"Knock knock, knock knock."

Early in the morning, there was a loud but not hurried knock on the door.

"Hello, is Mr. Brad at home?"

"Wait, I'll be right away." The young woman in the blackened apron put down the half-cut bread, wiped her hands with her apron, walked to the door and opened the door, "You are ......"

"O my lord! What's going on?!"

She was horrified by the sight outside the door.

In the faint light of the sky, two bird-headed men in black robes stood at the door of her house carrying wooden boxes. The metallic beak and red lenses reflect a seeping light.

She subconsciously wanted to close the door, but a black glove quickly stretched out and pressed against the door panel, "Please don't do this, ma'am, we're doctors!" Don't close the door. ”

It's quite bizarre, early in the morning, when light and darkness alternate, two guys with images very similar to the legendary demons came to the door, mouthing words, claiming that doctors came to see a doctor.

Realizing that he had been misunderstood, Kraft quickly explained his intentions, "We came to find Mr. Brad, the baker, who came to the clinic before saying that he had slept too long, and we came to visit him for a special visit. ”

Seeing the expression on the woman's face shift from horror to slight suspicion, Kraft withdrew his hand from the door panel and pointed to the badge on his collar.

"My name is Kraft and I'm a lecturer at Wendenhaven College, don't worry about this stupid hood, I don't like it either." He automatically squeezed out a polite smile, but unfortunately it was blocked by the mask and did not take advantage of his young and handsome face.

"Huh?" The woman was still wary. The bird-headed man called out her husband's name, knew his profession, and had an unknown badge pinned to his collar, which was no reason for her to let them in easily.

Especially when the husband hasn't woken up yet.

It was a difficult scene, and Kraft reached out and scratched his head, slamming against the red lenses. He reorganized his language in an attempt to impress the woman.

"Are you Mr. Brad's wife? Yes, we feel that not being able to wake up in the morning interferes with his normal work, which is indeed a very serious thing. You don't want your husband to be so distressed, do you? ”

The woman's expression was a little shaken, and Kraft retreated, "Our work is very busy, and if we miss today, we will have to wait for another half a month." Can you tell Mr. Bled to make an appointment in half a month? ”

"Oh, I didn't mean that, please come in. It's just that my husband is still sleeping, and I need to wait a while, and it's getting harder and harder to wake him up. She opened the door and let Kraft and Lucius inside.

"Thank you, understanding lady, Mr. Brad is lucky." Kraft complimented politely, a friendly attitude that made Mrs. Brad relax a little more.

It went well, but the conversation and the scene always gave Kraft a subtle sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen it sometimes.

With this sense of déjà vu, he and Lucius stepped into the door of Brad's house, and Mrs. Brad led them to the table.

"I'm sorry, my husband hasn't woken up yet, he's getting up late lately, and you'll have to wait a while to see him."

"It's okay, we can see if it's a problem with the house first." Kraft observed the room, uncomfortable to see under the light red filter, and the air filtered by the bird's beak did not smell the original smell.

"Ma'am, did you wake up so early that you weren't influenced by your husband?"

"Why do you say that?" She cut two thin slices from the bread and placed them on a wooden plate, "Drowsiness is not contagious, we used to wake up early, but Brad had recently woken up a little late. ”

Lucius and Kraft looked at each other and shook their heads, not expecting their conjecture to be shattered in the first place.

If it was an epidemic, the wife who had the most contact with Brad was infected several times in that long time, and there was no reason that there was no sign at all.

The theory of the origin of the living environment has also been shaken, and the two live together, and there is no difference in clothing, food, housing and transportation, which does not make sense.

"Do you know anyone in the neighborhood who has been in a similar situation lately?" Kraft continued.

Mrs. Brad stopped the knife in her hand and recalled for a moment, "No, at least I haven't heard of it on this street. You can ask Brad, he knows more people than I do. ”

"Thank you. It's a bit presumptuous, can we try to wake him up? ”

As for "difficult to wake up", Kraft is very curious about the extent to which a patient can express it that way.

"It's really helped me, and it's not easy to wake him up every day. It's in the room over there. ”

Mrs. Brad pointed to the door on the side.

Kraft and Lucius pushed the door open, and a slightly chubby man slept soundly in his bed.

He grabbed the fat hand that was sticking out from under the quilt and pressed slightly, "Mr. Brad, wake up." ”

"You can't wake him up like that." Mrs. Brad's voice came from outside the door, "Be louder, harder, but don't pinch him purple." ”

Kraft gradually increased the strength of his hand, and his strong palm grabbed Brad's hand and shook it hard.

This force will be noticeable to most unprepared people, but Brad is still asleep, unresponsive, and his chest rises and falls regularly, without change.

Kraft pressed his hand to the side of his neck, and without a timer, he could only barely estimate that the carotid pulse was around fifty beats per minute, which was normal.

The beak mask did not allow Kraft to shout in his ear, and could only shake Brad's body vigorously, but in such a violent shaking, he only stopped his snoring and had no intention of waking up.

"It's really hard to wake up, I have an idea, but I don't know if it can be used." Lucius watched Kraft fiddle for a moment, then took Brad's other hand.

"What?"

"I don't think people with a lot of body hair would mind having one less, would they?" He pinched one of Brad's arm hairs and tugged at it hard.

"Don't!" Kraft tried to stop him, but it was too late.

"Sss The effect was immediate, and it didn't necessarily hurt even if he was pricked by a needle, and Brad let out a slight inhalation sound in his sleep, showing signs of waking up.

Kraft seized the opportunity to shake him more violently, and under the torment of this wake-up package, Brad finally opened his eyes.

"Who are you?!" He sat up and backed away desperately, against the wall.

"Relax, we're doctors." Kraft spread his hands out to show harmlessness, "Dr. Liston said you don't wake up easily, so we decided to come and have a look. ”

When he woke up to find two bird-headed men in the house, Brad woke up completely awake as soon as he got up, and he clutched his chest to try to calm his beating heart, and got dressed and sat down at the table.

"Thank you, but let my wife wake me up next time." Brad had palpitations.

"I'm sorry, but this is also to get a sense of what it means to be 'not easy to be aroused'. To be honest, I don't think that's normal. Kraft took the wooden tray of bread and placed it in front of Brad, "If you don't mind, you can talk while eating." ”

"Do you want some?" Chatting with the bird-headed man while eating breakfast obviously has no positive effect on appetite.

"No, it doesn't have that yet." The knuckles tap the mask lightly, making a banging sound.

The eyes behind the red lenses looked at Brad carefully, and after waking up, Brad's mental state was very normal, and it could even be said that he was in better shape than Kraft recently, and he didn't even hit Hatcher.

Putting aside the gradual deterioration of the meeting, this kind of sleep quality is still very enviable.

"Have you slept well lately? Have you ever had any dreams? ”

"I really slept well, but I was a little too good to wake up." Brad tore a slice from the bread and stuffed it into his mouth, "Dream...... I didn't have a dream, maybe I don't remember, I only have an impression of the moment I first woke up. ”

He touched his arm, and he always felt a little tingling, "It's strange to say, I slept so well that I didn't dream once." ”

"It's like the entire time you sleep has been erased, completely unaware of what happened during that time?" Lucius chimed in.

"Ah, yes, that's what it feels like." Brian agrees with the analogy, "It's not the same as falling asleep before. ”

Kraft jotted it down on a piece of paper and glanced at Lucius. "I have no idea what happened during this time", was Lucius's exact words describing how he felt when he drank the dilution.

He only needed to take the initiative to recall a little to remember the excited expression on Lucius's face at that time, the excited tone.

Lucius's face could not be seen under the mask, and his face must not be much better.

"Have you heard of similar situations with people in the neighborhood? Wake up later and later, can't wake up, both or both. ”

"No, I know people on half the street here, and they've never mentioned anything like that." Brad shoved the last loaf of bread into his mouth, swallowed it, and continued, "It's not a big deal, is it?" After getting used to it, I thought it would be nice to sleep more. ”

……

……

"It doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense at all."

Kraft and Lucius walked out the door and back into the street.

"I still think it has something to do with Chengming, even if it doesn't make sense logically, I have to keep my opinion." Lucius was a little irritated by the contradiction between intuition and reality.

He thinks this is the problem caused by the dilution, but in the current feedback, this is the only patient who has this symptom after drinking the clarification potion, and Kraft has at least two examples of not being exposed to the diluent.

"Actually, I feel that way, Lucius." Kraft stopped and touched a metal beak, which he had no beard to stroke, so he had to substitute it for the time being.

"If there is a conflict between assumptions and reality, it is certainly not reality that is wrong. One possibility is that our observation of phenomena is missing, and the other is that our theories are not perfect. ”

"What do you mean?" Lucius was puzzled.

"I think it's the latter, it's too simplistic, and there may be more than one risk factor for the disease. The Elixir of Clarity is just one of them. ”

Kraft thinks back to yesterday's map and compares it with his own experience of walking on Elm Street today, "If my sense of distance is not too outrageous, and Liston's drawing scale is not wrong, the dotted line I drew yesterday ......"

He did a rough calculation, "If you walk in a straight line, it will only take five to ten minutes." ”

"I'm also going back to my initial guess that there is a factor that can affect a certain range, not necessarily an infectious disease, but a much larger range than the first few houses I had in mind."

Kraft stretched out his arms and gestured in a large circle.

"It's not centered here, and the impact here is already weak, so it will only manifest itself under the dual action of another risk factor, which is clarity."

"If so, find it......" Lucius thought for a moment.

"Salt Tide Zone." Kraft lifted the crate, "We'll have to go to the salt tide area." ”