I'll Fix You in One Go
“Ugh... another day, another shift...”
Hyun Kyungwoo lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
His alarm had already gone off three times at five-minute intervals, but he still had no intention of getting up. The morning sun of midsummer was already worming its way through the gap in the curtains, stabbing at his eyes.
“Director? Are you awake? It’s time for the clinic to open.”
At the voice from outside, Kyungwoo reluctantly hauled himself up. It was Park Miyoung, his only employee and nursing assistant.
“Miyoung, how many appointments do we have today?”
“Three. And the village head said he’d be coming by, too...”
Miyoung hesitated, reading the room. She knew exactly what the Director was about to say.
“Tell him we’re fully booked. Tell him no.”
“But there are only three...”
“That’s three too many. Tell him we’re super busy today and he should head into town.”
“Oh? He’s actually pulling up right now. You can tell him yourself, Director. I’m going in to prep for the patients!”
As Park Miyoung scurried away, Kyungwoo ruffled his bird’s-nest hair and groaned in annoyance.
“Haa. I pay her a high salary to turn away appointments, and she’s absolutely no help at all.”
A cultivator rattled to a stop in front of the clinic, and the village head, Park Chunsik, climbed down, limping heavily.
“Aigoo, Doc. I’ve gone and sprained my ankle. I’ve got a meeting over in Baejae-ri today, too.”
“That’s not my concern. We’re fully booked today. Go to the clinic in town.”
“Aw, come on, Doc. Once I’ve had your acupuncture, I can’t go to those town clinics. The ‘sting’ of your needles is different from the others—it’s like the difference between a toe and a hair-pulling!”
“Then go to an orthopedic surgeon.”
“It’s the day they’re cleaning the reservoir channels, and if I’m not there, things won’t run right. Just fix me once. I’ll make sure to book an appointment next time.”
Kyungwoo sighed as he looked at the village head’s pleading eyes.
‘Come to think of it, I didn’t even want to open the clinic today, but I got dragged into it because of this old man...’
To him, a single patient meant much more than just a medical consultation. It was because of his special ability: Pain Resonance.
This ability, which forced him to feel the exact pain and discomfort of any patient he touched as if it were his own, was nothing short of a curse. He had first awakened this power last spring.
Daeo Oriental Hospital in Gangnam. Having graduated at the top of his class from Kyung-hyun University and earned his specialist certification in acupuncture, Kyungwoo was one of the most successful among the ten attending directors.
That was, until the day he touched a patient and experienced their pain firsthand.
Zzzzt—
Kyungwoo nearly screamed at the sudden, overwhelming agony. At first, he thought he had just pulled a muscle, but the intensity and location of the pain changed with every patient he saw. The patterns of pain matched his patients’ conditions with terrifying precision.
‘What on earth is this?’
There was only one thing he could suspect. Kyungwoo had a hobby of collecting ancient medical texts, and he had spent the entire previous weekend obsessively studying a book he’d found at a used bookstore.
Gamshin-tongmaek-rok (The Record of Sensing the Body and Connecting the Vessels).
The book, which meant “a record of feeling the body and opening the meridians,” was written in a cryptic, code-like style that was far from easy to decipher.
“He who seeks to learn the art of healing,
Do you intend to hear the patient’s pain only through words?
Do you intend to feel the pulse only with your fingertips?
Do you intend to observe only the visible signs of illness?
The true path of medicine is deep and profound; one must reach the realm where one’s own body becomes the body of the patient.”
He had only managed to decipher a few lines from the first page, but from the very next day, the pain began to manifest the moment he touched a patient.
At first, it was surprising and fascinating.
“I didn’t even tell you, but you knew exactly where it hurt! I’ve never seen a master like you, Doctor!”
One of the hardest parts of medical practice is that a patient’s description of pain is subjective and unprofessional. But because he could now personally experience the location and intensity of the pain, the accuracy of his diagnoses skyrocketed.
Three months later, he deciphered the second chapter.
“He who has attained the sensing of pain, I now impart a deeper secret.
Do not stop at merely feeling the pain; convert that pain into the stimulation of Qi and channel it through the needle back into the patient. This is called the Jeontong-jibeop (The Method of Transmitting Pain to Stop Pain).”
‘Convert pain into stimulation...?’
Pain is, by nature, a form of stimulation. Once he became capable of gathering that stimulation and channeling it through his needles, his acupuncture results improved dramatically. He could treat a simple sprain in a single session.
Kyungwoo, who was so passionate about Oriental medicine that he had graduated at the top of his class and made collecting ancient texts his hobby, was naturally thrilled at first. Accurate diagnosis and potent treatment! He became the star doctor of Daeo Oriental Hospital, not just a successful director.
The reputation of a “Genius Oriental Doctor.”
Referral patients lined up to see him, and his booking rate exploded. Patients who had failed to find relief elsewhere shed tears of gratitude and bowed their heads to him.
But... the dilemma grew.
‘I don’t want to go to work!’
How can I practice medicine when I’m in so much pain I could die? Although he only felt the pain while touching the patients, he was seeing dozens of them a day. Once the initial adrenaline wore off, Kyungwoo suffered from severe burnout, and he began to dread going to work every day.
Still, he couldn’t turn away the patients who came to him. He even considered trying to perform acupuncture without touching them. But driven by his conscience as a doctor—knowing that if he suffered for a moment, these patients’ chronic illnesses would be cured—he would touch them... and touch them again!
‘Maybe there’s something in the later chapters about reducing the pain?’
Kyungwoo pored over the book after work and on weekends. He had a sense of achievement, but he felt like he was going to die if he kept this up. Yet, strangely, the chapters after the second one, the Jeontong-jibeop, wouldn’t decipher. It was as if a seal had been placed on them because he hadn’t passed a certain stage.
Three more months passed.
Kyungwoo, his eyes sunken with dark circles, knocked on the door of the hospital director’s office.
“I’m submitting my resignation.”
“Director Hyun! Why?! Your salary is already the best in the industry, but I’ll double it!”
“I don’t want any of it...”
“You’re planning to open your own clinic, aren’t you? Where? It’s not in Gangnam, is it? Can I invest?”
He had run out of the hospital, shuddering and insisting he would never open his own practice... but in the end, he did.
‘It’s all because of that village head old man...’
Grind—
Kyungwoo clenched his teeth.
“Fine. I’ll fix you in one go.”
“D-Doc!! Thank you!”
“But it’s going to hurt.”
He offered a sinister smile.
“AAAAAAAGH—”
A piercing scream echoed through Yongdeok-ri in Cheongcheon-myeon. Park Chunsik, the village head, wept like a child despite his seventy years.
“My leg! My leg!”
He had asked to have his ankle fixed, so why did it feel like his leg had been severed? Was this guy actually a quack?
Even after witnessing Kyungwoo’s miraculous acupuncture skills several times over the past eight months, Park Chunsik had briefly entertained that thought...
“Try standing up.”
“It feels like my leg is broken...”
He pouted, pushed himself up from the ground, and... wait.
“I’m standing! I’m standing!”
“No way. It was swollen so badly just a moment ago?”
Park Chunsik jumped up and down on both feet in surprise, and Shim Soonja, a scheduled patient who had just entered the clinic, clapped her hands in amazement.
Park Miyoung chimed in from the side, acting smug.
“Oh my, the swelling has gone down so much. Village Head, I told you our Director would fix you in one go!”
‘So Miyoung was the culprit after all.’
She must have tipped him off to come in and pester the Director, even though the appointments were full. Kyungwoo glared at Park Miyoung while rotating his still-throbbing right ankle.
Well, it couldn’t be helped. Park Chunsik and Park Miyoung—as one could guess from their shared surname, they were distant relatives. Since it was Village Head Park who had introduced Miyoung, who lived in a different township in Goesan County, to Kyungwoo’s clinic, he couldn’t exactly ignore the old man’s pain.
Just then, Park Miyoung dropped some good news.
“Oh, Director. One cancellation. Kim Yuhwan said he had an urgent matter and had to go into town, so he asked to reschedule. I told him we’re fully booked for a while, so he should just get treated in town. Did I do well?”
Kyungwoo’s mood improved slightly. Then, Shim Soonja slipped in.
“Il-chim-gyeon-hyo (A single needle shows immediate effect). Director Hyun really is a master. But why isn’t mine getting better?”
“You only had your first session yesterday.”
“The village head got better in one go!”
“The village head had an acute sprain from this morning, and you have chronic cervical disc herniation. You want that fixed in one go? Did you leave your conscience at home?”
Shim Soonja coughed awkwardly and said, “But it hurts more than yesterday?”
“You took your medicine and had your acupuncture, but it didn’t get better?”
“Well, you see... I didn’t take the medicine. I can’t stand bitter medicine.”
Kyungwoo’s expression twisted.
“That’s why it’s not getting better. I’m not a magician, you know...”
Even while grumbling, his professional conscience compelled him to place a hand on the old woman’s neck. Instantly, a sharp pain shot through his own neck. It felt like a sharp iron nail was being driven in, radiating from the side of his neck to his shoulder. Kyungwoo bit back a groan and pulled his hand away.
‘Nerve compression between C5 and C6... it’s worse than yesterday.’
“Grandma, it’s harder to turn your neck than yesterday, right? Especially when you turn it to the right?”
Shim Soonja looked surprised. “How did you know?”
This was the advantage of the Pain Resonance ability. He could accurately detect even the most minute pain that a patient couldn’t describe in words. The price, however, was that he had to experience that agony himself.
“I know because I touched it. I’m going to place the needles a bit differently today. And you must take your medicine. If you aren’t going to listen to me, just go somewhere else.”
“Aw, I’ll take it this time. I’m not going anywhere else when I have our Director.”
Kyungwoo picked up a 0.30*50 needle and drove it into the Dae-chu point.
“This will sting a bit.”
After the blunt warning, he twisted the needle, pushing the sensation of pain into it. “Ugh!”
“Good. You’re taking it well. A hundred times better than our crybaby village head.”
Without even glancing at the village head, who was looking sheepish, Kyungwoo stimulated the Ashi points around the affected area and several acupuncture points on the foot where the Bladder Meridian begins, channeling the sensation of pain in sequence.
“Ack! Ack! Ack!”
In truth, the intensity wasn’t as high as it had been for the village head. After several trials and errors, Kyungwoo had realized that while high stimulation was proportional to treatment efficacy for acute conditions, that wasn’t necessarily the case for chronic ones.
He removed the needles after applying just the right amount of stimulation.
“Try turning your neck.”
“Oh my? My neck is turning?”
“Kya, our Doc’s needle-sting is the best indeed!”
Kyungwoo gave the two patients another warning.
“Grandma Shim, make sure to take your medicine and come back in three days.”
“I’ll come tomorrow.”
“No. Three days is the most efficient for treatment, so come in three days. If you aren’t going to take the medicine, don’t bother coming at all.”
“I said I’d take it~”
“Village Head, come back once more tomorrow. And you know what I mean, right?”
At Kyungwoo’s sharp, piercing glare, the village head pretended to cower. “I know, I know. I won’t spread rumors. But to the people in our village...”
“I can’t help it in the village, but don’t go around other villages spouting nonsense about me being a ‘master’ or whatever.”
“I told you I know! Even now, you barely take appointments, so why would I want to increase my competition?”
“If the number of patients keeps increasing, I’m going to shut this clinic down for good.”
All three of them clamped their mouths shut.
After work that day, Kyungwoo, exhausted even after seeing only three patients, flopped onto the bed in his office.
“Haa... I used to do this for 30 or 40 people a day?”
Perhaps back then, the feeling of growing every day had flooded his brain with dopamine, allowing him to endure it. But now, with burnout, he felt like the lingering echoes of the day’s pain were still gently pulsing through him.
Was it phantom pain?
Without realizing it, Kyungwoo began rubbing his ankle, neck, and abdomen—the areas he had treated today.
‘That damn book...’
He looked at the Gamshin-tongmaek-rok on his desk with resentment. He wanted to throw it away, but it was the very book that presented him with the massive dilemma of needing to decipher it to solve his current predicament.
Thinking about how he’d have to wrestle with that book all night again made him sigh deeply.
Whoosh—
Just then, a cool breeze from the midsummer sunset blew through the open window of his office, flipping the pages of the book rapidly.
‘Huh?’
The part he had just caught a glimpse of—wasn’t that a section he hadn’t been able to decipher before?
Kyungwoo jumped up, opened the third chapter, and for the first time in nearly a year, read the contents of the next page.
“You who have now grown accustomed to the sensing of pain.
Are you feeling phantom pain even after the patient has left?
That is not phantom pain.”
‘What is this...’
Kyungwoo became completely absorbed in the book’s contents.