Chapter 72: He Also Did Beauty Treatments [3] Dolseok's eyes and the butcher's eyes widened at the same time.
What was a well-dressed young master suddenly saying?
It was bad enough to ask for balls, but iron balls?
The butcher blinked and asked again,
"What… what kind of balls?"
"Iron balls. If you don't have those, pig balls are fine too."
"Uh…"
The butcher just kept repeating, "Uh…" like a man whose fuse had blown.
Dolseok was just as dumbfounded. They had come into a butcher's shop talking about whether someone would live or die, and now Kanghyeok was suddenly asking for balls. Anyone would have been stunned.
"Young Master. Balls?"
"Hold on. This is the only thing I can think of right now."
He meant it.
He truly could not think of anything suitable to use as a bag for artificial respiration.
He had dozens of silk pouches, but what use were they if they could not even hold water?
If I remembered right, in Water Margin, the football Gao Qiu used when he was poor was a pig's bladder.
Whatever else it was, a ball sack was still a kind of pouch.
It held not water or air, but two testicles.
That meant the shape and material were just right.
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Put it to the patient's mouth and suck… no, that's not it. Just watch and you'll see."
Once he actually tried to explain it, it did not come out properly.
"You're going to suck on balls?"
"Are you insane? Why would I suck on them? We're going to blow into them."
"Into the balls?"
"Just watch later."
Kanghyeok silenced Dolseok's questions by smacking the back of his head.
It was not the best method, but it was definitely effective.
At the very least, it shut him up.
"Anyway, do you have them?"
"Uh… yes. I do have some. Are you perhaps looking for testicles?"
"No. Why would I be looking for those? The pouch. The pouch."
"Yes. I do have a few…"
The butcher trailed off and started rummaging through the shop.
A ball sack. This was the first time in his life a customer had asked for one.
People looking for testicles, on the other hand, were actually fairly common.
They all said eating them was good for virility or something like that.
The butcher had gotten tempted and tried them a few times himself, but they did not taste like much, and the effect had been nothing to brag about either.
"Ah, here it is."
The butcher quickly cut off a ball sack and brought it over.
"Oh."
Kanghyeok accepted it with an impressed look.
It was far bigger and finer than he had expected.
This was more than enough to substitute for a bag for artificial respiration.
"Mm."
Kanghyeok began experimenting with the pouch in various ways.
He poured water into it.
He blew air into it as if inflating a balloon.
The more he did, the more twisted the butcher's and Dolseok's expressions became, but Kanghyeok did not care much.
He was simply delighted to have found a pouch he could actually use.
"How many of these do you have?"
"Ah, you don't just need one?"
"Now that I see how good they are, bring me as many as you can."
Kanghyeok set down three or four silk pouches on the counter as he spoke.
Even selling a hundred ball sacks would not be enough to buy something that precious.
The butcher's eyes practically multiplied into nine as they spun.
At that point, who Kanghyeok was and what he planned to do with the sacks no longer mattered at all.
"Ah, yes! I'll go find more!"
In the end, they were able to take away more than ten ball sacks.
Some of them were pig sacks, but those were definitely smaller.
Cradling an armful of them, Dolseok asked,
"Young Master, what on earth are these for…?"
"You'll know when we get back."
"Ah, fine. Understood."
"This brat's getting defiant again lately."
Kanghyeok pulled out a scroll from his sleeve.
There was nothing special written on it.
Just a few lines scratched across it.
But Dolseok's reaction was worth seeing.
"No, no. Please spare me."
"Why does everyone beg me to spare them the moment they see me? Have you ever seen me kill anyone?"
By heaven, not a single one.
Even when the Japanese pirates had run wild, Kanghyeok had not killed anyone.
He had sent a few people to the brink of death, yes.
But the ones who had actually finished them off had all been Yeoni.
"I've seen you beat people half to death plenty of times."
"Come on. When have I ever?"
"Isn't that scroll proof?"
With the face of a man about to die, Dolseok pointed at the scroll.
If one looked closely, there were indeed a few words written there in addition to the lines.
Dolseok, Dorikkae, Thief 1, Thief 2, and so on.
Under each name were tally marks.
One tally meant one mat-rolling.
"Should I add one more tally here or not?"
"No, no. Please spare me. Really."
"Good. Then carry the balls quietly and follow me."
"Yes."
A mat-rolling, in truth, only meant that Makbong, Yeoni, and Kanghyeok went over and stepped on the person.
Unlike what happened elsewhere, nobody actually died from it.
It just seemed to hurt like hell.
Makbong and Yeoni were already experts at beating people, so there was nothing more to say there, and Kanghyeok was no slouch when it came to stomping force either.
After one mat-rolling, a person became startlingly quick and obedient.
Just like Dolseok now.
Step, step.
His pouty lips, which had stuck out like the rim of a bowl, had gone back in, and he was carrying the sacks as carefully as if he were bearing sacred treasures.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!"
He even snapped at a passerby who bumped into him by mistake.
Brat. You should've listened from the start.
With a satisfied look, Kanghyeok strode forward.
When they returned home, the gang Jeong Yeo-rip had led was kneeling in a row.
They had been tied up in a line like skewered dried croaker, and they looked perfectly docile.
"Oh. You roughly treated them too?"
"Yes, Young Master. Lady Yeoju helped."
Looking closely, it seemed Yeoni had gone around them once already.
Yeoju, with her sharp eye, had assisted.
"I quieted down the loud ones. Heh heh."
Makbong made sure to point out that he had not just been standing around.
That fellow truly had no talent for medicine whatsoever.
All he could do was roll his waist around and swing a blade.
Even so, one had to admit he was diligent.
"This one and that one were especially noisy."
Makbong began pointing them out one by one with an anxious expression.
At times like this, praise was necessary.
For all his rough looks, he actually had a rather delicate side.
"Good. Well done. Things move along smoothly because you're here."
"Thank you. Heh heh."
"Right. What about the one inside?"
"He's sleeping."
"Sleeping?"
"Yes, Young Master."
"Huh."
He had more nerve than expected.
Sleeping with pufferfish poison sitting right beside him.
Shaking his head, Kanghyeok stepped into the room.
Just as Makbong had said, the man was even snoring.
"Shall I wake him?"
"Yes, Young Master."
Dolseok set the iron balls and pig balls in one corner of the room, then slapped the man on the cheek.
"Hey, wake up."
"Who the hell— Ah, no. I'm sorry."
The man's mind worked fast.
The moment he saw Dolseok and Kanghyeok before him, he immediately bowed his head.
"Good. That 'thing' I mentioned earlier isn't much. You just need to get stabbed with a needle once."
"A needle?"
"That's right. Is there any part of your body you don't like?"
"Mm…"
The man thought hard, then pointed below his waist.
"Here?"
"Ugh."
Kanghyeok let out a long sigh.
I'm a man too, but really, why are all men like this?
It seemed they thought about their cocks day and night.
He understood it was an era without much else to do for entertainment, but even then, this was too much.
"The point of this is to make something smaller. Is that what you want?"
"N-no! Smaller? Absolutely not."
The man sprang to his feet, forgetting all about his injured leg.
"Right. Then is there anything else?"
"Mm… smaller… I really don't know."
"That's what I thought. Then I'll just stab some useless part, in my opinion."
"Not my cock, sir."
"I'm not stabbing there, so don't worry."
Botox in the cock.
The thought alone was horrifying.
Even the toughest general would probably break under that torture.
"Dolseok, roll up his pants."
"Yes, yes."
With noticeably quicker hands, Dolseok rolled up the man's trouser leg.
His calf stood out, fairly thick even if it did not match Makbong's.
"Good. Shall I try it here?"
"Ugh… mm. Yes."
Making a strange sound, Dolseok wiped down the man's calf with an alcohol swab.
Meanwhile, Kanghyeok drew 1 mm of the poison solution into the syringe.
Earlier, the pufferfish poison was 5 ml. And that went into 1 liter, so…
It had been diluted roughly two hundred times.
It did not seem likely to kill him.
If anything, Kanghyeok was a little worried it might not work.
"Now then, this will sting a little."
"Yes, sir."
Unable to watch, the man turned his head away.
Puk.
The needle pierced flesh, followed by the injection of the poison solution.
"Aaaagh!"
The man screamed at the top of his lungs. It must have hurt badly.
Botox was already famous for being painful, and this seemed to hurt even more.
He had been stabbed without any anesthesia, so screaming was only natural.
"Good. Let's see…"
Kanghyeok muttered without much emotion.
Because the dose was small, if symptoms appeared, it could take as long as an hour.
He had every intention of waiting.
But the progress came rather quickly.
"I… ugh… ke, kek."
The man's speech suddenly became wildly slurred, and before long he could not even breathe properly.
Dolseok turned to Kanghyeok in alarm.
He had seen quite a few patients by then, but never one like this.
"Young Master!"
"Give me the balls."
"Stop joking!"
"I'm not joking, so hurry and hand them over."
"Uh… yes."
"Blow them up one by one and give them to me."
"Blow into these?"
While Dolseok kept asking questions, the man's breathing stopped altogether.
The poison was far stronger than expected.
"Hey, he's going to die. Are you going to hurry up or not?"
"Uh… yes."
Since ancient times, the cheapest trick had been threatening people with a human life.
Even so, there was only one reason that tactic had endured to the present day.
It was the most effective method in the world.
Huff, huff.
With bitter reluctance, Dolseok blew air into the iron balls.
Then Kanghyeok took them and blew the air into the man's airway.
Of course, he had already pulled the jaw forward to secure the airway.
Otherwise, the breath would not go in properly.
The first few times were easy.
Blowing air was not all that difficult.
But as it repeated, it became exhausting enough to turn his face bright red.
"Huff, huff. How long do we have to keep doing this?"
"Until he wakes up."
"How long is that?"
"About an hour?"
"An hour?"
"Let's call the others too. Makbong! Yeoni! Dorikkae!"
At Kanghyeok's shout, they all came running at once.
But when they saw the bizarre scene, they could not bring themselves to step inside.
"What in the world is this…?"
"You lot blow these up too and hand them to me. The man's going to die."
"What are those?"
"Iron balls. Ah, I said hurry up and blow!"
It was not very common for Kanghyeok to raise his voice like that.
And on top of that, he was saying someone was about to die.
Yeoni was the first to rush inside.
She hated the coarse texture of the iron balls.
But what choice did she have?
If he told her to do it, she had to do it.
Whoosh, whoosh.
It was not the day before a birthday party, yet the sound of balloons being blown up suddenly came from all around.
At least it was not entirely without reward.
The man was still barely alive.
"Ugh…"
Now he was even starting to speak in broken fragments.
"Oh, looks like he's all right now."
At Kanghyeok's words, everyone stopped blowing into the balls.
Yeoju, who had joined in at the end without really knowing what was going on, looked the most relieved.
When would a young lady from a proper household ever have done something like this?
Even lowly butchers would not do such a thing.
"Please… spare… me…"
The man muttered with a face completely drained by terror.
Pufferfish poison did not cloud consciousness.
It only paralyzed the muscles.
That meant he had spent dozens of minutes fully awake, experiencing the terror of being unable to breathe.
It was no wonder he was trembling in fear.
"Whew. He lived. Sorry. The medicine was a little too strong. Should I make it weaker for the next one?"
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