Chapter 101: Wuthering Heights…? [5]
Sponsorship was sponsorship… but to do that, didn’t I have to make sure she survived first? I reluctantly stopped paying attention to Emily’s words.
“Why are you taking what this guy wrote so seriously?”
“I know, right? You only read medical books anyway.”
“When we were kids, didn’t you think he was illiterate?”
“It doesn’t even look like a book to me.”
“Right? And the way the sentences are all twisted, it sounds like something a pretentious teenage girl would write.”
But what could I expect, surrounded by these ignoramuses? There were still ten years to go before Miss Emily Brontë created her immortal masterpiece.
Ah… but you said only two volumes were sold, right?
Apparently, it was too ahead of its time. Her work only came to be considered a masterpiece long after her death.
No exaggeration to say these bastards will never appreciate it.
Anyway, I gently woke Emily.
“Mm… uhm.”
She really was just a child. She got bitten by a rabid dog and ended up hospitalized in a room that looked more like a cutlery showcase for Liston’s knives than a proper hospital. And yet she slept soundly.
“You’re awake?”
“Ah… yes.”
“How’s the pain?”
Even as I looked at the wound, I was reminded that she was still a child. Only a few hours had passed, but it already looked a bit better. It was probably thanks to how thoroughly I cleaned and dressed it. As long as it did not get infected, she should be fine.
“Ah… it hurts.”
Of course it did. A bite was a bite. What else would it do? Judging from the wound, it was not small, either. For a second, I thought about the stray dog that was probably tied up somewhere in the hospital’s backyard.
You’re about to drop dead, mutt…
If Brother Liston cut off his daily quota of limbs, maybe yours would be next. At least he was quick with the knife, so it would be death in a single stroke. Still, I would rather not see someone get sliced up alive in front of me.
“Right… by the way, you’ve heard of a disease called rabies, haven’t you?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of it…”
Rabies. Not many people in this era would know its clinical course, but the name itself was infamous. Why? Because stray dogs were everywhere, and street hygiene was abysmal. The risk of mad dogs roaming about was part of daily life. Add the public’s complete indifference to safety, and of course there would be dog bite incidents all the time. And with no treatment available, if you got it, you died.
“You need to eat something to treat it.”
“Indian ink—wait, what? You’re not joking, right?”
“If you’ll trust me… Here, tell me what it looks like.”
I turned to the tray of dissected dog organs behind me, looking for something that would not be too horrifying for a twelve-year-old girl. While I stalled for time, I poked Joseph in the ribs, and he opened his mouth like a coin-operated puppet.
“Uh… I’m not joking. That guy over there? He got bitten too, the day before yesterday. They cauterized the bite with a soldering iron.”
“Okay… and?”
“So, what do you think happened? He’s dying now. Burned and bitten. That can’t be good.”
“Ah…”
“Anyway, this guy… shouldn’t he try the medicine this teacher here is offering?”
Joseph looked at me, his eyes suddenly serious. Among the bits of tissue I carved up without much thought, I managed to find a heart-shaped piece.
What does “heart” even mean right now?
Still, it felt oddly reassuring. At least it did not look like a lump of nightmare fuel.
“Here. Take this one.”
“Hmm…”
Of course she hesitated. It was understandable. It did not exactly look appetizing.
But then why are you two grinning?
Joseph and Alfred, these lunatics, would probably eat it even if it did not do anything. Maybe that was just how things were in the nineteenth century. People tried weird things all the time, like eating iron balls or burning wounds with hot pokers. Alfred’s father seemed like that kind of person too.
Maybe it’s just these guys who are weird.
There was no Internet in this era. There was no way to access proper data. People just picked up odd beliefs and ran with them.
“This might look strange, but… just trust me.”
I was a trained doctor. That was not boasting, just a fact. Did she know how brutal medical training was in modern-day Korea? It was not just about surgical skill. It was about building trust with patients. Rapport. Bedside manner. And I was good at that.
“Let’s say there are bad guys trying to invade your body.”
“You mean like… assault?”
“No! No! What on earth?!”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a metaphor. A metaphor. Think of it like this. There are bad guys hiding in corpses and in dog teeth.”
“Aha.”
Wuthering Heights, huh… The girl who would one day write a spicy gothic revenge novel seemed to already have quite the vocabulary. Even as a child, her word choices had bite. Taepyeong, proud nobleman of Joseon, was flustered by this.
“What should we do if a guy like that gets inside? Do we fight back? Something like that must be happening. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t be alive.”
“Why would they take someone else’s life…?”
“Honestly, if you hadn’t pulled that scalpel out of me during the dissection, I would’ve died. What if I hadn’t been there?”
“Hmm… yeah… you’re right. But wasn’t that because of treatment?”
“No. Now that I think about it, there had to be some kind of inner strength. I just helped awaken it.”
“That’s… an unusual theory, but… I suppose it’s your patient, your method.”
Ah, the logic of this century. “Do what you want, it’s your patient.” No wonder quacks were running rampant. Still, it worked in my favor.
“Yes, an interesting theory. So?”
Emily was looking at me with curious eyes. I did not love that she thought it was “fun,” but what could I do? We were still more than a century away from discovering antigens and antibodies.
“Eating this will help your body fight off the bad guys that cause rabies.”
“Oh… and how do you know that?”
“I’m from a country called Joseon.”
“Joseon?”
“That’s… uh, a shipbuilding nation.”
“Ship… what?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”
She could not understand Korean, after all. And it was not as if a great literary master would say something that vulgar anyway. I tried to keep thinking positively.
“I had a case like this back home.”
“Hmm…”
“What do you think?”
“Well, there’s definitely a leap in logic… But didn’t that person recover after eating it?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve also made anesthetics and painkillers using odd ingredients.”
“Uh… yeah. Who told you that?”
“A scary guy. Like a Viking warrior.”
“Ah, Liston.”
That guy… yeah, I was grateful. Really.
“So, doesn’t that make what I said more credible?”
“Hmm… well, I suppose. Then… please give it to me.”
“Okay.”
I was lucky Emily was as bright as her literary legacy suggested. Earlier, I had to pin that grown man down just to get him to swallow the medicine. His nose, mouth, and arms were restrained. And now?
Gulp.
Emily swallowed it calmly.
“Water! Water!”
Ah, yeah. Not exactly tasty, huh? Poor girl. Would training help with this?
“Here.”
“Ugh… Do I have to eat this every day?”
“No, just once. We’ll continue wound care, though.”
“Okay… that’s a relief.”
Still, it seemed like she would have kept eating it daily if necessary. It was like I had seen a ray of light shining in this barbaric era. Smart people really did shine, no matter the time period.
“Uh…”
Just then, she noticed that the note beside her looked different. The bundle of pages had clearly been moved since she last saw it. She stared at it, puzzled.
“Did someone read this?”
“Uh, yeah. Me.”
“Why…?! This is so rough…!”
Rough? Did a child like her write like this? Craft a novel like this? I had assumed her self-deprecation was just modesty, but I saw now that she meant it. Not that I needed to worry much.
This is nineteenth-century England.
If a working-class girl read books and wrote stories instead of working a factory shift, what would society say? And being a girl? Just look at the hospital. Nurses were all women by default. Life might have been just as hard here as being born Korean. I may have gotten a second life and come from the future, but even I could not walk the streets alone.
“That’s rough.”
“Excuse me?”
I had no idea what effect my comment might have on the future literary giant Emily Brontë. But right now, she was just a twelve-year-old girl. Surely it was all right for me, someone who had lived decades longer, to offer a few words of encouragement.
“I thought it was really good. Especially this sentence here.”
“R-Really?”
“Of course. I don’t lie.”
“Um…”
“And this name, where’s it from? I’ve never heard it. Are you planning to write a story?”
As we spoke, she became more animated. I admit, it was a bit of a ruse. But come on, I was a huge fan of Wuthering Heights. Even if I had not read many novels, treating Emily Brontë and talking literature with her was an honor.
“Heathcliff? Hmm… I have the name, but I’m still figuring it out.”
“Make sure you use it.”
“But I need to earn money. My sister says so too.”
Most twelve-year-olds would not even know what money was. But this was nineteenth-century England. Children were little more than labor. It was almost surprising her father had not sent her to work yet. But now…
“I promise. I’ll sponsor you before the end of the year.”
“W-What…?”
“You have my money.”
Emily’s eyes widened. Joseph’s did too. Alfred’s especially.
All of them were shocked, probably lost in their own thoughts.
Footnotes
Translator’s Notes
Wuthering Heights — Emily Brontë’s only novel, published in 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell. It later became one of the major works of English literature.
Emily Brontë — English novelist and poet, born in 1818 and died in 1848. She is best known for Wuthering Heights.
Heathcliff — A central character in Wuthering Heights, known for his intense, vengeful, and obsessive nature.
Indian ink — A black ink traditionally made from soot or lampblack, historically used in writing and drawing. In this context, it is mentioned as a folk-style “treatment.”
Joseon / shipbuilding nation — The Korean word “Joseon” can be confused with the Korean word for shipbuilding, creating the joke in Taepyeong’s explanation.
Antigens and antibodies — Core immunology concepts. Antigens are substances that trigger an immune response, while antibodies are proteins produced by the immune system to recognize and neutralize them.