Goblin Library - Chapter 125

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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Chapter 125.

Dung Carrier Goblin spoke while watching Yu Tae-poong.
“It doesn’t matter for us goblins, but a human body goes limp and loses its strength while sleeping, doesn’t it?”
“That’s how fatigue gets relieved.”
“True. But when you first wake up from sleep, your body isn’t fully loosened up, so doesn’t it feel stiff?”
Yu Tae-poong nodded.
“That’s certainly the case.”
“A glass of cool water awakens those stiffened internal organs.”
Dung Carrier Goblin laughed and continued.
“That’s why cold water drunk first thing in the morning is as good as a tonic.”
“But it’s just water, not really a tonic….”
“What’s so special about a tonic? If it’s good for your body, that’s a tonic. When consumed at the right time and suited to your body, that becomes a tonic.”
Dung Carrier Goblin, who had been speaking, fell into thought for a moment while glancing toward the bookshelf, then pulled out a phone.
Then I dialed somewhere and switched to speaker mode.
As I placed the phone on the table, the other person’s voice came through immediately.
[Dung Carrier.]
At the warmth evident in the other person’s voice, Yu Tae-poong tilted his head in confusion.
“Pot Goblin?”
Pot Goblin, understanding Yu Tae-poong’s murmur, spoke.
[So Yu Tae-poong is there too.]
“I have something I want to ask about.”
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Pot Goblin said.
[Should I come over?]
“It’s nothing urgent, so there’s no need for that.”
[What are you curious about?]
“Since your essence is a pot, you’re deeply connected to food, right?”
[Deeply.]
“Then do you happen to have any books written with a protagonist related to food tonics?”
[Food tonics?]
“Yu Tae-poong asked whether food could actually be used as a tonic.”
Dung Carrier Goblin caught my breath and continued with a laugh.
“I lived through the Joseon Dynasty Era too, so I’ve heard many stories about nourishing the body with food, but I don’t know the details well. I thought you might know something about it, so I’m asking.”
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s words, Pot Goblin laughed.
[Then you’ve asked the right person. Just a moment. This story….]
Click!
The door opened and Pot Goblin came in.
“Let’s talk face to face.”
Upon seeing her, the Dung Carrier Goblin pressed the end call button on the phone.
Yu Tae-poong chuckled inwardly.
‘The goblins certainly do love the things humans create.’
They could communicate through goblin fire or meet instantly through a door, yet they chose to make phone calls instead.
Pot Goblin retrieved a cola from the refrigerator and spoke.
“Food as medicine… well said. It’s also the foundation of Joseon Dynasty Era medicine.”
“Really?”
Click! Hisssss!
Pot Goblin opened the canned cola and settled into a chair.
“Fundamentally, what enters the mouth accounts for the greatest proportion of bodily deterioration.”
“Through what we eat?”
Yu Tae-poong tilted his head in confusion.
He assumed people wouldn’t eat something they knew was harmful to their bodies.
“No one knowingly eats something bad for their health.”
Pot Goblin laughed at Yu Tae-poong’s words.
“Alcohol.”
“Ah! Alcohol.”
Yu Tae-poong nodded. Most people certainly knew alcohol was bad for their health, yet they consumed it anyway.
“Beyond alcohol, there’s plenty more. Among things people eat for their sweet taste and flavor, many are poisons masquerading as food. That’s why defective food products exist.”
“Setting aside alcohol… surely defective food products aren’t quite poison, are they?”
“They are.”
Pot Goblin continued with a smile.
“As you said, for someone in good health, most foods won’t become poison. But for someone with health issues, certain foods act as poison. For example, for someone with high cholesterol, fried foods, egg yolks, shrimp, oysters, and high-fat meats like red meat are harmful.”
“Ah… I see how that could be the case for people with health problems. After all, people with diabetes also avoid certain foods.”
“For diabetics, wheat-based foods like ramen are particularly bad.”
Pot Goblin nodded and looked at Yu Tae-poong.
“If there are foods bad for the body, then conversely there are foods good for it, right?”
“Of course.”
“So foods that work beneficially depending on the eater’s physical condition can be called medicine.”
“Then not all good foods are necessarily healthy for everyone.”
“Exactly. Oysters, bad for high cholesterol, are still healthy food for someone in good health. The same goes for meat.”
“Right.”
“Eaten well, it becomes medicine; eaten poorly, it becomes poison. Knowing what suits your own body is what matters.”
Pot Goblin looked at Yu Tae-poong.
“Of course, exercise is important for maintaining health, but eating is even more so. What enters the mouth directly becomes blood and flesh.”
“That makes sense.”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, Dung Carrier Goblin looked at Pot Goblin.
“So there’s a novel about that?”
“A few copies.”
“Oh! So there were physicians who healed bodies through food.”
“A physician? Hmph! One of my novel’s protagonists is a physician too, but they didn’t heal people through food. Physicians fundamentally rely on moxibustion, acupuncture, and herbal decoctions.”
At Pot Goblin’s words, Yu Tae-poong asked.
“Then who heals people’s bodies through food?”
“It’s less about healing and more about keeping them healthy and preventing illness.”
Pot Goblin looked at Yu Tae-poong.
“And the person most devoted to keeping people healthy isn’t a physician.”
“If not a physician, then who?”
“A mother.”
“A mother… Ah!”
As Yu Tae-poong nodded in understanding, Pot Goblin continued.
“A mother prepares the most food that enters her children’s and family’s mouths. Such mothers strive to create dishes beneficial to their children’s health. They won’t prepare food that tastes sweet and delicious but harms the body. They carefully select each ingredient—the finest they can obtain—and prepare meals with devotion. Thus, every dish a mother makes becomes a tonic.”
Pot Goblin gazed into the distance for a moment before speaking.
“Therefore, it is mothers who know best about food tonics.”
Then Pot Goblin raised a hand.
Whoooosh!
A single book flew from one of the bookshelves.
Swish!
Thump!
Pot Goblin caught the book lightly and extended it to Yu Tae-poong.
“The protagonist is a daughter-in-law of a Yangban household during the Joseon Dynasty Era. She was truly skilled at cooking. And remarkably intelligent too.”
“Really?”
“Especially at combining various dishes. She made delicious food even more delicious, and enhanced it to be good for the body as well—if you understand what I mean. In any case, she was a wonderful protagonist.”
At Pot Goblin’s words, Yu Tae-poong looked at the book.

【Lee Yun-jeong】
Author: Pot Goblin

“Would it be alright if I serialized this novel online?”
“Online serialization?”
“Just as I came to understand coffee and tea through Da-hyang Goblin’s novel, couldn’t readers discover the true value of food through this story?”
“Oho!”
Pot Goblin paused in thought before grasping the book in her hands.
“Online serialization is on hold.”
“Pardon?”
“My next work will be 【Lee Yun-jeong】.”
“Your next work?”
“The publication preparations for 【Hong-ae】 are nearly complete. A true author must always be thinking about their next project.”
At Pot Goblin’s words, Dung Carrier Goblin gazed at her with unmistakable envy.
Pot Goblin smiled, pleased by that gaze, and spoke to Yu Tae-poong.
“You, however, will simply read it.”
“Understood. I’ll read it first and leave comments for you.”
Though “comments” really meant sensing emotions, it would still prove helpful to Pot Goblin.
“Enjoy it.”
Just as Yu Tae-poong was about to open the book at Pot Goblin’s words.
Dung Carrier Goblin suddenly asked Pot Goblin a question.
“By the way, did the book cover come out?”
“Oh! Want to see it?”
“I do.”
At Dung Carrier Goblin’s immediate response, Pot Goblin pulled out her phone and showed her the cover.
The cover that came through the message displayed “Hong-ae” written in crimson letters against a white background.
And on the cover, a woman dressed in elegant Western attire gazed into the void with sorrowful eyes.

「A woman named Hong-ae, who bloomed brilliantly in an era, then vanished」

Yu Tae-poong nodded as he examined the cover.
“It looks good.”
Pot Goblin responded to Yu Tae-poong’s comment.
“There were several design concepts, but this one appealed to me.”
“When will the book be released?”
“In a week. Though I’m worried—the publishing market isn’t doing well these days. Even when books come out, they often don’t make it into bookstores.”
“We’ll make sure to stock it at our bookstore without fail.”
“Well, of course you should.”
As Pot Goblin spoke, Yu Tae-poong opened Lee Yun-jeong’s book. Her story began with the preparation of a morning meal.
Lee Yun-jeong was twenty-four years old… but…
“She had three children at twenty-four?”
“Back then, people married at fifteen and had children. When I first saw her, she was twenty-three and her eldest was already seven.”
“Wow… it’s true that people in the Joseon Dynasty Era married quite young.”
Pot Goblin spoke.
“Everyone did back then.”
“But how did she become such a skilled cook at such a young age?”
“She learned to cook from childhood.”
“A Yangban Household maiden learned to cook from childhood?”
At Yu Tae-poong’s question, Pot Goblin laughed.
“Haven’t you heard of the ‘touch of a Head Family House daughter-in-law’?”
“I have.”
“Then who would that daughter-in-law be? Of course, a Yangban Household maiden.”
Pot Goblin continued with a smile.
“During the Joseon Dynasty Era, there were servants who cooked, but noblewomen also learned. They had to prepare meals for their elders and dishes for ancestral rites.”
“I see.”
“Lee Yun-jeong was truly brilliant. She couldn’t pursue an official career because it was the Joseon Dynasty Era and she had to stay home, but if she’d been born male, she would have achieved great prominence and left her name in history.”
“Really?”
“You’ll see when you read. Though her talents were confined to cooking, she conducted extensive research on various dishes and ingredients. With that mind, if she’d memorized the Four Books and Three Classics, she would have been the top scholar of her examination.”
Pot Goblin laughed as she spoke.
“I suspect there were many sick people in her household.”
“There were sick people in her home?”
“You’ll see in the book, but her husband’s family had a history of diabetes. So she researched many health-beneficial dishes for that condition. Since diet is crucial for managing diabetes.”
As Yu Tae-poong was about to ask something else, Pot Goblin waved her hand.
“Read the book. If I tell you everything before you read it, there’s no point in reading it.”
“That’s true.”
With that, Yu Tae-poong began reading the book.
Lee Yun-jeong’s book was truly delightful in content. She selected ingredients, prepared them carefully, and cooked with them.
The descriptions were genuinely appetizing.
Moreover, as each ingredient was prepared, she examined what it was good for and what it paired well with.
So reading the book, one learned about health-beneficial ingredients, their complementary flavors, and which ingredients were incompatible with one another.
However….
Yu Tae-poong, absorbed in reading the passage where Lee Yun-jeong stir-fried pork and shiitake mushrooms, caught sight of Pot Goblin.
“It’s a shame there are no illustrations.”
“Illustrations?”
“Just a moment.”
Yu Tae-poong retrieved Kim Hyang-i’s book by Da-hyang Goblin from one section of the bookshelf.
“If you look at Da-hyang Goblin’s book, it has illustrations, so it’s much more enjoyable to read.”
At Yu Tae-poong’s words, Pot Goblin accepted the book and opened it.
“You’re right… having illustrations in a novel about food really does make it feel more vivid and engaging.”
“Exactly.”
Pot Goblin nodded and then spoke.
“You’ll draw the illustrations for me? Well, I wouldn’t mind, but… there’s really no need. Yes. Anyway, thank you for the thought.”
Watching Pot Goblin suddenly converse with someone unseen, Yu Tae-poong asked.
“Were you speaking with Da-hyang Goblin?”
“Yes. She offered to draw the illustrations, so I told her it was fine.”
“Why? I think food and ingredient illustrations would be wonderful?”
Pot Goblin, with a smile on her face, placed her hand over the Lee Yun-jeong book.
“Lee Yun-jeong draws well too.”
“Draws?”
“Especially her valley landscapes—she draws them beautifully.”
Pot Goblin spoke with a laugh.
“Lee Yun-jeong can do it.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com

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