The Terminally Ill Youngest Daughter of a Medical Dynasty Is a Genius Physician - Chapter 48

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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 48
Byeok Cheongyeon gazed down at his own body with utter composure.
“Does it startle you?”
“These scars……”
As my words trailed away, he answered without emotion.
“They’re from the trials of the Geomcheon Family.”
“Trials?”
His blue eyes dimmed for a moment.
“The trials to become the successor.”
I found myself staring again at the countless scars that marked his body.
The marks were far too deep to have come from any trial a twelve-year-old should endure.
“Scars this severe……from that?”
Byeok Cheongyeon fell silent for a time. Then he lightly traced one of the older scars with his fingertip.
“They took a year.”
“……”
“I had to keep fighting to survive.”
His voice was remarkably steady.
“And I wasn’t facing strangers with the blade.”
His blue eyes grew quietly distant.
“It was my brothers.”
I found myself without words.
I couldn’t know how brutal the Geomcheon Family’s trials were. I couldn’t know what suffering each scar represented, what endurance it had demanded.
So I couldn’t possibly claim to understand.
I could only recognize one truth: this small body before me had borne far more pain than I could fathom.
Byeok Cheongyeon suddenly opened his mouth.
“It’s hideous, isn’t it?”
The question sounded less like an inquiry and more like the words of someone who had already decided on the answer.
“Everyone makes that face when they first see it.”
He looked down at his own body without interest.
“You’ll think the same.”
I frowned slightly.
“No.”
His gaze shifted to me.
“Not at all.”
I kept my eyes on the scars themselves.
Yes, they were hideous. Yes, they were terrible.
But how could I possibly judge someone’s suffering so carelessly?
I, too, had spent my entire life under the weight of countless stares—all because of a sickly body I couldn’t change.
So I knew at least one thing.
“A scar is……”
I chose my words carefully.
“A mark of survival.”
“……”
“You suffered greatly, didn’t you?”
His pupils trembled ever so slightly.
I picked up the cloth soaked in medicine and carefully laid it over the wound.
“But you lived through it.”
“Isn’t an ugly scar just an ugly scar, regardless?”
He spoke flatly, but I shook my head.
“Not in front of me. Please don’t say such things.”
“Why?”
“Because I am a physician tending to my patient’s wounds.”
The room fell silent.
Byeok Cheongyeon watched me without speaking for a long moment.
Those blue eyes, so coldly composed, trembled now—just barely perceptible.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“I do.”
I answered without hesitation.
It was just as I reached to apply more medicine to his scars.

Byeok Cheongyeon spoke in a low voice.
“You.”
“Yes?”
“You care for others’ wounds so carefully, yet you won’t tend to your own. Why?”
Her hands stilled.
“My wounds?”
“Your body. I’m talking about your body.”
His gaze dropped to her slender wrists.
“You look as though you might collapse at any moment, and yet you do nothing but worry about others.”
I blinked.
Then I laughed softly.
“Are you perhaps concerned about me?”
Byeok Cheongyeon’s expression hardened in an instant.
“That’s absurd.”
“Well then, I’m relieved.”
……
I returned to cleaning the wounds as I spoke.
“I’m protecting myself in my own way.”
“How?”
“By mastering the Medical Arts, I will survive.”
My hands paused for a moment.
“And in doing so, I can protect those around me as well.”
Byeok Cheongyeon said nothing more after that.
After applying medicine to the last wound, I pushed the decoction toward him.
“Now, drink your medicine.”
Byeok Cheongyeon stared at me intently.
“Why?”
“It’s nothing.”
He took the medicine bowl and drained it in one gulp.
This time, it was Byeok Cheongyeon who averted his eyes first.
I caught his expression and smiled slightly at the corner of my mouth.
For just a moment, he looked like a boy his own age.
* * *
After that day, my routine revolved almost entirely around treating Byeok Cheongyeon—except for my Medical Arts lessons.
Each morning, I would visit Yangsaeng-gak first thing and take his pulse.
After class, I searched through the medicine storehouse records on poison plants and antidotes.
At night, I would document the day’s pulse readings and any changes in his condition.
Every prescription I prepared was verified by my father.
Only after his approval would I adjust the dosages or attempt a new formula.
‘I will find the answer.’
In this lifetime, this was the first patient I had been entrusted with from beginning to end.
I didn’t want to miss even the smallest change.
“Good morning, Master Byeok.”
“So you’re here again.”
After several days, Byeok Cheongyeon seemed quite accustomed to my daily visits.
I moved my brush across the bamboo slip.
Changes in the pulse. Sensation in the arm. The amount of medicine consumed and the response that followed.
I recorded each detail one by one, then reviewed the slip once more.
“Take this decoction three times today.”
I pushed the medicine toward him.
“Avoid spicy and greasy foods for the time being.”
……
“And don’t sleep with pressure on your right arm.”
“Understood.”
“And refrain from Sword Arts for now.”
Only then did Byeok Cheongyeon look up.
“That’s not acceptable.”
“It’s necessary all the same.”
……
“Don’t so much as touch a sword until the sensation fully returns to your right arm.”
Byeok Cheongyeon’s eyebrows twitched.
I pretended not to notice and added another line to the bamboo slip.
“If you won’t listen, I’ll tell your father.”
“……How petty.”
“The patient won’t listen to me.”
Byeok Cheongyeon regarded me with displeasure, but in the end said nothing more.
I smiled a little to myself.
‘He’ll listen, though.’
From what I’d observed these past few days, that much was certain.
No matter how gruff his words, he never skipped his medicine, and he applied himself earnestly to his treatment.
I looked back down at the bamboo slip.
Then I rubbed my tired eyes lightly with the back of my hand.
* * *
That day, the numbness in Byeok Cheongyeon’s right arm had grown slightly worse than the day before.
To check whether his condition was worsening overnight, I decided to stay at Yangsaeng-gak late into the evening and monitor his state.
As night deepened.
Byeok Cheongyeon woke from sleep as a throbbing ache crept up his arm.
A faint lamp lit the room. He turned his gaze without thinking.
In front of a small desk.
Ryeong-hwa lay sprawled asleep, the brush still clutched in her hand.
The bamboo slip was covered densely with notes of the day’s pulse readings and the medicine’s effects.
Traces of several corrections marked the surface.
‘……Truly relentless.’
Byeok Cheongyeon gazed at her for a long while.
It was strange to see a child so stubbornly devoted to a single patient.
Then suddenly, an old memory surfaced.
Beneath a dim lamp.
Hands stitching clothes worn deep into the night. A face smiling, saying it was fine, even as a dry cough came.
“It’s all right, Cheongyeon. Mother isn’t in pain.”
Byeok Cheongyeon’s brow furrowed faintly.
“What do you mean it’s all right.”
A low murmur escaped him.
He hated people who thought of others first and insisted they were fine until the end.
People who neglected themselves that way.
And then left you behind.
“……And then you’ll just abandon me.”
Then Ryeong-hwa curled her body slightly. Her shoulders trembled in the cold night air.
Byeok Cheongyeon watched for a moment, then clicked his tongue softly.
“……See.”
He finally rose from the bed.
He took a thin light blanket and carefully draped it over Ryeong-hwa’s shoulders.
Ryeong-hwa’s furrowed brow eased slightly.
Byeok Cheongyeon gazed down at her for a moment, then returned to his bed.
Yet strangely, sleep would not come.
That was when it happened.
Whoosh—.
Something sharp cut through the air outside the window.
Byeok Cheongyeon’s eyes snapped open.
The drowsiness that lingered moments before vanished in an instant.
His gaze fixed on the dark window.
‘Someone’s out there.’

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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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