The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim - Chapter 39

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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 39

Hanyewon was excessively overconfident.

She’d fix misaligned joints just like that?

If it were actually possible, what would be so difficult about it? Just eliminate skin troubles, just help lose weight, just straighten a bent back.

Speaking so charismatically as if it were nothing, saying she’d treat everything – of course people would be captivated at first!

But how would she take responsibility when she failed? To block those who would demand refunds or threaten lawsuits, one had no choice but to make defensive diagnoses.

‘Ha! Is she acting like this because she’s a bookworm model student who thinks she can do everything?’

She had just opened her clinic, and with patients praising her and expressing gratitude, she probably thought she was something special.

Chu Miyoung had been like that at first too. Just rotating through the routine prescriptions set up by Haneul Clinic could cure more than half the patients, so her confidence had pierced the sky. But then she fell into a quagmire when she encountered patients who wouldn’t get better no matter what she did.

‘Tsk…’

Seeing such naive boldness, she felt anxious even as she offered her jaw for Hanyewon to try chuna therapy.

How many times had this girl performed cervical corrections since graduation? She did know how to do it, right?

Crack.

But the moment Hanyewon precisely adjusted her jaw and neck.

“Huh? What?”

The clicking sound really disappeared completely.

The clicking, the grinding, the stiffness, and the strange sound like mice gnawing.

She had suffered from temporomandibular joint disorder for over a year, and while there had been changes, the uncomfortable feeling and sounds somewhere had never gone away.

The sensation of when her jaw joint was normal had become so distant that she had been thinking she’d just have to accept it and live with it for life.

“How is there no sound? How on earth did you do that?!”

Chu Miyoung unconsciously opened her mouth wide.

How was this possible?

It didn’t seem like she had used some amazing technique.

She had just put her hand in the mouth and pushed, then slightly twisted the neck.

Though she had never tried it on patients due to lack of confidence, the latter was a practical technique Chu Miyoung had also learned at school in the past.

The former… could really only be described as just pushing.

True to the word chuna , which uses the character for ‘push’ and the character for ‘grasp’.

It literally meant she had just grasped and pushed.

Though she hadn’t done it with any particular knowledge, there was no way she hadn’t tried pushing that spot herself.

She had tried acupuncture here and there, massaged various parts of her face to relax the muscles. She had even tried bee venom acupuncture hoping to reduce inflammation, and even got a splint made. Though she stopped using the last one after a short time because it was too uncomfortable.

‘Clinic Director Kwon also said there was nothing to be done if stress was this severe, and just told me to manage it so it wouldn’t get worse.’

Kwon Wujin, the head director of Haneul Korean Medicine Clinic Cheonan Branch whom Chu Miyoung greatly respected, had said so.

Structural deformities that had already occurred were difficult to reverse, and the best approach was to manage it so it wouldn’t worsen to the point where the mouth couldn’t open at all.

He had told her to fix the habit of clenching teeth or tensing facial muscles when stressed, and to get acupuncture treatment immediately whenever inflammation caused pain.

But some unpleasant incident had occurred around the time she was preparing to open her clinic.

Moreover, since opening, there hadn’t been a single peaceful day due to sales stress… How could she have had time to worry about her jaw joint?

Chu Miyoung had essentially given up on her own condition.

“Hehe.”

Hanyewon smiled without saying anything.

Well, she wouldn’t easily teach her secret techniques.

‘She really had something.’

It wasn’t baseless confidence.

Unlike Chu Miyoung in the past, she wasn’t throwing around empty promises to treat patients without knowing whether she could cure them or not.

Hanyewon had said she’d fix it because she really could treat her.

Treating Jeong Inseong’s skin in just one month probably wasn’t a coincidence either.

“It’s fortunate there was an immediate treatment response. Since you’ve had this condition for a long time, you know about lifestyle habits, right? Like not chewing gum, or that clenching teeth is bad.”

“Yes, yes…”

“Get acupuncture treatment about 3 or 4 times until the inflammation subsides. Pay attention to your lifestyle habits, and do some massage while taking deep breaths before bed. Please go to the treatment room.”

She didn’t even try to upsell.

If it had been Chu Miyoung, she would have recommended taking medicine to strengthen the joints or for stress management.

No, if she had known how to do chuna therapy, she might have recommended a package of about 20 treatments?

But Hanyewon had set a treatment period of only 3 or 4 sessions, and didn’t recommend any more chuna therapy beyond today’s necessary session.

“Ah…”

She was moved to the treatment room in a daze.

Even as the nursing assistant gave her clothes to change into and attached physical therapy machines to her neck and back, she just felt bewildered.

‘What, this machine must be 20 years old…’

Had she taken over what the former director of Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic had bought when first opening?

Since she hadn’t even replaced the sign or physical therapy machines, she probably hadn’t spent money on interior design either.

‘There were 5 people waiting besides me from the morning. If it’s 5 people per hour, does she see over 50 people a day? She probably didn’t invest much money either.’

How nice. After seeing Hanyewon’s skills, she could only feel envious.

The recent decrease in her own patients… probably wasn’t a coincidence either. Even as a patient herself, Chu Miyoung felt like she would come to this place.

Flash.

Only when Chu Miyoung saw her phone light flashing did she remember that she had turned on the recorder.

If Hanyewon had tried to do business by disparaging other clinics, she had planned to spread it among the local directors. It wasn’t a small enough neighborhood to be territorial, but she could do something, couldn’t she?

But there was nothing to find fault with in Hanyewon’s treatment.

Releasing something like this would only end up being free advertising for her.

Even if she deliberately tried to film a promotional video, it was something Chu Miyoung couldn’t do.

“Haah.”

She grumbled and fumed to herself about how this made no sense at all.

She reproached herself for neglecting her studies while only searching for advertising secrets all this time.

Only after the physical therapy and acupuncture treatment ended did she finally manage to calm her excitement.

With the chuna therapy included, the cost approached 50,000 won, but she didn’t feel it was a waste at all.

Having completely lost her fighting spirit, she finished payment and went to the water dispenser to gulp down water.

“Is there anywhere uncomfortable? Could you come to the examination room for a moment?”

Seeing her drinking water with a dejected face, Hanyewon approached her.

This only deepened Chu Miyoung’s sense of defeat.

She had never once asked a patient who finished treatment that day if they were okay.

It was because she was afraid of hearing the answer that they hadn’t improved.

“No. Thanks to you, I feel so much better. Thank you.”

Chu Miyoung bowed her head deeply and left Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic as if fleeing.

* * *

“Hmm.”

Honestly, the recorder did bother me. What would she do by coming to a mere oriental medicine clinic and recording?

Since I couldn’t tell if she had bad intentions, I was just being cautious and trying to startle her a little, but seeing Chu Miyoung leave the clinic so heartbroken made me feel concerned.

‘It’s like becoming the world’s greatest swordsman and doing my best against a late-stage beginner, isn’t it?’

In terms of martial arts sects, it was like an elder who should be giving guidance sparring came out and crushed the kids’ spirits.

‘No, that’s not right. Rather, seeing the elder’s skills would motivate them to study. The wall between peers might be even greater.’

Thanks to having built quite deep internal energy at one time, I look young on the outside, but in reality, I’ve experienced many more patients with incredible intensity for much longer than Chu Miyoung.

From the number of successful and failed treatments to the diversity of diseases and injuries.

I’m not an appropriate person for Chu Miyoung to consider as competition in many ways, so there’s no need for her to be so heartbroken.

‘I was going to startle her just a little bit, then call her to the examination room to ask why she used Sipmipaedog-tang.’

Actually, it was a prescription choice I couldn’t understand at all, so I’d been continuously curious.

Additionally, I wanted to know what she came to our clinic for and why she was recording.

But it would have been awkward to grab the fleeing Chu Miyoung and interrogate her, so I sent her off while promising myself another opportunity.

“Well, is this better than someone like Cho Haneul who refuses to acknowledge it to the end and keeps grumbling? It could become an opportunity for development.”

Since patients were flooding in today, I didn’t have the leisure to think about her for long.

Word must be spreading from somewhere, as there have been more and more mothers with children lately.

At this rate, it won’t be just 40 people a day but over 50.

I’ve seen over 100 people in a day before… but Seo Inae, is she really okay handling this alone?

* * *

“Ahhhhh! Time to go home!”

“Good work. I’ll hire a new staff member soon.”

Unlike last time when she declined saying it was fine, Seo Inae quietly nodded her head.

It seemed that even her strength, who used to cheer every time the number of patients increased to receive even one more won in incentives, had reached its limit.

“Director, do you happen to have any plans to go to the mart this week?”

Seo Inae asked while turning off the computer and tidying up.

“The mart? Why? Do you need something?”

“The coffee mix and paper cups are running low. L Mart in front of the station is having a sale right now, so if you have any reason to go, I thought you could buy them.”

“Ah~.”

“If you have plans to go, you could buy them while you’re at it, and if not, I’ll just pay a few thousand won more and order online.”

“I’ll go today. I need to go grocery shopping anyway.”

Come to think of it, I couldn’t go to the mart because I was watching games over the weekend.

I gladly took the list Seo Inae wrote for me and went down the hill.

“Hmm. Should I make hot pot today?”

I didn’t want to go back to the martial arts world, but I sometimes craved the food from there. If I had known this would happen, I should have asked the servants more about cooking methods.

I bought groceries for a week while having these various thoughts.

“Wow~ The moon is so beautiful.”

When I finished grocery shopping, the sun had completely set.

The stars that decorated the sky were no longer easy to see, but at least the moon sparkled the same everywhere.

I walked along the road, immersed in sentiment while recalling my eventful past.

“Oh.”

As I passed through the station, crossed the road, and passed by Haneul Clinic, Chu Miyoung was leaving work after finishing her evening practice.

The sight of her walking with drooped shoulders evoked a strange sense of pity.

‘She probably woke up early in the morning to come see me, and if she works until this hour, it must be tiring.’

Should I offer her a word of comfort? With that thought, I approached her.

“Director Chu.”

I called out to Chu Miyoung from a slightly distant position.

Since Haneul Clinic building seemed to have no parking lot, she was going down to the basement of the adjacent building through the road.

‘Didn’t she hear me?’

If it were me, or if someone had even slightly sharp senses, they would have noticed the presence of someone following behind.

She seemed completely unaware of anything as she continued walking forward, looking only ahead. If anything, her pace seemed to have gotten even faster.

“Clinic Director?”

So I closed the distance a bit more and called out to her once again.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

Chu Miyoung screamed in shock and wrapped her arms around herself protectively.

Her shoulders were trembling violently, and tears were welling up in her eyes.

“Oh my, please calm down.”

Her reaction was extremely strange.

Worried that she might fall over from being so startled, I supported her back.

“St-stalker…!”

“Clinic Director Chu.”

“…A woman?”

“It’s me, Hanyewon. The director of Seongsoo Oriental Medicine Clinic.”

“Ah…?”

She had been about to scream again, but upon seeing my face, she blinked her eyes.

What was this about? Had she been dealing with a stalker?

‘Ah, so she didn’t fail to hear me—she pretended not to hear and walked quickly.’

I removed my hand that had been supporting her back and politely apologized to Chu Miyoung.

“I’m sorry for startling you.”

Having been genuinely terrified, Chu Miyoung was shedding tears with her makeup completely smeared across her face.

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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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