The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 103

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 103

“Lower… what did you say?”

“It’s called the lower esophageal sphincter, a muscle that blocks the area between the esophagus and stomach. Originally, gastroesophageal reflux disease occurs when this muscle weakens or functions abnormally.”

I brought up an anatomical diagram on the computer and began explaining.

Starting from the causes of gastroesophageal reflux disease.

“Ah, I think I’ve heard of that before.”

“Since there’s no way to directly treat this muscle, standard Western medicine treatment suppresses gastric acid secretion to minimize the substances that flow back from the stomach. Acupuncture treatment can’t directly needle the lower esophageal sphincter… but we can still help with recovery indirectly by redirecting the flow.”

All the way to the treatment methods.

Song Wonjong nodded as if he understood.

“So will it be different from the acupuncture treatment I’ve been receiving so far?”

“You’ll need to come much more frequently. Until now, the purpose was to manage your condition so it wouldn’t get worse, but now let’s treat it consecutively and finish it cleanly.”

Actually, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t understand.

The acupuncture treatment method itself won’t be much different from what we’ve been doing.

It’ll be basic digestive treatment with some energy circulation added.

But I do need to steel my resolve and increase the treatment frequency.

Until now, Song Wonjong had practically given up on his symptoms.

He had virtually no will to seek treatment.

He was suffering terribly but had to work, so he only came up occasionally to ease it even a little.

I couldn’t guarantee that I could fundamentally solve his problem either.

I had hinted that he might win the bid, but that alone wasn’t enough to feel reassured.

“Yes! I’ll make time and come up every day. Please take good care of me until I’m completely cured.”

“I’ll make sure you can eat comfortably without any worries soon. Let’s go to the treatment room.”

“Yes!”

But now I felt confident that he would be able to protect his assets.

Hoping that he would develop the motivation to heal his body and live earnestly again, I began inserting the needles.

* * *

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Needles were inserted into his chest and abdomen along the body’s centerline.

Song Wonjong lay still receiving acupuncture, breathing as the Oriental Medicine Clinic director had first taught him.

Had acupuncture always been this refreshing? He felt like he’d received treatment at this clinic about 10 times, but today especially, each needle seemed to extinguish the heat in his chest.

Gradually.

As his tension eased, Song Wonjong closed his eyes.

“I’m finally opening my own restaurant!”

When he discovered this restaurant was up for sale, he thought it was destiny.

A commercial space prepared perfectly within his budget. Mysteriously cheap monthly rent.

Since it had been a restaurant before, there was no need to spend money on interior design, and the previous owner had to leave for abroad urgently, so there was no key money required.

His parents told him to pay key money and get a good location instead, but when had they ever contributed even 100,000 won, or even cooking academy fees?

What matters in a restaurant is taste.

Even if the location wasn’t great, he could dominate the neighborhood with his skills.

“Business isn’t as good as I thought…”

Of course, it wasn’t easy.

The monthly rent was ridiculously cheap and he worked 12 hours a day to minimize labor costs, so he wasn’t operating at a loss, but customers weren’t flocking in as much as he had expected.

He didn’t think there was a problem with the location, as his parents had said.

The bakery on the 1st floor sold out of main menu items every morning, and in the evenings, the road in front of the building was filled with parents picking up their children from the academy on the 3rd floor.

And the Oriental Medicine Clinic on the 4th floor… he had seen lines forming down the stairs to the 1st floor because there were no seats left in the waiting room.

“Location is just an excuse! Let’s improve my skills!”

Looking at the empty restaurant often made his heart sink, but he still tried to stay strong.

He visited nearby popular restaurants to find things to learn and tried SNS marketing.

He was happy when customer numbers increased slightly, and felt down on days when they decreased.

He was living the ordinary life of a self-employed person like this.

“The building where you’re doing business went to auction?”

The despair he felt when he first heard that news.

“See, I said something was strange! The monthly rent was too cheap!”

It was agonizing. It was painful.

He couldn’t hear his worried family’s words at all.

50 million won. What kind of money was that 50 million won?

It was money he had barely managed to save working at other people’s restaurants for years.

It was Song Wonjong’s dream that he had cherished for a long time.

“Ugh!”

Thinking about money made him nauseous.

When he thought about all the time and days he had lived looking only at his dream turning to bubbles, food wouldn’t go down his throat.

What’s the point of eating?

Song Wonjong had this thought for the first time in his life.

He was someone who believed that eating was his joy and that giving happiness to people through cooking was his life’s mission.

At some point, just smelling food made him feel like vomiting.

Why did he like cooking, why did he make a fuss about running a restaurant and end up in this terrible situation?

[Doctor, you will return the deposit, right?]

[Building owner? Please contact me. Any time is fine.]

[What on earth does this mean? An auction?]

Early thirties, a building owner of the same age.

He was the man who said he hoped the business would succeed, that he’d like them to stay in his building for 10 or even 20 years.

Even when signing the contract, Song Wonjong had secretly envied him. There was something cool about the way he spoke so boldly.

He had even dreamed that if his business really succeeded, maybe he could buy a building himself in 20 years.

That guy had completely cut off contact.

All that was left for Song Wonjong was despair.

“Urgh, urghh!”

The only person who reached out to him during that time was.

“Are you alright? Please stop by the clinic for a moment and get some acupuncture. How can you work when you keep vomiting like that?”

The director of the Korean medicine clinic on the 4th floor.

“Ah… Thank you.”

He was about to lose 50 million won – what difference would getting acupuncture make?

Even thinking that way, Song Wonjong couldn’t refuse the kindness.

“Ugh. Urgh.”

And contrary to his expectations.

Something did change.

The frequent vomiting that had been repeating stopped.

“Huh?”

He definitely felt like he could live.

After receiving treatment, the smell of food no longer made him feel nauseous.

“Cough, cough!”

So, rather because of that, Song Wonjong reduced his visits upstairs.

Was it because when he felt like dying from pain, he couldn’t think about money?

Was it because he deserved to be punished for making such a stupid mistake?

Even knowing both reasons made no sense.

He chose the pain that felt like burning himself alive.

For days and weeks, he stayed up day and night.

No matter how he lay down, it was uncomfortable.

Whatever food he ate made him dry heave.

“Failed auction…”

Each time the 1st and 2nd auctions failed, Song Wonjong was in a daze.

“Haha, ha. Is the Nakdong River water warm?”

He didn’t even want to check the 3rd one.

“Song Wonjong! Our director won the building bid! You don’t have to worry about anything now!”

Then came this miraculous news.

The director of the 4th floor Korean medicine clinic really bought the building?

“If you’re moving out, I’ll cover the shortage in your deposit!”

She solved all the money he thought was lost.

“I’ll cure everything with acupuncture treatment! Let’s finish this cleanly!”

She said she’d even calm this burning sensation in his chest.

“Thank you… Thank you so much.”

The young man who had almost given up everything in an instant saw hope.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The flames in his chest that had been boiling with the intensity to burn his whole body slowly subsided.

A cool energy wrapped around Song Wonjong’s body, circulating from head to toe.

The body that had been painful no matter what position he lay in was gone.

Song Wonjong fell asleep more comfortably than ever before.

“I’ll remove the needles now~.”

The moment he got up after finishing treatment, the pain that had been surging up from his solar plexus disappeared completely.

The time of hardship that seemed like it would last forever had also come to an end.

“Thank you, Director. I don’t know how to repay this kindness.”

“Oh my, that’s too much to say. I’m just doing what I need to do. Both as a Korean medicine doctor and as the new building owner.”

As the director recommended, Song Wonjong repeated acupuncture treatment daily.

He had heard that gastroesophageal reflux disease was quite difficult to treat.

Whether it was because of the director’s excellent skills or because he had changed his mindset, he received a complete recovery declaration in less than ten sessions.

“Are you really okay with moving out right away?”

They agreed that he would vacate the commercial space immediately after the final payment and receive his full deposit back.

The director seemed somewhat sorry about making him leave, but Song Wonjong only felt relieved.

Thanks to the director, his body had completely healed. She had essentially treated his mind as well.

Now all he needed to do was build up more skills.

“Of course. While working, and going through this incident, I constantly felt my shortcomings.”

The bakery, the academy, and the oriental medicine clinic were all calm, but only he alone trembled with anxiety.

The money tied up in the deposit was everything he had, and perhaps he lacked confidence in his abilities too?

“That’s not true.”

“Pardon?”

“Song Wonjong, there was nothing lacking about you. Nothing you did wrong either.”

“Ah…”

“You just had bad luck.”

“…”

The director of Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic washed away even Song Wonjong’s last remaining self-blame.

“Rest well, prepare thoroughly, and start fresh. Next time will definitely go well. Your dakgalbi is delicious, after all.”

“Uh, huh…”

“It’s a shame I won’t be able to eat there as often as before. Please let me know when you reopen, okay?”

“Yes! And if I get sick again, I’ll definitely come here.”

“Haha, you shouldn’t need to come to a clinic.”

Shortly after, Song Wonjong finished moving out.

The new building owner transferred the remaining deposit without a moment’s delay.

It was impressive.

The crisis that had dragged him to hell posed no threat whatsoever to that person.

Instead, they turned it into an opportunity to invest hundreds of millions.

‘Could I become like that too?’

Looking at his bank account with proper money in it.

Eating meals that went down comfortably.

Falling asleep effortlessly no matter what position he lay in.

Song Wonjong found himself thinking of the new role model that had taken root in his heart.

* * *

“Ah, it’s sad to see Song Wonjong actually leaving.”

The staff expressed their regret at the departure of someone whose face had become familiar over the past few months.

“Let’s have a company dinner at his place when he reopens.”

Song Wonjong moved out all his belongings on the date he had originally set.

Of course, I immediately transferred the shortfall after he received his share from the building’s final payment.

The bakery on the first floor was very pleased when I expressed my intention to renew their contract in the future, and the academy agreed to move out after slowly deciding where to relocate. Since I wasn’t in urgent need of the third floor either, I was fine with adjusting the timing as needed.

“Hanyewon, so you’re using the second floor as a decoction room now?”

I nodded.

The purpose of the second floor had been decided from the beginning.

Until now, I had been doing all the decoctions directly within the clinic, and the directors of the second and third branches had been using other external decoction rooms.

After setting up the ‘Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic Affiliated External Decoction Room’ on the second floor, I decided to manage all prescriptions from other branches myself.

“Yeah. I’ll move the decoction room downstairs and add more treatment beds there.”

“Oh, weren’t you planning to add a new examination room? You said you wanted to hire one more person?”

“That’ll have to wait until the academy moves out of the third floor and we can do new interior work.”

“You’re going to make examination rooms on the third floor? If you’re going to use a whole floor anyway, wouldn’t it be better to install patient rooms?”

What remained was the question of how to use the remaining space after moving out the decoction room, and the rest of the space including the third floor.

Of course, I had roughly thought it through even before the bidding.

And it wasn’t patient rooms.

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