Chapter 19
After Grandmother Malseon left, Eunjae stopped writing the chart and looked down at her hands.
She chose the size immediately without measuring tools.
The scene she'd just witnessed remained vivid.
And how are those loose muscles holding the pessary that tightly?
Eunjae slowly shook her head in amazement.
This doctor really is extraordinary.
After Grandmother Malseon left, there were no more patients.
Lunchtime arrived quietly.
Choi Yuri brought gimbap.
Jo Eunjae took out her packed lunch.
Gain ate the gimbap Yuri had purchased.
"I saw that Daum Café post too. Just wait. Patients are going to start flooding in soon. I'm telling you!"
Choi Yuri chattered cheerfully.
Patients came occasionally afterward.
Six in the evening arrived.
Yuri, sitting at the reception computer, refreshed the café and suddenly froze.
"Huh?"
"Director, look at this."
[WARNING] A Word From a Former Nurse About That OB-GYN in the Market Everyone Is Talking About — Written by PickyMom
They're saying the doctor drains abscesses with her bare hands?
That place doesn't even understand basic infection control.
New moms, don't get fooled by a few reviews.
Eunjae frowned.
Gain calmly continued chewing her gimbap while reading.
Bare hands...
That was technically true until yesterday.
It wasn't an incorrect criticism.
So Gain wasn't angry.
It was merely a day out of date.
Then a new comment appeared with a notification sound.
└ MountainBreeze: PickyMom, how old is your information? I was treated there TODAY and the doctor uses sterile gloves now. Stop pretending you know everything when you've never even been there lol
└ MountainBreeze: And here's my receipt as proof. (Photo)
Within three minutes, a receipt photo appeared beneath the post.
Yuri giggled.
"MountainBreeze must be the woman who came this morning. Look at the time on the receipt."
"I think you're right."
Gain chuckled.
After sending the staff home, Gain sat alone in the consultation chair.
She repeatedly opened and closed her hand while sensing the divine power inside herself.
Let's organize the data.
It increased on the day she treated Han Minseo.
It increased again today after treating Son Jeonga and Grandmother Malseon.
Especially when the grandmother started dancing, Gain had felt it filling the spring in real time.
Does successful treatment restore it?
That seemed reasonable.
No.
Divine power suddenly appeared in the operating room.
She remembered the warmth that had appeared during Jeong Yeseo's emergency C-section.
At that moment, Gain hadn't successfully treated anyone.
The mother had been in cardiac arrest.
The baby had been born severely deprived of oxygen.
It had been the darkest moment possible.
There had been no success yet.
But the spring had still filled.
If it isn't treatment, then what?
One variable was missing.
Gain couldn't see it yet.
And there's something else.
The edge of the spring itself had expanded.
When she first confirmed that divine power still existed in this world, the spring could barely hold three or four grains of rice.
Now, even with the harshest estimate, it was at least as large as a ketchup cap.
The container itself had become larger and deeper.
At this rate, it might take decades to return to the river-sized reservoir she'd possessed before.
Still...
It was growing.
That alone was good news.
Gain remembered Kang Juhan's hospital-system ID and password.
Security rules apparently meant nothing to him.
He'd stubbornly used the same password for years.
I'd like to log in and see the chart, but...
Gain erased the thought immediately.
Her battlefield instincts warned her.
A man like Kang Juhan would be desperate to find even the smallest fault in her behavior.
Unauthorized access to the hospital network would be perfect ammunition.
And no matter how much I dislike Kang Juhan, using someone else's account is still a crime.
After the hospital adopted computerized records, Kang Juhan constantly forgot his password and kept it written on a sticky note behind his keyboard.
Even after decades on battlefields, Gain remembered that much.
That evening, Gain received a call from the hospital.
"Gain, you know the stuff still in your hospital locker? Want me to bring it to you?"
It was Yoon Jihu, her pediatrician friend.
She remembered seeing him during the emergency surgery.
"Yeah."
"Where should I bring it?"
"...? Come to Hyundai OB-GYN in Somang City tonight. I'll send you the address."
Gain thought she'd already cleared out the locker.
But she'd been so busy preparing the clinic that she might have missed something.
She waited for Jihu.
Not idly.
She was busy reading newly published papers about updated obstetric procedures.
"Oh? Now they don't cut the umbilical cord immediately after birth? Waiting around three minutes increases the newborn's iron stores, and in premature infants it lowers the risk of brain hemorrhage...?"
Research papers were treasure chests of information.
Gain devoured them eagerly.
How desperately she'd missed knowledge like this.
Yoon Jihu arrived around eight that evening carrying a small moth-orchid pot.
"You're late. You said seven. I waited an extra hour."
Jihu scratched his head and apologized.
Gain nodded.
Truthfully, she'd been so absorbed in research that she hadn't noticed.
Jihu stepped inside and looked around.
"Oh. This is better than I expected."
"Let's go outside. There isn't really anywhere for you to sit."
It felt strange telling him to sit in the patient chair.
Talking in the waiting room felt awkward too.
Jihu held out the flowerpot.
"Congratulations on opening your clinic."
"Thanks."
Gain placed it on one side of the reception desk.
Two white moth-orchid flowers had bloomed.
It was strange to imagine Jihu choosing something like this.
When they'd shared an intern team, he had even forgotten to water the plants in the call room.
"A flowerpot from you feels really weird."
"Tell your employees to water it. The instructions are written there."
"What was in my locker?"
What Jihu removed from his bag wasn't an object.
It was a kraft document envelope the size of an A4 sheet.
The sender was the Medical and Ethics Committee of Hanguk University Hospital.
The recipient was listed as Im Gain, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
"This was in my locker?"
"They said the envelope was placed in your old locker spot. But you'd already emptied the locker and they didn't have your current contact details. Yuk Jaecheol asked me if I was close with you."
Jihu crossed his arms.
I'm already not going to the hospital anymore.
The locker is empty.
If I never saw this, they could mark me absent.
"Jaecheol said he's sorry."
Gain quietly shook her head.
"Kang Juhan already hates me. Jaecheol doesn't need to get dragged into it too."
She opened the envelope.
The hearing date was three weeks away.
A note stated that if she failed to attend, the committee could proceed with the review without her.
Smart.
They hadn't forged anything.
They hadn't violated procedure.
They'd simply sent the official notice to a place Gain herself could no longer see.
The method was obvious.
This wasn't Kang Juhan's style of quietly suffocating someone.
It was Oh Seongmin's.
"I'd like to keep Dr. Gain because she works well. But if patients don't want her... what can we do?"
The young associate professor looked friendly at first glance.
He always wore the mask of 'reality' and 'unavoidable circumstances' while doing Kang Juhan's dirty work.
If Kang Juhan ordered,
'Kill her.'
Oh Seongmin was the kind of man who would prepare paperwork explaining the perfectly reasonable reasons she needed to die.
He probably handled the practical work this time too.
He must have hoped Gain would never even get a chance to defend herself before being quietly buried.
She could practically hear what he would've said.
"We sent the notice according to procedure. She didn't check it or attend, which suggests she knew she had done something wrong. Isn't that why she had nothing to say?"
People like this exist everywhere.
Gain played with the envelope.
Many court magicians in the fallen Empire had used similar tricks.
They would intentionally deliver ceasefire documents to some half-rotten sewer rat hole on enemy territory.
When the other side failed to respond, they would burn an entire village while claiming,
'They rejected our offer of peace.'
A technique for turning an opponent into an arrogant traitor without dirtying your own hands.
"Jihu, do you have Jaecheol's number?"
"No."
"Then get it when you go back. It'll be in the hospital emergency contact list."
"All right. But I don't know if Jaecheol can testify for you. He still has to worry about Professor Kang."
Gain lightly shook her head.
"No. I'm not calling Jaecheol as a witness. There's no need."
Jaecheol still had to survive inside that massive castle wall.
He was a junior doctor trying to establish himself in a place where monsters like Kang Juhan and Oh Seongmin lurked.
Gain had no intention of throwing him into danger.
It was already enough that he helped her learn about the envelope.
Jaecheol still has to stay there.
Gain was different.
I'm already outside those walls.
There's no reason for me to keep obeying their rules.
"Hey. Hey. I came all the way here. You owe me dinner. I haven't eaten."
"Fine."
They walked into the market.
The market was noisy.
Gain liked it.
It felt alive.
While walking through the alleys, they passed a gamjatang restaurant.
The smell of the boiling pot drifted outside.
"How about here?"
"Oh, sounds good. Haven't had gamjatang in forever."
They entered.
"Small gamjatang and one bottle of soju."
Gain frowned.
She hadn't intended to order alcohol.
"Don't you have emergency calls tonight?"
"All right, all right. I won't drink. You're at a private clinic now. You don't even get calls."
Jihu grumbled.
"I can't handle deliveries yet, but I accept emergency patients twenty-four hours a day. I left my phone number on the clinic door."
Jihu's eyes widened.
He stared at her with his mouth slightly open.
"Hey, that's... Are you planning to be the only person on call three hundred sixty-five days a year? You're going to work yourself to death."
Gain glared at him.
Jihu immediately shut his mouth.
"G-good luck. Anyway... aren't you curious about what the hospital has been like since you left?"
He hurriedly changed the subject.
Conveniently, it was exactly what Gain wanted to hear about.
