Chapter 46
Part 21: The Medicine King
The Medicine King.
A single sentence was enough to describe him.
The pinnacle of all physicians.
That very man had visited Wongakjeong.
***
The Life-Reaping Ghost Sword whispered to Jeong-ah.
“Is that person really him? The one they say can save even a dead man, as long as the man can take medicine and drink decoctions?”
“Yes, that is what I know.”
The Life-Reaping Ghost Sword whispered again.
“The one whom the imperial family personally bestowed the title of Medicine King upon?”
“Yes.”
The Life-Reaping Ghost Sword shook his head.
“…To my eyes, he just looks like a senile old man?”
Where his gaze was directed, there was an old man diligently harassing the triplet maid who was guiding the way.
“Ahem, ahem. This Medicine King himself says he will give you a diagnosis. Are you refusing?”
“…If you put your hand on my bottom one more time, I will cut that hand off.”
“Oh dear, what a serious matter. A serious matter indeed. What about the young lady walking ahead? Have you perhaps been having chest pains recently? If I just touch a little, I can cure you right away.”
Jeong-ah looked back and smiled.
“My master always takes care of my health, so there is no need for you to worry.”
The shabby old man, whose nose was flushed red, jumped in place.
“What? That brat personally examines those large, soft-looking breasts of yours?! What an impudent and unbearably enviable bastard!”
Jeong-ah burst into laughter.
The Life-Reaping Ghost Sword sighed.
He did not know what the man’s medical skill was like, but his mental state was seriously questionable.
‘Hmph. Old man, how do you like the scenery of our Wongakjeong?’
Despite having only arrived here half a day ago herself, the triplet maid was acting smug.
She glanced back at the Medicine King’s face to check his expression, then turned her head away.
The old man, who had been rambling on with obscene jokes for quite some time, suddenly stopped at the point where the forest path ended.
It was the place where the forest path ended and the Peach Blossom Spring-like scenery of Wongakjeong began.
It was a place where anyone who set foot there could not help but stop at least once before that breathtaking view.
The triplet maid inwardly sneered at the Medicine King.
In the old man’s eyes as he looked upon that scenery, there was a depth of regret and a thick longing that a young girl like her would never dare to measure.
“…Do you know?”
He rubbed his reddened nose and spoke.
“This Wongakjeong was originally So Yu’s residence.”
Feeling something click in her mind, Jeong-ah asked,
“By Lady So Yu, do you mean the Eldest Young Master’s mother, the Medicine Fairy?”
The one who answered those words was the Life-Reaping Ghost Sword.
“That is right. I heard the Eldest Young Master was born here, and that is also why Wongakjeong still belongs to him.”
The Medicine King quietly moved his feet.
The others quietly followed behind him.
In everything that entered his eyes, there was not a single place untouched by the hands of mother and son.
Every cedar tree, every single flower, had begun from their touch.
Everyone wondered what sort of relationship the Medicine King had with the Eldest Young Master and his mother.
However, no one dared to bring it up.
Though no one guided him, he walked ahead and arrived before Yeon Sang-hyeon’s residence.
The old man briefly looked over every part of the building, as if trying to take it all in.
Just as everyone felt one side of their chests ache at that strangely sorrowful sight,
the old man shouted at the top of his lungs.
“You brat! Your master came all the way here, and yet you will not even come out because walking is too much trouble?!”
It was the moment one of their questions was answered.
He was Yeon Sang-hyeon’s master.
“What did you say?”
The door slid open, and Yeon Sang-hyeon appeared, dressed like a scholar as usual.
He spoke indifferently.
“Who is my master? I realized all of my medical knowledge on my own.”
The question began again.
The old man jumped in place.
“I taught your mother, and you learned from your mother, did you not?! And you must have studied the medical texts I wrote as well!”
Though it was not widely known, it seemed that Yak So Yu, who had been called the manifestation of the Medicine Buddha, had been the Medicine King’s disciple.
And Yeon Sang-hyeon’s medical skills had been learned from his mother.
While the others busily pieced things together, Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted again.
“Do not make me laugh. My mother never taught me medicine. And your medical texts were so low-level that I skimmed through them once and used them in the outhouse.”
The heads of those listening began to spin.
“There you go again! You insolent brat!”
“You are the one starting again! You old geezer!”
The Medicine King, his face flushed bright red, shouted to Jeong-ah.
“Bring every drop of alcohol you can find at once! Today, I will teach this arrogant brat exactly who his master is!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon sneered coldly.
“You must have come here to drink up the alcohol Mother had brewed again.”
“You stingy brat! Are you begrudging even a single cup of alcohol to a master who came to honor his departed disciple?”
“You useless drunkard. Even one cup is wasted on you.”
At the sight of the Medicine King jumping up and down while shouting, and of the Eldest Young Master acting in a way she could never normally see, Jeong-ah laughed brightly.
“What a truly affectionate relationship.”
At those words, the triplet maid and the Life-Reaping Ghost Sword looked at Jeong-ah with strange eyes.
Jeong-ah ignored their gazes and gave an order to the triplet maid.
“You go and bring the others, then prepare a generous drinking table. I will take care of the alcohol. I have a guess as to where it might be.”
The triplet maid nodded, then asked,
“In that case, what should we do about serving tea?”
Jeong-ah shrugged.
“Master will probably prepare the tea himself.”
“Do you really think he will…?”
The triplet maid’s gaze turned toward the two men.
“You lecherous old man.”
“You dim-witted brat!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon said coldly,
“Come inside. It is cold to argue outside.”
“Fine! I brought good tea leaves with me, so I shall specially take pity on you and let you enjoy their fragrance!”
“Hah. So you intend to make me look like a miser who does not even serve tea to a guest.”
Watching the two of them enter together, as if they were on perfectly good terms, the triplet maid was dumbfounded.
Jeong-ah gave her an expression that seemed to say, “See?” and then left.
“I simply cannot understand this.”
Muttering that, the triplet maid also left.
Left alone in that place, the Life-Reaping Ghost Sword muttered,
“…What about me?”
***
As Jeong-ah poured alcohol into the Medicine King’s empty bowl, she said,
“So, the two of you are good rivals who are evenly matched in the realm of medicine, yes?”
The Medicine King drained his bowl and flared up.
“What nonsense is that?! I have inserted needles hundreds of millions more times than that brat! How could this Medicine King be compared to a greenhorn like him?!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted and drained the cup Jeong-ah had poured for him.
“What matters is making the correct prescription even once. Do you think the number of times is important?”
“Ah, so the two of you are in a relationship where you can fill in each other’s weaknesses and draw out each other’s strengths!”
“No!”
“Absolutely not!”
The triplet maid, who had been serving new side dishes, inwardly clicked her tongue at Jeong-ah’s words.
‘No, how does she manage to tie things together so smoothly?’
Yeon Sang-hyeon’s eyes gleamed as he provoked the Medicine King.
“If you are so confident in your skill, then take this girl’s pulse and guess her constitution!”
“Hah! If you thought I would struggle over something like a regression constitution, you have made a grave miscalculation, brat!”
The Medicine King took Jeong-ah’s offered wrist and began to examine her pulse.
“Oho, this is…”
He smacked his lips.
“First, judging from the overall state of her blood vessels and meridians, it does seem like a severed-meridian condition, but, hm, it appears to have been treated once.”
He nodded repeatedly.
“This workmanship belongs to that foolish disciple of mine.”
“I am not your disciple.”
The Medicine King was indeed the Medicine King.
Jeong-ah was impressed.
“But this is…?”
His eyes suddenly flashed open.
His deep eyes were filled with intense doubt.
“To contain a dragon within a human body… just what are you?”
At that moment, Yeon Sang-hyeon swiftly pulled Jeong-ah into his arms.
“Hah! Old man, I knew you would not understand.”
The Medicine King jumped up in place.
“Why, you brat! Snatching away a patient in the middle of a pulse examination! What sort of etiquette is that under heaven?!”
Holding the red-faced Jeong-ah in his arms, Yeon Sang-hyeon said to the Medicine King,
“What do you think? Do you not want to try curing this girl’s severed meridians?”
He smiled deeply.
“Are you not curious what will happen to the dragon this girl holds if those severed meridians are cured?”
The Medicine King trembled.
He was a man who could never overcome his curiosity.
“You… you brat. I lost. So let me examine her pulse again.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon smiled like a villain.
“If you want to make such a request, then grant one request of mine first.”
“What?!”
Ignoring the old man’s reaction, Yeon Sang-hyeon stated his demand.
“Give me the whereabouts or clues regarding Mother’s acquaintances.”
The old man shouted in frustration.
“You brat! You know that already, do you not?! Those people are all in the Medicine Fairy Sect!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon shook his head.
“No. I am not talking about those ridiculous, foolish people.”
“…!”
Unlike before, Yeon Sang-hyeon’s face was serious.
“I do not mean those people who commit garbage-like acts while using their blood ties as an excuse. I mean Mother’s true acquaintances.”
The old man swallowed dryly.
“You… what are you plotting?”
Yeon Sang-hyeon chuckled.
“I have grown tired of this life. Besides, with everyone constantly prattling about the Swordless this and the Swordless that, it has started to annoy me.”
“Do not make me laugh.”
The old man’s expression hardened.
“You, who would prattle day and night about letting nature take its course, as if you were Laozi himself, no matter who came to persuade you?”
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged.
“Am I not still a teenager who wavers with the mood? I simply feel like trying to live in a new way now.”
The old man set down the bowl he had been holding.
“Stop spouting nonsense and speak properly. Just what are you thinking?”
Yeon Sang-hyeon also set Jeong-ah, whom he had been holding, down beside him.
“…I merely want to take responsibility as well.”
The old man’s eyes deepened.
“Are you serious?”
“I am serious.”
After hesitating for a long while, the old man spoke.
“…There is no way you do not know what kind of sacrifice your mother made.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon’s expression hardened.
He brought over a bundle of documents he had placed in one corner of his room.
“This should serve as my answer.”
The old man unfolded the documents and began reading.
“A report on the newly appeared Heavenly Slaughter Star in the True North Position…!”
Those documents were reports that the astronomers of the Sword Clan’s Astronomical Pavilion had sent to Yeon Sang-hyeon, the institution’s supervisor.
With an expression of disbelief, the old man read the report again and again.
“This is…!”
The old man opened his mouth several times, only to close it again each time.
After closing his eyes and organizing his thoughts for a long while, the old man nodded.
“Very well. I shall tell you what I know about them.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“But before that, I have a condition as well!”
The old man’s voice rose.
Yeon Sang-hyeon’s eyebrow twitched.
“Tell me.”
The old man looked at Yeon Sang-hyeon and opened his mouth.
“Before that, I must examine your pulse first.”
There was not the slightest trace of drunkenness on the old man’s face as he said that.
His deep eyes, filled with profound wisdom, were trembling.
“Sang-hyeon. Just what have you done to your body?”
At those words, Jeong-ah drew in a sharp breath beside them.