The Brother's Surgery (2)
"Oh, Pyeong-shin!"
"Pyeong-shin!"
"Hey, Pyeong-shin!"
Fuck, please stop... Just call me by my actual name...
"Didn't I do well? Haha. After all, what would our countrymen know of what shin means? They wouldn't have the faintest clue it refers to God Almighty. They merely think it's Joseon parlance for someone possessing peerless, towering brilliance in their field."
Having caught wind of my supposed new moniker, Liston, Blundell, my friends, and my disciples had all banded together in single-minded unity, endlessly chanting that cursed nickname under their breath.
Just what kind of reaction was I supposed to give?
Is this what people mean by being at an absolute loss?
As I stood frozen in stunned silence, the Hospital Director, thoroughly misinterpreting my dumbfounded paralysis, beamed with immense satisfaction.
"Grand, isn't it? Did I not do splendidly?"
God...
Yes, fair enough.
Miraculously, in the twenty-first century, that word really was tossed around like cheap confetti. Why? Whether it was a peculiar quirk of South Korea or a broader feature of the twenty-first century at large, the sacred gravitas once carried by the word 'god' had plummeted straight into the gutter.
Here and now, however, bandying it about was textbook blasphemy.
No, setting theological sacrilege aside, the phonetics alone were dreadful. Pyeong-shin... It sounded disgustingly close to byeong-shin—a pathetic, foul-mouthed slur for a cripple or an idiot. How was the 'Pyeong-shin' in question supposed to feel having that shouted across the room?
"Yes... You did... wonderfully well, Director."
Had I been an actual deity, divine wrath would have leveled the room on the spot.
Strictly speaking, though, my current standing in London was indeed closer to a bottom-feeding rogue than any revered god. One might scoff that whining like this while commanding a street gang reeked of shameless false modesty, but the reality was far grimmer. For every hoodlum in my syndicate willing to follow my orders, there were just as many rival gangs itching to bash my skull in to carve out a name for themselves. Hell, I had heard plenty of ordinary neighborhood tavern bouncers and back-alley ruffians harbored the exact same ambition.
Stripped of the mythical halo painted over my head, I hardly possessed an intimidating build, after all.
"Indeed! Hahaha! At any rate, after winning this wager, you are now indisputably the most celebrated man in all of London. Tell me, however did you conceive of drawing blood straight from the heart? There are already rumblings that it will become the next grand craze."
"No... Absolutely not. That cannot happen."
In the first place, I hadn't drawn blood from the heart itself.
Granted, if a clumsy needle slipped, the heart might very well bleed like a stuck pig. But if some quack plunged a blade with that explicit intention from the outset, that wasn't medicine—it was plain and simple homicide!
"Are you intending to secure a patent? If you patent a technique meant for saving human lives, you will squander the hard-won reputation you only just earned. Besides, I doubt a patent would even hold. Neither the one who thrusts the blade nor the one who receives it will ever utter a word."
"Well, you aren't wrong, but..."
He truly wasn't wrong.
As for the fellow wielding the knife... Having watched nineteenth-century surgeons brag about surgical fatalities with their heads held high, I couldn't say for sure, but the poor bastard on the receiving end certainly wouldn't be opening his mouth ever again.
"Then where lies the problem?"
"It's just that..."
"Hahaha! You must be exhausted. Indeed, today has been quite the whirlwind. Go, take a rest. Here is some coin—go drink your fill."
"Ah."
Right. Better to just drown myself in liquor and get properly hammered.
Surely it wouldn't come to that... With our circle leading the vanguard, nineteenth-century London was steadily becoming civilized, wasn't it? Moreover, European medicine had already known what function the heart performed since the seventeenth century. These bastards... Half the time they acted like utter primitives who knew nothing of the human body, but every now and then they surprisingly had their facts straight.
Plunging a blade straight into an organ of such vital import required monumental courage and iron resolution. Barely anyone would dare attempt it on a whim.
"So, where are we heading?"
"Where else? We are done frequenting those dreary, low-end pubs."
"Wait... Here...?"
"I hear Members of Parliament frequent this establishment. Money alone is not enough to grant entry, yet..."
"Then shouldn't we turn back?"
Before I knew it, an opulent street had unfolded before us, so lavish it was hard to believe we were still in smog-choked London.
Naturally, Alfred's family home was situated in an upscale neighborhood as well. Because they were filthy rich, obviously. Yet could mere wealth muscle someone into the highest echelons of society? Contrary to modern assumptions, nineteenth-century Britain was not so forgiving. These bastards guarded their social strata with vicious, unyielding rigidity.
"Haha. I have heard tales of Joseon. I hear the divide between nobility and commoners is just as merciless there, no?"
"Where on earth do you keep hearing about Joseon?"
"Did you not know? Because of you, merchants traveling back and forth to the Qing Empire are in a desperate frenzy to strike up even the briefest conversation whenever they spot a Joseon native. They say they are practically shoving gold into their hands just to pry loose a few words."
"Ah..."
Am I completely screwed?
Just like that... Is my entire cover about to blow?
"Regardless, we are men of considerable stature now. We are hardly the nobodies we once were! Haha."
Having delivered this terrifying piece of intelligence with breezy indifference, Liston pushed the heavy door open and strode inside.
Certainly...
The establishment—whether it ought to be called a high-class pub or an exclusive gentlemen's lounge—was remarkably lavish. For starters, gas lamps blazed from every sconce, rendering the interior incomparably brighter than any regular tavern. In ordinary drinking dens, the suffocating gloom made it nearly impossible to gauge who you were dealing with. Why, there were even suicidal lunatics who had the audacity to pick fights with Robert Liston in the dark!
"Oh..."
"Wait..."
"Isn't that..."
"The Master of Amputation...?"
Here, however, the radiance was unmistakable.
Thanks to the blazing illumination, every patron inside could clearly recognize our faces the instant we stepped across the threshold. Naturally, Liston was the most famous figure among our ranks. Or rather, even had he been the least renowned, every eye in the room would still have gravitated toward him by sheer instinct. The man was built like a lumbering bear. Furthermore, ever since obtaining official sanction from the London Metropolitan Police, he had taken to carrying his massive Liston knife strapped conspicuously to his hip at all times, making him impossible to overlook.
"Hold on... Beside him?"
"Could that be... Pyeong-shin?"
"A Qing gangster?"
"Tsk, what a hopelessly ill-informed fellow you are. He is a gangster from Joseon! Rumor has it he was originally a lowborn slave—aye, a peasant—who murdered the nobleman he served, stole his name, and fled across the seas. They say no soul alive knows his true name or age."
"Good heavens... Then that tale from Paris, is it true as well?"
"Indeed. Word has it he carved off a noblewoman's breast and devoured it."
"Merciful God..."
Next in line for attention should have been Joseph.
Normally, that was how it ought to be. Our Joseph was hardly small in stature himself. If anyone here looked primed for recruitment into an organized crime syndicate, it was undoubtedly Joseph...
"Did you truly slice off a noblewoman's breast?"
"Wait... You were right beside me slicing it, weren't you?"
"Together? Me?"
"Sophie Germain."
"Ah. Ahhh. Well, that isn't entirely untrue."
"It is entirely untrue! When did I ever eat it?!"
"Minor inaccuracies naturally latch onto rumors as they make the rounds."
"How on earth is cannibalism a 'minor inaccuracy'?!"
Why did they keep gossiping about me? While Liston received grandiose titles and surgical accolades, the whispers trailing me consisted of outlandish urban legends that even I had never heard of. Judging by their fine tailoring and immaculate grooming, these patrons were hardly the sort who ought to be indulging in vulgar tavern slander. They were literal aristocrats, for God's sake...
"Consider it the price of fame."
"Good grief..."
"At any rate, the liquor here is splendid. They keep proper whiskies on hand."
"Have you been here before, Robert?"
"With the Hospital Director."
"Ah... Come to think of it."
Our Director... He truly was an enigmatic figure. From what I had gathered, he didn't hail from the aristocracy, nor did he come from an established dynasty of old wealth. How had he managed to rise so spectacularly?
"What sort of man is the Director, really?"
"The Director? Well... a formidable gentleman."
"Don't dodge the question."
At my prodding, Liston took a sip of the newly arrived amber spirit, letting the liquid linger on his tongue before nodding slowly.
"Aye, I suppose it's time you learned."
"Learned what?"
"The Director actually hails from French lineage."
"Pardon? He's a baguette eater...? But his accent when speaking English sounds like..."
"Ah, the Director himself was born and bred right here in London. But his family originally crossed the Channel from France."
"Well, I'll be..."
Better than an East Asian, certainly. Still, a Frenchman in London...? Why had they fled? Questions crowded my mind. Even in the twenty-first century, emigration was a weighty decision that demanded careful deliberation. But emigrating in the nineteenth century? And from France—the undisputed master of continental Europe—to this damp, smog-choked island? Those baguette bastards might be obnoxious, but strictly considering the climate, wine, and cuisine, France was objectively far more hospitable than Britain.
"I don't know what wild notions are racing through your head, but... they didn't flee because of some petty crime."
"No, I wasn't thinking that."
"Truly? Isn't crime the usual reason people cross borders?"
"Well... isn't that a bit harsh? Though you just said it wasn't crime."
Granted, if Liston were ever forced to flee to France, it would undoubtedly be after committing an atrocity so horrific that even the London Police Chief couldn't sweep it under the rug. Killing one or two ordinary blokes probably wouldn't even count. Frankly, he had already racked up dozens of manslaughter charges disguised as routine surgeries, hadn't he? Punishing him for killing someone now would be terribly inconsistent. The law ought to maintain standards, after all.
"Have you heard of the Huguenots?"
"No. Never in my life."
"I thought as much. You ought not to spend every waking hour buried in medical treatises—pick up some general knowledge as well. You'll be mingling with men of high station from now on."
"That..."
Are you seriously the one to lecture me on culture, you brute?! The retort surged straight up to my throat, barely swallowed before it escaped.
"Do you have a death wish?"
...Apparently it hadn't stayed entirely swallowed. Still, it was fine. If he could let the whole 'bald' incident slide, calling him uncultured hardly posed a fatal threat.
"My apologies."
"Right. Anyway, you know how those Frenchmen are fond of revolutions, yes?"
"Of course. Ignorant brutes... Dragging people to the guillotine just because they don't care for their opinions—what kind of madness is that?"
"Precisely. In any case, the Huguenots were Protestants. Most of them were jurists, physicians, and scholars. Intellectuals, in short... And how do you suppose ignorant mobs view clever men?"
"With burning resentment."
"Indeed. So they slaughtered them. The Director's ancestors were among those who fled across the sea to escape that very persecution."
"Ah... Is that why his name is George François?"
"Spot on."
Good heavens... Bravo, France! Slaughtering your own intellectuals... Doing absurd nonsense like that was precisely why they were currently playing second fiddle to the British, wasn't it? I had always found it curious. There was virtually no inherent reason why Britain should be far more prosperous than France, yet here stood the British Empire, the unchallenged hegemon of the globe. So this was the hidden foundation. At any rate, regardless of East or West, history had never shown a single nation prospering after butchering and persecuting its educated class.
"Setting that aside, about Colin."
"Yes?"
"Are you confident about operating on his elder brother?"
"Of course. I will see it finished without a hitch."
"Good. Hmm..."
As I mused over historical ironies, Liston abruptly pivoted back to surgery. Not that it was out of character, mind you. Whenever doctors gather for drinks after hours, the conversation inevitably drifts right back to the cutting table.
"Why do you ask? You look dissatisfied."
"The patient we operated on earlier... No matter how I look at it, I feel we could fashion a far better contour than that."
"Ah..."
"Can we truly not utilize cartilage from the ear or rib?"
"Mmm..."
Cartilage... It wasn't an impossible feat. Yet to jump straight into using it on Colin's brother? That was a bit...
"How about getting some practice in first?"
"Practice? But practicing on a cadaver is utterly meaningless."
We needed to observe the graft reaction. We needed to monitor for post-operative infection. In truth, we didn't even know whether our current antiseptic methods were sufficient for such deep cartilage harvesting.
"Then can we not simply practice on a living person?"
"How on earth can we practice on a living human being...?"
At my protest, Liston's expression turned distinctly peculiar. His gaze seemed to ask: What do you think we've been doing all this time?
When I actually stopped to consider it, my own moral high ground felt embarrassingly shaky.
"Do you... have someone suitable in mind?"
When I relented and asked, Liston burst into a hearty belly laugh.
"Scores of them! If we promise to line their pockets with coin while giving them free surgery, they'll form a line around the block. Was today's wager not proof enough?"
"I suppose..."
Indeed, this was nineteenth-century Britain. Whether this place truly shared the same history as the Earth I once lived on... remained an open question.