Chapter 93: Huh?[1]
Chapter 93: Huh?[1]
“Huh?”
The same cry burst out simultaneously from several other mouths as well.
And no wonder—Gwanghae had gone flying through the air.
Not of his own will, either, but because someone else had sent him flying.
No, how is he this bad…
Kanghyeok hurriedly pulled back the back kick he had thrown out without thinking.
Gwanghae had failed to dodge even that slow kick in time and had been too busy trying to block it.
And perhaps because he had blocked it with the very wrist that was already injured, he could not endure the impact and was sent flying some distance away.
I’m fucked, aren’t I?
Feeling cold sweat run down his back, Kanghyeok hurriedly dashed toward Gwanghae.
“Your Highness!”[2]
The eunuchs and the others all ran after him.
Dolseok’s face had gone pale white, and it looked as though he himself might collapse at any moment.
He kept mumbling nothing but ominous nonsense.
“Dea… death sen… tence…”[3]
Makbong smacked the back of his head.
“What unlucky nonsense are you babbling? Move aside.”
“Ah… Mother… now I’m rea…”
“Have you lost your mind, you idiot?”
Thanks to that, everyone except Dolseok was able to rush over to Gwanghae.
Every one of them looked worried.
“Your Highness!”
The eunuch who had been grinding the ink was the fastest there aside from Kanghyeok.
He seemed to be exceptionally loyal.
The other eunuchs wore similar expressions.
“Are you all right?”
But none of them looked as bad as Kanghyeok, the very one who had kicked Gwanghae.
Even his voice was trembling.
So this is how I die.
That was the thought running through his mind.
The image of Gwanghae-gun he had learned in childhood overlapped in his mind, making the fear hit even harder.
There had even been a time when he had thought the gwang in Gwanghae-gun meant “madness.”[4]
“Mm.”
Whether from pain or from his mood, Gwanghae frowned as he pushed himself up.
The way he kept rubbing his wrist did not look good at all.
“Are you all right? I’m sorry, Your Highness.”
Kanghyeok muttered the words without daring to meet his eyes.
He deliberately left out I deserve to die for this.
If he said something like that, it felt as though he might really die.
“Mm.”
Letting out another groan, Gwanghae got to his feet.
He brushed off his clothes while trying to look as if nothing was wrong, but judging by his face, he was definitely hurting.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.”
Seeing him force himself to act cool eased Kanghyeok’s heart a little.
If he was acting like that, then he probably was not about to order him killed.
“First, let me take a look at the injury.”
“Go ahead.”
With a calm face, Gwanghae held out his wrist.
Kanghyeok hurriedly examined it carefully.
The most urgent thing with a contusion was, of course, whether there was a fracture.
Thankfully, it’s not that.
Thinking about it, he had not kicked him that hard.
It had only been enough to shove him backward.
If it had been Yeoni, she would have dodged it. If it had been Makbong, he would have countered it. If it had been Dolseok, he would have blocked it without much trouble.
It’s a little swollen, but…
This was the kind of injury that would improve just by taking an anti-inflammatory.
Besides, he had already injected him with plenty of steroid that morning, so it should subside quickly.
The effect of the medicine was not something that vanished within an hour or two.
“Fortunately, the injury is not serious.”
“It shouldn’t be. There is no need to make a fuss. I merely lost my footing while stepping back and fell.”
“I thought as much.”
Kanghyeok cautiously agreed with Gwanghae’s version.
Gwanghae gave an awkward smile and patted Kanghyeok on the shoulder.
“I have sparred with many martial men, but someone of your caliber is rare indeed. To have mastered medicine to such a degree while also training your body—truly remarkable.”
Kanghyeok almost snorted.
Rare, my ass.
If I’m some rare master, then doesn’t that make Makbong and Yeoni the greatest masters under heaven?
It was absurd.
But when someone with power said something, even nonsense easily gained force.
Was there not even the saying calling a deer a horse?[5]
A powerful person could turn a deer into a horse with a single word.
In this situation, Gwanghae was the same.
Kanghyeok had no choice but to lower his head.
“Thank you.”
“No, no. Mm. You must be tired, so go and rest. Now that my wrist is better, I should do a bit of painting.”
Probably embarrassed that he had charged in boldly only to be knocked flying in one blow, Gwanghae issued what was practically an order to leave.
Kanghyeok was not comfortable staying here either, so he accepted it at once.
“Yes, Your Highness. But you absolutely must not overexert yourself.”
“I know. Do not worry.”
With Gwanghae’s smiling farewell, Kanghyeok left the palace.
Only after quite some time had passed did Dolseok finally let out a sigh of relief.
“We survived. Ah, when young master threw out that magnificent kick earlier, I really…”
“What magnificent? I barely kicked him.”
“If you barely kicked him, does a prince go flying like that?”
“I really did barely kick him.”
Kanghyeok nodded with an aggrieved look.
Makbong followed up with a scolding reply.
“Young master… didn’t I tell you? At your level, you’re already a taekkyeon expert.”[6]
“Expert, my foot. You and Yeoni are the experts.”
“No, you keep comparing yourself to us, but you can’t do that. The prince’s footwork is fairly good too, but the moment you charged him, he got sent flying in one blow.”
“Fairly good? He couldn’t even dodge though, and I barely kicked him…”
At that, Yeoni shook her head.
“He dodged because he was at that level. Young master, your build is like a mountain. An ordinary person wouldn’t even be able to move if you were just standing in front of them.”
“Is that so?”
The last one to speak was Yeoju.
She was much closer to an ordinary person’s perspective, which made her more credible.
“That’s right. Young master, don’t you remember before? You sent the entire Daedong-gye group flying.”[7]
“Ah. Mm. Is that so?”
“That’s why you need to be careful. It’s fortunate the prince wasn’t seriously hurt. Otherwise, this could have become a disaster.”
“All right, all right.”
Now looking thoroughly fed up, Kanghyeok shook his head.
Then he turned back with a worried look in his eyes for a moment.
It was in the direction of the palace they had just left.
He’ll be fine, right?
At least no group had come rushing after him to arrest him.
That worry stayed with him for quite a while, to the point that he even packed his belongings in case he needed to flee at a moment’s notice.
But then a single letter put his mind at ease.
Even the delivery itself was unusual.
The messenger was a eunuch.
“Baek Kanghyeok, reverently receive this letter!”[8]
A male voice that had not yet gone through voice change was not a pleasant thing to hear.
As Kanghyeok went out to greet him, he recalled the LP of a castrato recording that had been included in his study materials back in medical school.[9]
It felt as though there must be some exact procedure laid down for this sort of thing, but for now he simply bowed his head first.
“Yes.”
The eunuch stared at Kanghyeok in disbelief.
Of course, a eunuch’s status was not necessarily very high compared with Kanghyeok’s.
Although they did hold offices according to rank, one’s birth status did not simply disappear.
But the situation was different now that he was bearing a letter.
Should he not be treated as though one were dealing with the prince himself?
Still, the eunuch soon remembered that Kanghyeok’s manner when directly facing Gwanghae had not been much different.
And he also remembered Gwanghae’s instructions.
He is a man unskilled in etiquette, so do not take offense.
The eunuch forcibly swallowed the rebuke that had risen to his throat and began reading the letter aloud.
In summary, it said the following:
—Thanks to your treatment, I have been doing very well. I am starting to want to paint more and more. So I intend to paint to my heart’s content. I send you the painting I completed today as a gift, so keep it well.
Kanghyeok received the painting Gwanghae had sent him.
This is me.
More precisely, it was a painting of the sparring match between Gwanghae and Kanghyeok.
It was almost exactly the same as the spar that had actually happened, except for one major difference.
The one being struck was Kanghyeok, while the one delivering the blow was depicted as Gwanghae.
He must have been pretty embarrassed.
Kanghyeok smiled faintly as he pictured the childlike Gwanghae.
Seeing that expression, the eunuch finally relaxed his stiff face.
The delivery of the letter was complete, so he had returned to his original status.
“His Highness said he would like the gift hung on the wall.”
At those words, Kanghyeok’s smile deepened further.
If it had been some other painting, that would be one thing, but to tell him to hang up a painting of the landlord getting beaten senseless—
There was no domineering abuse quite like this.[10]
Still, it did feel rather cute.
So he simply laughed.
“Understood. I’ll hang it up.”
“Yes.”
“His Highness really is all right, isn’t he?”
“Ah, yes. He is doing very well. He has even started exercising again… though I worry because it seems he is trying to overdo it.”
He liked hearing that Gwanghae was doing well, but the part about overdoing it was exactly what he did not like.
“Please try to stop him from the side.”
“Yes. Though he does not really listen to what I say.”
“Then tell him the physician said so.”
“Yes.”
The eunuch left Kanghyeok’s house wearing an expression that inspired little confidence.
Out of everything he had said, only one thing sounded believable—that Gwanghae did not really listen to him.
Not long afterward, another letter made that perfectly clear.
—I overdid it a little, and now my wrist hurts again. Could you come take a look?
It was a letter that drew a sigh out of him automatically.
As Kanghyeok shook his head from side to side while reading it, the eunuch could not bring himself to meet his eyes.
That was because Gwanghae had failed to keep any of the cautions Kanghyeok had so earnestly impressed upon him.
“How long has it been since His Highness started hurting again?”
The eunuch was so embarrassed that he could barely even hear Kanghyeok’s question properly.
As a result, Kanghyeok had to ask the same thing once more.
This time with a little more force.
“I asked how long His Highness has been in pain again.”
The tone now sounded faintly accusatory, and the eunuch began sweating profusely.
“Well… mm. Heo Jun came to see him a couple of times as well.”
“How long?”
“It has been about five days.”
“Then why did he only send the letter now?”
At Kanghyeok’s question, the eunuch involuntarily looked toward the palace.
Though it was far enough away that there was no way he could actually see it.
“It seems His Highness felt somewhat embarrassed… so he kept putting it off.”
“Teacher Heo could have sent word separately.”
“He stopped that as well.”
“And yet now he has sent you.”
“That is correct.”
Apparently he had endured it and endured it until he could not stand it any longer, and only then had he sent the eunuch.
Which meant only one thing—
he was in tremendous pain.
It’s only been barely ten days since the steroid injection… He really must have abused it badly.
Kanghyeok turned back to the eunuch to ask a few things he had in mind.
The sudden shift in atmosphere made the eunuch lower his head a little.
There was no real reason for him to do so, but somehow it felt as though he should.
“Did His Highness paint again and erase it himself as well?”
Even his speech had changed slightly.
But the eunuch did not notice in the least.
“Yes.”
“Mm. I told him repeatedly not to do that.”
“I am sorry.”
Without even acknowledging the apology, Kanghyeok sank back into thought.
Looks like surgery really will be necessary… Now how did that go again?
He remembered that surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome was not terribly complicated.
But it was not his specialty.
This was usually done in orthopedics.
Roughly… I just need to think of it as releasing the bound area. But no matter how I look at it, he’s going to keep using his wrist.
If all he wanted was to make it stop hurting, then it would not be difficult.
But when he thought of Gwanghae-gun’s life ahead, that alone did not seem enough.
He might look like a childish brat right now, but in only a few years he would be someone who fought against the Japanese.[11]
If the time came and he could not properly use his wrist, that would be a problem.
It’ll turn into a fairly major operation… but there should be a way.
With his exceptional mind, Kanghyeok instantly devised a new surgical method.
For ordinary people, it would have been work that took years, and it would have been the same for the old Kanghyeok.
The reason he could come up with an answer so quickly now was largely because, after coming to Joseon, he had repeatedly performed surgeries that were practically acts of improvisation.
“Mm. It seems I will have to use the knife after all. Will that be acceptable?”
“What? Ah, yes. He said anything would be fine.”
“He must truly be in a great deal of pain, then. Very well. I’ll gather my things and go at once.”