Craft met the visitor, alone and seemingly unwell.
He is probably the kind of person who "lives in a salt-tide area" as Liston said. The poor-quality linen clothes, the seams and threads can be seen from a few steps away, and you can smell the fishy smell when you get closer.
The student who came to report did not lead him to an empty room, but let him stand in the hall of the medical school. The men in black robes coming and going occasionally cast strange looks, and the environment invisibly rejected this strange intruder.
Entrant.
Craft, a longshoreman, made his decision.
The student who came to tell Kraft took Kraft to the hall and whispered: "Originally I didn't want to disturb you, but he insisted that he only wanted to see you once and was unwilling to tell me the reason. I thought there might be some special circumstances?"
"Thank you, Matt, please do the same next time." Kraft called his name accurately, nodded to him and thanked him, and the student left flattered.
After sending the students away, Kraft approached and observed the visitor. His eyes were fixed on the ground. His trouser legs and shoes were wet. It felt like he had just come from a wet place. Most of them were sea water. The places he stepped on would dry out.
Leaves a layer of salt frost.
Probably this was the reason why the student didn't lead him inside.
"Hello, I'm Kraft. How can I help?" Kraft stood in front of him and greeted him skillfully.
"Ah, hello, it's me." He trembled, as if he was startled, and moved his eyes to Kraft's black robe. "I heard that you can treat some diseases that others can't..."
He paused and asked in an uncertain tone, "And you only charge five silver coins?"
Okay, this is another rumor I heard and I don’t know which version. It seems that the rumor has quickly developed to specialize in treating difficult and complicated diseases.
I have indeed encountered some such patients these days. Because of the outrageous rumors, Kraft came to the medical school with symptoms that had nothing to do with abdominal pain and made various complaints. It really gave Kraft a headache for a while.
However, his professionalism still allowed him to force himself to be serious and complete the standard process.
"Actually there are some differences, but if there is any discomfort, we can find a place to sit down and talk." Kraft was not polite. He was not used to this kind of communication environment. Maybe when should he apply for a special receptionist?
room.
"No, no need, just say it here. Is it really just five silver coins?" The visitor stretched out his hand, and then Craft noticed that he had been holding five black silver coins in his hand.
To put it bluntly, this black silver coin is too black. It cannot be blamed on the private casting of too many materials. It is because of the poor storage environment that the value has dropped a notch.
"Please come with me. Let's talk in a quiet place. Just treat it like a chat. My time doesn't count."
As the saying goes, you can't chase people away after they come. Kraft found an empty room nearby, brought two chairs, and asked him to sit down and said.
After changing places, the visitor seemed to relax a little and talked about his problems intermittently, "I don't know when it started, but my sleeping time seems to be getting longer and longer. I know it's weird to say this, but
My situation is different."
"I work as a laborer at the dock. I have to go there every day to find work. I usually get up very early. I didn't notice it at first, but one day I woke up when the sun hit my face."
"Then I noticed I was waking up later, so I asked my wife to wake me up in the morning, and she did the same thing."
"Will you be overworked during this period?" Kraft rubbed his eyes and said that this topic made him feel sleepy. He has not been sleeping well recently, and his nap time has been shortened, and his working hours have become increasingly reversed.
Humanity.
"No, no, no, I am definitely not like this. After that, I woke up later and later, and I became more sleepy at night. Now I have to sleep for half the morning before I wake up."
"I went to several clinics, but they all thought I didn't have any disease at all, and the medicines they prescribed didn't work."
His words were full of incomprehensible panic and confusion, and he looked at Kraft, hoping to find a glimmer of recognition.
"Is there anything else wrong? For example, cough, fever, etc.?" Kraft adjusted his posture, leaned forward, and made a posture of listening carefully. In fact, he didn't think it was a big deal. He changed his position just because he had been sitting for a long time.
Backache.
It sounds like some change in living habits has disrupted the daily biological clock of the client and his wife. Everyone has had this experience, but Kraft is not deeply involved in this professional aspect and has no particularly good suggestions for this.
If you knew how to get up early naturally, would you still be late for morning classes in college?
Seeing that Kraft did not show any signs of impatience like others, the visitor continued his narrative, "I tried asking the neighbors to wake me up, but they did the same thing. In the end I had to find someone with whom I had a good relationship.
Friend, go to the dock and wake me up in the morning."
"Neighbors too?"
"Yes, they also found that they slept longer and longer. And my friend said that it was not easy to wake me up. He said that he shouted my name loudly in my ear and patted my face to wake me up."
The look of confusion on his face became more and more serious as he mentioned the strangest place.
"But...but I have no impression at all. Logically speaking, you should feel something when you are half awake, right?"
"It's like there are only two states: asleep and awake? You just said that your wife is like this too. Have you tried it on her?" Kraft grabbed the armrest to support himself.
"Yes, my wife is like this too. It's hard to wake up, and she has no memory of what happened, so I believe him." The arm wrapped in burlap clothes trembled slightly, "I feel like I'm really sick. What if?
If you go too late, you can only work for half a day, which is impossible."
"What about your neighbors, they're also hard to wake up?"
"I didn't ask them this. That's all I know." He fell silent and looked 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 would this be called? "Progressive sleep prolongation"?
There is no precedent for such a bald-headed thing. Various strange complaints have their own hidden reasons. Either the patient has made something wrong, or key information has been omitted.
For example, I woke up overnight with hematuria, and an urgent check-up found no indications of kidney disease. Finally, I found out that I ate half a box of red dragon fruit last night.
For example, the famous advertisement slogan "If a child is sick and old, most of the time he is pretending, so give him a good beating..."
In short, the patient is not wrong. If you want to blame it, it's because you didn't ask clearly. The responsibility lies with you and not with him. Even if he is pretending to be ill, you have to make it clear to him.
"Okay, I understand what you mean. Next I will ask some questions in more detail. They may not sound related to your illness, but they are indeed necessary." Kraft dipped the ink and spread the paper.
"First of all, can you tell me your name and where you live?"
"My name is Gary and I live in the salt tide area."
"Exact location?" Kraft wrote down his name on the paper and separated the address bar next to it.
"I...I can't tell, is this important?" Gary couldn't answer the question, "In the salt tide area near the church, there is a place that makes salted fish next to it, and there is a tree at the door."
Kraft covered his forehead and deeply felt Liston's pain. He actually knew about the salt tide area, but he had never gone in, nor had he ever thought about going in.
This place is equivalent to the Wendeng Port slums, with completely irregular buildings, a typical legacy of unplanned development in the early days of urban construction.
The reason why it is called this is because the terrain is relatively low. When the tide rises, it will sometimes reach here, leaving behind wet mud and sand and large and small salt water puddles. After drying, it will leave behind tiny salt grains and dead bodies.
The fishy smell of small creatures.
People who had no money to settle in other areas of Wendeng Port were squeezed into this bad land, and they built various residences and shacks, which expanded in parallel with the development of Wendeng Port, becoming a gray area that the city did not want to admit.
urban area.
There are no normal streets inside, only narrow lanes between crooked and shoddy houses, crawling and intersecting in an irregular manner, and growing with the arrival of more people every year. The accumulation of filth without treatment has deteriorated to the point where it is impossible to sort out.
The situation becomes more so the further inward you go.
In the past, Kraft, as a young nobleman who came to Wendeng Port to have fun, of course could not go in. At most, he would pass by the edge and avoid it if he smelled a strange smell.
The city managers were too lazy to send anyone in, allowing the salt tide area to become a neglected zone where chaos and disorder flourished.
The distinctive seawater prison of Wendeng Port that everyone hates and ghosts hate is also placed on the seaside of the salt tide area. Everything that is not suitable for appearing in a clean urban area is thrown into this salty and wet trash can.
It is simply impossible to go in for follow-up visits.
"Sigh." Kraft sighed, wrote a general "Salt Tide Area, Northwest" in the address column, and noted the sign he mentioned next to it.
"It's okay, it won't have much impact. Do you and your neighbors have the habit of closing the windows in your room to keep warm?"
"No, firewood is prone to moisture and mold."
…
…
Kraft found nothing.
Gary's life was full of problems, including a monotonous diet, lack of vitamins, long-term living in humid places, and heavy manual labor.
There was nothing he could single out to explain the symptoms of Gary's family. Considering that the neighbors also had symptoms, it was probably due to the influence of surrounding environmental factors, so it would be fruitless not to go to the scene to take a look.
You may not be able to find anything if you go there.
"Sorry, I don't have a clue at the moment. This is my first time encountering such a situation." Kraft shook his head and said, "If you can, come to me in two days, and I will try my best to spend time with you to find out the reason.
"
"No, no need." Gary lowered his head and didn't say much. Perhaps he understood this sentence as a tactful rejection.
He stood up from the chair and opened the door by himself. There was no pain or anger, he just left quietly. The gray emotions wrapped around him without the need for words to express, and they were obviously smeared all over his body, and anyone could read the heavy feeling of depression.
Before stepping out, he turned around again, faced Kraft, and left his last words before leaving, "Thank you, you are the only person willing to listen to what I have to say. May the Lord bless you with health."