Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 192
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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 192
Hwang-gu led me to a cave.
The entrance was narrow and difficult to spot from a distance, but as I drew closer, it came into view.
Woof! Master, I smell roasted meat! How delicious it smells.
As I entered the cave, the scent of a campfire mixed with roasting meat filled the air.
“My, have you brought back a tiger?”
I lowered the tiger from my back.
Thud—
“Would you care for some tiger meat?”
“Oh, splendid. Sohyeop truly understands refinement. Thanks to you, So-hongju won’t be bored.”
Before the campfire sat a tall woman.
Her hair, once cut short, now fell past her shoulders as she laughed heartily.
Samjeolchuho Dobaekhwa.
Her frame remained gaunt, almost skeletal, yet she had gained more muscle than before, and her eyes burned with sharper intensity.
Perhaps it was the effect of the martial techniques she had mastered and her practice of Taiji Quan.
Her gaze—dark yet luminous—was unmistakably that of someone far from ordinary at first glance.
“Sohyeop still prefers tea, I imagine? So I prepared some. Snowflower tea. Nothing better suits a day like this.”
I moved to sit across from Dobaekhwa.
Glug, glug, glug—
Wine and tea were poured into cups simultaneously. Warm steam rose, filling the cave with a cozy warmth.
“To meeting an old friend after so long.”
The wine cup and tea cup clinked together.
We both took a sip at the same time.
“You’ve had quite the ordeal these days, haven’t you? Or was it that you asked me to call you ‘older brother’ next time we met?”
At those words, I broke into a broad grin.
“Yes.”
“Then I won’t be shy about it. I’ve heard that you experienced a blood calamity at the Mudang Sect. Yet here you are, alive and well.”
“I was fortunate.”
“Is that something mere fortune can accomplish? I’ve heard rumors that you fixed the Mudang Sect’s critical flaws and improved their medical examinations, ultimately defeating the corpse demon.”
So she knows that much.
The speed at which information travels is remarkable, but what’s more surprising is how detailed her knowledge is.
“Well, even someone like me has quite a few friends.”
“Do you have friends at the Mudang Sect?”
“Friends, and friends of friends.”
I understood the friends part, but what did she mean by friends of friends?
I simply smiled.
“The truth is, I simply wanted to see you after so long, and that’s why I’ve come calling like this.”
“If you merely wanted to see me, you wouldn’t summon me to such a remote mountain far from people, would you? For a connoisseur like you to overlook a fine inn and call me out here to these mountains—there must be a reason for it.”
“Walls have eyes and ceilings have ears. I thought a cave with neither walls nor ceiling might be better.”
At those words, Samjeolchuho sensed that something was amiss.
She narrowed her eyes and reached to pour another cup of the crimson wine.
“Allow me to pour.”
Glug, glug, glug—
I accepted the bottle and filled her cup. Samjeolchuho spoke.
“How strange. Your invitation to drink feels almost like poison.”
“….”
I swallowed deeply.
Then, finally, I sighed and began to speak.
“I believe I’ve found your younger sister.”
“…I see.”
She drained the cup in one gulp. The scorching heat of the crimson wine burned from the tip of her tongue through her throat and into her stomach.
It was the same heat as always, yet this time felt different.
“But you called me for another reason, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Geumcheon-gun.
The face revealed as half the mask shattered was someone who bore a striking resemblance to Do Baek-ha.
The sisters were so alike that even if one became lost on the street, she could be seized and returned to the other.
“The resemblance was striking, and there were two moles beneath the eyes.”
“Mm. So it is our Euni.”
I recounted in detail everything that had transpired at the Mudang Sect.
The masked person I had encountered there, dressed in resplendent robes, spoke carelessly, yet her martial prowess was such that she would not lose even against Gwon Je.
That meant she possessed not only exquisite martial technique but also at least forty years of internal energy.
How much blood must have stained her hands to acquire such power was something that need not be spoken.
“She calls herself Hyeolseonggyo. From what I’ve learned, that is her name.”
“….”
Samjeolchuho had finally uncovered the full name of her lifelong enemy through her own strength alone.
Yet she neither boasted nor despaired, simply closing her eyes and sitting in silence for a long while.
“Euni is Geumcheon-gun. Geumcheon-gun. Not merely a foot soldier of Hyeolseonggyo, but an executive. She was the one who orchestrated the blood calamity at the Mudang Sect.”
The campfire crackled as it consumed the kindling.
It was the sound of human sorrow burning.
“Even after mastering demonic arts, I cannot catch up. Truly, the world is amusing, is it not, little sister?”
The elder sister spoke in a calm voice. Yet that voice, trembling ever so slightly, was unmistakably tinged with despair.
I swallowed my tea.
I knew that whatever I said now would not reach her.
At last, she had found her sister’s whereabouts, reached toward demonic arts, and learned the name of the beast who had taken her.
And. And….
That sister she had yearned for so desperately was now orchestrating countless blood calamities in a place beyond reach.
A faint moan escaped from Samjeolchuho, rising from the depths of her chest.
The kidnapped sister. Geumcheon-gun.
This world was truly strange and filthy in how it connected all things, making it impossible to draw any clear line, whether in the mortal realm or the martial world.
‘Is it a heart demon?’
Yet at some point, she silenced even that sound.
She had endured the heart demon that surged upon her with her own strength alone.
It was the obsession that had kept her alive until now.
The pride of one who called herself an ordinary person, taking step after step forward.
“I’m a vagrant. A wanderer without a home.”
“I know.”
“My hands aren’t clean either. I’ve handled countless matters of Gangho and dirtied my hands with dark deeds.”
“….”
Samjeolchuho spoke, her karma churning and bubbling within.
“No matter what happens, I will grasp my sister and pull her out from that place.”
She opened her eyes.
What her pitch-black pupils held was the campfire before her.
The flames burning finely and bright.
“I won’t seek atonement. I don’t expect my sister to either. She will resent me her whole life. She will hate me. I will seal my sister’s dantian, and the two of us will live together in a hermitage where no one exists.”
“Will you be alright with that?”
“What could be wrong with it? Either I save my sister, or I die before then—one or the other. Since I’ve found her now, that’s enough.”
A deep resonance colored the cave. Samjeolchuho continued speaking.
“It probably won’t be easy for me to overcome that child. Honestly, isn’t that true? I’ve only just broken through one wall with my demonic cultivation, yet that child rivals one of the ten greatest masters under heaven.”
Samjeolchuho looked up at the ceiling.
“Do you despise me for being like this?”
“I do not.”
“Haha… Thank you. The liquor you gave me somehow tasted of blood, which made me worried. Ominous premonitions never seem to miss even once.”
She spoke calmly, not a single tear appearing.
“Didn’t I say it before? In this world, there are those like Hyeolpyeon-wang or the Sword of the Dragon, but there are also those like me—mere sand or wild grass. That thought hasn’t changed. But….”
Samjeolchuho paused briefly, wracked by terrible pain.
Soon after, she exhaled several deep breaths in succession.
“…I have no intention of stopping here.”
“I understand. If you have resolved yourself thus, I will do what I can as your younger brother.”
Jin Cheon-hee nodded and placed something before her.
A black flower.
Remarkably, its roots were so strikingly white they seemed almost transparent.
The fragrance it emitted was extraordinary.
At a glance, it was no ordinary thing.
“This is the Black and White Life Herb.”
The Black and White Life Herb!
Samjeolchuho’s eyes widened.
A spiritual plant possessing both yin and yang energy simultaneously—one of the most prized spiritual medicines in Gangho.
“Why would you….”
“I hope you will consume it. Since it contains both yin and yang energy, if you circulate your inner energy as you would with Taiji Fist, alternating the flow, you should be able to absorb it.”
“….”
Samjeolchuho couldn’t respond. Nor could she easily place her hand on the Spirit Herb.
Jin Cheon-hee smiled softly.
“It will be a long journey. I’d appreciate it if you’d think of this as a younger brother’s goodwill.”
“…No, goodwill is one thing, but this is the first time I’ve seen someone bring the Black and White Spirit Herb and call it goodwill. And you know as well as I do that even if that child consumes this precious thing, I have no chance of victory.”
At those words, Jin Cheon-hee also sighed.
“What else can we do? If I’m going to die in one strike anyway, dying in two strikes is a profitable trade.”
“Hehehehe! My goodness. I’ve never met an eccentric like you in all my life.”
Eventually, she made her decision and picked up the Black and White Spirit Herb.
“I will absolutely retrieve my younger brother from that place. And even if I must endure a lifetime of hatred and resentment, I will live together with her.”
“…This younger brother simply wishes for you to find happiness.”
“That seems unlikely.”
Samjeolchuho felt her bones burning.
Flames blooming at each joint penetrated her marrow and scorched her soul.
But what did it matter?
A life lived like grass and trees anyway.
I wanted to see the end.
“I will definitely meet Euni.”
Even if what awaited at that end was hell itself.
At least as an older sister, couldn’t I hold her hand so that child wouldn’t be alone?
‘If it’s a hellish path I must walk anyway, two is better than one. Isn’t it, Eun?’
Even walking that hellish path together required qualification.
To embrace a blood-soaked younger brother.
Gulp.
The older sister swallowed the Spirit Herb as it was.
Jin Cheon-hee stood guard for Samjeolchuho.
In the desolate mountains.
Only the sound of the campfire flickered in the bone-piercing cold.
* * *
With his close friend Samjeolchuho steeling her resolve, Jin Cheon-hee could also make his decision.
‘Geumcheon-gun. When I fought Yeo Ha-ryun, Geumcheon-gun had already been replaced by someone else.’
That meant with high probability that the current Geumcheon-gun would die.
I couldn’t know why he would die.
There might be a restriction that obtaining the power of a Bloodline Bridge executive shortened one’s lifespan, or he could die from internal conflict.
Fortunately, there was time.
The new Geumcheon-gun who fought Yeo Ha-ryun back then left behind this line of dialogue.
-It’s only been a few months since I reached this position, and already a strong opponent? I barely endured just to get ‘here’… but what rotten luck…. Damn it.
The crude manner of speech was the same as the previous Geumcheon-gun, Do Baek-eun.
Synthesizing the original dialogue and various circumstances, Do Baek-eun would die in a somewhat more distant future from now.
Yeo Ha-ryun’s full-scale battles with executives would come much later.
Whether I could capture Do Baek-eun within that timeframe remained uncertain, but I had to give my absolute best effort.
“Sister. Please try that movement again.”
I immediately corrected Samjeolchuho Dobaekhwa’s Taiji Quan form.
While Taiji Quan could be learned on the streets, it naturally couldn’t compare to what was taught at the Mudang Sect’s main headquarters.
I transmitted the Taiji Quan to Dobaekhwa once more, now that she had consumed the spiritual herb.
“You keep insisting I learn this, but I don’t understand why you’re so adamant about mastering Taiji Quan when it lacks destructive power and practical combat application.”
“It will be helpful.”
“If you say so… I’ll give it a try then.”
I repeated the cycle dozens, hundreds of times—correcting her movements and having her demonstrate them again.
Despite her grumbling words, Dobaekhwa’s expression as she relearned the Taiji Quan was quite serious.
“This is probably all someone without talent like me can manage.”
Limbs that had never taken shortcuts were accustomed to repeating the same tasks.
Even when insights came, she often forgot them, so she knew well how much she envied those with natural talent.
Yet she understood something.
Life was long, and regardless of circumstances, one had to move forward.
If what awaited at the end was the younger brother she had dreamed of, she could do anything.
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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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