The Terminally Ill Youngest Daughter of a Medical Dynasty Is a Genius Physician - Chapter 15

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 15
“Choke—!”
In the same instant, the Warrior’s body went rigid.
Strength drained from his legs and he staggered.
“What—what is this!”
“What did that person just do?”
“Did he strike a vital point?”
The crowd gathered around us in the Marketplace gasped in shock.
As the man’s hand released from my shoulder, I reflexively lost my balance and stumbled.
Just as my body began to topple forward, someone moved quickly to catch me.
The grip was firm and achingly familiar.
And… terribly, terribly dear.
……
The people who had been pressing toward me moments before fell deathly silent all at once.
I barely managed to lift my trembling eyelids.
A man with long dark hair roughly bound back.
A few strands had escaped and brushed against his sharp jawline.
His piercing gaze was cold as a blade’s edge, and his stern features seemed to warn: do not dare approach carelessly.
His broad shoulders and imposing height radiated authority simply by standing there.
Thump-thump.
The moment I saw that familiar face, my heart began to race wildly.
‘Ah……’
I couldn’t believe it.
This had never happened in my past life.
“How dare you.”
Grit.
A low, ragged voice emerged as though grinding teeth, measured and deliberate.
The sheer force of his presence made the crowd’s shoulders twitch.
“Lay a hand on my daughter?”
My father, Yeon Baek-gang.
The Minor Clan Head of Yak-ryeong-ga—the mad heretic—had returned.
* * *
Clatter—!
“What did you just say?”
Yeon So-taek wiped his mouth on his sleeve and shot to his feet.
The empty bowls on the table rattled and clattered.
“The Minor Clan Head is… returning urgently, it seems.”
“Why?”
“It appears… he received a letter from the Clan Head.”
The servant’s voice grew quieter with each word.
Yeon So-taek’s expression twisted into something sinister in an instant.
Since the matters concerning Yeon Ryeong-hwa had come to light and he was dismissed from his position as physician.
He had been living in seclusion under the guise of reflection, yet indulging himself lavishly with every delicacy.
And now, in the midst of all that, another matter had arisen to trouble him.
‘First she bustles about making medicines despite having Terminal Illness, and now Yeon Baek-gang returns?’
Yeon So-taek’s hand pressed down hard on the table. Blood vessels stood out from the force.
“How dare—”
Yeon So-taek’s eyes went cold and sharp.
“What makes that wretched girl—barely clinging to life—think she can act so brazenly?”
It was then that Geum Su-ryeon, who had been sitting quietly beside him all along, spoke softly.
“Husband, do not distress yourself overmuch.”
Her voice was composed, befitting her dignified and refined appearance, yet her eyes gleamed with a chill.
“Ryeong-hwa will never become a variable in this matter.”
Yeon So-taek turned to look at her.
“…My dear.”
“You are merely doing what is right, Husband. Others may not understand, but I do.”
A thin, cold smile fixed itself on Geum Su-ryeon’s lips.
“You know as well as I do that he must never become Clan Head.”
Yeon So-taek’s eyes narrowed.
Yeon Baek-gang.
A military commander who carved his name across battlefields and an eccentric heretic of the Yak-ryeong-ga that even the clan elders dared not handle carelessly.
And.
“He is a tainted man who was subjected to forbidden sorcery experiments.”
That fact was a blemish that would never fade from Yeon Baek-gang, no matter how much time passed.
Yeon So-taek exhaled slowly.
“Reorganize every corner of the household.”
He commanded quietly.
“We must arrange things so that Yeon Baek-gang finds no trace—nothing that could give him a handhold.”
“Understood, sir.”
“The incident with the servant. And Do-pyeong’s affair.”
Yeon So-taek’s voice sank lower still.
“If word reaches Yeon Baek-gang’s ears, he will certainly not remain idle.”
Things would become troublesome.
But as long as no fatal evidence surfaced, it would still be manageable.
It was he who had shouldered the great and small affairs of the Yak-ryeong-ga on behalf of both the Clan Head and the Minor Clan Head all this time.
And he alone had served as Ryeong-hwa’s personal physician.
At least on the surface, he was a dutiful younger brother who had cared for the clan and his niece in his brother’s stead.
‘No matter how formidable Yeon Baek-gang is, he cannot touch me without justification.’
Moreover, Yeon Baek-gang had a weakness.
His daughter, Yeon Ryeong-hwa, was terminally ill.
If that child ultimately failed to become a physician, Yeon Baek-gang himself could not hold the position of Minor Clan Head.
Time, in the end, was his ally.
Yeon So-taek steadied himself with this thought and cast his eyes down.
Yet from some corner of his mind, an inexplicable foreboding kept rising.
The problem was that Yeon Baek-gang was not a man who always moved according to convention.
If he were to discover the affairs So-taek had hidden and lose himself to fury, there was no one who could predict where it would end.
For that very reason, he must not be given a handhold.
Yeon So-taek slowly turned his gaze and looked upon the servant.
“Send someone to my sister.”
“Yes.”
The servant bowed at once.
Yeon So-taek tapped his fingers slowly against the armrest and continued.
“Tell her to return to the Yak-ryeong-ga as quickly as possible.”
“I shall obey your command.”
A moment of silence passed, and Yeon So-taek spoke as if seized by resolve.
“And…….”
His gaze turned toward Geum Su-ryeon.
“Those letters.”
Though brief, Geum Su-ryeon seemed to understand at once and smiled faintly.
“Yes.”
“You have kept them safe?”
“Yes. I stored them in the safe, just in case.”
Yeon So-taek’s voice grew low and cold.
“Burn them without leaving a trace.”
Both Geum Su-ryeon and the servant froze. Yeon So-taek added with grave emphasis.
“They must never fall into Yeon Baek-gang’s hands.”
With those words, the air in the room grew heavy and oppressive.
Geum Su-ryeon bowed her head quietly.
“I shall remember this well.”
The servant obeyed the command and hurried out in haste.
When the door closed, only silence remained in the room.
‘There is something ominous about all this…….’
Yeon So-taek turned his gaze toward the window.
Dark clouds were slowly engulfing the sky.
As if a great tempest that would swallow the Yak-ryeong-ga whole were quietly drawing near.
* * *
“Ungh… hah, re… release…….”
The Warrior, his Vital Energy sealed by his father, clenched his teeth and barely opened his mouth.
Because his Vital Energy was blocked so suddenly, his muscles had stiffened and he could hardly form words at all.
His father, looking down upon the Warrior with cold eyes, tapped a pressure point once more with his index finger.
“Cough!”
The Warrior’s body went slack, and he collapsed to the ground in a fit of violent coughing.
I looked up at Father with a strange, new feeling stirring in my chest.
By the way the Warrior wielded his blade and the force he’d radiated, he was clearly no ordinary fighter.
Yet Father had subdued him in an instant.
‘The mad heretic of Yak-ryeong-ga….’
The epithet people used for Father—whispered in both the clan and the marketplace—surfaced in my mind.
Most descendants of Yak-ryeong-ga throughout the generations carried themselves as physicians should: rational, measured, composed.
But Father was different.
One moment he could be endlessly cold, the next blazing hot; utterly unpredictable, impossible to read.
“Ugh…!”
The Warrior, barely able to move now, reached toward his fallen blade.
But Father’s foot came down on his hand, pinning it in place.
“Aaaah!”
The Warrior cried out in pain. Father lowered himself, his eyes blazing as he stared down at him.
“Speak.”
His voice had turned lethal, cold as a blade.
“Why were you holding my frightened daughter?”
“That is… this child is not a certified Medical Apprentice, yet she touched our Young Master, and so…”
“Touched?”
Father’s head snapped around.
His gaze swept over the Young Master, who lay sprawled with a pallid complexion.
“…”
As Father’s eyes lingered on the boy’s face, his brow twitched slightly.
Then, noting the needle marks scattered across the boy’s body, he let out a hollow laugh—as if the absurdity of it all had struck him speechless.
“Are your eyes merely ornaments?”
“His Vital Energy was blocked by Poison, choking off his breath. She pinpointed it exactly and released it with needles.”
Father’s gaze traveled methodically across the needle marks on the Young Master’s hands, feet, and head.
“Had she been even a moment slower, he would be dead.”
“…!”
“My daughter saved your master’s life.”
“But… a sickly child without proper credentials… I merely meant to detain her until we could verify her identity.”
“Ah.”
Father nodded slowly, as if understanding perfectly.
“So you save a dying man, and then demand his belongings—is that it?”
His gaze swept languidly across the crowd. The people who had been muttering loudly flinched in unison.
“And here we have loose-tongued riffraff, spouting off whatever comes to mind.”
Those who had witnessed Father subduing the Warrior in a heartbeat quickly averted their eyes.
Father gave a contemptuous snort.
“If you mean to demand accountability, then first pay the price of a life. Don’t stand there spouting empty words with empty hands.”
The Warrior’s face darkened and flushed red by turns, contorted with indignation.
That was when—
A faint voice drifted from behind.
“…Enough.”
“Young… Young Master!”
The boy stirred. Struggling painfully, he pushed himself upright. His face was still bloodless, ashen.
“I apologize.”
“…”
“I have been discourteous to the Minor Clan Head of Yak-ryeong-ga and his daughter.”
Somehow the boy knew Father’s identity, though I couldn’t fathom how.
“The Minor Clan Head of Yak-ryeong-ga?”
“He should be on the Battlefield… Why is he here?”
A stir of shock rippled through the crowd.
The suspicious gazes that had been fixed on me moments before evaporated rapidly.
But to me, all those voices felt infinitely distant.
What remained crystal clear was only the warmth of Father’s embrace—a familiar heat that surrounded me.
I had longed for it.
So very much.
Then Father looked down at me, still cradled in his arms.
“Ryeong-hwa.”
The moment his gaze fell upon me, those harsh, threatening eyes crumpled.
“It really is…… you.”
The instant that voice, trembling with emotion, reached my ears.
Everything I’d been holding back with such force came crashing down.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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