The Immortal of Plague begins by establishing the root of lung fire.

Song You tapped a few times on his phone screen, but the webpage loading progress bar was stuck halfway through. It seemed that it was difficult to see what was happening in China while abroad.

Suddenly he remembered that the Second Provincial Hospital had built an English-language portal website for foreign patients a couple of years ago to improve its international medical services and increase revenue. He typed the string of English letters he remembered into the address bar, and the page loaded smoothly after a few rotations.

He then tried to access the official website from this page and succeeded. After thinking for a while, he clicked on the "Public Notice of Hospital Affairs" section and saw the two announcements at the top, with two familiar names appearing.

Li Man's name was mentioned in the first announcement. The Second Provincial Hospital and the investigation team dispatched by the higher-level competent authority jointly issued a notice to temporarily suspend Li Man from all her duties and accept all investigations from higher authorities.

The report clearly states that Li Man seriously violated medical management regulations during her tenure, arbitrarily interfered with procedures after a major medical accident, showed favoritism towards her subordinate doctor Zhang Lihong, and is suspected of engaging in bribery in departmental allocation.

The second report concerns Zhang Lihong, who is still alive but lying in the intensive care unit of the Second Provincial Hospital, clinging to life with a full set of life support equipment.

The problems listed in the report were more than twice as many as those of Li Man, including illegally accepting huge kickbacks from medical device suppliers, serious dereliction of duty in several major surgeries leading to patient deaths, privately reselling controlled anesthetic drugs, and even several cases involving falsifying medical records to defraud medical insurance funds.

Song You had noticed some things when he was in the department, and it was indeed Zhang Lihong who did them. But those last few cases of insurance fraud and drug trafficking with huge sums of money and a time span of five years were simply beyond Zhang Lihong's capabilities.

Those people are using this accident to hastily pin all the mess and blame that the department has accumulated over the years on a person who can't wake up. Of course, it's also possible that Zhang Lihong is just that audacious and didn't realize it himself.

As long as Zhang Lihong is breathing, he is the sole person responsible for the entire incident. If he ever wakes up in the intensive care unit, he will face endless prosecutions, huge compensation claims, and imprisonment. He will then realize that he would have been better off dead.

Song You turned off the screen. It was better for Zhang Lihong to be alive. He would personally go to his bedside to see him off one day.

Having obtained the desired result, Song You unlocked his phone again and searched for Khalidwa.

According to the information, Haridwar is located on the upper reaches of the Ganges River and is one of the seven holy cities of Hinduism. Legend has it that this is where the footprints of the gods were left. Every year during the Dussehra festival, ascetics and devotees from all over India gather here to bathe in the Ganges River and cleanse themselves of the sins of their past and present lives.

The water upstream flows down from the snowmelt of the Himalayas, and its quality is much clearer than that of New Delhi downstream, which he finds somewhat regrettable.

He patiently flipped through the descriptions of local religious sites. Hundreds of temples and holy sites of varying sizes were scattered throughout the city of Khalidwa and its surrounding areas. Most were traditional temples dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu, but there was one unique holy site in the northern suburbs of the city, covering a vast area, called Shantikunji.

The introductory page states that Shantikunji is the largest modern Vedic holy site in all of India, with its core worship being Agni, the fire god in the Vedic scriptures.

In their doctrine, Agni is the bridge between man and God, capable of devouring all filth in the world and purifying all things with his breath of fire.

Song You stared at the line of words. Although he could not purify all things, he could breathe fire. It seemed that this was destined for him.

Several news articles also mentioned that this holy site will host the city's largest fire ceremony, and will open its private holy water pool for communal bathing to believers. Furthermore, the scale of activities at Shantikunji has doubled year by year over the past three years, attracting a large number of spiritual seekers from all over the world.

Song You memorized the name and location of Xiangti Kunji. As evening approached, he tried using ordinary dirty water, but it didn't work. Without wasting time, he returned to the Po Cang Temple to cultivate, and would come to the Hui Guang World when the time came.

Song You opened his eyes. The sky outside the window was just beginning to lighten. As he walked out of the hotel, he saw Jat holding a dirty rag, wiping the dust off the windshield of the car.

Seeing Song You come out, Jat casually stuffed a rag under the car seat: "Good morning, sir. Today is the bathing day of Tosasa, and the Brahma Baths on the banks of the Ganges are already packed with people. I can take you through the alley, which will save you an hour."

Song You opened the back door and got in: "Let's go to Shantikunji."

Jat's smile froze for a moment: "Sir, to Shantikunji?"

"Is there a problem?" Song You noticed that his reaction was off.

"They are indeed holding a fire ceremony there, it's a grand event, and there are free offerings." Jat gripped the car door frame, his tone hesitant. "But sir, if you want to see the fire ceremony and the chanting, that's fine. Just don't go to their holy bath."

Song You asked, "What happened?"

Seeing Jat hesitate, Song You took out a five-hundred-rupee note and placed it on the front driver's seat. Jat quickly stuffed the money into the breast pocket of his shirt, glanced at the pedestrians on the street, and lowered his voice: "Sir, Agni is the god who purifies believers, but strange things have been happening during the holy baths of the three Deva festivals in the past three years."

Jat got into the driver's seat: "Of the believers who went in to be baptized, six or seven out of ten would develop a high fever and cough for several days afterward. Some even vomited blood, and some couldn't be saved even after being sent to the hospital overnight."

"Those believers from other places felt that they were not sincere enough and that their sins were too heavy, which angered Agni and caused him to be punished by the god of fire. They secretly converted to the faith and sought protection. Only those believers living around the holy site persisted."

"The priests of the holy site are increasing their activities year by year in an effort to win back the believers. Previously, only disciples who had trained within the holy site for three years were allowed to participate in the holy bath, but now it has been completely opened up, and anyone who goes can receive the holy bath."

After listening, Song You asked, "Could it be that there's something unclean in the water?"

Jat chuckled twice and shook his head rapidly: "Sir, the water in Khalidwa flows down from the snow-capped mountains; it's the purest holy water in all of India. The baths in Shantikunji are blessed daily by priests chanting sutras—how could they not be pure?"

He glanced back and lowered his voice even further: "It must be Agni testing people's hearts, but this kind of test is too severe for ordinary people like us to withstand. Sir, it would be safer for you to go somewhere else to wash."

Song You nodded and said no more. Jia Te dared not tell the truth for fear of offending the local power, but to Song You, the matter was already crystal clear.

People from India's lower classes grow up in heavily polluted environments, making their bodies extremely resistant to common pathogens. The fact that even these people developed high fevers or even died after bathing in the pool indicated that the water was definitely unusual, which suited his purposes perfectly.

"Let's drive to Shantikunji," Song You said.

Seeing that he couldn't persuade him, Jat stopped talking. Having taken the money, he naturally had to do the job, so he drove along the street toward the northern suburbs.

The further north you go, the more distinct the scenery becomes. Several large temples are located near the riverbank in the city. Crowds throng outside their gates, with queues stretching for half a kilometer. Religious music plays from loudspeakers, and the air is filled with a strong fragrance.

Once the tuk-tuk left the city and turned onto the road leading to Shantikunji, the surrounding traffic suddenly became empty.

Occasionally, a few solemn-looking ascetics could be seen walking along the roadside. Compared to the overcrowded scenes at the city temples, this place was at least 70% deserted. Jat's words were true; the rumors of divine punishment over the past few years had indeed scared away the vast majority of believers from other places.

The car stopped in front of the red sandstone gate in Shantikunji. Song You got out of the car, took out rupees from his pocket and handed them over: "Wait for me here at five o'clock this afternoon."

Jat took the money and nodded vigorously: "Don't worry, sir, I'll be there on time."

Song You straightened his collar and stepped inside. It looked more like a large, enclosed academy. Tall Bodhi trees lined both sides of the smooth stone path, and several white multi-story buildings were scattered in the distance, with a huge open-air plaza in the middle.

Under the sunshade on the right side of the square, a dozen volunteers dressed in gray plain clothes were making offerings. These volunteers were believers of the holy site, providing free services to foreign tourists. Several large aluminum pots, about half a person's height, were lined up in a row, filled with piping hot soybean curry, fried dough cakes, and sweet glutinous rice porridge.

Having exhausted himself with those previous events, Song You felt a pang of hunger in his stomach. He walked over and took a stainless steel plate from the table.

When the volunteer serving the food saw that he was wearing a suit, he gave a polite smile and added two more fried pancakes to the plate.

Song You nodded his thanks, took the plate, walked to the long wooden table next to him, sat down, tore open the fried dough in large bites, mixed it with the thick, high-calorie soybean curry, and put it directly into his mouth. He chewed it a few times and swallowed it into his stomach.

A plate of food was emptied in less than three minutes. Song You then went to the aluminum pot, took two more clean plates, and had the volunteers fill them with fried dough cakes and sweet glutinous rice porridge.

"Sir, are you alright?"

The Indian volunteers in charge of serving the food were somewhat surprised. Those who came here to participate in the almsgiving were either poor homeless people or believers and tourists who symbolically ate a few bites out of gratitude to the gods. They had never seen anyone like Song You, who was dressed decently, yet ate like a starving ghost who hadn't eaten for days.

"Sorry, I'm a little hungry. Thank you for Agni's alms." Song You ignored the stares around him and ate three full plates in a row before the feeling of emptiness was finally subsided.

After the volunteers saw Song You's sickly face, they didn't say anything more. This man had probably come to ask Agni for blessings as well.

Song You wiped his mouth and walked deeper into the square along the stone path in the center. Ahead was a tall white main hall, with the words "Gayatri Hall" written in both English and Hindi on the stone tablet at the entrance.

Even before getting close, one could hear the orderly and deep chanting of scriptures coming from inside. The voices of hundreds of people echoed in the closed hall, forming a powerful sound wave.

Song You stopped at the entrance of the main hall. A young volunteer quickly walked over and bowed slightly to Song You: "Sir, welcome to Shantikunji. The recitation of the Gayatri Mantra is being conducted in the main hall. Each monk needs to recite it 108 times in succession to purify the impurities in his soul."

The young volunteer looked around the main hall and said, "The chanting is nearing its end; there are only three more repetitions left."

He raised his finger and pointed to a stone passageway behind the main hall: "Afterwards, all participants will pass through that passageway to enter the holy water pool in the backyard for a collective holy bath. Today, the pool has been blessed by the highest priest and can wash away all illness and sin."

Upon hearing about the holy bath, the faces of the dozen or so foreign tourists standing at the edge of the temple entrance changed. They had obviously heard the rumors about the holy water pool in Shantikunji in the city. Several white men and women carrying cameras exchanged glances, asked no more questions, and turned around to walk back towards the alms stalls.

The young volunteers looked at the tourists who left without a word, their faces showing helplessness.

In the past two years, it has become increasingly difficult to retain visitors from other places. The few who are willing to visit the main hall run away faster than anyone else when they hear about the holy bath. This year, the holy site has spent a lot of resources and energy preparing for this large-scale holy bath. If in the end only the monks from our own monastery are present, Agni will probably be even more furious.

Watching the tourists walk away, Song You realized that fewer people made it easier for him to move around, and said to the volunteer, "I want to participate in the holy bath."

The young volunteer, who had been sighing with his head down, suddenly looked up when he heard this, his eyes scanning Song You from head to toe. Upon seeing the sickly look on Song You's face, the volunteer's gloomy expression instantly brightened, and even his eyes became much more eager.

"Sir, you wish to participate in the holy bath? That's wonderful! Agni will bless every sincere soul!"

"Please come with me, I'll take you to the changing room in the back to change into a white bath sheet."