[{"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-25":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},2283503,4467,"Chapter 25: Chapter Twenty-Three: I Suspect Something","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-25",25,"\u003Cp>“What are these?” Kraft frowned; this scene was truly unfriendly to anyone with OCD.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Say he didn’t tidy up, yet he did organize a little; say he did tidy up, it was no different from leaving it messy. The chaos on the desk reminded him of the scattered pages his grandfather had bought—without page numbers, they could inflict severe mental strain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh, speaking of which, you’ve arrived just in time. These are experimental records from the past ten days, but they’ve been mixed up—I’m sorting them out.” Lu Xiusi picked up one sheet and handed it to Kraft. “Professor Karlman is a good mentor—if only he didn’t leave things lying around.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft took the paper from his hand; the handwriting, upon close inspection, matched the letter quite well. The writer’s habitual connected strokes and slant were clearly present, and even in the haste of experimentation, decorative flourishes were still added.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The script was clear; the content was vague.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The fragmentary record contained a few lines of incomprehensible text: it seemed to describe feeding different cups of water to several rats, with only numbers assigned, no specifics. Below each line were scattered abbreviations—Kraft guessed they likely indicated the rats’ fates.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft didn’t know the professor’s shorthand habits and couldn’t deduce what words had been condensed or possibly invented on the spot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He flipped the page over—no explanation, no experiment date or number—so he returned it to Lu Xiusi. “What do these words mean? I’m not familiar with the professor’s writing.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Unfortunately, that’s the problem—I don’t recognize them either, which is why I asked you for help.” Lu Xiusi glanced at the sheet and tossed it onto a neat stack—except this stack wasn’t organized; it was simply abandoned, unreadable. The mess was far worse than Kraft had estimated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I mean, isn’t there a possibility that Professor Karlman is your mentor, not mine?” Kraft picked up another sheet from the desk and glanced at it—it appeared to depict part of an animal’s bones and muscles. He knew little about this; he could at least tell it wasn’t human.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Combined with the previous one, if they were connected, perhaps they depicted rat anatomy? He had no idea where the professor had obtained these rats for experiments. Nowadays, no one seemed to keep the familiar white lab rats—the professor’s writings clearly referred to ordinary rats, and he wondered if they’d even been washed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If not, he’d better wash his hands after handling these records.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It wasn’t always like this. Recently, the mentor has become too obsessed with black liquid research—he doesn’t even care whether I can understand his notes anymore.” Lu Xiusi was clearly frustrated. “Besides, I didn’t even participate in most of these experiments—I can’t recall when most of them were done. The mentor rushed off to Dunling without properly explaining anything.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Wait—you’re saying these are the experimental records on black liquid?” Kraft’s hand trembled; words like heavy metals and neurotoxicity spun through his mind. The very papers in his hands had been written by two people who’d handled the substance without protection.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes.” Lu Xiusi looked utterly unsurprised, even puzzled that Kraft had only just realized it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“And you just brought these records here, openly? Don’t you fear someone walking in and seeing them?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft felt numb. When he first read the letter, he assumed it described some high-end experiment on a mysterious substance. In the alien soul’s stereotype, such experiments should involve teams in hazmat suits, masks, operating in a top-tier lab like Umbrella Corporation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then such dangerous, precise materials should be locked away in an inaccessible safe, retrievable only after passing through three heavy iron doors, descending at least three underground levels, and pressing a secret button in a hidden chamber.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That might be exaggerated, but even with limited resources, why bring classified documents straight to the office to sort through? What if some clueless person walked in and glanced at them? Did you never even consider that possibility?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“It’s not that likely… no one usually comes here; everyone knows the professor left on business.” Lu Xiusi gathered the remaining papers scattered on the desk, his complete indifference raising Kraft’s suspicion of neurotoxicity another notch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Since we can’t figure it out, just put them away—somewhere no one could ever find, and lock it.” Kraft stacked his drawing on top of the pile, feeling as if he’d accidentally boarded a pirate ship. If the professor’s cleanup was such a mess, someone had to clean up after him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The immediate priority was to hide this pile of records where they shouldn’t be—perhaps in the secret lab the professor mentioned in the letter. It wasn’t exactly secret, but it was still better than leaving them exposed here.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He could only hope the place wasn’t too obvious—and add another lock.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not being able to read the records was, ironically, a stroke of luck—if anyone did see them, they’d have little chance of realizing what the professor was actually doing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“By the way, you said that lab is in the Medical Academy? And the samples are stored there too?” Watching Lu Xiusi place the records into a plain wooden crate, Kraft realized the storage conditions for other items were likely just as bad. “How exactly is the sample preserved?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“In a glass bottle—didn’t I just say that?” Lu Xiusi slammed the lid shut and tapped the warped edges twice, sealing it firmly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The motion reminded Kraft of how he used to fix his childhood TV—bashing it with crude, effective blows until it submitted and worked again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ssshh~” Someone sucked in a sharp breath. “I didn’t mean the bottle—I mean, do you have any other preservation measures?” He should’ve thought of this sooner. That lab was no safe place at all. A substance whose volatility was unknown, effective in minuscule doses, stored in a poorly ventilated basement?!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft’s mind raced. This wasn’t merely a case of simple negligence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One or two oversights, he could rationalize as the world’s underdeveloped scientific standards—no systematic experimental protocols. But as he stepped into this office, oddities kept piling up, now reaching a level impossible to ignore.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The professor shouldn’t be like this. When he first arrived at the academy, even the near-certainty of human dissection had been asked about obliquely; the day before, he’d even given him *Human Anatomy* as preparation. Karlman was a scholar, indeed careless with fellow academics—but he was not ignorant of social cues or caution.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Could such a man really leave without explaining anything? Forget to tell him to hide his notes? Forget to explain his own newly invented abbreviations to Lu Xiusi?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fine, Kraft could concede—perhaps Professor Karlman had been blinded by overwhelming joy. The professor was old; to witness a decades-old academic barrier broken in his lifetime might have clouded his judgment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now consider Lu Xiusi. He was outgoing, sometimes a bit slow-witted, but not an idiot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if the professor didn’t instruct him, leaving so many original experimental records lying around in a room anyone could walk into was utterly unreasonable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yes, one could argue the content was too obscure to be understood—objectively, no major fault could be found. The Medical Academy was Karlman and Lu Xiusi’s base; such behavior wasn’t entirely unjustifiable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then there was the near-reckless experimental method: the two drank diluted samples without fully understanding the black liquid’s nature, without even confirming it was “black liquid.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Recall the man who swallowed *Helicobacter pylori*—he did so only because no one believed him, and the worst outcome was chronic gastritis or gastric ulcers. What gave Karlman and Lu Xiusi the confidence to do this? Did they truly believe such a heavily diluted sample posed no risk?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They took turns drinking, took turns collapsing for a day, then immediately attributed it to humoral theory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then Lu Xiusi, based on humoral theory, found a few claims that small amounts of black liquid wouldn’t disrupt the body’s balance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Too strange. Each detail had an explanation, yet Kraft instinctively felt something was deeply wrong. The lighting wasn’t poor, yet an icy, eerie atmosphere—only he could sense it—filled the room, strange yet subtly familiar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Turn off the small stove for boiling water.” Kraft snatched the crate from Lu Xiusi’s hands, reopened the lid, and methodically laid each sheet flat across the desk, ignoring the other’s stunned expression.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The records quickly covered the entire desk. Kraft shoved two barley tea cups into Lu Xiusi’s hands. “Hold these,” he said, clearing more space.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once fully spread without overlap, the desk couldn’t hold them all. More records were laid flat on the floor, stretching all the way to the walls. He hurried to the window and flung it wide open, letting in more sunlight to examine them thoroughly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only when fully spread out did he realize how many there were. The small crate held barely half—yet when piled on the desk, they covered nearly three times the desk’s area, filling almost every surface bathed in direct sunlight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Need any help?” Lu Xiusi stood beside him, holding the two tea cups like a student forced to stay after class. Kraft had no attention left for him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Walking around the floor of papers, Kraft circled several times. The records, when bunched together, showed no pattern—but now, spread out, their structure emerged. Based on his familiarity with the script, even without page numbers or dates, he could roughly categorize them.\u003C\u002Fp>",1557,"2026-06-20T02:15:55.761Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","6915a5c8edf6ec339333e4942afcc7b1a9bd393891d69a68b04c2cdc5a4ae596","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-26","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-24",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]