The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 353

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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 353

As soon as I entered the house, I laid Hasha down on the sofa.

Hasha walked in awkwardly with a pale face, and as soon as she lay down, she rubbed her upper abdomen.

“Stomach cramps? Is it serious?”

Sasha asked.

It seemed she had never experienced stomach cramps before either.

“The cramps themselves aren’t a big deal. Various causes make the stomach muscles contract excessively, causing spasmodic pain. Usually, the problem is damage to the stomach lining from acute gastritis.”

There are three types of muscle: smooth muscle (visceral muscle), skeletal muscle, and cardiac muscle.

The stomach, being one of the internal organs, is naturally made of smooth muscle and cannot be controlled voluntarily for contraction and relaxation.

Stomach cramps are spasms caused by these stomach muscles for some reason.

“So it’s just gastritis?”

“There are various causes of cramps. Gallstones, pancreatitis, stomach ulcers, duodenal ulcers… That’s why tests are needed if you don’t know the underlying disease, but Hasha’s condition suddenly worsened just now.”

Sasha’s words weren’t wrong.

Even if I don’t know the intensity of the pain, there’s no way I’d misjudge the timing.

Since there were no problems until before eating the tteokbokki and she reacted to the spicy food, it would be fine to treat it as mild gastritis.

“After calming the cramps, if there’s still burning sensation left, we can treat it as gastritis.”

“Aha!”

‘She said it got worse with a time delay, right? Crouching in the car must have been fatal.’

Not only the tteokbokki, but also the tension from riding the amusement rides and sitting in the cramped car could have been contributing factors.

I had seen similar situations many times in Sichuan, especially inside Dangjia Hall.

Children born into the Sichuan Dang Family who don’t walk the path of martial artists mainly become doctors or blacksmiths.

At the Medical Institute, they teach children who enter as apprentices starting with brewing medicine, while the blacksmiths start by teaching fire control.

Since the children start working in unfamiliar positions and experience unprecedented stress, they frequently suffer from stomach cramps.

‘Maybe their stomach lining was especially damaged because Sichuan food is spicy.’

If someone had stomach problems beyond normal levels and suffered from digestive disorders regularly, they would naturally come to the Medical Institute and receive treatment early.

But weren’t there also people who were somewhat ambiguous to treat?

Those who were fine normally but felt a little pain when eating spicy food.

‘There were many kids who came running to the Medical Institute crying, thinking something terrible had happened, only to be completely cured with one needle and leave…’

Those children used to be greatly startled by such mild stomach cramps.

I smiled warmly while recalling old memories.

“Let’s start with medicine.”

From the preparations I had, I took out Shaoyao Gancao Tang and handed it to Hasha with warm water.

Shaoyao Gancao Tang is a famous medicine composed of only two herbs, peony and licorice, and serves as the basic prescription for most abdominal pain and muscle pain.

The main herb, peony, calms muscle contractions while providing analgesic, antispasmodic, and anticonvulsant effects.

Licorice protects the digestive system while alleviating gastrointestinal disorders.

Without needing to add complex herbs, everything necessary is already there.

Hasha immediately swallowed the medicine.

I confirmed that she drank all the water and laid her back down on the sofa.

“Hmm, when I touch it, the rectus abdominis is stiff, and I can feel epigastric pulsation too.”

“Epigastric pul…”

“It’s the heartbeat you feel above the navel. When the abdominal muscles tense up and intra-abdominal pressure increases, it stimulates the arteries.”

“Ah.”

“Even though the terms sound difficult, it’s all about muscle spasms. It’s easily calmed with acupuncture, so don’t worry too much.”

Unless there’s a serious underlying disease in the mucosa.

Since it’s just muscles contracting in a slightly irritated situation, it should improve quickly with acupuncture.

“Are you going to insert needles all the way to the smooth muscle you mentioned earlier?”

Sasha asked with sparkling eyes.

Isn’t she a bit too excited since she’s not the one getting it?

Hasha flinched in surprise, wondering if her stomach would be directly pierced.

“Only one will go into the abdominal cavity. The rest will only stimulate the outer skeletal muscle, the rectus abdominis layer.”

“Ahhh…”

Hasha took a deep breath.

It would be scary to hear that a long needle would pierce through the abdomen.

“I’ll insert it right away.”

Swoosh.

After a brief warning, I immediately placed a 6cm needle at the Zhongwan acupoint.

It only stings when piercing the abdominal wall, but it’s not as painful as expected.

“It’s okay, right? The rest will go in shallow. Even when needles only touch the surface layer and fascia, energy is transmitted inward – that’s the beauty of acupuncture.”

While intra-abdominal acupuncture is possible on the abdomen, you can’t pierce the heart to treat the heart or pierce the lungs to treat the lungs.

Basically, you perform distant point selection at skeletal muscles located nearby and places that regulate internal organs through meridians.

“Yes, I’m okay.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, so breathe comfortably.”

Tap. Tap.

I placed needles starting from the abdomen on Hasha, who was still taking deep breaths.

Shangwan, Xiawan, Tianshu, Shuidao, Qichong.

Acupoints of the Conception Vessel and Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming.

Since I inserted the 3cm needles not fully but only about 2cm deep, there was almost no pain felt.

I flowed energy directly to her stomach.

After placing all the needles in the abdomen, Hasha opened her mouth just as I was about to insert needles into the acupoints on her arms and legs.

The needles went in and showed improvement almost immediately.

“It seems to be calming down little by little.”

“Ohhh!”

However, I also had to wait for her energy to settle, and unlike at the amusement park, we had plenty of time.

I instructed Hasha to rest sufficiently for about 30 minutes as she was.

“I’m sorry for eating tteokbokki because of me and then saying it hurts.”

“Why would you be sorry when you’re the one in pain, Hasha?”

Hasha said while wiping away cold sweat.

It’s not like I was in pain, so what was there for her to apologize for while groaning in discomfort?

“Ahaha… I was really scared earlier.”

“Hey, this is different from riding an amusement ride in an improper way.”

Violating safety rules and causing an accident.

How could I put that on the same level as eating food that’s clearly meant to be eaten and that Koreans actually eat well?

It was just that Hasha’s stomach wasn’t used to spicy food.

Unlike Go Jinyeong and Baek Minhyeok’s impulsive actions that troubled many people including amusement park safety officers and teachers, Hasha was suffering alone, which was also different.

Just because she did something harmful to her health doesn’t mean she should be scolded indiscriminately – both food and exercise carry some degree of risk.

“I didn’t know it would hurt this much. Oh, of course I know now, but would I get in trouble if I eat fire noodles tomorrow while my stomach is still irritated?”

“I absolutely won’t eat them.”

Hasha answered with a grinning smile.

“You don’t hurt anywhere now, right?”

“Yes, yes. I feel very comfortable. I think everything has calmed down.”

After 30 minutes passed, I removed all the needles.

Wondering if there might be any areas that hadn’t fully relaxed, I pressed on her abdomen once more after removing the needles to check for any hard spots.

Unlike earlier when even her rectus abdominis muscles were contracted, now her abdomen pressed softly.

“That’s it. You went through a lot. From next time, don’t suffer in silence and tell me right away. I can even stop the car briefly and put needles in your hands.”

“Yes! Thank you!”

Hasha smiled brightly.

Sasha, who had been watching her with worried eyes, also stood up abruptly.

“Then Hasha can’t eat dinner, right?”

“Hmm… that’s right. Let’s eat something simple too.”

It would be fine to skip eating entirely at times like this, but since I had brought everything down with needles, she’d be very hungry at night if she didn’t eat dinner.

If she thought her stomach was fine and ate something late, she’d get indigestion again.

“I’ll make porridge for you.”

“Oh my, thank you.”

I made vegetable porridge with ingredients I had at home.

Do they eat porridge when they have stomach problems in the Middle East too? Maybe they eat soup or something?

Well, it’s not like she can’t eat it.

“Wow! Soybean paste stew!”

While I was at it, I also cooked soybean paste stew to eat with Sasha.

Since she came all the way to Korea, she had tried kimchi stew and soybean paste stew at restaurants, but she was happy saying this was her first time eating them as home-cooked meals.

“Mm, it turned out delicious.”

I praised myself while having dinner.

“Clinic Director, it’s really delicious. I want to drink banana milk with it too.”

Sasha took out banana milk that we had bought from the refrigerator.

I naturally thought she would drink the banana milk like water while eating her meal.

“Crazy! What are you doing?”

“I was going to try mixing them…”

“Don’t mix it with any food or drink except americano!”

“Eh.”

I quickly confiscated the banana milk as Sasha was about to create an abomination.

The roller coaster and Hasha’s stomach cramps weren’t particularly startling, but this behavior left me horrified.

I sighed, feeling cold sweat forming on my forehead.

* * *

The next day, I woke up Hasha to confirm she was okay and went to work.

I was going to give her another treatment in the morning if any discomfort remained, but fortunately her stomach was perfectly fine.

After seeing several patients in the morning, Go Jinyeong came to the Oriental Medicine Clinic in the afternoon around the time school ended.

“My tailbone is much better now. Since you treated me right away then, walking seems to be okay.”

I checked the tender spots once more and examined the condition of his ligaments with ultrasound.

“As expected, bruising and swelling have appeared on your arm.”

“Yes…”

I wasn’t trying to scold him, but Go Jinyeong flinched and lowered his head.

“If we treat it consistently from now on, it’ll be fine. Originally it can get worse for the first few days, and you might feel like the pain is moving around, so don’t hide it and tell me exactly how it is.”

“Yes, yes. Thank you.”

Still, thanks to scaring him yesterday, his willingness to receive treatment seemed certain, which was fortunate.

“Uuuugh.”

When I returned home, Hasha was holding her head in her hands.

Could the stomach cramps have led to a headache?

I asked worriedly, but she shook her head.

“I don’t want to go back to the United States!”

It was like the Monday blues that come at the end of a vacation.

Well, it was about time for them to leave.

I didn’t know how Sasha had managed to clear her schedule, but Hasha had university attendance requirements, didn’t she?

“Next time, come leisurely when vacation starts. We’ll see each other again.”

“Yes…!”

A few days later.

Five days after going to the amusement park, Sasha and Hasha returned to the United States.

“You must contact me if you come to the United States, Clinic Director.”

“Of course. Whether it’s Boston or LA, I’ll let you know right away if I end up going.”

“Take care!”

After seeing them off at the airport, I finally felt like I could breathe.

“The house is so quiet…”

How long had it been since I was alone?

Apart from Sasha and Hasha being fun, it was my first alone time in a while.

[The guests have finally returned]

I sent a tired character emoticon to both the group chat with the game guild members and the message room with the Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic branch directors.

Most of the guild members, being introverts, understood my feelings and sent congratulatory emoticons.

Meanwhile, the Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic branch directors brought up how they were looking forward to the music video.

They roughly knew why Sasha had come.

[No, really, there’s nothing to look forward to.]

[Won’t Cheongsol be cute?]

[Cheongsol, Songgol, and Vanilla are cute though… The song is good too]

[Then isn’t everything good?]

I didn’t know what to say to Chu Miyoung.

She didn’t tell me not to talk about it, but it was probably some kind of embargo, right?

Since I couldn’t carelessly talk about it, I could only keep my heart pounding until the day the music video came out.

[Directors, sorry to interrupt your conversation]

Just then, Yu Minseong from the Daejeon branch sent a message changing the topic.

[Yes, yes, what’s the matter?]

When I immediately responded, Yu Minseong’s message continued.

[Our network doesn’t have a good relationship with Haneul Clinic, right??]

[?]

[I guess that’s how we should see it…?]

Suddenly, why Haneul Clinic?

There didn’t seem to be any particular issues since Yu Minseong joined.

I tilted my head and briefly explained the situation.

[Director Chu is from Haneul Clinic, and we’ve had some bad blood a few times. What’s going on?]

Could it be that a new Haneul Clinic is opening in Daejeon?

I thought the existing branch was quite far away?

Whether he was typing something long, or typing and deleting.

Yu Minseong didn’t respond for a while.

No one else chimed in and we all waited for him.

[There seems to have been some kind of medical accident there that they covered up]

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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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