The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 39

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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 39
Helen had lived her entire life with pride in her calling as a midwife.
She had not merely attended births, but had served as physician and apothecary both for women who refused to expose their bodies to men, all in her stead.
Though she had never received formal training, her decades of experience had made her more than capable of holding her own.
She even dared claim she was better than certain quacks who styled themselves as surgeons.
And so there existed in Dunford an unspoken boundary that one did not cross.
Yet now, the people of that clinic were shaking it to its roots.
A long silence filled the room.
As candle wax dripped down, one drop then another, Helen did not open her mouth.
At last she slowly raised her head.
Beneath the flickering light, all hesitation had vanished from her eyes.
“I cannot leave them be.”
The midwives held their breath.
“I must see them myself. Understand what manner of people they are, what drives them.”
Helen’s voice was low and quiet.
“Let someone watch their movements closely. Where they go, when they go, who keeps company with them. Leave nothing out.”
“Mother…”
“Do this discreetly. They must not suspect.”
Helen clenched her fist again.
Blue veins rose across the back of her hand.
“When the time comes, I will go to meet them myself.”
The candle wavered.
The shadows of the midwives stretched long and longer against the wall.
* * *
Edward’s Clinic.
Once the day’s consultations and Allen’s lectures were finished, the three of them would usually gather in the sitting room to talk.
Steam rose from teacups on the table, and the sound of crackling wood came from the fireplace.
“Edward, you look rather brighter these days,” Allen observed.
Edward ran a finger across his face and laughed heartily.
“Do I? Is it so obvious?”
“I thought you must be oiling your face.”
When William added his quip, Allen chuckled.
Edward sipped his tea and spoke up.
“Not paying rent anymore makes all the difference. I never thought we’d own a building so quickly.”
“Neither did I expect such rapid growth. It’s beyond what I anticipated.”
“But it’s strange—at this rate you could surely succeed even in the capital. Why did you come down here in the first place?”
Allen smiled bitterly and shook his head.
“If I’d opened a clinic in the capital and run it this way, I’d have gone under immediately.”
“Why is that?”
“The same seed won’t grow if the soil is different. The capital is too vast. Success drowns in noise, and with so many choices, people scatter.”
All good things in the world converge on Karden.
Which was to say that the hierarchy in Karden’s medical circles was more rigid than anywhere else.
That hierarchy naturally influenced people.
No matter what a street surgeon said, the authority of a single internist could overturn it.
“Here, people at least listen to what we say—think of us as worth trying. Then they see the results work. In Karden, they wouldn’t listen at all. They’d simply go to another clinic.”
“So that’s why you failed and came here?”
Edward looked at Allen with sympathy.
Allen merely smiled faintly.
“Well, I did fail and come here, but that wasn’t what caused the failure.”
“Internists cater to the nobility, don’t they? Usually the wealthy and aristocratic demand much in proportion to what they spend. They don’t just ask for treatment of their ailments—they want all manner of things done under the guise of health maintenance.”
William set down his cup and continued.
His own teacher had a saying he repeated like a refrain.
‘Give the big clients whatever they want.’ ‘Don’t pointlessly stand on physician’s pride.’
“If someone like Allen had said, ‘Bloodletting is impossible for this reason, cupping is impossible for that reason, this medicine can’t be given because of this’—well, the nobles would have simply found someone else.”
Allen nodded in agreement.
That was precisely why he had begun in a small city rather than a metropolis.
Allen’s method was slow.
Patients had to be willing to follow.
In a great city like Karden, that was impossible.
“William, will you stay here? Have you given up on dreams of the capital entirely?”
Edward posed a question, and William shook his head.
“No, sir. I’ll have to leave eventually, of course. But for now, I want to focus here.”
There was still a mountain of things to learn from Allen.
Even though he attended lectures for a couple of hours each evening, the material seemed endless.
He couldn’t even begin to guess where such a theoretical framework had been constructed.
‘He said he opened his eyes just briefly and saw the elephant. But how on earth did he manage to open them at all?’
William pondered this while watching Allen.
He’d thought that living under the same roof might reveal some clue, but he remained in the dark.
Still, if Allen was a self-made Internist who’d risen from the Poor District, wouldn’t his perspective be far broader than ordinary people’s?
Perhaps such an approach was simply possible for him—that was all William could think.
“They say that if you do things the way Allen does here, you’d fail a hundred times over in the capital. Are you planning to do something different there?”
“I couldn’t possibly. Whatever I learned here causes more harm than good will not be done there either. That’s a matter of medical ethics before anything else.”
“Then how do you plan to survive there?”
“As I mentioned, I have the Forceps. With that alone, I can more than make a living.”
William straightened his lips with confidence.
Edward’s expression brightened with curiosity.
“Ah, that thing you showed me before. That Obstetric Forceps Delivery—it really is remarkable.”
For someone of his background as a military physician, there was perhaps no reality more foreign than childbirth.
“My master learned this technique in the Southern Kingdom. With just this one skill, he became the highest-earning Surgeon in that city. I’m told it’s transmitted as a Secret Transmission even there in the Southern Kingdom.”
“What? He taught it to you so willingly?”
Edward’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“Of course he didn’t want to teach me. He tried every way to hide it. But who am I? I pried it all out of him.”
Of course, William’s current mastery of Obstetric Forceps Delivery had only been possible through countless hours of practice on people from the slums.
“I suppose I should learn it too. But obstetrics is completely foreign to me—I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Then I’ll give you intensive lectures on obstetrics starting today.”
Allen smiled as he looked at Edward.
“I’ll make sure to check your progress carefully. I’ve noticed you’ve grown a bit lax lately.”
“…Studying at my age!”
Edward grumbled, but there was no real displeasure in his tone.
His eyes were actually gleaming.
The Forceps was a unique technique.
At least in this small city, no one else could imitate it.
“I’ll teach you everything, sir, if you’re willing to learn.”
“You’re truly generous, William!”
“It took me several years to master this. It won’t be easy.”
William drew up his lips slightly.
But Edward’s chest opened wide instead.
“We have Allen as our teacher, though. With his knowledge beside us, there’s nothing to fear.”
“I only have book knowledge. I’ve barely done any deliveries myself, so I’m the one learning from William.”
“But if you’ve never even performed a delivery, how do you know all those surgical techniques and theories?”
William asked.
Allen’s knowledge was often strikingly asymmetrical.
Like knowing the essence of swordplay perfectly while never having swung a blade even once.
“I just study a lot.”
Allen brushed the question aside with a light laugh.
And it wasn’t just obstetrics.
There were countless paths of knowledge he still couldn’t explore.
Craniotomy, Laparotomy, Thoracotomy—to name a few.
The road ahead remained long.
He glanced down at his own hands.
His ambitions were so vast, yet his hands moved slowly.
That made him sigh.
* * *
Another delivery had ended.
William and Allen stepped out of the manor.
The air had grown quite brisk.
Their breath rose white, then scattered into the darkness.
The night streets of Greenhills District were quiet.
Oil lamps, lit here and there, cast yellow pools of light on the stone pavement.
William led the way with a lantern, while Allen followed half a step behind with his Medical Bag slung across his shoulder.
“My word, I do wish business ran this smoothly in the capital itself.”
William rattled the pouch of silver coins in his palm, smiling.
Allen offered no reply.
Glancing back, William was surprised to find his expression clouded.
“Is something troubling you? Today’s delivery went off without a hitch.”
“My hands, I’m afraid.”
“…But you’re still learning, aren’t you?”
“I don’t seem to be making progress. Truth be told, acquiring that particular feel for it takes far longer than I expected.”
William’s eyes widened as he turned to look at Allen.
To hear a physician of such brilliance voice such a concern—
“It’s only been just over six months now, surely. That’s quite rapid progress.”
“Perhaps. But when a patient writhes from pain, I still don’t know how to adjust. And when I can’t see at all—how am I meant to use forceps?”
William found no words of comfort.
To say ‘you’ll master it soon’ would ring hollow; he knew this was a technique of considerable difficulty.
For a time, only the sound of their footsteps echoed down the alley.
“Why do you hang such weight on manual skill?”
It was William who broke the silence.
“You make the judgment; have someone else do the hands. Isn’t that what an Internist does?”
“Would you wish to work beneath someone who orders you about?”
“If it were you, sir—yes.”
William met Allen’s gaze directly.
“I believe I would.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Because I mean it.”
Allen gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
“Borrowing another’s hands—it’s like wearing gloves that don’t fit. If I can’t do it with my own hands, it’s meaningless. Delegating to others is only an extension of that same principle.”
After a few more paces, Allen added quietly:
“Most illnesses have no suitable cure. An Internist can do precious little before such patients. At least Surgery changes the ending with its own two hands.”
William thought it a remarkably un-Internist-like sentiment.
Their calling was to grasp patients and prescribe through judgment alone—never lifting a finger, acting only from the mind.
Most Internists looked down upon manual labor as the domain of vulgar craftsmen.
‘Perhaps knowing too much is why he paradoxically chose the Surgeon’s path. Truly… contradictory.’
William reflected.
Given what Internists knew, their contempt for Surgery was all the more strange.
“If you master manual skill, then what will you do, sir?”
William asked.
There was no grand motive behind it.
He simply wished to ask.
“Change it.”
“Change what?”
“This world. All of it.”
William started, staring at Allen.
His face bore no hint of jest.
The profile caught in the lamplight was serene as ever.
Like a man remarking on tomorrow’s weather.
Until now, William’s image of Allen had been of a man burdened with extraordinary knowledge, disillusioned with the world, who had withdrawn to practice medicine almost as pastime—an Internist merely maintaining his art.
He’d assumed learning Surgery was merely a hobby in that same vein.
Yet here was ambition burning in that chest.
“…Which is why I knew you’d mock me for it.”
Allen shrugged, letting his words trail off.
But William did not laugh.
He could not.
Knowing what filled this man’s mind, it was impossible.
The claim to change the world didn’t sound like mere boasting.
‘Perhaps standing beside this man, I might witness something truly extraordinary.’
His heart began to race.
The night before departing for the capital, and the moment just before knocking on Edward’s Clinic door—
That same feeling thundered through him again.
Whoosh.
And then, suddenly, shadows emerged from the darkness.

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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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