The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim

First week of August.

It’s already been a month since I boldly opened my practice.

The scorching sun beat down through the large south-facing windows of my spacious treatment room.

“Wow~ What beautiful weather!”

If only it would rain, I could blame that.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and not a hair of a patient in sight at the clinic.

“Haaah.”

I let out a deep sigh.

I had opened with minimal expenses, but I still spent 20 million won I’d saved from tutoring during college, plus a 40 million won loan. In other words, loan interest and commercial rent were still going out at this very moment.

I also had to pay employee wages, management fees, gas bills, electricity bills, and so on…

‘Money is evaporating even as we speak.’

Aaargh!

Why on earth did I make this choice?

Impulsive opening? Can these two words even be used together?

If I had just stuck to Hwang Seoyoung’s place doing nothing, I could have become a top-ranked player with that money!

“Location… is important. Yeah.”

I shouldn’t have rushed into opening.

No, even if I did, I should have contacted Hwang Sanghun, who confidently said he’d look after me, before signing the contract.

Then I wouldn’t have come all the way to Busan and taken a place that requires climbing a hill.

“I didn’t even realize this was a slope…”

Even when I read the earth veins, the flow of qi was very good.

In terms of feng shui, it was an excellent location with mountains behind and water in front.

It was also good for building inner strength in my spare time, so I thought it was perfect when I first saw it.

“To think people can’t come up without a car for just 5 minutes.”

Hwang Seoyoung, who came down with me on the train as soon as I told her the news, was horrified when she saw the location.

– There are many apartment complexes nearby, and no other Korean medicine clinics?

– Normal people don’t consider a place that requires a 0.7km hike to be “nearby”!

In fact, she even had to take a break halfway up here.

It was a reason I couldn’t have imagined.

This is practically next door compared to how far it was from civilization.

No, I’ve had patients come to clinics hours deep in the mountains!

But no matter what I said, there was no way modern people would casually traverse a 0.7km slope.

‘Aaargh!’

I silently screamed as I spun around in my tilted-back chair.

Suddenly, my eyes fell on the culprit that made me open impulsively.

‘That person, if it weren’t for that book!’

The autobiography of someone I had admired for a very brief moment.

I picked it up.

Why did I read this so earnestly?

No, come to think of it, I don’t think it actually said to do business like this…

“Aack! I don’t know!”

Whoosh!

I immediately incinerated the book I was holding with the Sammaejinhwa (Three Mysteries True Fire).

Somehow, it felt like patients weren’t coming because there was an ominous object in the treatment room.

After obliterating the autobiography without a trace, I put on my white coat and transformed into the image of a kind Korean medicine doctor.

“I should practice some qigong.”

I opened the window and took a deep breath.

So what if it’s quiet? It’s not like I’m running at a loss… right?

I cleared my mind of a certain individual and began to meditate.

Ding~

A moment later, I heard someone enter the clinic.

“Oh!”

I jumped up, cleared the screen saver, and looked at the chart.

‘Kim Yijin, 19 years old. Knee problems?’

The information entered at reception popped up.

The address field showed an apartment complex about a 5-minute walk away for me.

‘Great. They live nearby!’

The only patients I’d had so far were hikers who had sprained their ankles while climbing the nearby mountain.

Half of them recovered instantly thanks to my exceptional treatment.

The other half were satisfied with the significant pain reduction but didn’t revisit, opting for clinics right in front of their homes instead of coming all the way here.

But a patient living nearby might come often and even bring friends!

“Hello.”

A tall girl with a husky voice greeted me as she entered the treatment room.

Wow, I’m tall too, but she must be at least 180cm!

“Hello~ Please have a seat over here!”

I smiled brightly, determined to win over this friend’s heart.

‘Her physique, posture, and clear energy, something feels familiar…’

The girl, who strangely exuded the aura of a Murim person, awkwardly nodded and sat in the chair I indicated.

◆◇◆◇◆

While injuries are said to be the fate of athletes, Kim Yijin had lived a life avoiding that fate for quite a long time.

“Our daughter is so tough! Haha, she was really born for this. I must have played basketball just to see Yijin win medals!”

There was no doubt about the word “tough”.

Of course, it’s not that she had never been hurt.

But unlike her friends who would suffer for a long time from even a slight sprain, she would recover in a day or two even when she fell after colliding with other players.

‘Ugh.’

So, even when she felt a twinge while landing, she didn’t think much of it.

‘It’ll get better soon. I can still do more, it wouldn’t be giving my all if I rested for something like this.’

Kim Yijin participated in training and games as if nothing was wrong. She didn’t want to appear dramatic by plastering herself with pain patches.

And indeed, the pain subsided after a few days.

“I thought it had healed completely… Sigh.”

But then it recurred. And got better again.

This cycle repeated several times.

“Shoot! Three points… Oh!?”

“……”

Eventually, disaster struck.

Between cheers and jeers, she crouched down, hugging her knee.

“Yijin?”

“Captain, are you okay?”

She had made a mistake in an important game.

“Kim Yijin, let me see that knee right now.”

The coach, noticing something off about her landing posture, questioned her.

“How long has it been like this?”

“…I don’t remember exactly.”

“A captain hiding an injury!”

It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to play in this game. The coach was furious.

“You can’t even bend it properly. No training until treatment is complete!”

Only then did she realize how bad her knee condition had become.

‘…I should have gotten treatment right away.’

Banned even from attending basketball club activities, she got an earful from her teammates too.

She had to go to the hospital.

She told her father exactly what had happened.

“You’re not faking it, are you?”

Her father, a believer in toughness, took her to a big hospital in Seomyeon with equal parts suspicion and worry.

The entire building was an orthopedic hospital. It had three floors of inpatient rooms and rehabilitation facilities she had only seen on TV.

They waited there for a long time to see a doctor and took X-rays and CT scans as instructed.

“We’d need an MRI to see the ligaments accurately, but it looks like an anterior cruciate ligament tear.”

“What?!”

The doctor pointed at the computer screen. Of course, she couldn’t understand what the black and white image meant.

Except that it was a very serious situation.

“Let’s set a surgery date. Older people sometimes just live with it, but you’re young, so ligament reconstruction is the right choice.”

Her head spun at the word “surgery”.

Her father asked the doctor a few questions, but there was only one thing she wanted to know.

“Um, if I have surgery, can I go back to playing right away?”

“Absolutely not. You need to rest and focus on rehabilitation for at least 3 months, possibly up to 6 months.”

The father and daughter left the hospital without setting a surgery date.

Her father was greatly indignant.

“It must be a hospital that performs unnecessary surgeries and charges big money through excessive treatment!”

Led by her father, she ended up getting examined again at a small orthopedic clinic in their neighborhood.

“Hmm? It’s not completely torn. Partial tears don’t always require surgery, but those big hospitals… Let’s try a conservative approach first.”

The older doctor here prescribed muscle relaxants and painkillers, suggesting they observe the progress with physical therapy.

Her father was very satisfied with this diagnosis, and Kim Yijin was glad too.

For about a month, she went to the hospital every single day for physical therapy.

The treatment involved attaching four cup-like objects to her knee, which emitted a crackling electric current.

“Huh? Didn’t you come yesterday too? You’re so young, what’s ailing you?”

One day, an old lady who came to the hospital almost daily like her struck up a conversation.

“I hurt my knee playing basketball.”

“Oh my! Why would a young lady do such a violent sport?”

“It just turned out that way. What’s troubling you, ma’am?”

“Oh, I’ve been like this for 40 years! It’s been bad ever since I had my fifth child. I’ve done farming and business, so it’s understandable.”

“You’ve been through a lot… Is the treatment helping?”

“Treatment at over 70? I don’t expect anything. I come because I have nothing else to do.”

Kim Yijin looked around.

Half the beds were occupied, all by people over 60. She hadn’t looked closely at their faces, but the grandfathers and grandmothers who came regularly didn’t seem much different.

She hadn’t seen the doctor since the first day, and her knee showed no signs of improvement.

‘…It’ll get better, right? I’m tough, after all.’

While she was feeling down, a friend of her father, who was a professional player, visited their home.

“The coach must be discriminating against our daughter. What’s the big deal about hurting her knee a little, not letting her come to the basketball club for a month!”

“If she injured her cruciate ligament, she does need treatment. Something serious could happen.”

“She’s been playing just fine without exaggerating until now. What if she loses her touch?”

“Hey, don’t be like that. Why don’t you send her to a Korean medicine clinic? I go there right away whenever I have even a slight pain, and it’s really good.”

Korean medicine clinic?

Hearing those words, she suddenly remembered the clinic she had seen while hiking in the nearby mountain.

‘Seongsu Korean Medicine Clinic. Graduated from Korea University College of Korean Medicine. Seems the doctor came from Seoul.’

It wouldn’t be as expensive as the first hospital, right? She entered the clinic with some worry.

“Yes, Ms. Kim Yijin. You’re having knee problems. How did you hear about our clinic?”

The receptionist greeted Kim Yijin warmly.

The interior didn’t look much different from other hospitals she had been to so far.

“I just had a good feeling about it and remembered.”

But somehow, a strangely refreshing energy seemed to emanate from inside.

Kim Yijin was guided to the treatment room without waiting as soon as she finished registration.

“Hello~”

Oh, it’s a female doctor? She lowered her guard a bit.

Unlike the previous doctors who had seemed indifferent, this director welcomed Kim Yijin with an incredibly bright smile.

“When did it start bothering you?”

“I’m not sure exactly when. I think I hurt it playing basketball…”

“Oh my, how cool! Are you a player?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Such precious knees, you must have been so worried!”

The Korean medicine doctor asked very detailed questions about how she injured her knee and what treatments she had received.

It was different from the first doctor who just repeated that she needed surgery while looking at the computer, and the second doctor who spoke in terse sentences.

“You must want to get better quickly and go back to playing.”

“Yes. I… want to participate in my last high school athletics competition.”

As she said those words, something welled up in her chest.

She had thought she was fine. Even as she tried to calm herself, thinking it would get better with treatment, she had always felt anxious and frustrated.

‘I wanted to heal quickly. I wanted to play basketball.’

The director nodded and gave her a gentle smile.

“I’ll do my best to help you achieve that. Let’s start with a few tests.”

Even though nothing had been done yet, somehow a sense of relief washed over her.

◆◇◆◇◆

I smiled brightly.

‘I wondered why she had such a sage-like aura, so she’s an athlete.’

From the moment Kim Yijin entered the treatment room, I was reminded of the masters from Hwasan or Mudan. That untainted celestial energy unique to those who have grown up in the mountains, practicing from childhood? Her attitude was also brusque, like disciples who had just come out to the outside world.

I carefully approached her and drew out her story.

‘Got it!’

I raised the corners of my mouth as I saw the spark in her eyes while talking about sports.

‘This child is now my patient.’

I had her lie down on the bed and began the examination.