Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 18

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

Chapter 18
Human Jin Cheon-hee and Doctor Jin Cheon-hee clashed.
-Then kill him right there. Leave no opening for a doctor to intervene. You wouldn’t understand the heart of someone trying to save a life despite knowing it’s impossible.
Wasn’t that what I had said to Yeo Ha-ryun not long ago?
‘Could it really be incurable?’
I fell into thought.
I wrung out every clue I had read in novels.
“….”
My clenched fists turned white.
‘But even Baekrin Uiseon, called the greatest of the great, could not cure his own constitution. Could I do it? The Nine Yin Broken Meridians isn’t something else—it’s a martial arts constitution. Could modern medicine even intervene? This isn’t a simple trauma or a disease like syphilis.’
Baekrin Uiseon simply watched me in silence.
Soon I spoke.
“Just promise me one thing.”
“What would you have me do?”
A smile played at the corners of Baekrin Uiseon’s mouth.
It seemed he found my troubled appearance endearing, like that of a son. But he could no longer smile at my next words.
I spoke.
“Don’t give up on living.”
“What do you mean by that….”
“I know you have an illness. Or rather, strictly speaking, a constitution. If my thinking is correct, complete recovery may not be impossible. So….”
A chill.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
It was a sensation I had felt before.
It was like this when the future Heavenly Demon, Yeo Ha-ryun, opened his eyes. Like standing before a tiger.
Was this what they called killing intent?
My gaze instinctively turned to one side.
Standing there was Yoo Ho.
An uncontrollable killing intent poured forth from him.
His expression was blank. Yet that face devoid of any emotion was somehow more terrifying.
‘Ugh, this is incredibly scary! Wasn’t he just an extra mentioned a few times in Volume 1 of the novel?’
“Yoo Ho. That’s enough.”
Baekrin Uiseon raised his hand to stop him.
‘Phew….’
I felt relieved inwardly.
The killing intent that had been pressing down on my body had vanished.
Yoo Ho opened his mouth with an expressionless face.
“Isn’t this brat disrespecting the master right now?”
At Yoo Ho’s words, I said nothing.
I understood.
How much torture it was to tell a terminal cancer patient who had already accepted death that a new treatment had emerged, that there might be a possibility.
I understood this better than anyone else.
Yet I still had to fight.
If there was truly no hope, I should surrender and devote myself to hospice care, but if hope existed, I had to reveal it. That was my profession.
However, I also knew there was nothing crueler than this.
Hope is sometimes crueler than despair.
Hope makes people desperate. It makes them wail.
It cannot create a beautiful death, a clean and orderly conclusion.
‘But what does that matter?’
I thought.
Even if treatment is difficult and painful, even if the probability of survival is not one hundred percent.
Isn’t concealing even that fact contrary to what a doctor should be?
Even if that end is ugly, painful, and wicked—even if one howls like a dog—if recovery is possible.
Life was possibility. It had to continue.
Speaking that truth was my calling.
I spoke.
“I won’t just accept it, and I won’t let you give up. I won’t let you die peacefully either.”
“You’re insane.”
Yoo Ho’s narrowed eyes open slightly. Eyes filled with murderous intent gleamed there.
I realized that when a narrow-eyed character opens their eyes, their expression becomes truly repulsive.
Thud.
Yoo Ho stepped forward from behind Baek Rin-ui-seon and spoke.
“Say that again.”
Krrgh—
Killing intent flowed out once more.
Thicker than before, a suffocating sensation wrapped around me. Unlike the Heavenly Demon’s aura, it was equally lethal.
‘Damn. This is no joke… And the fact that even Jegalling isn’t stopping him this time means he’s genuinely furious…’
Squeezing out every last ounce of strength, I opened my mouth.
With a face full of resolve, though cold sweat dripped down, I spoke clearly and deliberately.
“I said there is a way to live.”
“How amusing. Do you wish to die?”
Screeeech—
It sounded as though an invisible colossal beast was dragging its claws across the ground as it passed.
I could actually see the floor where Yoo Ho stood beginning to crack.
“Enough.”
Yet with Baek Rin-ui-seon’s word, that momentum vanished instantly.
It was a strange sight. The floor where Yoo Ho stood was cracking, but it stopped beside Baek Rin-ui-seon.
The one called Baek Rin-ui-seon. Jegalling.
It appeared he had blocked Yoo Ho’s momentum.
‘…Has Baek Rin-ui-seon learned martial arts?’
I had never seen him fight before.
‘Even Gongseon Yeong couldn’t manage this.’
For this to be possible, one would need to transcend the realm of peak mastery.
And so I confirmed what had never appeared in the novels.
The smile had vanished from Baek Rin-ui-seon’s lips.
He regarded me with a cold expression.
“For mockery, that was quite the grand display.”
“It is not mockery.”
Yoo Ho answered in response to my words.
“Not mockery? Then you must be planning something far more audacious—outright deception.”
“You’ve already promised me a place as your disciple. What more could I possibly seek?”
I,
a child who never yielded in words—
I was
that was who I was.
Before adults, I always smiled sweetly and behaved charmingly.
A child who occasionally displayed cleverness, earning affection
I was
for it.
I seemed to understand how to captivate hearts. But now, I was the complete opposite.
Baek Rin-ui-seon fell into thought before parting his lips.
“Very well. Speak.”
“Master.”
Baek Rin-ui-seon ignored Yoo Ho’s words.
“However, if your conclusion is merely to mock me, I shall retract my offer to take you as a disciple. Do you understand? I will not look upon you again.”
The weight of his words felt suffocating. Yet if I retreated now, everything would crumble to nothing.
“Yes.”
I nodded. Then I took a deep breath.
‘It’s fine. I’m accustomed to this.’
Though I had no desire to experience it twice, my calling as a doctor meant I could not flee from it.
“In my opinion….”
* * *
Yoo Ho had decided to kill me.
He was not ignorant of how great a burden it was for the master to even accept a single disciple.
Yet that child was attempting to humiliate his master.
There was ample reason to kill him.
Until the young man finished speaking, Yoo Ho could not bring himself to kill him.
Each word from the boy’s mouth was painful, yet somehow drew him in completely.
After finishing his explanation, the young man spoke thus:
-I believe I require time to reflect, so I shall take my leave.
Strangely, those words felt entirely natural.
A sword and words are similar.
Just as a weapon cherished for years grows polished by the touch of hands, frequently used words flow naturally with practiced intonation.
The young man’s intonation was worn smooth—as if he had spoken these words dozens, hundreds, thousands of times before.
“I thought you only spouted nonsense about yin-yang unity.”
“Hehehehe. There was indeed such a person before.”
-Isn’t the Yin Body Deficiency caused by insufficient yang energy? All one needs to do is seduce that yang-bodied girl, Gongseon Yeong! Master Baekrin has both beauty and a fine physique, does he not? One merely needs to supplement the yang energy through yin-yang unity. How could he fail at such a simple thing? Baekrin Uiseon must surely be crippled or impotent.
It was an outrageous rumor.
The moment Yoo Ho heard it, he immediately set out and found the source of the claim within a single day.
It was a doctor. A rather well-known one in the neighborhood, at that.
Yoo Ho buried that doctor in the hillside behind the compound, leaving only his head exposed.
“Yin-yang unity isn’t some miraculous elixir that cures everything—why would doctors even exist if it were? It’s simply something the immortal sages created so people could maintain their health through a proper intimate life. In short, it’s just basic physical cultivation.”
Later, it turned out that many patients had suffered at the hands of that doctor.
He would demand exorbitant fees from patients, and when they sold their homes to pay, he would claim that life and death were matters of heaven, then flee without curing anything.
A charlatan, and a particularly vicious one at that.
Yoo Ho punished him in various ways—just short of death—before turning him over to the local authorities.
“You still dwell on that matter, Yoo Ho.”
“Had you not stopped me, Master, that wretch would already be dead.”
“Making him wish he were dead is sufficient.”
He had crushed the man’s limbs before handing him to the authorities, and he did not forget to inform the families of the defrauded patients of what had transpired.
The authorities imposed the maximum sentence and returned all of the charlatan’s assets to the victims’ families, along with additional compensation.
“….”
After that, Yoo Ho needed much time to accept Baekrin Uiseon’s death.
Just when he thought he had finally made peace with it, ‘that child’ appeared before his eyes.
“What will you do?”
“Accept it.”
“If you fail?”
“Did I not say I would not grant you a gentle death? You will not experience a peaceful passing. You will struggle painfully against illness until the very end.”
“So if you fail?”
A doctor grows when saving people, but also when taking lives. Sometimes, a doctor grows far more through death than through salvation. When that time comes, you will become a divine physician who surpasses me.”
Baekrin Uiseon—or rather, Jegalling—spoke of his own death with calm detachment, as if recounting someone else’s tale.
“You mean to become fertilizer?”
“Is there greater fulfillment for a master than that?”
“What is it about that child that captivates you so? I understand he is brilliant and charismatic—I have seen it with my own eyes. Yes, I understand he possesses unusual medical knowledge. But surely you need not go to such lengths, Master. What exactly appeals to you so deeply?”
“That child said something like this…”
-Who seeks out a physician in order to die? Even if the treatment is painful and the process agonizing, patients come to fight, to win.
-Yes, of course everyone dies eventually. Because human strength cannot exceed the power of death. I can say with certainty: we are beings who fight losing battles.
The young man spoke with such conviction.
That our struggle would eventually fail. That death claims everyone.
But what truly moved Baekrin Uiseon’s heart was what came next.
-Someday we will lose, yes. But this time, just this once, we charge forward to win! That is why, Baekrin Uiseon, I will not grant you a gentle death.
“Taking me as your disciple is no path to a peaceful ending. I must ask you this.”
Time is merciless. All beings eventually perish.
“Baekrin Uiseon. Are you prepared to fight?”
All humans die someday, and yet—why not try to win, just this once?
The young man posed his question with audacious boldness.
At the gleam in those eyes, Baekrin Uiseon could not help but laugh.

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