The Physician of Traditional Medicine Returns from Murim

The moment Jo Haneul stepped onto the platform, he stepped on a coin that had flown in from somewhere.

“Waaaahh!”

And with a spectacular sound, he slid across the floor.

He skidded about 50 centimeters before landing squarely on his behind.

“Oops~”

I followed him through the front door he had opened, brushing right past him.

As I looked down at Jo Haneul sitting there, rubbing his lower back, I didn’t forget to throw in a comment.

“Why are you doing outdated slapstick comedy?”

Jo Haneul whipped his head around to glare at me, so I, who had habitually tried to retrieve the coin using the Empty Sky Object Grasping technique, hid my hand and grinned.

“Haneul hyung, are you okay?”

Jo Haneul’s friend came over to help him up, but the more he tried, the redder Jo Haneul’s face became.

“O-Of course I’m fine.”

“Who left a coin on the floor? Did you twist your ankle?”

“It’s nothing. I’m perfectly fine. How did they clean during the break?”

He got up, huffing unnecessarily, but the more he protested, the more ridiculous it seemed.

“Um, what’s going on here?”

Not long after, the professor returned to the classroom with the class representative. Both of their hands were full of exam papers.

“Nothing… at all.”

Jo Haneul couldn’t say anything and returned to his seat.

“Put all your books away. Just take it casually, based on your usual abilities.”

I grinned as I twirled my pen.

Usual abilities, huh?

Rustle.

I triumphantly turned the first page of the paper.

◆◇◆◇◆

‘……’

Not even five minutes had passed before I found myself tearing at my hair.

If all the dozens or hundreds of types of patients mentioned in the exam were brought before me, I wouldn’t have had any problem at all.

Accurate diagnosis, thorough treatment, even advice for management! I was confident I could provide perfect care without missing a single thing.

But having to choose from five multiple-choice options?

‘The main symptom is sleep disorder, but what’s with these options? Am I supposed to diagnose based on the pulse and pattern identification? Since it’s a deficiency pattern, I’ll rule out Gentiana Combination…’

Without being able to freely inquire, the given information was woefully inadequate.

‘There’s actually a much better method than this in practice.’ ‘Herbal decoctions aren’t that meaningful for this kind of illness.’ Once I started nitpicking with such thoughts, there was no end to it.

‘There’s only 20 minutes left?!’

By the time I barely grasped how to approach the problems, the allotted time had vanished in an instant. The only option left was to apply the process of elimination to all questions.

I hurriedly solved the problems, striking out options one by one.

At least the questions asking to choose herbal prescriptions based on symptoms were manageable.

– Which of the following is the dried heartwood of Caesalpinia Sappan L. used to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis?

For questions demanding such simple knowledge…

‘How am I supposed to know the origin of a plant? Is this even a valid question?’

There was no other way.

‘I don’t know, just pick number 4!’

In the end, the best strategy was to choose the number that appeared least frequently.

“I’ll collect the exam papers now~”

While I might not lag behind my peers or even the professors in practical experience, academic knowledge was a different story entirely.

I may have read medical texts to the point of nausea in that world, but Korea has its own exam methods. It was hard to consider classical medical texts and studying for exams as the same discipline.

“Ugh…”

I barely finished marking and submitted the exam paper. I was confident in less than a third of the questions I answered.

My head spun.

After all that showing off earlier, what if I have to take a retest?

I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up.

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought, right? It didn’t seem too different from the national exam format.”

“I… guess so.”

This kind of thing appears on the national exam too?

‘Surely… I don’t have to worry about passing, do I?’

Just swallowing made my stomach burn.

“More importantly, that was totally satisfying.”

Hwang Seoyoung, who hadn’t even considered that I might have bombed the test, whispered in my ear. I turned my head in the direction she was nodding towards and saw Jo Haneul.

“Hmm.”

While Hwang Seoyoung felt vindicated, Jo Haneul, unfortunately, didn’t seem deflated at all.

Having had to return to his seat without a word due to the professor’s arrival, he was, as expected, belatedly drawing attention in a corner of the classroom.

Hwang Sanghun, Jo Haneul’s best friend and the second-highest ranked student last semester, pulled up a chair for Jo Haneul and rolled up his pants.

“Does it hurt here? Around the anterior talofibular ligament?”

“Ah, yeah.”

As Hwang Sanghun pressed on his ankle, Jo Haneul nodded vigorously. Soon, he pulled out an acupuncture needle that had been rolling around somewhere on the desk, causing a few classmates to glance their way.

“I’ll start with the Qiuxu point.”

He was making a big show of performing the most basic ankle treatment.

‘He’s clearly fine.’

I had clearly seen him slide and land on his backside without twisting his ankle.

If anything was hurting, it would be his lower back or tailbone, but since he couldn’t expose his behind in the classroom, he was probably just putting on an act.

“Ugh, what a show-off.”

Hwang Seoyoung voiced exactly what I was thinking.

Does he think he’s part of the F4 or something, strutting around with the somewhat good-looking Hwang Sanghun and two lackeys?

‘Now that I look at him, he’s really not all that.’

Maybe it’s because I’ve grown accustomed to the faces of my master, who was known as the beauty of Sichuan, and the Heavenly Demon, who was called the Flower-Faced Asura before ascending to the position of sect leader?

Even Hwang Sanghun, whom I used to think was quite handsome, now looked like nothing more than a squid to my eyes.

Yet Hwang Sanghun frequently appeared on community boards with titles like “Does ○○○ from the Korean Medicine department have a girlfriend?”

“Wow, you’re really good at this~”

But regardless of my opinion, the class representative’s voice rose noticeably at the end.

Right, they were quite popular.

Jo Haneul is the son of the CEO of a well-known network of Korean medicine clinics, and Hwang Sanghun’s grandfather runs a large Korean medicine hospital. With the two of them alternately holding the top spot, how could they not be?

Jo Haneul, Hwang Sanghun, and the other two who always hung out with them. Only Hwang Seoyoung and I considered them thorns in our sides.

“Let them have their fun. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Sure. What should we eat?”

We turned away as if we’d seen something unpleasant and left the school.

“Kimchi stew.”

“How many days in a row are you going to eat kimchi stew?”

“I really craved it while in China.”

“Even if you couldn’t eat it for two months, you’ve already had it at least five times this week!”

I scratched my head but took the lead, and Hwang Seoyoung followed, grumbling.

“It feels weird not having afternoon classes. Until last semester, we usually finished around 6 PM.”

“I know, right?”

The food arrived quickly.

“Ah, so refreshing!”

“Ahjussi, you’re totally done for.”

I let out an exclamation reminiscent of the Heavenly Demon before I could stop myself, then caught myself.

In truth, my real age was probably closer to those middle-aged men drinking in the middle of the day over there than to Hwang Seoyoung.

“Want to go to a cafe?”

Hwang Seoyoung asked as soon as we finished eating. Normally, going to a cafe after a meal would be the usual course of action, but…

“Ah, I was planning to go to the library. Let’s go to the cafe another time.”

I declined today.

Forget about being the top student, I might end up being the 1% that drops Korea University’s national exam pass rate to 99%.

I can’t face such humiliation right after returning to Korea.

“The library?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re going to study from the first day of the semester? Are you serious?”

Hwang Seoyoung blinked in disbelief.

“Dead serious.”

I nodded.

I’m not exaggerating, I really need to study 16 hours a day.

“Hey, there’s still over two months until the graduation exam!”

That’s what I thought until just a while ago too.

Not realizing that unlike my classmates who only needed to review last semester’s material, I had to relearn six years’ worth of studies.

◆◇◆◇◆

Leaving behind a shocked Hwang Seoyoung, I came to the central library.

As expected, there weren’t many students sitting in the library from 2 PM on the first day of the semester.

“It’s nice and empty. Not a single classmate in sight.”

Forget classmates, there were hardly any students from other departments either. Only a few people, presumably preparing for certifications or civil service exams, were scribbling away in the reading room.

“Of course not.”

Hwang Seoyoung whispered in a low voice, still following me despite herself.

She could have gone home first, but did she secretly want to study too?

I sat down in a corner seat and immediately started searching through the school homepage and group message rooms.

I said I’d study, but I was in a position where I needed to check what subjects we even had first.

[This is all the exams we have.]

A notification popped up on my phone.

Hwang Seoyoung had sent me a file summarizing the list of exams and assignments for the second semester of our fourth year.

Checking it, I saw that unlike previous semesters where classes were packed from 9 AM to 6 PM, the credit hours were significantly reduced.

The curriculum and hospital internships were essentially completed by the first semester of the fourth year. The last semester was left mostly open to prepare for the national exam in January.

There were classes called and , but the former was simple memorization, and the latter was a light class where professors from each department shared their clinical treatment stories.

‘The only professors who give separate exams for the Clinical Special Lecture are the ones for herbal medicine and acupuncture who tested us on the first day… Ugh, what bad luck.’

Anyway, among all the graded exams, the one with the most weight was undoubtedly the graduation exam.

‘Hmm.’

The graduation exam was a kind of mock test with the same subjects and number of questions as the national exam, slightly more difficult than the actual national exam.

It was a system designed for the school to weed out students likely to fail, all for the sake of hanging up that “100% National Exam Pass Rate” banner.

Of course, it wouldn’t be easy for me, who might end up being that 1%, but still.

‘I’ll start with the first session subject.’

I thanked Hwang Seoyoung for sending the file and was about to start studying right away.

[Thanks.]

[Hey, wait a second]

But Hwang Seoyoung stopped me.

[For the Clinical Special Lecture on acupuncture, it’s a bit tricky without the answer key.]

[?]

I sent a single question mark and checked the file again. The exam format written there didn’t seem difficult at all.

– Acupuncture Medicine Exam (Professor Kim Seongcheol) – Draw a slip with 4 random acupoints written on it and perform acupuncture

You just need to do the acupuncture, right? What, are they going to check down to 0.1cm accuracy?

[They say only certain points come up.]

[??]

I typed two question marks.

So, the random isn’t really random, but the same points come up every year?

[So all the seniors who’ve taken the test already know?]

[Yeah. But seniors who graduated more than 6 months ago wouldn’t know if you asked now. I heard ‘that’ club keeps a separate record and collects them.]

[Ah……]

It was an old practice—or tradition—of passing down recorded exam questions to juniors.

The president of ‘that’ club, Hwang Sanghun, would have the materials, and he’d naturally share them with his close friend and club member, Jo Haneul.

Memories of getting upset after being disadvantaged in subjects where past exam questions were circulated like this flickered in my mind.

[It’s not a big deal.]

If it were a Western medicine subject, they could ask questions from incredibly niche areas. Moreover, given how vast the field is, it’s nearly impossible to memorize thousands of pages of PowerPoint slides, so having access to past exam questions makes a huge difference.

But for an acupuncture exam in the format described above…

[There are only 365 regular channel acupoints, is it really so hard to memorize them that they need to make an answer key?]

Isn’t that something a Korean medicine doctor should know by default?