Chapter 119: A Disciple Is Best When You Can Work Him Hard [3] If anyone believed Dorikkae had merely served as the storeroom guard, that would have been a grave miscalculation.
Unexpectedly, he was one of the men who could move quickly and efficiently, and beneath that lay a fear of Kanghyeok he could not hide.
From Dorikkae's point of view, this man, Baek Kanghyeok, was truly terrifying.
Of course, it had been wrong of him to rush in first intending to rob him, but when he thought about everything that had happened to him afterward, the backs of his knees went weak.
It was the same now.
If I don't do what he tells me, there's no knowing what he'll do again. That's right, absolutely.
Dorikkae lowered his head at once and began recalling, one by one, the things Kanghyeok had done to him, or to others.
The more he remembered, the more absurd they felt.
He had forced strange medicine down people's throats and made them lose consciousness.
On one occasion, Dorikkae had woken up to find that something had been done to his anus, leaving him passing bloody stool.
That one, at least, had eventually improved and even become better than before after some time passed.
Kanghyeok had fought with some group or another called the Daedong-gye.
He had even gone about carrying out torture in league with the Uigeumbu.
And this time, it seemed he had done something with corpses, but Dorikkae did not want to know.
If he knew, it was obvious he would get hurt.
He truly was the axis of evil, a villain the like of which had never existed before.
I heard Im Kkeokjeong got captured and killed, but this gentleman is even more calculating than that. That'll never happen to him.
To begin with, were not the nobles he knew all terrifying people?
Dorikkae simply could not picture Baek Kanghyeok ever coming to ruin.
So if Kanghyeok ordered something done, the wise thing was to bow his head and do it.
Fortunately, Kanghyeok liked this attitude of Dorikkae's very much.
With a hand as broad as a cauldron lid, he thumped Dorikkae on the back.
"Well now, you bastard, you're finally becoming half a person. And whose doing is that?"
"Huh? Ah. It is thanks to you, Young Master."
"Even the way you talk has improved. Imagine if you'd spent your whole life as nothing but a thief."
"That's true."
Dorikkae privately thought there was not much difference between bandits and Hanyang gangsters, but he nodded anyway.
Naturally, he stepped to the front of the group.
"I'll guide you. Since you gave me a generous budget, Young Master, the location and the condition of the house are both excellent."
"And the cleaning?"
"I had that done already. Why do you think I came here alone?"
"Good. Lead the way, then."
At Kanghyeok's words, Dorikkae hurried out onto the street.
At some point, Dolseok had brought out two horses and presented them before Kanghyeok and Heo Jun.
"Young Master, you ought to ride this one. Lord Heo should ride as well."
"As expected, a body servant really is different."
"Please call me your foremost disciple. You said we're all disciples now."
"You're the foremost disciple, and also a body servant."
"Yes, well..."
At this point, Dolseok had no intention whatsoever of bringing up manumission or anything of the sort.
After all, being a body servant amounted to little more than bringing over a washbasin in the morning and holding the reins.
Other than that, if there were no patients to treat, he simply took the money he was given and spent it lavishly while enjoying himself, which was a splendid life.
If anything, he almost wished he could go on living as a body servant forever.
"Hup."
Kanghyeok mounted the horse with nimble ease, looking nothing like someone who had stayed awake for several nights.
"It's been a while since I've ridden a horse... This is nice."
Unlike Kanghyeok, who looked nothing but bright, Heo Jun could not hide his somewhat dark complexion.
After struggling onto the horse, he hesitated a moment before speaking with difficulty.
"Scholar Baek."
"Yes, go ahead."
"Well... exactly how many days were we in there? Ten?"
"Ah. In there? Haha."
Kanghyeok scratched the back of his head and looked at Heo Jun.
In the past few days, all the weight Heo Jun had supposedly gained after going to the Royal Medical Bureau had completely fallen off.
As expected, whether it's Joseon or Korea, anatomy practice is hell.
Nodding to himself, Kanghyeok recalled his own school days.
The time when he had left behind the happy two years of pre-med and entered first-year medical school, which had been called hell.
Naturally, anatomy had been the most frightening subject, and the senior students had even given preparatory lectures for it.
Written like that, the seniors sounded very kind and admirable, but if one considered their actual methods, one could only shake one's head.
I think they locked us in a warehouse about that size too.
They shoved them into a place without windows and confiscated all electronic devices, including watches and phones.
So no one had any idea how time passed. They simply listened to lectures without end and memorized things.
They ate when told to eat and slept when told to sleep.
That was how they had finished in just a few days what would normally have taken at least two weeks.
What Heo Jun and the others had experienced was exactly the same thing.
"No. Only five days have passed."
"Five days? I'm sure it felt as though I slept more than that..."
"That's because I split each day into halves and rotated it. In truth, all of you slept only about four hours a day. But you seem more fine than expected, don't you?"
"Uh..."
"If you ever need to teach disciples very urgently later on, Physician Heo, do it like this. It's very effective."
"Hah."
At Kanghyeok's words, everyone began murmuring among themselves.
No wonder it had felt like such an unusually exhausting and tiring ten days.
It turned out this devil of a man had been using some bizarre trick in that unlit warehouse.
"Young Master... How could you do such a thing to people...?"
"You really went too far."
Yeoju and Yeoni voiced their complaints one after the other.
Yeoni in particular had begun shifting her steps little by little, and if left alone like that, it felt as though she would certainly drive something straight into Kanghyeok's back.
"Come now, quiet down. Was that something I did for my own comfort? I did it to teach you properly before the corpses rotted."
"Even so..."
"Just go see patients today first. You'll feel the difference right away."
"Will we...?"
"Yes. Dorikkae, are we far?"
"No. Once we enter the capital, it's almost right there."
Dorikkae said this while pointing toward Heunginmun, that is, Dongdaemun.
Several gate guards were lined up there, inspecting the people coming and going.
Watching that calmly, Heo Jun's face immediately turned the color of dirt.
Kanghyeok, sharp to changes in complexion as any physician would be, asked, "What is it?"
"Ah, nothing... That means I have already failed to attend duty for half a month."
"Didn't they submit a janggye about the epidemic?"
"They did. But the director of Bojewon probably submitted another report ten... no, five days ago, saying the epidemic had ended. Which means those five days..."
In other words, it meant he had been absent without leave.
For all that Kanghyeok was a mess in many ways, poor attendance was not one of them.
No one working in a hospital was the sort to be careless about work.
The environment itself was too harsh for that kind of person to survive in.
"Well, then. Shouldn't you hurry over there at once— Hm? Why are those men coming toward us?"
Looking flustered, Kanghyeok pointed at a group of constables approaching them.
One of them, dressed neatly in military attire, was unmistakably a Seonjeongwan.
Fortunately, judging by his clothes, he was not a high-ranking official such as a Dangsanggwan or Danghagwan, but seemed to be at about the rank of Chamsanggwan.
"They're coming to us... Ah, no. They're coming to me."
Once Heo Jun realized the Seonjeongwan's eyes were fixed directly on him, he let out a deep sigh.
"Why on earth did they send even a Seonjeongwan?"
"Ah, this... unintentionally..."
"No. I ought to have minded my own duty... I'm worried something serious may have happened."
In truth, unauthorized absence was not some terribly grave offense.
Besides, Heo Jun was not a State Councillor or a high minister, but merely a Cheomjeong of the Royal Medical Bureau.
There were plenty of people above him within the Royal Medical Bureau, so his absence could hardly cause some great disruption to affairs of state.
But the approaching Seonjeongwan's face was stern in the extreme, and the footsteps of the constables behind him were heavy too.
"Are you Heo Jun, Cheomjeong of the Royal Medical Bureau?"
The Seonjeongwan was even holding a portrait of Heo Jun.
The brushwork looked strangely familiar, though Kanghyeok could not immediately place why it seemed so familiar.
That was simply the kind of man he was: if something was not in a field that interested him, he paid it no attention at all.
"I... that is me."
Heo Jun, already greatly startled by the Seonjeongwan's appearance, answered with a hurried bow.
Fortunately, the Seonjeongwan's manner was not overtly hostile.
"Ah, we finally found you. Just where have you been all this time?"
"Well... there was an epidemic at Bojewon..."
"A janggye was submitted several days ago saying the matter had been settled. Were there still patients there?"
"That is not exactly..."
"In any case, come with me. There is a patient who must be seen urgently."
"Ah, understood."
At the word patient, Heo Jun followed the Seonjeongwan at once without another question.
As a result, Heo Im, whose destination was the same, had no choice but to run after them at full speed as well.
Watching the two suddenly disappear into the distance, Kanghyeok muttered, "Well... nothing serious should be wrong, right?"
"Yes, probably. Physician Heo should be all right."
The one who answered was Yeoju.
She was not usually someone who stepped forward readily.
So if she spoke like this, there had to be some solid basis for it.
Certain of that, Kanghyeok turned his body fully toward her.
"Why?"
"Did you not see the portrait earlier?"
"I saw it. I did think the brushwork looked familiar from somewhere..."
"It was Prince Gwanghae's drawing. Once you see that hand, it is not easy to forget."
"Ah, right. That's it. Then did His Highness Gwanghae-gun summon him?"
"It is hard to say for certain that is the case... but in any event, nothing serious should be wrong."
"That's true."
After all, what sort of grave trouble could it be, if a prince had enough leisure to summon someone with a portrait he had drawn himself?
It looks as though he's taking good care of his wrist too.
It was certainly not the drawing of a sick man.
Rather, even to Kanghyeok, who knew nothing about painting, the picture conveyed overwhelming vigor and bold spirit.
Even without Heo Jun, the group had no trouble passing through Heunginmun.
Whatever else he was, Kanghyeok was still a proper yangban.
And he also carried several tokens given to him by powerful figures such as Gwanghae-gun and Jeong Cheol.
Thanks to that, before long they arrived at the clinic Dorikkae had supposedly acquired.
"So this is the place."
The illiterate Makbong pointed at a house.
No one had told him it was the clinic, and yet he somehow knew.
"Yes."
"Did you write that sign yourself, Young Master?"
"Yes. I wrote it in eonmun."
"Surely 'the famous physicians from Suwon' does not mean us?"
Dolseok asked with a face that plainly showed he could not believe what he was seeing.
Kanghyeok, meanwhile, looked as though there were nothing at all strange about it.
"That's right. At your level, you're famous physicians now."
"We are...?"
"If I say so, then that's how it is. Let's just say Dongpa is also from Suwon. That way everything fits together perfectly."
"Ah, yes..."
Dongpa answered weakly and stepped into the yard.
The sign Kanghyeok had written did not only say "clinic."
Each room also had a separate name written on it.
"Dolseok, Yeoni, Makbong, Dongpa... There's no room with Lady Yeoju's name, nor yours, Young Master."
"Ah. Yeoju is the spare, the spare."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"If you lot get too busy, she assists. Otherwise, she has to draw and organize the books. Yeoju is busy, you idiots."
"And you, Young Master?"
Kanghyeok met the gazes directed toward him.
No one actually spoke, but he knew exactly what they wanted to ask.
Why am I not working? That's what they mean.
But was that not obvious?
What hospital in the world had its head director running around in person all day?
Running the hospital itself already bent the back enough.
Even so, Kanghyeok counted as a man with a conscience.
He had no intention of doing absolutely nothing.
So he answered with complete boldness.
"I only see patients by appointment."
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