Krafft's Anomaly Notes

Chapter 417 You have an unread email

As the saying goes, when you're poor, no one cares even in the bustling city; when you're rich, even distant relatives come to visit.

Thoughts and unwanted emails from afar always manage to cross mountains and valleys to reach your desktop or trash can without complaint.

As life at the monastery gradually settled down, the number of letters increased daily, to the point that special time had to be allocated to handle them.

Nearly half of the letters originated from Dunling, with messengers disembarking at Westminster and then continuing the journey on horseback and on foot. The procession typically consisted of two to three messengers, usually accompanied by armed escorts and at least one trusted and persistent servant.

The former is responsible for protecting a few fancy but meaningless words, while the latter is to ensure that the owner's actual intentions are accurately conveyed.

This means that they don't simply throw things into the mailbox and leave; they patiently stay for several days until they personally convey the relevant matters to the recipient and take away a reply with a handwritten signature and wax seal.

So, unfortunately, even before the invention of electronic devices, not replying to read messages required a lot of shamelessness.

A small portion of them wanted to get a piece of the pie in the booming pharmaceutical business, and based on their own understanding, they set high prices for "technical details" that existed or did not exist; a more roundabout approach was to suggest sending less valued juniors to study in order to establish long-term relationships.

A polite and tactful refusal is all it takes to send them away; it doesn't require much thought.

The remaining cases are much more complicated, involving patients and their families seeking medical advice and treatment, who have believed exaggerated rumors or been recommended by helpless industry peers, hoping to obtain effective medical advice or even home visits.

The duration of the illness varies from ten days, several months, several years, to several decades, and the range covers a wide range of symptoms from hair to toenails; the mild cases only feel slight discomfort, while the severe cases are already on the verge of death when the letter is sent.

The descriptions are a mix of subjective and objective accounts, passed through at least three intermediaries, and are full of possibilities, perhapss, probabilities, and chances. Some are brief, only a few strokes, for fear of revealing even the slightest bit of information or exposing any privacy; others are so detailed that they would start from the birth injury of the first ancestor in the family.

Some also carried the patient's hair, dander, underwear, and secretions that had been sealed for a month or two and were so thick that no one dared to open the bottle.

As for the patients themselves—those with mild symptoms feel there's no need to come, while those with severe symptoms certainly can't come.

Waiting while ill is always particularly agonizing. It would be inappropriate to be perfunctory in correspondence that had lasted for nearly three months, especially since the letter writers were generally people of some standing.

But replying to the letter is truly a difficult test of professional ethics and moral standards.

In his spare time, the dean tried to find time to express his views on some of the more understandable symptoms as comprehensively as possible. The length of his writing made him feel as if he were copying a diagnostic textbook.

Those with vague symptoms or mild conditions were all referred to Dr. David, while the rest were left to the placebo effect.

For some patients whose conditions are critical and for whom medicine is powerless, theology makes up for it well. If it cannot bring back a treatment plan, it can at least bring back holy water and blessings.

Perhaps it was a matter of practice makes perfect, but despite being physically and mentally exhausted, he actually gained something from these low-quality medical records.

I don’t know if I should call it experience, but when reading those uninformative texts, I can somehow glean something extra from them.

Sometimes it's a subtle empathy for the writer's emotions; sometimes it's a hidden, unspeakable symptom. A few can be found upon rereading, but many more defy logical explanation.

Whenever these details are mentioned casually or unintentionally, they often surprise the messengers, who remark that even those who witnessed them might not have noticed them.

Like drawing water from a dry well, one must follow the connections and forcibly take what is not there.

Just like now, when he touched the envelope, the slightly cool touch inexplicably reminded him of the freezing rain in his hometown, and a salty smell rose from his fingertips to his nasal cavity.

"William? Is he alright? Has he made it ashore?" On that rough, dark face, he saw surprise, as if asking, "How did you know?"

"Oh, thank you for your concern. The captain is fine, but many people in the service area of ​​Comfort Harbor miss him." The sailor grinned; no crew member didn't love to tease their captain.

“They should miss him.” The Chamber of Commerce witness also laughed. “You two sound like you know each other well? Then I won’t say any more, just go through the motions.”

"Please open the letter first, check the contents, and then sign and stamp it."

A letter, and two boxes, one large and one small, both sealed with wax.

Upon opening the envelope, the contents of the pale yellow letter were somewhat unexpected, yet also reasonable. William was not the kind of person who would be content with the status quo; bigger ships and bigger businesses were psychologically beneficial.

Perhaps in a few years, the trauma from the past will gradually fade from his career, and he may be able to return to the mainland.

Thinking this, he opened the first box with a sense of satisfaction. Inside were the profit sharing, half gold coins and half silver coins, and he even thoughtfully selected the ones in better condition.

The amount is not small for a monastery today, but it's not a lot either.

Then there's the second box.

Heavy and sturdy, with a common oak texture and iron-plated edges, it makes a rolling sound when moved. It must be the sample mentioned in the letter. It's really impressive that the sailors were able to carry it all the way here.

As I placed my palm on the flip cover, the feeling of first touching the envelope returned.

With a slightly damp coolness and a salty taste, he could imagine a pair of hands, roughened by the helmsman, rummaging through the hold, wiping away the moisture and salt from the cargo with burlap, picking them out and tossing them into boxes.

The common minerals were only brushed over by the calluses on my fingertips, with almost no pause, and I picked up two pieces with clear textures and complete crystal faces at random.

Some, however, rub repeatedly between the thumb and forefinger, hesitate, and then let it fall.

What made these hands hesitate was, intuitively,... strangely familiar.

Kraft paused, and under the questioning gazes of the two, took out his gloves, cleared the table, opened two layers of drapes and placed them under the box, and slowly and gently peeled off the wax seal piece by piece, making sure that every crumb fell inside the drapes.

The letter cutter inserted itself into the crevice, and at an angle visible only to itself, pried open a narrow opening that allowed light to enter but prevented anything from escaping.

The cold light probed obliquely, gliding along the undulating edges of the ore, and refracted into flashes on the crystal surface.

In some places, the light abruptly breaks off, as if falling into emptiness. It's not a shadow, but a clean, pure black, with almost no reflection.

It is indeed very familiar, yet not entirely the same.

"Uh, you can rest assured, although it was supplied by the Icefield People, we've all touched it, and it's definitely not..."

"You mean, William is now leading a ship, no, two ships of that kind of stuff, back to Wenden Port from the ice field?"

"Correct."

"I need to go back."