Dae Jang Geum

Min Jung Ho gives Jang-Geum confidence by saying he believes she will succeed and become a medicine maid in the palace. He tells her she must do so and punish those who brought her to this fate.

Jang-Geum goes and begs Jang Duk to teach her medicine. Jang Duk tells her to start by watching and taking notes alongside her. The other maids complain about Jang Duk teaching Jang-Geum when she’s the newbie but Jang Duk shows them that Jang Geum is greater than them in knowledge and in earnest to help people. The maids go and complain to the officer about Jang-Geum. Min passes by and smiles hearing that Jang-Geum has already started on her goal.

Min sees that Jang-Geum has a difficult time getting her hands on all the ingredients so he orders all the officers to help her whenever she needs something. When alone, Jang-Geum thanks Min and states her apology that even in Jeju Island, all she does is trouble him. Min Jung Ho dismisses it as nothing and stares at Jang-Geum, then asks how it is that she will examine all the people but she still won’t look at him. Shyly, Jang-Geum looks at Min, and Min takes her hands into his own. At the gesture Jang-Geum turns and runs back to the kitchen to memorize more medicine jargon. As days pass Jang-Geum works hard to learn medicine while Min Jung Ho watches.

Back in the palace, Yun-Saeng continues to play with the puppy. On this night the King and his servants arrive. Jae-Jo Sang Gong asks what Yun-Saeng is doing with the King’s dog but Yun-Saeng is stunned and just cries, saying nothing. The king takes a look at Yun-Saeng and tells Jae-Jo Sang Gong to leave Yun-Saeng alone. Next day, Chan-Ee and Lady Min find out about the incident and scolds Yun-Saeng for touching the King’s dog.

Lady Choi watches as Geum-Young teaches a child how to cook. Lady scolds Geum-Young for wasting her time on child maids but Geum-Young says she wants to start over because in her mind, they lost. Lady Choi asks her to clarify and Geum-Young states Jang-Geum was superior in skills, so the ones who lost were actually Lady Choi and Geum-Young. Choi brings up Min Jung Ho who left for Jeju Island for Jang-Geum. Geum-Young starts to tear up and states she intends to start over and be a real kitchen maid.

Yun-Saeng is summoned by the King. She gets a makeover a lesson on how to react to the king that basically she just needs to say nothing and just follow and agree to whatever he wants. The King is alone with Yun-Saeng. The King asks why she was crying but Yun-Saeng says nothing. The king says even he gets lonely so he understands her.

The next day, Jae-Jo Sang Gong brings Yun-Saeng to the kitchen to show the maids that Yun-Saeng has been promoted to the status of a special Sang-Goong (escort) and thus the kitchen maids will bow to her from now on. Jae-Jo Sang Gong reports the news to the Queen. Lady Min and Chan-Ee visit Yun-Saeng at her new corridor and they laugh about Yun-Saeng’s fear of the King. Yun-Saeng says she intends to tell the King about Lady Han and Jang-Geum were innocent but Lady Min tells her not to say anything or else Jang-Geum may die too. Chan-Ee wonders if Jang-Geum knows about Yun-Saeng’s promotion and Lady Min wonders why Gam hasn’t been showing his face around to deliver news of Jang-Geum.

Na Ju Deuk gets pampered by Duk Gu who wants to make sure their baby is well taken care of. Jang-Geum gets punished for making mistakes in memorizing her medical lines. The other slaves are glad that they’re not the one learning medicine from Jang Duk. Jang-Geum learns how to decipher different conditions through one’s pulse. Jang-Geum grabs the pulse and describes it as Jang Duk diagnoses each condition through the description. Next they examine a general who was burning a fever as a result of taking prescription from an herbalist in town. The medicine lady gets angry because she previously told him not to take any ginsengs for it will cause his fever but he had ignored her warning and gone ahead with the other herbalist’s suggestion. The medicine lady states the herbalist is a conman and goes to town looking for him. As it turns out it’s Doctor Chung who used to head the herbal field farm of the palace where Jang-Geum was sent for a brief period of time.

Jang-Geum is happy to see Doctor Chung again but the medicine lady is angry at the doctor for prescribing ginseng to the patient but the doctor shows that when you use red ginseng and boil it with ginger it gets rid of fever-raising property, leaving only the benefits. Jang-Geum asks how the doctor figured that out. He states he discovered it while treating his own liver disease. Jang-Geum asks about his condition. He replies he will likely die from it but the boil ginseng has been improving his condition.

Doctor Chung asks Jang-Geum if she’s learning medicine from Jang Duk and she says yes. Jang-Geum tells him she wants to return to the palace to revenge against those who killed her mother and Lady Han. Doctor Chung gets angry saying medicine is for healing people and not a method for revenge. Jang Duk overhears and tells Jang-Geum not to listen to the doctor.

Jang Duk asks Jang-Geum to fetch some vegetation over the roof while she stands and remembers her own painful past. Then the woman brings the doctor to see someone who is dying from the same illenss that the doctor has. The medicine lady says she knows how to heal him but she refuses, for the sick man caused the death of her mother and torture of her father. The ill man used to work in the palace as a entertainer for the Royal family and forced her mother to be a mistress which caused her eventual suicide.

However, Jang Duk decides to heal the dying despite her urge to revenge against him. In front of Doctor Chung and Jang-Geum, the woman performs the treatment to save the life of the sick. Afterwards, Jang Duk tells Jang-Geum that ever since she first met Jang-Geum, she liked that Jang-Geum was determined to return to the palace. Jang-Geum asks if she decided to teach her medicine so Jang-Geum can get her revenge but she says no. She says she wanted to help Jang-Geum understand the same dilemma that she has been troubled with until now. Jang Duk says Doctor Chung is right. One cannot be both an ordinary palace maid and a medicine woman at the same time. Jang-Geum must choose.

Jang-Geum looks out to the open ocean as Min Jung-Ho watches. He think Jang-Geum has already made up her mind. Jang-Geum remembers the medicine woman’s advise to look beyond the truth and she will have everything.