The Dying King Asked for a Woman Physician novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Treat Her
Seo-wan crossed the room quickly and knelt by the bed mat.
"Ko, open the shutter a hand's width," she said. "Bring the lamp closer, and boil fresh water."
The old eunuch did not ask why.
He moved at once.
"Highness," said Seo-wan, "I am Gu Seo-wan. May I take your wrist?"
"Brother says doctors are butchers," said the girl.
"Your brother is half right."
The princess laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough, and Seo-wan held the cloth for her until it passed.
Then she laid three fingers on the thin wrist.
The pulse was quick and light, a bird's pulse.
She counted it twice.
"Put out your tongue."
The girl did, with great dignity.
"Does the cough come worst in the morning?"
"And when I laugh."
"Do you wake wet at night?"
"Every night. Ko changes my jacket."
"Does it hurt here?" Seo-wan pressed a place under the collarbone.
"A little."
"Sit forward. I am going to put my ear to your back, and you will breathe in when I say and out when I say."
The back was no wider than her two hands, and she could count every knob of the spine through the quilting.
"In."
She listened.
"Out. Again. Again."
On the left the breath moved clean, soft as paper.
On the right, high up, it crackled.
She stayed there longer than she needed to, because she wanted to be sure.
Then she was sure.
"Lie back, Highness. You have been very brave about all this."
"I am bored," said Yeon-suk. "Brave is only boring with a cough."
Seo-wan almost smiled.
"Your left lung is clean," she said.
"There is a sore place at the top of the right, about the size of a plum."
"It has been eating at you for a long time."
"Will I die?"
Behind her, in the doorway, someone stopped breathing.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Dying King Asked for a Woman Physician are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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