Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 344

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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 344
I handed cattle and pigs meant for slaughter to Yeo Ha-ryun,
and he had to crush and tear them apart to appease Cheon Sal-seong’s instincts.
For a while, beef and pork streamed out continuously from the Medical Guild’s kitchen.
Chicken didn’t carry the same sensation of slaughter, so chicken meat would likely only appear after Yeo Ha-ryun had calmed down.
Yet, despite having slaughtered quite a number of livestock,
“Is it difficult?”
“….”
Yeo Ha-ryun answered by leaning his back against the wall instead.
Both his hands were thoroughly soaked with the blood of beasts. Even so, the thirst scarcely faded.
‘If I lose focus for even a moment, I would surely want to kill everything before my eyes.’
Such was the madness of Cheon Sal-seong.
Refraining from slaughter was practically impossible.
Ultimately, the fate of those born with Cheon Sal-seong was similar.
Slaughter entire villages, kill innocent people, kill martial artists, kill indiscriminately, grow stronger, and grow stronger still,
until finally becoming a public enemy of Gangho, at which point the Three Elites appear and strike them down.
‘At this rate, I would kill my older brother first, who is closest to me.’
But if I leave the Medical Guild like this, would another opportunity to control Cheon Sal-seong come again?
This place is farthest from the bloodlust of Gangho.
If I went out and encountered bandits, I would lose my reason.
‘And could I return again?’
I drew in a deep breath of blood scent.
I thought seeing blood, even from beasts, would help somewhat, but the excitement scarcely faded.
I want to kill.
Anything—especially people.
Eventually, Yeo Ha-ryun sat in lotus position and began reciting Buddhist sutras.
The sutras didn’t possess any particular miraculous efficacy.
Nor did he possess Buddhist faith.
When control became too difficult, he had to memorize something, anything, to focus his mind elsewhere.
How much time had passed?
It seemed he had recited the same sutra dozens of times.
“….”
When I opened my eyes, my older brother was still there,
and outside, the sun was setting.
The corpses of the beasts I had slaughtered were nowhere to be seen.
The floor was spotlessly clean without a trace of blood.
Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
“Your eyes have returned to normal. Thank goodness. Let’s eat.”
“How long did you wait, older brother?”
“Not long. I came just now after preparing the meal.”
Is that really so?
Considering the number of beasts I had slaughtered and the blood that spilled from them, it was far too massive a scale to clean up easily.
Given my nature as the older brother, I could never let others witness my younger brother being swept up in Cheon Sal-seong’s madness.
Had Jegalling seen that sight, I likely would not be alive now.
“I thought you had calmed down, but reaching Hwagyeong seems to be taking its toll.”
“Well, what can you do? I need to reach Hyeongyeong quickly. That should help a bit.”
Jin Cheon-hee took it lightly.
“Hyeongyeong… you know that’s a dog’s name.”
“No, what. You’re more than capable of it?”
What on earth does this older brother think of me?
Watching him trust in me as though I were a god itself is sometimes utterly baffling.
“Aren’t you afraid of me, hyeong? In the state I was just in, you could have easily been the one to die.”
“Haha, you won’t.”
“Hm?”
“You won’t do that. I know.”
Strangely, there seemed to be no falsehood in those words.
Yeo Ha-ryun found it even more incomprehensible.
‘Fanaticism…? No. It’s different from that.’
In the Demonic Sect, fanatical followers were something you saw all the time.
This was closer to speaking a truth he genuinely knew.
‘It’s strange, that’s all I can say.’
But my older brother being strange was nothing new.
If I questioned everything this way, there would be no end to it.
Yeo Ha-ryun exhaled quietly.
‘Regardless, what matters is mastering the Hwagyeong realm even a little more so I can control this impulse.’
There was no way my older brother could help with this.
However, when it came to memory alone, he could be of use.
The truth was that memorizing anything made things easier.
Whether it was Buddhist scriptures or the strange memory enhancement method my older brother was employing.
To me, it mattered not at all.
* * *
Time passed once more in this manner.
The process of battling myself and refining my martial arts was much like tempering a blade.
That day too, Yeo Ha-ryun exhausted his mind through Jin Cheon-hee’s peculiar training before sitting down to rest briefly.
He covered his eyes with a damp cloth, but the heat refused to fade, which was troublesome.
When would this killing intent end?
Was it a problem without an answer?
Would reaching Hyeongyeong truly make my head feel better?
“From my analysis, it seems that if your mental strength exceeds the level of your martial arts, things become easier.”
“Are you sure about that, hyeong?”
“For now, it’s still in the hypothesis stage. But… thinking back to last time, that’s what I believe.”
It’s partly because I’ve read the Jicheon Cheonma’s records.
Of course, it wasn’t explicitly documented. It’s just what I concluded from reading about Yeo Ha-ryun’s growth.
‘Cheon Sal-seong is ultimately not like modern mental illness—it’s more like a martial artist’s constitution.’
The fact that he possesses the qualities of a pleasure killer.
Looking at how his mechanism for experiencing joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness differs from others, and his low capacity for empathy.
In modern terms, it might appear to be congenital psychopathy—meaning the frontal lobe functions are inherently problematic.
But you can’t say that in the modern world, such a psychopath develops martial arts the more he kills, and with his innate genius talent, he can slice ten people per second and spray sword energy in torrents to cut down police cars.
And even though he has somewhat low empathy, it’s not as if he lies without hesitation to destroy people, nor is his lifestyle impulsive.
Rather, except when going on missions, his life is extremely monotonous.
In the end, it’s accurate to define Cheon Sal-seong, like my Master’s Nine Yin Meridian, as a martial artist’s disease.
A disease that grants genius talent but imposes equally great restrictions.
My Master, like others afflicted with the Nine Yin Meridian, gained genius, but was destined for a short life.
Yeo Ha-ryun, due to Cheon Sal-seong, possesses innate talent specifically for killing people, but the stronger he becomes, the more he suffers from madness.
‘My Master could at least be treated with modern symptomatic therapy.’
I succeeded in the insane feat of performing a stent procedure with Mannyeonhwari, extending my Master’s life.
However, Cheon Sal-seong isn’t a malfunction of any physical organ in the body.
If I had to point to something, it would be the brain… perhaps.
But it’s not something that can be solved through psychology, medication, electrical therapy, or surgery.
There’s no choice but to rely on willpower cultivation.
‘Telling him to endure through sheer willpower is the worst advice, though…’
Since the opponent has Cheon Sal-seong, there’s no other way.
That’s when Yoo Ho arrived.
“Young Master, a visitor has come for the guest.”
‘Guest’ referred to Yeo Ha-ryun.
What could it be? But nine times out of ten, it would be someone from the Demonic Cult.
Only the Demonic Cult would know that Yeo Ha-ryun is here.
Yeo Ha-ryun removed his towel.
The towel that had been wet until moments ago had already dried completely from the heat radiating from his eyes.
He wanted to kill. He wanted to kill anything.
But…
Yeo Ha-ryun spoke with sunken eyes.
“…I’ll be back soon. Hyeong.”
“All right.”
Just like always, enduring and enduring once more.
* * *
As expected, the one who came to meet Yeo Ha-ryun was a mid-level operative of the Demonic Cult.
Yeo Ha-ryun tried to decode the encrypted letter he received, but Jin Cheon-hee’s decoding from the corner of his eye was faster.
“Tugoe? They’re telling me to capture Tugoe?”
Jin Cheon-hee said this and was slightly taken aback.
‘Wait, the Tugoe event is starting right now?’
Tugoe (偸怪).
Not the character for “fight” (鬪), but the character for “steal” (偸).
In the Jicheon Cheonma rankings, among the top ten masters, just below the Three Elites are the Two Emperors and the Oddities.
Among these, the Two Emperors (二帝) are Sulgye and Gwon Je.
And in Gangho, there are two Oddities (怪).
One is the Patriarch of the Black Heaven Medical Guild and Hyeolsaeng Nogoe, who ruthlessly excavates the essence of life by any means necessary.
And the other is the Shadowless Tugoe.
The Shadowless Tugoe is Gong Ya-geon, the current sect leader of the single-lineage mysterious faction, the Ghost Divine Thief Sect.
As his title suggests, he is a thief—the fastest thief in Gangho.
So fast that even masters of Hyeongyeong cannot catch him.
He is a master of escape, disguise, infiltration, and stealth.
Naturally, his specialty is theft. However, he rarely kills people, which is why he earned the nickname Tugoe.
He is close with Hao-mun.
Because Hao-mun handles the disposal of stolen goods.
‘How on earth could I catch the greatest divine thief in Gangho, someone even Hyeongyeong masters cannot apprehend?’
Moreover, this is somewhat… different from the original work?
In the original, it wasn’t Yeo Ha-ryun who caught Tugoe, but rather Cheong-yeon Soegooju who went after him.
Yeo Ha-ryun was attached as her support.
Tugoe had stolen one of the Demonic Cult’s treasures—the Poison Antidote Pearl.
According to legend, this Poison Antidote Pearl was crafted from a dragon’s wish-granting orb, and it is said to have the power to cure all poisons.
With poisonous determination, Tugoe eventually succeeded in stealing the Poison Antidote Pearl.
Of course, Tugoe didn’t particularly want to go all the way to the Demonic Cult, where masters of Hyeongyeong resided, just to steal the pearl.
Stealing itself was difficult enough, but the aftermath would become complicated as well.
Living as a fugitive for a lifetime against the Ten Thousand Great Mountains was no easy task.
However, there was no choice.
‘I cannot let my granddaughter die.’
Tugoe’s granddaughter was poisoned by a chronic toxin that even the Dang Clan refused to handle.
The reason was simple.
It was a poison for which no antidote existed.
Thus, to detoxify this poison, the legendary Poison Antidote Pearl hidden in the Demonic Cult’s secret vault was necessary.
And those who had poisoned her had made their intentions clear when they left.
They meant for him to raid the Demonic Cult’s secret vault.
Those who had poisoned Tugoe’s granddaughter were the Hyeolseonggyo.
At first, Tugoe mistook them for the Demonic Cult, but eventually realized that the Hyeolseonggyo and the Demonic Cult were different organizations.
‘Probably because of my interference, the Hyeolseonggyo’s true identity was exposed earlier, so I caught on faster.’
But even so, nothing changed.
His granddaughter was poisoned, and the truth was that there was no way to save her except with the Poison Antidote Pearl.
In the end, Tugoe raided the Demonic Cult to find the legendary Poison Antidote Pearl.
Since he couldn’t escape with the pearl on his first attempt, he raided the Demonic Cult multiple times.
Tugoe had always conducted his affairs discreetly, without casualties.
Yet when his granddaughter’s life hung in the balance, his hands grew rough and clumsy—unavoidable.
Cheong-yeon Soegooju saw through this weakness and laid a trap using the Poison Antidote as bait, and Tugoe fell for it perfectly.
However, Tugoe succeeded in dismantling the trap Cheong-yeon had set and fled with the Poison Antidote.
He used the Poison Antidote on his granddaughter, and even managed to detoxify her, yet she died in the end.
The scene of Tugoe lamenting that he had arrived too late was quite heartbreaking.
Ultimately, having lost his granddaughter, Tugoe raged and began attacking the Hyeolseonggyo repeatedly.
In the process, he became enemies with the Demonic Cult and was hunted by them as well.
As a result, Tugoe was driven to his final moment and perished in a trap laid by the Hyeolseonggyo.
‘He reappeared as a Hyeolseon-gyo Gongsi and encountered Yeo Ha-ryun.’
A cruel ending indeed.

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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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