The Terminally Ill Youngest Daughter of a Medical Dynasty Is a Genius Physician - Chapter 16

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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 16
The bitter cold of that day of expulsion, the voices that had suffocated me, the fear I’d tried so hard to ignore—all of it came crashing down at once.
“Father…….”
My lips barely moved, but no sound came out.
“Do you know how your father died on the Battlefield?”
“He resented you, they said.”
Those words, which had gripped me even beyond death, pressed down on my chest again.
My body trembled uncontrollably.
Father held me tighter still.
I’d always thought him rough and gruff and taciturn, but in that moment his touch was strangely gentle, almost reverent.
“Father is here. It’s all right.”
That low voice sounded distant and far away.
And with those words, the consciousness I’d been holding taut by sheer will simply snapped.
The medicine had worn off completely.
* * *
Darkness surrounded me on all sides.
‘This dream again.’
I knew it instinctively.
I was trapped in a familiar nightmare.
But knowing it was a dream didn’t mean I could escape.
I was submerged in black water, sinking endlessly.
My body was heavy, my fingertips cold.
From all around, familiar voices kept pouring in.
“It’s all because of you.”
“The shame of the Yak-ryeong Family!”
‘Your father resents you.’
No.
I hate this.
That can’t be true.
My lips moved, but no voice came.
I thrashed and struggled, but couldn’t move a single toe.
Only the black darkness grew thicker.
Then, far in the distance, I saw a figure’s back.
Broad, solid shoulders.
A frame I knew.
It was my father.
“Ah…….”
I reached out my hand desperately.
But Father never once turned to look back.
He only grew more distant, moving toward the Battlefield stained blood-red.
‘Don’t go.’
‘You can’t.’
His figure slowly sank into the bloody mist.
At last, a voice tore from my throat—almost a sob.
“Dad.”
I reached out trembling fingers into the void.
“Father, I—no…….”
Then it happened.
Into the cold darkness, a warmth seeped through.
Someone was stroking my head.
A hand—large and solid.
“I, I…….”
…….
“I’m sorry.”
Words squeezed through a tight throat, fragmented as breath.
“I’m sorry I’m sick…… useless…….”
“It’s my fault, it’s all my fault…….”
Sobs choked my throat.
Father had not returned once since he left three years ago.
And after his death, all that remained was guilt—that everything was because of me.
But still.
Across several lifetimes, there was one reason I could never abandon my father.
“I missed you.”
I wanted to be with him.
That was all.
That was what I longed for.
“Ryeong Hwa. Wake up now.”
“Ugh…….”
Faint light seeped through my closed eyelids.
The dreamlike darkness slowly lifted.
Consciousness rose gradually toward the surface of wakefulness.
When I pried open my heavy eyelids, a familiar ceiling came into view.
The scent of medicine, the quiet rhythm of breathing.
And the shadow of a man sitting beside the sickbed.
I blinked blankly.
‘What is this? Another nightmare?’
It was my father.
His large frame was bent as he sat beside the sickbed—though I couldn’t say how long he’d been there.
“Father……?”
The word scraped from my parched throat.
“Yes. I’m here.”
“……!”
“You were whimpering like a pup. Are you alright?”
My lips trembled.
Still, I couldn’t believe it.
In my past life, he hadn’t returned at this time.
‘Could it really be that grandfather sent the letter?’
His return so soon must be another thread of the future I had changed.
Pat, pat.
Father dried my tear-stained face with a clean cloth, his movements gentle.
His hands were too rough to belong to a physician—and yet I didn’t mind it in the slightest.
“What kind of dream were you having, that it tormented you so?”
I couldn’t bring myself to answer, only twisting my lips.
Father sighed softly, then crossed his arms and regarded me with a slightly crooked gaze.
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
“…….”
“Even in your dream you were searching for me so desperately. There’s something you wanted to say, isn’t there?”
“That, that’s—!”
I clamped my lips shut in confusion.
How long had I been turning over the things I wanted to say to him?
But the moment I faced him, all those grand words vanished from my mind, bright white and empty.
Only an ugly fragment of the truth slipped out.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I keep falling ill… and I’m a burden to you, a hindrance to the family.”
“…What?”
“I’ve only ever caused harm to you and the Yak-ryeong Family. All this while.”
“Heh.”
A hollow laugh escaped my father’s lips.
Over his cold, impassive face, disbelief was written clear.
I flinched.
My shoulders shrank of their own accord.
A fear so deep it felt instinctive rose again.
What if Father, too, had come to see me as something tiresome and vexing?
The words Yeon So-taek had spoken to me lingered like shackles.
I had denied them countless times, knowing they couldn’t be true—yet I couldn’t erase the anxiety buried deepest in my heart.
“Who told you such things?”
Father tilted his head, arms still crossed.
His keen eyes searched my face.
I hesitated, then opened my mouth carefully.
“Father went to the Battlefield because of me… because I’m ill.”
Because I claimed to be in pain.
It was a feeling I’d never properly voiced, hidden away all this time by the distance between us.
“Hmm?”
Father raised his eyebrows, as if confused.
“Isn’t that only natural?”
“…I’m sorry?”
“If there’s a chance to find a cure for your condition there, then I had to go and see.”
“But still… it’s a dangerous place. You went because of me.”
The front lines were a war zone, and plague was running rampant there.
Before he left, Father said he would study patients’ illnesses and medicines in that place, searching for a cure.
That’s what made me feel so guilty.
Because the reason Father went somewhere so perilous was me.
“Mm.”
Father’s brow furrowed deeper, as if he still didn’t understand.
Then suddenly he fixed his gaze on me.
“So that’s it.”
“…What?”
“Is that why you never replied to my Letters?”
My expression froze in an instant.
“…Letters?”
Father’s eyes narrowed at the same moment.
“Why do you look like that?”
“I… I never received any.”
“What?”
Silence descended on the room.
I stared blankly at Father.
‘Surely not.’
In that instant, a single face flashed through my mind.
Uncle.
‘I never knew.’
It was a truth I’d failed to notice, even after living through these cycles multiple times.
I knew that Yeon So-taek had driven a wedge between Grandfather and me.
But Father too?
Consumed by guilt toward Father, I’d never even thought to question the truth.
I’d simply believed that Father had come to hate me in the end.
But what if that wasn’t the case?
What if it had been a lie crafted from the very beginning?
“Ryeong Hwa.”
Father’s voice dropped low.
“Tell me plainly.”
“…”
“Have you truly never received a single Letter I sent all this time?”
“No.”
I answered without hesitation.
“Not one.”
“…”
“I’m the one who sent you Letters. But I never received your reply.”
Father’s face hardened.
“You sent them to me?”
“Yes.”
“…”
“You didn’t receive them?”
The light in Father’s eyes turned glacial.
The brief shock that had flickered across his face was swallowed instantly by a heavy, gathering rage.
After a long silence, he spoke.
“Since I left the family, I sent you a Letter every single day. Starting from when you were four years old.”
My heart sank.
I gripped the edge of the blanket with all my strength.
“Since you wouldn’t yet know how to read, I even gave specific instructions for someone to read them to you…”
Father didn’t say who he’d given the instruction to.
But there was no need to ask.
“Yes.”
Father murmured very quietly.
“That’s how it was.”
After that, there was nothing but silence.
Father stroked my hair once, gently, then rose from his seat.
“Father?”
“There’s no need to get up. Rest.”
His voice was strangely devoid of emotion.
No—it wasn’t absent.
It had sunk so deep that it only seemed hollow.
Father turned toward the door.
Then he suddenly stopped.
“And.”
I held my breath and looked up at him.
Without turning around, Father spoke.
“Ryeong Hwa. You have never been a burden to me.”
……
“And you never will be.”
The door opened, and Father left the room.

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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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