Hua Family Clinic, An County, Sichuan Province.
It was a medical clinic located north of Mount Emei.
When the Hua Family Clinic was first established, there were only a few mountain villages nearby.
Then, as word spread that the Hua Family Clinic's medical skills were outstanding, patients who had been suffering from long illnesses and medical students who wanted to learn medicine began to come one by one and settle near the clinic, and the population of the area began to increase.
When people gather, money circulates, and when money circulates, more people gather.
It grew day by day, and in just over ten years, it had connected with the nearby villages and had grown to a scale that could be called a small city.
And at some point, the Hua Family Clinic began to be called the Divine Doctor Family of the Divine Land.
From this time, it began to make a name for itself beyond Sichuan and throughout the Central Plains.
But something no one had expected happened.
During the Great War between the Orthodox and Demonic factions, the Divine Doctor and the head of the family and his wife, who had participated in the war to treat patients at the request of the Orthodox Faction, met with a tragic accident. After that incident, the Hua Family Clinic went from bad to worse, and its fortunes declined rapidly in just a few months.
Longevity Hall, Hua Family Clinic.
An emergency patient arrived at Longevity Hall, which cared for seriously ill patients.
A very small child had come carrying a limp old man on his back.
It was Cho Myung.
"What is that?"
A boy in his mid-teens, hearing the urgent footsteps, looked out the window and shouted.
"He's unconscious, and his pulse is about to stop, so I brought him here."
A young man in his late teens, dressed as a medical student, who had guided Cho Myung, answered.
"Bring him inside."
"Let's go in."
The medical student guided Cho Myung, who was carrying Jeok Yorap on his back, into the patient room.
"Lay him here."
The patient was laid on the bed closest to the entrance among the ten or so beds arranged on the left and right.
"What is this? Isn't this a child?"
The boy who was taking care of the patient made a bewildered face.
It was understandable, as Cho Myung, who had brought the patient on his back, was a very young child who looked to be about four or five years old.
"It's absurd, isn't it? I saw him at the main gate on my way back from an errand the young master had sent me on, and surprisingly, this kid was running with the patient on his back. They say that people sometimes exert superhuman strength when they are desperate, so it must be something like that, right?"
"I've never seen anything like that. Let's examine the patient first."
"Yes, sir."
The boy began to examine the patient.
"This is a mess! His chest bone is broken, and there's severe internal bleeding!"
"If it's bleeding, can't you stop it with your golden needle technique, young master?"
"The bleeding has already stopped."
"Ah, then that's a relief."
"You idiot, the bleeding stopped because it's been too long!"
The boy shouted as he hurriedly inserted the golden needles.
"Th-then what do we do?"
"It's a good thing someone treated him, otherwise he would have been dead long ago."
"Treated him?"
"Yes. They pressed his acupoints to reduce the bleeding. This, it seems that person also set the bone?"
"Can he live?"
"It's difficult with just acupuncture. He's already started to cross the Yellow Springs."
"Then are you giving up?"
The medical student asked with a pitiful face.
At that moment, the boy hit the medical student on the head.
"Ouch! Why did you do that?"
"How can a medical student talk about giving up so easily?"
"What?"
"I've told you many times. Before you improve your medical skills, you have to fix your mindset! I told you to save the patient no matter what, right? Did I or did I not?"
"You did. I'm sorry."
"Go and get the Nine Treasure Pill."
"The Nine Treasure Pill?"
"Yes, I can't save him with just golden needles. We have to have him take that and see how it goes. If the medicinal power of the Nine Treasure Pill can just hold his body, I might be able to save him somehow with the golden needles. What are you doing? Go quickly!"
"The pharmacy won't give me the Nine Treasure Pill. The young lady gave a strict order not to give the Nine Treasure Pill to you, young master."
"Say my sister sent you."
"You want me to lie?"
"Yes."
"They know I'm your hands and feet, will that work?"
"Then steal it."
"I'll be kicked out if I do that."
"Have you been kicked out once or twice?"
"Still..."
When the medical student hesitated with a tearful face, the boy hit him on the head once more.
"We have to save the patient first! He'll die if we leave him like this! Go quickly!"
The medical student rubbed his head, looked down at the patient, and then ran out quickly.
"Hurry up!"
The boy, who had shouted towards the outside, turned his gaze to the patient, Jeok Yorap.
"Old man, if you live, you have to be grateful to that kid, okay?"
Although he was talking as if the patient could hear him, the boy also knew well that it was not possible.
"When that patient wakes up, I'll tell him."
There was one more person in the patient room.
The old man who was lying as if dead on the innermost bed turned only his head and said with a smiling face.
The handful of gray hair and the liver spots that filled his face told that his dying day was approaching.
"You should worry about your own body, old man. If you want to live even one more day, I told you not to leave any of the decoction."
"What's the use of living one more day without consciousness? It's a blessing enough to have met you, who treats an old man with nowhere to go like me as a person, so I have nothing more to wish for."
"Even if you have nothing more to wish for, if you can live, you should try to live."
"Even if I live for just one day, I want to go while watching you take care of the patients with a clear mind."
The decoction that the old man was taking had a sleeping component, so if he drank all of it as prescribed, he would fall asleep quickly.
"It's creepy. It's not enough for a pretty girl to watch over me, I don't want an old man to watch over me."
"Then why did you avoid the young lady of the Tang family?"
"She's scary like my sister."
"After getting married, even a tomboy changes into a graceful lady, that's a woman."
"I'm only fourteen now. What marriage."
"You can learn about it now and do it when the time comes."
"Even if she gets married, she'll hold me in her hand and shake me. Ugh! It's terrible just thinking about it."
"If it's a woman you truly cherish and like, you'll be happy even if you live in her hand."
"If I come to like her that much, I'll think about it once."
The boy, who had spoken as if grumbling, then looked back at Cho Myung, who had brought the patient on his back, as if he had just remembered.
"The patient's condition is not good. I'll do what I can, but...!"
The boy trailed off and approached with a puzzled face.
He leaned in and examined Cho Myung, then made a bewildered face.
"What is this! He's fainted!"
Surprisingly, Cho Myung had lost consciousness while standing.
The boy hurriedly laid Cho Myung on an empty bed and checked his pulse first.
"Huh? His pulse is racing. Is there such a strong pulse?"
The boy, who had tilted his head, brought a few golden needles.
He was trying to place a sleeping needle so that the unconscious Cho Myung could rest comfortably.
The boy, who had taken out one golden needle, lifted Cho Myung's upper garment and then inserted the golden needle into the Danzhong acupoint on his chest.
It was to calm the racing pulse.
"......!"
The boy made a flustered face.
The golden needle that had penetrated the skin did not go in any further.
It wasn't that it was blocked by an abnormally grown bone.
Because the feeling transmitted from the tip of the needle was not hard.
So he was even more puzzled.
"What is this?"
The boy made a bewildered face and then found another acupoint and inserted the needle.
It was the same.
It only pierced the skin and did not penetrate any further.
He tried inserting the golden needles in a few more places, but it was the same.
It was so strange that he suspected that something inside the body was blocking the golden needles from being inserted.
The boy, who had given up on the golden needles, checked Cho Myung's pulse again.
A pulse as strong as if it were running wild!
It was a situation where the acquired qi was racing.
It was as if the aftereffects of overexerting himself remained.
It was a phenomenon that could sometimes be seen in the bodies of martial artists who had consumed their internal energy beyond their limits.
'This is definitely a kid...!'
Putting that aside, what was the reason the golden needles wouldn't go in?
The boy, with a grave face, focused more on examining Cho Myung's body.
After a while.
"Young master!"
The urgent voice of the medical student who had gone to get the Nine Treasure Pill was heard from outside.
The boy hurriedly ran to the window.
The medical student was running in a hurry, and behind him, the workers of the pharmacy were chasing him as if they were chasing a thief.
The boy shouted urgently.
"Throw it!"
The medical student threw what he was holding in his hand.
A pill wrapped in silver foil.
It was definitely the Nine Treasure Pill.
As soon as the boy received the Nine Treasure Pill, he removed the silver foil and put it in his mouth.
The workers of the pharmacy, who saw the scene, gave up chasing the medical student and stopped.
The boy, who had grinned, chewed the Nine Treasure Pill leisurely.
After chewing it until it became thick with saliva in his mouth, he opened Jeok Yorap's mouth, brought his mouth close, and let it flow in.
Then he slightly lifted the patient's upper body and pressed the acupoint that stimulates the Adam's apple to make him swallow.
"Gasp, gasp! Now that old man will live, and I'm about to die."
The medical student came in, saw what the boy was doing, and slumped down.
"Don't be a crybaby and go and make some Qi Revitalizing Soup."
"Aigoo, you're working me without giving me a moment to breathe."
It was when the medical student got up at the boy's words.
"Hua Yunhui!"
A fierce girl's voice was heard from outside.
At that, the boy Hua Yunhui and the medical student looked at each other and froze.
"She's here!"
"She's here!"
"I'm starting."
"Be gentle with the cheek."
"Then she'll find out."
Hua Yunhui reached out and grabbed the medical student's cheek.
"Did you go to the pharmacy first again? You idiot! What did I say! I told you to get permission from my sister first and then go to the pharmacy! You can't even remember that one simple thing and you go to the pharmacy first?"
"Ouch, it hurts! It hurts!"
Although the medical student shouted that it hurt, Hua Yunhui did not care and dragged him outside, holding his cheek.
Outside, the workers of the pharmacy who had chased the medical student, the head of the pharmacy, and a girl with fire in her eyes were visible.
Hua Sochen.
Seventeen years old this year.
She was making a very angry face with an outstanding appearance just before she bloomed into a woman.
"Sister, you're here? This foolish kid must have gone to the pharmacy first again because he was in a hurry. He said the patient was in critical condition, so it seems that's what happened, but the patient will probably live, and it's a relief that I saw you like this. Right?"
"Shut up!"
"Okay, sister."
"Did I or did I not tell you not to carelessly administer precious elixirs like the Nine Treasure Pill to a patient with no connection and no known origin?"
"Ah, you did, but that patient will die if it's not the Nine Treasure Pill..."
"I said shut up!"
"Okay, sister."
"You have the golden needles!"
"It was so bad that even the golden needles were useless!"
"Then it means even the Nine Treasure Pill is useless!"
"If he can hold on with the Nine Treasure Pill, it might work out somehow."
"You used the Nine Treasure Pill without even being sure?"
"He was that critical."
"Because you used the precious elixirs like that, the main family is in an even more critical situation. It's hard to even pay the wages of the doctors and workers. Don't you know how serious it is?"
"No, I don't."
"If the main family goes bankrupt trying to save that one patient, we won't be able to save tens, hundreds, or even thousands of patients! Sometimes you have to be cold. Why don't you know that!"
"I really don't know. There's a dying patient in front of me, how can I pretend not to see?"
"You foolish brat!"
"Hehe!"
Hua Yunhui, who was trying to get away with a sly smile.
Hua Sochen, unable to overcome her frustration, turned her angry eyes to the medical student.
"Seokcheong! A medical student is stealing? You're expelled! Don't ever come to the main family again!"
At Hua Sochen's declaration, the medical student Seokcheong's shoulders slumped.
To make matters worse, Hua Yunhui also added a word.
"Seokcheong, I can't keep you with me anymore either. Get lost."
Seokcheong, with a tearful face, looked back and forth between Hua Sochen and Hua Yunhui and then disappeared outside Longevity Hall with heavy steps.
"Do you want to see too, sister? There's a strange kid. He's a kid who looks to be about four or five, but the golden needles won't go into his body."
"Shut up!"
"Okay, sister."
"If you do something like this one more time without my permission, I'll kick you out of here too. Got it?"
"Okay."
Did he really understand?
Hua Sochen, who had been frowning at Hua Yunhui's nonchalant answer, looked at the window of the patient room where the patients were.
"So what happened to that patient?"
"He came too late. I don't know if he can even accept the medicinal power of the Nine Treasure Pill."
"You have to have him take the Qi Revitalizing Soup."
"I've already told Cheong to do that."
"You do it yourself."
"Okay, sister."
Hua Sochen looked at the patient room for a long time and then turned around.
"Save him no matter what. Otherwise, I'll kick you out too."
"Okay."
Hua Yunhui looked at his sister's back as she disappeared outside Longevity Hall with pitiful eyes.
His sister, for whom being a doctor was a calling.
Because she had loved taking care of patients more than anything.
But after her grandfather, who was called a divine doctor, and her parents passed away, she had quit the work she loved and had begun to take on the task of managing the clinic.
His sister, who had cherished taking care of sick patients more than anything, had since then been more focused on saving the clinic than the patients.
"We're here, and as long as we have the doctors who are with us, we'll never go bankrupt, why doesn't my sister know that?"
Hua Yunhui, who had muttered to himself, turned his head and looked up at the sky.
A piece of white cloud was floating alone.
The sight of it being alone in the vast sky looked very lonely.
"I'm sad too..."
Hua Yunhui, who was maturing quickly for his age, made a gloomy face and walked to the wall surrounding Longevity Hall.
There was a small ladder at the bottom of the wall.
Hua Yunhui lifted the ladder and passed it over the wall.
Then, a moment later, a person's face appeared over the wall.
It was Seokcheong.
Seokcheong, who had climbed up the wall and was sitting on it, pulled up the ladder he had stepped on, put it down in the yard of Longevity Hall, and then came over completely.
"I'll go to the patient, so go and make the Qi Revitalizing Soup."
"Yes, young master."
Seokcheong obediently followed.
It was because he had heard Hua Yunhui mutter that he was sad too.
As Seokcheong disappeared to make the decoction, Hua Yunhui walked towards the patient room.
This was what happened one day, twelve days after Cho Myung had started running nonstop towards the Hua Family Clinic in the land of Sichuan.
(End of Chapter)