[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-142":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283620,4467,"Chapter 142","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-142",142,"\u003Cp>When crossing Westminster, visitors experience a sense of novelty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The foundation of the complex does not rest on flat ground but occupies the entire mountaintop, shaped to follow the terrain. Structures at different levels and orientations often lie on separate horizontal planes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The walls enclosing the outer citadel also serve as pathways leading to the bastions; after circling one bastion, you encounter an arched gate crowned with winged rings on an open terrace on the third floor, then enter a small chapel where the pulpit cleverly blocks the passage opening toward the inner keep tower.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everything is tightly connected yet clearly separated into distinct functional zones, transforming an unlevelable terrain from a construction obstacle into an advantage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outsiders will lose their way in this network of pathways, while defenders exploit their familiarity with the routes to appear anywhere or seal off specific areas. Not to mention every design detail intentionally favors the defenders—such as uniform clockwise, downward-spiraling staircases that only allow right-handed weapons to be used effectively in confined spaces.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Following Martin as their guide, they traversed the shortest possible “shortcut” an attacker would take after breaching the outer wall—assuming anyone could—gradually circling half a lap, half exposed to crossfire from the inner keep’s walls and flank towers, the other half filled with indoor obstructions like the spiral stairs described.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If you wish to avoid being trapped in this hopeless one-sided maze of alley warfare, you must humbly face the “inner gate,” which remains closed at night, and repeat the entire siege process under flanking fire from above.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The designer masterfully embedded these concepts into the architecture, embodying the full malicious ingenuity of defense. Kraft nodded repeatedly along the way, reluctantly reaching their destination—the absolutely secure inner keep guest chamber—just before the torches went out. The windows, designed without any wooden parts and vertically narrow, likely served as firing slits during wartime; guests need never worry anyone could breach this place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet even in this purely stone world, tenacious life emerges—he spotted several clusters of fungi, no larger than a thumbnail, growing in the grime along the windowsill.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The warm, humid climate here seems especially suited to these fast-growing organisms; after just one rain, they appear outdoors, indoors, on dining tables, and everywhere else you can or cannot imagine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At a height of over thirty feet above ground, with a sheer cliff dropping below the window, Kraft spent a night guarded at the door. An unexpectedly, yet not surprisingly, peaceful night—he was glad to wake to dawn light illuminating a normal room, not some strange, desolate place.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After breakfast arrived, no one disturbed him again; he idled in the room until noon.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Good afternoon, Professor Kraft. I hope you slept well last night.” A familiar voice came from outside the door. “If you wish, you may choose your usual black robe.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh? I thought it would be more formal.” Though he said this, Kraft immediately shed the banquet attire that had made him uncomfortable from skin to marrow, replacing it with black.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No. Today is a private meeting, with no extra attendees; ordinary attire suffices.” Martin waited outside, relaxed as if strolling through his own parlor, yet grew serious when mentioning the schedule. His movements emitted a sound like empty tin cans jingling. When Kraft opened the door, he saw Martin wearing an unfamiliar blue-and-white oak-leaf-patterned cloak-and-armor ensemble, helmetless, flanked by guards and servants.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And no one else should know—this is something I must remind you of.” He took a sash from a servant’s tray, looped it behind Kraft’s neck, and hung the ends across his chest. “Let us go.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From here, the corridor no longer twisted confusingly. Following the inner keep’s standard octagonal layout, rooms and passageways were arranged in layers; they now moved along one side’s main thoroughfare toward the fortress’s core.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two people awaited them at the door. One was a nobleman with two neatly trimmed mustaches; the other, unexpectedly, was a familiar face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mr. Wilbert, this is Professor Kraft, whom I wished to introduce to you.” Professor Fernan—or rather, Viscount Fernan—wore the same black robe from last night’s banquet, his spirits seeming low.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“A bit late. Forgive me—I cannot endure the jolting pace of your youth. Consider it a small privilege of age.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Greetings, I am Duke’s Chamberlain Wilbert. Please remain silent upon entering; the Duke’s condition is not good.” The mustached man bowed to Kraft with a barely perceptible but impeccably precise, textbook-perfect gesture. Seeing Kraft’s awkward, unfamiliar return, he shook his head slightly. “Your hand should be slightly higher—closer to the shoulder, not over the heart.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It sounded more like military protocol, yet his demeanor suited better the role of a fastidious nobleman’s steward with obsessive-compulsive tendencies.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Professor Fernan cut him off. “Enough, Wilbert. The Duke won’t care about such things. We’re pressed for time—show him that.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【That?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft looked questioningly at Fernan but received no answer from his face. Yet the chamberlain was persuaded to abandon his insistence on etiquette, gesturing with a wave to the fully armed guards flanking the heavy double doors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A warm current flowed from the opening door. Chamberlain Wilbert extended his hand silently, clearly inviting them forward into the carpeted interior. Blue, serrated leaf-pattern embroidery along the edges led them straight to a central, burning fireplace where servants were adding dried herbal incense.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beneath crossed longswords and oak-leaf-patterned shield wall decorations, a figure sat upright on a chair padded with thick fur, facing the fire, back turned to the visitors.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Your Grace, the physician has arrived.” Chamberlain Wilbert glided silently across the carpet to the chair’s side and whispered a reminder, then stepped aside, nodding to Professor Fernan and Kraft—follow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Come in, Viscount Fernan. And the one from the north... Knight Kraft.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft followed Fernan’s small steps to the lord’s side, watched the old professor bow, then mimicked the gesture, remembering to raise his hand two rib-heights higher.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was the first time anyone had called him that. Technically, before inheriting his grandfather’s title, he should have held this provisional rank. Border nobles rarely cared about such formalities; Old Wood never bothered granting him a knightly title. But he had to admit—the term was standard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【A ten-year-old book friend recommended this reading app, Huanyuan App! It’s truly amazing—used it while driving and before bed to pass time with audiobooks. Download here: .huanyuanapp】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Cough. Cough.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A series of violent coughs shook his throat and chest; the figure on the chair arched forward, the bear pelt slipping from his chest. The pauses in his earlier speech had not been due to forgetfulness or hesitation—they were caused by breathlessness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wilbert hurried forward, re-draping the bear pelt over him. Kraft now clearly saw the mysterious figure who was likely the reason for his invitation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A circular crown rested atop neatly graying hair. His half-closed eyes opened, reflecting weary but lucid light from the fire—his will remained sharp, yet his body could no longer sustain such clarity for long.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Beneath wrinkled skin, clear traces of former muscular development were visible—muscles that once swelled robustly, filling the skin, now reduced to broad, hollow contours. Like an oak stripped of leaves, only its towering branches remained, evoking memories of its once-massive, shade-casting canopy—remembrance only deepened sorrow for nature’s cruelty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bring the Duke some chamomile and licorice sweet tea,” Fernan ordered. Several servants and wall-standing guards were present in the spacious room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Professor Kraft, I believe you’ve already guessed—the case we hinted at during the gathering lies before you. Everything done thus far was out of necessity. As the core of Westmin and even Dunling, the Duke’s health cannot be disclosed to the outside world—it would cause irreversible consequences for the situation.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was content Kraft did not understand. He briefly considered it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What do you mean?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We cannot let anyone know a royal military leader, without an heir and of immense prestige, may die at any moment—not now, at least.” This revealed something a northern frontierman, uninterested in royal politics, could never have known: the land he’d lived on for nearly twenty years was far from peaceful as he’d assumed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But more than these unfamiliar political matters, he worried about what Fernan meant by “that”—it sounded like a symptom with a temporal pattern. He needed to conduct a physical exam before it occurred.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I need to perform some examinations. The patient must temporarily remove his upper garments—is that acceptable?” Kraft pulled a mask from inside his black robe, warmed his hands, and looked to Fernan and the Duke for approval.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No problem,” the Duke agreed generously. The next sentence made Fernan’s aged face flush with unmistakable embarrassment: “It can’t be worse than an enema, can it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With permission granted, Kraft warmed his hands and began the examination.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In an era of advancing imaging technology, a complete, standardized lung examination without instruments was now rare. In these desperate times—when equipment was absent and spiritual senses were avoided whenever possible—the lazy dog had no choice but to revive his old skills.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On visual inspection, respiratory movement was symmetrical on both sides, with no obvious chest wall collapse, but he detected mild tracheal deviation to the right. During tactile examination while speaking, he glimpsed signs of lung pathology beneath the chest—differing vocal tremors: some intensified, transmitting like solid matter; others weakened, fluttering like echoes in hollow cavities, revealing complex, varied lesions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As the examination progressed, the changing percussion tones made even those not involved clearly sense the gravity. Along every vertical line of percussion—from front chest to armpits to below the shoulder blades—Kraft tapped each intercostal space with growing dread. Almost every two or three ribs down produced a different, muffled-clear sound, as if the lungs had been transformed by disease into a grotesque, complex instrument, tuned with scarred cords and hollows near the chest wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Drawing from his soul’s experience from another world, this tuberculosis had worsened beyond anything he’d ever encountered in his original environment. Had the patient not been physically strong and well-nourished, he would have succumbed long ago. What Kraft could do was truly limited.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Kraft pressed his ear to the chest, attempting to listen to lung sounds, his fingertips felt heat radiating from the patient’s skin—not the gradual cooling from his own hands, but a rapid, escalating change: rising body temperature blurring the remaining clarity in the man’s eyes, causing his pupils to drift vaguely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Pay attention, Professor Kraft.” Fernan also noticed the Duke’s change—or rather, he had been waiting for this moment, hoping Kraft would see it. “The Bingqingbianhua  we couldn’t finish describing has arrived.”\u003C\u002Fp>",1754,"2026-06-20T02:15:55.761Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","2cb78c7c66e6a5a55ef3d1c5e97f03dd7d9604b49c12853aab77d0624cf313b8","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-143","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-141",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]