The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 27

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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 27

An unfamiliar ceiling came into view.

‘…?’

Where am I? I was just at the wedding hall a moment ago?

Hwang Sanghun opened his eyes wide and sat up.

Fortunately, while the ceiling was unfamiliar, the walls looked familiar. His cousin’s graduation photo was hanging prominently there.

“Hwangseoyeong’s house?”

Right, I definitely went to the wedding.

Ridiculously, I collapsed in the parking lot and unexpectedly met Hanyewon. With her and Hwangseoyeong’s help, I woke up and safely attended the ceremony.

And then, and then….

“I fainted again?”

He momentarily worried if there was really something seriously wrong with his body, but Hwang Sanghun soon assessed his physical condition.

His condition was better than ever. It felt like he had slept soundly for 12 hours.

“Ah!”

It’s not Monday already, is it? Hwang Sanghun hurriedly checked his phone.

Fortunately, it was still Sunday at 6 PM. He had a full 12 hours left until work.

Relieved, he slowly got up from the bed.

“How did I get here….”

He went into the kitchen to find some water to drink and thought hard, but he couldn’t remember that part at all.

All his memories had evaporated after getting flicked on the forehead by Hanyewon.

Beep beep-.

While he was alone in the empty house trying to figure out the situation, he heard the sound of the door lock opening.

He immediately went to the entrance.

* * *

“Oh, you’re awake? Are you okay?”

Hwangseoyeong carelessly kicked off her shoes as she entered the house. After roughly tossing down the paper bag she’d brought from the department store, she examined Hwang Sanghun’s complexion.

‘Much better.’

It was worth channeling energy to him in the car so he could sleep well. This was supposedly a special skill she only used on patients who were on the verge of death.

“Yeah. Did you two bring me here?”

“Yes. Hanyewon worked really hard.”

“I’m so sorry!”

I bowed 90 degrees toward Hwang Sanghun.

The first time was one thing, but the second fainting was half… no, about 1/3 my responsibility, so I should treat him!

“No, why are you doing this? I was the one who caused trouble.”

Hwang Sanghun waved his hands in panic, but I stubbornly apologized.

“I didn’t know your body was so weak and was rude. Not all men in their twenties are healthy, but my perspective was narrow.”

“No, that much is….”

“It’s all my oversight. I should have been careful as if handling a fragile child.”

Hwang Sanghun didn’t know what to do and tried to stop me. Only after seeing his cousin snickering beside him did he breathe a sigh of relief.

“Ah… you were joking.”

“I’m 100% serious. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that you seem to have slept well and woken up.”

The expression was a bit exaggerated, but I was completely sincere.

It seems I had some prejudices about young people’s health.

When I think of men in their twenties from the Martial Arts World, they were usually late disciples of martial arts families, or people who spent their entire days doing agricultural work.

And 70% of the men in their twenties who come to our Traditional Korean Medicine Clinic are people who got injured while exercising, so I hadn’t really seen twentysomethings who were as frail as Hwang Sanghun.

People these days, regardless of gender, have little physical activity, so they might stagger from just one forehead flick.

“Did I really collapse again after getting hit by that…thing?”

“Yes! Because of you, my lifespan was shortened by 20 years just yesterday!”

“Haha… sorry.”

“I thought you were joking too. You were sleeping so soundly.”

Having nothing to say, Hwang Sanghun scratched his head.

“I guess I should have waited in the car like you said. There must have been a commotion at Senior Yujin’s wedding for no reason. By the way, who carried me?”

“Hanyewon did.”

Come to think of it, that was also due to my lack of caution.

“…?”

“She said ‘You must be very tired~’ and then just lifted you up in a princess carry! All the kids were so shocked they freaked out, but only you didn’t see it!”

I had become too careless since I wasn’t caught even after posting videos openly using martial arts on YouTube. I should have at least pretended to struggle.

Hwang Sanghun rolled his eyes in confusion.

“I’m quite strong.”

His face became strangely clouded. He looked completely unconvinced.

Hmm… I always thought he was annoyingly indifferent, but maybe because we met after a long time or because he was severely fatigued, I could read his expression a little.

“Should I carry you again?”

“No. I’ll pass.”

“You went through about three more life-threatening crises while you were sleeping. Seoyeong drove here, you know.”

I gave a casual response and then shifted the topic elsewhere. I quickly brought out the food while talking about things like how I should get my driver’s license as soon as I return to Busan.

It was sushi I had bought from the basement level after shopping had taken up the entire evening.

“Let’s talk while we eat.”

“Ah, right.”

I had never eaten with this combination even during my school days, but it was truly fascinating how unpredictable life could be.

When I unwrapped all the packaging and laid it out on the table, Hwangseoyeong aggressively picked out the delicious sushi pieces.

“Aren’t you eating, oppa?”

In contrast, Hwang Sanghun seemed to lack appetite and was just picking at his food.

“I’ll eat slowly. My stomach keeps burning lately.”

As expected, there’s a problem.

“Oppa, did you try to treat it but it didn’t work well? Or have you been neglecting it this whole time?”

“Ah, the heartburn is just occasional…”

“But the insomnia seems to be very long-standing.”

“…That’s true.”

“I’m not trying to scold you or anything! If it’s the former, I could help a bit, no wait, it would be good if we could think about it together, right?”

“Ah.”

Hwang Sanghun’s eyes widened slightly, like a child who had been caught secretly skipping meals and eating sweets and was about to make excuses.

“You’re going to prescribe something for me?”

“Yes. Of course, you probably have many excellent clinic directors around you too.”

“No, not really. I’d be so grateful if you could prepare something. I kept thinking I should take action but just endured it. I can’t quit work, so I wondered what would really change.”

“Your ability to endure stress would change!”

Since the patient had agreed, the three of us quickly finished the sushi and gathered together again.

At the clinic, we actually write prescriptions on computers and prepare medicine, but spreading out paper made it feel like when I was just starting to study at the Medical Institute.

“Do you have a prescription in mind?”

“I do, but I need to do a consultation first.”

“Right, right.”

Hwangseoyeong picked up a pen and wrote “Main Symptoms” at the top.

“The main symptom would be insomnia, but what time do you go to bed and what time do you wake up?”

“My bedtime varies each time… I have to get to work by 5, so when I wake up at home it’s 4 o’clock, and 4:30 when I’m in the duty room.”

“Eek! What kind of work hours does the university hospital have?”

“Is yours different?”

“Our hospital is 6 o’clock!”

It seems Hwangje Korean Medicine Hospital isn’t easy either.

Hospitals are hospitals after all. The working hours are worlds apart from private practice.

“So you sleep about 4 hours? You go to bed at 12, right?”

“I fall asleep around 2… If I add up the naps during the day, it’s probably 3 or 4 hours.”

“Is it difficult to fall asleep?”

“It takes about an hour to fall asleep… I wake up once in the middle whether it’s day or night. I often sleep in a state where I don’t know if I’m actually sleeping or just closing my eyes.”

“Since when has it been like this?”

“Falling asleep always took a long time. It got this severe after I started at the hospital. Since night duties are so frequent, I keep getting sleepy during the day and feel hollow at night.”

Hmm, as I expected from his collapse, the symptoms are quite serious. When sleep is extremely insufficient, there’s no time to recover from the physical and mental stress received during the day.

“Have you collapsed like this before?”

“No. This week was a bit… especially busy with work. I switched night duties to come to the wedding, and I stayed up almost all night dealing with work the professor assigned me.”

“You mean you stayed up all night yesterday?”

“About a week.”

Correction. The environment is much worse than Hwangje Korean Medicine Hospital. How do they make someone unable to sleep for a whole week?

‘I really made the right choice not going there.’

If I had fallen for Professor Lee Minseok’s temptation… it would have been terrifying. Private practice isn’t entirely comfortable, but at least I can eat and sleep as I want.

“You don’t seem to have much appetite either.”

“That’s right. I always have to eat quickly and clear it away anyway, so I haven’t really been conscious of it.”

“You don’t digest well either?”

“Yeah. If it’s even slightly spicy, it burns terribly. I also have some diarrhea.”

Hwang Sanghun said while pointing to the area below his solar plexus.

“Do you have epigastric stuffiness?”

I focused on that area and asked back.

Epigastric stuffiness literally means the area below the heart feels blocked – it’s a symptom where the area below the solar plexus feels full but isn’t particularly hard when touched.

“…Ah, so this is epigastric stuffiness.”

Hwang Sanghun said while pressing his solar plexus.

For reference, if it’s actually hard when touched, it’s called epigastric stuffiness with hardness, which is a much more serious condition than simple epigastric stuffiness.

“Did you have this before?”

“Mm, my stomach wasn’t great even when I was a student. But since hyung Haneul kept dragging me to drinking parties…”

“Oh my.”

As expected, illness doesn’t develop suddenly. He was in a state where alcohol toxicity wasn’t properly resolved in time.

“Looking at your slightly flushed face, you also have heat sensation in the upper body. Insomnia, loss of appetite, heartburn, indigestion, diarrhea, and epigastric stuffiness with hardness. It’s clear.”

I tapped the paper with my finger. I had identified all the major diagnostic points and even found the key point.

“Guibi-tang?”

But Hwangseoyeong gave an unexpected answer.

“Not everyone with insomnia and loss of appetite needs Guibi-tang.”

“She must be under a lot of stress~ Isn’t it excessive thinking? Then the heart and spleen are affected by phlegm dampness, so Ondam-tang?”

“There aren’t just two prescriptions for insomnia, Guibi-tang and Ondam-tang! Between the two, the latter would be better though.”

“Wow, you sound like Professor Lee Minseok!”

The two prescriptions Hwangseoyeong mentioned, Guibi-tang and Ondam-tang, are representative famous medicines for insomnia.

Guibi-tang is a medicine used for various symptoms caused by overthinking or excessive worry, and it’s very good for students with deficient qi… I mean exam students and office workers. If there’s loss of appetite along with heart palpitations, it’s the best choice.

And Ondam-tang is much more for excess syndromes than Guibi-tang. It’s appropriate for patients with phlegm heat, meaning waste products are the problem, causing them to be easily startled and have restless dreams.

Actually, both aren’t bad.

The phlegm is also accumulated and the insomnia has lasted long enough to actually cause deficiency, so whichever way we help resolve it, the five organs and six bowels will move on their own.

We can help the damaged body this way or that way, can’t we?

‘But there’s no need to go to Busan via the west coast when we have the Gyeongbu Expressway.’

Helping the fastest and most efficient recovery is the appropriate prescription. Selecting medicinal ingredients that fit the body as much as possible is the physician’s skill.

“You seem confused because of the loss of appetite, but that’s a side issue. The core is the heart-spleen meridian. We must first unblock what’s blocked.”

“Hehe, then what is Clinic Director Hanyewon’s choice?”

Hwangseoyeong offered me a pen with both hands. Hwang Sanghun also watched me with an interested expression.

“No need to think about it difficultly.”

I took the pen and drew a human figure on the paper, then marked the area where the heart-spleen meridian is located.

“The scenario roughly takes shape, right? She was continuously stressed even during school, and her stomach isn’t good, whether it’s because of alcohol or not is unclear.”

“Yeah.”

“But at first, she had the energy to recover, so eating and sleeping resolved things right away, but when she entered the hospital, external factors limited her sleep. Then this gradually grows and blocks the flow, right?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“The core is the heart-spleen meridian. Here, what’s tightly bound up in the heart-spleen area interferes with the communication of body heat above and below, so based on this point, the upper part becomes hot and the lower part becomes cold. When heat rises to the head, sleep doesn’t come, and when the lower abdomen is cold, diarrhea occurs.”

So the treatment follows the same order.

If it were an elderly person whose body is so weak they absolutely can’t tolerate unblocking treatment, we’d need to use tonics together, but no matter what… Hwang Sanghun isn’t that severe.

I wrote down the medicinal ingredients below the drawing.

Pinellia, Scutellaria, Coptis, Ginseng, Dried Ginger, Jujube, and Licorice.

Banhasasim-tang.

“Ah!”

Hwangseoyeong clapped her hands as if she finally understood.

“Sasim (draining the heart)… I see. Draining came before tonifying.”

Hwang Sanghun also gained enlightenment as soon as he saw the answer sheet.

If there had been multiple choices like on an exam, he would have known right away, but real-world prescriptions aren’t easy, are they?

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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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