Chapter 62: The Gaze

Under the pressure of an emergency, Kraft reluctantly abandoned his setup work, the rapid clatter of footsteps carrying him down to Lu Xiusi.

Ignoring the noise, his movement up the stairs was truly ghostlike; the steep staircase that had nearly broken Lu Xiusi's leg took barely half a minute to traverse, as if walking flat ground from attic to first floor.

The uneven, shadowed steps offered no obstacle; though he had stumbled repeatedly on his first visit, he now moved with the familiarity of strolling through his own backyard.

"What happened?" Kraft rushed down from the attic, clutching a trap with a radius at least half the length of a shinbone.

Lu Xiusi sighed deeply, setting his cup on the windowsill. "We must go to Li Sidun's place immediately."

His mood seemed deeply downcast, yet also relieved, as if he had shed a heavy burden and resolved a long-standing inner conflict.

"Did he say what it was about?" Kraft, still halfway through his setup, didn't want to leave—who knew if these people would misplace a trap without his supervision.

"I don't know if this is good news or bad, so I'll just say it." Some barrier seemed to have fallen from Lu Xiusi; for the first time in days, he met Kraft's gaze directly. "You were right. Li Sidun is at the professor's house."

This explosive news left Kraft stunned for a long moment—he couldn't fathom how Li Sidun ended up at the professor's, and even more absurdly, it seemed he'd truly found something important.

How could anyone commit a crime and then leave evidence right at their own home?

He had considered storming the suspect's residence, but first, the night he'd pinned the suspect, he'd been dragged into the depths and had no time for this; second, he assumed the professor would choose some obscure location outside the academy, and doing so might bring him great trouble—risk far outweighed reward.

At this moment, Li Sidun's reckless, door-kicking investigation—conducted with no information—unexpectedly broke the deadlock.

"Get a carriage. I'll pack some things." With dusk approaching, Kraft hefted the trap in his hand. He might need to spend the night outside—he couldn't go unprepared.

…

…

"This is it." Lu Xiusi led the way, pointing to a building with its front door wide open against the dim twilight.

Someone was already waiting at the entrance. He stood in the center of the street, avoiding the direct line of the doorway, as if he'd been there a long while. He deliberately kept his distance from the building, his shadow sharply distinct from the eaves' dark cast.

Seeing Lu Xiusi and Kraft, he hurried forward and took the box from Kraft's hands. "I hope you'll look at them—only you might be able to explain what they are."

"What exactly is going on?" Since someone was willing to help, Kraft didn't refuse—inside the box were four traps, two jars of fish oil, and several small tools; carrying it wasn't light.

Li Sidun cast a glance inside the doorway, unwilling to lead the way, waiting for Kraft to enter and see for himself. "It's very much like the thing you drew… but different. You'll understand when you see it."

So you call someone over just to make them guess a riddle?

Out of gratitude for Li Sidun helping him carry and procure things, Kraft suppressed the urge to snap back, reflecting inwardly on his own recent behavior—could his odd conduct have infected others?

More than fear or dread, the eyes of this lecturer who worked late into the night in the dissecting room held evasion. Something beyond reason lurked within this house, causing discomfort no less intense than a human's first encounter with a hollow corpse of their own kind—or even more shocking than death itself.

This emotion was easy for Kraft to read: it was the shock of encountering something life had rendered inexplicable by knowledge, where reason and logic utterly collapsed, forcing the civilized to shed their social veneer and confront the endless wilderness they could not accept.

Hmm, but for now, Li Sidun's mental state seemed stable, and he held the box firmly.

"There are two fragile jars inside—can you watch them for me?" To keep Li Sidun occupied and his focus diverted, Kraft said, "Before I go in, tell me what else I need to do."

"There are some books on the second floor—you'll understand when you read them. No, I don't even understand where they came from…"

"Enough. Stay here and watch this box." Kraft cut him off sharply, gripping his shoulders and emphasizing the box again.

After securing Li Sidun in place, Kraft turned toward the mansion. He blocked Lu Xiusi from following, pointed at Li Sidun, and signaled him to stay and watch.

From outside, the mansion at sunset looked no different from its neighbors. Its design was too similar—rigidly adopting the standard two-story plus attic height, plus a modest courtyard.

A practical, time-tested style from old houses, it ensured ample interior space but left no room for exterior expression. In architectural terms, it was like a half-Western, half-rural cottage from the other world's soul—hard to imagine this was a professor's home.

The fully open front door shattered the inherent security of this classic design, leaving a flaw. The sinking sun cast elongated afterglow into the interior, stretching thin ribbons of light across the old, empty wooden floor—a makeshift carpet of light slicing into the bare, unadorned main hall, like an informal invitation.

If the professor hadn't been careless, the wide-open windows and doors in the main hall were Li Sidun's doing; the striped sunlight on floor and walls, distorted by atmospheric refraction, glowed with an eerie reddish hue, illuminating circular symbols painted in dark pigment.

They varied in size—some large enough to cover half a wall, others smaller than a human head—but showed clear consistency. In one glance, Kraft recognized them: the celestial form he'd brought back from the depths, its cracked patterns and orientations identical.

Li Sidun's mention of "difference" likely referred to the horizontal crack running through the center: the larger the symbol, the wider the central stripe, some even abandoning the thin-waisted, tapered outline for a more spindle-like shape.

The scattered furniture left the main hall ample space for display; the largest one lay directly beneath his feet, painted across the entire floor, its colossal shattered celestial edge reaching the walls, the expanded horizontal stripe stretching wide and forcing the surrounding cracks apart.

The simple symbolic drawing evoked a profound sense of transformation, triggering a buried memory.

Those who saw it firsthand easily grasped its mystery—once beheld, one could not look away. It expanded in the field of vision, occupying the entire mind. Beyond the rules of perspective, it drew nearer on another level entirely.

The ineffable sensation could not be conveyed by linear perspective; only by maximizing the surface area could it demonstrate its encroachment to the viewer.

A… sense of being watched. Not one-sided observation, but an interaction.

Karlman had apparently gazed at it longer; the implication of being watched back was stronger—the expanding horizontal crack acquired a personified meaning.

Kraft racked his brain, searching for a better word to describe it.

【Open】

Ah, that's it…

A clear, terrifying thought flashed through him—after all, to watch, in human thought, how could watching exist without eyes?

【It is alive】

As if memory replayed, he stood again beneath the dark dome, witnessing the unchanging shattered celestial body—the horizontal crack flickered with static, and the overwhelming sense of being watched surged again.

It resembled a giant eye slowly opening, the horizontal crack spreading sideways, its dim, lifeless light its gaze. Yet upon closer inspection, no motion had occurred—the massive crack remained ancient and unchanging; it was all illusion.

For a moment, Kraft could not tell whether it was the objective natural effect of some celestial body, or the will of a colossal subjective consciousness, that had expelled him back to reality.

Like a sudden enlightenment, no words were needed—this crude image triggered non-rational, illogical knowledge directly into his mind through unknown channels, passively imparting knowledge that shook his soul.

The experience was dreadful. Kraft averted his gaze from the massive symbol on the floor, avoiding direct sight—but the entire room was covered in them; there was no clean spot to be found.

And once he perceived it as an eye, the sense of being watched clung to him, impossible to shake off.

Kraft stepped over the giant shattered celestial symbol on the floor, quickening his pace up the stairs, determined to retrieve useful items and leave as soon as possible.

As expected, the professor's bedroom was also covered in the same symbols. On the wall facing the window, a half-closed, giant eye-like shattered celestial body gazed outward; the original wall hanging had been discarded, its frame shattered into pieces.

The books spread on the desk before the window were surely what Li Sidun had mentioned. Kraft glanced at them and frowned—not because he didn't recognize them, but because they were too familiar, disturbingly so, triggering an instinctive unease.

The black-line drawings automatically colored themselves in his mind; the flat-plane structures came alive in his thoughts, human-tissue-derived soft limbs writhing vividly, lashing across the pages and through memories he couldn't trace.

Kraft instinctively raised his hand to block the blow—but no impact came. Seconds later, he realized it was another memory-linked hallucination.

【Wriggling…】

"What ridiculous assembly?" Kraft snapped the book shut, irritated. Since it felt so familiar, it was undoubtedly that loathsome soft organism from his memories. Though he didn't know why it was linked to human tissue, its impact was clearly less than that of the incomprehensible celestial body.

To Li Sidun, this was heretical and alluring; to Kraft, it was nowhere near as extraordinary.

The soul from another world was fortunate to be born in an era where surgery flourished; bizarre treatment methods seen and heard were countless. Moving a toe to the hand to fill a gap, or transplanting a thigh flap to the face for repair, were no longer new things, and there was even technology to cultivate human organs in animals.

After understanding the principle, it truly resembled taking parts from elsewhere to install them.

Regarding the horror caused by normal tissues mixed and twisted, those who have seen teratomas generally find it hard to be moved by this.

His evaluation of this structure was—abnormal technology, shocking to the soul. Things that disregard the logic of the present world are indeed formidable; one cannot help but envy their unique advantages. But at this level... thousands of years later, humanity could certainly do better.