Chapter 28: Chapter Twenty-Six: Bad News

Kraft's hand trembled as he held the bottle, nearly flinging it away. He immediately tightened his grip, clutching it firmly to prevent himself from losing control and smashing it.

In terror, he regained his grip on reason. After experiencing things beyond ordinary comprehension, his spirit seemed to undergo an unknown transformation, becoming harder to shake.

It cannot have its own thoughts; it is merely a tiny amount of liquid, lacking any basis for generating cognitive ability.

This liquid merely influences me through some mechanism—not speaking directly. The impulsive thoughts just now were entirely composed of preexisting material within my own mind.

Curiosity about the new thing, the plan for animal experiments, learning that the professor and Lu Xiusi had ingested the diluted fluid—these fragments were excavated and pieced together to form a new idea favorable to releasing it from the bottle.

Driven by intense curiosity, my mind completed these contents on its own; thus, its "persuasion" provided only the most primitive attraction, while everything else was handled by Kraft's own thinking.

The principle is simple: it's like a scammer calling with an urgent message, giving no clear details, only generating immense anxiety—all the content is imagined by the panicked victim.

A single primal impulse, like a lever, moved the entire situation by manipulating the target's subconscious motivations—applicable to all beings.

"This is fascinating," Kraft lifted the small bottle, murmuring in admiration. Though he didn't know how it influenced his emotions, the mechanism was brilliant.

If it truly is some kind of alien lifeform, then this is far more sophisticated than an anglerfish's lure.

In fact, it has nearly succeeded already: two people have acted irrationally as it intended, allowing it to easily achieve its goal of contacting more organisms.

At least several rats and two humans have directly contacted the black fluid.

One thing remains unclear: what is the point? Lu Xiusi currently shows no obvious abnormalities—what is it trying to accomplish?

Is it a parasite living in the liquid? A bacterium? Or a virus? Its pursuit of transmission is merely to spread itself more widely, to multiply endlessly, completing meaningless replication.

It has been over ten days since Lu Xiusi contacted it; physically, he shows no abnormalities. His mental state, however, is hard to assess at this point.

Is the quantity too small? Or does the black fluid simply not cause drastic changes in the short term? Will the rats used in the experiments hold the answer?

Kraft carefully placed the bottle on another table and asked Lu Xiusi, who held the candlestick: "Do you remember any changes in the rats you fed the diluted fluid? I mean, besides falling unconscious."

"No," Lu Xiusi shook his head. "Fourteen rats total—all dissected by the professor. No long-term observations were made up until the final experiment."

"If you feel any discomfort, please notify me immediately," Kraft patted Lu Xiusi's shoulder, then glanced at the bottle on the table. "To be honest, I feel this thing is dangerous. Unless absolutely necessary, we should avoid touching it."

Kraft couldn't explain to Lu Xiusi what he had sensed. When he consciously resisted, the black fluid's influence could not force extreme actions—especially after distancing himself, the effect rapidly weakened to near imperceptibility.

"Seriously, no joking—we should keep as far away from it as possible. Don't you find your own impulse to drink the diluted fluid strange?" he added. His tone made him seem like a timid old scholar, abandoning a precious opportunity over a tiny risk.

But Kraft knew this was the best choice. For something beyond comprehension, suspected to be alive, and with a tendency to spread, caution could never be excessive.

Had he not feared stirring up trouble, he would have locked the door, filled the cellar with earth, and never set foot here again until the professor returned and understood everything.

This is not something he should touch—like the gift he brought back from "beyond the cave," it belongs to no part of human common knowledge. The cost of delving too deep, he had not yet decided whether he could pay.

He rejected this change. He rejected paying any unknown price. He had lifted a corner of the great curtain, horrified by what he saw, lacking the courage to face the full picture.

At least for now, he had no sufficient reason to plunge into this murky water.

"Alright, alright," Lu Xiusi picked up the glass bottle, shook it, and the black fluid rolled inside, striking the thick walls before settling calmly at the bottom.

He opened the cabinet door to put the bottle back, but as he lifted it, his motion froze.

He held the bottle at eye level for several seconds, then placed it back on the table. Beneath the candlelight, he leaned down to the table's surface, rotating the bottle several times.

Then he said, in a tone of disbelief: "It seems a little less?"

"A little less?"

"Yes, look at this line," Lu Xiusi brought the candlestick closer, pointing to a spot near the bottle's base, making it clearer for Kraft.

There was a faint scratch, lightly made, almost invisible—so much so that Kraft had not noticed it at all earlier.

Lu Xiusi gripped Kraft's shoulder, urging him to bend down and view the line at table height.

"This line was scratched by me on the professor's last day before leaving. It should align exactly with the highest fluid level. When I took it out just now, I felt something was off."

"Are you sure?"

"I thought at first it was a perspective issue," Lu Xiusi's breathing behind his mask grew heavy and rapid. He adjusted his spectacles, repositioned the beak, and leaned down again to confirm.

Indeed, if this scratch was the standard, the current fluid level showed a clear discrepancy—about a quarter of the original height had vanished.

The fluid itself was already minimal; without the scratch as a reference, memory and intuition alone would make a definitive judgment nearly impossible.

"Could it have evaporated?" Kraft asked. People in this world understood the three states of matter, though they still regarded the mist above a kettle as water vapor, believing it was invisible in daily life because it was too thin and faint.

"No," Kraft immediately dismissed the guess himself.

He recalled the professor had left only seven days ago, and the experiments had lasted over ten days, each time taking only tiny amounts. The fluid was already so little—if evaporation had been this obvious, it would have been noticed long ago.

Considering the fluid's original minuscule quantity, it might have evaporated entirely during transport to Venden Port—there would have been no chance for it to remain until now.

"Evaporated? Unlikely," Lu Xiusi also rejected the idea. He was deeply puzzled, unable to comprehend how this could have happened.

"Besides the professor and you, could anyone else have come here?" Kraft pressed. This was the most plausible explanation he could think of—if not, then the black fluid must have escaped on its own.

Lu Xiusi reached into his pocket, where lay the heavy metal lock and its key hanging on the door. His fingers brushed over the cold metal, a comforting sensation.

"That's impossible. Only you and the professor have the key. Unless someone broke the lock and rehung it exactly as before—but this lock isn't easy to tamper with." Lu Xiusi gave another negative answer.

He had considered this possibility too. No one in the academy had reason to do so. Secret experiments were normal—most ended in failure; it would be strange if they had no secrets. Who would go through so much trouble to find someone else's secret lab?

As for outsiders—never mind how they got in—suppose someone wandered into this complex building by accident, opened the lock, rehung it, and took only a tiny amount of unknown liquid from the small bottle?

Could the black fluid have literally walked away? Kraft was baffled. It clearly had no such capability—could it have lifted the stopper, spilled some, then resealed it?

If it were truly that extraordinary, why would it need to lure organisms to contact it?

Amid a tangle of questions, Kraft eliminated several possibilities, and the entire event was now shrouded in sudden fog.

But there was still one possibility.

"This may sound strange, but since no one else is here, I have to ask: did the professor know you made this scratch?" Kraft asked, his red-lensed eyes fixed on Lu Xiusi, waiting for him to say the professor obviously knew.

"…," Lu Xiusi fell silent—as if thinking, or as if unsure how to answer. But silence itself was the answer.

The atmosphere in the room grew slightly frozen. Professor Kallmann was supposed to be the last person who could possibly be at fault. Kraft had mentioned it casually, never expecting it to be true.

He hesitated, picked up the bottle and set it down again, offering no direct opinion, only revealing what he knew: "I scratched it with a small stone fragment, just to estimate future experimental quantities. I didn't tell the professor."

The situation began unfolding in the direction Kraft most feared.

Professor Kallmann always conducted experiments alongside Lu Xiusi, entrusting him with organizing all records. As the professor's academic heir, he had been given near-total trust—more than even a biological son might receive.

What reason could have driven him to secretly take a quarter of the black fluid, avoiding Lu Xiusi entirely before leaving?

In any case, it couldn't possibly be for animal testing. There was no need to hide animal tests from Lu Xiusi; having an extra person would clearly be more convenient.

……

……

The two put the bottles back in the cupboard, left the box containing the experimental records, locked the door, covered it with the box, and left the cellar without a word.

Lu Xiusi looked somewhat dejected, but he patiently explained to Kraft the time and location for his lectures as an instructor, as well as the specific location of the house the professor had reserved for Kraft, and only departed after confirming Kraft had no questions.

Kraft thanked him and watched his somewhat weary figure disappear at the end of the corridor. He knew what Lu Xiusi was thinking.

The person he regarded as a half-father had not given him the complete trust he had expected. He was surely now wondering if he had done something wrong somewhere, or if he had failed to demonstrate abilities matching Kalman's expectations.

This self-denial might have struck him too hard; regardless of the cause, it was difficult for him to accept, and he would likely take quite a few days to recover.

Kraft did not go to comfort Lu Xiusi, nor did he know how to comfort him. He still had his own problems to figure out, and Kalman's concealment was bad news for him as well.

The liquid exhibiting strange induction tendencies, the twisted and bizarre characters in the professor's notes, the missing portion taken from the samples...

He stood in the corridor, scarlet with the setting sun, and took a deep breath, as if trying to drag the elongated shadows of the corridor pillars, along with the dust-dancing beams of light, into his lungs.

A faint, familiar yet strange, unnamed scent permeated his mouth and nose, making him instinctively feel it should not appear here. Yet when he focused on his sense of smell, he could not capture it.

Since he first entered this building, the more he learned, the more obvious it became. It existed among the spread-out experimental records, lingered in the basement, and appeared at every moment Kraft received inspiration.

Kraft suddenly woke up, realizing why he felt a sense of familiarity. It was a faint but irrefutable characteristic, indescribable, incomprehensible, and something that should not exist in the world.

"Damn!" The otherworldly part of his soul couldn't help but blurt out a curse from his homeland, "It really is bad news."

He had already encountered an existence of the same kind, far more intense than this, in a snowy night. And now, it was merely a reunion, whether by chance or fate.