Chapter 103: Money Comes In, Money! [2]
And long live France!
I used to think the word promiscuous sounded exciting, like some forbidden thrill. But this? This was something else entirely. A complete gold rush. It was like money was being printed out of rubber.
“Hahahahaha!”
I was not even the worst offender. That guy over there was laughing louder than anyone, flinging silver coins through the air like confetti.
“Wow! This is just pocket change!”
Alfred was no different. After all, we had just been handed a sack of silver coins heavy enough to bruise someone. Even the chemist, high on Nitrous Oxide, took a long inhale before collapsing onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. His neck bent at a strange angle. I stared at him for a moment, unsure whether he was dead or merely unconscious.
Then again, this was the nineteenth century. Death was never far away.
“This is insane…”
What actually happened when a man with sleep apnea inhaled a lungful of Laughing Gas? At this point, we were already hearing stories from Liston and the other surgeons about patients dying from the anesthetic alone. And yet there were no bans, no restrictions. Death was simply accepted. Common. Expected.
“Whoop!”
Even I had started letting go a little. If I spent every minute terrified of death, I would go mad.
“Ugh…”
Still, careless deaths like this were preventable. The man with the thick neck had stopped breathing for a moment, but I managed to resuscitate him. If anyone had seen it, I probably would have been called either Jesus or a witch. More likely the latter. But I did not care. Not while I was counting freshly minted silver from the heart of Paris.
“Wow. That was sudden.”
“You okay?”
“Haha! Yeah, I’m fine. So much money!”
You nearly died clutching that silver, you idiot.
I did not scold him. I simply patted his shoulder and stood up.
“But why does my chest hurt so much? Who hit me?”
I looked at the deep red handprint across his sternum, then down at the pile of coins.
Wait… this was all mine?
They said I would get ten percent, but I did not expect this much. My uncle must have been furious. I had already heard complaints about flooding the London market, but even so, the money kept pouring in.
With this kind of cash… even if I can’t open a hospital right away…
Hospitals were black holes for money. You only got paid if the patient survived. If they died, you got nothing. And in this era, most people did not recover. From a modern perspective, the math simply did not work. Not for a doctor. Not yet.
If you want real money, open a funeral home.
Unlike hospitals, funeral homes were thriving. Even in twenty-first-century Korea, there were more funeral homes than hospitals. Here, people worried more about burial costs than medical treatment. Especially in London, where land was outrageously expensive, whether for hospitals or graves.
For now, I would save most of the money. Some would go into research. Some would go into sponsorships.
How long are we going to pretend stale bread and willow bark are medicine? Laughing Gas isn’t a cure-all.
At first, I thought knowing the future would make me some kind of cheat-code doctor. I had two hundred years of medical advancement in my head, and they were the fastest two hundred years in human history.
But…
I know Gleevec is a miracle drug for chronic leukemia. But how do you make it?
No clue.
Everyone knew what worked. Making it was the hard part. Sure, I could reduce the amount of trial and error, but the rest? I would have to squeeze blood from the stone that was nineteenth-century chemistry.
At least I did not invent condoms. Ugh, the chemist was down again.
“Mister. Hey, mister.”
“Whoo… Now it’s grandma’s turn.”
“Let’s stop, okay?”
“Why? I’m feeling—ah, my chest… my heart hurts. Is it because I’m thinking about my first love?”
“…No.”
I almost told him he had flatlined a few seconds earlier. But I stayed quiet. He was awake again, puffing on a thick Cuban cigar instead of throwing silver coins.
Better. That was how businessmen behaved.
“Come here.”
This guy, the so-called miracle chemist who made rubber condoms, was honestly average at best. His arsenic-based syphilis treatment had done nothing except create more poisonous men. Still, in an economic sense, he really was an alchemist. If condoms could be copied and sold like this, then he had struck gold.
But the moment someone else figured out how to process rubber, this boom would end.
“All right, Pyeong. This turned out even better than I expected.”
He must have been thinking the same thing. He stepped away from the mountain of silver coins with an unusually serious expression.
“Want a smoke?”
“Me? No thanks.”
“This one’s top-tier. Aged tobacco. Treated with asbestos.”
“…Yeah, I’ll pass.”
Of course. Cigars were already carcinogenic, and now asbestos too? Classic nineteenth century. These lunatics actually believed it was healthy. They said it helped people live longer. Why? Because all the old people smoked.
Everyone smoked, so naturally the survivors smoked too. That’s survivor bias, you morons.
But I could not say that out loud. The moment you told people asbestos caused cancer, they would call you the Antichrist. In this era, you did not just get ostracized. You got locked up. Or dissected.
Wasn’t frontal lobotomy invented around this time?
“All right then. What about alcohol?”
“Sure. Sounds good.”
“The French make excellent drinks. Oh, Joseph, that wasn’t meant as an insult.”
“No, I get it. I like French wine too.”
“Excellent. This one’s called champagne. You’ll love it.”
Champagne. The very image of luxury.
My uncle looked every bit the bourgeois gentleman now. He made a fortune and stayed frugal in almost everything except wine and cigars, which he consumed like a spoiled child who had just inherited a fortune.
“Anyway… how long do you think this monopoly will last?”
He gestured toward the condom sitting on the table with one hand while holding a wine glass in the other. It looked disgusting just lying there, but the moment I remembered it turned into silver, my revulsion vanished.
“Well, it took you three months to develop it, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then someone else will copy it. Maybe even sooner.”
“I’m trying to hide how much I’m earning… but at this rate, I don’t think I can.”
I could have pointed out the growing pile of luxury goods arriving every day, but I kept quiet. Instead, he said something unexpected.
“What if we found another product?”
“You want to quit?”
“Not quit. That would be wasteful. We’re the market leaders. But if we invest in mass production and lower the price, we can dominate the market even longer.”
He had a point. Condoms were not going anywhere. They were the most accessible and reliable form of birth control while also helping prevent Venereal Disease. Their only downside was sensation. But if even these thick rubber versions were selling…
Imagine what would happen once we made them thinner.
Still, I had other ideas.
“Then what’s next? Laughing Gas? Willow bark extract? Moldy bread?”
“…Yeah, something like that.”
Just saying it out loud made it sound like witchcraft. But that was the cutting edge of medicine.
“I’ll invest. But I don’t know any chemists. At least, not good ones.”
“I’m a chemist. I think. Wait, is this because of the arsenic thing?”
“No. It’s just that there aren’t enough of you. If we had a real laboratory and proper researchers, we’d advance much faster.”
He nodded, his expression turning thoughtful.
“We made rubber condoms because the demand was obvious. But this willow bark… does it actually work?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it. We have patient reports. It’s effective.”
“What’s the mechanism?”
If I answered that question honestly, would I even survive until tomorrow?
Still, I answered.
“There’s a compound in willow bark. If we isolate and purify it, we can make a proper painkiller. Far more effective than chewing bark.”
“Aha… I see. If that works, condoms won’t even compare.”
“Exactly. But it’ll take time. And money.”
“Of course. Processing rubber is one thing. This would require real chemistry.”
“In the meantime, we can plant willow trees, boil the bark, and sell the extract as a tonic.”
“You really are a genius.”
Willow bark tonic. I would probably end up in some future textbook listed among historical quacks. Or appear on Namu Wiki as some legendary fraud.
But fine. Whatever worked.
“One more thing.”
I thought I was merely throwing out ideas. But suddenly, the miracle chemist, the same man who nearly killed himself with Laughing Gas earlier, perked up.
“Yes?”
Was there something else?
“Ether. We could throw one hell of a party with it… and now that I think about it, it might actually work similarly.”
…This guy.
I really needed to find another chemist.
Who were the famous chemists of the nineteenth century again?
Footnotes
Translator’s Notes
Gleevec — Brand name for imatinib, a targeted cancer drug developed in the late twentieth century and widely known for treating chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).
Sleep apnea — A medical condition in which breathing repeatedly stops during sleep, often increasing the risk of complications involving sedatives or anesthesia.
Champagne — Sparkling wine originating from the Champagne region of France, historically associated with luxury and aristocratic culture.
Cuban cigar — Premium cigar traditionally made in Cuba, internationally associated with luxury tobacco culture.
Namu Wiki — A Korean online wiki platform known for user-generated articles covering pop culture, history, memes, and internet culture.