Taeho came rushing down with his hair disheveled after receiving the call. Seong Gihwan followed right behind him.
"Minsu is gone? Since when?"
"We just found out now. When I checked on him twenty minutes ago, he was definitely asleep…… We looked everywhere inside the hospital, but he's not here."
Nursing assistant Bak Yeonji replied, stomping her feet anxiously.
Taeho checked the CCTV.
"The last sighting is him leaving through the back door at 2:17 a.m."
The three of them went out the back door and searched the vicinity, but Minsu was nowhere to be seen. The streets were empty at this hour before dawn.
Gihwan, who had returned to the clinic, muttered as if to himself.
"Where could he have gone?"
Taeho tried to think from Minsu's perspective.
Minsu would have been trembling in fear, tormented by auditory hallucinations. The reason he left the clinic must have been because he felt it was dangerous.
Where would be a safe place?
Taeho's gaze turned toward the window.
The national highway winding past the middle of the mountain was visible. Cars were passing by intermittently on the dark road.
"He might have followed the main road."
"The main road?"
"When children get lost, they instinctively head for the main road. Because it feels safer. Gihwan and Yeonji, keep searching around here. I'll follow the main road."
"Yes, understood."
Just as Taeho stepped outside the clinic, Bak Geumja—who had rushed over after receiving the call—was parking her car.
"Doctor."
"Nurse Bak, please come with me."
Taeho got straight into Bak Geumja's car and followed the main road.
"Do you really think Minsu came this far?"
Bak Geumja asked with an anxious expression.
Taeho did a quick calculation in his head.
A fifteen-year-old boy about 160 centimeters tall walking alone would travel roughly four to five kilometers per hour. But Minsu wasn't in a normal state; he was suffering from auditory hallucinations and delusions. He had to account for the possibility of him stopping or wandering along the way.
"If we assume he's been missing for a maximum of fifty minutes, we should focus our search within a three-kilometer radius."
"Yes."
Bak Geumja swallowed dryly and gripped the steering wheel tightly.
At three in the morning, the national highway was quiet, but occasionally a large freight truck passed by at high speed.
"Over there!"
Taeho shouted.
Far off, a person was walking in the middle of the road.
"Minsu!"
Bak Geumja swerved the car sharply, rolled down the window, and shouted.
Minsu was walking along the center line of the road, barefoot and staggering in his hospital gown.
"It's dangerous!"
At that moment, headlights appeared in the distance. A large truck was barreling toward them at high speed.
Minsu kept walking without seeing the truck.
"Minsu! Get out of the way!"
Bak Geumja let out a scream.
The truck driver spotted Minsu too late and blared his horn.
Honk! Honk!
But Minsu didn't seem to hear it properly because of his auditory hallucinations.
Taeho leaped out of the car.
"Minsu!"
The distance between the truck and Minsu rapidly closed.
Taeho sprinted with all his might. His heart pounded as if it would burst.
'No!'
The truck slammed on its brakes, but it didn't stop easily due to inertia. The driver jerked the steering wheel, but the side of the truck slid toward Minsu.
Screeeech—
At the last moment, Taeho hurled himself at Minsu, grabbed him, and rolled away.
"Argh!"
The truck narrowly brushed past them, kicking up a storm of dust and wind.
The two tumbled down the embankment beside the road, tangled together.
Screeech!
The freight truck came to a halt. It had passed the spot where they had been by about a meter.
Minsu was trembling violently. Holding the child in his arms, Taeho caught his breath and spoke.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
Minsu looked at Taeho with a confused expression.
He seemed to have no awareness of what had just happened.
Bak Geumja ran over and embraced her son.
"Minsu! Minsu!"
Bak Geumja ran her hands over her son's entire body, checking if he was hurt anywhere.
Fortunately, other than the shock, Minsu was not seriously injured.
The truck driver ran over.
"Oh my, that scared me! Is everyone okay?"
"Yes, we're fine. I'm sorry. The child is ill……"
"Whew, that took ten years off my life. At first, I thought I was seeing a ghost."
The truck driver clicked his tongue upon seeing Minsu, then returned to his truck.
After the driver left, Bak Geumja noticed blood running from Taeho's elbow.
"Doctor. You're hurt."
"It's okay. It's just a minor abrasion. All that matters is Minsu is safe."
Bak Geumja burst into tears, belatedly.
"I'm sorry, Doctor."
"It's alright."
Taeho brought a blanket and covered Minsu with it.
"Let's go back now, Minsu."
Minsu stared at Taeho with a blank expression, as if he'd just woken from sleep.
***
A week passed. In conclusion, the prednisolone had been ineffective.
Normally, autoimmune encephalitis responds quickly to steroid treatment, but Minsu did not.
'I need to change the treatment.'
However, IVIG therapy caused fever and vomiting, high-dose methylprednisolone therapy induced gastrointestinal disorders and gastric bleeding, azathioprine lowered his white blood cell count and increased the risk of infection, and the rituximab they tried next triggered a severe allergic reaction.
Bak Geumja's eyes never dried of tears. Watching Minsu suffer by his side made her heart feel like it would tear apart.
"Doctor, is our Minsu not going to get better?"
Taeho was anxious as well. He had tried almost every known treatment. Yet none showed therapeutic effects; they only caused side effects. He worried about how much longer young Minsu could endure.
"There must definitely be a way."
Every night, Taeho scoured medical papers through Rema. Since he had already searched through nearly every published paper, he kept looking for newly released ones.
But there were no noteworthy findings.
'How am I supposed to find a cure?'
That night, Taeho dreamed of finding a new treatment. The treatment he found in the dream had almost no side effects.
***
While agonizing over a treatment for Minsu, Taeho still had to carry out his daily schedule.
Today, he had made a house call to Cheongseokgol.
Three thatched-roof houses at the foot of the mountain. One of them was the home where eighty-something Grandmother Gim Sunja lived alone.
"Hello, ma'am."
"Oh my, is that the doctor?"
The grandmother welcomed him warmly.
"How is your knee?"
"I was feelin' a bit better after takin' the medicine you gave me last time, but now that it ran out, it hurts somethin' awful again. When it rains, it aches and throbs."
Taeho examined the grandmother's knee. Typical degenerative arthritis.
"Your knee is stiff, isn't it? You mustn't miss your physical therapy sessions. The city hall sends a car twice a week, after all. Don't forget—make sure you come to the clinic."
"Yes, yes. I just keep forgettin', that's all."
"And take your painkillers on time. Are you eating well?"
"Yes. I'm eatin' well."
Though her body ached, the grandmother clearly enjoyed Taeho coming all the way to her house to check on her health and chat with her.
After the examination, as Taeho tried to stand up, the grandmother caught his arm.
"Stay a moment. Let me at least brew you some coffee."
"May I? Then not coffee, please give me the mulberry leaf tea you gave me last time. It was so delicious I kept thinking about it long after I got back."
"That so? Mulberry leaf tea is tasty and good for your health. I picked every leaf and dried them all myself."
The grandmother eagerly boiled the mulberry leaf tea.
Taeho sat on the wooden porch and drank the warm mulberry leaf tea.
A basket placed on one side of the porch caught his eye. It was filled with what looked like dried roots.
"Ma'am, what is that?"
The grandmother looked at what Taeho was pointing at, sat down beside him, and smiled.
"That's cheonma."
"Cheonma?"
"I dug it up in the mountains myself. It's good for the body; want some?"
"How do you eat this?"
"You boil it and drink it. When my husband was alive, he had terrible headaches. So he boiled this and drank it."
Taeho felt the tingling sensation that he felt whenever his intuition activated.
What is this?
Taeho picked up a piece of cheonma from the basket and examined it. A fist-sized, yellowish-brown root that looked like a radish yet also like a tree root.
"He had headaches?"
"His head would start burnin', and then the pain would begin."
"Since when?"
"Around the time my husband turned sixty, he suddenly said he was hearin' strange sounds."
"Strange sounds?"
"He said someone kept cursin' at him, and he couldn't sleep a wink at night……"
Taeho's heart began to race. These were exactly the same symptoms as Minsu's.
"And then?"
"At first, I thought a ghost had possessed him. We even had an exorcism done, but it was no use. Then a neighbor told me cheonma was good, so I gave it to him."
"How did you use the cheonma?"
"I boiled it every day for him to drink. For about a month, was it?"
"And what happened?"
"Strangely enough, he said he didn't hear the strange sounds anymore."
Taeho's eyes flashed. He tapped his glasses frame, and Rema displayed information about cheonma.
- Cheonma (Gastrodia elata)
- Korean Medicine Classification: Liver-Sedating and Wind-Extinguishing Medicinal (平肝熄風藥)
- Traditional Uses: Vertigo, epilepsy, stroke, convulsions, facial paralysis (deviated eyes and mouth)
- Modern Pharmacology: Anti-convulsant, neuroprotection, NMDA receptor modulation, autonomic nervous system stabilization.
- Active Compounds: Gastrodin, Parishin
- Cheonma has been recorded in traditional medical texts since the Joseon Dynasty as a medicine "used when the nerves won't listen."
- Record in the Dongui Bogam: "Stabilizes the mind and repels ghosts."
Cheonma is used for neurological disorders in Korean medicine?
Taeho's eyes went wide.
"Ma'am, could you perhaps spare me some cheonma?"
"Yes, yes, take it all. It grows everywhere around here."
The grandmother was rather delighted that Taeho had asked and poured all the cheonma that had filled the basket into a plastic bag for him.
"Ma'am, how did you boil and use this?"
"I put a handful in a kettle about this big and boiled it for about an hour. Divided it and drank it three times a day."
"And there were no other side effects?"
"Side effects? You can eat plenty of this, and nothing like that happens."
Taeho stood up, holding the cheonma.
"Ma'am, thank you so much."
"Come again when you run out. I'll give you more."
"Yes. I'll come again."
On the way back, Taeho headed straight for the Geumsan Research Institute.
For Minsu, who had shown nothing but side effects to Western medical treatments, perhaps cheonma—a traditional medicinal herb—could be the answer.
"Rema, search for papers on cheonma."
- Searching…….
- The most recent paper is from 2022.
- [Gastrodin improves neuroinflammation-induced cognitive dysfunction - BMC Anesthesiology, 2022]
"Improves neuroinflammation-induced cognitive dysfunction? Read it to me."
Taeho listened as Rema read aloud while he drove.
- ……Gastrodin treats brain inflammation by suppressing the TLR4-NF-κB-NLRP3 pathway……
Taeho's heart began to race.
"Rema, look for other papers on gastrodin."
- Searching for the latest research on gastrodin…….
- Search results: 47 related papers found.
"Too many. Analyze them and extract the key points related to autoimmune encephalitis treatment."
- 2024, Frontiers in Pharmacology: Neuroprotective effects verified.
- 2025, PMC Journal: Cerebral ischemia and inflammatory damage suppression confirmed.
- 2023, MDPI: Oxidative stress and inflammatory response improvement.
- Conclusion: A highly promising natural substance for autoimmune encephalitis treatment.
"Gastrodin treats cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease…… And even encephalitis?"
It was literally a goldmine.