Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 17

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 17
“It’s like strategies needed to survive in organizations or groups. Humans are creatures of emotion, after all. Sometimes a small move resolves many things.”
“Is that the wisdom of someone who hasn’t learned martial arts?”
“It’s wisdom needed whether you’ve learned martial arts or not. That’s why martial artists can’t survive long. They draw their blades at every little thing, stabbing back and forth. Honestly, you won’t last. Even if a physician desperately saves you in that moment, do you know how fatal it is when air enters your organs?”
“Hmm…”
“People aren’t game characters. Just because something gets stitched up doesn’t mean your body returns to its original perfect state. Those kinds of people end up with adhesions later and come back to the hospital.”
“…I have no idea what you’re talking about, brother. Is a physician the same as a medical clinic? What exactly is a game?”
“I misspoke.”
“…”
Yeo Ha-ryun regarded his brother with suspicion before ultimately shrugging his shoulders.
Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
“Anyway, if you need to use a blade, hold back three times. And if it really seems necessary, think about where the nearest physician is, and if you must strike, aim to keep them alive.”
“…What if it’s someone you must kill?”
It wasn’t the sort of thing that should come from a child’s lips.
Especially not while he was finishing off candied fruit skewers and shoving fried honey cakes on sticks into his mouth without even drinking water.
Jin Cheon-hee answered that question.
“Then kill them right there, decisively. Leave no room for a physician to intervene. You wouldn’t understand the heart of someone trying to save what they know is impossible.”
Yeo Ha-ryun furrowed his brow, lost in thought.
After a moment, he spoke.
“Twice.”
“What?”
“I’ll hold back twice. Because you said so, brother. Three times is too late no matter how I think about it.”
“Too late for what?”
“…”
Yeo Ha-ryun ate his skewer eagerly instead of answering.
Faced with such a clear refusal to respond, Jin Cheon-hee didn’t press further.
The fact that he would think twice before killing someone was quite an achievement.
A blade could easily resolve certain matters, but it could also complicate things further.
There was nothing harder than when he lacked strength, or when he let someone who deserved death live.
More often, complications arose from killing those who shouldn’t be killed, or from madness consuming him as he killed.
Even this alone would clearly improve his path forward.
“I’m not saying don’t kill. Just think about it.”
“Okay.”
The boy’s mouth set into a firm line.
“I will, brother.”
“Good. Is there anything else you’d like to eat?”
“What’s that dish over there made from pig intestines?”
“It’ll be quite spicy. Can you handle it?”
“You don’t need to worry about that, brother.”
His tone was rather resolute.
I steeled myself before the pungent smell that made me cough.
* * *
That boy seemed to have a bottomless stomach. He ate endlessly.
Books often mentioned that martial artists naturally ate far more than ordinary people. This case was no exception.
Unless he were a master of the Half-Immortal Realm approaching the Celestial Ascension stage, the rule remained simple: more movement meant more food consumption.
It was the law of caloric conservation.
Martial artists possessed activity levels that far exceeded ordinary people.
A blade was heavier than it appeared—even an hour of wielding one left the entire body screaming in protest.
The body would cry out for death while fat cells surrendered their calories, and the stomach would command the brain to gather more energy.
That meant hunger. And when it repeated, the stomach naturally expanded until one became an enormous eater.
The human body, after all, was shaped by genetics and habit.
‘That’s why people say when you reach forty, you truly become responsible for your own body. Even if they say that… wait, that’s not what this is about.’
In any case, Little Heavenly Demon was already becoming a prodigious eater.
“Brother, there’s no need to give up your food for me…”
“…No, I’m truly full.”
I gave him two more hotteoks.
“Don’t be modest and eat. I’m giving it to you. You don’t refuse what your brother gives you.”
“Well, I’ve never heard that before, but thank you. Brother…”
He put the hotteok in his mouth.
Before long, dusk began to fall over the marketplace.
We watched the street performers. A massive dragon mask moved as if alive.
It shot fire from its mouth—I couldn’t fathom how they managed it.
I asked in a voice so quiet only he could hear.
“You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?”
The Demon Sect.
At my words, Yeo Ha-ryun’s expression vanished, replaced by seriousness.
“They say the Pyohaeng has been reorganized and will depart soon.”
“It will be a difficult path. Are you still going?”
“There’s no other way.”
“I see.”
…
The dragon left, and now a tightrope walker appeared. He climbed onto the high rope and bounced about.
There were naturally no safety devices or nets.
Such was the era.
People laughed and applauded. Coins rained down from all directions.
“Why don’t you ask? Why I’m so fixated on that place. Why I willingly walk toward a place everyone calls hell.”
At Yeo Ha-ryun’s words, I smiled gently.
Seeing that, Yeo Ha-ryun seemed to realize something, and his voice dropped slightly.
“Do you perhaps… know something?”
I answered.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying. I just thought that since you decided on it, there must be some reason behind it.”
Yeo Ha-ryun’s lips formed a straight line.
After keeping his mouth shut for a while, he spoke.
“Brother.”
“Hmm?”
“Will you tell me someday what you’re hiding from me?”
‘No, no matter how much time passes, I won’t tell you. If I did, I’d be better off just going mad.’
But Jin Cheon-hee answered with a small smile.
“Yes. Someday. Because you’re my younger brother.”
With that, he rose to his feet.
“Let’s head back.”
“Alright.”
“And before we depart, I’ll tell you what you wanted to hear. You need to learn it before we go.”
How to resolve blood poisoning.
It was the final lesson.
002. Someday I Will Lose, But Not Yet
Yeo Ha-ryun departed thus.
After seeing him off, Jin Cheon-hee let out a small sigh.
‘So what do I do now…?’
I’ve done everything I could.
The rest is something our protagonist will have to figure out on his own.
‘Still, being called “brother” by the legendary Yeo Ha-ryun feels quite surreal.’
It’s nice, but only to that extent.
Now I have my own life to live.
Gongseon Hyeon sent word of the Black Pine Cloud Sword. She asked that once Gongseon Yeong awoke, I be allowed to offer my thanks in return.
Gongseon Yeong had finally broken through the wall of a supreme master, it was said.
A great reward would surely be forthcoming, the Gongseon Family’s warriors said with grins stretched wide across their faces.
From the other things I heard, it was clear they were seriously considering recruiting Jin Cheon-hee into the Gongseon Family.
‘The Gongseon Family… wouldn’t be so bad.’
In the timeline of the novel where Gongseon Yeong was dead, it would be one of the Three Great Caves I should absolutely never enter, but now Gongseon Yeong is alive and well, and has even become a supreme master.
‘Working as a physician for the Gongseon Family.’
Just producing penicillin alone would be enough to justify my worth as a doctor.
Blue mold.
A doctor going back to the
past—
in novels, films, and dramas, there’s a reason they always start by making penicillin.
But it’s not easy to produce.
Given the mold’s sensitivity to temperature and environment, and even with tireless cultivation, reaching large-scale fermentation production with current technology would be difficult.
Still, I should be able to protect at least one family.
‘The Yunlong Courier Bureau wouldn’t be bad either.’
I succeeded in winning over the elders of the Yunlong Courier Bureau, with Gukju Woon Ji-sang at the forefront.
I had become the benefactor of the Yunlong Courier Bureau.
The work of a Pyoguk is diverse. In modern terms, you could say it combines the functions of a courier company, a security firm, and a contract labor agency into one.
They handle numerous tasks in the middle, and receive payment for them.
In this Gangho where the blade is faster than words, there are countless occasions when people arrive injured.
Naturally, the role of a physician is crucial.
One could even aspire to important positions in the future.
That wouldn’t be a bad life either.
I lay on the wooden veranda, gazing blankly into the sunlight.
Until recently, I had been struggling to survive, barely clinging to life.
Now I felt like I was missing a molar tooth.
“So you were here.”
Silver hair entered my field of vision.
Followed by a pallid face devoid of any color.
A man with the body temperature of a serpent rather than a human spoke to me.
Baekrin Uiseon.
The one whom people revered as a divine immortal.
“Would you not care to have a word with me?”
* * *
“Pardon? As your direct disciple…?”
“I’ve been dropping hints all this time, so it’s strange you didn’t catch on.”
‘Well, in the novel he never took a single disciple even once… isn’t that right?’
If I had read even a single line describing him showing interest in successors, things might have been different.
He simply lived with lofty detachment, and died with lofty detachment.
He never seemed to experience loneliness, nor did he harbor any obsession.
In a way, he appeared to be someone whose desires had been entirely severed.
My eyes rolled about frantically.
‘This is jackpot. This is bigger than the Gongseon Family and the Yunlong Courier Bureau combined.’
The Medical Immortal.
The epithet “Immortal” was attached to his name.
His patients were primarily martial artists, treating among them conditions that ordinary physicians could not cure.
By virtue of his profession as a physician, he treated members of the imperial palace and the government, and he even treated figures from the Demon Sect.
The more unusual and unknown the ailment, the more likely it was to capture the Medical Immortal’s interest.
Capturing his interest meant that he would not treat just anyone for money or fame.
Already, prestigious families who could not do without him had lined up at his door.
Yet there was precisely one problem: he was the last descendant of the Jegal Family, afflicted with the Nine Yin Meridian Severing.
He had risen to the position of the revered Medical Immortal, yet he could not heal his own body.
No, perhaps if it were truly an illness, there might be hope.
To speak plainly, the Nine Yin Meridian Severing was a constitution.
It could only be said that he was born with it.
I studied medicine driven by a desire to live, yet ironically, I could not cure my own affliction.
‘By now, I should have accepted a life with a limited span to some degree….’
I pondered this.
‘Why me, of all people?’
Baekrin Uiseon asked.
“Do you perhaps dislike it?”
“Oh, no! Not at all! It’s an extraordinary honor! It’s just that it came so suddenly.”
“That’s a relief.”
Baekrin Uiseon smiled faintly.
It was truly strange indeed. Despite the sunlight pouring down so intensely, I felt not the slightest warmth emanating from him.
I pondered, and pondered still, before speaking.
“If I become your disciple, what must I learn?”
“You must learn everything about me.”
He answered without hesitation, not even for a moment.
It was no mere jest. There was no hidden meaning concealed within his words.
He truly desired for me to become his disciple.
“It seems you’re still hesitating about something.”
Baekrin Uiseon—was he not himself a patient?
If one merely thought it through logically, the matter was settled.
He would soon die. With no descendants, all his achievements and legacy would become mine.
But would that be enough?

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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