Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 188

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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 188
Jang Mun-in collapsed forward without resistance.
His limbs convulsed, tendons bulging and receding in rhythmic spasms.
His heart began to stop.
“Jang Mun-in! Jang Mun-in!”
“No. What are we to do with the Mudang now–!”
Screams pierced the air.
Not just the elders, but every surviving member of the Mudang began wailing amid the chaos.
Then one voice cut through the pandemonium.
“He has not yet reached the demonic possession stage.”
I pressed myself against Jang Mun-in and applied pressure to his vital points. Then I scraped together every last bit of my Five Elements qi to stabilize his condition.
I did not know if it would work.
But if I did nothing, the man would die.
His qi stopped flowing. But at the same moment, his heart stopped as well.
As he exhaled his final breath, everyone screamed again.
I immediately climbed onto Jang Mun-in and attempted CPR.
“Damn it, save the demonic possession for when I’m not here!”
The elders’ bodies went rigid. They could not comprehend what I was doing.
How could one revive someone whose breath had already ceased?
Yet they sensed that this rhythmic, forceful pressing of the chest was somehow helping.
“Aaahhh! Come on! Wake up!”
I continued pressing down, even crying out as I worked.
How long had I been doing this?
“Gasp, cough!”
Jang Mun-in gasped and drew his first breath.
It was a miracle.
* * *
One day later.
Doctors were dispatched from the Baekrin Uigak Buntta branch.
I directed the junior doctors, middle-ranked doctors, and senior doctors on their tasks.
My experience in field medicine proved useful in both fortunate and unfortunate ways.
Collecting the bodies and treating the wounded.
Distributing the necessary resources fell to me as well.
I prioritized patients by severity, treating them in order of urgency.
Here, emergency trauma care was essential—what the Gangho world called “breaking and mending.”
I prioritized hemostasis, removing damaged organs and suturing them.
I realigned bones and, when necessary, performed fixation using steel wire.
The senior doctors who had learned debridement techniques assisted me in treating patients.
The faster we treated them, the better we could preserve their limbs.
Elder Gwon Je proved surprisingly easy to treat.
I had pushed out the poison with my pure internal energy, and while my skin and flesh were torn, there were no major fractures. The problem was my aging body.
Elder Gwon Je received medicine from me and entered seclusion for a time.
He needed time to organize and consolidate the martial insights he had gained from this battle.
Learning martial arts was similar to the process of refining a sword.
One hammered oneself relentlessly, but if one ultimately could not endure, one would become nothing more than a fool trapped in a well.
Within that harsh cycle of repetition that ordinary people could not comprehend, the old man immersed himself once more.
My Master had not even sent word, yet somehow he learned of it so quickly and came rushing over, or so I heard.
It seemed his disciple weighed heavily on his mind.
However, water bandits had recently infested the Yangtze River, so it would take considerable time to cut through them all.
In the meantime, I devoted myself entirely to treating the most critical patients by burning through everything I had left.
I aligned the patient’s bone fragments with my hands.
Crack—
Since I was doing this while the patient was under herbal anesthesia and acupuncture, their pain would be minimal.
“Once the anesthesia wears off, it will be quite difficult. It will hurt, and after the bone sets, you’ll need rehabilitation—the doctors at the Eui-gak Buntta branch will help with that.”
“I thought the leg would have to be amputated for certain, but I never expected you could save it.”
“Now it comes down to patience and fortune. We’ve done everything humans can do.”
“Thank you….”
The hermit bowed deeply in gratitude to me.
Cheonwoo watched my left hand twitch strangely, stop, then move again.
“Brother…?”
Hidden by my sleeve, it was invisible to others, but it could not escape Cheonwoo’s eyes.
“Hmm?”
When I responded casually, Cheonwoo urgently grabbed my left hand below, at a spot that should be less painful.
Then he pulled my sleeve down with his other hand.
There, my wrist was revealed, darkened to a sickly black.
Needle marks were imprinted like bruises, making the sight all the more grotesque.
“Don’t force yourself to move, brother.”
“It’s fine. I’ve taken measures.”
“The color is wrong! I may be foolish, but I know injured people need rest. Besides….”
It was strange.
After that incident, all the Mudang disciples had become patients, unable to leave their beds.
That was what a life-or-death battle was.
Burning everything to defeat the enemy and survive, then returning to the nest to slowly recover one’s body—a continuous cycle.
But I had none of that.
“Brother, have you slept?”
“It’s fine.”
“When did you last eat?”
“I ate earlier.”
“You took some kind of medicinal pill during the last fight. Those pills usually don’t let you live long after consumption, do they? The side effects must be severe?”
“It’s more bearable than I expected.”
One of Cheonwoo’s eyes rolled slowly.
His complexion was so pallid that he looked as though he might collapse at any moment.
“Brother, there’s no one left who will die without you.”
“Yes. I think I’ve done all I can.”
As I tried to withdraw my hand, Cheonwoo refused to release his grip on me.
“Brother, go and rest.”
“Cheonwoo.”
“Go get some sleep. Are you worried? It’s fine. There are no more critical patients now.”
“….”
There was no response.
In that moment, Cheonwoo witnessed it.
My body slowly falling backward.
Like an empty serpent’s shed skin collapsing.
Cheonwoo caught me in alarm.
“Brother, hyung…?”
“….”
My pulse was barely present and I had lost consciousness.
Cheonwoo cried out in alarm, summoning the other doctors. At his shout, the senior physicians came rushing out.
After I had treated every single urgent patient without exception.
I lost consciousness.
* * *
I dreamed of a battlefield.
The stench of gunpowder and burning flesh permeated the air.
I felt I should do something, yet I could do nothing.
My body felt as heavy as if trapped in the deep sea.
Patients continued to arrive while supplies dwindled.
Manpower… manpower had to be sufficient.
Screams pierced the air.
Anesthetics were running short.
A child called for his father. Curiously, in every nation, the words for mother and father seemed strangely similar.
‘I will save your father.’
Could I? I had no confidence.
But if I did nothing, people would die.
Rebels burst through the tent.
Even in this chaos, I could only think of the regret that I needed to treat just one more person.
Why do humans kill their own kind?
Year after year, humanity has killed tens of millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of its own through war.
It was ironic. Humans killed far more humans than tigers or bears ever could.
It took only a single bullet, two centimeters across, to kill a person.
Yet to save that person required more than six staff members, surgeons, and countless resources—the very pinnacle of modern technology.
I felt myself losing my mind.
As the rebel’s gun barrel turned toward us, I hastily wrapped my arms around the child.
Bang, bang!
When I opened my eyes, blood was seeping into my chest. And in my arms was a young version of myself wearing Mudang robes.
The medical tent had become a burning hall of the Mudang Sect, and the rebels had become Geumcheon-gun.
The sky was red.
I felt my body slowly sinking into the ground.
Fortunately, the dream ended there.
When I opened my eyes, I saw the ceiling of the Mudang Sect.
“Ughhhh….”
It was as if every bone in my body was being shattered by a hammer.
I hastily tried to block the pain using Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong, but the agony continued regardless.
I tried to curl my body up.
Suddenly my left arm felt heavy. It was in a cast.
The Doctors of Buntta had meticulously wrapped it, recreating a modern plaster cast.
“This isn’t even a shackle….”
They’d applied the plaster so thickly it felt like rock.
Pain surged through me again, and I curled into a ball.
Groans leaked out for a long while.
The door creaked open.
“You’re awake after all, brother.”
“Cheonwoo.”
“Have some porridge.”
“….”
A sense of déjà vu washed over me.
I’d experienced something similar to this in the past.
“I have no appetite.”
“The Doctor said your stomach has been empty the whole time… You’ve been starving yourself, haven’t you?”
“….”
“I brought medicine that works well for emotional distress, brother. You need to take it to survive.”
The side effects of the medicinal pills. And a body with no undamaged parts was also a problem, but the greatest issue was the emotional distress.
War PTSD had returned as severe stress.
Even drinking water made me feel like vomiting. I couldn’t sleep.
It was because nightmares like the one I’d just had would come crashing down again.
And that worry became reality.
“Brother.”
“I’m fine.”
“Brother, you kept saying that, didn’t you?”
I didn’t want to force-feed my brother porridge by grabbing his jaw.
How could I get him to eat?
Cheonwoo deliberated for a long time before finally speaking.
“You saved my life, hyung. I have to repay that debt somehow.”
Cheonwoo set down a bowl of porridge in front of me.
“Are you really going to waste something I made with my own hands?”
“…Cheonwoo.”
In that moment, tears began streaming down from Cheonwoo’s large eyes.
“Hyung. I’m sorry for being weak.”
“You were strong.”
Back then, Cheonwoo’s back had been resolute as he protected me. He fought well.
Well enough to hold his own against the Mudang elders.
My head was beginning to ache.
Just as Cheonwoo was about to kneel, I grabbed him.
“It’s fine. It’s fine.”
“I won’t even drink water until you eat, hyung. I’d rather starve to death with you.”
A venomous glint began seeping into the eyes behind the eye patch.
“Do you have no pride at all?”
“What does pride matter when feeding my hyung!”
Seeing his desperate expression, I let out a small sigh.
‘What am I doing to this kid? Acting like this as an adult, making him cry….’
Watching tears well up in Cheonwoo’s eyes, my senses finally returned.
Realizing I’d worried a child as a grown man, reason came flooding back.
“Alright. I’ll eat.”
Only then did Cheonwoo’s face brighten.
He looked like a massive, loyal hound.
To others, Cheonwoo was a supreme master of the heterodox sects, but to my eyes, he was a kind and gentle younger brother.
As Cheonwoo fed me the porridge spoon by spoon, I thought to myself.
‘When Master arrives, I’m done for. Truly.’
It was the most crucial sign that my rationality had returned.

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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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