Chapter 105: We Do Dissections Too [1] "Let's go first."
"Yes. Hmm..."
It seemed that even Makbong, who fancied himself the greatest assistant in Joseon, found it suspicious too.
There was no way those two would be doing that, but still.
That silhouette was not just a little strange. It was very strange.
Perhaps because of that, Kanghyeok's footsteps gradually began to quicken.
He did not know why, but he wanted to confirm it with his own eyes as quickly as possible.
No way. That can't be right.
Even as his mind kept repeating that it was impossible.
The closer they got to the room, the more clearly they could hear rough breathing and creaking sounds.
Just as Kanghyeok was about to stride into the entrance, some thug blocked his way.
"Hey, this place is... Oh! Young Master."
It was none other than Dorikkae.
On the surface, it looked no different from any ordinary commoner's house, but in truth, Dorikkae's men were spread throughout the inside and outside of the building, maintaining strict security.
"You've worked hard. You know the teacher behind me, right?"
"Yes. Physician Heo Jun. Painter Jeong."
"I told you not to call her miss."
"M-my apologies."
After praising Dorikkae for doing his utmost in the task he had been given, Kanghyeok headed inside.
Through the paper-covered lattice door, the suspicious silhouette was still visible.
And from time to time, rough breathing could be heard, as if some vigorous activity were taking place.
Even Heo Jun, following behind, found it bizarre.
"What in the world are they doing? In a room with a patient inside."
He was probably also thinking it was somewhat indecent.
But Kanghyeok had a rough idea of what to expect, so he simply kept walking.
"Let's go in first."
"Go in? If we go in now..."
He did not need to hear the rest.
He probably means we'll see something we shouldn't. Well... this won't exactly be a pleasant sight either.
When Kanghyeok flung the door open, it became immediately clear what had been happening inside.
Dolseok's forehead was drenched in sweat.
He was breathing hard over and over.
Even so, he did not forget to greet Kanghyeok.
"Y-you've come?"
Yeoni was in the middle of blowing air into the patient's mouth, so even that was impossible for her.
Kanghyeok quickly stepped into the room and asked, "How long has it been?"
"Well over one dakyŏng."
"Really? Hmm. Stop for a moment."
"Yes."
Kanghyeok pushed the panting Dolseok aside and moved closer to the patient.
The front of the patient's clothes had been carelessly pulled open, and vivid red handprints could clearly be seen between both nipples.
He did get the position right. Dolseok really is smarter than he looks.
Kanghyeok inwardly admired him and placed a hand on the spot.
When he pressed lightly, something felt as though it were collapsing under his palm.
That meant the compression had been forceful enough to break ribs.
In other words, chest compressions, the most basic and important part of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, had been done properly.
And for more than fifteen minutes at that.
And Yeoni's giving breaths properly too...
Her technique, holding the lower jaw to secure the airway while blowing in breath after breath, was no worse than that of any emergency rescuer.
Thinking once again that he had taught them quite well, Kanghyeok felt around the patient's groin.
It was not to check whether he had lost bladder control.
It was to feel the pulse in the femoral artery, several times thicker than the carotid pulse.
"There's nothing."
There was no pulse at all.
Now that even Dolseok, who had been crushing the man's chest with compressions, had stopped, that was only natural.
"Yeoni, you stop too."
"Ah... yes."
"Let me check his eyes too."
At Kanghyeok's words, Dolseok quickly rummaged through the house-call bag and handed him the penlight.
A doctor would never say he was going to look at the eyes with the naked eye alone.
Oh. That was pretty quick this time.
For the first time in a long while, it almost felt like he was back in the hospital.
When he turned around, Dolseok was standing there with an expression like a puppy wagging its tail, its paw placed on his hand.
"Dolseok, you're really trying hard to make up for drinking."
"What? No, no. Ha ha. I'm always—"
"Anyway, let's look at the eyes first."
"Yes."
Kanghyeok returned to his professional expression and shone the light into the patient's eyes.
Normally, when light entered the eye, the pupil should constrict.
Because the iris regulated the amount of light entering the eye.
But this patient showed no reaction at all.
"His eyes are open. Hmm."
The heart had stopped, there was no spontaneous breathing, and the eyes were open.
Medically, this had to be considered a state of complete death.
If he had been young, and if this place had equipment on the level of a university hospital, there might perhaps have been a faint chance.
But the patient was an old man whose age was hard even to guess.
And the only equipment here was a respirator made out of iron balls.
So there was only one conclusion Kanghyeok could make.
"He's dead. There's no point doing more now."
Usually, if cardiopulmonary resuscitation had gone on for nearly thirty minutes with no return, it was safe to say the person was gone for good.
Kanghyeok pulled over the blanket lying beside the mat and covered the patient's face.
That was effectively the formal declaration that the patient had died.
"As expected."
Yeoni, too, leaned against the wall with an exhausted face.
That was only natural, since she and Dolseok must have been taking turns performing CPR.
I know. I did it plenty during internship.
Usually, after about fifteen minutes, even someone as sturdy as Kanghyeok would be drenched in sweat.
Since one had to press down on the chest with full strength at a rate of more than a hundred times per minute, that was only natural.
"What was his name? His age?"
"Well... there's no one who knows properly. As I said earlier, he doesn't have any family. One of the old men who came with him is also on the verge of death."
"Really? Hmm."
That truly meant it was an unclaimed corpse.
It was something he had long hoped for, but now that he was actually facing a person's death, his heart was not entirely at ease.
That did not mean he intended to leave undone what had to be done.
Kanghyeok glanced out the door, then whispered in a low voice.
"Makbong, Yeoni. Move this body to the storage shed in the back. Dolseok, go bring Heo Im."
"Yes, Young Master."
Instead of grumbling as usual, Dolseok chose to dart outside at once.
After all, he had already committed an offense.
If he made one wrong move, he could get beaten half to death.
Makbong and Yeoni followed right after him, carrying the corpse.
Perhaps because he had suffered from the infirmities of old age for so long, the body looked exceedingly light.
"Teacher Heo, stay here with me for a moment, then let's go once everything is ready."
"Let us do so. But is a cadaver dissection not done immediately?"
"It's better to process it a bit first. If the body contains too much fluid, it putrefies quickly."
"Fluid?"
"You'll see in a moment. Will you be all right, Yeoju? Do you want to just stay here?"
They were now about to dissect a corpse.
No matter what, it was bound to be a far more violent matter than an ordinary surgery, and surely gruesome to look at.
"I'm fine. If I'm not there, who will draw it?"
"But it might be pretty grotesque."
"Young Master, I've seen you open heads, and I've seen all kinds of surgeries. I'll be fine."
"Hmm."
Kanghyeok looked at Yeoju with a surprised expression.
Well, women can be tougher in this sort of way.
He recalled the time when he was still a student.
Out of the fewer than ten female classmates, not a single one had dropped out.
Even while several male classmates who bragged all the time about going into surgery had run out of the room.
"All right, then. If it gets too hard after going in, you can leave."
"Yes. Don't worry."
As he was confirming Yeoju's resolve, Yeoni opened the door and appeared.
"Young Master, it's ready."
"Ah. Good. Then let's go."
"This house really is deserted."
"Right? Dorikkae's got a real talent for this sort of thing."
Kanghyeok pointed at Dorikkae, who was standing guard near the private gate like a sturdy wall.
Perhaps because he had spent some time as a bandit, he was a master at avoiding people's notice.
Most people probably did not even know a house like this existed near Bojewon.
"That's true. I'll open the shed door."
"Go ahead."
Without much effort, Yeoni opened the heavy shed door.
The characteristic creaking of the old wooden door echoed all around them.
It was not that loud, but it was the kind of situation that made one glance around nervously anyway.
Well, they were about to do something that felt rather questionable.
"Oh dear."
The one who let out a low cry the moment they stepped into the shed was Heo Jun.
Even Yeoju, who had insisted over and over that she was fine, covered her mouth with her hand and trembled.
That was how grotesque the sight before their eyes was.
"Wh-why have you hung it up like this?"
"There's a reason for everything."
Kanghyeok said that as he approached the corpse hanging upside down from the shed ceiling.
He was already wearing gloves, and he had even drawn out a scalpel.
"If there's blood left in it, dissection becomes difficult. First... we need to drain the blood that has pooled in the lower limbs like this."
As he finished speaking, Kanghyeok immediately stabbed near the patient's groin.
Because he held the scalpel vertically when stabbing, the wound was quite deep.
Deep enough to sever both the femoral artery and the vein Kanghyeok had been aiming for in a single stroke.
—Drip, drip, drip.
Since the heart had stopped long ago, the blood pooled in the legs began streaming out.
So quickly that the basket set down beneath it seemed likely to fill in no time.
"Hmm. Shall we turn him around now?"
At Kanghyeok's instruction, Yeoni and Makbong moved briskly.
—Thump.
With a light impact, the corpse dropped down onto the straw.
As Makbong untied the rope that had been fastened around the corpse's ankles, he asked Kanghyeok, "Young Master, where did you say to tie this? The neck?"
"No, are you insane? If you tie it to the neck, all the bones will break. Do it through the armpits."
"Ah... right. Yes, Young Master."
Was Makbong not originally someone who tied knots exceptionally well?
Even this rather advanced job, which required tying through both armpits, went smoothly.
"All right, lifting it again."
"Good. Ah, keep that basket under it properly. If this spills onto the floor, it'll be a pain to clean."
"Yes. Ugh."
Groaning, Yeoni and Makbong hauled the corpse upward again.
Kanghyeok lifted the corpse's feet and adjusted them so the blood would drain properly in the direction he wanted.
Heo Jun and Yeoju were so stunned by the unexpected scene that they could not even bring themselves to speak.
To drain a dead person's blood in this way.
Not only had they never heard of or seen such a thing, they had never even imagined it.
—Drip, drip, drip.
In any case, the blood was pouring out with tremendous force.
That was thanks to how quickly they had started the procedure.
Compared with the several days it often took for an unclaimed corpse to arrive at a university hospital, this was no exaggeration to call lightning-fast.
"Good. At this point... I think most of it has come out."
Kanghyeok muttered that as he looked at the two baskets now filled with blood.
Judging from what the patient's body weight must have been when he was alive, it was fair to say almost all the blood inside him had now been drained.
"Now lower him, and let's put him up there."
Kanghyeok pointed to the wooden table that had been specially made for anatomy practice.
Its height came up to about Kanghyeok's navel, making it the ideal height for performing any procedure.
It would probably be far too high for other people.
But he was not the type to be considerate even about that.
—Knock knock knock.
Just as they were about to set the corpse on the table, someone knocked on the door.
"What is it?"
"It's me, Dolseok."
"Ah, Dolseok. Has Heo Im come already?"
"He was on his way. He said he wanted to pay his respects, so I met him partway and brought him along."
As expected, the passion of the Heos was impressive.
With a satisfied smile, Kanghyeok ordered the door opened, and before long everyone was standing gathered around the table.
The only one holding a knife was Kanghyeok.
"Now then... first, I'll begin with the abdomen. After all, the internal organs have to be removed quickly..."
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