Chapter 103: Let Me See the Back Too [1] "Ugh."
The patient rubbed at the middle of his chest where he had been struck out of nowhere.
It was a somewhat rough method, but it had worked very well.
"How is it?"
Kanghyeok was holding the tube that had been pulled out before Makbong struck him.
A little blood-mixed phlegm clung to the end of the tube, and reddish bloody fluid dripped to the floor.
Since the material was iron, was it not inevitable that it would injure the mucous membrane?
To Kanghyeok, that was only natural, but it did not seem so to the patient.
Judging by how violently his voice shook.
"What... what did you do to me?"
"I did surgery. What else would I do?"
"Surgery?"
The patient clutched his head with a bewildered expression.
The anesthetic made from Sumsu and Cho-o was certainly excellent, but it did have its problems from time to time.
Its effect was so strong that it even caused memory loss.
For someone as exceptionally sharp as Ryu Seong-ryong, that was not much of a problem.
But patients like this had to go through a fair amount of confusion.
"Surgery... Ah. What was it that I drank?"
"Right. So you remember that. Do you remember your eye hurting before that?"
"My eye? Ah. Right."
The patient's gaze naturally turned toward Dongpa.
His eyes narrowed sharply enough that he clearly seemed about to get angry.
But what came out of his mouth was a rather absurd sort of question.
"Um... what is the physician doing?"
In a way, the patient's reaction was natural.
Dongpa was still gagged.
And there was even vomit smeared on his waistband.
Thanks to that, the patient was beginning to think this was not a treatment room at all, but some government office jail.
"Ah. He kept making noise while I was treating you. A quack, acting like that."
"Mmph, mmph."
At the word quack, Dongpa reacted sensitively.
Just as fools got angry when you called them fools, quacks were bound to get angry when you called them quacks.
Kanghyeok completely ignored Dongpa's reaction and looked at the patient.
As always, inspection came first.
First of all, he doesn't seem to be in much pain.
Since he had no memory of injecting any local anesthetic, it was safe to say the anesthetic effect was now nonexistent.
To begin with, neither Sumsu, Cho-o, nor pufferfish poison had any analgesic effect.
So it seemed fair to judge that the pain itself had completely improved.
And there doesn't seem to be any real problem with his vision either.
Our dependence on sight was even more absolute than one might think.
There were even papers saying that people who had completely lost their sense of balance could still walk if their vision remained intact.
Put another way, if the eyes were covered, the resulting disability was enormous.
Yet the patient did not seem especially uncomfortable.
Shall I start asking questions now?
Kanghyeok stepped toward the patient, who was still looking around with a baffled expression.
"Hey."
"Yes, yes, sir."
Since Kanghyeok was still holding the blood-dripping tube, the patient answered with a startled flinch.
"What are you so scared of?"
"Eek."
Kanghyeok patted the patient on the shoulder in an attempt to reassure him.
Though the patient's response was a little different from what he had expected.
"How's your eye?"
"My eye? Ah... the pain is gone. Thank you, sir."
"Right. It should be."
The aqueous humor had been packed tight inside and was now steadily draining out, so that was only natural.
Even now, if one looked closely, the aqueous humor could be seen mixed with his tears.
Did cutting the iris turn out all right?
He definitely knew that cutting away a little of it should be fine.
The problem was that he had no way of knowing exactly how much qualified as "a little."
"How's your vision?"
"Uh... it's just fine."
"Completely fine?"
"It's a little bright."
"Ah. I see."
As expected, cutting the iris had not left him entirely unaffected.
Still... whatever. I saved him from going blind, so that's enough.
As long as the holes he had made did not suddenly get blocked, it would be fine.
That seemed extremely unlikely.
Surely not. The openings are three millimeters wide... they won't get blocked.
Kanghyeok's gaze drifted unconsciously toward Dongpa in the corner.
As long as that bastard doesn't start meddling again.
After being put through this once, the patient would not go back to Dongpa.
Even so, it needed to be confirmed.
The patient's face looked especially slow-witted.
And Dongpa had not admitted any fault whatsoever.
"That's fortunate. Your eye should be fine now. As long as you don't take any medicine prescribed by that man."
"Yes, sir. Thank you very much."
"Good. You can go now. Starting tomorrow, come back every day so I can check your condition."
"Yes, yes. And what about the consultation fee...?"
"The consultation fee?"
"Yes."
Kanghyeok tilted his head and looked the patient over.
First of all, he smelled terrible.
When he had first come to Joseon, Kanghyeok would not even have gone near someone like this.
As for the clothes he was wearing now—if they could even be called clothes—it looked like they had not been washed in years.
I'd sooner strip the liver off a flea. Besides, for me it felt like clinical training anyway.
And as for wealth, did he not already have more than enough piled up?
Kanghyeok shook his head as if to say that was enough.
"Forget it. Just go."
"Really?"
"Yes. Just go."
"Oh, thank you."
The patient really did leave the treatment room with a bright face.
Later, Kanghyeok would come to regret this as patients began flooding in, but that was something that would happen after some time had passed.
Right now, his chest was full simply because he had performed a surgery on the eye for the very first time in his life.
He was not the only one feeling full of emotion.
Heo Jun felt something similar.
With a face as though he had glimpsed a world beyond the highest heaven, he said, "So eyes can be treated like this too."
"Fortunately, it was an illness I was able to handle."
Even so, it was probably not a complete cure.
Glaucoma aggravated by steroids was usually accompanied by cataracts.
To Kanghyeok's eyes, the patient's crystalline lens already looked somewhat cloudy.
Within a few years, he would almost certainly lose most of his sight.
One could say that the surgery he had just performed had only delayed that point somewhat.
Even in Joseon, this much is still an impressive feat.
As always, Kanghyeok's private thoughts ended in self-congratulation.
He was nodding with a satisfied smile when Heo Jun spoke.
"Heo Im will be terribly disappointed."
"Heo Im?"
"Yes. Isn't he the one who listens most diligently to Scholar Baek's lectures? Even just now, if he had not been occupied with His Highness Imhae-gun's acupuncture treatment, he would have run here at once."
"Hmm."
Heo Im.
Come to think of it, Heo Im might actually have had more potential than Heo Jun to become a great surgeon.
Unlike the meticulous and cautious Heo Jun, Heo Im had a somewhat bolder side.
If one had to distinguish them, Heo Jun was better suited to being an internist devoted to research.
"Makbong, let him out now."
"Yes, Young Master."
Before having a proper conversation with Heo Jun, Kanghyeok first had Dongpa thrown out.
Dongpa flailed several times, but there was no way he could overcome Makbong's brute strength.
—Bang, thud.
Makbong practically threw Dongpa onto the floor, then came back in, dusting off his hands.
"You worked hard."
"It was nothing. I'll stand guard so no one comes in."
"Good. As expected, you're reliable."
"Young Master, I'll stand guard too."
Not to be outdone, Yeoni stepped forward, and since Kanghyeok had no reason to refuse, he nodded.
Thanks to that, the treatment room instantly became something like a sealed chamber.
Even then, Kanghyeok only spoke after confirming that no one remained except Yeoju.
"When it's time to dissect the corpse, I'll be sure to call you."
"Yes. Heo Im would probably never reveal it."
"For now, keep it secret from the others as well."
"Of course."
Heo Jun nodded repeatedly.
No matter that it was being done for the advancement of medicine, they were still handling a human corpse.
It was not something they could go around talking about carelessly.
He was keeping the secret so tightly that he had not even told Heo Im yet.
Kanghyeok too had not breathed a word of it to anyone outside his own group.
"Oh, right. Dolseok said earlier there was also a patient with back pain...?"
"Ah, that's right. He must still be lying down by now. But why hasn't that bastard Dolseok come back yet?"
Just as he thought, Did he die on the way?, the sound of scuffling came from outside.
"You bastard, why do you smell like alcohol?"
Makbong's angry voice came first.
"If I have to walk all the way from the palace to here without warning, what, am I supposed to do it on an empty stomach?"
Dolseok's grumbling voice came afterward.
Dolseok truly was hopeless when it came to being proper.
The moment they mentioned him, he came dragging himself over.
More importantly, he drinks? Has this bastard lost his mind?
With an angry face, Kanghyeok kicked the door open and came out.
Overwhelmed by that force, both Dolseok and Makbong lowered their heads.
"I wondered what had happened since you didn't come back before the surgery ended. But you were drinking?"
At the continued scolding, Dolseok bent so low his forehead nearly touched the floor.
"Young Master, it's not that—"
"The smell of alcohol is reeking all the way over here."
Still wearing an angry expression, Kanghyeok spoke as he went down the stairs.
"Th-that... I only had exactly one cup right out front."
Dolseok pointed outside Bojewon.
Following the direction of his finger, Kanghyeok saw that there truly was some commotion.
"What is it?"
"It seems some of the displaced people who came from the Gyeonggi area are in critical condition. Looks like they called a mudang, and since they were passing around alcohol, I got some to drink."
"In critical condition?"
"Yes."
At the word critical, Kanghyeok's expression softened a little.
"You saw them too?"
"Yes. Well... they were all very old. It just looked like old age to me."
"Do they have family?"
"No. Just acquaintances, it seems. That's why even the gut is meager."
Old age.
And all of them were without family.
Keeping the same stern expression, Kanghyeok looked Dolseok over.
This fool did cause trouble now and then, but was he not also someone with an exceptionally quick mind?
His diagnostic sense is actually fairly reliable.
Kanghyeok finished calculating things in his head.
If they were poor people already on the brink today or tomorrow, they would not refuse treatment from a physician.
Especially if the physician offering a hand was none other than Baek Kanghyeok.
"Then first, go with Makbong and bring the patients over. You know the place, right? The separate one we secured in the back."
Kanghyeok pointed toward the rear of Bojewon.
No matter if he had a prince backing him, he could hardly dissect corpses at a state institution.
Anyone with something to hide always had to prepare an escape route.
Kanghyeok was no exception.
"Yes, Young Master."
"In the meantime, I'll examine that patient with back pain over there with Teacher Heo. Yeoni, you go too. I'm a little uneasy sending that fool by himself."
"Yes, Young Master."
Only then was Dolseok finally able to let out a sigh of relief.
He had nearly ended up getting rolled in a straw mat again.
Even now, the spots where he had been beaten a few days ago still ached and throbbed.
Whew. I nearly got beaten again.
It was rather amazing that he kept causing trouble even though he clearly knew that if he messed up, he would get beaten, and it would hurt like hell.
"If they die before I can see them... you know what to do, right?"
"Um... yes. But will I really be able to do that?"
"You have to. You can do it. If you can't, you'll get beaten. For the crime of drinking."
"No, no. I can do it."
"Good. Yeoni's going too, so what are you worried about? Ah, hey. Why are you going empty-handed? Buy more alcohol and tell them to drink plenty. Bring the patients over here."
"Yes, yes. Understood."
Dolseok began running as if flying, together with Makbong.
Kanghyeok watched his retreating figure and spoke.
Normally, he would have beaten the hell out of him.
But since the fool had managed to achieve something by sheer accident, like catching a frog while stumbling backward, it became awkward to do so.
Of course, he would still have to personally check the patients' condition.
"That fellow really is lucky."
"Exactly. How did he go and find people without family so quickly again..."
"Anyway, let's go see the patient. The back is a rather mysterious place too."
"Of course. If it's Scholar Baek's treatment, I'm always prepared to observe."
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