Chapter 04
A Small Victory
Seeing Woojin react violently as if his weak spot had been exposed, Lee Yeon drove the final nail in.
“Of course you must have done genetic testing, but with neurofibromatosis, there’s no way to tell whether it’s been inherited or not until symptoms actually appear.”
At that, Woojin let out a hollow, incredulous laugh.
His expression looked relaxed, but his eyes were filled with rage.
“You’re not even a specialist, are you? Dr. Joo Lee Yeon.”
“You haven’t forgotten why I couldn’t even start my specialist training, have you?”
“How could I forget? The idiot rookie doctor who signed off on a cause of death on a bogus death certificate without even properly examining the body.”
Lee Yeon shot back without backing down.
“I know exactly what position I’m in right now. But in the end, the truth always comes out. Just like the lump you’d been hiding that I noticed.”
“Enough.”
In an instant, Woojin’s face turned icy as he grabbed Lee Yeon’s face with one hand.
The strength of his grip distorted her features, but she didn’t avert her gaze.
Standing close, the man and woman locked eyes.
Woojin’s pupils shook sharply, filled with barely restrained fury.
Perhaps Lee Yeon should have shrunk back before his anger.
But the realization that she had read the anxiety hidden deep inside him gave her a strange sense of satisfaction.
Just then, footsteps were heard.
The butler, who had a hearing impairment, was staring at the two of them with startled eyes.
Woojin shoved Lee Yeon’s face away.
A clear handprint was left on her pale cheek.
He gave the butler a brief nod and left the house.
Left standing where he had gone, Lee Yeon struggled to suppress the smile creeping onto her lips.
On the day of her release, a prison guard had warned her not to think about revenge.
Perhaps he had believed that someone as weak as Lee Yeon could never defeat overwhelming power.
But in the confrontation that had just occurred, the winner was Lee Yeon.
After all, it was Woojin who had stormed off in a rage.
“What time does Madam wake up?”
Lee Yeon exaggerated her lip movements as she asked the butler who was watching her.
In response, the woman held up six fingers.
Lee Yeon chuckled softly and headed upstairs to her room.
Six o’clock—exactly the same as the wake-up time at the detention center.
After a quick shower, Lee Yeon lay down on the large bed.
At first, she thought she would fall asleep right away, wrapped in the soft mattress she had long dreamed of, the smooth linens, and the thick goose-down comforter.
But the bed was too spacious, too clean, too perfect—something that didn’t suit the life she had lived.
Like wearing clothes that didn’t fit, Lee Yeon couldn’t fall asleep easily.
Naturally, her mind drifted back to that day eight months ago.
The day she signed the death certificate of a man brought into the emergency room.
Back then, she was desperately earning money while waiting to begin her specialist training, so she had volunteered for night shifts in the ER.
After more than thirty hours without sleep, when she could barely tell whether today was tomorrow or tomorrow was yesterday, she received a call from Director Jung telling her to sign the death certificate.
Because of the next patient, she didn’t even notice that the date of death had been falsified.
She later learned, while in the detention center, that the deceased had been a member of an illegal drug trafficking organization.
Because his body was cremated without an autopsy, the investigation into the criminal organization failed, and Lee Yeon was suspected of being complicit in the crime.
However, the police couldn’t uncover any direct connection between the dead gang member and Lee Yeon, so she was punished only for violating medical law.
What on earth was the connection between the criminal organization and the Gwonseong Group?
No matter how much she thought about it, Lee Yeon couldn’t find the missing link.
Tossing and turning, she suddenly sat up in bed.
She had entered the enemy’s den—she needed to stay sharp.
It was already past two in the morning.
She needed at least some sleep to focus on caring for Oh Jinhwa starting tomorrow.
Lee Yeon got up and sat down on the single sofa placed in one corner of the spacious room.
Curling her body tightly, she felt a familiar, tolerable discomfort—just like the tiny goshiwon she used to live in.
Only in this small, narrow space did the anxiety caused by the overwhelming perfection of the massive bed finally subside.
Only then did Lee Yeon fall asleep.
Waking up at six in the morning was nothing difficult for Lee Yeon, who had spent eight months in the detention center.
Dressed in a white blouse and tailored slacks with just enough stretch, she arrived in front of Oh Jinhwa’s room.
In her hand were Oh Jinhwa’s medical records, given to her by the butler.
Knock, knock.
[Come in.]
“Did you sleep well?”
Oh Jinhwa was standing by the window again today, staring outside the blinds.
She was wearing pajamas, making the lumps on her body look even more exposed than the day before.
“What happened between you and my son yesterday?”
“Yes?”
As Lee Yeon replayed yesterday’s events in her mind, Woojin’s rage-filled face came to her.
“Why are you smiling?”
It seemed she had unconsciously smiled at the thought of landing a blow on him. Lee Yeon quickly replied with a calm expression.
“Was I smiling? Nothing happened yesterday.”
She resolved not to cling to such small victories.
Scratching Gwon Woojin’s nerves a little wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy her desire for revenge against the Gwonseong Group.
Casually, Lee Yeon flipped through the medical records.
“You stopped medication because of side effects from Selumetinib. How much exercise do you usually get?”
At her words, Oh Jinhwa’s eyes widened.
“You’ll need to combine light aerobic exercise with strength training before you can undergo surgery again.”
“Give me a break. Are you really a doctor?”
“Pardon?”
“You say that even after reading my medical records? It’s a tumor that doesn’t respond to medication and keeps coming back even after surgery. All you need to do is prescribe sleeping pills and painkillers properly!”
“I am a doctor. I can’t just abandon a patient who can still be treated.”
“What? You think I don’t know this disease can’t be cured? Who do you think you’re mocking?”
“Neurofibromatosis isn’t a fatal disease. If Selumetinib doesn’t work, we could try Mirdametinib.”
At that, Oh Jinhwa’s eyes wavered.
“It’s extremely expensive since it’s not covered by insurance, but you’re not someone who needs to worry about that, are you?”
Oh Jinhwa lifted her skirt, revealing the grotesquely deformed bone growing around her knee.
“You’re telling me to exercise like this?”
Lee Yeon calmly scribbled something onto the documents with her pencil.
“What are you writing now?”
“We’ll need to operate on the bone causing your mobility issues first. Of course, after building your body up enough through exercise to withstand surgery.”
Oh Jinhwa slowly walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.
“You should only say things you can take responsibility for. You’re fearless, aren’t you?”
Lee Yeon swallowed a bitter smile at those words.
Fear was a luxury for someone who had nowhere left to fall and nowhere left to run.
“Do you know why?”
Oh Jinhwa raised her eyes, waiting for Lee Yeon to continue.
“Because I have nothing left to lose.”
Oh Jinhwa burst out laughing.
“You can look down on me all you want. But I was hired as your attending physician, and I’ll devote myself to your treatment. The outcome might be bad. But you have too much to lose to just wait for death with sleeping pills and painkillers, don’t you?”
These were Lee Yeon’s sincere feelings.
She had entered this house to take revenge on the Gwonseong Group, but Oh Jinhwa wasn’t her target.
Someone who had been confined to this mansion, slowly sinking into despair, couldn’t have been the one who sent her to the detention center.
There was simply a patient in front of her, and she was doing what she had to do as a doctor.
A lonely smile formed on Oh Jinhwa’s lips.
“I don’t trust doctors. You think I’d trust someone as green as you?”
Lee Yeon quietly steadied her breathing and spoke.
“You’re always standing by the window. It seems like you’re curious about the outside world.”
“Hah. You really don’t know anything, do you?”
Unsure what she meant, Lee Yeon’s eyes widened.
“What I wonder is whether I’d die or live if I fell from here.”
Without a word, Lee Yeon moved her pencil across the chart again.
“And what are you writing now?”
“You’re showing symptoms of depression. We’ll need to check whether your medication is being properly managed.”
Oh Jinhwa scoffed.
“Get out.”
Lee Yeon bowed politely and turned toward the door.
“You won’t die.”
“What did you say?”
“If you fell from here, you’d only break a few bones at most. So don’t even dream about it.”
Leaving behind Oh Jinhwa’s loud laughter, Lee Yeon closed the door.
She knew she shouldn’t get on her bad side, but she refused to grovel.
Lee Yeon had been hired into this house out of necessity.
Now that they knew Oh Jinhwa was suffering from neurofibromatosis, they wouldn’t be able to dismiss her easily.
Especially since there was a 50% chance the disease could be inherited by a child.
What if it became known that Gwon Woojin, heir to the Gwonseong Group, might have this disease?
Lee Yeon recalled Woojin’s face from yesterday, filled with rage.
She walked quietly down the corridor.
Then suddenly, the door Woojin had strictly forbidden her to open came into view.
Slowly, Lee Yeon stepped up to it and placed her hand on the doorknob.
Rattle, rattle—
Gwon Woojin wasn’t an idiot; there was no way he’d leave it unlocked.
As she turned away in disappointment, the butler appeared before her.
Like a child caught doing something wrong, Lee Yeon’s head dropped toward the floor.
