Chapter 39: An Unexpected Guest

Kraft saw the visitor, alone, and he appeared to be in no discomfort.

He was likely the person Li Si had described as "living in a place like the Salt Tide District." His coarse hemp clothes were patched, with loose threads visible from a few steps away, and a fishy smell wafted from him as he approached.

The student who had come to deliver the message did not lead him to any empty room but left him standing in the main hall of the Medical School. Black-robed figures passing by occasionally cast strange glances, and the environment silently repelled this anomalous intruder.

A dock laborer, Kraft concluded.

The student who had come to relay the message brought Kraft to the hall and whispered, "I didn't want to disturb you, but he insisted on seeing only you and refused to tell me the reason. I thought perhaps there was some special circumstance?"

"Thank you, Matt. Please be sure to do the same next time." Kraft accurately called out his name, nodded in gratitude, and the student left, flattered and surprised.

After seeing the student off, Kraft approached while observing the visitor. His eyes were fixed on the ground; his trouser legs and shoes were soaked, as if he had just rushed from some damp place, most likely seawater. Where he had stepped, a layer of frost would remain once dried.

That was probably why the student had not led him inside.

"Hello, I am Kraft. Is there anything I can help you with?" Kraft stopped before him and greeted him skillfully.

"Ah, hello, it's me." He shivered, seemingly startled, and shifted his gaze to Kraft's black robe. "I heard you can cure illnesses that others cannot..."

He paused, then asked in an uncertain tone, "And you only charge five silver coins?"

Well, another person who had come based on some version of the rumor. It seemed the rumor had already quickly evolved to claim he specialized in treating difficult and mysterious diseases.

These past few days, he had indeed encountered some such patients. Driven by outrageous rumors, they arrived at the Medical School with symptoms completely unrelated to abdominal pain, making all sorts of demands, which had given Kraft quite a headache.

However, his professional ethics forced him to take it seriously and complete the standard procedure.

"Actually, there are some distinctions, but if you are feeling unwell, we can find a place to sit and talk." Kraft was not being polite; he was not very accustomed to this kind of communication environment. Perhaps he should apply for a dedicated reception room at some point.

"No, no need. Talking here is fine. Is it really only five silver coins?" The visitor extended his hand, and only then did Kraft notice he had been clutching five black silver coins.

To put it bluntly, these black silver coins were too black. It couldn't be blamed on excessive adulteration during private minting; the storage environment was simply too poor, causing their value to drop a tier.

"Please follow me. Let's move to a quieter place to talk. Consider it a chat; my time doesn't cost money."

As the saying goes, since you're already here, you can't just send someone away. Kraft found an empty room nearby, moved two chairs over, and invited him to sit and talk.

After changing locations, the visitor seemed a bit more relaxed and began to describe his problem intermittently. "I don't know when it started, but my sleep time seems to be getting longer and longer. I know that sounds strange, but my situation is a bit different."

"I work as a laborer at the dock. I have to go there every day to find work, so I usually get up very early. At first, I didn't notice, but one day I woke up only after the sun was shining on my face."

"After that, I noticed my waking time was getting later. I asked my wife to wake me up in the morning, but I found she was the same."

"Have you been overworked during this period?" Kraft rubbed his eyes; discussing this topic made his own drowsiness rise. Recently, he hadn't been sleeping well, his nap time had been forcibly shortened, and his working hours were increasingly inhumane.

"No, no, no. I am definitely not like that. After that, my waking time got later and later, and I became drowsier at night. Now I have to sleep through half the morning before I can wake up."

"I went to several clinics. They all thought I wasn't suffering from any illness, and the medicine they prescribed was useless."

His words were filled with panic and confusion born of not being understood. He looked at Kraft, hoping to find a shred of recognition.

"Is there anything else unusual? For example, coughing, fever, or the like?" Kraft adjusted his posture, leaning forward to adopt a stance of serious listening. He actually felt it wasn't a big deal; he had just changed his position because sitting for so long made his back ache.

It sounded like a change in lifestyle habits that had disrupted the daily circadian rhythm of the visitor and his wife. Everyone had experienced something like that, but Kraft was not deeply involved in this specialty and had no particularly good advice on the matter.

If he knew how to wake up naturally, would he still be late for morning classes at the university?

Seeing that Kraft did not show signs of impatience like others, the visitor continued his narration. "I tried asking neighbors to wake me, but they were the same. Finally, I had to find a friend I was on good terms with to come to the dock in the morning and wake me on the way."

"The neighbors too?"

"Yes, they also found they were sleeping longer and longer. And my friend said it was very difficult to wake me. He said he had to shout my name loudly in my ear and even slap my face before I would wake." The confusion on his face grew heavier as he spoke of the strangest part.

"But... I have absolutely no memory of it. Logically, there should be some feeling during the semi-awake state, right?"

"Like there are only two states: deep sleep and wakefulness? You just said your wife was the same too. Have you tried it on her?" Kraft gripped the armrests to support himself as he stood up.

"Yes, my wife is the same too. It's hard to wake her, and she has no memory of what happened, so I believe him." The arm wrapped in coarse hemp cloth trembled slightly. "I really feel I must be sick. If I go too late, I can only work half a day. I can't live like this."

"What about your neighbors? Are they also hard to wake?"

"I didn't ask them that. I know only these things." He fell silent, looking at Kraft expectantly, hoping to get a different answer.

If he wasn't lying or hiding anything, Kraft truly could not find anything that corresponded to his symptoms. What would you call this? "Progressive Sleep Extension"?

Such hair-pulling matters were not without precedent. Every strange chief complaint had its hidden logic behind it; either the patient had misunderstood something, or key information had been omitted.

For example, blood in the urine appearing after one night, urgent checks for kidney disease indicators yielding nothing, only to discover the patient had eaten half a box of red dragon fruit the night before.

For example, the famous advertising slogan: "When a child is sick and won't get better, it's mostly faking. Give them a beating..."

In short, the patient is never wrong. If there is a fault, blame yourself for not asking clearly enough; the responsibility lies with you, not him. Even if he is faking illness, you must examine him thoroughly.

"Alright, I understand what you mean. Next, I will ask some questions in more detail. They may sound unrelated to your illness, but they are indeed all necessary." Kraft dipped his pen in ink, spread out the paper, and asked, "First, can you tell me your name and address?"

"My name is Gary, and I live in the Salt Tide District."

"Specific location?" Kraft wrote down his name on the paper and drew a column for the address beside it.

"I... I can't say exactly. Is this important?" Gary couldn't answer this question. "In the Salt Tide District, near the church. There's a place that makes salted fish nearby, and there's a tree at the entrance."

Kraft covered his forehead, deeply understanding Li Si's pain. He actually knew of the Salt Tide District but had never entered it and had never thought about entering.

This place was equivalent to the Wen Deng Port slums. The buildings had absolutely no order, a typical legacy of unplanned urban development in the early stages of city construction.

It was named so because the terrain was relatively low. When the tide rose, it would sometimes flood here, leaving wet mud and large and small brine pools. After drying, fine salt particles and the fishy smell of dead small creatures would be left all over the ground.

People who couldn't afford to settle in other areas of Wen Deng Port were squeezed into this rotten land. They built various kinds of dwellings and shacks themselves, expanding in sync with the development of Wen Deng Port, becoming a gray district the city refused to acknowledge.

There were no normal streets inside, only narrow alleys winding between crooked, inferior houses, crawling and intersecting without rules, constantly growing as more people arrived each year. Untreated waste had accumulated and deteriorated to a point where it was impossible to sort out, especially the deeper one went.

In the past, as a young noble son who came to Wen Deng Port for fun, Kraft would never have gone in. He would at most pass through the edges and avoid the place upon smelling a strange odor.

The city's administrators were too lazy to send anyone in, leaving the Salt Tide District as a no-man's-land where chaos and disorder bred.

The hated Wen Deng Port specialty, the seawater dungeon, was also located on the seaside side of the Salt Tide District. Anything not suitable to appear in the clean city districts was thrown into this salty, damp trash can.

Conducting a follow-up visit inside was completely impossible.

"Sigh." Kraft sighed and wrote a general "Salt Tide District, Northwest" in the address column, noting the landmarks he mentioned beside it.

"It's fine, it doesn't affect much. Do you and your neighbors have a habit of closing windows in your rooms to keep warm?"

"No. Firewood gets damp easily and will mold."

Kraft found nothing.

Gary's life was riddled with problems: a monotonous diet, vitamin deficiency, long-term residence in a damp place, and heavy physical labor.

There was nothing he could pick out to explain the symptoms of Gary's family. Considering the neighbors had them too, it was likely an effect of the surrounding environment; without seeing the scene firsthand, there would be no result.

Even if he went, he might not make any discoveries.

"I'm sorry, I have no leads for now; this is my first time encountering such a situation," Kraft said, shaking his head. "If possible, come find me in two days. I will try to make time to go with you and find the cause."

"No, it's not necessary." Gary lowered his head and said nothing more; perhaps he took those words as a polite refusal.

He stood up from the chair, opened the door himself, and left quietly, without pain or anger. Gray emotions wrapped around him, needing no words to express them, obviously coating his entire body; anyone could read the heavy sense of oppression.

Before stepping out the door, he turned around again, facing Kraft, and left one last sentence before departing: "Thank you. You are the only one willing to listen to me finish all this. May the Lord bless you with health."