Unexpected Guest

Kraft met the visitor, who was alone and appeared to be in no particular distress.

He was likely the kind of person Liston described as "living in a place like the Salt Tide District." His clothes were made of low-quality linen, with patches and loose threads visible from several paces away, and a fishy odor wafted off him as he drew closer.

The student who had brought the message didn't lead him to any empty room, but instead left him standing in the main hall of the Medical School. The black-robed figures passing by occasionally cast strange glances his way, the environment silently rejecting this peculiar intruder.

A dock worker, Kraft concluded.

The student who had come to relay the message brought Kraft to the hall and whispered, "I didn't want to disturb you, but he insisted on seeing only you and wouldn't tell me why. I thought perhaps there might be some special circumstances?"

"Thank you, Matt, please be sure to do the same next time." Kraft called him by name accurately and nodded his thanks. The student left, looking pleasantly surprised.

After seeing the student off, Kraft approached while observing the visitor. His eyes were fixed on the floor, and his pant legs and shoes were damp, as if he had just rushed over from somewhere wet—likely seawater, as the spots where he had stepped would leave a layer of salt frost once they dried.

That was probably why the student hadn't led him further inside.

"Hello, I am Kraft. Is there anything I can help you with?" Kraft stood still before him and offered a practiced greeting.

"Ah, hello, it's me." He shivered, seemingly startled, and shifted his gaze to Kraft's black robe. "I heard that you can treat illnesses here that others can't..."

He paused, then asked in an uncertain tone, "And that it only costs five silver coins?"

Well, another one who had heard some version of the rumors. It seemed the rumors had quickly evolved to include the specialty of treating difficult and miscellaneous diseases.

He had indeed encountered a few such patients lately. Because of the absurd rumors, people had been coming to the Medical School with ailments completely unrelated to abdominal pain, making all sorts of demands, which had truly given Kraft a headache for a while.

However, his professional ethics forced him to pull himself together and follow the standard procedure.

"Actually, there are some nuances, but if you are feeling unwell, we can find a place to sit and talk." Kraft wasn't just being polite; he wasn't very accustomed to this kind of social environment. Perhaps he should apply for a dedicated reception room sometime.

"No, no need, we can talk here. Is it really only five silver coins?" The visitor reached out, and only then did Kraft notice he had been clutching five black silver coins in his hand the whole time.

To put it bluntly, these black silver coins were far too dark. It wasn't the fault of private minting adding too much base metal; it was that the storage environment was so poor that their value had dropped a tier.

"Please come with me. Let's talk in a quieter place. Just think of it as a chat; my time doesn't cost money."

As the saying goes, since he was already here, he couldn't just chase him away. Kraft found a nearby empty room, brought over two chairs, and asked him to sit down.

After changing locations, the visitor seemed to relax a bit and began to recount his problem in fits and starts. "I don't know when it started, but the time I spend sleeping seems to be getting longer and longer. I know it sounds strange, but my situation is different."

"I work as a laborer at the docks. I have to go there to find work every day, so I usually wake up very early. At first, I didn't notice, but one day, I didn't wake up until the sun was shining on my face."

"After that, I noticed that I was waking up later and later. I asked my wife to wake me up in the morning, only to find that she was the same."

"Have you been overly exhausted lately?" Kraft rubbed his eyes, saying that topic made his own sleepiness rise. He hadn't been sleeping well lately, his nap time had been forced to shorten, and his working hours were becoming increasingly anti-human.

"No, no, no, I am absolutely certain that's not it. Since then, I've been waking up later and later, and I'm more prone to feeling sleepy at night. Now, I have to sleep through half the morning before I can wake up."

"I went to several clinics, but they all felt I didn't have any illness at all, and the medicine they prescribed was useless."

His words were filled with the panic and confusion of not being understood. He looked at Kraft, hoping to find a glimmer of validation.

"Is there anything else wrong? For example, coughing, fever, or anything like that?" Kraft adjusted his posture, leaning forward to show he was listening intently. In truth, he didn't think it was a big deal; he only changed his posture because his back was sore from sitting for so long.

It sounded like a change in lifestyle that had disrupted the visitor's and his wife's daily biological clocks. Everyone had experienced something like that, but Kraft wasn't deeply involved in this professional field and didn't have any particularly good advice for it.

If he knew how to wake up early naturally, would he still be late for university morning classes?

Seeing that Kraft didn't show signs of impatience like the others, the visitor continued his narrative. "I tried asking my neighbors to wake me up, but they were the same. In the end, I could only find a friend I'm close with to wake me up on his way to the docks in the morning."

"The neighbors are the same?"

"Yes, they also discovered that they were sleeping longer and longer. And my friend said it's not easy to wake me up. He said he had to shout my name loudly in my ear and even slap my face before I could wake up." The confusion on his face deepened as he spoke of the strangest part.

"But... but I have no memory of it at all. Logically speaking, one should have some sensation when half-awake, right?"

"As if there are only two states: deep sleep and being awake? You just said your wife is the same; have you tried it on her?" Kraft gripped the armrests to support himself.

"Yes, my wife is the same. It's very hard to wake her up, and she has no memory of what happened, which is why I believe him." The arm wrapped in coarse linen sleeves trembled slightly. "I feel like I really am sick. If I go too late, I can only work half a day. I can't live like this."

"What about your neighbors? Are they also hard to wake up?"

"I didn't ask them about that. I only know this much." He fell silent, looking at Kraft expectantly, hoping to get a different answer.

If he wasn't lying or hiding anything, Kraft really couldn't find anything to match his symptoms. What should this be called? "Progressive sleep prolongation"?

It wasn't as if there were no precedents for such hair-pulling matters. All kinds of strange chief complaints had their hidden reasons; either the patient had misunderstood something, or key information had been omitted.

For example, waking up with hematuria overnight, finding no signs of kidney disease upon urgent examination, only to discover they had eaten half a box of red dragon fruit the night before.

Or the famous advertisement: "If a child is sick and doesn't get better, it's mostly faking it; give them a beating..."

In short, the patient is never wrong. If you're to blame, it's because you didn't ask clearly; the responsibility lies with you, not them. Even if they are faking an illness, you still have to figure it out for them.

"Alright, I understand what you mean. Next, I will ask some more detailed questions. They might sound unrelated to your illness, but they are indeed necessary." Kraft dipped his pen in ink and spread out the paper. "First, can you tell me your name and where you live?"

"My name is Gary, and I live in the Salt Tide District."

"The specific location?" Kraft wrote down his name on the paper and set aside an address column next to it.

"I... I can't really say. Is that important?" Gary couldn't answer the question. "In the Salt Tide District, near the church, next to a place that makes salted fish, and there's a tree at the entrance."

Kraft covered his forehead, deeply experiencing Liston's pain. He actually knew about the Salt Tide District, but he had never been inside, nor had he ever thought of going in.

This place was equivalent to the slums of Wenden Port, with completely irregular architecture—a typical legacy of unplanned development in the early stages of urban construction.

The reason it was called by that name was because the terrain was relatively low. Sometimes the rising tide would flood the area, leaving behind damp, muddy, sandy ground and salt-water pits of various sizes. Once dried, they would leave behind fine salt grains and the stench of dead small creatures.

People who couldn't afford to settle in other areas of Wenden Port were squeezed into this wretched land, building all sorts of shacks and dwellings themselves. It had expanded in sync with the development of Wenden Port, becoming a gray urban area that the city didn't want to acknowledge.

There were no normal streets inside, only narrow alleys between crooked, shoddy houses that crawled and intersected without any pattern, constantly expanding as more people arrived each year. The accumulation of filth, left unmanaged by anyone, had deteriorated to a point where it was impossible to clear, and this only worsened the further one went inside.

In the past, Kraft, as a young minor noble looking for fun in Wenden Port, would never have entered such a place. At most, he would pass by the edges, catching a whiff of a strange odor and quickly steering clear.

The city administrators were too lazy to send anyone in, leaving the Salt Tide District to become a lawless zone where chaos and disorder thrived.

The infamous Wenden Port seawater dungeon, a place loathed by both man and ghost, was also located on the seaside of the Salt Tide District. Everything deemed unsuitable for the clean urban areas was tossed into this salty, damp trash bin.

Conducting a follow-up visit inside was simply impossible.

"Sigh." Kraft sighed, writing a vague "Salt Tide District, Northwest" in the address column and noting the landmarks he had mentioned beside it.

"It's fine, it won't have much of an impact. Do you and your neighbors have a habit of keeping the windows closed to stay warm in your rooms?"

"No, the firewood gets damp easily and will grow mold."

Kraft had gained nothing.

Gary's life was riddled with problems, including a monotonous diet, a lack of vitamins, long-term residence in a damp environment, and heavy physical labor.

There was nothing he could single out to explain the symptoms of Gary's family. Considering the neighbors were affected as well, it was likely due to environmental factors in the surrounding area; without going to the scene to take a look, there would be no results.

And even if he went, there was no guarantee he would find anything.

"I'm sorry, I don't have any leads for the moment; this is my first time encountering a situation like this." Kraft shook his head. "If possible, come find me in two days. I will try my best to make time to go with you and look for the cause."

"No, that won't be necessary." Gary lowered his head and didn't say much else, perhaps interpreting the statement as a polite refusal.

He stood up from the chair and opened the door himself. Without pain or anger, he simply left quietly. Gray emotions enveloped him; without the need for verbal expression, it was clearly painted all over his body, and anyone could read the heavy sense of oppression.

Before stepping out the door, he turned back to face Kraft, leaving behind one final sentence before departing, "Thank you, sir. You are the only person who was willing to listen to me finish, and may the Lord bless you with health."