Chapter 113: Let's See Who Wins [4] "Gulp."
The sound of Kanghyeok swallowing his dry saliva echoed through the quiet room.
It was not that loud, yet the room was so silent that it felt as though the sound itself reverberated.
Now and then, only Yeoju's worried voice could be heard.
"Are you all right?"
Her hands were still filling the syringe with blood.
Her movements were extremely slow.
If this had been the usual Kanghyeok, he would have cursed up a storm already.
But Kanghyeok merely nodded with drained eyes.
He was being extraordinarily careful.
He was afraid the vein might tear if his arm shifted even a little.
"Yes. How much is left?"
"It hasn't even reached 100 mL yet."
"Hoo."
Kanghyeok let out a sigh filled with dejection.
Dolseok and Makbong secretly laughed as they watched him.
Their master was always brimming with confidence, was he not?
And yet all it took was one little needle stuck into him to make him this meek.
If they could, they wanted to summon even the Busa and Heo Jun over to see it.
If this had been the twenty-first century, they probably would have taken a secret photo and posted it on social media.
With the title The True Face of Baek Kanghyeok.
"How much do you need to draw in total?"
"Mm."
With his eyes closed, Kanghyeok began calculating desperately.
If this had been a hospital, there would have been no need to calculate this carefully.
Roughly three packs would have corrected the dehydration at once, no matter what the cause was.
I can't draw more than a liter of my own blood.
He could hardly die to save someone else.
Even self-sacrifice had its limits.
My weight is about seventy-eight kilograms…
That meant he probably had more than five liters of blood in him.
Actually, a liter should be all right.
This was an era in which it was hard to find a man as sturdy as Kanghyeok.
Truthfully, even in twenty-first-century South Korea, a man built like him was uncommon.
So even if he lost one liter, about twenty percent, it probably would not cause any major problem.
No. This isn't a situation where I can just lie down and rest afterward.
Were there not patients lined up outside?
Even by rough count, there had to be more than fifty of them.
He could not leave all of them entirely to Heo Im and Heo Jun.
At the very least, he himself had to decide whether they needed a transfusion or IV fluid.
Depending on the case, he also had to decide whether to keep using oral rehydration therapy or to give them plain food or thin rice gruel instead.
If he was to do that, he, the one in charge, could not collapse.
It was not an excuse made because he did not want to give more blood. That really was the truth.
At least, that was how Kanghyeok saw it.
"Let's try giving about 800 mL for now. How long will it take?"
"If we draw it slowly like you said, it's taking an incredibly long time… I think it'll take at least one sijin."
"One sijin…"
One sijin meant roughly two full hours.
Not with a rubber tube like an IV line, but with a metal needle stuck in him for two hours.
The absurdity of it was enough to make him laugh.
For a moment, he even thought about just drawing it quickly and giving it right away.
But that would not do.
It could lead to a very bad outcome for both the patient and Kanghyeok himself.
If I draw it too fast, I could go into hypotensive shock myself…
The idea that one liter would be fine was only half true.
If one liter were removed all at once, it would naturally put a huge strain on the heart.
To make up for the sudden loss of twenty percent of his blood, it would have to beat harder and faster.
For that reason too, the blood had to be drawn very slowly.
So the heart would have enough time to adapt.
That was why the best method was simply to let it flow out on its own, like at a blood donation vehicle.
That was impossible now, so they were drawing it out artificially, little by little.
And the patient could die too.
Whenever speed increased, so did the force involved.
The same was true for needles.
Even with the same thickness, if the blood was drawn too fast, the pressure could cause the cells in the blood to rupture and die.
If that happened, the problem would not just be that they failed to deliver the cells they needed.
Electrolytes that should have remained inside the cells would spill out, which in turn could trigger things like cardiac arrest.
"How are things outside?"
"Outside?"
"Yes. Yeoni… and Physicians Heo Jun and Heo Im. Are they managing all right?"
"I'll go check."
At Kanghyeok's words, Dolseok sprang up immediately.
He looked ready to yank the door open and run out.
Startled, Kanghyeok hurriedly stopped him.
He spoke so abruptly that the needle wobbled, and a sharp pain shot through his arm.
"Open it carefully so they don't see this."
"Ah, yes."
He had never intended to show anyone the transfusion in the first place.
But after seeing how Yeoju and the others had reacted earlier, he became certain it absolutely could not be shown.
If people saw it, treatment or no treatment, they might wrap him in a straw mat and beat him on the spot.
What people think is terrifying.
And it did not change easily.
Yeoju herself was proof of that.
How long had she been following him, and how many people had she seen him cure?
Yet one transfusion was enough for her to widen her eyes and challenge him.
There was no need even to think about how the people outside would react.
"Creeeak."
It seemed Dolseok had been thinking something similar.
He was a coward by nature.
He had no desire to fling the door open and then be accused as an accomplice and killed.
Perhaps because of that, he opened it extremely carefully.
"Uh… the number of patients on our side has gone down."
"Really? By how much?"
"Half? Is it really right to keep feeding them like this? On Dongpa's side, they don't seem to be defecating anymore. Or am I wrong?"
Dolseok tilted his head as he looked out into the courtyard.
The patients, now clearly divided into two groups, were no longer sprawled all over the ground.
Dongpa's patients had gone into the buildings prepared on the left, while Kanghyeok's patients were in the buildings on the opposite side.
The one difference was that Kanghyeok's side was constantly going in and out of the privy.
Compared to that, Dongpa's side looked fairly calm.
"If you go inside, it'll look different."
"Will it? Anyway… our Physicians Heo are really busy, and Yeoni too. Probably because they keep feeding them and they keep passing it."
"It doesn't look like anyone's having seizures, does it?"
"That… I'll go ask."
"Yes. Why are you just standing in the doorway like that? If only I weren't dealing with this…"
Kanghyeok pointed at the needle in his arm.
At once, Dolseok darted out of the room.
He had no desire to get hit over something pointless.
"Ah… this is exhausting."
"Having to keep it in like this, no doubt. Is there really no way to make it like the one stuck in that patient's arm?"
Yeoju looked at Kanghyeok with a pitiful expression as she spoke.
He probably looked all the more pitiable because this was so unlike his usual self.
Looking at the IV line she indicated, Kanghyeok answered.
"What, that?"
"Yes."
"No."
Kanghyeok shook his head with a bitter smile.
As if he had never tried it.
If that one thing were possible, there was no telling how much more he could do.
But impossible was impossible.
This is an era without rubber… and it's not as if I can make plastic either.
The only material from which he could shape something was metal.
And not even an alloy like stainless steel, but pure iron.
You can't stick something like that into a blood vessel…
It would all oxidize and rust.
If that happened, the patient might die of iron poisoning.
And even if I could shape it, it still wouldn't work like this. It would probably be even more uncomfortable than this is.
For many reasons, he had no choice but to abandon the idea.
The materials were lacking, the technology was lacking, everything was lacking.
"Still, the people Lord Heo Jun introduced all work in the palace. If even they say it can't be done, then it really can't be done."
"Yes. That's right."
While they chatted, more than 400 mL of blood had already been drawn.
Four hundred milliliters was nothing at all for a man as robust as Kanghyeok.
But for the patient receiving that blood, it was an enormous help.
One sign of that was that the eyes that had remained tightly shut until now were beginning to open, if only faintly.
"Ah, he seems to be coming to his senses."
Makbong, who had been sitting idly, approached the patient.
The patient jerked in alarm and tried to pull his head back.
It was impossible, though, since his head was already resting on a pillow.
"Wh-who are you?"
"Ah. This is Bojewon. You're being treated, so don't worry."
"Bojewon… ah. Right, I came here. Did I fall asleep…?"
It seemed the patient did not even remember fainting, let alone having the seizure.
Judging by the way he rambled while lying there, his mind was still far from clear.
That's a relief. He doesn't seem to notice he's attached to blood either.
Because who knew?
He might rip it out immediately and start making a scene.
"Makbong."
Makbong instantly understood Kanghyeok's glance and changed his position.
From the patient's angle, the blood bag hanging high above could no longer be seen.
All he could see was the IV line inserted into his arm, and that was covered with cloth.
"Anyway, your treatment isn't finished yet, so stay lying down."
"Uh… yes. But is that gentleman next to me another patient who was carried in like me?"
The patient pointed at Kanghyeok, who was lying beside him.
There was no excuse that did not sound hopelessly flimsy.
He could not exactly say, "I'm drawing my blood and giving it to you."
So Kanghyeok merely nodded.
"That's right, more or less. This disease is spreading all over this area right now."
"Ah… how frightening. I hadn't even eaten anything, and yet it just kept pouring out of me… Good grief."
Kanghyeok silently observed the patient, whose complexion had already improved as he rambled on.
His lips, tongue, the skin under his eyes, the trembling in his hands and feet, the movement at the corners of his mouth, his eyelids. Kanghyeok watched every last detail without missing one.
The twitching at the corners of the mouth and in the eyelids is gone.
That meant the electrolyte abnormality had been corrected.
The return of consciousness was also probably due to that.
The changes caused by dehydration were still clearly present elsewhere.
His lips and tongue are still dried out… but the hollowness beneath his eyes has improved a lot.
So it was not an empty saying after all, that the best IV fluid was blood.
Only a little over 400 mL had gone in, and it was already producing this much effect.
It was superior to any other fluid in existence.
There is some reward in it, at least.
Feeling a bit of fatigue, Kanghyeok resumed drawing the rest of the blood.
When he turned his head, he could see Dolseok bustling around at a distance.
From what he could tell, no disaster had broken out.
They were simply short-handed.
Fine. Then work. I need to rest a little.
Kanghyeok let out a sigh and turned his head the other way.
The discomfort from the needle in his arm kept him from feeling remotely comfortable.
Still, compared to the others who had to boil water, cool the boiled water, and carry it back and forth, he was a hundred times better off.
"Mm."
Perhaps because of that, his eyes gradually drifted shut, and time began slipping past.
Several times he closed them and opened them again.
Then, at some point, someone shook him roughly.
When he lifted his head, it was Heo Jun.
"Scholar Baek, just a moment."
"Ah, yes. Is this finished now?"
Kanghyeok first checked his arm.
If something were still stuck in it, moving around would obviously be a problem.
But the needle had already been removed, and gauze had been applied.
As he slowly sat up, he asked, "Has something happened?"
"It seems the people's dissatisfaction has grown too great. Dolseok, Yeoni, and Makbong are barely managing to stop them all from going over to Dongpa."
"Is that so? Let's go together first."
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