The Genius Doctor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 9

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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 9
He thrust the ledger forward with the expression of a man who bore every worry in the world upon his shoulders.
It was a Household Ledger.
“I started keeping it at some point. The expenses had simply become unmanageable.”
Allen flipped through the pages he’d been handed, scanning the entries with growing concern.
The conclusion was singular.
Edward was one step away from sleeping in the street.
“So all of this is debt? There’s no income at all.”
“Well, of course there isn’t.”
Edward spoke with profound dejection.
“But surely a few patients have come by these past days.”
“…a handful of copper coins, and that’s all. Combined, it might cover five days’ rent.”
Edward’s voice sank deeper into gloom.
His tone grew so dark that it seemed to pour out like smoke, filling the room with shadow.
“I’ve been open exactly six months now. In all that time, the patient count—remarkably—hasn’t cracked double figures, and I haven’t performed a single proper surgery. Naturally, I’ve never had the experience of receiving any real payment.”
Edward exhaled a heavy sigh.
“You, being a physician of internal medicine, may not understand this—but this is how we earn our living. Look here.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from his desk and held it out.
Anyone could see it was a Price List.
Tooth Extraction – 6 Copper Coins
Bloodletting – 1 Silver Coin
Cupping and Abscess Incision – 1 Silver Coin, several Copper Coins
Dislocation/Fracture Reduction – 5 to 10 Silver Coins
Surgery (minor suturing and wound care) – 7 Silver Coins
Surgery (amputation) – 1 to 2 Gold Coins
Below that, a litany of prices for countless minor surgical techniques lined the page.
“We surgeons earn our bread by performing surgical skills, yes? Isn’t that why you came here to learn? And yet you tell me not to do any of it—I simply cannot fathom your reasoning.”
Edward’s face was twisted with frustration.
Allen studied the Household Ledger and Price List in silence, lost in thought.
‘I earned money far too easily,’ he reflected.
A physician of internal medicine trained at the Royal Medical Academy.
That alone carried tremendous authority, but Allen was nothing less than an Associate Professor at the Academy itself.
At that level, one doesn’t set up a clinic.
Only house calls.
Visiting the chambers of nobles, taking their pulse, managing their health, performing an enema or bloodletting here and there, then walking away with several gold coins.
There was no doubt that Allen’s weekly income exceeded everything Edward had earned in his lifetime.
‘I was a hothouse flower. The world of independent practitioners is harsh. Well, it must be, of course….’
Had this been someone else’s problem, he might have looked away—but he and Edward were now in the same boat.
He couldn’t pretend ignorance.
“Don’t worry about the money.”
Edward’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“That’s the first thing con men always say.”
“The reason they’re con men is because they break their word. I keep mine. There are ways to make money appear, so rest assured.”
Allen had money in such abundance it practically rotted.
He’d come from the upper classes to begin with.
And hadn’t he been the royal physician?
There were countless ways to get money into Edward’s hands.
But the best method would be to solve the problem without opening his own purse.
Not because money was precious to him, but because that would preserve Edward’s pride.
“Besides, I’m not opposed to every surgery or procedure. I came here to learn surgery in the first place—what would I learn without it?”
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying….”
“We need to advertise.”
“Advertise? How on earth would we do that? Do you know how much it costs to print pamphlets?”
“We’ll hang a Cotton Cloth Banner across the front of the clinic and write something in large letters on it.”
“What?”
Allen picked up his pen and wrote:

Edward’s lips trembled.
For a long moment he said nothing, then barely managed to open his mouth.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No. I’m perfectly sane. Advertised this way, won’t it stand out immediately?”
“How will you take responsibility for this! This isn’t some throwaway comment—it’s a serious claim!”
No surgery in the world proceeded without infection.
It was a simple fact.
In a world that called pus “beautiful discharge” and saw it as a sign of healing, infection was the norm.
Because so many died from wounds that festered after surgery, people believed surgery was something you submitted to only when life had already reached its absolute end.
But unlike Edward, who bounded about in distress, Allen remained composed. He had a method in his mind.
‘Antisepsis.’
He understood that bacteria were the cause of infection.
And he knew how to kill them.
“Didn’t I tell you during lectures? That the seeds of corruption are scattered everywhere in this world. Eliminate those ‘seeds,’ and the wound won’t fester.”
“But does that even make sense? Honestly, I can hardly believe it myself. Setting aside Miasma Theory altogether—”
“To put it simply: boil your instruments in water until they’re rolling, wash your hands thoroughly with strong spirits, and you can kill most of those seeds. Then the wound won’t become infected.”
“Absolute nonsense!”
“Shall we see if it works or not?”
Allen suddenly picked up a knife. Edward flinched.
“Now, what I meant was—”
“Go and buy two rabbits for me.”
Allen withdrew a silver coin from his pocket and handed it over.
Edward’s eyes widened in shock.
“Are you rich? No, more than that—why rabbits?”
“You’ll understand once you see it. Just go fetch them.”
Edward glanced at the knife in Allen’s hand, then awkwardly rose to his feet and left.
The results of the experiment conducted with two rabbits proved shocking enough to silence Edward entirely.
* * *
Dunford was the fourth largest city in the south-central provinces.
Population: roughly twenty thousand.
A size sufficient for a regional center.
The city also sat along a river and the Emperor’s Road, making it a crossroads of commerce.
It had everything a city of its stature ought to have.
It had a market.
Held twice weekly, the regular Market District drew grain and livestock from the surrounding villages, while the permanent shops lining the center street housed cloth merchants, ironmongers, and medicinal dealers.
The river ensured a constant flow of goods, and along the road ran an unbroken line of inns and stables.
It had a municipal council.
An elected mayor directed administration, while notaries and clerks kept permanent residence at City Hall.
It had a church.
The bell tower was the tallest building in the city, and beneath its shadow stood a single orphanage.
It had a printing press, and a weekly gazette was published.
There were one or two men who could be called bankers.
Of course, there were things it lacked.
Cultural institutions were thin on the ground.
There was no permanent theater or respectable concert hall.
People made do with traveling troupes that passed through occasionally, and balls were held at best by renting an inn’s great hall.
Educational facilities were likewise sparse.
Apart from the church school, there was nowhere proper to receive a real education.
There was no hospital.
When serious illness struck, each household was responsible for its own treatment.
And there was no physician specializing in internal medicine.
For someone from a proper, well-regarded academy—not merely a degree factory—to practice their art here would be to bury themselves in a backwater too small for ambition.
In truth, Dunford’s medical care was entirely dominated by surgeons, midwives, bone-setters, and charlatan healers.
The surgeons occupied the highest rung of the city’s medical hierarchy, but their standing within that group varied wildly.
There was no debate between the one at the top and the one at the bottom, and the last-place surgeon was incomparable to the rest.
“Edward? That man’s nothing but a quack. He can’t be called a surgeon.”
“Some barber-like fool opens a clinic claiming to be a surgeon—he’ll learn his place soon enough.”
The established surgeons mocked him.
Even the street charlatans didn’t view him as any sort of competition.
But then, gradually, the tide began to shift.
If one had to pinpoint where it started, everyone would name Barnaby, who had scalded his arm badly in boiling water.
He was quick-tempered and outspoken, yet commanded genuine respect among those who knew him.
He began to mention Edward’s clinic.
At first, skeptical people sought it out, but most returned disappointed.
Their complaint was always the same: “He does nothing.”
The medicines were unremarkable, the techniques shabby—people felt they’d wasted their time.
Yet among them, a few sang its praises.
“I thought he did nothing, but simple methods alone actually worked,” they said.
Everyone laughed.
People were simply recovering on their own, they said, and mistaking Edward’s involvement for the cure.
How could mere conversation and herb scraps amount to real medicine?
But then testimonies began to emerge.
A blacksmith who suffered from angina, a banker with asthma, a butcher plagued by gout.
Cases accumulated, one by one.
“When I actually followed what that man said, I got better.”
“He didn’t give me expensive drugs—just showed me a few herbs, and they worked brilliantly!”
At some point, a bizarre advertising slogan began to draw attention.
Written in enormous red letters across a Cotton Cloth Banner hung over the clinic door.
“He’ll refund you if infection sets in? That can’t be right. Isn’t he a fraud?”
It was absurd.
Infection after surgery was as inevitable as fate itself.
No physician in the world could prevent pus from forming or fever from rising.
It had to be a swindle.
Yet some people, thinking they had nothing to lose, came anyway.
Boils, abscesses, even fingers rotting away.
They were the ones who’d been told surgery was their only option elsewhere.
And so, a legend began to spread throughout Dunford.
* * *
Market District. The tavern called the Rusty Anchor.
If you asked where rumor fermented in the city, people would name exactly two places.
One was the Pare Medicinal Shop.
Pare—the “chirping old codger”—never stopped rattling off whatever gossip he picked up from somewhere.
The other was this tavern.
The burly proprietor himself said nothing, but the drunken chatter of patrons gathered here became the city’s news.
That evening, while the owner quietly wiped cups, the drinkers clustered around tables, exchanging all manner of talk.
One of them suddenly waved his fingers in front of the others.
“Look at this! See how cleanly it healed!”
The people around the table leaned in, murmuring in wonder at his hand.
His right ring finger was gone.
Yet the wound had healed with remarkable grace.
Not a trace of pus—just pink new flesh sealed seamlessly together.
“It didn’t hurt?”
“Hell, it hurt! Hurt like the devil!”
The drunk shuddered, trembling.
“Most surgeons, right? They just draw a knife and in the blink of an eye—snick. Off it comes. Then they wipe the blood away like they never touched you. That’s how it usually goes.”
“Like a swordsman.”
“But Edward? Not a bit of it. He fussed over everything.”
The drunk gestured wildly as he went on.
“Suddenly he’s boiling water—said the blade had to be properly heated. Then he pulls out some cheap gin, pours it in a bowl, washes his hands, gives me two spoonfuls of Opium Tincture, and waits for it to take hold. Meanwhile his apprentice brings the smoking blade wrapped in cloth.
“…What’s the point of all that?”
“I asked him! He said something about eliminating the Seeds of Corruption and dulling the pain—who knows. I thought, well, if it gets infected I get it free anyway, so why not?”
The drunk’s voice dropped.
“After a few cuts, he suddenly tells me to wash my hand clean with water and soap—like I’m some child. Then he dunks my whole hand in a bowl of spirit.”
The men around the table shook their heads in utter bewilderment.
“When did he actually operate?”
“I don’t know! I’d half-given up by then, figured whatever happens, happens.”
He seemed to droop for a moment, then suddenly jerked his arm.
“Then—whoosh! Edward moves his blade and before I could blink, he’s sliced the skin and dashed through bone. My finger was rolling on the floor.”
“After all that fussing, at least he was fast?”
“The actual cutting was quick, I’ll grant him! Which is what made it so bizarre. If he can work that fast, why all the needless rigmarole making me anxious?”
Yet even as he spoke, the drunk gazed at his fingers with evident satisfaction.
“But there’s no infection, no complications. Clean as anything. I paid the surgery fee, but everyone says it—they’ve never seen a wound close so neatly!”
They all let out a chorus of approval.
Indeed, the drunkard’s fingers had healed remarkably cleanly.
Yet a question took root in their minds.
Why on earth had he made such a fuss before the surgery?
“Come to think of it, my friend had the same Abscess Incision procedure done there just a few days ago, and the physician did exactly the same thing. Carried on with all sorts of theatrical nonsense.”
“Did it heal well?”
“Beautifully clean! He says he can’t remember when the swelling went down—he’s never felt so comfortable.”
“That’s what I reckon.”
Someone interlaced their fingers and spoke up.
“There must be some secret method at work. He wouldn’t advertise so boldly otherwise, would he? ‘Money back if it festers.'”
“Exactly.”
“All that commotion is probably just misdirection to hide the real secret.”
They all nodded knowingly at that.
Now that he mentioned it, the logic seemed quite sound.
“Hmm. In that case, the secret might be surprisingly simple.”
“Right. So why go to such elaborate lengths to deceive everyone?”
“Well, I’m not about to become a surgeon anyway. As long as it heals properly, that’s good enough.”
As they chuckled and raised their beer glasses to continue their banter,
a man sat alone at the tavern counter, his face shrouded in shadow.

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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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