The Terminally Ill Youngest Daughter of a Medical Dynasty Is a Genius Physician - Chapter 4

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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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Episode 4
It happened in that careless moment when strength flooded into my grip.
“Squeak……”
Water Otter looked up at me with glistening eyes, plaintive and tender.
“Ah…….”
To deny the wanting would be a lie. But this was something he’d found first.
I pressed the Hyeon Ryeong Geun back into Water Otter’s small paws.
“……It’s yours, isn’t it.”
“Squeak?”
Water Otter’s eyes widened in surprise, then he carefully took the Hyeon Ryeong Geun and held it close.
After staring at me in silence for a long moment, he scampered back toward me.
Pat.
Water Otter set the Hyeon Ryeong Geun on my lap and swished his tail left and right in gentle waves.
“……?”
“Chirrup!”
In that instant, a clear, bright voice rang sharply through my mind.
-Thank you.
“What?!”
I jerked around, alarmed, and scanned the Storage House, but no one was there.
“What was that? Where did that voice come from……?”
By then Water Otter was already bolting on his short legs, slipping through a gap beneath the window and vanishing in an instant.
He was gone before I could even reach out to stop him.
The Storage House was left with only the thick aroma of medicine and the superior Hyeon Ryeong Geun he’d left behind.
Though I couldn’t make sense of it, this was undeniably a windfall for me.
I gripped the Hyeon Ryeong Geun tightly, my eyes gleaming.
‘All right. Let’s give this a try.’
* * *
One sichen later.
Patter-patter-patter-patter-patter.
I tucked my hastily prepared items into my clothes and hurried forward on stumbling legs.
Back in a seven-year-old’s body, my stride was shorter than I’d anticipated, and the journey took far longer than expected.
‘I have to hurry. Before the medicine efficacy wears off.’
The medicine efficacy would last only three sichen—six hours.
Any delay beyond that, and my condition would deteriorate rapidly.
‘I’ve arrived!’
“Huff……!”
I caught my breath, both hands braced on my knees, gasping.
A long sweep of cyan tile roof and beneath it the jade-green beams that held it aloft.
The most ornate and colossal building at the center of Yak Ryeong Ga stood before me.
It was the Main Hall, where the patriarch dwelt.
The Main Hall was already bustling with people—grandfather had returned after so long away.
Servants and physicians, collateral relatives gathered from afar, stood in small clusters, all waiting for one man.
Yeon Baek Yu—the patriarch of Yak Ryeong Ga and the foremost physician of the age.
Today the entire family had gathered to celebrate his homecoming.
And I had no right to be here.
I was the root of all the family’s misfortune.
“Oh? Miss Ryeong Hwa?”
“I heard she couldn’t even rise from her sickbed.”
“Good heavens, how is she…….”
“What shamelessness, to come here like this.”
As I walked forward without hesitation, countless eyes snapped toward me at once.
Their gazes tangled with shock, displeasure, and naked revulsion.
A cursed child. A defective life. The ruin of the family. Dead weight.
For the first time, I was stepping into the Main Hall on my own two feet.
Just as I moved to cross the threshold, a large shadow suddenly blocked my path.
A solidly built middle-aged man draped in a gray robe.
Yu Jin Bok—the Household Steward who controlled all the affairs of Yak Ryeong Ga.
He stood with arms crossed, looking down at me, his voice low and oppressive.
“Miss.”
He did not bow his head once, even when facing the direct line of the family.
There was not a trace of warmth in the voice calling out to me.
“Someone as unwell as yourself… how have you come to this place?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly.
It seemed to puzzle him that I, once called a living corpse, had walked here on my own two feet.
But I had no intention of satisfying his curiosity.
“I don’t believe I owe you an explanation for such things.”
I spoke coldly and gestured for him to step aside, and the Household Steward’s face grew even more rigid.
“This is no place for a young lady to enter.”
Yet I did not retreat a single step, lifting my chin instead.
“I’ve come to see my grandfather.”
The steward’s eyebrows twitched faintly.
“Today is a day of celebration for the household head’s return. At present, the master is meeting with young lord Yeon So Taek before the festivities commence. There has been an order that you are to be excluded from the event due to your poor health.”
He spoke as if stating the most obvious of facts.
As though my lack of right to enter the Main Hall had been ordained by the Absolute Rules of Yak Ryeong Ga long ago.
The reason he treated me this way was transparent.
My uncle, Yeon So Taek.
In my past life, I came to learn that whenever Grandfather returned, he deliberately reduced the medicine given to me, worsening my condition.
Grandfather always visited my quarters after the family’s events concluded.
But each time, I was so gravely ill that I scarcely retained consciousness.
I had no memory of ever truly facing him.
Then one night in my past life.
I happened to overhear a conversation.
“Contact with outsiders only worsens the condition, Father.”
“Since we cannot determine the cause of the illness, it is best to eliminate risk factors to the utmost.”
“For now, we have no choice but to preserve what strength remains.”
Yeon So Taek was wielding plausible words to drive a wedge between Grandfather and me.
Thus, Grandfather gradually ceased seeking me out.
Even on the one day each year he returned home.
I became known as someone who had fallen from the household head’s favor, and the family began to treat me with increasing coldness, as if they had been waiting for just such an opportunity.
Of course, I had no intention of submitting to it this time.
I slowly raised my hand.
Though the blood had half-dried, the wound was unmistakably clear to any eye.
“This requires immediate treatment.”
“Miss, that is…”
“A patient’s needs come first.”
I opened my eyes wide and put force into my voice.
I had glimpsed Grandfather appearing from within the Main Hall.
“Are you prepared to violate the Absolute Rules of Yak Ryeong Ga?”
In an instant, the air around us shifted.
The steward’s tightly sealed lips trembled slightly, and a low murmur rippled through the servants.
I deliberately clenched my fist hard.
The wound torn open by the porcelain shard split anew, and crimson droplets of blood welled up.
To turn away a bleeding patient.
That would directly contradict Yak Ryeong Ga’s very purpose.
Even if my despicable uncle and his people might overlook it, my grandfather—a man of rigid principle—could not possibly be ignorant of such a rule.
The steward’s eyes wavered.
“…Miss, I shall have attendants tend to your wound here.”
“The Main Hall is the nearest place, and Grandfather is inside—why should it be otherwise?”
…!
“Open the way for me to see Grandfather at once.”
I made an effort to speak as quietly and clearly as possible.
It was then.
“Enough of this noise.”
A voice sharp as a blade cut through the Main Hall.
The steward, along with all those gathered around me, spun about in alarm.
Before the Main Hall stood an elderly man with a long white beard flowing down his chest.
With his weathered face and piercing green eyes alone, he dominated the space around him.
At the sudden appearance of the household head, the air froze solid.
Everyone bowed their heads in unison.
Yeon Baek Yu.
My grandfather, and the patriarch of Yak Ryeong Ga.
A man renowned throughout the Cheon Myeong Kingdom as the finest physician of his age.

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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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