Chapter 36: Another Perspective

"More difficult than I imagined..."

Kraft lay on the ground, his speech broken and intermittent. The irritability of blurred vision, the anxiety of being unable to find his position, and the worry about infection—all these emotions erupted at once after he completed the final step.

While focused on the work at hand, these were all blocked out, his mind filled only with how to handle the current difficulty.

Exhaustion and intense emotions assaulted his brain, knocking him to the ground. Only now, having crossed the hardest hurdle, could he allow himself to relax for a while.

Kraft pressed himself against the cold floor, letting his body cool and relax. He felt he had passed a special exam; the malicious examiner had hidden all necessary conditions, leaving the sole student to scratch his head over a completely disordered set of questions.

Piecing together fragmented and limited conditions, he wrote down the solution in his mind, even borrowing a special method, and finally submitted a nervous answer sheet that barely met the minimum requirements.

He looked at the stone platform as if watching the proctor organize and seal the exam papers, sending them before some grader to be judged by the most objective and strict standards.

He would scrutinize this crude environment with a picky eye, deducting points for instruments that were not sufficiently sterilized, deducting more points for the wound left open for too long, and shaking his head at the intestinal segment that failed to undergo further activity checks.

The patient's body is the strictest grader, never relaxing its scoring standards due to limited conditions, always making unreasonable demands.

He was powerless to interfere with this "grading" process and could only wait quietly for the results in a few days.

Come to think of it, the one most worried right now was certainly not Kraft himself, but Gris waiting anxiously outside the door. He could not lie here for too long.

"Pull me up, okay? Her family is still waiting for news outside." Kraft extended a hand, seeking help from the two men beside him who were full of surprise and admiration, "Stop smiling; this is far from over."

"Not over yet?"

"Wait until Lies wakes up, observe for another six to seven days, and only after the wound heals do we remove the stitches. We can be happy then." Kraft took the hand Lu Xiusi extended, stood up, put on his black robe again, and adjusted his appearance in the metal mirror beside him.

A slight dizziness still lingered, but for every extra minute he lay here, Gris outside would grow more anxious by a minute.

"Don't move Lies first; let's go out and let Gris come in to stay with her for a while. Do not move her immediately."

Kraft refused Li Si's support, walking unsteadily toward the door with a heavy head and light feet. Lu Xiusi rushed ahead to open the door for him.

The first thing they saw was not only the anxious father but also black-robed figures filling the corridor.

Gris was the first to approach, gripping Kraft's hand, yet his eyes looked past his shoulder into the classroom. As expected, he asked that question tensely, "My daughter..."

"For now, there is no problem; the surgery is complete. She may not wake until tomorrow or even later. You go in and stay with her for a while; do not move her." Kraft stepped aside to let him in, then closed the door behind him, leaving them some private space.

The students around had vaguely guessed the result from the relaxed expression on Lu Xiusi's face when he pushed the door open; Kraft's words confirmed their guess, and 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 person who had accomplished something unprecedented, he received unprecedented heroic treatment.

"The pioneer need not mind the words of the mediocre behind him." Lecturer Luo Moluo pushed through the crowd and was the first to give him a powerful embrace.

Then came the enthusiastic students; they surrounded Kraft, each coming up to embrace him and offer the highest praise they could think of.

In their eyes, this surgery was already complete; regardless of the prognosis, it was the first time in history, proving the value of knowledge contributed by the dead on a living person.

Whatever the means, whether family secret medicines or other aids, the first abdominal surgery from diagnosis to treatment was completed right here in the academy, right beside them.

Wenden Port Medical College would stand alongside Kraft as a milestone name in future works, and they were witnessing this historic moment.

A river of joy formed in the corridor, carrying Kraft flowing through the medical college, bringing the good news to every corner.

Students who originally did not know were informed of the news and joined this river during the celebration; their ranks grew larger and larger, carrying Kraft around the entire medical college.

And Kraft himself went from initial shock to embarrassment, then to complete numbness, being displayed everywhere like a float in a parade.

He did not know how to face these students who had gone mad with joy; they were like super fans watching their favorite team win the championship on site, lost in unconscious collective revelry.

Throughout the medical college, everyone who heard it marveled and then ran to tell others; the news spread at an incredible speed, quickly propagating outward. Probably by tomorrow, every tavern in Wenden Port would know there was a legendary figure in the medical college who could open a belly to treat an illness and then sew it back up.

Such news would, of course, undoubtedly ferment and deform; after passing through second-hand, third-hand, and who-knows-how-many-hand transmissions, it would become something even more outrageous.

Even several lecturers joined them, cheering about booking out a tavern outside; they didn't even calculate how many people were going or what tavern could hold so many.

Li Si and Lu Xiusi, as participants, were dragged away to who-knows-where at the start and were probably now bragging somewhere in the celebration crowd.

At this moment, Kraft could no longer care about these things. He had barely escaped the crowd and fled back to the professor's room. In the celebration crowd, he was the only one out of place, worrying about things only he knew.

Postoperative infection was the largest dark cloud hanging overhead, ready to strike at any time, with the only countermeasure being to endure it.

He hoped there were no undetected necrotic intestinal segments; with that terrible vision, it was not impossible for such a thing to happen.

He hoped the black liquid would not have any adverse effects on a child like Lies.

He also hoped the intussusception would not recur after surgery; if it happened again, he truly did not know what to do.

He had too many hopes and worries; powerlessness found him again. Kraft had too many thoughts he wanted to realize but could not achieve at the moment; if the situation this time had been even slightly more complex, things would have fallen into a completely irretrievable state, and even if he risked using the black liquid, it would have been meaningless.

This was a helpless matter; all efforts would return to this fundamental problem—the means he knew could not function in this era. He could only watch diseases he knew how to treat continue to rage, then turn around and continue writing books to leave for an era where they could function.

He was unwilling to stop here; even if he became a professor, even if he passed books to future generations, he would still have to sit idly by and watch countless people die within his limited lifespan.

This was a torment.

Kraft slapped Lies's major medical record onto the table. Completing this surgery not only failed to make him feel satisfied but instead made him realize these things he had not paid much attention to before.

A mere intussusception, one of the most common acute abdominal diseases in infancy and childhood, could leave one helpless.

In such a huge Wenden Port, how many children were there? Under current hygiene conditions, how high was the incidence of intussusception, and how many were fatal?

He wavered, beginning to feel that the "do not touch unless absolutely necessary" he had written in his notes was somewhat ridiculous. The black liquid was indeed strange, indeed incomprehensible, but was it not terrifying that so many people were robbed of their lives by disease?

He remembered that black stone pillar he could not take away, and the villagers who insisted on living in that land despite knowing of the existence of "fever disease."

Anomalous phenomena were dangerous things he could not understand, but disease and material scarcity also brought unknown terror and death to the people here.

For them, these things were essentially no different; in fact, the number of people the stone pillar had affected over decades might not even be a fraction of those affected by other common diseases.

Kraft realized something more terrifying than the indescribable thing: he himself was the one with the problem, rejecting something with infinite value due to potential limited dangers.

Lu Xiusi's attitude was the one suitable for this era: seeking every opportunity to promote technological development in the face of infinite unknowns, regardless of the cost.

For this, one could challenge the Church's ban on dissecting corpses and social traditions, or use oneself as an experiment. After all, it could not get worse than being powerless in the future.

As long as it was proven that the black liquid could be used more widely, this surgery would possess repeatability; he could promote this surgery throughout Wenden Port. Even if he could not achieve today's level, it would still be a qualitative change.

Once the train of thought opened up, more ideas popped up one after another.

To date, apart from the sense of danger transmitted by instinctual intuition, anomalous phenomena had brought him only benefits. His broadened consciousness and the success of the surgery gave him the opportunity to deploy knowledge beyond the era here.

Did that mean they were indeed usable under certain conditions?

This was an irresistible shortcut; as long as one cast aside the fear of unknown reasons and added some caution, one could reach the goal directly.

The stone pillar brought the Great Serpent Dream, breaking the limits of his consciousness and allowing him to fully utilize all information he had acquired; the black liquid broke the limits of his vision, allowing him to view anomalous phenomena from another angle.

Kraft felt something inherently fragile shatter deep within; he pushed open a brand-new window and re-examined things labeled as dangerous. The meaning they represented was reconstructed, and the scales began to tip toward the other side.

The surges of emotion drained his dwindling energy; the fatigue accumulated since morning struck, and his boiling spirit gradually cooled.

In the final moment before losing consciousness, he contentedly grasped the copper bottle that had held the diluted solution and fell asleep slumped over the table.