The Eldest Daughter of the Tang Clan of Sichuan Protects the Family Chapter 44

Part 1,

Chapter 44. Muso

So-hwa stepped forward and offered her greeting before Hak could make a mistake.

"I am Tang So-hwa, daughter of the leader of the Sichuan branch. I am not affiliated with the branch, but I am learning dicine from the divine physician at the Tang Clan's dical Hall. I have accompanied him under the leader's orders to assist the divine physician in tending to the patient."

Realizing why his sister had stepped forward first, Tang Hak walked ahead and gave a martial salute to the branch leader.

"Greetings to the Leader of the Shaanxi branch. I am Tang Hak, Young Lord of the Tang Clan."

As he greeted the branch leader, Tang Hak continued speaking.

"Under the orders of the leader of the Sichuan branch, I have brought the divine physician and the physicians of the Tang Clan dical Hall. This is Jin-cheol, the divine physician of the Yeonju Group."

"Greetings to the Leader of the Shaanxi branch. I am Jin-cheol."

Jin-cheol gave a martial salute and imdiately raised his head.

"I heard the condition is critical. May I see the patient?"

"Of course. Please, follow ."

The branch leader turned his body and led the group toward the pavilion. The martial artists carefully cleared the way as if they had never drawn their swords. Muso was the sa.

As she walked following the Young Lord and the divine physician, So-hwa cast a glance at Muso.

It wasn't that So-hwa had recognized the Shaanxi branch leader.

At this point in ti, she rarely left the Tang Clan estate, and the branch leader of Shaanxi changed so frequently that there was no point in morizing appearances.

What she recognized was Muso.

Muso, the elder of Mount Hua who led the Plum Blossom Sword Unit.

Though the branch leader hadn't invited him in, Muso followed them into the pavilion.

'Still the sa.'

A swordsman quicker to draw than to speak, hot-tempered, yet a Taoist with deep affection.

Muso was the Mount Hua Taoist who had rushed over after receiving Yeon-ah's letter. She would later hear that he descended into danger with his disciples to help Yeon-ah, defying the Murim Alliance's objections.

'But in this life, I've t this martial artist even before Yeon-ah.'

In her past life, he had sympathized with the surviving daughter of the Tang Clan. He had stayed with his disciples to help retrieve the corpses and escorted her all the way to Anhui.

Muso had no reason to show her a harsh expression, nor had he ever actually done so. That's why the Muso now felt like a different person. He was much younger than the Taoist from back then, and his internal energy was sharp.

It wasn't an unreasonable attitude, given that his disciple was injured.

Creak.

Upon entering the room, So-hwa furrowed her brow.

Seeing the symptoms firsthand, which she had only read about, she frowned at the strangeness.

The disciple of Mount Hua had skin blackened like soone who had worked all day under the sun, and his lips were dried out and pale.

With a grave expression, the divine physician began checking the pulse. As if to confirm sothing, he pulled back the patient's eyelids and moved his hands ticulously across the back of the neck and abdon.

"It's strange. There are traces of internal injury, but not to the extent that would cause these symptoms."

"We focused directly on treating the internal injury. Because of that, it might have slightly recovered, making it difficult to gauge. But considering his condition continues to worsen... I doubt it's a true recovery."

The branch leader explained the heat he felt while examining the patient's energy flow and the treatnt thods they had used. It seed he had personally applied Internal Healing Art on the patient.

Muso, who had been watching the branch leader, slowly relaxed his furrowed brows. It seed he had let go of his suspicions.

But his brows furrowed even deeper at the divine physician's next words.

"Hmm, if you didn't find the problem in the ridians, it's even worse. That could an the issue lies in the internal organs rather than in ruptured acupoints (acupuncture points)."

The divine physician pressed again around the patient's heart and abdon with a serious expression.

"When inflammation occurs in the organs, high fever can result. But in my opinion, the patient doesn't seem to have any issue serious enough to sustain a fever like this."

"What do you an?"

The divine physician answered concisely.

"I an, there is no apparent cause for this high fever."

Muso, watching from behind, spoke in a voice tinged with anger.

"Nonsense! You call yourself a physician, yet your diagnosis is worse than so street quack's! Are you saying you can't even see the state of the patient before your eyes? Even soone like , without dical knowledge, can tell that the child is suffering from a high fever!"

The old physician responded in a calm voice.

"Judging by the symptoms alone, it looks like the organs are festering and inflad, and the body, having ingested spoiled food or poison, is urgently expelling toxins by drawing out moisture, which would explain the dryness. So we could try administering dicine that treats inflammation imdiately."

Though the old physician's voice was composed, no one saw that as a proper diagnosis. The dark pupils that had been observing the patient slid toward Muso.

"Administering dication to suppress inflammation to soone with an unknown illness could instead harm the healthy organs. If side effects arise in a patient this weak, we won't be able to do anything."

The divine physician maintained an unwavering gaze even as he faced one of the most prominent martial artists in Shaanxi.

"My master taught to put the patient above my own honor. I was never taught to risk a patient's life for the sake of proving my reputation, so I cannot begin treatnt without knowing the cause. Please allow ti to reach a proper diagnosis."

Muso clenched his mouth shut as if holding back his anger.

A heavy silence began to settle.

At that mont—

"Divine physician."

The divine physician's gaze slid toward So-hwa, and at the sa ti, Muso frowned and glared at her.

Ignoring the attention on her, she asked,

"May I examine Myungdan's acupoints?"

The divine physician stared quietly at her. Tang So-hwa had followed them, saying the symptoms resembled poisoning she was familiar with.

Perhaps she might have a thod. The records she read every day were secret traditions of the Tang Clan passed down over a long ti—perhaps the answer lay within them.

The divine physician nodded.

"Go ahead."

With the divine physician's permission, So-hwa approached Myungdan. Muso, upon seeing this, opened his mouth as if to voice his dissatisfaction, but soon closed it again.

It was because there was trust in the divine physician's eyes, the sa one who had once argued with him.

With a furrowed brow, he looked again at the daughter of the Clan Head of the Tang Clan.

In that mont, an old mory flashed through Muso's mind.

Around three years ago, when the Blood Sect began to stir, the full details had been shared with the Murim Alliance mbers.

The incident where the Tang siblings almost died after encountering the Blood Sect on Mount Ei.

It was said that the direct descendants of the Tang Clan had gone to Mount Ei to find the divine physician. The eldest daughter of the Clan Head, who had a deep interest in dicine, had found the location of the Yeonju Group and went to confirm it.

'... Is that child the direct descendant who found the divine physician?'

Muso suppressed his anger at the divine physician's irresponsible attitude.

If she had found the divine physician's residence at such a young age, then her knowledge was not sothing he could dismiss. And since even the divine physician, who had argued with him so stubbornly, had nothing to say, there must be a reason he was convinced.

Tang So-hwa quietly stood beside Myungdan's bed. Then she carefully examined his body.

Since earlier, a hot heat had been radiating from the patient.

This heat that continuously tickled the skin could not be body heat. No matter how high a person's temperature was, it could not be felt from a distance.

So-hwa placed her hand on Myungdan's head. Her hand felt as if it were holding a stone heated in fire. Following the heat, her hand stopped at the Baihui point.

She slowly pulled her hand back to a palm's distance.

Even though the distance widened, the heat felt exactly the sa as when she was pressing down on the Baihui point.

'It's not body heat after all.'

This heat was internal energy.

So-hwa brushed over Myungdan's body, touching the places that felt particularly hot.

Each acupoint traced a path. The end of that path looped back to the Baihui point, where the heat had first begun.

It was probably a ridian path Myungdan had constructed.

So-hwa furrowed her brows in puzzlent.

Internal energy was circulating at will along the cleansed ridian path.

Myungdan, who had lost consciousness, could not operate his energy on his own, nor was anyone currently guiding his energy circulation.

And yet, an unknown internal energy was rampaging through Myungdan's body on its own.

'... Is such a thing even possible?'

After ruminating on the thought, she finally opened her mouth.

“The high fever in Myungdan’s acupoints doesn’t seem to be due to internal injury.”

"You an there is another cause?"

When the divine physician asked, So-hwa nodded.

"Yes. As you said, divine physician, it does not seem to be a fever caused by reaction to inflammation or poison, but rather, the body temperature appears to have risen due to heat within the ridian path."

The branch leader let out a sigh and spoke.

"Are you talking about Qi Deviation? I was concerned about that too and examined Myungdan's internal energy and blood flow, but there was no damage. The flow was smooth. I personally examined Myungdan's ridians just a few hours ago, so I'm sure of it."

However, the branch leader stared at the red handprint left on the back of Myungdan's neck with uncertain eyes.

So-hwa's gaze also dropped to that spot.

The ridian where the hottest heat remained.

“Yes, the acupoints of his body are fine. However.”

So-hwa placed her hand on the back of Myungdan's neck.

She moved her hand along where the heat was felt and spoke.

“There is a part of his body where his body temperature is unusually high, and if you connect those points, it leads back to the Baihui point. It is probably the ridian path that Myungdan uses.”

Silence followed those words.

Even Muso, who knew the Mount Hua Sect's internal energy thod, and the branch leader, who had directly examined Myungdan's ridians, kept their mouths shut.

So-hwa laid her voice atop that stillness.

"It's only a guess."

Her hand moved slowly.

"But it seems the heat running through the ridians has seeped into the internal organs."

As So-hwa traced Myungdan's acupoints, she swept her hand over his chest where the heart was, then over his side where his lungs were, and then over the area where his liver was.

With that movent, the divine physician's expression hardened. It matched the organs where he had suspected inflammation.

So-hwa calmly voiced her thoughts.

"The heated organs warm the ridians again and transfer their heat."

She traced Myungdan's ridian paths with her hand.

"The heat that seeped into the ridians circulates on its own, then returns to the organs, and the overheated organs again transfer heat to the ridians, repeating this cycle."

So-hwa recalled the corpse examination report of the Wudang Sect's head disciple she had read in her past life.

In the report, it was written that the corpse's blood vessels were shriveled, and the ones closer to the organs were more severely damaged.

So-hwa had studied that case and the corpse examination report for a long ti. And she had co to a conclusion similar to the divine physician’s.

The person had died from a high fever due to organ damage.

However, they had never uncovered what had damaged the organs.

At the Nine Turns Pavilion, she had searched for poisons that could cause such a similar reaction and tried to create antidotes, but she hadn’t been able to completely reproduce the sa reaction as in the corpse examination report.

Now, faced with a living patient, So-hwa realized why she hadn’t been able to find the poison in the Nine Turns Pavilion in the past.

'Of course. It wasn't organ damage that caused the elevated body temperature—it was the heat itself.'

Confronting the hypothesis she had thought least likely, So-hwa spoke in a dark voice.

"It wasn't that the body temperature rose due to organ damage. I believe soone directly injected heat itself into his body."

The branch leader furrowed his brow.

"By heat, do you an he was struck by Fiery Yang Art?"

So-hwa shook her head.

"It's similar to the Fiery Yang Art, but different. The Fiery Yang Art burns the ridians directly, completely destroying the energy channels, but this heat doesn't damage the ridians. It seeps into the body like body heat, then returns to the ridians, circulating and damaging the organs repeatedly."

Just then, the branch leader's grave voice cut off So-hwa's thoughts.

"Heat imitating body temperature... Could it be the Fire Art of the Solar Palace?"