Krafft's Notes on Anomalies

"Ah? Did it really work?" Lucius took out the medical record and handed it to Kraft, pointing out the redacted "Drowsiness" column to him.

"Lecturer Liston didn't think it was enough for drowsiness, so he erased it. I don't know if I should write a note."

Kraft didn't seem to hear what Lucius was talking about. After getting the medical record, he flipped forward to the basic information on the first page and found out his occupation and address.

"Baker, third building on Elm Street North? What's that place?"

"I'm not sure. It should be a small street. I'm not sure where it is. It's not my turn to follow up yet."

Lucius was quite familiar with the local roads in Port Wenden, but if asked what specific roads were called, he could only answer a few frequently used ones.

There are too many criss-crossing streets and lanes with all kinds of names. Such nondescript names will be forgotten once you see them.

"When you remembered it, you never thought that you might need to follow up?" Kraft asked.

"Uh, I didn't write it, it was written by Liston. Maybe he knows where it is?" Lucius quickly clarified the relationship. It seems that some problem has been discovered. At this time, he must not be implicated in the defects in the medical records. Liston should be responsible for it.

"Let's go, let's go find Liston."

Picking up this medical record, Kraft dropped his work without hesitation and prepared to go out.

It's over, Lucius thought, I hope it's nothing serious. He quickly followed up and quickly recalled whether there was any problem of his own. If he couldn't find the specific location later, it would be troublesome.

Fortunately, Kraft still maintained his good moral character in everyone's eyes. He just hurried back to the clinic with Lucius, blocking Liston who was packing his things to get off work.

"I have a question that needs to be confirmed as soon as possible, so I came here myself." Kraft pushed Liston back to the chair beside the table and took out the medical record to show him.

"Are you sure this patient's statement is that he wakes up later and has difficulty waking up? Did he specify how late he was?"

Liston was startled and looked at Lucius who was hiding behind him. The latter gave him a wishful look.

"Yes, this is the patient."

"So how long is it?" Kraft showed unusual persistence on this question.

"Let me think about it, let me think about it, he didn't make it very clear." Liston was sweating. He had the illusion that Professor Kalman was standing in front of him. "He said that he could ring seven in the bell tower before. I went to the bakery last time, and now I wake up around this time."

"Well, it's almost an hour late. Does his family have a similar situation?"

"He didn't say." Liston replied, as guilty as saying "I didn't ask."

Fortunately, Kraft didn't continue to ask more about this and changed the subject, "Do you know where Elm Street is? I'm not very familiar with Wendeng Port."

"Why do you ask this suddenly?" Liston did not follow the jumping train of thought.

Kraft pulled out the medical record and turned to the first page. A black circle was drawn on the address column, distinguishing it from all the information.

He pushed the paper back in front of Liston, "I don't know if I thought too much before I knew the specific location, so I'll just remember where it is."

The tone is calm, but it always makes people feel that there is some emotion hidden in it. It wasn't annoyance at being interrupted from work, or dissatisfaction with others, it was a hint of uneasiness that the listener couldn't understand.

Liston looked at him, but Kraft had no expression on his face. He stared at him seriously, bringing an indescribable sense of oppression.

"It's a small street, relatively close to the salt tide area. I've been there before, so I have some impressions."

"Hiss... salt tide area?" This was the third time he heard this word in the past few days. Kraft had a very bad guess, "Is there a map? I want to see where this place is?"

The words of the hired worker a few days ago ran through my mind quickly, "My wife and I", "My neighbors too", "It's hard to wake up".

"Who would have such a thing?"

"Then draw a sketch for me. I want to know how close it is to the salt tide area." Craft pulled out a new piece of paper and handed it to Liston along with the pen.

Although no definite evidence has yet been found, Kraft's suspicion gradually increased, and he felt that he might have to overturn his judgment on the earlier case. The matter was much more complicated than he imagined.

For the employee named Gary, the earliest judgment was that the change in living environment had affected his and his neighbors' daily routines. In places with harsh environments like salt tide areas, this explanation is the most reasonable.

Another possibility is infectious diseases, and it is not that Kraft has not considered this factor. But because Gary and his wife had no discomfort at all except for prolonged sleep, and had no symptoms such as fever, cough, or diarrhea, and had no clue, this possibility was finally ruled out.

The case on Elm Street made him quickly alert, and he discovered that he had made a stupid mistake at the time. He did not ask Gary if he knew that more people had similar symptoms.

Liston wrote and drew on paper, explaining to Lucius and Kraft as he drew.

"This black piece, we assume it is a salt tide area, is probably in the southeastern part of the entire Wendeng Port. It is impossible to draw a specific map of it."

He filled in a black shadow in the irregular shape he had drawn, marked "Salt Tide Area" in large characters, and drew two vertical lines on the left.

The double lines are straight and the shadows are even and natural, which reflects the good drawing skills of an anatomy lecturer. The hand used to draw tissue structures is really overqualified for this drawing.

"Then, these two lines are Elm Street." He marked two letters on each end to distinguish the direction. "Just think of it as running north-south. It is not so standard and the length is very short."

"To be more specific, is there a big gap between this ratio and reality?" Kraft turned behind Liston and looked at the two lines.

"To be specific, it's about one-third of the width from north to south of the salt tide zone. I have no idea about this particularly long distance."

A horizontal line cuts off Elm Street at the lower end. "I forgot what this street is called, but Elm Street ends at this location. And what is the house we are looking for?"

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

Craft added: "East side or west side? There can't be only one side of the street, right?"

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

I thought it was detailed enough, but now it still seems unreliable.

"Forget it, that's all. It doesn't hurt to ask for one more house. Mark the place first."

At Kraft's urging, Liston pondered for a moment and drew a cross at the location he estimated, not far from the northwest corner of the salt tide area.

The whole room fell silent, and Liston and Lucius looked at Kraft, waiting for him to explain why he suddenly cared so much about this.

Kraft sat down next to Liston, took the pen and paper, and added a cross to the northwest of the salt tide area.

"Too close," he whispered, "This is too close."

"What is this?" Lucius looked over curiously. Judging from the distance on the sketch, the distance between the two forks was less than one-third of the length of Elm Street.

Kraft drew a dotted line between the two to connect them, "I previously treated another employee named Gary, and the description was similar, but much more serious."

"He was not the only one, he claimed that his wife and neighbors were also waking up later and later and it was difficult to wake up. I thought it was a small-scale problem around his house."

"Coupled with the one you found, I doubt there is any connection." Craft added two more forks in the salt tide area with a pen, and the three forks gathered into a cluster.

"Could it have something to do with the Clarifying Potion?" Lucius naturally connected the growing sleep with the effect of the diluent, which was like a weakened version.

"It doesn't make sense. This kind of situation has never appeared in the feedback of other patients. Kraft, has Gary and his wife ever used it?" Being reasonable, Liston didn't want to get involved in clarifying the matter.

Kraft shook his head. He actually subconsciously contacted the black liquor and its diluent "Clearness", but the logic didn't make sense. "No, we have records of everyone who has used it. I can confirm that it is useless for the Gary family." Pass."

The onset of disease in groups is correlated in time and space. The possibility of infectious disease was once again placed before Craft.

The famous cockroach law mentions that when you first discover cockroaches, there is a high probability that there will already be a group of cockroaches in the house. Kraft strongly endorsed this theory and affirmed its universal applicability to a large number of cases.

Using the connected dotted lines as the radius, he drew a circle that encompassed the large salt tide area and the surrounding ordinary urban areas.

"Since we can all encounter it twice, it must be more than these. I suspect that the area it affects is much larger than this circle, and it may also expand outwards."

"Plague?!" Liston's eyes almost popped out of his head. "Don't scare me. Two of the three of us have already been in direct contact with the patient."

"It's just a guess. It's not necessarily the kind that can be contracted by contact, and the symptoms are not similar. We need further proof."

Kraft looked at the circle and assumed that such an infectious disease with unheard of symptoms had really appeared. He took the salt tide area as the initial starting point and gradually expanded its spread.

His fingers swept over the sketch, tracing the outline of the salt tide zone. In such a place with poorer sanitation and more crowding, the spread within the zone must be much faster than outward, and it would be much more difficult to investigate. .

No matter what, he needs more cases and more detailed information so that he can circle a more accurate range and prove his conjecture.

"I'm afraid we can't just sit here anymore." Kraft stood up and took a moment of silence for his absence from work for who knows how many days in the future. "Whether it is or not, I have to go over there for a walk. Do you want to come with me?"

"Are you serious?" Liston didn't quite agree with Kraft's view. There was absolutely no benefit in investigating this kind of thing. Guessing wrong consumes time, guessing correctly consumes life.

"Then let me go together. It just so happens that there are only two beak masks." Lucius had a good sense of self-protection and inherited Kraft's spirit of not being afraid of ten thousand or just in case.