The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 357

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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 357

We came out of the clinic and casually entered a nearby pub, and since it was a weekday, there weren’t many customers compared to the spacious hall.

The music was also gentle, creating a good atmosphere for conversation.

“Oh? They have darts here too.”

“Are you good at throwing darts, Miss Hanyewon?”

“I’m pretty good at it.”

Hanyewon smiled meaningfully while fiddling with the darts.

Since she hadn’t come here to play darts with her, Choi Eunhee immediately sat down and ordered drinks.

“I’ll pay, so order comfortably. I’ll have a draft beer.”

The documents Hanyewon brought had completely killed her appetite.

She didn’t feel hungry at all, so she only ordered beer.

“Ah, yes. Then kimchi udon hot pot, cheese potatoes, canned peaches… um, could you recommend some whiskey?”

Hanyewon, on the other hand, ordered quite a variety of things.

Even when she suggested going to eat anchovy noodles, she thought so, but she was really an absurdly self-paced person.

“How can you get any liquid courage from beer?”

The drinks and snacks came out quickly.

Just feeling absurd, Choi Eunhee gulped down her drink with a disgusted expression.

While she sipped her beer and organized her thoughts, Hanyewon devoured all the food she had ordered.

Glug glug-.

Hanyewon poured whiskey into Choi Eunhee’s empty glass.

When she drank it with mixed feelings, heat rushed to her face.

When was the last time she had drunk such strong alcohol?

“…What do you want me to do?”

She was already frustrated, and with the strong alcohol going in, both her head and chest became hot.

What should she call it? Something like indignation seemed about to burst out.

“You know, don’t you? What the right thing to do is.”

Even while speaking in a tone that seemed to be smiling casually, Hanyewon’s expression was serious.

How could a person be so infuriating?

As if she knew all the principles of the world, and she alone was moral, clean, and superior.

‘To think my relationship with this girl would come this far.’

She suddenly remembered when she first heard Hanyewon’s name.

Although their first conversation was in Daegu, Choi Eunhee had actually known about Hanyewon before that.

She was the coworker her pathetic son would curse about with crude language about orphans while burning with competitive spirit.

Back then, it was both absurd and funny.

Choi Eunhee during her university days was practically an orphan too.

Although university enrollment wasn’t as common in her generation as it is now, crazy parents forcing marriage on a daughter who had just graduated middle school was a story from one generation earlier.

Running away from home to earn money, somehow taking entrance exams, and throughout university, Choi Eunhee lived thinking she had no parents.

Still, she tried to contact them to invite them to her wedding, but after seeing them constantly coming to the clinic demanding money… she wished she had really been an orphan.

Not wanting her children to experience the same hardship, she raised them without any lack, preciously.

The things he said about a hardworking child, really.

– That kid will be more successful than you, at least.

Back then, Choi Eunhee had laughed at her son.

Then for a few days or months, Cho Haneul seemed to study a bit.

Around the end of the semester, he showed her a report card with rank 1, saying he had beaten Hanyewon.

Well, she didn’t seem particularly impressed.

Her son. Her son whose current life she doesn’t even know about.

Why did he grow up so pathetically?

Did he inherit his grandfather’s blood? Did Choi Eunhee raise him wrong?

When he was young, he was just adorable and kind.

Remembering when the newborn baby would look at her going “ma-“, just having the child call her mother made her feel like she had the whole world… there was such a time.

Even as he grew up and caused all sorts of heart-wrenching trouble, whenever her son would tearfully say “Mom, please help me,” that time would overlap in her mind and her heart would melt.

Yes, that time, those days.

When Choi Eunhee first established Haneul Clinic in Cheonan.

While raising her graduate student husband and son, it was hard but she was happy dreaming of better days ahead.

“…Would it have been better if I hadn’t started, if I had stopped there?”

“What? Haneul Clinic?”

Whether drunk on alcohol or drunk on the past.

Hanyewon responded to her random rambling.

Normally she would never say such things.

No, even if she did speak, she would have carefully chosen only the good parts considering how others would hear it.

Perhaps due to intoxication, her inner thoughts popped out.

“It was a little while after opening… I treated an atopic dermatitis patient.”

Hanyewon nodded as if telling her to continue the story.

“That patient came from Seoul to Cheonan every week for treatment, and it took 8 months to achieve remission. They were so grateful, saying they got to live a new life, and I felt like I was something special.”

“It was about the network. Did you start it because of that patient?”

“I didn’t immediately launch the network. That person kept saying I didn’t belong here, that I should go to Seoul, so I was tempted. So I transferred the clinic to Wujin, who was my vice director at the time, and went up to Seoul. My husband said it was just empty dreams.”

Choi Eunhee giggled with a slightly dazed expression.

Back then, no one thought Choi Eunhee would succeed.

“And in Seoul, I did even better.”

Her husband was someone who was content with what he had.

At the time, he complained that she should just support him until he became a professor, and after that she could rest or work leisurely doing whatever she wanted – why was she creating problems?

When Choi Eunhee said she would take all the money she earned from opening and running her practice in Cheonan, he tried desperately to dissuade her.

But she insisted that it was money she had earned so she would do as she pleased, and opened her clinic at the current Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic Gangnam Branch location with the finest interior.

“For a while, everything went smoothly. I treated famous people, published books, appeared on TV. I was like Miss Hanyewon now. I thought I could do anything.”

Hanyewon looked at Choi Eunhee with a displeased expression.

She didn’t seem to particularly empathize with Choi Eunhee.

But back then, Choi Eunhee herself believed she was doing her absolute best in treatment without any shame.

“…Without any particular plan, when the vice directors said they wanted to open branches, somehow it became a network. The system came much later. Thinking I had talent for management, I got hooked and kept expanding the network more and more.”

Hanyewon’s face remained subtle as she listened to the story.

Even though she was the same age as her son and over thirty years younger as a junior colleague, it looked like she was making excuses to a teacher.

“So you mean it grew too big and became impossible to control?”

Perhaps because she had looked so brazen when entering the clinic, it felt strangely high-handed.

Though she felt a sudden urge to hide, Choi Eunhee answered confidently.

“This might sound like an excuse, but forcing patients with underlying conditions to pay – that’s absolutely not my way.”

Hanyewon continued with an attitude that seemed to say ‘go ahead and try explaining.’

Since Choi Eunhee too had once despised incompetence and greed, it felt exactly like facing herself from thirty years ago.

With a surge of emotion, as if confessing to her past self, Choi Eunhee poured out her true feelings.

“I just want no more incidents to happen now. I’m sick of receiving complaints, and I hate having things happen under my responsibility.”

“…”

“I wanted to quit everything. Treatment, business. So I reduced my treatment days and kept reducing my interference in the network, my areas of responsibility.”

“…”

“I told you not to touch burn cases for no reason, right? Because having more things to be responsible for is terrifying.”

In fact, she had been denying it to herself all along.

Even when advising Hanyewon, she thought it was because she wanted her junior to suffer less from betrayal, but speaking it aloud made it clearer instead.

“Patients trust me. When I act so superior, they think I’m some kind of messiah. Then I fail. The patients who had hope collapse. The bereaved families threaten to sue…”

The faces of two patients she could never forget flashed by.

One was the bright smile of the patient who had suffered from atopic dermatitis – the patient who had enabled Choi Eunhee to open Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic in Gangnam.

And the other was the patient Choi Eunhee couldn’t treat, who had said she would trust the clinic director one last time.

She had suffered from severe psoriasis and ultimately chose suicide.

Though she had tried to bury it deep in her heart.

‘Ah, so that’s why I didn’t drink.’

Choi Eunhee suddenly remembered why she had avoided alcohol for so long.

She had forgotten properly, but the more hazy she became from drinking, the clearer their faces became.

Gulp, gulp – she downed cold water.

“…It seems there was an incident that made you lose your will to treat entirely.”

At this story, Hanyewon was also slightly shaken and looked at Choi Eunhee with somewhat pitying eyes.

“You worked hard because it was fun, and because you did well, the clinic grew. You became so famous it was unmanageable, and increasingly difficult patients kept coming. Then one person… left a deep wound in the clinic director’s heart.”

Hanyewon organized the rambling words Choi Eunhee had spouted.

For a moment, she felt the illusion of being understood.

However.

Hanyewon’s following words were not warm.

“If the conclusion had been that you started seeing patients mechanically without giving your heart to them after that, I might have understood sufficiently.”

Choi Eunhee couldn’t answer.

She knew what would come next.

“Is it enough as long as you cover your own responsibility? Push the patients you don’t want to see onto vice directors or branch directors, and it’s over as long as you get a written agreement that it’s unrelated to you?”

“…”

“If you won’t do it, you should abandon all rights along with responsibilities. Do you really think your responsibility disappears just because there’s no legal liability?”

The intoxication completely vanished and her breath caught.

Choi Eunhee knew that wasn’t the case either.

What if the documents Hanyewon had brought became news articles and were revealed to the world?

Who would public anger be directed at?

As long as she continued receiving franchise fees, Choi Eunhee couldn’t abandon anything and couldn’t escape responsibility either.

‘What exactly do you want me to do?’

She was back to the original question.

She wanted to run away.

When she first had that thought, and even now, Choi Eunhee had too much to lose.

Cancel all the problematic franchise contracts?

Then rumors that there were problems would spread, and as the foundation shook, even normally operating locations would demand cancellation, wouldn’t they?

Give up both honor and wealth?

Then what would be left?

People’s gazes and admiration.

Though there were people who criticized her for various reasons.

It was fine anyway since Choi Eunhee had much more.

Family wasn’t much different.

Her tiresome parents had passed away and she had abandoned her son herself.

Her husband and daughter… If Choi Eunhee lost her honor and wealth, if she had nothing more to give them, would the two remain by her side?

The reason her family had silently followed along even when she made arbitrary decisions about major and minor matters was ultimately because they had much to gain from Choi Eunhee, wasn’t it?

It felt like standing on a cliff’s edge.

If I take one more step forward, I’ll lose everything along with the world’s condemnation.

If I step back, I’ll lose everything along with ridicule.

‘I already know what’s right.’

Choi Eunhee let out a bitter laugh.

“So then. Since I can’t avoid responsibility, should I go find these people and apologize to them one by one?”

“Whether you visit them or speak publicly, the method is…”

“Thoroughly investigate all complaints that occurred at other branches to check if there were any illegal acts or deceptive practices in marketing or treatment processes, offer sincere apologies and financial compensation too.”

It was such an absurd thought that it was laughable and ridiculous.

“If there were patients who came to me in the past or patients I could have treated if I had properly screened and hired people then educated them properly, but they only paid money without getting better… if I do my best to treat such patients again if they want, would that be enough?”

Such a clear model answer.

Hanyewon pondered Choi Eunhee’s response, then nodded.

“If that’s what the clinic director’s conscience points to, then you simply fulfill your righteousness.”

How very Confucian and Mencian of her.

Just fulfill benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, right?

It was right, so very right, that it was something impossible to realize in reality.

Hahaha!

Choi Eunhee burst into laughter.

As Hanyewon said, Choi Eunhee knew the answer.

She just needed to take responsibility for what had already happened, and since she wasn’t capable of handling what would happen in the future, she could just quit everything.

Perhaps she had wanted to do that for quite a long time.

But how on earth could she do such a horrifying thing?

If she were driven into a situation where she had no choice, she’d be so busy trying to fix things that she’d do anything…

“Hanyewon, you said you’re good at darts, right?”

“I’m good at it.”

Choi Eunhee threw out a random question.

Hanyewon answered without hesitation.

“Let’s make a bet.”

“A bet?”

Choi Eunhee jumped up and strode toward where the darts were.

Erasing all the weak appearance and indignant look she had shown today.

She made her proposal confidently as usual.

“If Director Hanyewon wins by throwing this, I’ll do as you said. I’ll fold up my business completely and try apologizing and compensating once.”

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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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