The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 38

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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 38

That day, until business hours ended, there were no patients at Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic Busan Branch.

Clearly, the new patients who used to come 10 per day when the clinic first opened had decreased to just 1 or 2. Moreover, even the few follow-up appointment patients they had canceled at the last minute.

Chu Miyoung left work grinding her teeth in frustration.

Anyway, thanks to having plenty of time, Chu Miyoung collected quite a lot of information about Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic.

First, the clinic director had only changed a few months ago.

The former director of Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic that she knew was an elderly man who had once practiced in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, then moved down to Busan to follow his children, and had been running the clinic half-heartedly as if he were retired.

At first, even operating that way, business probably did reasonably well.

But over 10 years, as oriental medicine clinics sprouted up like mushrooms near the station, Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic reached an almost deficit state, and he transferred the clinic at a complete bargain price.

To a naive female oriental medicine doctor in her 20s who had no idea how to evaluate a location.

“Hanyewon… what’s with this girl?”

At least the former director occasionally posted on oriental medicine communities, but Hanyewon herself had no activity whatsoever.

All that came up in portal searches were very old local articles about overcoming difficult circumstances to get into university and receive scholarships.

There were no traces of her working as an oriental medicine doctor or advertising anywhere – not on blogs, Instagram, or anywhere else.

She didn’t even post photos or a decent career profile on the official blog, which says it all.

Wasn’t she typically a fresh graduate who opened a clinic with nothing but guts and loans? She might have studied hard since she graduated valedictorian, but real patients were completely different from textbooks.

“She doesn’t seem much different from me.”

Did the medicine just happen to work well by chance?

If so, there wasn’t much to worry about.

[Go to Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic! I got postpartum medicine there and all the pain in my fingers and toes completely disappeared.]

[I got acupuncture four times at Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic and my migraines that nothing could cure are completely gone.]

[I don’t know why I didn’t know about this place until now. My son had been complaining about ankle pain for years, other places said it was growing pains and there was no solution, but they said they’d do chuna therapy and stepped on it, and when it went pop! it was immediately fine, you know?]

Instead of properly advertising with disclosure of compensation, it seems she worked the mom cafes directly.

If this kind of manipulation gets exposed, you get hit with backlash several times over.

If she just wrote a few posts using cafe IDs she had purchased in advance saying she went based on recommendations but had no effect at all, everyone would start giving similar testimonies.

Monday morning.

Chu Miyoung went to Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic right at opening time.

It was good to have a chance to spy when they opened early, but she couldn’t understand why they opened at 7 AM.

Who would come at this dawn hour unless they had a purpose like her?

“Hello~.”

After taking a photo of the sign to leave proof that she had visited, Chu Miyoung opened the clinic door and entered.

“Gasp!”

But as soon as she entered the waiting room, she was startled and covered her gaping mouth.

Because many patients had been waiting since 6:50?

That was also true. Recently, her clinic barely had 10 people come all day, but this clinic had 5 people waiting from early morning.

‘Why now of all times!’

But there was someone who surprised Chu Miyoung much more than that.

It was Jeong Inseong, who was looking at a workbook in one corner of the waiting room.

“I’ll help you with registration. Is this your first visit?”

“I, I urgently need the restroom! Just a moment!”

Chu Miyoung hurriedly hid in the women’s restroom. She knew well enough that her face was among the very easy ones to remember.

Good heavens, she couldn’t create the embarrassing scene of meeting a patient she failed to treat while spying on someone else’s clinic!

If she left after that patient entered the treatment room, there would be no chance of being caught, but their paths might cross by chance.

Something to hide her face with…

Fortunately, there were quite a few masks rolling around in her bag. Moreover, though she couldn’t remember when she put it in, there was a pair of sunglasses she had received as sponsorship when she was an influencer.

“Perfect!”

It felt a bit excessive, but this completely hid her face. Chu Miyoung looked in the mirror and was very satisfied.

“Hey! Are you building a mountain of shit in there! How long are you going to use it alone?”

“S-sorry~.”

…There was only one stall in the women’s restroom.

Chu Miyoung apologized to the grandmother in a shrill voice and came out of the restroom.

‘Let’s see just how great she is!’

* * *

As soon as I arrived at work, I went to the treatment room and checked on Chaerira’s condition, who had registered first and was waiting.

Although I had reduced the subluxation that day and given brief treatment, thanks to the energy I had infused working appropriately, she was as good as if she had never been injured.

“Fortunately, there’s no problem at all. I’ll treat you right away. You need to go quickly, right?”

“Yes, Clinic Director! Thank you!”

The preliminaries had ended with the match I watched on Saturday, but the semifinals were today and the finals tomorrow.

“Fighting today too!”

I quickly inserted needles in the same spots as during halftime and returned to the examination room.

I couldn’t go watch the weekday matches, but I should give the best treatment possible here and cheer with my heart.

“The others are all in physical therapy… Hmm?”

“I’ll bring Chu Miyoung to the examination room.”

In the brief time I was treating Chaerira, a new patient had registered.

Chu Miyoung? I’ve heard that name somewhere.

Before I could recall who owned that name, the examination room door opened.

“Ah! …H-hello!”

Sunglasses and a mask.

Anyone could see she had ‘I’m suspicious’ written all over her appearance.

It was the director of Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic Busan Branch that I had spied on not long ago.

‘Ugh, did I really go to Haneul Clinic looking like this?’

It became mirror therapy as my face suddenly burned with embarrassment.

“Hello?”

Contrary to my thoughts, Chu Miyoung greeted me very cheerfully.

I also pretended to know nothing and calmly began the consultation.

“What brings you here today?”

“My jaw joint.”

Jaw joint, hmm. That’s not an easy area to treat.

Is she trying to see how I treat it?

“How long has this been going on?”

“A little over a year. It seems to have gotten worse as I’ve been under stress.”

Though it was hard to see clearly because of the mask, her jaw tilted slightly to the left when she opened her mouth.

Unlike when I visited her clinic, this didn’t seem to be 100% fake.

“Since it’s been over a year, have you received treatment elsewhere?”

“Oh, yes. I received treatment at Sinchin Oriental Medicine Clinic in front of the station for a while, but it didn’t get better.”

Sinchin Oriental Medicine Clinic? If it’s that place, I caught a glimpse of it when I went to check out Haneul Clinic last time.

It was similarly located in the prime station area, facing Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic Busan Branch across the main road.

‘She couldn’t have actually received treatment there, so why bring it up?’

She might have simply mentioned another clinic’s name to imply it was a difficult case, but her trembling voice seemed suspicious.

I typed Chu Miyoung’s words while habitually glancing at her hands.

‘Master always told me to watch people’s hands, even when not in combat…’

When I ran the clinic alone, patients would sometimes suddenly turn violent.

After entrusting myself to the Sichuan Dang Family, I thought there would be no threats, but I was actually affected by Master’s grudges with many enemies.

Even so, most patients in modern South Korea usually placed their hands on desks or knees and fidgeted normally.

‘Hmm?’

Chu Miyoung had her hands in her jacket pockets, tightly gripping her phone.

That alone wouldn’t be too strange, but wasn’t she holding the phone upside down with the speaker part sticking out of her pocket?

‘Recording?’

What an interesting thing to do.

What would she do with a recording? Was she planning to cause trouble if I said anything bad about Sinchin Oriental Medicine Clinic? Though I don’t even know anyone there.

“Ah. Originally, jaw joint problems are a type of systemic condition, so effects don’t appear in a short time. Let me take a look at your condition. Please remove your mask and lie down on the bed.”

In Jeong Inseong’s case, I had no choice but to ramble on because his mother pushed for herbal medicine, but I usually don’t comment much on other clinics’ diagnoses.

Moreover, knowing this was obviously some kind of trap, I was quite careful with my words.

“…Yes.”

Chu Miyoung’s eyes wavered behind her sunglasses. Whatever was making her so anxious and nervous, she clenched her teeth and stared at me.

“Let me see you open your mouth.”

I placed my hand on the area where the jaw joint opens and instructed her to open her mouth.

Click. Click.

Every time she opened her mouth a little over 70%, there was a clicking sound.

There was definitely a problem.

I checked everything including the mandible and temporal bone that form the jaw joint, the connecting ligaments and tendons, the occlusion pattern of the teeth, and even the alignment of the cervical vertebrae.

Then I made my diagnosis.

“The congenital malocclusion isn’t severe, but you have a habit of clenching or grinding your teeth when stressed, don’t you?”

Hadn’t she been clenching her teeth just moments ago?

“As a result, overuse has caused inflammation… and the disc has slipped forward slightly.”

“A jaw disc?”

“Yes. With the disc slipped forward like this, it finds its way back into place every time you close your mouth, which is what causes the clicking sound.”

This was definitely not a symptom that developed in just a day or two.

She said it had been a year, but that’s when the sound started or it became painful – the problem would have started much earlier.

If treatment had begun right away when there was only inflammation, it could have been cured with a few acupuncture sessions, but once the disc moves and structural changes occur, it becomes quite tricky. She probably couldn’t fix it herself and just left it untreated.

“So what should I do?”

Normally, I would have started by slowly reducing inflammation and relaxing muscles with acupuncture.

Of course, I should start by slowly reducing inflammation and relaxing muscles through acupuncture treatment. Even if I did chuna therapy, I would have gone in gently.

‘Should I give her a little scare?’

But since I suspected Chu Miyoung had some kind of scheme, I was actually drawn to more aggressive treatment.

I grinned and pulled out disposable gloves.

“I’ll use chuna therapy to realign your jaw joint and the displacement of your second cervical vertebra. Temporarily, the clicking sound should stop as things return to their proper position, but if you continue living with the same habits, it’ll come back quickly, so you’ll need to continue treatment longer.”

“You can fix it right away?”

Chu Miyoung looked up at me with eyes full of suspicion.

Oh my, don’t be so doubtful.

Thanks to all those martial artists from the Martial Arts World who fight day in and day out, there isn’t a single bone from head to toe that I haven’t had to realign, you know?

“Yes. You might be startled by the adjustment sound. It shouldn’t hurt too much.”

As soon as I finished speaking, I put my thumb inside Chu Miyoung’s mouth.

“Ugh!”

I opened the closed jaw joint and applied pressure to release the overly tense muscles.

Then, with my finger positioned on the displaced second cervical vertebra, I had Chu Miyoung tilt her head back, and with my left hand pushing her head, I applied side bending.

It was time to straighten her twisted neck.

Crack.

In an instant, the adhesion in the soft tissue released and the displaced second cervical vertebra returned to its proper position.

“Let’s sit you up.”

It didn’t even take 10 seconds.

I helped Chu Miyoung, who had been lying on the bed, sit up and had her open her mouth once more.

“Try opening your mouth once. It should feel much more comfortable.”

Chu Miyoung blinked and carefully opened her mouth.

She had always been careful at that specific point where the sound occurred, as her jaw would hurt terribly if she wasn’t cautious.

“Ah~.”

But the condition of her jaw was completely different from just moments before.

“Ah-. Ah? Ah!”

“How does it feel? Is there any catching?”

Her eyes had been full of suspicion even before treatment, but now astonishment was written across her face.

“H-how is there no sound?”

Suddenly freed from the persistent pain that had tormented her for so long, she opened her mouth wide without any obstruction.

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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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