護花近衛 - 第657章 昏迷原因？ - 翰墨軒

Yet what Shen Yushu had to say was no different from the accounts of the other students: they had eaten in the cafeteria, returned to their classroom, and before long begun to show symptoms of dizziness and fainting...

At first, Dr. Li had also suspected the students had fallen into unconsciousness from food poisoning -- after all, the symptoms had appeared only after the midday meal. But that judgment would not withstand scrutiny, for the students who had collapsed made up only a tiny fraction of those who had eaten in the cafeteria; by now the number was a mere twenty-eight.

The likelihood of food poisoning thus shrank considerably. Why else would no other student be affected in the least? And to say that some particular dish was to blame seemed equally implausible -- surely there could not be a single dish that only twenty-eight students had eaten?

So the true cause of the coma could only be determined after they reached the hospital.

The whole way, the ambulances wailed through several red lights in succession. Such a convoy of ambulances was a rare sight, yet the vehicles along the road all pulled aside of their own accord. That so many ambulances had been dispatched at once made it plain something very serious had happened.

Ding Binggong gathered his words and put through a call to Gu Pengzhan. With an incident of such magnitude at the school, he had to inform the chairman -- and since Gu Mengyao was among the students who had collapsed, it was all the more necessary that he do so.

Gu Pengzhan was in a meeting at that moment. His phone rang, and at first he had no intention of answering; but when he saw the three characters "Ding Binggong" on the caller display, he picked up after all. As a rule, apart from coming to the group to deliver his report each week, Ding Binggong seldom called him.

If it was not a matter of business, then something must have happened to Gu Mengyao, Shen Yushu, or Wei Zhao -- otherwise he would never have called in person. At that thought, Gu Pengzhan signaled for everyone to wait a moment and answered the phone: "Principal Ding, what is it? I'm in a meeting..."

He had made himself perfectly clear: if Ding Binggong had nothing of importance, he could call back later.

"Chairman Chu, something has happened at the school!" Ding Binggong said gravely. "During the lunch break, twenty-eight students suddenly collapsed unconscious in their classrooms for reasons unknown -- among them Gu Mengyao..."

"What!" Gu Pengzhan sprang to his feet before he knew it. Ding Binggong's news had already been shocking enough -- more than twenty students collapsing at once, an incident without precedent since the school was founded. If it was not handled properly, it would do grave damage to the school's reputation and even to the group's.

But what worried Gu Pengzhan most was his daughter's safety! Gu Mengyao was a part of his very life; that she too had fainted left him no frame of mind to continue the meeting. He waved a hand, indicating that they could adjourn: "The meeting is suspended. Li Fu, come out with me!"

"Yes, Mr. Gu!" Qingbo nodded and followed Gu Pengzhan out of the meeting room. As his trusted aide, he had of course noticed the unsettled cast of Gu Pengzhan's mood -- plainly something had caught him off guard.

In the Pengzhan Group of today, Gu Pengzhan's word was law; no one dared raise a voice of dissent. The miserable departures of Xie Guangbo and Jin Gubang were still fresh in memory -- how could these newly arrived shareholders fail to tread as though on thin ice?

Seeing that Gu Pengzhan had business to attend to and had gone out, no one dared ask anything further. Only some time after his departure did they file out of the meeting room one by one and return to their offices.

Gu Pengzhan, brows tightly knit, held the phone and asked in a low voice: "Is Yao Yao all right? Is there any danger?"