Chapter 41: A Guess

"Ah? So it really works?" Lu Xiusi pulled out that medical record and handed it to Kraft, pointing out the altered "hypersomnia" column for him to see.

"Lecturer Li Si felt it didn't reach the level of hypersomnia, so he crossed it out. I don't know if I should write it in the notes."

Kraft seemed not to have heard what Lu Xiusi was saying; upon receiving the medical record, he flipped forward to the basic information on the first page and found the occupation and address.

"Baker, third building north on Elm Street? What place is that?"

"Not quite sure, it should be a small street. I'm not clear on where it is; this one hasn't been reached for the follow-up yet."

Lu Xiusi was quite familiar with the local roads of Wendeng Port, but if asked specifically which road was called what, he could only name a few he frequently visited.

There were too many crisscrossing streets and alleys, with names of all kinds; such unremarkable names were forgotten as soon as they were seen.

"When you remembered it, didn't you think it might be necessary to conduct a follow-up?" Kraft questioned.

"Uh, I didn't write it; Li Si wrote it. Maybe he knows where it is?" Lu Xiusi quickly distanced himself. It seemed he had discovered some problem; at this moment, medical record defects absolutely could not be linked to himself; let Li Si take responsibility.

"Let's go, then we'll find Li Si."

Picking up this medical record, Kraft unhesitatingly dropped his current work and prepared to go out.

It was over, Lu Xiusi thought, hoping it wasn't something major. He quickly followed, rapidly recalling whether there were any problems of his own in there; if they couldn't find the specific location later, this matter would be troublesome.

Fortunately, Kraft still maintained the good cultivation in everyone's mind; he simply led Lu Xiusi back to the clinic at a brisk pace and blocked Li Si, who was packing up to get off work.

"I have questions that need to be confirmed as soon as possible, so I came over myself." Kraft pushed Li Si back into the chair by the desk and took out the medical record to show him.

"Are you sure this patient's statement is that the waking time has become later and it is difficult to wake him? Did he say specifically how much later?"

Li Si was startled, looking at Lu Xiusi hiding behind him; the latter gave him a look that said "fend for yourself."

"Yes, it is this patient."

"So exactly how much later?" Kraft showed abnormal persistence on this question.

"Let me think, let me think, he didn't say it very clearly." Sweat appeared on Li Si's head; he had the illusion that Professor Kalman was standing in front of him. "He said before he could always arrive at the bakery before the clock tower struck seven times, but now waking up is about that time."

"Hmm, about an hour later. Do his family members have similar situations?"

"He didn't say." Li Si answered, feeling as guilty as if he were saying "I didn't ask."

Fortunately, Kraft didn't continue to pursue this, changing the topic. "Do you know where Elm Street is? I'm not very familiar with Wendeng Port."

"Why suddenly ask this?" Li Si couldn't keep up with the jumping train of thought.

Kraft took back the medical record, flipped to the first page, and a black circle was drawn in the address column, picking it out from all the information.

He pushed the paper back in front of Li Si. "Before knowing the specific location, I didn't know if I was overthinking, so let's recall exactly where it is."

The tone was calm, but it always made people feel something emotion was hidden inside. It wasn't the annoyance of work being disturbed, nor dissatisfaction with others; it was a trace of unease that the listener could not understand.

Li Si met his gaze; Kraft's face showed no expression, staring at him seriously, bringing an indescribable sense of oppression.

"A small street, relatively close to the Salt Tide District; I've been there before so I have some impression."

"Hiss... Salt Tide District?" This was the third time hearing this term in these few days; Kraft had a very ominous guess. "Is there a map? I want to see where this place is?"

The words of that hired hand from a few days ago flashed quickly through his mind: "My wife and I," "My neighbor too," "Hard to wake up."

"Who would have this kind of thing?"

"Then draw a sketch for me to see; I just want to know how close it is to the Salt Tide District." Kraft took out a new sheet of paper and handed it to Li Si along with a pen.

Although he hadn't found exact evidence yet, Kraft's suspicion gradually strengthened; he felt he might have to overturn his judgment on that earlier case; the matter was much more complicated than he imagined.

For that hired hand named Gary, the earliest judgment was that changes in the living environment had affected his and his neighbor's schedules. In the harsh environment of the Salt Tide District, this explanation was the most reasonable.

Another possibility was an infectious disease; Kraft hadn't failed to consider this factor. But because Gary and his wife had absolutely no discomfort other than prolonged sleep, not a single symptom like fever, cough, or diarrhea, there was no clue, so this possibility was finally ruled out.

This case on Elm Street made him immediately alert, discovering a low-level mistake he had made at the time: he hadn't pursued whether Gary knew of more people with similar symptoms.

Li Si wrote and drew on the paper, explaining to Lu Xiusi and Kraft as he drew.

"This black area, let's just count it as the Salt Tide District, roughly in the southeast part of the entire Wendeng Port. It is fundamentally impossible to draw the specific map inside."

He filled an irregular shape he had drawn with black shading, labeled "Salt Tide District" in large characters, and drew two vertical lines on the left.

The double lines were straight, the shading uniform and natural, reflecting the good drawing skills of an anatomy lecturer; using hands trained to draw tissue structures for this was truly using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

"Then, these two lines are Elm Street." He marked two letters at both ends to distinguish direction. "Just treat it as running north-south; it's not that standard, and the length is very short."

"More specifically, is this scale and reality far apart?" Kraft moved behind Li Si, looking at those two lines.

"Specifically, it is about one-third of the north-south width of the Salt Tide District; I don't have much concept of such particularly long distances."

A horizontal line cut off Elm Street at the lower end. "I forgot the name of this street; anyway, Elm Street ends at this position. And the house we are looking for is?"

"The third building from north to south." Lu Xiusi reminded from the side.

Kraft added: "East side or west side? This street can't only have one side, right?"

"Sorry, I didn't think of that at the time."

Originally thought to be detailed enough, now it still looked unreliable.

"Forget it, this little bit doesn't matter; asking one more house won't hurt. Mark the place first."

Under Kraft's urging, Li Si pondered for a moment and drew an X at his estimated position, not far from the northwest corner of the Salt Tide District.

The whole room fell silent; Li Si and Lu Xiusi looked at Kraft, waiting for him to explain why he suddenly cared so much about this.

Kraft sat down beside Li Si, took the paper and pen, and added an X to the northwest of the Salt Tide District.

"Too close." He said in a low voice. "This is too close."

"What is this?" Lu Xiusi curiously leaned over to look; judging purely by the distance on the sketch, the distance between the two X's was less than one-third the length of Elm Street.

Kraft drew a dashed line between the two, connecting them. "I previously treated another hired hand named Gary; the statement was very similar, but much more severe."

"Not just him; he claimed his wife and neighbors were the same, waking up later and later, very hard to wake. I thought it was a small-scale problem around his home."

"Plus this one you found, I suspect there is some connection." Kraft added two more X's beside the X in the Salt Tide District with his pen; the three X's gathered into a cluster.

"Could it have something to do with the Clarity Elixir?" Lu Xiusi naturally linked the gradually increasing sleep with the effect of the diluent; this was simply like a weakened version.

"It makes no sense; this situation has never appeared in the feedback of other patients. Kraft, did that Gary and his wife use it?" For both emotional and rational reasons, Li Si didn't want to link this matter to Clarity.

Kraft shook his head; he had actually subconsciously linked it to the Black Liquid and its diluent "Clarity," but the logic didn't hold. "No, we have records for everyone who used it; I can confirm the Gary family did not use it."

A mass outbreak, with correlations in time and space. The possibility of an infectious disease was once again placed before Kraft.

The famous cockroach law states that when you first discover a cockroach, there is likely already a swarm in the room. Kraft fully endorsed this theory and affirmed its universality across numerous cases.

Using the connected dashed lines as a radius, he drew a circle that encompassed the large Salt Tide Zone and the surrounding ordinary districts.

"Since we have encountered it twice, there must be more than just these. I suspect the affected area is far larger than this circle and may even be expanding outward."

"Plague?!" Li Sidun's eyes nearly popped out. "Don't scare me; two of the three of us have already had direct contact with patients."

"It's just a guess. It may not be the kind that spreads through contact, and the symptoms don't match either. We need further proof."

Kraft looked at the circle, assuming that if such a disease with unheard-of symptoms had indeed emerged, taking the Salt Tide Zone as the initial origin, its spread would gradually expand.

His fingers swept over the sketch, tracing the outline of the Salt Tide Zone. In such an area with poorer sanitation and greater crowding, internal transmission would surely be much faster than outward spread, yet investigation would be far more difficult.

Regardless, he needed more cases and more detailed information to delineate a more accurate scope and prove his hypothesis.

"I'm afraid we cannot just sit idle." Kraft stood up, silently mourning one second of his upcoming absenteeism for however many days. "Whether it is or isn't, I must go over there to look around. Do you want to come with me?"

"Are you serious?" Li Sidun did not quite share Kraft's special perspective; investigating such matters offered no visible benefit. Guessing wrong wastes time; guessing right costs lives.

"Then I will go with you. Fortunately, there are only two plague-doctor masks." Lu Xiusi had strong self-protection awareness, inheriting from Kraft the spirit of fearing the ten thousand even if only one exists.