“C-Cancer?”
“It isn’t certain. How could I determine that from a photograph taken from so far away?”
“Still, that’s far too…”
He was so displeased he was on the verge of rage, and he couldn’t even speak properly.
Knowing exactly how he felt, Taesu spoke even more calmly.
“I’m sorry. But I have a duty to tell you honestly what I’ve seen.”
“…Y-You’re not saying it really is cancer, are you?”
“I’m not certain either, which is why I mentioned several possible diseases. But no matter what illness it is, there’s one thing I can tell you for sure.”
When Taesu spoke flatly, Gang Yeonghun narrowed his eyes and asked,
“What is it?”
“If it grows any larger, the smile will disappear from Songi’s face.”
“T-That…”
Gang Yeonghun was visibly shaken.
Taesu continued without regard for that.
“It won’t end with just taking away her smile.”
“What do you mean…”
“If it grows more, her face will be disfigured. If it gets worse, it will spread to her brain.”
“Hup.”
“I trust you can imagine what comes after that, so I won’t say any more.”
Taesu cut himself off firmly.
Perhaps his tone made it strike even harder, because Gang Yeonghun’s fingertips began to tremble.
“Still… No, perhaps you’re mistaken…”
“Would I go so far as to say this just to provoke you?”
“You might.”
“Why? Why would I need to go that far?”
This time, Taesu asked the question.
Gang Yeonghun seemed to have noticed the flaw in their conversation so far as well.
“That’s true. If anyone were to ask a favor, it should be us.”
“We’re doing this because we want to help.”
“I know that.”
“Just give us a pretext. If we have a pretext to move, we can get there somehow.”
Taesu urged him with emphasis.
An NGO did not move unconditionally just because there were patients.
A minimum level of safety had to be secured, and minimal infrastructure had to be in place before they approved dispatch.
Taesu was free from that.
Even so, he couldn’t choose a dispatch location however he pleased.
That was why he was doing this.
Gang Yeonghun also seemed to be having all sorts of thoughts.
His eyes were complicated.
After thinking and thinking again, he looked at Taesu.
Sparkle.
Taesu urged him with eyes full of expectation.
“Please tell me.”
“I’ll ask the village what they…”
It was the same answer repeated again.
At that moment, Taesu could no longer suppress the surge in his chest.
His thoughts slipped straight out of his mouth.
“Ah, this is seriously damn frustrating.”
“…”
“What the hell are you asking me to do? Even when we say we’ll help, isn’t this a bit much?”
Taesu challenged him like fire, but Gang Yeonghun’s resolve was also far from ordinary.
“I told you, we have our position too.”
“What position is there in front of people who are sick enough to die?”
“There are plenty of people there who shudder at the very thought of Koreans. Do you think they’ll let you into the village just because you show up?”
Gang Yeonghun shouted sharply.
At those words, Taesu’s eyes flashed as he seized on the tail of that sentence.
“Shudder, you say.”
“Ahem. I apologize for shouting.”
“Yeonghun.”
“…”
Gang Yeonghun did not open his mouth.
Taesu coaxed him several more times and urged him again.
But Mr. Gang’s stubbornness was, as expected, not easy to overcome.
In the end, only time passed.
When the afternoon treatment hours drew near, Taesu stood with a hollow expression.
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever backed down like this.”
“…”
“Whew. I’ll take my leave now.”
A slight nod.
Taesu greeted him perfunctorily with a cold face.
As for Gang Yeonghun?
“…”
There was still no response.
Taesu turned away with a frown.
“Damn it. I’d rather talk to a stone.”
It was a mutter full of sincerity.
Thud. Thud.
With rough steps filled with dissatisfaction, he walked toward the hospital room door.
Yun Juseong followed behind with a bitter expression.
It seemed he felt bothered that he had only added a few words.
Slide.
Soon, Taesu opened the door to the hospital room.
At that moment, Gang Yeonghun, who had remained silent all along, spoke.
“Doctor Choe.”
It was nothing more than a call.
But Taesu couldn’t take being called at this moment as something simple.
Taesu’s eyes shifted, and at the end of his gaze, he saw Yun Juseong.
Could it be?
There was nothing to lose.
Taesu immediately asked Yun Juseong for understanding.
“I’ll be out in a moment.”
“All right. I’ll go first.”
Having done nothing of note, Yun Juseong could not insist on staying.
Step.
He immediately went out into the corridor.
At that moment, Taesu slowly closed the hospital room door.
Click.
The moment the door shut,
Gang Yeonghun quietly recited several Chinese place names.
“Chongqing, Chajiang, Guiyang, Liuzhou, Guangzhou.”
“Pardon?”
“That’s all I have to say.”
At Gang Yeonghun’s absurd words, Taesu doubted his ears.
“No, what about those places?”
“…”
“Yeonghun?”
“…”
Gang Yeonghun closed his mouth again.
Now knowing full well what that stubbornness was like, Taesu’s face twisted sharply.
“If you have something to say, why not just say it clearly?”
“…”
“Damn it. I’m leaving.”
Slide, bang.
Taesu slammed the door shut and left.
Once outside, there was no sign that the crease between Taesu’s brows would smooth out.
Yun Juseong approached slightly and asked,
“Was it a secret?”
“He just listed a few Chinese place names and that was it.”
“Place names?”
“Yes. Chungcheong? Jjajang? Something like that.”
When Taesu grumbled, Yun Juseong tilted his head.
“A Korean place name—no, food—no, what?”
“I don’t know either.”
Taesu shook his head.
He wanted to get closer, but there was no way.
But Taesu was not someone who would simply retreat.
“Gang, huh. Well, this body is a Choe too.”
Fighting spirit blazed in Taesu’s eyes.
A short while later.
Taesu returned to Medical Tent 3 with his face full of horns.
Quick-witted Kim Hyeokgwon handed him water and looked at him in disbelief.
“What did you talk about for a whole hour?”
“Now I’m getting pissed off again.”
“Tell me everything first, then get pissed.”
“I will. So…”
Taesu immediately relayed the conversation he had with Gang Yeonghun.
Kim Hyeokgwon’s expression, which had been calm as he listened, gradually changed.
In the end, he also spat out his irritation.
“What kind of frustrating bastard is that?”
“Exactly. So…”
Thanks to Kim Hyeokgwon keeping pace with him, Taesu continued speaking while suppressing his anger until the end.
And soon he reached the conclusion.
“…That’s what happened.”
“A stubbornness that even Doctor Choe gets pushed back by. He’s a formidable opponent.”
“A seriously formidable opponent.”
“But what did he say when he called you over as you were leaving?”
When Kim Hyeokgwon pressed him on the point, Taesu sharply raised the corners of his eyes and answered,
“I told you, he listed place names.”
“So what were they?”
“Chongqing, Chajiang, Guiyang, Liuzhou, Guangzhou.”
“That was it?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t even know where those places are.”
“Did you boil your phone into soup and eat it?”
At those words, Taesu realized his mistake.
“That’s right. Look at my mind.”
Taesu pulled out his phone, embarrassed.
Internet speed?
If he gave up on everything, at least his heart could be at peace.
There was even an Aesop’s fable about a tortoise successfully reaching the finish line after persistent effort.
He could experience the speed of that tortoise right here.
It took a full minute just to load a single map.
After enduring and enduring again, Taesu finally opened a map of all of China.
“This is Chongqing…”
Swipe, swipe.
Muttering, he traced his way through the place names.
Beside him, Kim Hyeokgwon was also tapping away at something on his phone.
Soon, after looking up the last one, Guangzhou, Taesu roughly lowered his phone.
“Was he just saying random things?”
“No. This is kind of interesting.”
“Why?”
Taesu quickly leaned toward Kim Hyeokgwon.
When he saw the phone screen, Taesu’s eyes shook violently.
“This is…”
“When I searched the place names all in a row, this came up.”
“Ah, hah.”
Taesu clamped a hand over his mouth because a scream seemed about to burst out.
The internet search result was?
—Relocation route of the Shanghai Provisional Government.
Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, Guangzhou, Liuzhou, Guiyang, Chajiang, Chongqing.
Taesu’s mind was chaos itself.
Something enormous had suddenly popped out.
‘This is… wow.’
He had no sense of what to do or how to go about it.
The place names Gang Yeonghun had mentioned.
If they had absolutely not been said at random?
There was no doubt.
Koreans.
And when combined with the Provisional Government relocation route, the pieces fit perfectly.
At that moment, Kim Hyeokgwon seemed to think of something and gave a bitter smile.
“I think it would be best to meet Mr. Gang Yeonghun again first.”
“…”
“What? You don’t feel like it?”
Taesu rolled his eyes, then asked one question at a time as thoughts came to him.
“Something must have happened, right?”
“Which is why he’d hate Korea to death.”
“It won’t be resolved easily, will it?”
“If it would, he wouldn’t have hated them in the first place.”
Kim Hyeokgwon answered bluntly.
Thanks to that reaction, Taesu was able to organize his thoughts more smoothly.
“He must have told us in a deliberately roundabout way, right?”
“Otherwise, he would have walked around with it pasted on his forehead.”
“Acting like we know would work against us, wouldn’t it?”
“Even without that, it doesn’t exactly feel like we’ll be well-liked.”
At Kim Hyeokgwon’s continued sniping, Taesu glanced sideways at him.
“Still, a little…”
“What do you expect from me?”
“Ahem. Then why did Yeonghun tell us?”
That was what Taesu was most curious about.
Unexpectedly, Kim Hyeokgwon inferred it at once.
“His daughter.”
“Bingo. But the problem is…”
“How to create a pretext to go to the village, right?”
When Kim Hyeokgwon asked, Taesu shook his head.
“No. We can just force that through.”
“Since you charge ahead recklessly anyway, I suppose that’s possible. Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t think they’ll let us into the village.”
When Taesu voiced his concern, Kim Hyeokgwon also paused.
“That’s true. In that situation, even I wouldn’t let you in.”
“Then…”
“Force our way through this time too?”
“What nonsense are you talking about? We need to continue treatment first.”
Swoosh.
Taesu immediately turned and headed toward Medical Tent 3.
Left alone, Kim Hyeokgwon only then realized he had been swept up in Taesu’s pace.
“Ah, argh. That dreadful bastard. I ought to just beat the crap out of him.”
Kim Hyeokgwon’s face crumpled fiercely.
***
Time flew by in a blur.
All the medical staff were so occupied with the patients brought in from the nearby small cities that they had no time to look around.
“This patient needs surgery…”
“This person needs emergency treatment first…”
Tap-tap-tap.
The medical staff were literally busy beyond measure.
In the midst of that, Kim Hyeokgwon and José entered Medical Tent 3 side by side.
Ordinarily, they would have brought a patient with them.
But there was no one.
Taesu, who had scanned widely even behind them, quickly asked,
“Where’s the patient?”
“Done.”
“What?”
“Look at the time.”
It was at the same time as Kim Hyeokgwon’s blunt words.