Chapter 203: The Obscure Hint

"I think so—your school has deep reserves; even just these remaining items are sufficient for the experiment." Kraft pretended to walk toward the storage shelf, his hands speeding up as he flipped through the pages.

Records flitted across his fingers and converged in his mind; Kalman's distinctive cursive signature greatly accelerated this process.

Each appearance of it meant several instruments vanished from storage, naturally blending into the college's bulk procurement list for replenishment—no one ever raised objections.

Because these losses had clear, rational records: a small portion of glass instruments broken; most metal instruments, having contacted infectious disease patients, were no longer returned to inventory or mixed with other equipment—clearly indicating Mo Lisen's research had begun shifting toward infectious diseases.

Including skin disfigurement from syphilis, a disease described as "genital cluster warts," subcutaneous abscesses, tubercular hemoptysis, and deformities caused by leprosy—many illnesses believed to afflict those with impious faith or unclean living.

A significant number of patients chose not to seek medical care, quickly progressing until visible surface lesions formed; or, having contracted such diseases, were refused treatment and denied surgical intervention when needed.

Of course, apart from incision and drainage—which still had some effect—other methods mostly only inflicted greater suffering.

This became a vast blank space, with few willing to enter such a field; adding the suffix "surgical intervention" made it virtually impossible for anyone to conduct overlapping research.

Thus, using it as an excuse was highly reasonable—no need to worry about frequent people appearing to request exchange of related experience.

Meanwhile, Kalman repeatedly, though superficially earnest, used "contact with a highly infectious disease patient" as the reason for instruments not being returned in full—so frequently that it could no longer be ignored, yet he strictly adhered to form and procedure.

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After writing these perfunctory records, Kalman then carefully signed the end with a meticulously designed cursive signature.

A vague, indescribable dissonance brewed within the text—a nuance requiring full reading and analysis to perceive—as if deliberately crafted, whispering through a temporal barrier, attempting to convey some directional message to those who carefully reviewed it.

Only an unimaginably attuned listener could, in a specific context and manner, decipher information no clearer than the fracture of paper fibers.

Kraft was unsure whether he counted as that person, nor could he confirm whether a nominally dead man was truly communicating, through a loan record, with someone arriving months too late.

Ciphers, codes, or metaphors? Kraft sifted through the text he'd read, searching for hidden messages in layout and letter combinations—found no information at all; the only certainty was that the writer's logical thinking was clear, having shed the chaotic fervor of initial cognitive breakthroughs, writing these words under his own volition.

Yet he could not express his meaning directly—this indicated the information contradicted the wishes of those controlling this place.

Kraft partially dismissed the possibility of ciphers or acrostics; anything easily detectable by him would also be easily detected by others, especially since under normal circumstances, no one would have the opportunity to spend long periods flipping through the instrument loan logbook.

If there truly were instructions embedded within, they should be more obvious and more clever.

"The production of anesthetic drugs carries danger; I must pre-emptively state that a secure experimental site is essential, and one must be prepared for losses." Since he couldn't figure it out, he decided not to dwell on it—what truly concerned Kraft were the vanished instruments.

There were far too many metal instruments and far too few glass containers; if Mo Lisen could perform precise purification using only a few large flasks and beakers, Kraft would have nothing to say.

But objectively, this clearly indicated surgical preparations—and not on a small scale; the vanished instruments could easily sustain six or seven Li Siton surgical clinics operating in rotating shifts.

So where had this nonexistent specialty hospital gone? Or did they serve another purpose?

Imagine those tools being picked up—blades and clamps turning in dozens of hands, dissecting incalculable tissues, generating records piled high enough to drown the head—yet the Inquisition's ceaseless investigation found no living or dead bodies to account for their consumption.

When Kalman arrived in Dunling, Mo Lisen showed him precisely this endeavor.

No one could say what was being dissected beneath the blades, only that whatever it was was enough to make Kalman, who had come here believing he'd found his ultimate goal, recoil in fear—wanting to transmit a message, yet forced to guide only through obscure, cryptic hints.

Like he had sensed some omnipresent force, capable of emerging from any corner of the city.

But how could that be? The Church and secular powers tightly controlled this city; for such a force to arise spontaneously, there would need to be a second Dunling to house and become its living space.

【This is just too absurd】

Such a possibility was minuscule at best—perhaps merely some method of effectively monitoring and controlling participants.

"The college values the time required to remake instruments, not their cost." Viren flipped through the recent pages of the logbook and affirmed, "No one has needed them recently—you may take them freely. We'll also allocate other laboratories as soon as possible, though the environmental conditions..."

"We're not people who care about such trivial details; just don't store too many flammable materials. Ideally, the work should be done on the dissection stone table." Kraft waved dismissively, uninterested in anything beyond safety.

The ether extraction experiment had already brought him face-to-face with this clue; the real difficulty now was how to interpret it.

It must naturally guide any investigator toward its target; failing to decipher it only proves I am not the intended audience.

To understand the other's mindset, I must first bridge the information gap between us. Without a clear target, I can only pick a random entry point and try slowly—but it's difficult for a pure surgical professor to insert himself into this.

Fortunately, he had long prepared for such a situation. "Lecturer Viren, speaking of which, besides anesthesia, I have another reason for coming to Dunling."

"You've also developed in other fields? Truly broad-ranging."

"Allow me to introduce the Society for Tuberculosis and Rare Diseases, established with the explicit approval and funding of the Duke of Westminster—its primary focus is cataloging the clinical characteristics of rare diseases and researching the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis." As one of the most common epidemics in an era lacking effective control measures, tuberculosis existed virtually everywhere.

Once infectious diseases were involved, tuberculosis could never be avoided as a topic—several of Kalman's discarded instrument justifications involved tuberculosis.

"Ah?" Viren didn't understand how a fine surgical professor had become entangled with tuberculosis—but Fernand and Lin Deng's testimonies rendered the society's existence unquestionable.

"We hope to learn about the general situation of tuberculosis patients in Dunling—do you have anyone you could recommend?"