Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 339

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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 339
A figure who entered with lighter makeup than in days past.
In the past, since my sister was afflicted with syphilis, I deliberately applied heavy makeup and feigned the disease myself to pose as a syphilis patient.
Days when I would intentionally apply salves that caused pustules to appear.
Now, without a trace of scarring, my skin had healed cleanly.
Muyue.
A sect belonging to Hao-mun, with its foundation in the inn and pleasure house business.
An executive of the Crimson Tower Pavilion.
The Crimson Tower Pavilion stood as the central traditional sect among Hao-mun’s five branches: the Golden Blood Sect, the Crimson Tower Pavilion, the Thief’s Gate, the Gambling Faction, and the Five Killing Finger Sect.
The reason was simple.
It was because Hao-mun itself originated from a pleasure house.
Even now, the Crimson Tower Pavilion wielded considerable influence within Hao-mun.
And the influence of Muyue and Muhua, siblings and executives of such a faction, carried a distinctly different weight.
And now, that very Muyue sat in the chair before Jin Cheon-hee.
“It has been quite some time, Benefactor.”
With refined elegance, Muyue sat before Jin Cheon-hee and offered a respectful bow.
This was the great conference hall of the Medical Guild.
Yet only three people occupied it: Muyue, Jin Cheon-hee, and Jegalling.
This made sense, as this gathering was an interview for Muyue’s recruitment.
“I’m delighted to see you in such good health. Your skin appears completely clear, without a trace of those pustules.”
“Haha, the martial techniques of our sect’s primary lineage are quite effective for skin whitening. Nearly any scar or wound can be healed completely.”
“Still, I’m grateful you recovered without any lingering aftereffects.”
At Jin Cheon-hee’s words, Muyue’s expression grew touched for a moment.
Seeing how that child who once saved his sister’s life had grown so tall stirred something peculiar in his heart.
‘My, my, they’ve grown into a peerless beauty, just as the rumors said.’
Deep-set eyes and refined lips.
Large eyes glistened with moisture, and the bridge of the nose was graceful.
The skin resembled the moon on a midnight sky—among all the courtesans and entertainers of the Crimson Tower Pavilion, none possessed beauty to match.
Moreover, there was a subtle warmth in the expression that made others lower their guard, unlike Baek Rin-ui-seon, whose presence intimidated and created distance. This was a beauty that instead invited one to open the locks of one’s heart.
Then Jegalling spoke.
“Hope, that’s not why I summoned you here, is it?”
“Oh, my apologies, Master. And my apologies to you as well, Young Master Muyue. Shall we begin the interview then?”
An interview.
In truth, the word “interview” was rarely used in this world.
They simply used phrases like “taking a look at someone’s face.”
Because of this, even Jegalling had wondered initially what Jin Cheon-hee meant to accomplish when mentioning an interview.
“Nothing special, really. First, I’d like to hear about your reasons for applying to our Medical Guild.”
Jin Cheon-hee’s martial arts-style interview now commenced!
* * *
Muyue had traversed the martial realm of the Fallen Mountain Sword Forest, gaining various experiences and overcoming numerous life-and-death crises.
But I can swear that I’ve never been this bewildered before in my life.
What in the world? Why?
“You woke up this morning to find your arms and legs have transformed into a dragon’s. What will you do?”
“You are the son of one of the Eight Great Families. You came to study abroad, far from home, when you received news of your father’s death and returned to your hometown. Your father’s will contained one instruction: he would bequeath all his wealth to a certain servant, but you, his son, could take only one item from the inheritance. What will you do?”
Questions that came out of nowhere.
“Do you have your own personal way of managing your anger?”
“What do you think about workplace harassment within an organization?”
“What was the most difficult aspect of your previous position?”
“Why should our Medical Guild recruit Muyue?”
“How much time do you typically spend on administrative paperwork?”
“What do you consider your greatest weakness, and what efforts have you made to overcome it?”
It was a parade of peculiar and bizarre questions I had never encountered before.
Nowhere in Gangho would anyone ask such questions when recruiting someone.
No. In this world, the number of scholars was never that large to begin with, and capable administrators were hardly common.
If someone possessed such talent, people would scramble to recruit them, not bombard them with such strange, bizarre, and difficult-to-answer questions.
I answered somehow, though I couldn’t even recall what I said,
and by the time cold sweat began dripping down Muyue’s exhausted back,
Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
“Thank you for your patience. These are all necessary questions, after all. Then let me ask you the final question.”
The final question, he said.
A premonition arose that some crucial question was coming.
That’s what Muyue thought.
“What is the thing in your life that you regret the most?”
Perhaps it would have been better if he had tortured me instead, asking what martial techniques I’d learned and who the Patriarch was.
I couldn’t even understand how these questions Eun was asking could possibly help.
Muyue fell silent in thought for a long while before finally opening his mouth.
“…My greatest regret is that I didn’t run away with my sister.”
“Pardon?”
“In truth, I knew that children who fled Hao-mun in such a manner had little chance of success. But still. My sister contracted syphilis only after I gave up on escaping. Even if I could return to the past, there’s honestly no solution. That’s simply the fate of a child sold into servitude.”
“….”
In this world, human life was worth less than a few silver coins.
A defective child was worth even less than a few copper coins.
Children continued to be born in farming families.
Parents could support the first two or three, but when four, five, six mouths appeared, parents themselves came forward to sell their children.
Like most children sold into servitude, there was honestly little affection in the process.
Of course, there would be exceptions—a favored finger among many.
Some children would receive special love.
But seven siblings, eight siblings.
Even ten children in some cases.
The poorer the farming family, the more children were born.
In this era, most children don’t survive past a hundred days, yet occasionally a child defies death and lives on.
A time when even asking ‘Did my parents love me?’ was a luxury.
Seized by their parents’ hands, sold off to the pleasure quarters.
Amusingly, a person’s fate is often decided just like that, abruptly.
To the eyes of a modern person like me, it seemed endlessly strange and irrational, yet in this era, such a life was simply the norm.
And even if it was the norm, that didn’t make it any less painful.
“After escaping, couldn’t I have thrown myself into some merchant guild and laundered my identity? Or couldn’t I have met some reclusive master somewhere and gained the fortune to become their disciple? I find myself thinking such things sometimes. With effort, perhaps anything could have been possible. Of course, my mind tells me it’s impossible.”
But my heart continues to ask why I couldn’t do it back then.
Muyue spoke.
“But if I had to think of just one thing that was realistically possible… I wish I hadn’t played the pipa so much.”
“The pipa?”
“Yes. If I hadn’t demonstrated my skill at playing the pipa back then, perhaps neither my sister nor I would have fallen into the path of entertainers instead of doing menial work.”
“Hmm…”
I chose my words carefully.
At that, Muyue let out a small laugh.
“Actually, thinking about it more, I doubt my sister and I would have avoided becoming menial workers just because of our looks either.”
“…”
Even in this moment, I showed consideration for him.
Muyue appreciated how I hesitated, clearly struggling with how to respond.
Eun was that kind of person.
Stern when needed to be stern, yet subtly considerate of others in this way.
That’s why both Muhua and Muyue held him dear.
Of course, there was also the matter of Gu Myeong-ji-eun’s kindness.
I… ultimately answered with the words, “You’ve endured much.”
Such carefully chosen words of consideration were far too brief.
Yet even that pleased Muyue.
If a stranger who had never experienced such things tried to empathize awkwardly, that would have felt wrong in its own way.
“I look forward to working with you going forward.”
Did I pass?
Muyue felt his tension ease.
I deliberately smiled and changed the subject.
“By the way, you weren’t sent as a spy from Hao-mun, were you? The official reason from Hao-mun is talent exchange and establishing a bridge connecting Hao-mun and Baek Rin Medical Guild, but…”
At that, Muyue smiled knowingly.
“Of course they told me to do some spying as well.”
“Ah, as expected.”
I answered without any sign of surprise.
“So are you planning to do it? Well, I wasn’t planning to share any important information anyway.”
A brazen answer to a brazen question.
“I don’t wish to do it. I came here because I wanted to help Eun in the first place. If you’re going to make me do spying, would you just consider me fired?”
At that, I let out a small laugh.
“Will you become a double agent for me?”
“Ah, for Eun’s sake, that much is the least I can do. Besides, I’ve already been providing quite a bit of information about Hao-mun all this time.”
“It doesn’t seem much different from what you’ve been doing.”
“If you put it that way, I suppose not.”
I answered naturally and glanced back at my Master.
It was a look asking whether I’d properly fulfilled my duties as the Patriarch of Baek Rin Medical Guild.
Jegalling gently stroked his disciple’s head.
“The method is… a bit unusual, but… still, you pass.”
“Yes!”
“However, questions about becoming a spy usually require the proper atmosphere. You’re supposed to tie someone up in a basement, drive a needle under their fingernails, and then ask—not interrogate them in broad daylight while sipping tea like this.”
He was smiling softly as he spoke to his disciple.
But his gaze fixed on Muyue held no smile whatsoever.
A clear threat.
It meant he’d do exactly that if Muyue stepped out of line.
‘He’s not even hiding it. Baek Rin-ui-seon truly…’
I thought that if you searched through all of Gangho, only one person—my Master’s disciple, Baek-ui Sinryong—would call him a good man.
If you’re going to cut, cut now.
Threatening while accepting? What kind of…
‘…’
Muyue gave up thinking.
Because he’d seen Hao-mun’s records from when Baek Rin-ui-seon was the Blood Wheel Slayer.
‘That’s right. Compared to back then, he’s improved considerably.’
Wasn’t the fact that someone from Hao-mun was sitting across from me drinking tea proof of that?
If it were the Jegalling from back then, he would have lost consciousness on the way here, and when he woke up, there would be needles under his fingernails.
And they wouldn’t just be carelessly placed—they’d be meticulously driven in to the depth of a finger bone.
‘According to Hao-mun’s reports, even this is considered a real improvement…’
Even when he was living as though he’d abandoned life after ending the Jegallga’s revenge, he wasn’t someone to be trifled with.
Of course, he wouldn’t go through the tedious effort of driving needles under fingernails like he did as the Blood Wheel Slayer, but during interrogations, he’d probably cut off finger joints one by one.
With fourteen joints per hand, that meant twenty-eight questions total.
It was obvious that while the person being tortured would suffer immensely, the one doing it would remain remarkably quiet and composed.
Watching such a mad monster now embrace his disciple and act foolishly,
The elders of the Jegallga each sought out Confucius, the Primordial Celestial Worthy, and Buddha.
“I worry because our Hope is too kind.”
He gazed at his disciple with blue eyes full of concern.
I shook my head.
“No, Master. I’m not as good as I appear to be.”
Muyue, who’d picked up on things from his time in Hao-mun, could see that I was swallowing the words: ‘It just looks that way because Master is so foolish!’
But Eun doesn’t know.
That the standard of “too kind” differs between Master and Eun.
‘From the Blood Wheel Slayer’s perspective, not gouging out the eyes of the Jegallga members staring at him would already count as kindness.’
I’ve actually gouged out eyes before.
I didn’t even bother using a blade to pry them out—I simply slashed them away, leaving my victims blind. And regardless of their suffering, I told them to listen to their disciples’ death screams as I killed them one by one.
After hearing all his disciples’ final words, the master drove his head into a beam and took his own life.
No survivors remained from that incident.
Since they were a sect affiliated with the Changyong Sect, I annihilated them completely.
When no one survives, there’s no one left to harbor grudges.
After that, a few warriors came claiming they’d avenge their fallen friend’s resentment, but once I dealt with them as well, all traces of grievance vanished.
That’s the kind of person Hyeol-rin Gwang-sal was.
Eun only knew Baek Rin-ui-seon’s appearance.
‘It’s simply too brutal to have become widely known.’
Information spreads only when there are witnesses to spread it.
While it became known that Hyeol-rin Gwang-sal annihilated a certain sect, the method of that annihilation never spread far.
Young Jegalling alone heard the sounds of every member of the Jegallga family dying.
As the child grew, he hunted down each enemy one by one, gouging out their eyes while telling them to listen to their disciples’ death screams.
All he could hear was the voices of those he knew, his precious ones, calling his name and begging for their lives.
Merely hearing such sounds often twisted his qi and blood with rage, sending him into demonic possession.
Jegalling calmly carried out each act nonetheless.
In any case, he made all those involved in the Jegallga family’s destruction experience identical suffering.
That was the first and last mission left to the boy with a limited lifespan.
The boy became a young man without ever smiling, quietly fulfilling his mission.
‘Why was he so obsessed with sound?’
That version of Jegalling seemed to have a purpose beyond mere killing.
“I look forward to working with you.”
Jegalling responded with a composed expression to Muyue’s careful fist salute.
“The Patriarch himself is the one I should be grateful to work with.”
The man beside Jin Cheon-hee seemed like a completely different person from the one in the records.
Yet that coldness remained exactly the same.
Gulp.
I had no intention of causing trouble from the start.
And it seems I won’t in the future either.

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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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