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Chapter 41 A Guess

Chapter 41 A conjecture

"Ah? Does it really work?" Lucius pulled 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, Building 3 North on Elm Street? Where is that?"

"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 so many criss-crossing streets and lanes with so many different names that it’s easy to forget such nondescript names.

"You remember not thinking about the possibility of a follow-up visit?" Kraft asked.

"Uh, it wasn't me who wrote it. It was written by Liston. Maybe he knows where it is?" Lucius quickly distanced himself from the relationship. It seemed that he had discovered something wrong. At this time, he must not be involved in the flaws in the medical records.

Liston should be responsible for it himself.

"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 not a big deal. He quickly followed and quickly recalled whether there was any problem of his own. If he couldn't find the specific location later, this 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 is difficult to wake 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?" 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's head 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, feeling guilty as if he was 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 Port Wenden."

"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, picking it out 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 recall where it is."

The tone is calm, but it always makes people feel that there is some emotion hidden in it. It is not annoyance at being interrupted at work, nor dissatisfaction with others, but a trace of uneasiness that the listener cannot understand.

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

"It's a small street, relatively close to the Yantide 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 took 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 suspicions are gradually increasing, and he feels that he may have to overturn his judgment on the earlier case. The matter is much more complicated than he imagined.

For the hired worker named Gary, the earliest judgment was that the change in living environment had affected his and his neighbors' daily routines. In a place with a harsh environment like the salt tide area, this explanation is the most reasonable.

Another possibility is an infectious disease, and Kraft has not considered this factor. But because Gary and his wife did not have any discomfort at all except prolonged sleep, and had no symptoms such as fever, cough, diarrhea, etc., they had no clue, so they finally ruled it out.

This is possible.

The case on Elm Street made him quickly alert, and he realized 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 an irregular shape with black shading, 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. Anyway, 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 it 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 zone.

The whole room fell silent, and Liston and Lucius looked at Kraft, waiting for him to explain why he was suddenly so concerned 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.

"It's 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. The description was similar, but it was much more serious."

"He is 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 home."

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

"Could it have something to do with the Clarifying Potion?" Lucius naturally connected the gradual 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 other patients' feedback. Kraft, has Gary and his wife ever used it?" Reasonably, 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."

Mass onset is related in time and space. The possibility of infectious diseases was once again put in front of Kraft.

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 agrees with this theory and affirms its universal applicability to a large number of cases.

Using the connected dotted lines as the radius, he drew a circle that encompassed a 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 patients."

"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 area. In such a place where the sanitary environment is worse and more crowded, the spread within the area must be much faster than outward, but it is 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 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. Wrong guesses cost time, and correct guesses cost lives.

"Then let me go together. It just so happens that there are only two beak masks." Lucius had a very good sense of self-protection and inherited Kraft's spirit of "Don't be afraid of ten thousand, just be afraid of anything."

(End of chapter)


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