Chapter 36: Chapter Thirty-Four: Another Perspective

“Harder than I imagined...”

Kraft lay on the floor, his speech fragmented. Frustration from blurred vision, anxiety over lost positioning, fear of infection—all erupted at once after completing the final step.

While focused on his hands, these emotions had been shut out; his mind held only how to solve the immediate crisis.

Exhaustion and intense emotional shock struck his brain, knocking him to the ground. Now that the hardest hurdle was behind him, he could finally allow himself to relax.

Kraft pressed himself against the cold floor, letting his body cool and loosen. He felt he had passed a peculiar exam, where the examiner hid all necessary conditions and left the sole candidate staring helplessly at a chaotic, ruleless problem.

He pieced together solutions from fragmented, limited resources, using a few special methods, and barely met the minimum requirements to submit a trembling answer.

He stared at the stone platform as if watching the proctor organizing and sealing exam papers, delivering them to an examiner who would judge by the strictest, most objective standards.

He would scrutinize this crude environment, deduct points for insufficient sterilization, deduct more for the wound’s prolonged exposure, and shake his head at the intestinal segment that hadn’t been checked for viability.

The patient’s body was the harshest examiner, never relaxing grading standards due to constraints, always demanding the unreasonable.

He had no power to interfere in this “grading” process—only silence and waiting for the result days later.

That said, the one most worried about now was certainly not Kraft himself, but Gris outside the door, anxiously waiting for news. He couldn’t lie here much longer.

“Help me up? Her family is still waiting outside for word.” Kraft extended a hand toward the two men beside him, their faces filled with delight and admiration. “Stop smiling—this isn’t over yet.”

“Not over?”

“Wait until Lise wakes up, observe for six to seven days, then remove the sutures once the wound heals. Then you can celebrate.” Kraft took Lu Xiusi’s hand and stood, pulling his black robe back on, then adjusted his appearance before the metal mirror.

A faint dizziness remained, but every extra minute he lay here meant another minute of anguish for Gris outside.

“Don’t move Lise yet. Let’s go out first so Gris can come in and sit with her. Don’t shift her yet.”

Kraft refused Li Si’s offer of help, staggering toward the door with a heavy head and light feet. Lu Xiusi rushed ahead and pulled the door open for him.

The first thing they saw wasn’t just the anxious father, but a corridor full of black-robed figures.

Gris stepped forward first, gripping Kraft’s hand, his eyes Yueguo his shoulder toward the classroom, trembling as he asked the question he’d been dreading: “My daughter...”

“So far, no problems—the surgery is complete. She may wake tomorrow or later. Go in and sit with her. Don’t move her.” Kraft stepped aside, letting him enter, then closed the door behind him, granting him privacy.

The students around them had already guessed the outcome from Lu Xiusi’s relaxed expression; Kraft’s words confirmed it. Cheers erupted from the crowd.

Kraft wanted them to quiet down so he could explain in detail, but they gave him no chance. As the man who had accomplished the unprecedented, he received an unprecedented hero’s welcome.

“The pioneer need not care for the words of those behind him.” Lecturer Luo Moluo pushed through the crowd and was the first to embrace Kraft with a strong, firm hug.

Then came the enthusiastic students, surrounding Kraft, each stepping forward to embrace him and offer their highest praise.

In their eyes, the surgery was already complete—regardless of prognosis, it was the first of its kind in history. The knowledge contributed by the dead had proven its worth on the living.

Whatever means were used—family secrets, other aids—it didn’t matter. The first-ever abdominal surgery, from diagnosis to treatment, had been performed right here in the academy, right beside them.

Wen Deng Harbor Medical Academy would forever stand alongside Kraft as a landmark name in future texts, and they were witnessing this historic moment.

A river of joy formed in the corridor, carrying Kraft through the medical academy, spreading the good news to every corner.

Students who had not heard the news were told, and joined the river in celebration. The crowd grew larger, lifting Kraft and carrying him in a full circle around the academy.

Kraft himself went from initial shock, to embarrassment, to utter numbness—exhibited like a float in a parade.

He didn’t know how to face these ecstatic students, who acted like super-fans watching their favorite team win the championship, lost in unconscious collective euphoria.

Throughout the entire medical academy, all who heard the news were astonished, then rushed to spread it. The news spread at an unbelievable speed, quickly radiating outward. By tomorrow, every tavern in Wen Deng Harbor would know: a legendary figure at the medical academy could open a belly to treat illness, then sew it back shut.

This news would undoubtedly ferment and warp further, transformed through secondhand, thirdhand, and countless retellings into something even more absurd.

Even several lecturers joined them, cheering about going out to book an entire tavern. They hadn’t even counted how many would go, or which tavern could hold so many.

Li Siton and Lu Xiusi, as participants, had been dragged off somewhere at the start and were likely now boasting somewhere in the celebration procession.

At this moment, Kraft no longer cared. He had finally broken free from the crowd and escaped back to the professor’s room. He alone was out of place in the celebration, burdened by worries only he knew.

Postoperative infection loomed as the largest dark cloud overhead, Suishikenengfasheng , with no recourse but to endure.

He hoped there were no necrotic intestinal segments he had missed—given that terrible visibility, it was entirely possible.

He hoped the black fluid wouldn’t harm Lise, a child.

He hoped the intestinal intussusception wouldn’t recur—if it did, he had no idea what to do next.

He had too many hopes and fears. Helplessness returned. Kraft had too many things he wanted to accomplish but couldn’t in this moment. If the case had been even slightly more complex, it would have plunged into irreversible disaster—even his risky use of the black fluid would have meant nothing.

This was inevitable. All his efforts ultimately returned to this fundamental truth: the methods he knew could not function in this era. He could only watch diseases he knew how to cure rage on, then turn back to writing books for a future generation that could wield them.

He refused to be content with this. Even if he became a professor, even if his books reached posterity, he would still have to sit idle while countless people died within his limited lifespan.

This was torture.

Kraft slammed Lise’s medical record onto the desk. Completing this surgery brought him no satisfaction—it made him aware of things he had previously ignored.

A simple case of intussusception—one of the most common acute abdominal conditions in infants—had rendered him helpless.

How many children were there in Wen Deng Harbor? What was the incidence rate of intussusception under current hygiene conditions? How many died?

He wavered. He began to find his own notebook note—“If unnecessary, never touch”—ridiculous. The black fluid was strange, incomprehensible—but was it not terrifying that so many lives were lost to disease?

He remembered the black stone pillar he couldn’t take away. He remembered the villagers who chose to live in that land despite knowing of the “fever disease.”

Anomalous phenomena were dangerous things he couldn’t understand. Disease and material scarcity brought unknown terror and death to these people.

To them, these things were fundamentally no different—even the stone pillar’s decades-long influence likely affected fewer people than common illnesses.

Kraft realized something more terrifying than the indescribable: he himself was the flawed one—for fear of a limited, possible danger, he rejected something of infinite value.

Lu Xiusi’s attitude was the one suited to this era: pursuing every opportunity to advance technology, no matter the cost, into the boundless unknown.

He could defy the Church’s ban on dissection and social tradition. He could experiment on himself. After all, nothing could be worse than being powerless in the future.

If he proved the black fluid could be used more widely, this surgery became repeatable. He could promote it across Wen Deng Harbor—even if he couldn’t match today’s level, it would be a qualitative change.

Once his thinking opened, more ideas came one after another.

Until now, aside from the instinctive sense of danger, anomalous phenomena had brought him only benefits: expanded awareness, surgical success, the chance to apply knowledge beyond his era.

Does that mean they can indeed be harnessed under certain conditions?

This was an irresistible shortcut: discard irrational fears, add caution, and reach the goal directly.

The stone pillar shattered his mental limits with the dream of the great serpent, allowing him to freely use all knowledge he had acquired; the black fluid shattered his visual limits, granting him a new perspective on anomalous phenomena.

Kraft felt something fragile deep within shatter. He pushed open a new window, reevaluating things labeled dangerous. Their meaning was reconstructed; the scales tipped toward the other side.

Emotional fluctuations drained his last reserves of energy. The accumulated fatigue of the morning swept over him; his Feiteng spirit gradually cooled.

In his final moment before losing consciousness, he clutched the copper bottle that had held the diluted fluid, and fell asleep on the desk.