[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-97":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283575,4467,"Chapter 97","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-97",97,"\u003Cp>“How’s it going?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Not well.” Kraft released the small ore from his hand—it was a deep, dull red, like congealed dried blood—and as it rolled down the steep slope, William imagined it as a red tear falling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sitting at the mine entrance, he had a pile of such ore beneath his buttocks, like stagnant liquid mixed with blood pooling in hollow eye sockets, about to overflow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For outsiders, seeing many of these mines didn’t make them ordinary; the more one saw, the stranger it became how so many holes of varying sizes had formed. The gasping throats of the miners also bred unpleasant imaginings about the mines.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For these past days, Peter, at Kraft’s request, had taken them one after another to active mines. Years of continuous operation hadn’t expanded the settlements; they remained in family-based, village-scale patterns, matching their output and transport capacity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In larger mines, extraction had spanned generations; young miners worked alongside their fathers, familiar enough to warn outsiders about which special stones to watch for underfoot, remembering whose child had last fallen there.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The shafts descended straight down without branches. Kraft followed them to their usual work sites, some requiring a ten-minute walk. Then an invisible boundary divided their activity zone from the “deeper areas”; they stopped to begin work and let Kraft look around for anything he needed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ancestors were rarely seen; even when present, they had lost their ability to labor, sitting in the shade against village walls, bare-chested, their breathing visibly labored. The classic signs of breathlessness appeared on them—skin deeply sunken around the sternum and collarbones, just like Yin Feng’s father.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The airborne dust at the mining sites quickly drove the enthusiastic visitors away. Miners daily suffered from the dust that caused coughing and sneezing, but they never directly linked it to lung disease, or if they thought of it, they had no time to verify it—so they never covered their mouths or noses during heavy labor just because they coughed or sneezed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ultimately, dust-induced lung disease required long-term observation and summation, measured in years; without clear, sufficient comparative cases, it was hard to convince anyone—and clearly, no one here could do such work.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ore itself revealed nothing either. Kraft jumped down from the pile, holding a small sack. “Iron ore. Still iron ore. They mine nothing but iron ore. Ten years ago it was iron ore; ten years from now, it’ll still be.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Then why are you here? To recommend your… mask?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A week ago, after visiting two or three settlements, Kraft began his odd behavior: trying to persuade locals to use a face covering made of cloth scraps and two cloth straps.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He claimed it was for a survey, potentially beneficial for improving miners’ lung conditions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes, but the form has changed.” Kraft pulled two worn copper coins from his pocket—counterfeit versions. “I plan to sell them: one copper coin each.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Are you sure anyone will buy? You offered them for free before and no one used them.” William still had market sense. In these isolated villages, persuading people as a strange outsider was extremely difficult.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, even after spending so long with the Ice Plain tribes, he still hadn’t gotten them to adopt anything new into daily life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Not many will buy. Only two paid after I helped them with a minor ailment—call it another form of consultation fee?” The coins spun once between his fingers, then flipped back into his palm and slipped back into the bag.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“People think something is valuable if they pay for it. They’ll use it for a few days, and during those days, their coughing and sneezing will feel better—at least psychologically. Besides, this mask is infused with a ‘herbal formula.’”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ranwen\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Herbs were the mainstream of medicine, but William had never heard Kraft mention them before. “So you know herbs?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No. I just squeezed juice from some root with a faint, clean scent. Let them guess. If this catches on, maybe someday it’ll become some family’s secret recipe, passed down privately and used only in small circles.” Kraft leaned close to William’s ear, but the miners hadn’t yet rested—they were still deep in the mines, and no one was nearby to eavesdrop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The key is providing a treatment method that fits their general thinking. I don’t care what they use—just as long as they focus on the mask.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>William’s expression twisted. The captain had seen countless types of swindlers and good people in his life, but this man who twisted his entire approach just to conduct a survey—William couldn’t judge him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What if they don’t follow your advice?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“With so many villages, some influence will inevitably spread. In the last place, I sold five. Remember, each able-bodied worker supports an entire family. How much impact can you have on a village with barely a few people? Wait five or ten years, then come back to collect the results.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft shook the bag; coins jingled inside, roughly half-full.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Will you come back here?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Not necessarily. I can send one of my students. I’ll cover the expenses—consider it a public-funded trip.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Then I’ll wish him bad luck in advance—and suggest you focus your energy on the task we’re actually working on.” William couldn’t connect this trip to leisure, and he resented his partner’s lack of focus.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh, my friend, my best investor—you’ve misunderstood me.” He opened the bag’s mouth, spilling a handful of copper coins before William’s eyes—dull yellow metal streaked with green rust, showing how long their former owners had kept them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I just mentioned this: there are many mines, abundant minerals, and no shortage of villages—but each village has very few people. So few that even a child could name everyone and recall every nickname.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We started with the wrong direction. We don’t need to track mineral exports or grain distribution—too much flow over too many years. So tell me, what’s the scarcest thing here?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft pointed to himself, then to William’s chest. “Outsiders. Even over a year, there are barely any. The deeper the village, the fewer. So few that in this monotonous, water-dry routine, an outsider becomes a topic of conversation for a long time.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Especially outsiders like us—no grain, no ready ore, just diving into mines.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A rare, self-satisfied smile spread across his face—like the winning gambler William had seen in casinos, eyes closed, listening intently, then slamming down chips as the wooden bowl’s crack revealed the exact number lit by the hearth’s glow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“There really is such a person. I’m trying to trace his route.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He didn’t come for trade or exchange. He appeared intermittently, mentioned by those who’d received the new copper coins, his trail leading deeper into the mountains. Consolidating outsider information was far simpler than pondering daily ore or grain flows.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gazing across the mountains, the layered natural barriers no longer obscured the view. After days of travel, the murky water stirred by transport and information had finally cleared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Now, guess what those two told me? A stranger settled in the next village years ago!”\u003C\u002Fp>",1173,"2026-06-20T02:15:55.761Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","06ae128bd0a541334ac659fa8232ad1ebc689b9e3e7aeae164beaee3a20891f4","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-98","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-96",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]