Chapter 273

【Can't you hear them?】

As the surgical participants were enveloped in unprecedented excitement, the patient posed this question.

Kraft could imagine the scene: the celebrating crowd cooled down, like fish noticing the ice forming on the water's surface—still not fully comprehending, yet sensing an invisible, unspoken change, as cold as winter.

The patient, recently recovered from severe illness, was in high spirits and even drank a cup of wine that day, but kept suddenly turning his head toward some direction, the reflexive reaction of someone hearing his own name.

He was certain he heard voices, and that those voices were directed at him, though they came from different tones and he could not make out what they said.

"It was as if a group of uninvited guests had slipped into the scene," wrote the notebook's author.

Attributing this to fluid imbalance caused by intraoperative blood loss was a plausible idea—such as a deficiency of hot red fluids allowing the cold white fluids to become relatively active, inducing hypersensitivity in mental perception.

But the patient's short-term subjective feedback did not support this diagnosis; the direction of the voices grew increasingly clear.

During a follow-up visit days later, they saw the patient using an iron pick to pry open the sewer stone slabs beside the courtyard wall; his strong arms had fully healed, new granulation tissue nearly enveloping the sutures scheduled for staged removal.

【They're right below】

Something had clearly gone wrong, the recorder was certain; he documented it thoroughly and submitted his report, receiving only the reply: no action needed, continue observation.

This stirred resentment toward his superiors—after all, "that one" had always been known for meticulousness, never overlooking even the tiniest detail in experiments, a mindset that had yielded abundant results.

Or perhaps this outcome was expected?

He still held a positive view of the new surgical material; with the patient regaining the ability to resume labor and daily life, the minor, controllable psychiatric symptoms could be nearly ignored.

More than that, he was concerned about the origin of the surgical supplies—would they again become a secret refused to be disclosed, like the previous anesthetic?

Before this discordant voice emerged in this hyper-closed circle, this had been his greatest worry, for the supply of the new material seemed extremely limited, so much so that he had waited months without a second use.

Observation of the first patient had lasted over a month; the psychiatric symptoms, once thought to resolve spontaneously with fluid balance, showed no sign of improvement, even worsening progressively.

Noticeable personality changes appeared in the patient: he grew easily agitated, lost interest in surrounding things, and an indescribable psychological discomfort, like persistent mosquito bites, gnawed at his consciousness.

His former familiar life now brought pain; he longed to follow the voices, find their source, find the answer to his release.

Even colleagues who constantly boasted "he regained independent living ability" began to waver. The best current hypothesis was that these side effects were isolated cases, or caused by technique flaws, resolvable through improved methods.

Yet the leader of the small circle and two colleagues who had previously voiced doubts remained strangely silent.

【No opinion】

This was another way of saying "won't say."

The recorder left two full pages of postoperative discussion, analyzing the gains and losses of the surgery, even touching on the debate of body versus consciousness. After long contemplation, he suddenly realized the current disagreement was likely due to asymmetric information.

And regarding the subtle fracture within the small group, the leader ultimately proposed a solution: if there might be an issue, let's perform one more case and see.

"What?" Kraft reread the line, confirming he understood its meaning correctly.

Their preliminary plan was to implant a small fragment of special material and record the complete, precise sensations throughout the process, to determine whether it was a physical or mental disorder.

Since the patient was not a professional, his subjective descriptions were imprecise; how to fully and accurately perceive the process became the second challenge.

But this did not trouble them long—they chose a simple, brutal solution to bypass the difficulty: operate on themselves.

"What?!"

The author volunteered to be the one to experience and record it; his proposal was approved.

Kraft realized he now held something rare: a true "primary source," an unusually direct conclusion drawn by a professional through firsthand experience.

Of course, he hadn't burned his bridges; in his initial plan, he didn't need to go as deep as the first time—just implant a nail-sized fragment beneath the skin's superficial layer, requiring no general anesthesia, only the old method: freeze until slightly numb, then drink two sips of wine before proceeding.

If anything went wrong, the implant could be quickly excised and removed, reducing risk to an acceptable level.

"What's wrong? Your face looks pale."

"It feels like seeing an old acquaintance—the style is identical. I wouldn't believe they weren't taught by the same person."

The surgery was a complete success—or rather, there was no technical reason it could have failed; for them to perform it was almost an overkill.

"This is the second time I've seen that thing—it looked like a chipped stone fragment, white in a color I'd never seen before," he recorded, his handwriting slightly unsteady, perhaps due to postoperative clumsiness in one hand.

"When I touched it, I felt 'vitality'—hard to describe, like a shard of bone that had been removed yet remained alive long after, cold marrow seeping out, carrying a damp chill even through my frozen arm."

The wound healed by the next day; days later, the skin was smooth as before, the implant detectable only by touch.

The first sensation was a dull ache, somewhere between a light prick and a burn, followed by complex feelings of coldness and itching.

His mental state was unusually stable; he often found himself writing past his usual bedtime without noticing.

Peaceful life lasted until a night a week later, when indistinct human voices interrupted his work.

At first he thought it was family reminding him to rest, but downstairs he found them already asleep, lights out. The empty, dark house held only him, the candle in his hand, and the voices again.

A young voice, as if just a few steps away, yet also as if from the street outside.

He stood still, silently counting over two hundred breaths before the voice sounded again.

This time, the voice was old and weary, rising from below, gurgling as if from a throat clogged with phlegm, meaningless yet unmistakably calling his name.

【Like hearing your name on the street and naturally turning to look】

The house had no basement. He searched every room—the parlor, kitchen, storage—every possible hiding space, driven by inexplicable fear and an instinct to find the source, unable to find peace until he did.

His family awoke; only after his wife calmed him did he realize he had slipped into an uncontrollable state of anxiety, just like the patient.

"I need to know what that thing is. I need to know where the voices come from." The erratic, jagged notes revealed he had been captured by intense emotion; the plan to remove the implant never reappeared.

His accounts of the implant grew increasingly frequent; he began detailing the sensations and the mounting voices, cataloging them by age and suspected direction.

When Dunling's rainy season arrived, a strange pattern emerged: his auditory hallucinations worsened on rainy days.

Whenever heavy rain flowed through the city's ancient drainage channels, countless voices rose from underground, whispering ceaselessly through the night.

And at this time, the leader of the small circle promised him an answer—the answer to the voices, and to everything.