Chapter 59: Letter from Hanyang [3] Everyone had some desire for power.
Kanghyeok was no exception, and from time to time, he even dreamed of running for the National Assembly.
But since it was never something that could actually happen, he always gave it up quickly, feeling pathetic for wasting his energy on it.
It is tempting, though.
The Busa's offer was something with a very high chance of actually coming true.
But there were also far too many drawbacks to accept it right away.
It already feels suffocating when I go home now. The palace would be even worse.
His nature was too free, and even the era he had lived in was different.
Kanghyeok had no confidence at all that he could endure life inside the palace.
"What is it? You still have no real thoughts about it?"
It seemed all of his worry was written plainly across his face.
Judging by the fact that the Busa had noticed everything.
Kanghyeok answered with an awkward smile.
"Yes. It is a proposal that overwhelms me, but... for now, that is how it is."
"Well, people's thoughts can change at any time."
"Yes, sir."
"For now, just know that I will soon be going to the Ijo."
"Yes."
Leaving the matter open to the very end, the Busa tossed back his drink.
Kanghyeok drank as well, and as expected, it tasted excellent.
If nothing else, the Busa's taste in alcohol matched Kanghyeok's very well.
"By the way. I hear Changgwon's daughter is still staying at your house?"
The way he asked with that slow smile made it seem like he had his suspicions.
That could not be helped, since he already knew they had traveled together from Anseong to Eotan-myeon.
From the Busa's point of view, it was a perfectly reasonable suspicion.
"Yes. Father said it would be wrong to leave her alone in an empty house, so he gave her the detached quarters."
"I see, I see. A daughter like Changgwon's would not be a bad match either."
Now that Kanghyeok heard it, it was not suspicion. It was a misunderstanding.
And a very firm one at that.
Kanghyeok hurriedly waved his hands.
As long as he lived in Joseon, he would probably have to marry eventually, but not now.
He would rather enter the palace to serve King Seonjo instead.
"No, that is not it. I think Father only did it because she is the daughter of his disciple."
"Haha. I am sure that is how it is."
His expression clearly said he did not believe a word of it, but fortunately, he did not continue the topic.
That was because Pangwan Yi Jeongbok came in. He opened the door very carefully and stepped inside.
"My lord, I came because there is something to discuss."
"Come now, what do you mean, 'my lord'? Such words are too much."
The Busa laughed heartily, clearly not disliking being called Daegam.
Then Jeongbok drove the point home.
"Well, you will soon be Panseo, so 'Daegam' is only proper."
"Haha. Kanghyeok too, and now you too. You are both getting ahead of yourselves."
At times like this, it was best to laugh along.
And in truth, it was a little amusing.
Because of that, Kanghyeok was able to let out a perfectly natural hearty laugh.
"My congratulations."
And he even delivered the appropriate line.
The three of them laughed for a while like that, then stopped at once.
Because the Busa still had work to do.
"So, Kanghyeok, I now have some business to attend to."
"Yes, sir. I will take my leave."
"Do not worry about what I promised earlier."
"Yes. Thank you."
At the Busa's dismissal, Kanghyeok quickly left the room.
Looking outside, he saw Dolseok in the government office courtyard, gathering soldiers around him and flapping his lips.
"So then, right at that moment, Young master went bang! You know that bag, right?"
"Mm-hmm. Of course, of course."
"You mean the black one?"
He had only heard a little of it, but it already reeked of exaggeration.
Without any intention of stopping him, Kanghyeok slowly approached.
"When he smashed that masked bastard with it, the guy went flying."
"And then? And then?"
"And then I stabbed him, of course."
"Wow. So that's what happened."
He was speaking so passionately that the spit flying from his mouth looked ready to soak the whole yard.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Y-Young master."
Dolseok bowed his head in a panic, like a man caught watching something he should not have been.
The other soldiers bowed their heads too.
"Master Baek."
"Scholar sir."
"Physician sir."
The forms of address varied, but there was little difference in the respect contained in them.
"You've all worked hard. Is your arm all right?"
"Yes. Thanks to you."
"And your stomach?"
"It's fine now."
Each of the soldiers showed the large and small scars he had suffered.
Some had been treated by Dolseok, and some directly by Kanghyeok.
"Good, good. Then it is all right if I take Dolseok with me now?"
"Of course."
"Come on, stop running your mouth."
"Yes, yes, Young master."
Embarrassed, Dolseok hurried off toward the stable.
Sitting astride the horse Dolseok brought, Kanghyeok opened his mouth.
"Dolseok."
"Yes."
"Is it fun, telling lies?"
"What do you mean, lies? How can you use such vulgar words?"
"Never mind that. Are you good at climbing mountains?"
"What?"
Dolseok, still ignorant of his own fate, asked back.
Chuckling, Kanghyeok pointed toward the mountain behind them.
With its thick overgrowth, it looked like exactly the sort of place one would not want to enter.
"I'm asking if you're good at climbing mountains like that."
"Uh... I used to be, back in the day. When I went to cut wood."
Before becoming Kanghyeok's personal servant, he had done rough labor like the other servants.
These days, he hardly even did servant's work properly, so his circumstances had changed a lot.
Cutting wood. It had been so long that he could barely even remember the last time he had carried a wooden frame on his back.
"That's good."
"You're going into the mountains?"
"No, I'm not going. I have things to do, and I need to rest too."
He had already obtained aconite long ago.
They said it was a poisonous herb used in royal poison, but in fact it had not been that difficult to procure.
There was quite a bit of it at the government office, and a little at the market apothecaries too.
Once he obtained the toad venom, it would be all right to conduct animal experiments.
People are bigger than dogs, after all...
Normally, it was safest to begin with half the dosage that caused side effects in dogs.
It was a somewhat primitive method.
But what else could he do?
There was no other way.
"Then am I going alone?"
"No. The soldiers are going too."
"What?"
"Take our men and go catch some toads."
From that day on, an unexpected toad hunt began.
The soldiers did it as part of training, and Seungmun's servants did it without the slightest idea why.
Dogs were also disappearing here and there, and because of that, some people became frightened that there was a tiger menace in the village.
Of course, the caught toads and the missing dogs were all steadily gathering in Kanghyeok's treatment room.
That day too, Dolseok, who had gone out catching toads, asked,
For the past few days he had been in the mountains, and the tip of his nose was burnt red.
"What in the world are you planning to use all these for?"
"Wait a bit. Can't you see I'm busy?"
"And why are you performing surgery on toads?"
"I'm separating the poison sacs."
He had thought the job would end with simply catching the toads, but it turned out that was not all.
If he had read Heo Jun's letter from Hanyang more carefully, he would have known immediately.
'Seomsu can be obtained by separating the poison glands from the toad and drying them for long storage.'
So because of that, he had to keep cutting every day.
"Then all of this is that...?"
Dolseok pointed at the seomsu drying in the yard.
Since they had caught so many, the amount was enormous.
There was a reason Kanghyeok had already ordered them to stop catching more.
"Yes. All of this is from toad poison sacs."
"Did someone offend you so badly you want them dead? If you tell Yeoni and Makbong, I think it'd be easier."
"You idiot. A physician saves people. Why would I use it to kill them?"
"It just sounds strange when you say you're saving people with poison."
Dolseok's reaction was not strange.
Even Kanghyeok had been doubtful when Heo Jun first mentioned it.
But when he thought about the pharmacological action, it made sense.
Before a neurotoxin causes paralysis, I can call it anesthesia if I want.
It would be dangerously risky, of course.
The early anesthetics introduced in Western medicine had mostly been like that too.
Otherwise, why would people have died in the middle of dental treatment?
"Heo Seonsaeng told me about it. It's worth trying."
"So then we really don't have to catch any more toads now, right?"
"Yes. That's enough now. I told the Busa too."
"That's a relief. Lately there've been rumors that a tiger's been appearing."
Dolseok said this with a visible shudder.
Kanghyeok knew the source of the rumor, and had even helped create it, so he only smiled.
Makbong did a good job.
Because Kanghyeok and Makbong's interests aligned perfectly, they had been able to gather a great many dogs.
The village dogs had been a considerable nuisance to Makbong's nighttime service work, after all.
Kanghyeok was happy because he could collect dogs easily, and Makbong was happy because the dogs no longer barked at him.
"But why are there so many dogs in the treatment room? It feels like every dog in the village is here."
"Did you think I was just sitting around while you were catching toads? Since you brought it up, let's go take a look."
"Are you going to catch dogs? Well, I was at the temple this summer, so hehe."
Laughing in good spirits, Dolseok went out to the back yard.
It was a fairly spacious place, but it was crowded because it was full of dogs.
"Hmm. Should I use that one?"
Kanghyeok pointed at a dog barking right at the front.
"Yes, as expected of you, Young master. You picked a nice big one."
Even though the dog was barking quite fiercely, Dolseok showed no fear at all.
He simply strode over and snatched it by the scruff.
At once, the dog tucked in its tail and pissed itself.
"Shall I kill it right away?"
"No. Let's feed it something first."
"Feed it before killing it? You really are something, Young master. Well, they do say a ghost that dies after eating looks better."
Dolseok dragged the large dog out into the front yard.
Then he brought a cracked bowl filled with leftovers from his own meal.
"Wait, wait. Mix this into it."
"You're feeding it medicinal herbs? How much nourishment are you planning to get out of it?"
Dolseok laughed heartily, clearly delighted at the thought of eating dog meat.
It seemed he had already forgotten all the hardship from catching toads.
Then the cheerful expression on Dolseok's face gradually darkened.
Because the herbs Kanghyeok was adding were no joke.
"Didn't you say that was poison?"
"It is poison."
"If you feed it poison, then we can't eat it either, can we?"
That was not necessarily true.
Though of course the chances of something going wrong were very high.
Which was why Kanghyeok had no intention of putting it in his own mouth.
"If you really want some, I can give you some."
"Wow... after serving you this loyally, now you're trying to kill me."
"Wait. I'm trying to make an anesthetic out of this."
Using a syringe, Kanghyeok mixed the pre-ground seomsu and the decocted aconite into the dog food.
That was the only way he could estimate the dosage, at least roughly.
"Can you feed it this?"
"Would it even eat right now? It's scared out of its wits..."
"It has to eat it."
"Oh, it's eating. As expected of a mutt."
It seemed hunger had overcome fear and anxiety.
The fact that there was meat among Dolseok's leftovers probably helped too.
A mere servant eating meat, and even leaving some behind.
A commoner's fate really was an enviable one.
"It seems fine, though? Is that really poison?"
"That's strange. I put in as much as goes into royal poison... Oh. Look at that, Dolseok."
"It's foaming at the mouth. Ah, dear."
Clicking his tongue with a pitying face, Dolseok watched.
There was no telling whether he was sorry because he would not get to eat it, or because the life itself was a waste.
Not long after swallowing the poison, the dog stiffened up and died.
"Mm. It really is too strong. All right, let's bury it now."
"Bury the dog?"
"This is all part of saving people, so we should bury it."
"Huh... where?"
"I don't know. You're the one who'll dig the hole."
"So now you're making me dig too."
Muttering complaints, Dolseok still gathered up a carrying frame and shovel.
Kanghyeok kept lecturing the back of Dolseok's head as he went.
"If possible, hurry up. I can't let this experiment drag on too long."
"And why is that?"
"Brother Sun-sin told me to come to Hanyang soon. I have to go within next month."
"Yes, yes. Understood, Young master."
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