eight Immortals Fish every day for a period, and he specifically ate the fish head."
The cook's face turned red, his fingers trembling. "Is it really the fish head? Is it really caused by the head of the Eight Immortals Fish? My wife... my wife also eats fish heads. All the fish heads in our family are eaten by my wife."
"Because she gave birth to twin sons, our family was overjoyed. So, I wanted to nourish her body recently. I found this Eight Immortals Fish through various means to cook for her, to make soup for her. The fish heads all went to her. Could it be that the fish heads caused my wife to become mentally ill?"
Qin Ming could no longer stand still. He pushed his stool away with a "plop" and walked out, saying, "Wait a minute, I'll go to the village right now and find all the families of the mentally ill. I want to see if the cause of the illness is really in the fish head."
Without waiting for Chen Yang and Zhou Shanshan to speak, Qin Ming immediately ran out the door.
In the hall, everyone looked at the steaming Eight Immortals Fish in the center of the table in stunned silence.
Li Gang was the most nervous. His face was ashen. He looked at the fish head in his bowl and thought about how he had just eaten a fish eye. He felt a churning in his stomach, his legs trembled, and he ran out the door to crouch in a corner, gagging forcefully, trying to vomit out the fish eye he had eaten.
Within three minutes, Qin Ming ran back, followed by a crowd.
Qin Ming entered the hall and excitedly said to Chen Yang, "Mr. Chen, your… your judgment is correct. All the people who have become mentally ill are those who love to eat fish heads and had the opportunity to eat the fish heads of this Eight Immortals Fish. This… how is this possible?"
"I've been eating it for decades, why was I fine? Why did my son become mentally ill when it was his turn?"
Chen Yang pressed his hands down, signaling everyone to calm down. He said, "The mentally ill people in your village have only appeared recently, so I suspect that the contamination of this fish also happened recently."
Qin Ming nodded, then said, "But why only the fish head part? The fish meat is fine? We've been eating fish meat for years, why haven't we become mentally ill?"
Zhou Shanshan spoke, "I think this problem is likely related to neurotoxins. Because fish are cold-blooded animals, their nervous systems are not well-developed and are mainly concentrated in their heads."
"It seems that the Eight Immortals Fish must have been poisoned somewhere. It was a neurotoxin, and the neurotoxin would follow the neural network and gather in the fish's head. In other words, the head of this Eight Immortals Fish has become a hiding place for the toxin."
"Moreover, when you scald the Eight Immortals Fish, you use the simplest method of just scalding it. The part of the fish head that is scalded is less. To maintain its tenderness, it is not fully cooked."
"This leads to the neurotoxin in the fish head remaining. If someone likes to eat fish heads, and eats them frequently, this neurotoxin will be transferred into their body, affecting their brain's nervous system and causing them to go completely mad."
As she spoke, Zhou Shanshan suddenly turned to Chen Yang. "But Chen Yang, how did you figure this out? This fish should look no different from ordinary fish, right? How could you tell at a glance that the fish head was problematic?"
As Zhou Shanshan spoke, she grabbed Chen Yang's shoulders with her eyes and hands, extremely excited.
At this moment, Zhou Shanshan felt that she was very close to the truth, very close to the highest honor in psychiatry.
If she could report this mental illness, and the source of the cause, as well as the subsequent solutions, she could imagine herself becoming a top psychiatrist in the world, and even possibly winning the highest medical awards in the world.
Chen Yang did not answer Zhou Shanshan's question and said, "Since we have now found the cause of the mental illness, there are two things left to do."
"One is that we need to find the source of the toxin in the fish head. The other is to produce a corresponding antidote based on the toxin. I believe that producing an antidote will be much more effective than the talismans drawn by the village's past Taoist priests."
Zhou Shanshan looked delighted. She stood up and nodded to Qin Ming and the others. "Mr. Chen is right. If we can find this toxin, then based on the principle of protein neutralization, as long as I obtain the composition of that toxin, I can develop some protein enzymes or amino acids to neutralize the toxin."
"In short, finding the cause and treating it accordingly, producing an antidote. The most difficult step in this process is to accurately analyze the composition of this toxin."
"So, let's eat quickly. After eating, we'll immediately search for the place where the Eight Immortals Fish was poisoned and find the toxin."
Qin Ming was extremely excited. He nodded and said, "Yes, yes, yes, Mr. Chen, Miss Zhou, thank you. We see hope, we finally see hope. Everyone eat quickly, and after we finish, we'll go with several experts to find the source of the Eight Immortals Fish's poisoning."