Chapter 73: He Also Did Beauty Treatments [4] It took a little over a week to find the golden ratio for the pufferfish poison.
It could not have been otherwise. If they failed, they had to spend dozens of minutes engrossed in blowing up balloons.
The opportunity cost of keeping up the experiments for no reason was far too high.
A lot happened...
Kanghyeok looked over the figures sprawled out around him.
Dolseok, Makbong, Yeoju, Yeoni, Dorikkae, and the others were all collapsed from blowing balloons, while the gang bastards were completely drained from being used as test subjects.
Will that one recover from that?
Kanghyeok looked at one of the gang members who had been injected in the forehead wrinkles.
His eyes had been drooping downward the whole time.
He had not expected the effect to be that strong.
He had tried another one in the calf, and that one was still limping.
After stepping over all those sacrifices, he had finally managed to figure out the golden ratio.
"Good. If it's diluted five hundred times, it's safe enough, and the effect is decent too."
Kanghyeok looked at the man drooling from one side of his mouth.
By coincidence, it was the very first man who had nearly died.
"Is this what you call decent?"
Dolseok asked, pointing at the drool.
No matter how anyone looked at it, one side of the man's face was terribly unnatural.
"Yeah. It's paralyzed, right? That'll wear off after a while. He'll suffer for some time, though..."
"It's amazing. One shot, and a person swings back and forth like this."
"Right? This is my first time observing it this closely too."
Under normal circumstances, he would have tried it on a dog first.
But just then, a fight had broken out, and those bastards had been captured and brought in, so things had worked out nicely.
"So we don't have to do this anymore now, right?"
The man with one side of his mouth paralyzed spoke in a pleading tone.
He had been living like this for days already, getting injected here and there.
He was not that old, but he could confidently say these had been the most painful and miserable days of his life.
"Yeah. We'll stop now."
"Thank you, my lord. Thank you so much for sparing my life."
"There's nothing to thank me for."
It was true that Kanghyeok had saved him every single time.
But wasn't it also Kanghyeok who had nearly killed him in the first place?
"Then... can we go now?"
The man looked back at his companions with a gloomy face.
Bandages were wrapped here and there, and some of them were groaning from injections.
All of their faces had visibly grown slimmer, but not because they had been starving.
The medicine might have been dangerous, but the effect was no joke.
"Sure. Go on."
"Yes, yes. Thank you."
The man led his gang and hurried out of the lodging.
No routed army could have fled with its tail tucked between its legs as pathetically as that.
Watching their retreating backs, Dolseok could not hide his worry.
"Is it really okay to let them go like that?"
"Why not?"
"Well... what if they come back later and try to harm us?"
"Harm us? Hey, do you really think they can? They've seen too much here."
"I suppose... You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
"That was part of it, yes."
Kanghyeok had deliberately treated Seongryong at the house all this time.
He had made sure the gang understood that this was a house important enough for the Minister of Rites to visit every day.
What was more, the conversations between the two were no ordinary ones.
Kim Yungil, who would soon become the Minister of Personnel, the Anseong County Magistrate, Baek Seungmun, and even Yi Hangbok, Left Assistant Minister of Rites.
That was not a level some petty gang leader could possibly handle.
"As expected of you, Young Master. Then when is Lord Yi Hangbok going to leave?"
"He should be leaving soon. But has he been busy lately? He hasn't come at all."
He had taken that gang boss with him, then vanished without even showing his face.
It seemed he was doing all sorts of things with that fellow, but Kanghyeok had no way of knowing what.
"Hm? I think that's a servant from Lord Yi Hangbok's household."
"Really? You remember him?"
"Yes. I don't forget faces easily."
"Yeah, I know."
They said even a tiger would appear if you called for it. It seemed Yi Hangbok had sent a servant instead.
"Lord Baek Kanghyeok."
The servant came straight up to Kanghyeok and bowed his head.
It had easily been over a week since he had seen the man's face, so he was not entirely sure who he was.
It was less a matter of memory and more a matter of interest.
Kanghyeok simply did not pay much attention to people unless they were sick.
"Mm. Right."
"My master has suddenly been busy with state affairs, so he has been unable to contact you until now."
"That's fine. I've been quite busy too."
Kanghyeok pointed behind him at the others, all sprawled out in utter exhaustion.
They had blown so many balloons that even Yeoju's lips were all chapped.
"Yes. If you have time tomorrow, he asks that you come. Would that be all right?"
"Ah, tomorrow?"
"Yes, my lord."
He was desperate to test the medicine he had just created as soon as possible.
Not by doing something close to torture on those dark, rough men.
For an actual beauty treatment purpose.
And I'll get to see Yi Hangbok again. While I'm at it, I should ask what happened to that gang boss too.
If possible, he also wanted to ask about Jeong Yeo-rip.
When he had asked Yeoju, she had pretended not to know, but there was definitely something she knew and was hiding.
She said he was a distant relative, didn't she?
Normally, if someone was called a distant relative, wasn't it only natural not to be in contact at all?
That had certainly been true in Kanghyeok's own family.
The so-called "distant relatives" his late father used to introduce him to were people whose lives he knew absolutely nothing about.
At best, they contacted him only when they needed treatment at the hospital, and after he ignored that a few times, he never heard from them again.
She's definitely hiding something.
Kanghyeok glanced sideways at Yeoju.
She was lying there, holding her badly chapped lips.
Whatever secrets she might have about Jeong Yeo-rip, there was no reason to doubt that her feelings toward Kanghyeok were sincere.
"Hm."
When Kanghyeok stayed silent for a long time, Yi Hangbok's servant cleared his throat.
"Ah, sorry. Where were we?"
"I was conveying my master's request that you come tomorrow."
"Ah, right. Sure, I'll go."
"Thank you. Then I'll deliver the message to my master."
"All right. Go carefully."
"Yes, my lord."
After Yi Hangbok's servant left, there were no more visitors.
That was something to be welcomed with all their hearts.
Not just Kanghyeok, but everyone else was exhausted too.
"Tonight, let's eat something good and go straight to sleep."
At Kanghyeok's declaration, everyone burst into cheers.
"Long live the Young Master!"
Dolseok even recklessly shouted "Long live!"
At the time, it was believed that no one but the Ming emperor had the right to receive such a cry, so Dolseok's conduct was highly improper.
But as mentioned just a moment ago, there was no traffic in and out that day, so no one made an issue of it.
Instead, a new problem arose: what were they going to eat?
"I've handled so many iron balls that I'm sick of even looking at cattle now."
Makbong muttered as he shoved the ball sacks far away.
Yeoju spat out a pig hair that had been stuck at the corner of her mouth.
"I hate pigs too."
"Then it's got to be chicken."
Dolseok muttered as he got up off the floor.
When Kanghyeok said something delicious, he naturally meant meat.
If beef and pork were out, then chicken was the obvious answer.
Of course, there were horses in the house too, but slaughtering and eating a horse was extremely rare.
That was even more true on the mainland than on Jeju Island.
"Young Master, should I stew the chicken until it's nice and soft?"
Dolseok asked Kanghyeok as he rolled up his sleeves and headed toward the chicken coop.
"Chicken, huh. Hmm."
Everyone acknowledged Dolseok's cooking skills.
Especially when it came to meat dishes, he was better than most kitchen women.
That was precisely why Kanghyeok had no reason to employ maids for the kitchen.
A pale chicken broth seasoned with salt and the pepper he had gotten from Seongryong was excellent.
But today, he was not in the mood for that.
"Let's fry it."
"Fry it?"
"Yeah. We said we'd eat it that way once before, but we never did."
"Ah, right. We did. Then shall we give it a try?"
Dolseok muttered as he looked around the kitchen.
They had almost everything they needed.
There was more than enough precious perilla oil, and they always kept around ten chickens on hand.
"Yeah. Let's do it. Hey, all of you, get up. Help Dolseok fry the chicken."
At Kanghyeok's shout, everyone dragged themselves to their feet.
Then they headed toward the kitchen almost semi-consciously.
For once, even Kanghyeok unusually went all the way into the kitchen.
It's not like I've ever fried chicken myself either...
Where would Kanghyeok ever have had the chance to fry chicken?
He was someone who had barely even done ordinary part-time work.
The only one he had ever done for fun was working the counter at a café.
I should've tried something other than tutoring too.
Anyone who had done tutoring would know.
Once you tasted that absurd hourly pay, you could never go back to any other part-time job.
While he was turning over all sorts of thoughts in his head, he found himself face to face with Dolseok, who was clutching a live chicken.
"Young Master, first we have to scald it to pluck the feathers, right?"
"Mm."
If he had ever done it before, he could have answered properly.
For now, he just nodded, and the chickens' fate was sealed.
Splash, splash.
In an instant, five chickens were thrown into boiling water.
Makbong and Yeoni closed the lid of the cauldron with practiced hands, so not a single one managed to escape.
A little later, half the chickens that had been running around the yard in confusion were delivered in front of Kanghyeok, their feathers already plucked.
"So now do we just put these straight into the oil?"
"Mm."
Once again, he knew nothing.
Still, he had a feeling they should not go in like this.
Now that the chickens had been scalded, they had another problem. There was no flour.
They called it jinga-ru, didn't they?
In Joseon, wheat flour was unbelievably expensive.
It truly was an item worth whatever price people named.
They said it was something you only saw in royal cuisine.
"Well... let's dry off the moisture first."
"The moisture?"
"Yeah. We probably shouldn't put them into the oil like this."
"Ah... understood. Hey, bring me something to dry them with."
"Yes, Brother."
At Dolseok's words, Dorikkae brought over a handful of something.
It was, naturally, the very precious hanji, but no one said anything about it.
They had all long since adapted to Kanghyeok's senseless spending habits.
"They're all dry now."
"Then let's fry them. Is it boiling properly?"
"It's been roaring for quite a while."
Dolseok pointed at the cauldron, where the oil was bubbling fiercely.
Sure enough, precious perilla oil had been poured in without restraint.
Sniffing the air, Makbong muttered,
"Just frying the oil alone smells insane."
"Right? Now let's put in the chicken."
"Yes, Young Master."
Dolseok threw the chopped chicken pieces into the pot of oil one by one.
They immediately began turning golden and floated upward.
"Oh..."
By now, even Kanghyeok thought the smell was maddeningly good.
It smelled so wonderful that even passersby on the road stopped in their tracks.
Among them was Yi Hangbok, who had come to see Kanghyeok again after quite some time.
He had sent a servant to say they would meet tomorrow, but now that he had done so, he had grown terribly curious about how Kanghyeok intended to carry out the treatment.
"My, what is this smell? Ahem."
He gave several awkward throat-clears thick with swallowed saliva, but unfortunately they did not carry all the way inside.
Kanghyeok and the others were already half out of their minds.
"Let's take them out one by one and eat."
"Yes, yes."
They had all long since been captivated by the smell and the color.
No one waited for anyone else. They all scrambled to lift out the fried chicken.
"Ahh."
Kanghyeok, the first to bite into a drumstick, let out an exclamation.
Of everything he had eaten since coming to Joseon, this was by far the richest food.
If even Kanghyeok, who had the pickiest palate of them all, reacted like this, there was nothing more to say about the others.
"I never knew something like this could taste this good."
Makbong, Dolseok, Dorikkae—
even Yeoju and Yeoni, the women among them—
all bit into the chicken, greasing their chapped lips with oil.
They ate with such abandon that no one noticed until Hangbok himself opened the door and came straight in.
"Well now... there are people inside, yet no one answers."
Hangbok spoke in his usual teasing tone.
Kanghyeok hurriedly put down the chicken bone and greeted him.
"Oh? My lord?"
"Haha. Stay seated, all of you. What is it that you're eating so deliciously?"
"We fried some chicken. Please try some too, my lord."
"Ho ho, shall I?"
Without refusing, Hangbok squeezed himself down right beside Kanghyeok.
Then he picked up one wing Kanghyeok handed him.
"The smell is so good that... even though I've already eaten dinner, it still makes my mouth water."
"Please try it first."
"Well then..."
Kanghyeok looked at Hangbok with eyes full of anticipation.
You're in for a shock, Lord Oseong.
Hangbok, drooling openly, bit into the wing.
"What—!"
Chicken fried in perilla oil was delicious enough to leave even a great statesman of the future utterly dazed.
Only after tearing into the chicken for quite some time did he finally remember the reason he had come in the first place.
"Ah, right. I didn't come here just to eat."
"Yes. What brings you here?"
"I was curious about tomorrow's treatment. Could I at least hear roughly how you plan to do it?"
"Ah, of course. Dolseok, bring the book Yeoju drew."
"Yes, Young Master."
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