The pulse… it's coming back
Song I-sul Takes the Pulse, and the Road to Seolgyeongseong
Park Seong-jin's breathing was shallow and slow.
It was difficult to tell whether he was drawing breath or releasing it.
Song I-sul's fingers settled once more on his pulse.
This time, he was even more careful—
a touch groping along a thread that would snap if disturbed.
"The pulse… it's coming back," he murmured, not lifting his hand.
"But it isn't the blood pulse. It's the breath-channel.
Breath is still attached, but the soul keeps being pushed away."
Lee Ji-seon asked quietly,
"Will he be all right?"
"I don't know."
Song I-sul shook his head.
"Soul and flesh are split thin. They're holding for now,
but one lapse and the fissure opens again.
And through that fissure, who knows what might enter."
He gripped Park Seong-jin's hand tightly.
It was cold.
"It'll be hard for him to pass through this cleanly.
He looks like a corpse that hasn't quite left the world."
Lee Ji-seon asked carefully,
"Can he live?"
Song I-sul answered by clenching his teeth.
"Hell, should I cast a divination or something…"
He rose at once.
There was no hesitation.
"Seolgyeongseong. We go to him."
Lee Ji-seon lifted his head.
"Yes. He's the only one who can save him now."
"But he may refuse."
Song I-sul frowned.
"They say he's an infuriating sort."
"Does he demand a great deal of money?"
"That's not the problem," Song I-sul cut in.
"We don't know what he demands.
Still—we give everything if that's what it takes to save this child.
Poison, wounds, even an internal rupture. He's taken it all."
They transferred Park Seong-jin onto a stretcher.
The blood-soaked clothes were roughly cut away.
They stopped the bleeding as best they could.
When his breathing steadied slightly, Song I-sul spoke shortly.
"From here on, the road matters.
No jolting. No riding hard."
"Even inside the capital?"
"Inside the capital is worse."
At that, everyone fell silent.
The night over Gaegyeong was still deep.
Yet the stench of blood from the palace rode the wind.
Lights were extinguished in every alley.
Windows were shut tight.
The three moved without a word.
Lee Ji-seon walked in front.
The stretcher was in the middle.
Song I-sul followed behind.
Lee Ji-seon spoke softly.
"Seolgyeongseong stays at the southern annex of the Royal Apothecary.
Outwardly quiet, but—"
"But what?"
"There are many people.
And he may refuse."
Song I-sul smiled bitterly.
"If a physician refuses treatment,
then he might as well send the man to the other world himself."
He looked down at Park Seong-jin on the stretcher.
"Still, we take him.
This one stands at the divide between living and dying.
I don't care if that man is political, or well-connected, or whatever else.
We go, and we make him live."
Just then, Park Seong-jin's finger twitched faintly.
Song I-sul stopped at once.
"Seong-jin?"
His eyes did not open,
but his lips trembled, just barely.
"…It… opened again…"
Song I-sul's face hardened.
He asked at once,
"What opened?"
"…The sky…"
Lee Ji-seon's eyes wavered, thin with tension.
"It hasn't closed yet."
It was delirium.
Hallucination brought on by the edge of death.
Song I-sul clenched his teeth.
"We hurry. He won't hold much longer."
They set off again.