1836: I Became a Literary Giant in Great Britain

Dr. Thomas's home in London's West End.

Starting with "The Last Leaf," he never missed any of Michel's works.

Since that last investigative report, Dr. Thomas has become Michelle's most loyal reader.

It was astonishing that The Times had gone from fiercely criticizing Michelle to praising her.

Dr. Thomas also felt honored, believing that his readers' letters had played a role.

So when the latest issue of Bentley's Notebooks arrived in his hands, he even postponed an appointment with a banker's wife and locked himself in his study.

Sunlight streamed through the window, casting dappled patterns on the pristine white wool carpet.

The air was filled with the aroma of black tea.

Being able to enjoy sunshine and fresh air, they are clearly upper-class people.

Dr. Thomas adjusted his posture, put on his reading glasses, and eagerly opened "The Notebooks of Bentley".

I began reading the short story that occupied the most prominent position in the magazine—"A Study in Scarlet."

The opening story of Dr. Watson's experiences immediately gave him a sense of professional familiarity.

As a doctor, he could understand the trauma and confusion that comes with returning from the battlefield.

The story is told in a calm and restrained style, without any unnecessary sentimentality, yet it feels as if it were actually happening in real life.

Thomas couldn't help but raise his eyebrows when Holmes appeared.

This character is so special.

He wasn't like the traditional protagonists in novels, who were either handsome or of high moral character.

He is not the kind of person who is always portrayed as "great, glorious, and righteous".

Sherlock Holmes is eccentric, reclusive, and even somewhat aloof.

His act of whipping corpses in the dissection room might seem perverted to ordinary people, but in Dr. Thomas's eyes, it was a pure and fervent pursuit of knowledge.

This is a scientific spirit, an ultimate pursuit of truth.

Thomas was completely captivated by the story and the characters.

The whole world seemed to be condensed into those lines of printed text.

He followed Watson's perspective, piecing together the image of Sherlock Holmes bit by bit, and then followed in Holmes's footsteps into the eerie haunted house on Lauriston Garden Street.

Bloodstained words on the wall, nameless corpses, an eerie atmosphere in the air...

Every detail sent chills down his spine, yet he couldn't help but want to keep watching.

"Knock knock knock".

There was a gentle knock on the study door.

"Doctor, Mr. Benjamin has arrived and is waiting for you in the waiting room," came the assistant's voice from outside the door.

Thomas was then jolted out of his reverie. He glanced at the clock on the wall and realized with dismay that he had been so engrossed in the novel that he had completely forgotten his appointment with the patient.

"Okay, I'll be right there."

He responded, reluctantly placed a bookmark on the page he was reading, and closed the magazine.

However, the suspense of the story kept replaying in his mind.

Rache...revenge...who is the killer? What brilliant deductions are hidden behind Holmes' seemingly casual observations?

Dr. Thomas walked absentmindedly into the examination room, where Mr. Benjamin—the bank manager with the broken arm—was sitting in a chair, looking pained.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Benjamin," Thomas asked habitually as he put on his stethoscope.

"Did you recently return from Afghanistan?"

He was stunned as soon as he said it.

How did I start playing Sherlock Holmes...? It must be because I didn't rest properly at noon...

Mr. Benjamin was also stunned.

He raised his arm, which was splinted in a wooden brace, and replied, puzzled, "Doctor, I fell off a horse in Hyde Park last week. I've never been to Afghanistan in my life."

"Ah, sorry, slip of the tongue, slip of the tongue." Dr. Thomas blushed, feeling somewhat embarrassed, and quickly began to examine the other person's injuries.

He tried to focus his thoughts on the patient's condition, but Holmes's lean and confident face kept involuntarily appearing in his mind.

I've finally finished reading Mr. Benjamin's Wound.

The next patient was a factory owner who was pale from stomach problems.

While pressing on the patient's abdomen, Dr. Thomas asked, "Have you been exposed to any toxic substances recently? For example, alkaloids?"

The factory owner was startled and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "Doctor, I probably just have food poisoning, please don't scare me!"

"Oh, I was overthinking it." Dr. Thomas coughed twice, then began bloodletting on the factory owner.

After all, drawing a small bowl of blood from a vein in the arm is now the standard treatment for all kinds of pain and inflammation.

Seeing the factory owner's increasingly pale face, he opened another bottle of tincture of opium.

This stuff is the most effective; just a few drops diluted in water will immediately relieve stomach pain, although it's very addictive.

But it's not a big deal, right?

After treating the patient, Dr. Thomas felt he must have gone mad today.

In his twenty years of medical practice, he had never been so distracted and absent-minded.

That guy named Sherlock Holmes was more intoxicating than the strongest gin, making his brain completely out of control.

After finally seeing off the last patient, Dr. Thomas practically rushed back to his study.

He grabbed the book "Bentley's Miscellany" and read the rest of it in one go.

When he read the last sentence and saw the words "To be continued," he felt the same frustration as the workers in the Lightning Street tavern.

"Damn Michelle!"

Dr. Thomas slammed the magazine shut in frustration and threw it on the table.

The feeling was unbearable, as if the Duchess and her lover were already in bed, and the Duke was right outside the door. But the story ended abruptly.

He recalled the silly mistake he made in the clinic that afternoon, and alarm bells rang in his mind.

No, this can't go on!

As a meticulous doctor, he could not allow anything to affect his diagnosis of patients.

He took a deep breath, picked up the magazine he both loved and hated again, and put on a solemn expression.

He made a decision.

Michelle and I are sworn enemies!

This "A Study in Scarlet" is so addictive that he has to quit.

From this day forward, he will not see any patients until he has finished reading the latest update of "A Study in Scarlet".

This is being responsible to the patient, and also to his own curiosity.

PS:

I've finally finished working on it all, so I'm sharing this with you all in one go!

I'm still eager to read more. After looking at the books published around the same time as the competition, I feel like I'm about to be kicked to death by the big names.

12 books, this book is almost the last one in my collection, sob sob, it's only a quarter of what the big shots have.

Therefore, I hope everyone will stop keeping books as updates. Even if you don't read them, you can still open the update page every day, flip to the last page, and see the page showing the ranking of the updates.

Thank you! I worked three shifts and three nights a week!