[{"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-32":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},2283510,4467,"Chapter 32","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-32",32,"\u003Cp>“Name?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Gris.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No, I mean the child’s name. How old is she?” Kraft quickly filled in “Gris” under the family member column, noting “father of patient.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They sat in an empty classroom. Lu Xiusi had been sent to fetch two blankets—lying on the hard bench would be uncomfortable. The arriving students were held back, leaving enough space.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The paper in his hand was pulled from a stack of copying sheets, resting atop Volume Two of *Human Anatomy*. A nearby student quietly handed him an ink bottle. His pen moved swiftly across the page, letters flowing into a continuous line.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though Kraft’s handwriting was indeed neat, his clinical notes were always crooked—as if some mysterious force distorted them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Lise. Her name is Lise.” Gris answered nervously, voice low and fast, as if delaying even a moment might make Kraft abandon them. “She’s three this year.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The crowd of black-robed figures pressed heavily on him. They had stepped back as requested, yet still cast an eerie, chilling atmosphere into the bright room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Where does it hurt?” Kraft asked, glancing at the child lying on the bench. At this age, gender was hard to tell—upon reflection, he’d seen the child in the tavern before, but the plain, unremarkable clothes had led him to assume it was a boy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this topic, Gris looked like he might cry, eyes red, yet he held his emotions in check, describing what he knew as clearly as possible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Two days ago, she seemed to have eaten something bad and started having diarrhea. We thought it would pass in a few days, but this morning the pain worsened—she couldn’t even speak properly.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I took her to the church for holy water, and to the clinic for herbal decoction, but neither helped.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What herbs?” Kraft pressed. He knew holy water—just water blessed through strange rituals. He’d drunk it as a child; as a placebo, it was at least harmless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Herbs were another matter. Few clinic doctors outside the Academy were graduates; quack remedies ran rampant, anything could be tossed into the brew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This wasn’t Chinese medicine with its pattern differentiation and treatment. The amateur healers of Wendeng Port treated illness less like medicine and more like some green-skinned thing that sprouted from the ground—guided purely by “I think.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I’m sorry, I don’t know…” Gris looked lost. “The priest said it’s because I didn’t fully believe in the Lord. Should I not have let her drink those herbs?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The middle-aged man gripped his head in anguish, nearly pulling out his hair. In his eyes, this was a sign of death—he might lose his only child.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I didn’t mean that,” Kraft said, placing a hand on his shoulder to calm him. “Forget it if you can’t remember. I have other questions.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gris was the kind of parent doctors loved best. Amid his panic and fear for his daughter, he remained remarkably composed, allowing Kraft to gather relatively complete information quickly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The patient was Lise, Gris’s three-year-old daughter, who suddenly developed fever and diarrhea two days ago, with stools as watery as water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This wasn’t unusual. Children this age often got sick from eating something strange—it happened all the time, and most parents didn’t worry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a father who paid close attention to his child, Gris had even taken time to pray at the church and brought back holy water for her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after drinking the holy water for a day, Lise’s condition didn’t improve. Worried, Gris took her to a nearby clinic, where the doctor prescribed an herbal decoction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing the oddly colored brew, Gris still decided to let Lise try it—and she did. This morning, her mild abdominal pain rapidly worsened. Her bowel movements decreased, but now carried blood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Desperate, Gris took Lise to both the church and the clinic. The priest said only prayer and divine will could help. The clinic doctor had no solution, only trying to distance himself.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a long-time tavern owner near the Academy, Gris’s last resort was to seek help from someone he knew there—otherwise, he could only wait for a miracle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I need to examine her. Is that all right?” Kraft finished recording the current illness history and basic information. Past and family history were sparse: Lise’s mother had died suddenly of an unknown illness; Gris couldn’t say what it was, but Lise had never suffered serious illness since birth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes, thank you,” Gris nodded quickly. He didn’t understand why he needed permission, but Kraft’s tone suggested he was taking over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I mean a full examination—touching the entire abdomen, including the upper thighs.” Kraft glanced at the group of students behind him. “This isn’t suitable for an audience. Gentlemen, please step out for now. Use this time to reflect on why I asked so many questions.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hmm… all right.” Gris hesitated, then agreed, preparing to leave with the students. Perhaps Kraft’s unusual seriousness had earned his trust—he asked no questions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Gris, stay. I meant them—the family stays to comfort the child.” The students quickly left. Kraft pulled Gris to the child’s side and began the exam.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft brushed back Lise’s hair, touched her forehead—no fever. Her face was streaked with tears; she wasn’t crying now because she’d cried too long and had nothing left.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He already had a rough idea. This was exactly the kind of case diagnostic textbooks loved—acute abdomen, simply put: “Doctor, my stomach hurts.” Even without his extraordinary memory, he could apply the knowledge effortlessly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A three-year-old child with two days of diarrhea and fever—likely a gastrointestinal infection from a pathogen common in Wendeng Port, surrounded by seafood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But today’s condition was probably not just worsening infection. Bowel movements suddenly decreased, now with blood—likely an obstruction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft pressed on the abdomen, seemingly normal. No obvious rigidity or tension.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He exhaled slightly—no signs of peritoneal irritation from fluid leakage. Maybe it wasn’t serious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Following a fixed path, he quickly found confirmation: a mass in the right lower abdomen, feeling like a sausage.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Relief flooded him. It was intussusception. Given the location, it was almost certainly ileocecal intussusception.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A segment of the ileum had telescoped into the large intestine, layers folding into layers, blocking the passage. Common in children with unstable gut function, one of the most frequent acute abdominal emergencies in pediatric surgery.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This poor child likely had viral diarrhea—a known risk factor for intussusception—and then drank strange herbal brews, inevitably triggering it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The diagnostic process had gone smoothly, giving Kraft the familiar feeling of answering a professor’s question in case discussion class—finding all the evidence, then confidently stating the answer.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Logically, the next step would be imaging to confirm—but there was no ultrasound here, no abdominal X-ray. A definitive diagnosis was impossible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He re-covered the child, picked up his pen, and divided the bottom of the page into “Preliminary Diagnosis.” In North language, he combined the words for “intestine” and “telescoped,” leaving a line beneath.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he had time, he’d add an explanation below. Since becoming a lecturer, he’d developed the habit of leaving space for definitions—almost an occupational compulsion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked up at Gris. “You can think of it as one segment of intestine sliding into another and getting stuck. Do you remember when the pain started?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“About two bell strikes before I took her to church. I can’t recall the exact time.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That meant between one and a half to two hours ago. A stroke of luck. Even after the church visit, the timing hadn’t reached the point of bowel necrosis. Non-surgical treatment was still possible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So what was the non-surgical treatment again?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No…” Kraft muttered, his relief vanishing. Like solving a math problem and reaching the final step only to find the calculation incomplete.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What’s wrong?” Gris tensed. Kraft had just explained the cause—now it seemed complicated again. The worst thing a doctor could do was smile and then slowly stop smiling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft didn’t answer. A serious problem blocked his path.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His standard knowledge said air enema—easily resolving most early-stage intussusception like Lise’s.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But that required equipment. He wasn’t trained in machinery—he had no idea how to control air pressure to reinflate the intestine without perforating it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if he knew how to build it, could he magically conjure a machine out of thin air? Even if the Church’s God appeared and granted him the device, how would he confirm successful reduction without ultrasound or X-ray?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Air enema was impossible. Only one option remained: surgery. Kraft would have to cut into little Lise, using an invasive but direct method to manually reduce the intussusception.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if air enema was out, could he even do surgery? Without anesthesia, without sterility—surgery was worse than praying for an angel to deliver an air enema machine.\u003C\u002Fp>",1447,"2026-06-20T02:15:55.761Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","77db9c4e96f0c05e6236d5470265ee274d8b09246e594daa905224fdcce915d6","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-33","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-31",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]