Chapter 21
The nursing director looked toward the chair.
The chairman gave the secretary a short instruction.
Request access.
Recorded.
The secretary immediately wrote it down.
"..."
Oh Seongmin remained silent for about three seconds.
"The issue concerning the records can be left to the committee's verification process."
He abandoned the card that wasn't his without hesitation.
His voice didn't tremble.
His response was so smooth that it was difficult to believe he'd just been stabbed in the back.
As expected.
He's not an easy opponent.
Gain clicked her tongue internally.
But at the same time, she'd just learned something extremely valuable.
Oh Seongmin hadn't known.
That meant Kang Taehun had altered the record without informing him.
Whether Kang Taehun did it alone or Kang Juhan ordered it...
One fact was certain.
Oh Seongmin hadn't been part of that plan.
The department Gain had thought acted like one body was actually filled with people hiding their own cards from one another.
Remember this.
There was a crack between Kang Juhan and Oh Seongmin.
Interesting.
"...The central concern of the petition is simply that Dr. Im entered the operating room without authorization."
It was a retreat.
And with every step backward, the complaint became weaker.
"..."
"Finally."
Gain turned toward the door.
"Please review the factual statement written personally by the patient's guardian."
"Hm? That document isn't here."
The committee chair tilted his head.
At that moment, the door opened.
"I'm Kwon Taeseong, guardian of patient Jeong Yeseo."
He looked as though he'd rushed here.
His suit was slightly wrinkled.
He carried a document envelope.
Kwon Taeseong placed it before the chairman.
"I work as a Presiding Judge at the Seoul Central District Court. But today, I am here not in that capacity, but as a patient's guardian. I wrote down, in chronological order, how my wife and child survived."
The medical director visibly straightened in his chair.
The vote took twelve minutes.
"The motion is rejected. The committee recognizes the legitimacy of Dr. Im Gain's emergency medical actions."
A pause.
"Additionally, we will open a review into how the operative report in question was created."
Gain had not requested the final part.
The committee decided it on its own.
Good.
A professor's record.
A resident's record.
A nurse's record.
They all carried equal weight.
That was something the other world had never possessed.
And something Gain trusted most about this world.
As she left the meeting room, she could hear Oh Seongmin urgently calling someone behind her.
There was no need to ask who.
Now then.
How will the old tiger react when he hears this?
Gain didn't look back.
Kwon Taeseong came to stand beside Gain in the hallway.
For a short while, they silently waited for the elevator.
The collar of his suit was slightly crooked.
It looked as if he'd tried to fix it before entering the hearing and stopped halfway.
Only then did Gain notice.
"Judge Kwon. Your collar."
"...Ah."
Kwon Taeseong quickly adjusted it.
Subtle relief appeared around his eyes.
"My wife is here for an outpatient appointment. We booked the last morning slot. Please come with me."
"...All right."
Main building, first-floor lobby.
Late-morning sunlight entered through the windows at an angle.
Jeong Yeseo sat on a waiting chair beside the OB-GYN outpatient clinic.
A baby was tightly wrapped in blankets in her arms.
"...Honey."
When Kwon Taeseong called, Jeong Yeseo slowly turned.
"Are you Dr. Im?"
She looked down at her baby.
Then back at Gain.
Her lips quietly trembled.
"...Thank you. For saving this child. And me."
Gain smiled gently.
"I only did what needed to be done."
Then it happened.
Something hot exploded inside her chest.
This wasn't a single drop.
It was more like a dam breaking.
Water surged into the spring.
Gain almost stumbled.
She forced strength into her knees.
Now? Why now...?
The scene before her burned itself into her memory.
Kwon Taeseong bowing deeply.
Jeong Yeseo holding her baby with tears filling her eyes.
It wasn't the moment treatment began.
It wasn't the moment the surgery succeeded.
It's the moment they feel grateful.
The scattered puzzle pieces suddenly connected.
Han Minseo crying while thanking her.
Grandmother Malseon dancing with joy.
And that mysterious warmth in the operating room...
At that very moment, somewhere Gain couldn't see, someone must have been feeling gratitude toward her.
Whether treatment succeeded or failed wasn't the determining factor.
The difficulty of the procedure didn't matter either.
What mattered was how deeply the person felt grateful.
Back when Gain was the Saintess, divine power had flowed through her like a river.
She'd never even wondered about its source.
Only after being reduced to a tiny spring had she finally discovered where the water came from.
This power isn't mine.
Patients were returning it to her.
No.
Lending it to her.
Then another realization followed.
Gratitude couldn't be prescribed.
It couldn't be billed.
It couldn't be scheduled.
She had no control over when it came or how much she'd receive.
...Then I really can't waste this.
"I heard that without you, I don't know what would've happened to me. The nurses told me. I'm truly, truly grateful."
At Jeong Yeseo's words, the spring surged again.
Gain quietly accepted the warmth.
She decided to save it until the next patient truly needed it.
"What did you decide to name the baby?"
Gain asked.
"Haran."
"That's a beautiful name."
Gain looked down at the baby.
The tiny child slept peacefully.
Just as Kwon Taeseong had described over the phone, several tiny white bumps dotted the tip of the baby's nose.
Harmless milia.
"...Thank you so, so much, Doctor."
Kwon Taeseong bowed again.
Jeong Yeseo bowed deeply as well.
Gain received their gratitude with both hands gently folded before her.
"Raise your baby well. Hopefully we won't have a reason to meet again."
Jeong Yeseo smiled brightly.
"We'll definitely see you again. We're going to your clinic for vaccinations."
Gain chuckled.
"If you call ahead, I'll prepare the vaccine."
It wasn't unusual for an OB-GYN clinic to vaccinate babies while caring for mothers.
Pediatrics was more common, but if they wanted to come to her clinic, Gain was happy to help.
Smiling, Gain left the hospital.
A month passed.
Gain heard the investigation into the operative report ended with one written explanation from Kang Taehun.
Oh Seongmin no longer tried anything strange.
Patient numbers steadily increased.
"I'm here again. Make sure you eat this with dinner today."
Grandmother Malseon smiled brightly.
"You really don't have to bring me something every day, Grandma."
"Of course I do."
There were now quite a lot of patients.
Or 'customers,' as Yuri liked to call them.
They came in three main groups.
The first group consisted of people from the market introduced by Grandmother Malseon.
After her uterine prolapse improved with the pessary, the grandmother became determined to tell everyone how incredible the OB-GYN doctor was.
She spread the word to customers buying vegetables and to every merchant around the market.
That alone brought many people in.
The second group came from far away because of PrettyMom's post.
Many postpartum mothers suffering from engorgement visited.
They wrote sincere online reviews afterward.
Then new mothers who saw those reviews came too.
Three or four people every day said they'd found the clinic online.
The third group were people who had seen the Pandora Box video.
The internet really is incredible.
The clinic only had two parking spaces directly in front.
They were almost always full.
So patients coming from farther away frequently used the public market parking lot.
Choi Yuri smiled brightly.
"Director, I was thinking. For patients parking in the market public lot, what if we give them parking discount tickets? I asked the merchants' association through Grandmother Malseon."
Eunjae looked curious.
"Oh? What did they say?"
"If we buy the one-thousand-won discount tickets in batches of a hundred, they'll sell them to us for five hundred won each. Should we buy a few hundred?"
Gain did some quick mental math.
At least twenty people a day were already asking about parking.
"Sounds good. Buy one thousand for now."
"Yes!"
While organizing receipts, Yuri added,
"Oh, and Director. We've gotten so busy lately that I'm running out of hands. I'm handling charts, cleaning, guidance, everything at once. Could we hire one more clinical assistant?"
Gain had been thinking the same thing for several days.
Small tasks were constantly piling up between the desk and examination rooms.
"Yes. If you find someone good, let's hire one. Put up a notice by the entrance, and ask Grandmother Malseon to spread the word too."
"Yes! Someone young and good with their hands would be perfect."
At the entrance of Somang Market, nursing student Park Hayul had been taking a long detour around the chili mill for three days.
Not long ago, a full-term pregnant woman had collapsed there.
Hayul had followed what he'd learned.
Lay the patient flat.
Begin chest compressions.
But a strange OB-GYN doctor had grabbed his wrist and corrected him.
After twenty weeks, the uterus can compress the vena cava and stop blood from returning to the heart. Tilt her left or manually displace the uterus.
When he'd gone home and checked his textbook, there it was.
Left uterine displacement.
Did that woman survive?
He'd only watched until the ambulance drove away.
He desperately wanted to know what happened to her.
But there was nowhere to find out.
Gain saw a familiar student below the window.
It was the nursing student who had almost performed CPR incorrectly on the pregnant woman before Gain corrected his posture.
He must live nearby.
Perhaps they'd meet again someday.
Not today.
Their paths missed each other.
Gain went back to sleep.
Around nine or ten at night, she heard a distant ambulance siren.
Is it coming here?
The siren grew louder.
Gain's heart began beating faster as she waited for a patient.
The ambulance passed the clinic and continued elsewhere.
"Haha."
There was no reason an ambulance would come to a tiny clinic run by one OB-GYN doctor.
Still...
Gain had the strange feeling that she might somehow be connected to that patient.
Time to sleep.
She went back to bed.
It was a peaceful night.
