Chapter 24: I Have a Feeling I'm Late

"This is truly... unexpected."

Kraft finished reading the letter in his hand, then casually handed it to the curious Lu Xiusi.

They were sitting in Professor Kalman's room, the very one where the three of them had enjoyed barley tea and cookies during Kraft's first visit. While Kraft examined the letter, Lu Xiusi boiled a pot of water on the small stove, adding two fresh cups of barley tea to the table, though he could not find the professor's honey jar.

After lingering in the castle for a month, Kraft was finally driven back by his grandfather to officially take up his post. Upon arrival, he rested for a night at an inn, then prepared to visit the academy the next day to inquire about the details before considering long-term housing.

Shortly after entering the Medical School, he was stopped by an unfamiliar student who claimed to be a friend of Lu Xiusi. Seven days prior, Lu Xiusi had instructed them to notify him immediately upon seeing Instructor Kraft.

Kraft followed this student through the winding corridors of the Medical School, up the spiral stairs, and through several arches, finally finding Lu Xiusi in the professor's private room, where he was fretting over a table full of papers.

One had to admit the Medical School building was quite complex; even though this was not his first visit, the meaningless decorative pillars and excessive obstructions, combined with the different spatial allocations on each floor, made it feel as though the path was different every time.

After bringing Kraft to the room, the student took his leave. Lu Xiusi set down the half-organized papers in his hand, pulled a formal letter sealed with red wax from an inner pocket of his black robe, and, with the excitement of a long wait finally over, handed it to the bewildered Kraft.

"Professor Kalman has great trust in your talent and passion in this area." Lu Xiusi's impatience was written all over his face. "Now that we have two people, we can continue to perfect the research on the Black Liquid according to the professor's arrangement before he returns."

"Thank you for Professor Kalman's trust, but I still have some questions." Kraft reached into the bottom of the envelope and felt a set of copper keys; it seemed he would not need to worry about housing for the time being.

Although they had known each other for only a short time, Professor Kalman seemed to have high hopes for him, willing to share something so important and even entrusting him with precious samples and experimental results. Kraft was deeply moved; doing his best to help was entirely reasonable.

Yet, based on the description in the letter, he found it hard to imagine what this substance, now almost confirmed as "Black Liquid," corresponded to within his own knowledge system.

White liquid could be considered cerebrospinal fluid; yellow liquid undoubtedly corresponded to bile; red liquid was, naturally, blood. But this Black Liquid? What on earth it was truly left him baffled. Moreover, judging by the letter, it seemed they had extracted it from some tissue within the human body, and after extraction, it could be stored for long periods while retaining its properties.

Even more absurdly, whether due to the container's strength or the substance's extreme stability, someone had actually carried it in their pocket from Dunling to Wendeng Port! This so-called "inhibitory" property left Kraft with a head full of question marks; he would likely only understand it after seeing the detailed experimental records.

"So, according to the letter, this thing we are currently calling 'Black Liquid' is indeed extracted from the human body."

This scene made it hard for Kraft to imagine what "extracted from the human body" meant. Here, the term was generally used for obtaining another liquid from liquids like medicinal solutions or alcohol through heating, distillation, or settling. The latter half of the "Theory of Humors" liked to use it, but always for extracting certain components from medicinal juices or decoctions for people to drink to "regulate humoral balance."

In short, something felt off.

"I recall the professor saying the church over there is very strict, so there wouldn't be much opportunity to do such things," Kraft said. The professor had previously complained to him that anatomy in Dunling was at a complete standstill, entirely due to the church's massive influence there.

"I'm not sure either." Lu Xiusi didn't care about this; after all, he had been studying in Wendeng Port under Professor Kalman, so finding a corpse for a secret dissection was no big deal. "The professor's teacher, I mean Professor Mo Lisen, is no ordinary person at Dunling University; there must be some way. The professor hasn't returned to Dunling in a long time; they must have found a method in these years."

Kraft used his powerful memory to ponder again, but still could not figure out how such a liquid could be produced from the human body.

He strongly suspected it was an instrument issue, causing them to inadvertently produce some toxic liquid. Perhaps the raw materials for making the glass instruments contained heavy metals that mixed in during the heating process. Then, Professor Mo Lisen, with no awareness of experimental safety, fed the sample to animals, or, with sheer boldness, took a sip himself.

That would explain it. Swallowing heavy metals or other neurotoxic substances would bring about central nervous system inhibition. Symptoms like dizziness and weakness would quickly manifest in both animals and humans.

Perfect. That would be a strong inhibitory effect, wouldn't it?

"Uh, Lu Xiusi, before we go see the actual substance, may I ask how much of it there is and what it's stored in?" Kraft carefully observed Lu Xiusi's appearance, assessing his mental state. Apart from some excitement, there seemed to be no immediate problems.

Lu Xiusi used his hand to gesture the size of a circle made by his thumb and forefinger: "Just a round glass bottle like this, brown, containing only enough to cover the bottom. When the professor experiments, he dips a small stick into it and dissolves a bit in water for use.

Why don't I just take you to see it? The sample is in the academy's basement. We dissolved a tiny bit in a cup of water; a person drinking a small sip would fall into a very deep sleep."

"You gave it to others to drink?!" Kraft was greatly shocked. The most ruthless operation he knew of was swallowing Helicobacter pylori alive, but compared to this, that was nothing.

"No, only the professor and I took turns testing it; absolutely no one else knows of its existence." Lu Xiusi's focus was clearly completely different from Kraft's. He excitedly held out his hand to show Kraft several red spots on it. "It's amazing. Just that tiny amount, and upon drinking it, one immediately falls into a deep slumber. Even heart rate and breathing slow down; at that point, pricking with a needle cannot wake them. They only wake after about a day, knowing nothing of what happened during that time."

"Huh?!" This operation had completely exceeded Kraft's imagination. The bravest thing he had ever done in two lifetimes combined was, at most, sniffing the gas produced by his group out of curiosity during a high school chemistry class.

Voluntarily tasting an unknown liquid that would make one sleep for a day, and taking turns doing so? This behavior was on par with playing Russian roulette for a dud, or even worse. If he had done such a thing, he could brag to Meng Po before drinking soup at the bridge, and even the devils in hell would look at him with new respect.

"Sit down quickly." Kraft pushed Lu Xiusi down into a chair. "I'm going to examine you. Don't ask why."

While patting and tapping Lu Xiusi here and there, he conducted a rigorous interrogation: "How long ago did you drink it? How many times? Besides the weakening of heart rate and breathing after losing consciousness, were there any other changes? Did you feel any discomfort after waking up? How is your mental state recently? Has your appetite changed? Are you sleeping well? Any abnormalities in urination or defecation?"

"No, everything is normal." Lu Xiusi was startled by his sudden seriousness. "According to the 'Theory of Humors,' as long as there is no strong trend of the body's fluids turning into Black Liquid in large quantities, a small, temporary increase in Black Liquid is just a momentary change. The professor is fine; how could someone as young as me have any problems?"

"Nonsense!" Kraft performed a physical examination on him from head to toe, finding no obvious abnormalities. Yet, the simple examination did not put his mind at ease; instead, it made him even more alert.

Extremely small amount, rapid onset upon oral ingestion, loss of consciousness for a day, unresponsive to pain. Paranoia made him even begin to suspect whether Lu Xiusi's current excitement was anticipation for continuing the experiment, or a sign of mild personality change and mental abnormality.

Kraft stepped back two paces and re-examined Lu Xiusi, his gaze sweeping over him from head to toe. From his brown hair and slightly pale face, to his hands pricked with several red spots, and finally to the papers he had been organizing upon entering.

Pale yellow papers covered most of the table. Most of the handwriting was slightly sloppy yet retained a certain beauty, with a rather casual layout. The font sizes on different papers varied, suggesting they were not written at the same time. Some were already stacked together, while the rest were scattered chaotically around, leaving the teacup for barley tea to sit miserably on the edge.

"What are these?"