The Emei Sect's Plea for Aid
The next day, Hwi-yeom sent the Emei Sect both the personal letter his father Dang Un-sang had written and one of his own.
It was a carefully courteous missive—not a simple request for a visit, but an expression of interest in purchasing a modest parcel of land that the Emei Sect held, along with a polite inquiry as to whether they might spare the time to discuss the matter.
Even so, one did not simply march up to a great sect like Emei and demand they sell land; that was a sure way to be treated like a Christian missionary barging into a devout Buddhist household.
If it were just sightseeing, maybe. But this is business. Procedure matters.
Yet no reply came. A letter that should have returned within three days at the latest still had not arrived after ten.
He briefly wondered whether it was a rejection—until word spread that the Emei Sect was refusing all outside visitors and had expelled every guest staying within their grounds.
Further inquiries turned up a rumor: plague had broken out on Emei.
Damn it. Nothing to be done. We'll have to wait for another chance.
Hwi-yeom had set the Emei matter aside and was buried in other problems when Ye-eun suddenly summoned him.
"Young Master, the Family Head is asking for you."
"Father? Why?"
"He said you would understand once I told you that people from the Emei Sect have arrived."
"Ah."
Hwi-yeom shot to his feet.
Has the plague been contained? Or are they asking us to send Tang physicians? If so, I might leverage that into a deal.
Carrying a flicker of anticipation, he hurried to the Family Head's hall, straightened his robes, and cleared his throat lightly to announce himself.
"Father, it is your son Hwi-yeom."
"Enter."
With his father's permission he slid the door open. Inside, two shaven-headed nuns sat across from Dang Un-sang, sharing tea.
Hwi-yeom first offered his respects to his father, then performed a proper fist-and-palm salute to the two nuns.
"I am delighted that you have honored our house with your visit today. I am Hwi-yeom, Young Master of the Sichuan Tang Family."
"How composed for one so young. A pleasure to meet you, Young Master. This humble nun is called Hye-jeong, and this is my disciple Hyo-eun."
"I am Hyo-eun."
"Ah—so you are Master Hye-jeong, the Punghwa Geomryeo. It is an honor. Tell me, did the sword I sent earlier meet with your approval?"
Our advertising model, Master Hye-jeong—one of the Ten Great Masters of Sichuan!
In his aggressive pursuit of influencer marketing, Hwi-yeom had re-forged Flawless Steel into twelve supreme swords and gifted them to the sect leaders of Qingcheng and Emei, as well as the Ten Great Masters of Sichuan.
When Hwi-yeom's eyes lit up with the question, Master Hye-jeong smiled and pointed to the new sword she had unwrapped and laid on the floor.
"I am so fond of it that I carry it everywhere. I hear the refined steel in this blade was made in the furnace the Young Master himself devised? Remarkable for one so young."
Hm?
Hwi-yeom suppressed the urge to tilt his head. Beneath Master Hye-jeong's smiling praise he had glimpsed a deep shadow.
Is the plague that bad?
"To think that Master, who may rightly be called Sichuan's greatest sword, would deign to use a blade forged by our Tang Family—my shoulders feel as if they might lift right off."
"Hahaha…"
After they had finished gilding each other's reputations, Hwi-yeom turned his gaze back to Dang Un-sang. Taking the cue that it was time for the main business, his father spoke.
"The hot spring you mentioned lies near Chenyi Peak, land the Emei Sect has effectively controlled for generations. They say it is not something they can simply hand over. However…"
Dang Un-sang glanced briefly at Master Hye-jeong's weary face.
"A strange pestilence is currently sweeping through the Emei Sect, and they have come to us—known for our medical skill—with a plea for aid. If we can cure that pestilence, they will not sell the Chenyi Peak area outright, but they are prepared to grant a long-term lease of a hundred years or more."
Just as I thought!
Inwardly exultant, Hwi-yeom still feigned ignorance.
"A pestilence?"
"I would have to examine it myself, but from the description it sounds like hoyeolja—cholera."
"Cholera…"
Hwi-yeom's expression grew grave.
Cholera was a merciless disease that stole lives in agony, and in vast numbers. Yet the treatment was almost laughably simple. In the advanced nations of the twenty-first century, almost no one died of it.
The problem is that the "simple treatment" is intravenous fluid replacement…
The chief cause of death was catastrophic dehydration leading to multi-organ failure. The body literally poured every drop of moisture out as diarrhea until the victim withered away. If one simply pumped in more fluid through the veins than the body was losing and waited for recovery, the disease cured itself.
Without that technology, pre-modern cholera was a nightmare that wiped out entire districts and only stopped when the contaminated water source was sealed off.
Judging by Dang Un-sang's grim face, the Sichuan Tang Family had no reliable cure either.
This is an opportunity!
"Father. It may be that some of the knowledge I possess could be of help."
Dang Un-sang's eyebrows twitched.
"What did you say?"
"Yes. In the Western Expedition Record of the Ironwood Formation that I mentioned before, there is an account of an army nearly annihilated by cholera."
"Is that true?"
Dang Un-sang brightened at once. Hope flickered across the faces of Master Hye-jeong and Nun Hyo-eun as well.
"Yes. By chance, a physician captured in the field taught them a symptomatic treatment that allowed them to rise again from the disease. The story is recorded."
"What is the method? What medicines does it use?"
"It is simple. For every doe of clean water, dissolve eight pun of salt and six don of sugar. Warm the mixture to body temperature and keep giving it to the patient without stop."
At Hwi-yeom's words every brow in the room furrowed sharply. Dang Un-sang spoke first.
"People are not fools. Attempts have long been made to save the dying by forcing water into them to match what they lost in diarrhea. But the body simply will not accept it—what good is more water? That book of yours must be full of empty boasts."
Master Hye-jeong said nothing, yet she nodded. Nun Hyo-eun simply sighed in open disappointment.
Hwi-yeom refused to yield.
"Ordinary water is naturally rejected when taken in such volume. What makes this treatment water different is that its concentration matches the body's own, so it does not disrupt the salt balance within."
"The salt concentration of the body? Explain more carefully."
"Yes. Just as water flows from high ground to low, water also moves from a place of low salt to a place of high salt. That property is called osmotic pressure."
"And why does that happen?"
"Think of pickling vegetables in salt—it becomes easy to understand. Salted vegetables wrinkle and shrink because the moisture is drawn out of them, yes? The vegetable is not salty; the salt is. So water leaves the bland vegetable and seeps toward the salt. When we drink plain water, our bodies are salty and the water is not; through that same osmotic pressure our bodies absorb what we drink."
Even if they had never heard the word "osmotic pressure," everyone knew that salted vegetables lost their water and grew wrinkled. Understanding dawned.
"Hmm."
"When we drink plain water, the body accepts it at first. But if we force down a great quantity at once, the water concentration inside the body rises too high. It becomes like snatching a saltwater fish from the sea and dropping it into a freshwater pond. Just as a sea fish cannot live in a pond, the body cannot endure it. The rejection response is vomiting or diarrhea—the body expelling the excess moisture."
Seeing their blank faces at the unfamiliar concept, Hwi-yeom pressed on quickly.
"Give too much plain water and the body's salt balance collapses; everything is vomited back up. Give water that is too salty and it is like drinking seawater—the opposite effect. Therefore the water must be salted in precisely the right measure."
Only then did they grasp why salt water was absorbed better than plain water. Dang Un-sang asked with new curiosity:
"Then what is the purpose of the sugar?"
"Because the sweet component of sugar is the substance our bodies absorb and take up most rapidly. It need not be sugar; fruit juice, grain syrup, or honey will serve just as well."
"I see…"
After a moment's thought, Dang Un-sang spoke.
"From ancient times the Emei Sect has been one of the Nine Sects and One Gang, and our Sichuan Tang Family of the Nine Great Noble Families has long cultivated friendship with them. How could we turn our backs when misfortune has befallen a good neighbor? I will dispatch the Tang Family's finest physicians to halt this calamity and help your people recover."
"Is that truly so? Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Family Head. The Emei Sect will never forget this."
Master Hye-jeong pressed her palms together, a bright smile lighting her lined face.
A problem arose at once.
When Dang Un-sang announced that medical aid must be sent because cholera had struck the Emei Sect, the family's physicians blanched.
"With cholera there is no treatment save to burn every scrap of clothing the patients wore, seal every well they used, and abandon the district entirely."
Physicians were human too; none rushed forward eager to risk their lives treating cholera. A handful of direct-line Tang descendants trained in medicine did roll up their sleeves and declare they would obey the Family Head's order—yet the Council of Elders openly poured ashes on the whole affair.
"Not a single physician of the Medicinal Hall will leave these gates! Family Head, how could you reach so rash a decision without even consulting our Council of Elders?"
"If the Family Head means to ignore the advisory body that exists to counsel him and settle great family affairs by private whim, what purpose does the Council of Elders serve? Do you mean to repudiate the institution our ancestors themselves established?"
Watching the elders sink their teeth into the opportunity, Dang Un-sang ground his molars until they creaked.
Damned old fossils. If I had refused to help, they would have howled that a righteous orthodox house was casting aside honor and duty.
In truth the fault was not entirely his. The Council of Elders had indeed been founded so that the rich experience of the aged might advise the Family Head. Yet this time he had had no choice.
When the Emei Sect had come in such humble petition, to answer, "Ah, then I shall consult our elders and get back to you," would have advertised to the entire martial world that the Tang Family Head's authority was already in tatters.
Knowing the backlash would come, he had bluffed his way through anyway.
"Even so—to dig in your heels and throw such a tantrum! Is my personal face more precious than the Tang Family's good faith? Speak, Elders!"
"Why send our own people into harm's way when we already know the danger, Family Head?"
"A warrior's duty is to face the battlefield without fear of death—but no one wishes to wither hideously on a sickbed, Family Head!"
"Have I not already told you the countermeasure? No one need die!"
"That 'countermeasure' comes from some rootless scrap of a book the Young Master claims to have read! You would hurl the family's precious physicians into the jaws of death on the strength of such baseless rumor?"
"After everything the Young Master has already accomplished, you still speak so?"
"Devising useful tools and devising methods to heal the dying are two entirely different matters, Family Head!"
The full assembly hall had descended into chaos. Voices rose higher and higher; Dang Un-sang's face flushed an angry crimson—when the sliding door rattled open with a sharp drrrk!
Every eye snapped toward the entrance.
The figure who stepped through was none other than Hwi-yeom. He calmly surveyed the elders one by one; only when he was certain every gaze had locked upon him did he speak a single, dry remark.
"What a complete mess."