Chapter 4
The cooks suddenly rushed into the room together.
“Young miss, since you’ve finished your meal, you must want dessert, right? We brought some snacks!”
Each cook held something in their hands after finishing the kitchen work.
“This is tanghulu. It tastes amazing.”
“If she eats something that sweet this late at night, what if it ruins her teeth? Try mine instead. It’s jeonbyeong.”
“You coated that jeonbyeong with honey, and you’re saying it’s not sweet? That makes no sense. And my tanghulu was just made!”
“What do you mean ‘just made’? My jeonbyeong wasn’t made last year, either. I made it yesterday!”
The cooks started arguing over which snack was better: tanghulu or jeonbyeong.
Taking advantage of the chaos, the youngest cook quietly offered something.
“This rice cracker is sprinkled with peanut powder. It’s very savory. Please try it.”
“Why are you cutting in line?”
The cooks holding tanghulu and jeonbyeong scolded the younger ones.
“How can rice crackers compete with jeonbyeong?”
“I’ll eat everything. I want to eat them all.”
I couldn’t let them fight because of me.
After putting the rice cracker in my mouth, I held the tanghulu in one hand and the jeonbyeong in the other.
Watching me stuff snacks into my mouth until my cheeks puffed out like a squirrel’s, the cooks fidgeted excitedly.
I tried my best to keep eating so I wouldn’t disappoint them.
But I quickly reached my limit.
“I can’t eat anymore.”
“Just one more bite, please?”
“Oh… my stomach is full!”
I stretched out my legs and patted my round belly.
“Oh my goodness! Look at her belly now! How adorable.”
The youngest cook looked like she might faint from how cute she found it.
“If we brush your hair, you’ll look even cuter. Can someone bring a comb?”
My hair had only been rinsed roughly with cold water earlier and hadn’t been dried properly, so it was a tangled mess.
It must have looked terrible.
“I have a fine comb. I’ll brush the young miss’s hair. Young miss, come here.”
“Let me do it. I’m the best at handling hair.”
“Oh really? And the rest of us aren’t?”
The snack argument quickly turned into an argument about who would brush my hair.
Everyone tried to grab my hair at once, and my head was pulled this way and that.
“Stop! Everyone step back! At this rate, the young miss’s beautiful hair will be pulled out!”
The kitchen head quickly picked me up and sat me on her lap.
The cooks pouted unhappily.
“That’s unfair. You’re hogging the young miss!”
“Do you want to be assigned to cleaning dirty water starting tomorrow?”
The kitchen head proudly asserted her authority and began brushing her hair.
But while she was excellent in the kitchen, she was terrible at combing a child’s hair.
“Ah!”
My face twisted when my hair was pulled.
The cooks all glared at the kitchen head.
“You’re hurting the young miss!”
“W-well… her hair is tangled, so it can’t be helped. Young miss, did that hurt a lot?”
If I said yes, the kitchen head would feel embarrassed.
If I said no, I would have to keep enduring my hair being pulled out.
Just then, my eyes met Hyang-a’s.
Nanny, please save me.
Understanding my look instantly, Hyang-a quickly picked me up and moved me away.
“Oh! I just remembered we have freshly made camellia oil. We should apply some to the young miss’s hair!”
Apparently Hyang-a was the only one who had camellia oil.
No one could argue.
“Tch… We’ve been defeated by camellia oil.”
The kitchen head clicked her tongue.
Hyang-a sat me on her lap and gently began combing my hair.
“Ooh!”
“Oh my!”
As she continued brushing, the cooks gasped in admiration.
This attention is a little embarrassing…
I quietly lowered my gaze and wiggled my toes.
“All the tangles are gone, and I tied it nicely. Would you like to see?”
Hyang-a handed me a small mirror.
The moment I looked, I was startled.
Wow… I really look like a little kid.
My neatly brushed hair had been parted into two sections and rolled into round buns.
She even made a cute flower decoration with ribbon, like the ones used on holiday gift boxes.
Maybe it was because of the hairstyle, but I looked far cuter than I remembered.
Why is everything so round?
My eyes looked like they would overflow with tears if someone poked me.
My nose was small and cute, and my lips were soft and full.
There wasn’t a trace of intimidation in my appearance.
It was completely gentle.
I tried to frown fiercely to look intimidating.
But the cooks burst into laughter.
“Were you surprised too, young miss? That’s right—you’re incredibly cute!”
“R-really?”
I made an awkward face.
“What don’t you like?”
“My face…”
“Oh my! What about it? It’s so cute!”
Exactly.
Why did I look so gentle?
Everyone in the Tang family was famous for being beautiful.
But their beauty had hidden thorns.
Elegant looks hiding deadly sharpness.
Even my father looked refined like a painting of mountains and rivers.
But if he frowned once, an overwhelming pressure filled the room.
But I just look like a rice cake…
Or like a doll made of cotton.
My lips stuck out in frustration.
Seeing that expression, Hyang-a couldn’t resist poking my cheek.
“Oh my goodness, how adorable. You look like a doll made of white cotton.”
“Hmmph.”
I frowned even harder.
“Do you not like being called a doll?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going to become a martial artist!”
“Pfft!”
“Cough!”
Starting with Hyang-a, the other cooks bit their lips, trying to suppress laughter, tears forming in their eyes.
The kitchen head even lowered her head and pinched her thigh to keep from laughing.
My appearance clearly didn’t match the image of a martial artist.
* * *
Huh? Why am I here?
The walls made of bamboo covered with mud were lined with hanging medicinal herbs.
This was clearly the hermitage where my master used to stay.
Am I dreaming?
As I looked around, I saw my master sitting by the window in meditation.
“Master?”
“Why are you looking at me instead of your patient?”
He pointed with his staff to a woman lying in front of me.
Her face was covered with a white cloth, making her look like a corpse.
The bigger problem was that I wasn’t sure I myself was alive.
“Did I die?”
“Are you in pain?”
“No.”
“Then why are you talking nonsense instead of treating the patient!”
His words snapped me back to my senses.
I quickly checked the patient’s pulse.
“Her pulse is cold and slow. But her heart seems full of heat. Her wrist is covered in cold sweat…”
Her condition was worse than I expected.
Her limbs were cold, yet heat gathered around the heart—meaning the circulation of energy and blood had stopped flowing properly.
Could it be inflammation of the heart?
I leaned down and listened to her heartbeat.
The enlarged heart made heavy, dull sounds.
“I believe there’s inflammation in the heart.”
“You don’t have time to explain.”
“You’re right, Master. This condition is critical.”
I opened a box containing golden acupuncture needles.
To reduce the swelling of the inflamed heart, a needle had to be inserted into the heart acupoint.
A needle half a yard long had to be inserted deeply.
My fingers trembled.
If I make a mistake, I could kill the patient.
When I was in the Tang family, I learned how to kill people by striking the heart with hidden weapons.
Not just the heart.
The crown of the head, the temples, the throat, the solar plexus—even the soles of the feet.
I had studied all the body’s vital points and how to strike them to kill.
But those same points were also acupuncture points.
If the needle were placed incorrectly, it could kill someone.
Every time I performed acupuncture, I feared becoming a murderer.
It was the same now.
Holding the needle, I couldn’t move.
“My disciple, how long will you keep doubting your own medical skills?”
My master clicked his tongue sadly.
“I’m sorry, Master. I’m afraid this needle might become a weapon and kill someone.”
“If you hesitate, will the patient magically recover? When a physician hesitates, the patient dies. Your patient has just died.”
“D-died?”
I grabbed the patient’s wrist again.
There was no pulse.
I removed the white cloth covering the patient’s face so I could attempt CPR.
But the face underneath was mine.
I was the one lying there, dead.
“My disciple, every moment you doubt yourself, you are killing yourself. Just now, you killed yourself once again.”
“!”
“If a person holding a blade is a martial artist, he will use martial arts. If he is a butcher, he will slaughter cattle. When a physician holds a blade, is it not to save lives? Even if you walk the path of a martial artist, the problem is not the sword in your hand.”
The golden needle in my hand had somehow turned into a sword.
“Stop thinking that only golden needles can save lives. What is the highest stage of martial arts? Is it not forming a sword from a drop of water and throwing a blade with a leaf of grass? Your extra lesson is finished. Now go.”
In an instant, the hermitage disappeared.
I was standing at the edge of a vast cliff.
My master lightly pushed me with the tip of his staff.
“AAAAAH!”
