Chapter 74
Chapter 74
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 74
Chapter Title: Firelight
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Ryu Yeonseo's new treatment had brought Wi Sowol not just mental stimulation, but physical as well.
'The poison qi?'
Gong Yatak's poison qi, trapped within the Great White Light True Qi's internal energy.
The frantic resistance of the poison qi, desperately trying to break free without end, had weakened.
More precisely, the Great White Light True Qi's internal energy—which was keeping the poison qi in check—had grown even stronger in suppressing it, bolstered by the vitality surging through her body.
It wasn't a dramatic shift, but...
Surprise bloomed clearly across Wi Sowol's face.
Ryu Yeonseo, seeing it, smiled with satisfaction and spoke.
"How was it? Worth hearing out?"
"It was the best!"
Hwangbo Yun cried out, stomping her feet as if she might leap into the air.
"In all the world! It was hands down the finest performance I've ever heard in my life! And that sound technique—what on earth was... My eyes have been opened, truly opened!"
Hwangbo Yun even clasped her fists in a formal salute of respect.
Ryu Yeonseo's smile deepened at the lavish praise from a daughter of the prestigious Hwangbo family.
"Thank you. My namho is something I modified on my own after seeing a Western instrument, so it probably produces sounds you've never heard before."
"It went beyond that—it moved me deeply. It was truly wonderful!"
Hwangbo Yun groaned in frustration, scraping together whatever scant vocabulary she could muster.
Laughter spilled from the women lying in their sickbeds at the sight.
It wasn't mockery, but the pure amusement one feels watching a cute little sister—and the fond recollection of their own reactions upon first hearing Ryu Yeonseo play.
Knowing this, Hwangbo Yun grinned back with a light hehe.
Yet the one Ryu Yeonseo had actually asked remained silent.
All eyes turned to Wi Sowol, filled with expectation and concern.
As attention focused on her...
Wi Sowol's lips parted.
"May I learn it?"
That, for Ryu Yeonseo, was the highest praise of all.
"That's precisely why that person sent you to me."
Ryu Yeonseo seemed poised to finally enjoy a peaceful night's sleep after so long.
It had already been several years since she'd moved her base to Namchang County.
At first, it had felt comfortable.
The thrill of a new environment and the liberation of not having to worry about others had brought laughter to Ryu Yeonseo's lips.
It was the first smile she'd worn in years since the day he left her.
Her days passed in pastoral tranquility: practicing medicine as an apothecary, treating courtesans and women, scraping by.
Amid those idyllic routine days, Ryu Yeonseo's medical skills sprouted like new buds alongside her heart.
But several years ago, that pastoral peace shattered.
When the plague of syphilis descended upon Namchang County.
It was a horrific disease.
Syphilis.
It rivaled the extreme cruelty of leprosy, called heaven's punishment.
If leprosy was deemed the choice of the plague god, then syphilis was undoubtedly the bastard child born of that god coupling with something far worse.
Having filtered through the West on its way east, syphilis arrived with somewhat weakened virulence but a prolonged incubation period. Even so, once contracted, it was almost invariably fatal.
Even those lucky enough to survive often lost reproductive function, regardless of gender.
Being unable to carry on one's line was as good as social death for man or woman alike.
Added to the physical agony of syphilis were the arrows of scorn from those around them.
By that era, it was well-known that syphilis spread through contact, especially sexual relations.
Thus, sufferers were branded as promiscuous and cast as objects of terror and disgust.
It was treated even worse than leprosy, which was merely seen as some plague god's curse with no known cause.
If even noblemen suffered such disdain, what of lowly courtesans to begin with?
In brothels backed by underworld sects, it wasn't uncommon to simply kill off infected courtesans.
Even if not, many faced retaliation from those blaming them: "This is all your fault syphilis spread."
That was the courtesans' lot in life.
Expendable.
Ryu Yeonseo's life changed drastically thereafter.
She scoured for and pored over the rare Record of Flower Lane Disease, gathered cases from Guangdong Province where syphilis first raged, and rolled up her sleeves to treat the afflicted.
The reality she confronted was gruesome.
All of them.
Every last one died.
Untreated syphilis killed them.
The medicine's toxicity killed them.
Despair over their plight drove them to suicide.
All Ryu Yeonseo could offer was hope.
The hope that they could get better.
Music therapy through sound arts fit that need perfectly.
Her playing moved people's hearts.
When the heart stirred, qi followed; when qi circulated, the body changed.
It worked.
Patients endured the medicine's toxicity better.
Pain eased, smiles returned to faces.
Vitality surged, leaving room to care for others again.
Once music therapy solidified as a true sound art, syphilis mortality plummeted.
Under Ryu Yeonseo's care, they at least survived now.
But that was the limit.
In the end, her medicine never reached a fundamental cure for syphilis.
Complete cures for syphilis weren't impossible.
The Record of Flower Lane Disease was an excellent medical text.
Its prescriptions were so potently toxic that the text bluntly called the treatment "poison with poison," yet their efficacy was undeniable.
Treatment augmented with the safety of sound arts freed patients from syphilis.
Yet the courtesans couldn't accept life after cure.
Bodies warped by syphilis.
Bodies stiffened by medicine's poison.
They could no longer live as courtesans.
Worse, drug-induced infertility stole even the chance to become a commoner's wife.
Even cured, the courtesans chose death.
It felt like pouring water into a bottomless jar.
Singing hope to patients while she herself withered without it, day after day.
And at last, dawn was breaking.
"It would've been best if that person came himself."
Ryu Yeonseo trusted the Weird Physician more than the Divine Physician, hailed by all as the world's greatest.
As if Suzhou, where the Divine Physician resided, would be free of syphilis.
Suzhou lay just north of Zhejiang Province, birthplace of the Record of Flower Lane Disease.
Yet even the Divine Physician hadn't surpassed it.
Not due to any lack on his part—the Record was simply that far ahead of its time.
To the extent that its treatments outpaced even the West whence syphilis came.
Using arsenic as medicine was a concept the West hadn't dreamed of yet.
Considering it took centuries for them to do so, it was premature to declare East or West superior in medicine.
Aside from surgery, that is.
So, if internal medicine had reached its limit...
It was time to borrow from surgery.
And surgery's pinnacle was none other than the Weird Physician.
Perhaps...
'I might not even need their help.'
Ryu Yeonseo's thoughts delved deeper than the deepening night.
They agreed to stay at Ryu Yeonseo's from tomorrow onward, then Wi Sowol and Hwangbo Yun returned to the inn to pack for departure.
The innkeeper wept blood but couldn't hold them.
Wi Sowol paid fair room rates wherever she stayed, always.
Here too, without fail.
The reason was obvious: for good karma.
Taking a room in exchange for medical care was mere trade, not virtue.
Pay for the room properly, offer medicine as a separate act of grace—that was true karma.
At least in Wi Sowol's view.
On top of that, she'd treated the innkeeper.
She'd chosen this inn not for its facilities, but because the owner himself was a patient.
Anyway, the pair was spending their last night at the inn before leaving tomorrow.
Thanks to Hwangbo Yun temporarily shedding her male disguise, they shared a room.
"Sowol, you're really going to learn it?"
"If possible."
"Playing an instrument is tough, though."
Hwangbo Yun had some experience with instruments.
In prestigious families, one picked up a musical instrument or two as basic refinement.
Given that even Zhuge Liang was a qin master, no fault in a nobleman dabbling.
Plus, back in Gangneung County, she'd learned bits from courtesans while mingling with them.
But if asked whether she could properly play any...
No.
"Just sitting still and moving your hands felt so stifling."
Even as a courtesan trainee, Hwangbo Yun had shunned the four arts of zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting for wrestling.
"I have no intention of learning an instrument."
"Huh?"
"What I want to learn isn't the instrument—it's the sound art."
Producing sound is all it takes.
Just as swordsmanship uses a blade as medium, palm arts the hands.
Sound arts merely require fulfilling the condition of sound.
"Sword song will do."
Sword song.
A martial art of sword chants, said in some places to enlighten imperial heirs if performed for them.
Wi Sowol intended to recreate Ryu Yeonseo's sound art as sword song.
Of course, chanting with sword versus playing an instrument would differ.
But Wi Sowol was confident.
If it involved a sword, she trusted herself to master it.
And the next day.
Standing before Ryu Yeonseo...
Wi Sowol's confidence was utterly betrayed.
"Nope. No good."
With a bright smile, Ryu Yeonseo firmly snatched away the sword Wi Sowol had drawn as her "instrument."
She then thrust the namho into her empty hands.
"A girl playing sound arts with a sword? What nonsense is that."
She was resolute.
As a former courtesan.
No—as a woman.
She would never allow a pretty girl like Wi Sowol to wield a blade while "performing."
Absolutely unacceptable.
Had Wi Sowol been a handsome young man, she might've permitted it as a dashing flair.
But not for Wi Sowol.
"Take it. A girl should know how to handle at least one instrument."
And so, Wi Sowol ended up learning the namho—something utterly unplanned.