Doctor’s Rebirth

Chapter 56

The master said, “Can you take his pulse?”

Jin Cheon-hee gritted his teeth.

From what he could tell, it seemed his master also believed amputation was necessary. He was simply checking his disciple’s opinion one last time.

Jin Cheon-hee used his Five-Elemental Divine Technique to examine the patient’s interior.

Pure water energy entered the patient’s body.

Slowly, Jin Cheon-hee’s eyelids opened.

“We can save the leg.”

“W-What!?”

The members of the Hwaju Medical Pavilion cried out with bewildered faces. They quickly made a fist-palm salute and spoke urgently.

“Your Highness, you must not fall for the malicious deception of the White Dragon Medical Pavilion trying to gain merit!”

Yoo Ho said, “Did you just say ‘malicious’?”

“How is it not malicious to claim a patient who can only be saved by amputation can be saved without it?!”

Wangya Ju fell into thought, then eventually asked Jin Cheon-hee:

“Can you really save the leg?”

Jin Cheon-hee said, “My master will think the same as me. We can save it with the White Dragon Medical Pavilion’s techniques. Though I can’t give you a definite answer.”

Examining the pulse, the patient’s condition could be described as an open fracture type 3^[1], with a contaminated wound and severely damaged muscles on top of that.

Needless to say, the bone fragments were severely misaligned.

The one fortunate thing amidst the misfortune was that the artery was relatively clean with no major damage. But it was still undeniably a dangerous surgery.

Despite being in a state of confusion from the extreme pain, the Imperial Prince Consort was still enduring.

It was an incredible mental fortitude that defied modern common sense.

“You see! He says it’s not certain! They’re using the disciple to scheme!”

‘What scheme, you bastard!’

At that moment, Zhuge Rin grabbed Jin Cheon-hee’s shoulder.

He looked down at Jin Cheon-hee gently.

His actions seemed to say, ‘Leave this to me, Hee-ya.’

Zhuge Rin spoke: “There is no medical pavilion brazen enough to scheme against His Highness, Wangya Ju. It is for Your Highness to decide. Amputation would certainly save his life. However, he would never be able to use his leg again. If we try to save it, we’ll have to take a risk.”

“…”

“But if we succeed, he may be able to dance again, even if not as well as before.”

The Imperial Prince Consort said, “Your Highness… please… I beg you. You must not cut off my leg.”

“Rang-rang…”

“If you’re going to cut off my leg, please cut off my head instead.”

“Rang-rang… how can you say such things to me? It seems so cold. How can you say that, leaving me behind…”

“…”

The Imperial Prince Consort didn’t answer.

He just stared at the ceiling.

“You cruel thing. You wicked thing. Tearing my heart like this…”

“Your Highness…”

“In all your life, you’ve never asked me for anything. I tried to give you countless treasures, but you never accepted them.”

“This is my only request…”

“So this is the first and only request Rang-rang has ever made of me.”

She stroked the Imperial Prince Consort’s head.

Finally, as if having made up her mind, she spoke:

“Cut it off.”

“Your Highness! Your Highness! Just kill me instead! Your Highness! Urgh!”

At that moment, the Imperial Prince Consort tried to sit up. Then, groaning in excruciating pain, he nearly fell off the bed.

Wangya Ju rushed over in surprise and held his body.

Her touch was extremely gentle, as if embracing the most precious glass bead in the world.

“What am I supposed to do! Rang-rang! I can’t abandon you. Even if it’s your only request, I can’t grant that one!”

Wangya Ju laughed like a madwoman.

A heavy atmosphere pressed down on the medical pavilion. A powerful pressure filled the air, preventing anyone from uttering a word.

Eventually, as if having made up her mind, Wangya Ju opened her mouth.

“I have no choice. If you plead like this, saying you’d rather die, how can I refuse? Don’t cut it off.”

The Imperial Prince Consort grasped Wangya Ju’s hand. But Wangya Ju shook off his touch.

“Rang-rang, you are such a wicked Imperial Prince Consort.”

Her voice was deeply soaked with emotion.

Wangya Ju left without looking back at his calls.

Once Wangya Ju left, the air became somewhat lighter.

Jin Cheon-hee let out a small sigh.

‘The guardian’s choice has been made. And the patient strongly desires it too. We must save his leg no matter what.’

If he’ll die whether we cut it off or not, there’s only one answer.

We have to save him using methods from outside the novel.

At that moment, the oldest member of the Hwaju Medical Pavilion spoke:

“I cannot forgive this. White Dragon Medical Pavilion… pushing a patient who could certainly be saved to the brink of death just to gain merit. Jin Cheon-hee, was it?”

Jin Cheon-hee looked at the Hwaju Medical Pavilion member.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I won’t forget you. I’ll report this to Medicine Sage as well. I’ll tell him exactly what your glib tongue has done!”

Even though Wangya Ju had left, they seemed unable to say anything harsher in front of the Imperial Prince Consort.

However, the venom was clear enough that everyone frowned.

Jin Cheon-hee calmly swallowed it. Then he grasped her master’s sleeve with one hand. It was a signal not to intervene.

‘Even if I said I know the future, they’d just treat me like a madman.’

That was a secret he could never reveal.

‘It’s this hard just to save one person.’

The sensation he felt when treating Wang Gak-yeon, the daughter of Phantom Archer, came rushing back.

In truth, it was always a frightening act to operate on someone.

But Jin Cheon-hee knew the ending of this story.

‘I can’t back down here. I’m the only one who knows the patient’s future.’

If he hadn’t made a decision, it would be one thing, but having already decided, he was Jin Cheon-hee’s patient. Jin Cheon-hee looked at the patient’s face.

The Imperial Prince Consort looked at them with a dejected expression.

It was the face of someone prepared for death.

Did he think it would be an honorable death if he died here?

‘You’re making an expression I don’t like.’

That wouldn’t do. He preferred faces sticky with an attachment to life.

Patients like that endure well and recover well.

-Smile. Just annoying enough is perfect.

The voice of a senior colleague from his youth echoes deeper than Jin Cheon-hee’s cochlea.

Advice from someone who’s no longer here.

But Jin Cheon-hee pulled his facial muscles with all his might and smiled shamelessly.

As his senior said, it was important to pull just enough to be annoying.

“Can the Hwaju Medical Pavilion save him?”

“What?”

“I asked if you have a way to save both the leg and the patient’s life.”

“Just cut off the leg and be done with it!”

“…So you don’t.”

Jin Cheon-hee’s words became a blade pointing at the Hwaju Medical Pavilion member’s chin.

When all the Hwaju Medical Pavilion members hesitated to answer, everyone from the White Dragon Medical Pavilion’s expressions returned to normal, as if to say ‘See?’

The match was over.

As long as they couldn’t propose an alternative, it was Jin Cheon-hee’s victory.

Zhuge Rin said, “Outsiders, please leave. We need to prepare for the procedure now.”

It was an order to leave.

Grind-

The Hwaju Medical Pavilion members had to leave, grinding their molars fiercely.

Jin Cheon-hee looked at the patient’s expression.

He saw a face contorted with anxiety.

‘He can be anxious because he’s seen hope.’

It was a better face than before.

Jin Cheon-hee repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fist.

Saving a person is always frightening. But it was also important not to spread that feeling. Jin Cheon-hee said:

“Let’s quickly do the emergency treatment. Hahaha.”

The Imperial Prince Consort struggled to open his mouth.

Fortunately, it seemed the pain had somewhat reduced because they had quickly pressed his acupoints.

“I heard you were the disciple of White Dragon, but I didn’t expect you to be like this.”

‘Oh, you still have the spirit to talk?’

That’s a good sign.

“Like what?”

“Should I say you’re quite shameless? A bit annoying.”

After saying that, his contorted expression relaxed a little.

A cold flame spreads across his retina.

Even in extreme pain, the patient was enduring without letting go of himself.

To prepare for the battle ahead.

‘Hmm, that’s a good face.’

Jin Cheon-hee thought.

***

To prepare for emergency surgery, the master had Jin Cheon-hee prepare the formation.

They say if you don’t have teeth, use your gums, but when it came to sterilization, it was certainly better than modern medicine.

The Five Elements formation’s fire energy purified everything that entered.

Jin Cheon-hee infused energy into the needle tip and pressed the patient’s Cyclic Gate (萁門, Qi Men), Blood Sea (血海, Xiehai), and Ridge Mound (梁丘, Liangqiu) acupoints in order.

In a way, it could be called anesthesia, so this too was better than modern methods.

While acupuncture anesthesia is sometimes used in modern times too, they can’t anesthetize the leg of a fracture patient, let alone an open fracture patient, like this.

‘Still, when we start the main surgery, we’ll have to put him to sleep.’

When surgery begins, the body moves, and when that happens, the qi and blood flow are disturbed as well.

So before starting surgery, they would give him medicinal decoction and press the acupoint on the back of his neck, not his leg, to anesthetize him.

Jin Cheon-hee examined the patient’s condition in depth.

‘Looking closely, I’m sure of it. The blood vessels aren’t severely damaged. The nerves should be fine at this level too.’

The speed of bone recovery depends on the degree of vascular damage.

You might wonder what hard bones have to do with blood vessels, but in fact, it’s blood vessels that recover bones.

Imagine a situation where your leg is broken at a ski resort.

First, the broken part swells up.

Blood gathers and causes an inflammatory response. It’s also called edema.

This is the inflammation phase.

After the swollen inflammation gradually subsides, fibroblasts form new matrix.

As time passes, soft callus forms at the broken site.

Soft callus is, simply put, soft callus tissue. It gradually becomes harder from this state.

That’s the hard callus.

But it’s still just fake bone at this point. That’s why it’s called callus (假骨, fake bone).

It can’t be called a proper bone yet.

Up to here is the restoration phase.

Depending on the area, for a simple fracture, it takes about 4 weeks to get to this point.

After that, it goes through the remodeling phase, where excess callus is absorbed and the medullary cavity is regenerated.

It returns to the form of a proper bone.

So if the blood vessels are damaged, bone regeneration naturally slows down.

Fortunately for this patient, the peroneal artery was intact.

Jin Cheon-hee thought there must be some heavenly fortune after all.

“You keep feeding him this precious spirit pill.”

Open fractures start with antibiotics and end with antibiotics.

Especially because osteomyelitis, which comes in as a complication, is intractable, antibiotics should have been administered as soon as he arrived at the emergency room.

They were just now administering antibiotics intravenously because they were arguing outside.

The IV drip that she had made earlier by drilling Yoo Ho had now become the hottest item in the medical pavilion.

They were using it to administer penicillin intravenously, and because it was cultivated using qi, it was in a state of being an elixir that also helped preserve the patient’s strength.

Moreover, thanks to the excellent lightness skills of the martial artists in Wangya Ju’s palace, the patient wasn’t shaken, and not much time had passed since the injury.

On top of that, there was Jin Cheon-hee’s appropriate initial response.

Thanks to this, they had bought time to prepare for emergency surgery.

1. https://media.aofoundation.org/-/jssmedia/surgery/00/00_open_fractures_4a.png?w=620[↩]