Chapter. Dancing with the Five Viscera (1)
"Go out and bring me some needles. The size doesn't matter—just as many as you can."
"...Pardon?"
Gardin flinched in surprise.
Then he tilted his head with his handsome face, as if the request had struck him as rather out of the blue.
Rakiel let out a wry smile.
Well, there's no need to explain everything in detail.
What the needles were for, he'd find out soon enough.
"Is this a request, or an order?"
"...!"
He prodded him lightly, just in case.
The effect was dramatic.
Sir Gardin dashed out at the speed of light.
In the meantime, Rakiel steadied his breathing.
First, let's start with a diagnosis. Figure out what exactly is wrong with this body.
Only by grasping that precisely could proper treatment begin.
He slowly took the pulse.
And before he knew it—
"Tsks."
He clicked his tongue.
Because bewilderment came surging up in waves.
What the hell kind of pulse is this?
He felt as though his common sense had vanished. Truly, this was his first time encountering a pulse like this. The more he examined it, the greater his confusion grew.
The pulse was strange.
No—horrific.
Every bad prognostic sign he could think of was being felt all at once.
First of all, the pulse was irregular. It would beat fine, then suddenly stop. It couldn't even keep going for ten breaths before stopping. Then stopping again. A textbook case of a skipped pulse (intermittent pulse, daemaek).
And it was severe.
But that wasn't the end of the problem.
Between the skipped beats, there are even more irregular pulses mixed in. It suddenly speeds up, then stops again. That's a rapid pulse (skipping plus, chokmaek).
Which meant heat in the five viscera.
On top of that, bizarre pulses came hand in hand, stringing themselves together like Vienna sausages.
Boiling-cauldron pulse (Bubble - Rising Plus), fish-swimming pulse , stone-bouncing pulse , unraveling-rope pulse , leaking-roof pulse, shrimp-swimming pulse , sparrow-pecking pulse , overturned-blade pulse , rolling-bean pulse , numb-rapid pulse as well… wow. Is this treatment difficulty for real?
A deep sigh slipped out on its own.
This was bad—far too bad.
These were the so-called Ten Monstrous Pulses (ten kinds of paradoxical pulse conditions). Even showing a single one meant one's life was in danger. And here they were—every last one of them—neatly, completely, without exception, all present at once.
This isn't some kind of early-death comprehensive package, is it?
As a Korean medicine doctor, he had taken quite a lot of pulses in his career. But this was a first.
How is this even possible?
How could such a catastrophic set of pulses all gather in a single body? Was that even possible?
By common sense, it wasn't.
Yet the problem was that it was happening right here, in reality.
Rakiel turned to look at the mirror beside the bed.
A face with a sickly impression stared back at him.
Tsk. So that's why you died before even making it a year.
Suddenly, the early chapters of the novel "Demon Sword Emperor" came to mind. In the story, Crown Prince Rakiel's illness was never identified. Countless physicians clung to the case, but to no avail.
In the end, they all gave up.
No one ever figured out the nature of the disease. Someone even suggested it was a curse caused by magic.
But honestly, even I have no idea what this is.
It would be better if just one part were clearly bad. Then he could track down the related condition and treat it.
But now?
Everything is bad. There's not a single place in this body that's functioning properly.
It was absurd.
Ridiculous.
Life difficulty: insane.
A laugh escaped him.
Come to think of it, his life back in Korea hadn't exactly been easy either.
That damn loan—I thought I'd pay it off easily.
As Rakiel recalled the last few months of his life in Korea, his teeth clenched involuntarily. Even in his late thirties, when he finally opened his own Korean medicine clinic, things had seemed good.
It felt like he had the whole world in his hands.
He'd taken out loans to the limit.
But he thought he could pay them back quickly.
That he'd patch things up in no time.
He had been confident. Certain.
Because the location was good.
It was a decent spot: the second floor of a commercial building in the central shopping district of a metropolitan new town. The rent was high, of course.
Still, he thought it would be fine.
There was plenty of foot traffic. Apartment complexes surrounded the area. Thanks to that, he wasn't too worried.
But that confidence and faith were blown away in a single stroke.
…If only it hadn't been for COVID.
A nationwide—no, worldwide—viral outbreak erupted. As a result, the steady stream of patients visiting the clinic dwindled.
That wasn't all.
Among the patients who had visited the clinic, there were confirmed COVID cases. Not just one, but two in a row. That news spread like wildfire through the local apartment community's online forums.
That was the decisive blow.
No patients came anymore.
His income was almost completely cut off.
Even the loan interest—let alone the building's rent—became hard to pay. What he had thought of as an advantage when opening the clinic, a prime spot in a bustling commercial district, came back during the pandemic as a fatal blow in the form of exorbitant rent.
And so, the clinic went under.
All that remained was an enormous mountain of debt—so huge it made your voice shoot up seven octaves just to say "hundreds of millions."
But now?
I thought I'd finally escaped that mess…
It seemed things had only gotten even more chaotic.
Rakiel swallowed a sigh and pulled himself out of his reverie.
Back in Korea, he'd been driven into a financial crisis. Here, he'd been driven into a fight for survival.
If I just lie around dazed like this, I'll be booking a high-speed, direct meeting with King Yama.
At this rate, he would die.
He had to do something.
He had to try treating himself somehow.
Otherwise, in this unfamiliar land where he had no roots, he'd win the critical hit of dying young and sickly—something never written in his fate.
I don't want that. I'm going to live. I'll survive no matter what and live large.
He had no lingering attachment to Korea anyway.
His parents had passed away long ago.
He had no siblings or relatives to speak of.
No girlfriend either… right.
Just a mountain of debt left behind.
Still… Wonho, Eunsu. I'll try to live well here, you little punks.
He bid a quiet farewell to the only friends he'd ever truly grown attached to back in Korea, renewing his resolve to survive.
Around then, Sir Gardin returned.
And he came back with results far beyond expectations, carrying an armful of them.
"Huff, huff! Your Highness? As you ordered, I brought the needles… all of them."
Thud!
He dropped the bundle.
Inside were far more than a hundred needles, piled up in a dense heap.
"...."
"Your Highness?"
"Yeah."
"I brought the needles as commanded…"
"Mm."
"I ran all over trying to gather as many as possible…"
"Right… good work."
"Thank you!"
"Then could you spread them out? I need to pick some needles."
"At once."
Clatter!
Sir Gardin overturned the bundle.
Hundreds of needles of all shapes and sizes spilled across the table, sparkling as they asserted their presence.
Rakiel picked out the thinnest and smallest ones among them.
These are going to sting quite a bit.
Just looking at the needles he'd chosen made his breathing grow rough.
The reason was simple.
He was worried.
I never thought I'd end up performing acupuncture on myself with needles this big. Seriously.
In truth, the needles used for acupuncture in a Korean medicine clinic were different from ordinary needles. They were much thinner, with slightly rounded tips. There was a reason they hurt less than hospital injection needles.
But compared to those, the needles he'd picked now?
These are more like clubs. Clubs.
Even so, they should be usable for needling.
Rakiel carefully continued selecting his needles.
He sterilized their tips over a candle flame.
Perhaps this unfamiliar behavior looked strange to him.
"Um, Your Highness?"
"Hm?"
"I hesitate to ask, but… what exactly are you planning to do with those needles right now…?"
Sir Gardin asked timidly, watching him closely.
Rakiel smiled lightly.
He answered as if it were nothing at all.
"Simple. I'm going to poke my body a little with these."
In other words, he was going to perform acupuncture.
The Rakiel in the novel had received all kinds of treatments, yet still died. That meant the medicine of this world—or the blessings of the clergy—hadn't helped. So if he didn't want to die, he had to try something different.
And just so happened—
He had Korean medicine.
A form of medical practice that didn't exist in this world.
Perhaps this Korean medicine might become the faint sliver of hope he needed.
That was why.
Let's start with acupuncture. Herbal medicine would take time and preparation to obtain. Of the things I can do right here and now, this is probably the best option.
He made up his mind.
But perhaps his answer sounded utterly shocking to Sir Gardin. The knight's eyes went wide.
"Wh-what?!"
"What's so surprising? I said I'm going to poke myself. Just a little."
"...."
"It's fine. I won't die."
"Y-Your Hiiighness—!"
Sir Gardin dropped to his knees at the speed of light. With tears welling up on his perfectly handsome face, he began to beg.
"Please, anything but self-harm!"
"...."
"Your Highness is the one destined to carry on the imperial line. No matter how much you suffer from illness, no matter how exhausted your body and mind may be—how could you resort to self-harm like this? Your Highness? Please, calm yourself and—"
"I think you're the one who needs to calm down."
"Y-Your Hiiiighness—!"
"My ears are about to fall off. I said it's not self-harm."
"But, Your Highness?"
"Tsk. Enough. That's far enough."
Rakiel cut off Sir Gardin's pleas.
Even so, the knight didn't back down easily. In fact, the expression on his upturned face was downright resolute.
It seemed a brief explanation was necessary to clear up the misunderstanding. Wiping the smile from his face, Rakiel spoke plainly.
"If I don't do this, I'll die."
"...What?"
"That's why I'm doing it."
"What do you mean by—"
"I understand that you're worried about me as my attending physician. I appreciate that. But could you, just once, trust me and watch what I do?"
"Your Highness."
"If something goes wrong, I'll never do it again. Instead—"
He drove the point home, as if hammering in a final nail toward the hesitant Sir Gardin.
"If nothing happens, then trust me from now on."
"...."
"Can you do that?"
"...."
Sir Gardin almost nodded before he realized it, persuaded without quite knowing why.
Was His Highness always like this?
It was strange.
Perhaps it had started when he collapsed earlier and then woke up.
His way of speaking, his behavior— even his expressions and gaze—everything had subtly changed.
But whether that change was good or bad—
He still couldn't tell.
At least his eyes aren't as dull and lifeless as before.
Instead, they were clear and focused, fixed straight on him.
The Crown Prince had always been sickly.
Weak to the point of pitiful.
Yet this was the first time he had ever seen such a look in the Crown Prince's eyes.
Perhaps it was that gaze. In the end, Sir Gardin accepted the prince's words.
"…If you put it that way, then I will obey your command. Your Highness."
"Good. Thank you."
Rakiel smiled in satisfaction.
It felt like he'd crossed over one small mountain.
But the real test began now.
He picked up the first needle.
His body was a complete mess.
But he had already decided where to begin.
As expected, I should start with the Hand Greater Yin Lung Meridian.
He recalled the pulse diagnosis from earlier.
Everything was in shambles.
But if he had to pick the single most urgent issue—
It was unquestionably the respiratory system.
First, I need to be able to breathe comfortably if I'm going to do anything at all.
Breathing was the most fundamental thing.
Only when it was smooth could he gain the strength to fight illness. For that purpose, it made sense to start by regulating the Hand Greater Yin Lung Meridian—the starting point of the twelve primary meridians and the one most closely associated with the lungs.
"Hoo…"
Lying down, he removed his shirt.
He steadied his breath.
He brought the needle to the end of his left clavicle.
Just below where the shoulder and collarbone met.
At the corner of the infraclavicular fossa.
Six cun lateral to the anterior midline.
Used to treat intercostal neuralgia, chest pain, bronchial asthma.
Shortness of breath, coughing—
The lung's most important Front-Mu point.
The acupoint also known as Yingzhongshu (breast center).
He pierced Zhongfu (middle) with the needle.
Thot!
The tip of the needle sank precisely five fen deep into Zhongfu.
Ugh.
Maybe because the needle was so large—
It stung more than he'd expected.
And then—
Out of nowhere, a clear, unexpected chime rang out.
Ding-dong!
A bell sound suddenly tapped against his eardrums. At the same time, a string of unexpected messages appeared before his eyes.
[Your precise acupuncture has given your body a pleasant stimulus.]
[Your five viscera and six bowels have begun to slightly regain their proper functions.]
[Your lungs have awakened.]
[Your lungs give you a thumbs-up.]
[Your lungs have sponsored you with 100 HP.]