“I’m finished.”
“……!”
At the sound of my voice, the classroom fell silent for a moment.
Jin Ha-rim raised his head.
“Already?”
“Yes.”
The physician trainees around me each looked surprised as they stared at my desk.
“No way. You didn’t just sort them randomly, did you?”
“You haven’t even properly smelled them yet.”
“That was way too fast…”
Jin Ha-rim also looked incredulous as he approached my desk.
He checked the herbs divided into three groups one by one.
Hwangjeonggeun, Baekseogeun, and Gumeonggeun.
Not a single root was misplaced.
For the first time, Jin Ha-rim’s eyes changed.
“How did you distinguish them?”
I picked up the Hwangjeonggeun on the far left.
“When Hwangjeonggeun dries, its outer color turns yellowish, but a faint bluish tint remains in the cross-section. Baekseogeun has the finest grain and gives off its characteristic sweet scent.”
Finally, I pointed to Gumeonggeun.
“Gumeonggeun has black spots where the root connects to the stem, and there’s a slightly fishy scent mixed into the tail end of its smell.”
Jin Ha-rim slowly nodded.
“That’s right. All of it is correct.”
Then he picked up a root of Gumeonggeun and rolled it across his palm.
“But medicinal herbs aren’t always in the same condition. How would you distinguish Gumeonggeun if the black spots had faded or almost all of its scent had disappeared?”
It was an unexpected question.
The gazes of the other physician trainees immediately turned toward me.
I stared at the Gumeonggeun for a moment before answering.
“Put a cut piece in water.”
“In water?”
“Yes. When Gumeonggeun absorbs water, a pale purplish color spreads from the edges of the cross-section. Since its medicinal properties will leach out if it’s soaked for too long, you only need to cut off a very small piece—just enough to check.”
The classroom fell silent.
Jin Ha-rim immediately had an attendant bring over a bowl of water.
He cut off a tiny piece from the end of the Gumeonggeun and placed it in the water.
Before long, a faint purplish color spread along the edges of the cross-section.
“It’s true…”
“Is there a method like that?”
Quiet exclamations escaped from the room.
Jin Ha-rim looked at me.
“Who taught you that?”
I immediately fell silent.
No one had taught me.
It was knowledge I had learned through experience over the course of several lives.
“I checked it myself.”
“Yourself?”
“There are a lot of medicinal herbs that can be confusing if you only look at books. I also compared them in cases where their appearance changed.”
A brief look of surprise crossed Jin Ha-rim’s face.
“Before entering the medical academy?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me for a while before slowly nodding.
“That is a good attitude.”
His firm praise rang throughout the classroom.
“The thing you must be most wary of in pharmacognosy is believing that everything you’ve read in a book is the whole truth. Even the same medicinal herb can look different depending on where it was grown and how it was stored, so make a habit of seeing and verifying things for yourself.”
Jin Ha-rim’s gaze swept over the physician trainees.
“Remember the method Physician Trainee Yeon Ryeonghwa demonstrated.”
In an instant, everyone’s eyes turned toward me.
The faces that had looked at me with concern only moments ago now held expressions of surprise.
Seo Jin-woo stared at me and the Gumeonggeun with his mouth hanging open.
“That’s… amazing.”
“It’s nothing special.”
When I answered quietly, he looked even more bewildered.
Just then, a voice came from the back.
“Physician.”
It was Yeon Hwi-cheon.
He, too, had already finished sorting all the herbs he had been given.
“The method Ryeonghwa mentioned is useful, but if it’s a precious medicinal herb, there are cases where even cutting off a small piece would be difficult, isn’t there?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question on the surface.
Jin Ha-rim nodded.
“That’s true.”
I looked at Yeon Hwi-cheon before answering.
“In that case, you can examine other characteristics together. There’s no need to insist on using only one method.”
Jin Ha-rim nodded in satisfaction.
“That’s correct. There isn’t always only one right answer when identifying medicinal herbs. You must choose the method best suited to the situation.”
Yeon Hwi-cheon looked at me for a moment before smiling gently.
“I see. Understood.”
But despite the smile on his lips, his eyes held a strange chill.
“Then let’s move on and examine the characteristics of each medicinal herb one by one.”
The lesson continued after that.
Jin Ha-rim explained the characteristics and medicinal properties of other herbs, asking the physician trainees questions from time to time.
I answered whenever I knew something, and carefully wrote down everything I didn’t know in my medicine notebook.
At first, the physician trainees had only glanced at me from time to time, but as the lesson went on, their attitudes gradually changed.
By the end of class, there was even someone who approached me first.
“Lady Ryeonghwa.”
Seo Jin-woo came right up to me with his medicine notebook held against his chest.
“About that method you mentioned earlier, putting it in water. Could you show me again sometime?”
“Sure. I don’t mind.”
“Really?”
Seo Jin-woo’s face immediately brightened.
Without realizing it, he was no longer looking at me as a young child who needed to be taken care of, but as a fellow student learning medicine alongside him.
That alone was enough.
I couldn’t change everyone’s minds from the very first day.
‘But at least I’ve made a start.’
I closed my medicine notebook with satisfaction.
Just then, I heard the sound of a chair scraping back.
Yeon Hwi-cheon was getting to his feet.
With the same gentle expression as always, he approached me.
“You did wonderfully for your first class, Ryeonghwa.”
“Thank you.”
“Still, don’t push yourself too hard.”
Yeon Hwi-cheon smiled kindly.
“There will be many classes ahead that are more difficult than today’s.”
It sounded like something an older brother might say out of concern for his younger sister.
“Yes. I’ll work hard.”
“Good. I’ll look forward to it.”
Yeon Hwi-cheon gave the other physician trainees a light greeting before leaving the classroom first.
***
The long corridor behind the medical academy.
Yeon Hwi-cheon stood hidden behind a pillar, watching the entrance to the classroom.
A moment later, Ryeonghwa emerged with Ryujin, surrounded by several physician trainees.
Yeon Hwi-cheon’s gaze shifted to the medicine notebook in Ryeonghwa’s hand.
‘She checked it herself?’
He slowly clenched his teeth.
The change in color that appeared when it was placed in water.
Nothing like that was written anywhere in the textbooks he had memorized.
And yet Ryeonghwa had answered without the slightest hesitation.
As if she had already handled it countless times…
‘That makes no sense.’
She was only seven years old.
Until recently, she had been a child who could barely even leave the detached quarters because of her illness.
Where could someone like Ryeonghwa have learned knowledge that even he didn’t possess?
Yeon Ryeonghwa headed toward the medicinal herb repository while talking with Ryujin.
As he watched her, Yeon Hwi-cheon’s eyes narrowed.
Suddenly, his mother’s voice echoed in his ears once more.
“You are the one who is lacking.”
It felt as though the red marks remaining on his calves were throbbing.
Yeon Hwi-cheon tightly clenched his fist inside his sleeve.
‘I need to find out what she’s hiding.’
Where had Ryeonghwa’s knowledge come from?
Why had she suddenly changed?
He had to find out.
Otherwise, he might truly lose his position.
Keeping a steady distance between them, Yeon Hwi-cheon quietly followed behind Ryeonghwa.
‘Just you wait, Yeon Ryeonghwa.’
This time, he would never be pushed aside.
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