“What is your name and age? And what do you do for a living?”
“My name is Kim Young-ho. I’m thirty-four years old, an office worker. This time I’m traveling for a business trip…”
“Yes, Mr. Kim Young-ho. What symptoms are you experiencing?”
The doctor asked only the information he needed, cutting the man off mid-explanation without hesitation. Yet Kim Young-ho showed no sign of offense and answered obediently.
“My chest feels extremely tight. Huff… huff… My heart keeps pounding, too. And I have a bit of a headache.”
His eyes darted around nervously, unable to settle in one place.
“When did it start?”
The doctor’s expression hardened at the alarming symptoms. He had not yet checked the patient’s vital signs, but the man’s breathing was already noticeably labored.
“Ah… I felt a little nauseous earlier, but it got much worse about ten minutes ago.”
“You’ve never experienced anything like this before?”
“No. This is the first time.”
“An ECG!”
After confirming the chief complaint and the onset time, the doctor immediately looked around for an electrocardiogram machine.
“An ECG? Do we even have one?”
A young flight attendant asked, her eyes widening. The person who seemed to be her superior shook his head.
“We do not carry one onboard.”
The answer was not what the doctor wanted to hear.
“Damn it.”
“We have a blood pressure monitor and a glucose meter!”
“Bring those, then.”
Kim Young-ho watched the doctor anxiously.
“Is… is it serious? Is there something wrong with my heart?”
“I’m not a cardiologist.”
“I see…”
“But I do have a suspicion. Do you have any underlying conditions? High blood pressure, high cholesterol, angina?”
Kim shook his head. He was still too young for such chronic illnesses.
“What kind of pain is it? Does it feel like your heart is being squeezed?”
“Uh… maybe? No, I don’t think it’s quite that severe.”
“No ECG, no blood tests… for heaven’s sake.”
The doctor’s irritated muttering only made Kim’s eyes shake even more.
Fear had already overtaken anxiety.
“W-What should I do?”
“Well…”
The doctor crossed his arms and tapped his fingers as if deep in thought.
In those few seconds, the patient’s face turned pale.
“Listen carefully.”
After a dramatic pause, the doctor finally spoke.
“I suspect acute myocardial infarction.”
“W-What is that?”
“A disease in which a blocked coronary artery causes myocardial ischemia and heart failure.”
Just hearing the terrifying medical terms made Kim’s breathing become even more frantic.
“If I’m right, you must receive reperfusion therapy within the golden hour.”
“How long is the golden hour?”
Someone else interrupted.
The man’s name tag identified him as the co-pilot.
“Two hours. Treatment must be given within that time frame for full recovery without lasting complications.”
“Gah!”
The patient nearly stopped breathing altogether.
“It’s already been almost an hour since takeoff…”
“Even if we’re late, treatment improves survival. The sooner you receive care, the fewer the complications.”
“Ah… ugh…”
His face turned ghostly white.
Looking back and forth between the doctor and the co-pilot, Kim suddenly grabbed the co-pilot’s hand.
“Please save me!”
He looked ready to drop to his knees if necessary.
“Please…”
“We’ve brought the blood pressure monitor and glucose meter!”
At that moment, the flight attendant returned with the medical equipment.
“Let’s check those first.”
The co-pilot spoke, still unable to make the decision to turn the aircraft around.
The doctor reluctantly turned on the devices.
But neither machine could actually diagnose a heart attack.
And given how terrified the patient was, even a healthy person’s blood pressure and pulse would probably be elevated.
Of course, if an ECG had been available, it could have immediately identified the characteristic patterns of myocardial infarction and ruled out—or confirmed—the most serious possibility.
But there was no ECG.
And this was an airplane cruising eight thousand meters above the ground.
One had to diagnose and treat using whatever was available.
“Wait. Just one moment. Would it be alright if I checked his pulse?”
I finally spoke up.
I could no longer sit quietly and watch.
“Ah… you’re a traditional Korean medicine doctor, right?”
The doctor frowned.
His disapproval was obvious.
That distrustful look.
It had been a while since I’d seen one.
Ever since I began hearing the Voice of the Divine Physician, people had only looked at me with overwhelming expectations. Being examined now with suspicious eyes from head to toe felt oddly refreshing.
In Korea, Western-trained doctors looked down on traditional Korean medicine practitioners almost as a matter of habit.
And I looked far younger than my age.
How could he not?
Think whatever you want.
I honestly didn’t care.
Technically, I didn’t even have a Korean medicine license yet, so I simply smiled.
“Yes. I’m a practitioner of Korean medicine.”
“In a situation this urgent, you want to check his pulse? Know your place before barging in—”
“Y-Yes! The pulse! Please do it!”
The doctor clearly wanted to continue arguing, but Kim Young-ho eagerly thrust out his hand.
A drowning man would clutch at even a straw.
He hurriedly undid his cuff and rolled up his sleeve.
“Please stay quiet for a moment.”
Arguing over diagnostic methods would only increase the patient’s anxiety.
After silencing the doctor, I immediately took the pulse.
“Hmm…”
Ten seconds on the left wrist.
Ten seconds on the right.
Brief, but more than enough.
“Am I dying?”
Kim asked carefully.
Apparently my expression had become too serious.
“This is definitely not a Jinjang Pulse.”
“A Jinjang… Pulse?”
“A pulse that appears shortly before death. It has absolutely nothing to do with your condition, so relax.”
I waved my hand dismissively.
On battlefields, I had held the wrists of countless dying people.
There was a unique sensation possessed by those whose vital energy had completely withered away.
I had even saved some of them.
But this man’s pulse was nothing like that.
Nor was it a heart attack.
His pulse was slightly fast, but there was no arrhythmia.
The rounded, slippery pulse told me exactly what was happening.
“S-So then?”
Kim tensed.
The doctor crossed his arms and clicked his tongue in annoyance.
The co-pilot swallowed nervously.
The flight attendants and nearby passengers all focused their attention on me.
“Whew…”
I let out a sigh.
How should I say this so the shock wouldn’t hit too hard?
“...I think you have acute indigestion.”
“E-Excuse me?”
I had built up the atmosphere just in case, but the answer was exactly what I suspected.
The man had spent the last few minutes believing he was on the verge of death.
And now this.
“So you’re saying it’s just indigestion?”
The co-pilot asked.
“Acute indigestion? In a situation like this, we should obviously—”
I cut the doctor off.
I didn’t answer the co-pilot either.
Instead, I asked the one question that mattered.
“What was the last thing you ate?”
“Ah…?”
Kim blinked.
His eyes rolled around before suddenly widening.
“Eggs! Eggs! I bought a sandwich and some eggs at the airport, but I was running out of time, so I wolfed them down. The lines were so long that I didn’t even drink any water!”
“As I thought.”
I glanced at the doctor.
“In situations like this, shouldn’t we first take a proper history and determine whether it might be a common illness?”
Given the breathing difficulty, prioritizing serious diseases wasn’t wrong.
But there had been other approaches.
“Hmph!”
The doctor ground his teeth.
Oops.
Perhaps I should have phrased that more politely.
Bad habits from the martial world were starting to surface again.
“Lie down for a moment.”
Pretending not to notice, I helped Kim lie down.
The space was cramped, but a blanket on the floor would do.
For indigestion, there was a diagnostic method even more reliable than pulse examination.
“AAAAAH!”
Abdominal examination.
I lifted his suit jacket and pressed lightly on the upper abdomen.
Kim screamed immediately.
“Completely blocked.”
I guided his hand to the hardened area.
Even someone unfamiliar with Korean medicine could feel the tension in the abdominal muscles.
“Ah… then…”
Kim nodded.
The trembling in his eyes was gradually settling.
“I’ll fix it.”
I spoke confidently.
Since I’d stepped forward, I might as well solve the problem completely.
“Yes. Please.”
Unlike his interaction with the doctor, Kim’s face was now filled with trust and relief.
The co-pilot and flight attendants sighed with relief as well.
Even the nearby passengers looked visibly brighter.
“Can you take responsibility for that?”
Only the doctor who had misdiagnosed him spoke coldly.
I narrowed my eyes.
Even without an ECG, how could he completely ignore the possibility of indigestion?
He seemed exactly like the sort of physician who would order every unnecessary test imaginable before finally saying nothing was wrong.
“If it’s acute indigestion, he’ll improve within ten minutes of acupuncture. If he doesn’t, then turn the plane around.”
“As I said, the golden window for a heart attack is only two hours.”
He already knew which diagnosis was more likely.
Yet he stubbornly refused to back down.
“Doctor, why don’t we let him try the acupuncture first?”
The co-pilot interrupted.
If the patient’s life might not actually be in danger, there was no reason to risk turning the plane around.
“Here. The needles.”
Hwang Seo-young handed me an acupuncture kit.
I had no idea when she’d retrieved it from my seat.
Remarkably thin.
As I opened the package, I found myself surprised.
After years of using large needles over ten centimeters long, these modern high-tech acupuncture needles felt as fine as strands of hair.
0.2 millimeters thick.
Three centimeters long.
Would the stimulation even be enough?
Strangely enough, I had spent far longer handling crude needles in the martial world than I ever had in medical school.
“Are you going to prick his fingers?”
“No. I’m treating his abdomen.”
“Well… alright.”
Weak stimulation had its own solutions.
“Is this your first acupuncture treatment?”
“Yes.”
“An honor. I’ll take good care of you. It won’t hurt at all.”
At least compared to the giant needles I used to wield.
These would barely sting.
“Take a deep breath in… and out.”
Once the patient relaxed, I swiftly inserted needles into key points along the Conception Vessel.
Shangwan.
Zhongwan.
Xiawan.
The most important points between the sternum and navel for regulating digestion.
Coincidentally, they corresponded exactly to the areas where Kim’s abdomen had hardened.
Next came Tianshu beside the navel.
Then Hegu and Taichong to improve energy circulation through the limbs.
Finally, Zusanli.
“It doesn’t hurt much, does it?”
“BUUUURP!”
Before I had even finished inserting the last needle, Kim let out a massive belch.
The trapped gas in his stomach escaped as digestion resumed.
If the indigestion had been chronic, a different technique might have been necessary.
But Kim’s body responded immediately with only a small adjustment of energy flow.
“It’s clearing up.”
The blockage had broken.
Left alone for another fifteen to twenty minutes, he would recover naturally.
At least that was what an ordinary clinic would do.
“You respond well. Let’s make sure it’s completely resolved.”
“Yes! Yes!”
“This one might hurt a little.”
“Huh? Wait—”
I nearly withdrew the needle from Tianshu before driving it back in with force.
“Gah!”
“It works faster this way.”
“Uuugh! Ack!”
Wherever I felt stubborn knots, I repeatedly lifted and thrust the needle.
And while doing so, I quietly circulated a trace of energy through them.
A vigorous lifting-and-thrusting technique.
At first Kim was too shocked to process what was happening.
But as the treatment continued and the discomfort in his stomach vanished, he relaxed and closed his eyes.
“It hurts, but it feels refreshing, doesn’t it?”
“Yes… yes… Ah! My heart isn’t pounding anymore!”
“Well, it should still be beating.”
Naturally, I understood what he meant.
The abnormal palpitations were gone.
“Now then, give me your hand again.”
The suffocating pressure had disappeared completely.
Color returned to his face.
His breathing normalized.
Another pulse and abdominal examination confirmed that everything was far more stable.
“You carry digestive medicine onboard, correct?”
“Of course! I’ll bring it immediately!”
The flight attendant, who had been staring in amazement the entire time, jumped in surprise.
“And another blanket, please. His clothes look uncomfortable. It would be better if he loosened the buttons.”
“Thank you so much, Doctor!”
Kim grabbed my hand and bowed repeatedly.
Moments ago he had believed his heart might stop at any second.
Now he looked at me as if I had saved his life.
“When I get back to Korea, I’ll definitely repay you.”
I waved him off.
All he had done was suffer indigestion and then recover after acupuncture.
True, the doctor’s words had made him feel as though he had walked the line between life and death.
But there was no need for repayment.
“Come on, it was nothing difficult.”
“Even so. Could I at least get your contact information?”
“Really, it’s fine. Just rest a little longer.”
“Thank youuu…”
Soon the flight attendant returned with digestive medicine.
After confirming that Kim had taken it, I stood up.
Talk of rewards and repayment belonged back in the martial world.
I had enough of that already.
“...”
The moment I turned around, I met the doctor’s gaze.
Was he embarrassed?
Resentful?
He stared at me as though he had bitten into something foul.
“I’m glad it turned out to be something simple, don’t you think?”
“...Indeed.”
I smiled.
His expression became even uglier.
“Your face is awfully red. Since you already have the blood pressure monitor out, perhaps you should check yours as well.”
He tried not to show it.
But even I could hear him grinding his teeth.
The doctor stormed back to his seat.
“Haha! That young Korean medicine doctor is quite something.”
An elderly man from business class gave me a thumbs-up.
“He really is. Do you run a clinic somewhere? In Seoul?”
The woman beside him, probably his daughter, looked ready to become a patient on the spot.
“Oh, it was nothing.”
I lowered my head, secretly fighting back a grin.
“Honestly, that was amazing.”
Even the young flight attendant who had been frantically searching for equipment earlier spoke with shining eyes.
Alright.
I had fulfilled my duty as a physician.
Unable to endure the embarrassment any longer, I fled back to my seat.
“How did you do that?!”
Unfortunately, the commotion wasn’t over.
“What?”
“How did you know?!”
Hwang Seo-young smacked my arm and bombarded me with questions.
Ah.
The explanation behind that was long.
Very long.
And extremely complicated.
I opened my mouth to answer.
