Chapter 98

Buxuetuan (Blood Nourishing Pill)

In my past life, when I was a child, our family was very poor.

That's why the most expensive food I ever ate on a special day was jajangmyeon (black bean sauce noodles).

“Son, what kind of food do you like?”

“Me? Jajangmyeon!”

My casual remark was the reason our family started a Chinese restaurant.

My father, who couldn't often buy me the food I liked, eventually decided to make jajang at home. He went to the owner of the local Chinese restaurant, a close friend, and in exchange for a pot of makgeolli (rice wine), learned how to make jajangmyeon.

The first jajangmyeon my father made was with common vermicelli noodles, pork fat from the butcher, onions, potatoes, and the chunjang (black bean sauce) he obtained.

As he made jajangmyeon for me, his skills improved day by day. Eventually, when everyone who tried it said it was delicious, our family opened a jajangmyeon restaurant in a corner of the market.

A pure jajangmyeon restaurant with no other menu items.

I wondered why I was thinking about our jajangmyeon restaurant from my past life while standing in front of my sister's dying dog. It was because I had lost several dogs due to the same reason as my sister.

At our family's first jajangmyeon restaurant.

Since we ran a jajangmyeon restaurant, it was inevitable that we would have leftovers from customers. In my childhood, it was common to feed leftover food to dogs, so we decided to raise a dog in the backyard of the restaurant.

My first dog was a white puppy, just like my sister's.

We bought the white puppy for a thousand won from the market.

The old lady selling dogs said it was a Jindo breed, but that was clearly a lie.

It had short legs like a chicken, not a Jindo at all.

It was just a mongrel.

But I really liked my puppy, Dangchil.

It had the cutest ears, like a Shih Tzu.

However, my first dog, Dangchil, died not long after coming to our house.

Just like my sister's dog, it started passing bloody urine.

“Dangchil! Ahhhh!”

Dangchil died two days after we bought him.

He was lively until yesterday, but in the evening, he started passing brown urine, and when I came home from school, he was already a cold corpse.

The old lady who sold us the dog was scolded by my mother for selling a sick dog and gave us another dog.

The second one was a very common yellow dog.

But the yellow dog also died four days after coming to our house.

My mother confronted the old lady again, but this time, the response was harsh.

“Why do the dogs keep dying? Did you sell us sick dogs?!”

“No, it's because your house is cursed. Why do you keep blaming me! I can't give you any more!”

My mother was taken aback by the old lady's words.

In the end, a few days later, we called a shaman to our restaurant and held a ritual.

We paid a considerable amount of money for it.

The shaman jumped around in front of the restaurant, claiming it was cursed, and took my mother's savings.

A few days later, the last dog my mother bought was a black puppy.

But the black puppy also started showing the same symptoms after a few days.

“Woman, I told you we should have gone to a temple or church! And with that money, we could have taken the dog to that expensive animal hospital!”

We didn't dare to take the dog to the animal hospital because it was expensive, but it turned out to be much cheaper than the ritual.

Of course, the adults believed it was a curse, and my mother had the ritual done to prevent anything from happening to me or my father, but my father's words were a hundred times right.

That's why I trust my sister and her husband more in this life.

In the end, my third dog also left on a one-way trip that day.

It was much later that I realized it was our fault.

We didn't know that jajang left over from customers was harmful to dogs, so we mixed it with leftover rice and fed it to the dog at every meal. It would have been strange if the dog didn't die.

While I was lost in old memories, the Medicine King chuckled and answered my question.

“From your story, it seems you know a bit about medicine. Treating dogs is not an easy task. From what I know, dogs have thirty-two different meridians compared to humans and are much more complex than human anatomy...”

The Medicine King, who started talking as soon as he opened his mouth, continued to speak.

If I listened to his entire story, my sister's dog might die in the meantime, so I asked him.

“Are you sure you will treat my wife if you can cure the dog?”

“Ah, that's not an easy task...”

He laughed and replied.

“When did I say I would treat it?”

“Huh? Then why did you ask? Hmm.”

“It's not me. It's you who should treat it?”

“Me, me?”

The Medicine King, surprised by the suggestion that he should treat it, spoke in a less confident voice.

He seemed to have been criticized a lot by people over the past six months.

“Don't you want to stop being called a fraud? It would also save your reputation...”

At the word 'fraud,' his temples flared up, but he quickly calmed down and asked hesitantly.

It was a chance to clear his name, so he couldn't help but be intrigued.

“Hmm, do you have a plan? But if I couldn't figure it out, how could you? Hmm.”

“I also have a dog, so I thought it might be a disease I know. If you promise, I think I can figure out why the dogs are sick...”

At my words, my sister clung to my clothes and looked at me.

“Please... sniff...”

I nodded at her to reassure her, and the Medicine King, who had been hesitant, finally answered.

“Cough. That's quite confident. As a pillar of the martial world, you should have such courage. It's like seeing my younger self six months ago. Alright! If you can tell me why the dogs are so sick and help me treat them, I will treat your wife no matter what!”

“You promise?”

“Yes! I, the Medicine King, swear it, and everyone here is a witness.”

As soon as I heard the Medicine King's promise, I asked my sister.

“Miss Mengxi, do you know what food Baehwa ate yesterday and this morning?”

To confirm the cause of the illness, my sister fell into deep thought, and before she could answer, the Medicine King, like licorice, interjected.

He looked at me with a 'I knew it' expression and said.

“Child, I naturally examined the food. It's basic for a doctor to check what the patient has eaten. I found nothing wrong with the food. When a patient falls ill, a doctor should naturally check the food first. It seems you have learned properly somewhere. But...”

‘Wow, this old man really... talks a lot...’

I felt like my ears were about to bleed.

Of course, the Medicine King must have examined the food, but he wouldn't have found the cause.

There was no botany in this era, and the problematic foods could vary.

Since my sister seemed to have trouble recalling, I asked her.

If she was flustered, she might not remember, so I needed to ask leading questions.

“Did Baehwa eat any of these: garlic chives, green onions, garlic, onions, or wild garlic?”

At my question, my sister finally remembered what Baehwa had eaten.

She widened her eyes in surprise and answered.

“Wild garlic! She ate wild garlic! But I only gave her a little while cooking this morning?”

Wild garlic refers to ramsons, a type of garlic.

It seemed I was right.

Dogs, unlike humans, need to be careful about what they eat.

Feeding them human food can make them sick.

Moreover, even though my sister said she only gave Baehwa a little wild garlic, the amount that can cause problems in dogs is about 5 grams.

So, a small amount by human standards was meaningless.

“Garlic chives, green onions, garlic, onions, wild garlic?”

The Medicine King repeated the vegetables I listed.

He muttered the names of the vegetables I listed and fell into thought.

The symptoms my sister's dog, Baehwa, was showing were typical of onion poisoning in dogs.

While I could say that Baehwa didn't eat onions but wild garlic, the wild garlic was the problem.

The common feature of garlic chives, green onions, garlic, onions, and wild garlic is that they belong to the Allium family.

Plants in the Allium family contain sulfur compounds, such as allyl propyl disulfide in onions and garlic, and diallyl disulfide and diallyl trisulfide in garlic, which can be fatal to dogs.

Therefore, vegetables that dogs need to be careful about, in addition to onions, include onions, scallions, garlic, and garlic chives.

These plants can cause oxidative damage to a dog's blood, leading to damage to red blood cells.

Baehwa's bloody stool was due to the destruction of red blood cells, causing hematuria.

The Medicine King, who seemed