Chapter 71: Patches

"What is this?"

When Lu Xiusi arrived at Kraft's attic, he found the wall nailed with one faded patch map after another, stretching from the corner to the door.

Small squares adhered to the edges of the black-and-white maps, with narrow, winding gaps running through them, though most were almost stuck together. Still, careful distinction could reveal differences in the density of the diagonal lines filled within the squares.

Hearing this, Kraft showed him the large stack of papers in his hand, the result of their work over the past half-month. "I filled these onto the map; representing them with images would probably be more intuitive."

"White indicates improvement?" Lu Xiusi examined the map for a while and raised a question.

"No, quite the opposite; black is the part that has improved."

Kraft handed the record sheets to Lu Xiusi, pointing out the small crosses and horizontal lines on them. "I call the intersecting horizontal and vertical lines 'positive effects'; a single horizontal line means negative, or rather, ineffective. But the naming doesn't matter; you just need to remember that the former must be colored black on the map to indicate the degree of improvement."

"For every additional one, I draw more diagonal lines to fill the corresponding small box black. Since they lack accurate timing tools and rely entirely on subjective judgment, the reliability of this data..."

Lu Xiusi scratched his head; he felt there might be nothing more accurate than a patient's subjective feeling. According to the most primitive view, doesn't the person themselves know their own body best?

Kraft flipped through a few pages of the data, pointing out one by one the more strange entries from the records of the previous few days. "Especially these few that change greatly every day, jumping back and forth. It's not impossible that it actually happened, but it's too extreme."

"Look at this one; when we went yesterday, they returned carrying water and told us they had just woken up. Clearly, the nearest water source is very far away."

Lu Xiusi continued scratching his head; the new well wasn't finished yet, and the round trip to the nearest water source took a considerable amount of time, so of course there was a problem. He just didn't understand why anyone would do such a thing.

"If he lied, I don't understand why he would do that. What's his name?" Glancing at the record on the paper, he couldn't immediately identify what name Kraft had written.

Kraft rarely showed his first-hand records to others; usually, he mostly looked at the second copy that had been transcribed and organized. It was hard not to suspect it was because the handwriting was sloppy, intended only for the writer's own reference when rewriting later.

Kraft glanced at it and answered without hesitation: "His name is Kup."

"Huh?" Lu Xiusi was utterly puzzled. Looking at that name with flying strokes and highly artistic flair again, he still couldn't read it.

"For the few that are slightly different, I specifically opened a separate sheet of paper to record them, then marked them blue on the map; this one is just the most outrageous among them." Facing this situation, Kraft had no good solution either. "The best method is to spend more time."

Lu Xiusi weighed the paper in his hand; it was hard to believe this weight came from them visiting bit by bit. "Can we squeeze out more time?"

"Too difficult. They probably all have their own reasons; I can't go through one by one to figure out why, and even if I did, it wouldn't be something solvable in a short while."

Looking at the maps on the wall, the black parts were expanding and deepening at a relatively uniform degree.

The first survey after stopping the well water had only added scattered sparse lines to the grid. The map from the third day showed obvious changes, like a small handful of black beans scattered on it.

After that, this trend became obvious; the entire area was slowly improving, with most grids having a bit of diagonal line filling added, becoming fuller. Black felt pleasing to the eye for the first time.

"So the existence of the black liquid in the human body is indeed not permanent. If diluted to this extent by pouring it into well water, the effect diminishes after some time of stopping its use. By analogy, those who used ordinary diluted liquid will probably also completely get rid of this possibility after a long enough time."

Much as expected, a uniformly spreading improvement was occurring; for the vast majority, a clear trend of waking up gradually earlier could be seen.

This also caused the trust and welcome Kraft and Lu Xiusi received in the Salt Tide Zone to grow day by day. They didn't receive any substantial rewards, but the change in attitude was visible.

It shifted from obedience born of the authority brought by force and status to genuine respect. Some began willing to share more detailed content with them, talking about the position of the sun when they last woke up and comparing it to the height of the opposite roof.

Admittedly, much of the information wasn't particularly useful, but quite a bit effectively helped Kraft correct his investigation after conversion.

"This is good news," Lu Xiusi said. Watching Kraft pick up a pen and fill in a few more grids on the new map, then picking up the data on the desk to cross-reference the numerical codes, he discovered there were actually no discrepancies.

"Truly terrifying..."

"What?"

"Your memory," Lu Xiusi sighed. "I thought you remembered those books word for word because you memorized them long enough, but I didn't expect your memory to be good to this extent."

Kraft couldn't respond to this, managing only to say, "Probably a talent," which made Lu Xiusi emit envious, jealous clicking sounds.

Since Kraft didn't seem to need help, Lu Xiusi, bored on the side, looked at the drawn maps by himself.

Things presented in the form of simple diagrams indeed had a different feel; they were more intuitive and easier to understand. He had understood this principle when he previously read about the anatomy of the inguinal canal.

The author used text explanations that would take at least a few minutes to read to explain where those aponeuroses and fasciae came from, how they constituted the extremely tongue-twisting front, back, top, and bottom walls to memorize, and then explained how the contents of the abdomen ran out from this structure.

All added together wasn't as simple and straightforward as a single diagram. So everyone liked diagrams, especially concise and clear ones; Lu Xiusi was no exception.

Starting from the corner, he looked at them in order, watching the black gradually spread, from few to many, inversely wrapping around the few areas with lighter colors.

The rare few light-colored areas could be seen shrinking noticeably in the next map, then being split and dissolved by newly appearing black patches.

In some completely untouched white blocks, a dot of inconspicuous blue paint had been added; these were probably the patients Kraft mentioned whose statement content truthfulness could not be determined, receiving special attention.

Some of these blue dots were removed as time passed, but quite a few remained stuck in various places; looking at them for too long made one feel uncomfortable, wanting to pick them out.

Once you notice something, you can't remove it from your mind. Lu Xiusi's attention involuntarily drifted toward the blue dots, noticing the changes around them. Looking at them for so long, he actually found a pattern.

Logically speaking, the overall coloring order of the black blocks should tend toward uniformity, so there shouldn't be pale patches that exist for too long.

But there was a difference near one blue dot; it wasn't a difference caused by one or two survey discrepancies, but one that persisted continuously.

When there were many white blocks at the beginning, it wasn't obvious; but after most were colored black, it slowly became highlighted.

"Hmm?"

For the sake of rigor, Lu Xiusi walked back to the previous maps, repeatedly comparing them to confirm his discovery.

The coloring speed of the patches around that abnormal blue dot seemed somewhat lagging; at least, it was about two days slower than the general average rate of change, which was the time interval of one survey.

"Strange?"

He took a few sheets of thin paper from the desk, traced the general outline of the light-colored area, and then marked the position of the blue dot within that area.

"Kraft, can you draw this area on the map first this time?" Lu Xiusi pointed to the area he found near the center of the map, roughly circling a range. "I have an idea, but I'm not sure."

Kraft, interrupted, glanced at the corresponding data on the plot he circled and didn't seem so surprised. "You also think the color change in this area is a bit different?"

"You knew already?" Lu Xiusi was a bit disappointed; he thought he had discovered something extraordinary.

"I wouldn't say that; actually, not just here, there have been such phenomena in several places." Kraft walked along the wall, casually pointing out several small patches on the maps that Lu Xiusi hadn't noticed just now; some were deeper, some shallower, and quite a few had blue dots.

"But most of them didn't last long, disappearing in a few days; afterwards it was proven to be a deviation caused by neighbors liking to discuss their conditions together, affecting both subjectivity and expression. This one only recently became obvious."

"Alright, I'm just a small-town person seeing big-city things." Lu Xiusi spread his hands and put down the paper.

The paper was taken by another hand. "You took that blue dot as the center?"

"Yes, because I was looking around the blue dot. I know these two probably have no relation; blame it on them being too conspicuous."

Kraft bent down to observe for a while, then continued working on the map, quickly perfecting the new map of this area separately.

"It's not without reason, Lu Xiusi."

A new rough outline of the light-colored area was drawn and overlaid onto the previously drawn paper, aligned by the point in the middle.

Kraft held several sheets of paper up to the sunlight; the intense rays pierced the flimsy, poorly made paper, superimposing the diagrams.

"This area is indeed shrinking, but it's contracting around this point as a center... seems hard to explain?" He gestured with a pen; the progress in every direction showed a similar trend, with no black blotch blooming from a central point.

"Because this person not only doesn't believe you, but also speaks ill of you to those around?" Lu Xiusi drew inferences from one instance, immediately deriving an answer from interpersonal relations; his learning ability was excellent.

"I'm glad you've learned one of the important factors influencing investigative bias, but forced analogies are inadvisable. Next time, remind me to ask more questions over there, okay?"

"You're too modest; I don't yet know who could remind you of forgotten things, except for forgetting to eat." Reminding Kraft of things few people could do, Lu Xiusi didn't think he would be that exception; these words were just for listening.

"By the way." He tapped the blue dot and asked curiously, "Who is this person, still fabricating false information even at this point?"

"Kup, the one I mentioned before."