The Terminally Ill Youngest Daughter of a Medical Dynasty Is a Genius Physician - Chapter 64

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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 64
“We’ll prepare thoroughly and depart three days hence.”
The departure for the Jeok Ryeong Mountain Range was set for three days later.
In the meantime, the Yak Ryeong-ga underwent its share of upheaval.
Elder Nam Jin-o and Elder Ju Yeon-seok departed first to investigate problems unfolding on the northern front, while my brother Yeon Hui-cheon, under disciplinary confinement, was barred from Medical Student Hall classes and practical training, relegated instead to basic cultivation studies in the Medicinal Preparation Hall.
The Elder Hall itself fell into constant turmoil, caught between Yeon Hui-cheon’s troubles and Byeok Cheong-yeon’s poison crisis alike.
The corridors, normally teeming with medical students and physicians, had taken on an unmistakable air of tension.
Yet apart from all that, there was one thing that kept nagging at me.
‘Jeok Yeon-hu…….’
I kept crossing paths with him with uncanny frequency.
The first time was as I was leaving the Medical Student Hall.
“Are your classes finished?”
At the familiar voice, I stopped and turned to see Jeok Yeon-hu walking toward me from across the corridor.
He carried several books in one hand—I couldn’t say where he’d gotten them.
“Jeok Branch Family Head?”
“Yeong-hwa.”
Jeok Yeon-hu gave a slight bow. I glanced at the books in his hands.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’ve just come from the Library.”
“The Library?”
“The Yak Ryeong-ga has a guest archive accessible to outsiders, I’ve learned. I had something to verify before we depart for the Jeok Ryeong Mountain Range.”
It was a plausible answer.
I regarded him with suspicious eyes, but Jeok Yeon-hu offered no further explanation.
He simply greeted me as one might a stranger met by chance, and passed by my side.
At the time, I thought little of it.
It wasn’t strange for a guest staying at the Yak Ryeong-ga to visit the archives.
But the next day, I encountered him again near the annex where medicinal herbs were stored.
This time he was in conversation with one of the Yak Ryeong-ga’s physicians.
“……Jeok Branch Family Head?”
At my voice, Jeok Yeon-hu turned.
“We meet again.”
“Indeed we do.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was inquiring about some herbs that grow on the Jeok Ryeong Mountain Range.”
The physician beside him nodded.
“The Branch Family Head was asking several questions about the mountain’s flora, and I was providing some explanation.”
“Ah…….”
With such a ready explanation, I couldn’t press further.
Yet strangely, that day I ran into Jeok Yeon-hu more often than usual.
Once in the Back Garden.
Once in the corridor leading to the Elder Hall.
And I even spotted him near the Healing Quarters where Byeok Cheong-yeon was staying.
Taken individually, there was nothing peculiar about any of these encounters.
He was the Branch Family Head of the Jeok-hyeon Family, and he was the very person who would guide us to the Jeok Ryeong Mountain Range in a few days.
But.
‘He seems to be moving through the Yak Ryeong-ga awfully thoroughly.’
His movements were too wide-ranging for simple preparation for a mountain expedition.
Of course, each time there was a plausible reason.
……Which made me even more uneasy.
It was as though he were deliberately manufacturing excuses to explore every corner of the Yak Ryeong-ga.
Then came the day before our departure.
After finishing my medical student lessons, as I walked the corridor, I spotted that familiar red hair once more.
I couldn’t hold back any longer and called out to him first.
“Jeok Branch Family Head!”
Jeok Yeon-hu stopped.
“Ah, Yeong-hwa.”
“You’ve caught me at a good moment. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask.”
His eyebrows rose ever so slightly.
“Please, ask anything you wish.”
So we walked side by side through the corridor, natural as anything.
I studied Jeok Yeon-hu for a moment—smaller than I remembered—before venturing cautiously into speech.
“……Is the path to where the Antidote Herb grows very dangerous?”
“There are some stretches where the mountain trail grows steep.”
“Dangerous enough to slip and fall?”
Jeok Yeon-hu’s gaze turned toward me.
“It could be, if one doesn’t know the way.”
“And you know that path well, Branch Family Head?”
“I do.”
I blinked like a child who understood nothing at all.
“Then I only need to follow you carefully.”
At that, a faint smile crossed Jeok Yeon-hu’s lips.
“Indeed you do.”
We were both smiling, but neither of us truly trusted the other in what we were saying.
Jeok Yeon-hu seemed to sense, at least partly, that I was probing for something.
“But Branch Family Head Jeok.”
“Yes?”
“How is it you know so much about the Antidote Herb?”
This time I asked more directly.
But Jeok Yeon-hu’s eyes widened as if he couldn’t quite understand why I’d be curious about that.
“It grows in the Jeok-hyeon Family’s territory.”
It was an answer without a moment’s hesitation.
“……Still, it’s not as though a Branch Family Head would often have occasion to examine poisonous plants or medicinal herbs directly.”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
“Why not?”
“The Jeok-hyeon Family teaches all heirs the fundamentals of medicinal herbs, poisonous plants, and minerals found within our territory.”
Jeok Yeon-hu explained with measured calm.
“Especially since the Jeok Ryeong Mountain Range holds many rare medicinal and poisonous herbs, any successor must learn at least the basic types and their distribution.”
“You memorize all of that?”
“The essentials, at least.”
It sounded plausible.
In fact, it rang so natural that there seemed nowhere left to probe further.
As I fell silent in thought, this time Jeok Yeon-hu posed a question.
“Yeong-hwa.”
“Yes?”
“Are you testing me right now?”
A start.
Yet I didn’t so much as blink.
“Me? Why would I?”
“Your questions are rather thorough.”
“I’ve always been curious about a lot of things.”
As I played innocent, Jeok Yeon-hu gave an oblique smile.
“……You haven’t changed much from before.”
I stopped walking.
“From before?”
Now that he mentioned it, Jeok Yeon-hu and I had seen each other a few times when we were very young.
The bloodline members of the Four Noble Families would exchange visits and greetings at year-end and year-beginning, so there was nothing strange about it.
But through the cycles of my reincarnations, I’d retained almost no memory of those days.
‘Is he speaking of that time?’
Jeok Yeon-hu also stopped. Just as he was opening his mouth to say something.
“Jeok Yeon-hu.”
A low voice came from ahead.
I turned to see Byeok Cheong-yeon walking toward us.
His stride was steady enough that it was hard to believe this was the man who had collapsed so suddenly days ago.
Yet his complexion still seemed not entirely restored.
His right arm too still moved with a certain sluggishness.
“Branch Family Head Byeok.”
As I started to approach, Byeok Cheong-yeon spoke first.
“It’s fine.”
“I haven’t even said anything yet.”
“I think he’ll just tell me to go rest again.”
“That’s only natural.”
“See? There it is.”
Byeok Cheong-yeon clicked his tongue softly.
Jeok Yeon-hu, who had been listening to our exchange for a moment, opened his mouth.
“Are you feeling well enough?”
Byeok Cheong-yeon’s gaze fixed on him at once.
“Whether I am or not, that’s hardly your concern.”
“I wasn’t expressing concern.”
“I thought as much.”
Their conversation carried an edge to it, though I couldn’t quite place why.
I glanced between them both.
‘Were they never on good terms?’
They clearly knew each other, yet they didn’t seem close—not by any measure.
Byeok Cheong-yeon’s eyes drifted to the books Jeok Yeon-hu was holding.
“So you’ve been accessing the Library here at Yak Ryeong-ga?”
“Only with permission, and only what I’m using.”
“The Jeok-hyeon Family must be running short on texts.”
“Is it not better to learn from other families when there is knowledge to be gained?”
……
He didn’t yield an inch.
I felt suddenly exhausted standing between them.
“Do the two of you know each other already?”
“We do know each other.”
Byeok Cheong-yeon answered curtly.
“Though I’d rather not.”
Jeok Yeon-hu laughed easily.
“The feeling is mutual.”
‘Yeah, these two really don’t get along.’
Then Byeok Cheong-yeon turned his gaze toward me.
“But why are you with Jeok Yeon-hu?”
“Me? I had something I wanted to ask him before heading to the mountain.”
I gave him a brief account of what we’d been discussing.
The terrain around where the Haedok-cho grows, the characteristics of the herb itself.
And how I’d been asking him various questions about how he came to know of that plant in the first place.
Byeok Cheong-yeon listened in silence, then his expression hardened.
“Are you really planning to go yourself?”
“Yes.”
……
His brow furrowed faintly.

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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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