Surviving as the Terminally Ill Young Lady of the North Sea Ice Palace - Chapter 83

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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 83
“What is this? You’ve all come running just to ask me that?”
As expected, Yak Seon refused to reveal the method for making the San Gong Du Antidote easily.
“Please, save us! I’m begging you!”
“Isn’t there any way we could recover faster, even by a few days?”
“We’ll end up going to the Hunting Tournament without any Internal Energy!”
The students pleaded desperately for his help.
They groveled, beseeching his mercy.
“Individual requests for medicines not in the standard inventory cost one thousand Merit Points. Go collect them.”
He dismissed them with a snort, not even bothering to look their way.
Hmm… so sympathy doesn’t work on him?
The case of Severed Meridian Syndrome I’d mentioned had stirred his competitive spirit in its own way, but San Gong Du apparently seemed too trivial by his standards to warrant his interest.
Perhaps seniors had clung to him like this even before this year.
“Why did you come? You handle your Internal Energy well enough on your own, don’t you?”
I’d simply stood silently among the students without saying anything special.
He began needling me irritably—perhaps because one of his two disciples was among the group.
The students looked at me with hopeful faces, as if urging me to say something.
“As a student studying Herbal Medicine, I felt a genuine scholarly curiosity, and I came along hoping to perhaps discover a way to help my friends. Might you share even a little of your wisdom with us?”
But I had no brilliant strategy either.
If I could extract the formula for the antidote by triggering his sympathy, it would certainly prove useful anywhere.
Yet that method had failed.
If the patient was too insignificant to stir his compassion, then the strategy of coming to help friends would be equally pointless.
“Scholarly curiosity? What’s so remarkable about curing poison? Using Poison to Control Poison—that’s all there is!”
So I’d simply blurted out whatever came to mind.
But surprisingly, Yak Seon offered something like a hint.
Using Poison to Control Poison?
Suppressing poison with poison itself?
“Does that mean the San Gong Du Antidote is itself a poison?”
“There are three ways to cure poison. Expel it quickly, make the body vomit it out, or put in something of opposite nature to neutralize it!”
I’d tasted the Antidote I’d obtained from Jang Chang Hall before, and it had taken effect in mere minutes.
Whether through bowel movements, sweat, or vomit—nothing was being expelled, so it couldn’t be the first two methods.
‘Neutralizing with medicine, then…’
Just as treating my Severed Meridian Syndrome required an enormous amount of Yang Energy.
Did suppressing San Gong Du also require medicine of opposite nature?
If the antidote neutralizes the poison, wouldn’t that make the antidote itself a poison?
“What type of poison should be used? Does San Gong Du have the nature of Yang Energy, or does it carry the nature of Yin Energy?”
Wanting to understand more, I posed the question.
“I’m certainly not telling you that.”
Yak Seon’s mercy ended right there.
“Ah, Master of the Medical Hall!”
“Yak Seon, please show us mercy!”
“Could you not give us just a little more of a clue?”
“Hmph, not a chance. I’m done being swayed by your silver tongue!”
But… I hadn’t even employed any particular eloquence.
Several students tried hanging on to him, but it proved futile.
“That’s enough instruction for now. If there’s no patient, stop making noise here and get out!”
Yak Seon slammed the door shut and drove the students away.
“Ah…”
“Ugh…”
“So it was useless after all?”
“I thought if you asked, he might tell us something!”
The students who’d clung so desperately were left disappointed, their faces falling.
Since Yak Seon said it was loud and told them to leave.
They could only lament as they moved away from the Medical Hall.
“Miss Seol, I suspect San Gong Du is not a poison of Yang Energy—it scatters and spreads, yes? What spreads would be Yang Energy, and what gathers would be Yin Energy, I would think.”
But unlike the majority of the others who gave up then and there, Dan Ri Hyang tried to deduce something from Yak Seon’s words as a clue.
“Then if we consume a poison with Yin Energy, would it neutralize?”
Hearing this, Namgung Ayoung perked up her ears.
“No—if it were that simple, poison wouldn’t be such a threat.”
If it were truly that straightforward, there’d be no reason for warriors to fear San Gong Du.
Even Dang So Yeo, a master of poison craft, couldn’t have killed the most people during the Jungma Great War.
If detoxification worked that way, you could just carry two types—Yin poison and Yang poison—and neutralize them against each other.
But matter in this world isn’t limited to yin and yang alone. It’s composed of countless elements!
“Ah… is that so? Wouldn’t it be worth asking the Poison Master?”
“I don’t think she’d tell us.”
Namgung Ayoung broached the idea of going to Dang So Yeo directly.
Yet here she was saying this, even though she’d seen Dang So Yeo on the day she registered for Ten Thousand Poisons Tasting.
At least Yak Seon shared this much with us.
“Perhaps…”
Setting aside Dang So Yeo, who was utterly hopeless.
I found myself thinking of another figure—someone I suspected knew medicine better than anyone else in the Academy after Yak Seon.
“Is there a method you’ve thought of?”
“Is there anyone else you could ask?”
The moment I spoke those few words, Dan Ri Hyang and Namgung Ayoung leaned forward with desperate urgency.
But the chance that this person would know a detoxification method wasn’t high enough to justify such hope.
“No, but if I learn anything at all, I’ll share it with you.”
I advised both of them to return to the Dormitory and rest for now.
* * *
If I showed up leading all these students who couldn’t use their Internal Energy, he’d absolutely hate it.
I killed time with a simple Near-Walking exercise, and once the sun set, I made my way quietly to find Eun Hyun alone.
Eun Hyun was in the Training Grounds, doing his own Near-Walking before his practice, gathering Merit Points to pay the warden so he could meet Yok Yeon-ju and Yak Seon.
“Ah, Miss Seol. Yesterday you left so suddenly I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
I’d been pacing nearby, not wanting to disturb his concentration on his training.
Eun Hyun stopped his sword work and turned to address me.
“Sorry. I had to hurry back before class started, so I didn’t have much time. Should I bring more fruit?”
“…I won’t refuse.”
He paused for a moment, as if considering something deeply, then nodded.
He could have simply accepted it without ceremony.
He told me to wait at the Dormitory later and he’d bring the fruit from Inbon Hall.
Then I brought up what I’d come for.
“I heard the San Gong Du Antidote works on the principle of Using Poison to Control Poison. Do you have any idea what poison or medicine suppresses it?”
At least among the students I knew, Eun Hyun was the most knowledgeable in medical arts.
Yak Seon had said that since Eun Hyun arrived at the Academy, only the two of us had taken Herbal Medicine class.
Perhaps even among the seniors, no one studied it as meaningfully as Eun Hyun did.
“What? That antidote was a poison?”
But even so, Eun Hyun didn’t seem to have any special knowledge about it.
After all, if he could make an antidote himself, he wouldn’t be trying to pass Myeong Gyeong’s test—he’d simply make it and use it to detoxify.
“Right. I asked earlier and Yak Seon told me that.”
“Ah… I see. Now that I think about it, the taste wasn’t one of the medicinal herbs I know. So it was poison.”
Remarkable—he knew the taste of all those herbs, yet couldn’t place this one.
Then there’s no help for it.
It wasn’t even my problem, and I’d already done all I could.
I’d been planning to suggest he make the antidote formula and sell it for a high price if he figured it out.
But having one fewer competitor wasn’t entirely bad.
I told him to forget about it if he couldn’t figure anything out.
If the worst came to pass and I ended up in the bottom ten, so be it.
“But did Yak Seon actually use the phrase ‘Using Poison to Control Poison’ rather than ‘Using Poison to Treat Poison’?”
“Yes, that’s what he said.”
Interesting. Did everyone with a healer’s nature have their own pride about treatment?
Yak Seon had bristled when I said I couldn’t fix it, insisting there had to be a way.
The moment I said Eun Hyun would be fine, he too started diving into the details.
“What exactly did you ask about?”
“I asked if there was a way to help my friends.”
Since the conversation had happened just moments ago, I recounted word for word everything I’d discussed with Yak Seon.
“…Ah.”
After a brief silence.
Eun Hyun, who had listened seriously to my words, nodded.
“The antidote given through official channels caused the effects of San Gong Du to disappear immediately with no side effects. They probably made it so it could neutralize the poison with a precisely opposite agent.”
“Right.”
“But when you asked about helping the students who still have some San Gong Du remaining, he said ‘Using Poison to Control Poison’—which suggests, I think, that such a precise antidote isn’t necessary for that situation.”
But… did Yak Seon really give me a hint with intentions that complicated?
To find the answer on my own?
If it were Myeong Gyeong, my teacher, I’d expect that kind of depth, but Yak Seon doesn’t strike me as someone who thinks so carefully as a mentor.
Separate from that, Eun Hyun’s hypothesis was rather compelling.
“If I accept the side effects, I can suppress it even with an imprecise poison?”
Surviving as the Ailing Young Lady of Buk Hae Ice Palace (Serialized)
Author │ Sahyang Noru
Publisher │ Kim Ju Hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae Hyuk
Address │ 401, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Ace Techno Tower 8th)
Email │ [email protected]
Homepage │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Sahyang Noru 2026
※ This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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