Chapter 123: Great Men Are for Me to See [4] Even after seeing the medicinal ingredients Kanghyeok had laid out, Kim Simin and Hwang Yungil went on worrying about the state of the nation for quite some time.
Hwang Yungil was one thing, but was Kim Simin really in any position to do that?
So the day has come when I'm using a great man's body for an experiment.
It would be an outrage against heaven even if he experimented on just any random person.
Of course, he had done it many times already.
But those bastards had all been men with crimes to answer for.
Well... at least it's not a dose high enough to kill him.
Thankfully, thanks to the many bandits and enemies he had dealt with, the dosage for Seomsu and Cho-o had long since been perfected.
What side effects might appear with long-term use, and whether it would actually be effective for neuralgia, were still uncertain.
But as long as it did not cause sudden liver dysfunction or kidney failure, Kanghyeok would be able to control it.
Before he was a great surgeon, he was a medical scientist, a man with truly vast medical knowledge.
At this rate, daybreak will come if I keep listening.
The conversation between Kim Simin and Hwang Yungil was only growing deeper.
Now the talk had started touching on things like Sinseong-gun, Gwanghae-gun, and Imhae-gun.
They seemed so absorbed in worrying over the country that they had momentarily forgotten where they were.
Otherwise, there was no way they would be discussing royal princes so freely like this.
Just as Kanghyeok started thinking that if he left it alone any longer, they might end up arrested for plotting treason, he gave a loud, deliberate cough.
"Ahem."
The state of the nation was a complete mess, but first of all, should he not treat the patient in front of him?
Only then did Kim Simin come back to himself and look at Kanghyeok.
As expected, he had not heard a single word Kanghyeok had said earlier.
"Ah, my apologies. The state of the court these days is just so pathetic..."
"It's all right. I've heard enough to know what's going on."
And separately from that, he also knew that war was drawing near.
So the sense of frustration Kanghyeok felt was greater, if anything, than what the two of them felt, and certainly not less.
"Ah, is this the medicine?"
Without thinking, Kim Simin reached a hand toward the medicinal ingredients Kanghyeok had spread out.
It looked as though he was about to taste them, and if he did, that would definitely lead to trouble.
Cho-o was bad enough, but Seomsu, which was toad venom, really was an extremely deadly drug.
"Ah, ah. That's dangerous medicine."
"I-is that so?"
"You must be careful. It's the kind of drug that can also go into sayak."
"S-sayak? Are you trying to kill me?"
This was an age before the concept of dosage had properly taken shape.
The fact that the very same medicine could have completely different effects depending on the amount used only began to be established after the twentieth century.
So Kim Simin's reaction was only natural, and Kanghyeok, naturally, was used to reactions like that.
"A true master physician ought to know how to use poison as medicine."
That was why he also knew how to smooth things over with lines like this.
For reasons he could not understand at all, patients loved words that sounded mysterious.
In Korea, saying something like that would most likely only earn him a barrage of curses.
"Huh. Indeed, that makes sense. Brother Sun-sin would never have praised just anyone so highly."
As expected, Kim Simin looked convinced, and Hwang Yungil also smiled in satisfaction.
Kanghyeok briefly explained the mechanism of the medicine.
He did not expect either of them to understand it all.
Still, if something was going to be poured into their body, should they not at least know what it was?
"These two medicines act on the nerves in our body."
"Nerves?"
The explanation had hit a wall from the very beginning.
But Kanghyeok smoothly, and vaguely, moved past it.
He was not planning to train them as disciples anyway.
"You can think of it as acting on the thing that's causing the pain right now."
"Hmm, I see."
"If taken as they are now, they'll cause paralysis."
"Paralysis. So they truly are poison."
"Yes. But if the dosage is lowered, then before it reaches the stage of paralysis... in other words, it may stabilize the nerves or make them slightly less sensitive."
"And then what happens?"
The two looked at Kanghyeok with expressions that said they did not really understand.
At moments like this, Kanghyeok knew very well that what patients wanted to hear was always the same.
"Then you get better."
"Very good."
As expected, the atmosphere turned warm and cheerful again.
Kanghyeok took the opportunity to get up at once so he could begin treatment right away, picking up the syringe and other things he would need to measure the dose.
"Then I'll compound the medicine for you. Please take it and tell me what effect it has."
"But it's not that it hurts only at fixed times... it just hurts unpredictably."
"That's why I told you to stay with me. I intend to observe you over time."
"So there was such a deeper meaning. Very well. I'll do that."
From that day on, the clinical trial on Kim Simin began.
Kanghyeok carefully carried it out while recalling the animal experiments he had often performed back when he was a professor.
Starting from a small dose and increasing it little by little.
As a result, the effect was appearing very slowly.
But it was appearing.
"It does feel a little less troublesome, I think."
Kim Simin said this with a very satisfied expression.
After spending so much time together, the two had become quite close.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. The frequency has definitely gone down."
In particular, was Kanghyeok's financial power not extraordinary?
Day after day, they drank fine alcohol and ate fine side dishes together, so a great deal of affection had built up between them.
"Who sent this one today?"
"Ah, this... it came anonymously. It's probably from the same person who sends things every day."
"You mean that miraculous medicine?"
"That's what people have been calling it."
Kanghyeok smiled as he recalled the Viagra craze that was now practically sweeping through the capital of Hanyang.
The more the rumors piled up, the more the praise and reputation surrounding Kanghyeok rose in exact proportion.
Since he simply never seemed to fail, that was only natural.
Of course, he was turning away patients who were too elderly.
I can't go causing death by overexertion in bed.
Was this not an age when old people were already rare enough?
He had no intention of artificially reducing their number further.
"You really are an astonishing master physician."
"There's nothing astonishing about it. I simply find the cause of the disease and treat it accordingly."
"Isn't that the difficult part? Hahaha."
"I find your skill with the bow even more astonishing, elder brother."
Kanghyeok pointed to the assorted birds smoking in the front yard.
All of them had been hunted by Kim Simin, and each one had truly been a one-shot, one-kill catch.
"You really are remarkable."
It was not only Kanghyeok who had fallen for his archery skill.
Unexpectedly, Dolseok had shown tremendous interest.
Perhaps because he was timid despite his huge build and could not handle close combat well, he seemed to find archery especially appealing.
So whenever he had free time, he pestered Kim Simin to teach him how to shoot a bow.
Simin, being someone who naturally loved archery, taught Dolseok without showing even the slightest sign of annoyance.
"Ah, one of those was caught by Dolseok."
"Really? He couldn't even hit the target."
"He's shooting straight now. He has talent. He's calm."
"Hmm... I see. Dolseok does have some promise."
"Hehe."
Weak to praise, Dolseok laughed shyly and scratched the back of his head furiously.
Working at the clinic had given him the impression of becoming a little more refined, but at moments like this, he was unmistakably still a commoner.
Still, he's better than Makbong.
That bastard, perhaps because he had strength to spare, was devoting himself here too to serving women at night.
Thanks to that, his reputation in that area had actually surpassed his reputation as a clinic worker.
The Consoler of the Night, huh.
Maybe some widow had come down with adolescent delusions, because he had even been given such a strange nickname.
"Ah, speaking of which, I heard Brother Sun-sin will be coming to Hanyang soon. Have you heard?"
"Yes. I received a letter. He's apparently going to become the magistrate of Jeongeup..."
"That's thanks to Lord Ryu. He achieved so much merit, and yet until now he hadn't even managed to become a magistrate."
"Still, thanks to that, I'll get to see his face."
"That's true. I'm worried his face might have grown much more worn."
"It probably hasn't."
Kanghyeok smiled faintly as he looked at Kim Simin.
Was Kim Simin really in a position to worry about someone else's face right now?
Even after the dosage had been raised to a level that might be somewhat burdensome for long-term use, his eye still twitched from time to time.
It was better than before, but the effect was not as strong as Kanghyeok had hoped.
What do I do?
If possible, he wanted to establish a proper treatment plan before Yi Sun-sin arrived.
How would it feel if an old comrade was left with his face twisted out of shape?
And it would feel even worse if even the best doctor he knew had no solution.
Should I operate...?
Kanghyeok looked at Simin, who was happily chewing fried chicken with a smile on his face.
For some reason, the patient seemed to be the most at ease of all.
Perhaps because he had long since given up.
Meanwhile, doctor Kanghyeok suddenly felt as though he were chewing on grains of sand.
Even though he was eating his beloved fried chicken drizzled with honey, it still felt that way.
Unless he's doing it on purpose, he's still in quite a lot of pain even now.
When he looked closely, the frequency of the eye twitching was still not low.
That was because the sharp pain kept attacking him.
"Brother Simin."
"Hmm? What is it? You don't seem to have much appetite today."
"No, it's about your treatment."
"Ah, this? Then won't it do to increase the medicine a little more? It really is getting better little by little."
"The dosage is already quite high."
"Hmm. That is a problem. What should we do?"
Simin muttered as if he were talking about someone else's problem.
Perhaps because he was already pleasantly drunk, he did not seem in the slightest to care about the pain in his face.
In truth, though, that was not the case.
Kanghyeok recalled what Dolseok had told him before.
—He said that when the pain suddenly comes, he sometimes lets go of the bowstring. It seems that weighs heavily on his mind....
So the reason Kim Simin was acting like this in front of Kanghyeok was simply because he was trying to spare Kanghyeok's feelings.
I have to treat him somehow.
Until now, Kanghyeok had kept putting off the idea of surgery.
This was not just some simple operation, after all. It was surgery that would involve the face.
His life was not hanging by a thread, so would it not be far too much to cut into his face without even the most basic tests?
But if there really was no other way, then he had to think differently.
Ordinary trigeminal neuralgia surgery is dangerous and difficult.
Usually, that was because the structure pressing on the nerve was a cerebellar artery.
In most cases, correction required approaching the area near the cerebellum.
In other words, it meant opening up the skull.
If he tried that here, the man could end up dead on the spot.
Even if the surgeon was Baek Kanghyeok himself.
But in this elder brother's case, the lesion is probably in the face.
How could it not be, when he had been fine before and only became like this after being slashed?
There was an extremely small chance that, by sheer coincidence, an artery near the cerebellum had started pressing on the nerve at exactly that time.
But if that were the case, then it was in the realm of the gods, no longer something human power could do anything about.
It's worth attempting.
Even simply cleaning up the scar that had been left so hideously would make the incision meaningful.
As it was now, it was far too ugly cosmetically as well.
"You're staring at my face so hard it's a little unsettling."
"Ah."
Only then did Kanghyeok realize that he had been glaring at Simin's profile for quite some time.
At the same time, Simin too was able to sense something.
The time had come when he would have to undergo that thing Kanghyeok had once mentioned: surgery.
"Let's do it tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? That suddenly?"
"Is there any reason to put it off? Let's wrap it up neatly before Brother Sun-sin arrives."
"Hmm... so you mean another blade to the face. That gives me the chills...."
"Whatever happens, it'll be far better than the fellow who cut you the first time, so don't worry."
"That fellow died by my hand anyway, so yes. It should be. Who knows? The same could happen to you."
"You really do make frightening jokes. Hahaha. Then tomorrow, I'll cut."
"...Very well. Let's do that."
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