"Amira! Apologize to Doctor Kang at once!"
Faisal shouted in Arabic, then called Taeho over.
"Doctor Kang, my sister was rude. Please forgive her."
"Rashid."
Taeho looked at Faisal.
"You are my patient, and your sister is a third party. The treatment is already difficult; if I am further obstructed, it will be impossible."
Amira bit her lip tightly. No one had ever dared speak so bluntly to her before. Filled with rage, she glared at Taeho.
Faisal said coldly,
"Amira, apologize at once!"
"Akhi!"
"You will return home immediately. Right now."
Amira looked at her brother in shock.
"Akhi? What did you say?"
"You heard me. Return home. I cannot indulge your temper here. We shall see each other when I return."
There was no longer any room for negotiation in Faisal's words.
"What exactly did I do wrong?"
Amira's voice trembled.
It was a shock. Never in her life had Faisal spoken to her with such resolve.
Amira bit her lip.
She had been the one to watch Faisal's agony more closely than anyone.
His groans every night, his dependence on painkillers, his growing despair.
She had wished more than anything for Faisal to recover. That was why she had insisted on accompanying him all the way to Korea.
Yet when she saw this small hospital—so shabby compared to the world-famous institutions she had seen—and a doctor so young, she had only been worried...
She was bitterly disappointed that Faisal could not understand her feelings.
But what mattered now was Faisal's recovery.
Finally, Amira lowered her head.
"I am sorry, Doctor Kang."
"Doctor Kang, you may not know this, but the only people before whom my sister bows her head like that are our parents. She has been overly cherished and is somewhat lacking in maturity. You must consider that she has done her best. I ask you to forgive her magnanimously."
Faisal said calmly.
Taeho nodded.
"For now, that will do. But know that I can reverse this situation at any time."
"Understood. Amira, too, will surely keep that in mind."
Faisal glanced at Amira. Her face was flushed bright red, her fists tightly clenched, and she turned her head away.
"Then let us take a look around the hospital first."
Honorary Director Kim Byeongjo quickly spoke to shift the mood.
When Kim Sara translated, Faisal nodded.
"Very well. Shall we go in?"
Faisal began walking toward Geumsan Samcheok Hospital. Behind him followed Princess Amira, interpreter Kim Sara, and dozens of attendants.
As Taeho guided Faisal to the examination room, he said,
"Some newly joined medical staff will be observing. Is that all right?"
"Of course. The more doctors who see this, the better."
Faisal agreed.
Kim Dohyeon stepped forward a beat ahead of Lee Chaerin and said,
"Hello? I am Kim Dohyeon from the Emergency Medicine Department. Please let me know if there is anything uncomfortable at any time."
"I am Lee Chaerin from the Emergency Medicine Department. All preparations necessary for the examination are complete."
Lee Chaerin, having been beaten to the punch, followed with a slightly annoyed expression.
'Those two are competing again.'
Taeho smacked his lips bitterly. But right now, there was something more important: finding the source of Faisal's pain, which no one had been able to resolve for fifteen years.
Taeho placed his hand near Faisal's waist.
"We shall begin with a general physical examination."
Taeho began slowly palpating with his hand, like any ordinary doctor. But in reality, he quietly activated his Bio Vision at that very moment.
'Shall we begin?'
In an instant, his vision changed completely.
Faisal's entire body began to look as if enveloped in a mysterious aurora. The blood vessels flowing beneath his skin shone like delicate blue threads, and his muscles emitted a soft green light.
'What's that?'
When he looked closely at the pelvic area, he detected a color distinctly different from everywhere else around the sacroiliac joint—specifically in the L5-S1 region. Instead of a healthy blue light, a uniquely red light was pulsing and flickering from that spot alone.
That red light was not simple inflammation. Like a small volcano spewing smoke, minute heat was rippling outward from the inflamed area in waves.
'Strange. I've never seen this pattern before.'
In the inflamed area, the nerves passing through the sacroiliac joint had darkened instead of their normal golden hue.
The nerve branches were intermittently pinched and narrowed, as if under pressure, and at those points the flow of light flickered as if severed. It was as if the nerve signals were failing to transmit properly, like unstable electrical wiring.
'The nerves are compressed. And have been for quite a long time.'
The most astonishing thing was that the inflammation and nerve compression were feeding into each other. The red aura emanating from the inflamed area wrapped around the nerves, compressing them further, while the compressed nerves in turn irritated the surrounding tissues, worsening the inflammation.
As Taeho moved his hand to a more precise location, the resolution of his Bio Vision grew even sharper.
Examining the articular surface of the sacroiliac joint closely, he saw minute cracks in the cartilage. But they were different from damage caused by ordinary trauma. Their pattern was as if the tissue had slowly corroded from the inside out.
'This is a classic presentation of an autoimmune reaction.'
In the synovial membrane surrounding the joint, abnormally vigorous cellular activity was observed. Like tiny stars twinkling, the immune cells were in a state of excessive activation.
'This is definitely a reaction to an external substance. The body is continuously fighting to expel some kind of foreign material.'
As Taeho's hand moved slightly lower, an even more astonishing sight unfolded. Deep inside the inflamed area, very fine metallic specks were gleaming.
'Could it be heavy metals?'
Having finished his observations, Taeho slowly deactivated his Bio Vision. Faisal's body returned to its ordinary appearance, but the aurora light map Taeho had just seen was etched vividly into his mind.
"This sacroiliac joint area is unusual. Upon palpation, there is slight tenderness, and the tension in the surrounding muscles is abnormal."
Taeho spoke, pointing to the exact spot with his finger.
"I reviewed the MRI you sent in advance, and there were parts that had been missed."
Taeho pointed to the image and explained,
"Here, on the T2-weighted image, you can see minute signal intensity changes. Other doctors may have judged this to be within the normal range, but connected with the clinical symptoms, it clearly appears to be inflammation. Chronic pain of this pattern usually has an immunological factor lurking behind it."
Taeho carefully opened his mouth.
"Rashid, looking at the treatments you have received until now, they have all been symptomatic. Treatments to reduce pain or relax the muscles. But there has been no approach to the root cause."
"The root cause?"
"Yes. This is not simply an orthopedic problem."
Taeho said in a voice full of conviction.
"It appears to be a form of autoimmune reaction. Something is stimulating the immune system, causing persistent inflammation."
"Wait a moment, Doctor Kang."
At this, Amira cut in.
"I question whether you have properly understood Akhi's medical history."
Taeho looked at Amira calmly.
"Which part do you question?"
"Akhi has seen the world's finest immunologists for fifteen years. They all reviewed autoimmune reactions, but the results were negative."
Taeho nodded.
"That is correct. All the common autoimmune markers were normal."
"And yet suddenly you suggest an immunological approach? Are you saying they missed something?"
"Immunology is an extremely complex field. Just because common autoimmune markers are negative does not mean there is no immunological problem. Especially in the case of localized immune reactions, they may not appear in systemic markers."
Taeho spoke firmly, and Amira's face flushed red again.
"I-is that possible?"
"Of course. For example, psoriasis and atopic dermatitis are also local immune reactions, yet systemic autoimmune markers are often normal. Furthermore, new immunological mechanisms are being discovered continuously. Things unknown fifteen years ago."
Faisal looked at Taeho with an expression of interest.
"What specific tests are you planning to conduct?"
"I would like to run a cytokine profile analysis and a T-cell subset analysis. In particular, we need to check the inflammatory pathway related to Th17 cells."
Taeho's professional and specific answer left Amira at a loss for words. No matter how hard she had studied her brother's illness, she was not a doctor.
Faisal nodded, looking satisfied.
"Very well. It seems hope is in sight. Shall we undergo the tests today and return to the hotel?"
"Yes. The preparations are complete, so let us proceed with the tests at once."
When Taeho nodded, the medical staff standing around began to move busily.
***
The next day, Taeho knocked on the door of the Presidential Suite at the Samcheok Grand Hotel. In his hand was a thick stack of test results.
"Doctor Kang, please come in."
Faisal opened the door and welcomed him gladly. Anticipation and anxiety were simultaneously etched on his face.
Amira was sitting on the sofa in the living room. She, too, wore a nervous expression.
Faisal asked hurriedly,
"Have the results come out?"
"Yes, and the results are interesting."
Taeho said, spreading the results on the table.
"To start with the good news: it is not a common autoimmune disease."
"Oh, thank goodness!"
Amira let out a sigh of relief.
"Then there is bad news as well?"
Taeho pointed at the results with a serious expression.
"A very unusual pattern was found in the cytokine profile."
"What kind of pattern?"
"The levels of IL-17 and TNF-alpha are abnormally high. However, other markers typically seen in general inflammatory diseases are within the normal range."
Taeho showed her the graph and explained,
"It seems to react only to a specific stimulus."
Amira wore a puzzled expression.
"A specific stimulus... What does that mean?"
"There is a high probability that it is an immune reaction to an external substance."
"External?"
Faisal's face hardened.
Taeho took out another report and said,
"But what is more surprising is that in the T-cell subset analysis, the proportion of memory T cells is abnormally high."
"What does that mean?"
Faisal asked in a tense voice.
"It means Your Highness's immune system remembers a specific substance from fifteen years ago. And that substance remains in the body even now, causing a continuous reaction. This pattern is difficult to explain with ordinary trauma or infection."
Faisal let out a deep sigh.
"Then what must be done?"
"First, we must identify the exact causative substance, so additional tests are necessary. And I believe we also need to look into the treatment you received at the time of the accident fifteen years ago in detail."
Faisal and Amira's expressions hardened simultaneously.
Faisal slowly opened his mouth.
"Why do you wish to know about that time?"
"To find the cause of the chronic inflammation. There is a high possibility that the trauma from fifteen years ago is connected to your current symptoms."
Amira exchanged a meaningful glance with her brother, then opened her mouth.