The Genius Decided To Live An Ordinary Life [EN]: Chapter 239

The Unconscious Self (6)

* * *

My mouth felt parched from overexertion.

Chewing the sandwich like a rock, I wandered around the medical center as if sightseeing.

Sein Medical Center was located in a basin on the way from Taeyang County to Beomsan City, and it boasted the best facilities and scale in Asia.

Tututututu-.

Even now, a helicopter carrying an emergency patient was slowly landing on the helipad in the distance, and ambulances were waiting to transport the patient to the emergency room ward adjacent to the main gate of the medical center.

Yu Jun-shik had intended to build it on a small scale for Yoo Myung-sun alone, but the project grew when Yoo Myung-sun, who was returning to his hometown, instructed him to pursue the best as a gift to his new neighbors.

Thanks to that, the basin that had been guarded by scrap yards, dog breeding farms, weeds, and landscaping saplings was transformed into a magnificent sight.

The rocky mountain supporting the west side of the medical center also had a picturesque charm.

Seeing the wide, clear rocky mountain like a broad forehead, someone came to mind.

‘Ah, the public health center director.’

I should also thank Yu Jae-un.

They call it the golden hour, right? If it weren’t for his advice, I would have been flustered and left the patients in a room full of carbon monoxide.

If that had happened, the Shadow wouldn’t have had time to do anything.

– No, you did well to call. It’s a real relief. I hope they get better.

There were no words like, ‘They’ll be okay,’ or ‘They’ll recover soon.’

He’s a doctor, after all. I like that he doesn’t speak without certainty.

It’s just carbon monoxide poisoning, so why are they making such a fuss? I used to think that way when I heard news of carbon monoxide poisoning dominating the news every winter. It didn’t resonate with me because I had never lived in a house heated by coal briquettes.

But later, seeing people end their lives using briquettes, I was shocked at how dangerous carbon monoxide was.

– Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.

“Thank you.”

Well, is there anything more you can do? I mumbled, thumping my chest, which felt tight from the sandwich.

If he’s that kind of doctor, he’d be good to have at Sein Medical Center. That is, if Yu Jae-un wants a position at Sein Medical Center.

Despite its geographical inconvenience, Sein Medical Center offered learning opportunities for doctors and had good welfare benefits for its employees, so there were surprisingly many applicants. The prejudice that doctors prefer Seoul and the Gyeonggi area was proven wrong.

‘A large scale can also serve as a name card for recognition.’

The inconvenience of medical center professors commuting to and from university lecture halls will be resolved by the West Coast Expressway, which will be completed within a few years. Hong Ki-jun’s power also influenced the West Coast Expressway construction, and a tollgate that was not in the plan will be built facing the medical center.

What changed Jinhyuk’s mind, who had doubted the feasibility due to accessibility, was a word from Yu Jun-shik, a city dweller, to Son Gwang-yeon.

– “Wouldn’t there be recluses anywhere?”

In the end, it turned out as Yu Jun-shik had said.

– “It’s not that talented eccentrics are hiding. It’s just that they don’t come out because people are reluctant to use them because they know they’re outstanding but also eccentric.”

That’s what Hong Ki-jun said, but not all doctors working in rural areas were eccentric with peculiar tastes. Most of them seemed ordinary and kind. A couple out of ten seemed strange, though.

“Hee hee hee hee!”

A doctor who looked normal and kind passed by, making a bizarre laugh like a ghost.

Okay, then. Three or four out of ten seem strange.

– “They say you climb a mountain because it’s there, right? If there’s a job, it suits your aptitude, and the treatment is good, people will come. Look at my dad’s company. Because other companies don’t hire college-educated female employees, even those who graduated from famous universities with chemical engineering degrees are applying.”

My realistic dad’s opinion also resonated with me.

I contacted my mom and dad separately. If someone in the middle were to convey the message, the situation could be distorted.

Next, I contacted Moon Seok-il.

“I need your help. I’d like all four of you to come.”

– Okay. I’ll go right away.

Seeing him respond so readily, I was certain.

Who the Shadow’s henchman was.

***

When I was in the ambulance, Jinhyuk recalled the day when Yuk Sung-chan had the accident.

He had put gauze on Yuk Sung-chan’s ear instead of Yuk Young-gu and prayed earnestly. That the injury wouldn’t be severe and that he would recover quickly.

When I heard that his condition wasn’t serious, I thought it might be thanks to the energy Jinhyuk possessed.

It was a serious delusion.

Jinhyuk cannot control his power.

On the day he first met Moon Seok-il’s group, Jinhyuk remembers that Moon Seok-il had a dazed look on his face. His eyes were shaking as if looking at something in the air, and his limbs, gripped by fear, were trembling uncontrollably.

I had seriously mistaken it for being terrified by my own powerlessness.

I was also ashamed of the fact that I thought I had won their hearts by bestowing grace.

‘It was the Shadow’s doing.’

He must have placed some kind of restriction, like he did with Chairman Hong Ki-jun.

I looked at Jo Seul-chan, who was asleep with an oxygen mask on.

The doctor said that the level of poisoning was so severe that he needed an oxygen mask even inside the capsule.

‘How arduous has your life been?’

In his past life, Jinhyuk was freer than Jo Seul-chan.

He had no family to take responsibility for, and he lived accepting the reality that he couldn’t see the people he missed. And that’s not all. He had a body and mind capable of doing anything. He scoffed at universities, which were no different from job placement agencies, saying that they were for idiots who needed help finding jobs, and he became a successful salaryman as if to show them.

‘You must be having a harder time than me. It won’t be easy in the future either.’

I’ll help you.

I placed my hand on the thick glass, where I could see my friend’s hand.

As if responding, a cloudy breath formed on Jo Seul-chan’s mask.

Yes, breathe.

You have to live.

* * *

The medical service at Sein Medical Center was amazing.

Immediately after the swift emergency treatment, the patient was moved to the hyperbaric oxygen therapy room, and various tests, including blood tests, were smoothly conducted and completed in less than five minutes. No one approached the oxygen therapy room, as it was a space that required absolute rest.

‘School must have started.’

It had already been two hours since I had been pacing anxiously in the hallway.

Jo Seul-chan and his grandmother, who were lying in the cylindrical capsules receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy, looked comfortable. Jo Seul-chan seemed to be regaining consciousness, opening and closing his eyes halfway as if trying to grasp the situation, and his grandmother was unconscious but had a peaceful expression.

“They will be receiving oxygen therapy for about two more hours.”

The doctor who approached Jinhyuk explained.

Jinhyuk, who was looking into the room through the transparent window, slowly nodded.

The timer on the panel labeled HBOT [Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy] indicated that there were two hours left.

“Will they be okay?”

“Yes. The carbon monoxide concentration in the blood that just came out is unusual, but since they entered the treatment chamber while maintaining their breathing, you can assume that the poisoning symptoms will be completely cured.”

“What’s unusual? Could you tell me in detail?”

The doctor adjusted his black horn-rimmed glasses and frowned slightly.

Jinhyuk was worried that he might have asked a rude question, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

“I’m not sure if I should say this…”

“Please tell me.”

The doctor, who clenched his teeth and twitched his jaw muscles once, seemed to have made up his mind and came closer. He lowered his voice as much as possible, reaching a position where his mouth was almost touching his cheek.

“The levels were far above the lethal dose.”

I knew that. I had already witnessed it.

However, the doctor seemed to have a slightly different idea.

“I can tell you because it’s my area of expertise. Unless they intentionally drank alcohol or took sleeping pills and fell asleep in an unconscious state, it’s impossible to inhale such a concentration in a normal household.”

Jinhyuk pondered what that meant.

‘Are you saying someone fed it to them?’

As I froze like a stone statue, turning my head, the doctor’s words pierced my eardrums like an awl.

“No sleeping pills or alcohol components were detected at all. And yet, in a short time, at a high concentration… It’s only possible in a confined space-”

Jinhyuk’s eyes, which had been almost closed, snapped open.

Jo Seul-chan’s house was an old house that had been renovated and used, so it was very open. There were three windows in the room, and there was also a small window door on the wall facing the backyard. Due to this structure and the limited durability, I thought it would be difficult to show severe poisoning symptoms with ordinary coal briquette gas.

Jo Seul-chan used to doze off, saying that he couldn’t sleep well in the winter because of the drafts, and there were days when he would awkwardly laugh, saying that he was late because he was drinking kimchi brine after inhaling coal briquette gas. Every time, Yeom Byeong-taek would scold him, saying that kimchi brine had no effect, so he should take medicine.

“What if it’s not a confined space? What could be the case for it to be like that in a well-ventilated place?”

“It would be easy to explain if we take the example of connecting a car muffler to the house. If you are directly exposed to a large amount of harmful substances, wouldn’t it be possible? Of course, this is just an assumption to help you understand.”

I was already planning to go back to Jo Seul-chan’s house with Moon Seok-il, but now I had a better idea of what to focus on.

There was something I needed to take care of before that.

“Those two are family, but is there no two-person room?”

“I will assign another bed in the VIP room.”

The doctor bowed lightly and stepped back.

“Hoo-”

Left alone in the quiet hallway, I realized how exhausted I was.

Fatigue washed over my body, which had been sprinting through the winter wind.

I had been greatly drained, both mentally and physically, from facing despair, and from talking to the Shadow, who was invisible but exuded an overwhelming presence.

I was lost in thought while looking at the inside of the treatment room, then leaned against the wall and squatted down, and then sat down on the floor.

‘Should I close my eyes for a bit…’

It would be nice if there was a chair, but they said that there was a separate comfortable waiting room for guardians, so nothing was placed in the hallway.

Before I could even regret the lack of a chair, my head fell forward.

***

The Son Jinhyuk of the past wished that everything in the world was an illusion.

He would fall asleep hoping that when he woke up and opened his eyes, his mother would be stroking him with a bright smile, and when he woke up from his dreams, he would pray that his life of living alone would become a sad dream and be forgotten.

However, relying on the connections he had made, however small, his past life also remained as a life. A life recorded as Jinhyuk’s history, a fact that he had no choice but to acknowledge. Because they existed, Jinhyuk also existed.

Therefore, even after starting his life again after the accident, he could not treat his past life as a nightmare.

He was aware that his current life was also not a dream.

The connections that had continued from the past, and the new connections that were vast compared to the past. They had been speaking to Jinhyuk with clear consciousness and purpose every moment.

‘It’s not a dream.’

【Yes. It’s not a dream.】

The Shadow is the same, isn’t it?

It appears regardless of whether it’s a dream or reality. It’s as if it wants to insist that it’s not a fantasy.

There is a key, a condition for its appearance, that Jinhyuk doesn’t know, but it definitely exists.

‘Did it appear first because I fell asleep?’

【When you faint or fall asleep, you are closest to your unconscious.】

‘Did you feel like responding to a conversation?’

【That’s a misleading expression. I have not avoided it.】

‘Can I ask questions?’

【I won’t stop you.】

‘Are there any restrictions on the questions?’

【That’s unlike you. Humans like games, but you were different.】

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

【I have observed this world. I know the games of the humans in this world who put restrictions on questions and answers. An animal that defines itself as Homo Ludens [Latin for ‘playing man’] and creates trivial games and calls it culture. I am not human. I have no interest in games.】

Jinhyuk’s eyelids, who had fallen asleep with his head down, twitched.

The guy who used to give short answers that made me frustrated was giving a rather long answer. It was a story laid out like puzzle pieces, but if you thought about it carefully, it wasn’t difficult to understand.

‘Do you know me?’

【Let’s just say I know you best.】

‘What happened to me?’

【I cannot tell you. Not yet.】

‘What does that mean?’

【You are not ready.】

‘What preparation? Can’t you just explain it all at once? It seems like you could show me too.’

【You have placed restrictions.】

‘Even in my sleep, I’m getting frustrated. I’m suffocating.’

【The posture of bending your legs and hunching your upper body puts pressure on your lungs and other organs, hindering smooth breathing.】

‘……’

I guess the reason why it’s hard to talk to this bastard for a long time isn’t because of his presence. I thought that in my dream.