Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 366

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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 366
The two of us walked through the garden courtyard, catching up on matters we’d neglected.
It seemed I would now spend considerable time here until I advanced from Middle-Aged Men to Sang Ui-won.
“Hmm, you’ve chosen a difficult path?”
“Surgery is best learned directly at the main branch, after all.”
The Busul Dangju had no history yet of branches like acupuncture, herbal medicine, or manipulation therapy.
To grow into a Sang Ui-won of the Busul Dangju, learning directly here was paramount.
Yet surgery itself was no simple matter.
Especially since one had to incise flesh and examine organs—something even modern persons found grueling.
Moreover, the very act of cutting into human flesh was extraordinarily dangerous and demanded meticulous precision.
Herbal medicine, acupuncture, and manipulation therapy had their own challenges, but there was a difference between a patient succumbing to illness after treatment and dying on the surgical table.
The psychological burden was inevitably distinct.
‘There are cases where grieving family members seek vengeance against the physician.’
When they cannot accept death from illness and attempt to strike down the doctor with a blade.
Both in the modern world and here, this remained similar.
The difference, perhaps, was that here the aggrieved party had cultivated martial prowess?
‘Though I am the Busul Dangju myself… this truly is… a difficult path.’
Yet Sama-hye’s resolve remained unshaken.
“I still wish to learn surgery, Master.”
Perhaps she had chosen surgery specifically because of my own influence.
But it was Sama-hye who had made that choice.
“I’ll teach you harshly. Are you prepared? You’ll face harsher trials than others, not easier ones.”
“Yes!”
In exchange, I resolved to feed her well.
The Busul Dangju’s pride lay in its hellish study intensity and its endless culinary excellence, after all.
Even now, graduated Sang Ui-won physicians from the Busul Dangju spoke of missing the Patriarch’s meals more than missing the Patriarch himself.
‘I should expand the dormitories for Ha Uiwon and Middle-Aged Men. Some physicians have married and have children, so perhaps establishing something like a nursery in the village… with Warriors providing security.’
Not long ago, there had been an incident where someone took a physician’s child hostage to coerce the doctor.
In any world where humans dwell, troublemakers exist.
But here, troublemakers also cultivated martial prowess, so with malicious intent, they could commit any atrocity.
‘Yes. If I expand the Ha Uiwon and Middle-Aged Men dormitories and establish a nursery-like facility, then station Warriors from the martial contingent there, it should become much safer.’
As Baekrin Uiseon grew larger, matters requiring my attention multiplied endlessly.
‘Then what should I teach them? Fundamentals would be literacy, and for older children… hmm.’
I suddenly came to my senses mid-thought.
Sama-hye had been staring at me intently.
“Master, you still lose awareness of your surroundings when lost in deep contemplation.”
“Ah, haha… indeed.”
I felt embarrassed at having acted foolishly before her.
* * *
After that conversation with Sama-hye.
When I went to find Muyue and explained the situation, his immediate concern was about the budget.
“It won’t be possible right away, I’m afraid.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. We’re short on personnel as well. However, I agree with the need to protect the children of the doctors. I’ll draft a budget that allocates resources and manpower to that priority first. If you approve, the Patriarch will likely consent as well.”
“Very well.”
“Recently, there was an incident in the Busul faction where a legislator’s child died.”
My eyes widened slightly at those words.
Muyue realized then that the report had never reached me.
He recognized it as a slip of the tongue, but the water was already spilled.
There was nothing to be done about it now.
“A warrior, resentful that we hadn’t treated him first, committed the act. The Martial Force is deliberating whether to execute him or hand him over to the authorities.”
“What does the deceased’s father wish?”
Muyue pondered for a moment, then sighed.
“He asked that the man not be killed. As a doctor who treats martial artists of the Gangho, he said he had made a certain resolve. However, he wished to destroy that warrior’s dantian himself, as the boy’s father.”
“….”
Is it raining?
I gazed out the window.
Dark slate-colored clouds had begun dropping raindrops one or two at a time.
“My Master must have handled such matters from behind the scenes until now.”
Kidnapping attempts and such reached my ears.
But a child’s death was a different matter entirely.
It seemed my Master had taken measures to ensure this document wouldn’t reach me, fearing my disciple might be wounded by it.
“Yes. However, given the volume of work, I’ve taken on some of it myself.”
“How did your Master handle it?”
“According to the records, he followed the ways of the Gangho.”
“You mean he executed them.”
“Yes. This time, the affected doctor specifically requested mercy, so we made an exception. But normally, we execute them and refuse to accept disciples from that sect. However….”
“…If they’re lone wanderers without powerful backing, it wouldn’t matter.”
Until now, I had tried to turn criminals over to the authorities whenever possible.
It was a matter of confidence in my own strength, and something I could do precisely because I had no family to be responsible for.
But the other doctors with families faced different circumstances.
Simply going to the authorities and receiving judgment under the law wouldn’t serve as a deterrent.
‘I have no intention of becoming an idealist. I’m neither a politician nor a philosopher.’
Without making examples in the Gangho way, I couldn’t protect the doctors’ lives.
It was truly strange.
Human malice, unable to defeat illness in battle, ultimately seeks to kill the doctor instead.
Perhaps because the doctor is weaker than the disease itself.
Above all, making an example wouldn’t bring the dead child back.
Muyue spoke.
“I truly cannot understand it. A doctor faces someone whose life they may be responsible for. Even if they need not do their best, using a blade would bring no good whatsoever.”
“…That’s exactly right.”
‘There’s no need to venture all the way into Gangho for this.’
Earth was no different, after all.
Right now, I knew firsthand how patients wielded violence against those who attached IVs and drew blood.
Especially how middle-aged patients arriving at the emergency room hurled curses at medical staff—I’d heard such language endlessly since my early days.
“Humans aren’t quite so rational a species.”
Most people didn’t understand such behavior.
That was common sense, after all.
Yet there were certainly those who believed that even if someone was treating their body, making them wait deserved violence in return.
In Gangho, they simply expressed that violence through blades.
“I have some money I’ve accumulated. Let’s use that for the budget first.”
“You’ll be using your personal funds?”
Muyue’s eyes widened slightly at those words.
“Yes, yes. It’s fine. I have plenty of money~ I’m rich!”
I deliberately laughed in a cheerful tone.
A faint flash of light passed in the distance.
Shortly after, thunder rumbled belatedly.
‘Killing doctors, killing doctors’ families.’
I understood intellectually why the Medical Guild, whose primary function was treating people, invested massive budgets in the Martial Force every year.
Today, I felt it in my heart.
* * *
Time flowed onward again.
I set aside some land to be developed into a martial arts city, preparing it for the families of the doctors to reside.
It happened that families from similar professions ended up living together, but the doctors actually seemed to welcome it.
Even in agrarian societies, weren’t the front house, side house, and back house all engaged in different trades?
They seemed more pleased that things had become safer.
With the need to purchase more land and recruit more personnel, the budget was taking quite a hit, so I pushed myself hard.
“I need to earn more money! That’s right, of course… Blumarble… no, wait, the Qingyu melodrama edition!”
Melodramas always sold the best, didn’t they?
The new Qingyu game depicting the journey from imperial servant to empress was an absolute melodramatic spectacle with no thought to game balance whatsoever.
Among the events encountered while climbing up from the bottom step by step were things like ‘poisoning a noble’s carriage’ and ‘putting a needle in the second wife’s shoes,’ and the golden keys included ‘getting caught having an affair,’ ‘pretending to be pregnant,’ and ‘poisoning the emperor and attempting to rule as regent myself.’
To cater to a more diverse customer base, I prepared a box containing eight different portraits so players could choose the gender and age of their rival emperor.
Once the emperor was selected, the remaining seven portraits would be assigned as the guard you planned to have an affair with, an official, a wealthy merchant from a neighboring country, the empress, the second wife, the prime minister, and so on, allowing players to play out the melodrama together.
In any case, after competing with other players and emerging victorious from the absolute melodramatic spectacle to obtain the emperor, wouldn’t it be better if his face matched your preferences?
I racked my brain, recalling the numerous American seasonal dramas and Korean cable dramas I’d watched over the years.
And thus this was born.
“Insane… You’re really planning to release this?”
Upon hearing my plan, Gongseon Hyeon of the Black Ice Black Dragon burst out of the Gongseon Trading Company and rushed straight to the Baekrin Medical Guild in one breath.
I asked her.
“Do you think I’ll get arrested for treason against the imperial family?”
“No… I set it up as a fictional nation anyway, and His Majesty is such a free-spirited person that he wouldn’t get caught over something like this. But who in their right mind would buy such trashy content… wait….”
Even though it’s a Confucian society with swords, historically speaking, the Golden Lotus—essentially a seventeenth-century Earth erotic novel—remains a steady bestseller.
Humans have always been honest about their base desires.
Ancient Egyptian mythology, Greek mythology, and countless other mythologies prove this point.
‘My work is still less trashy than the Golden Lotus, isn’t it?’
The protagonist of the Golden Lotus was an extraordinary figure in human history—he made no distinctions between men and women, between different races, between the living and the dead.
‘Doesn’t the protagonist of the Golden Lotus end up dying from an overdose of aphrodisiacs? This should be less trashy than that.’
It’s serialized fiction, but I still kept it within the bounds of a fifteen-rating serialization.
Poisonings conducted with propriety, torture administered with decorum, affairs with eunuchs conducted respectably, followed by beatings received with dignity and exile to the Cold Palace conducted appropriately.
“Do you think it won’t sell?”
“Ugh….”
Hak Byeong-dok-yong hesitated over how to handle this spicy trashy flavor (feat. serialized drama), then spoke thus.
“I’ve never sold anything like this before, so my predictions are uncertain. Instead of calling it the Azure Jade, let’s call it the Crimson Jade, and we’ll keep the author’s identity hidden.”
“Anyway, since my alias already contains the character for ‘mad,’ it should be fine….”
“…I… I’m not fine with it. I’m not fine with it!”
That was the extent of it.
‘Am I really about to poison the Gangho with this?’
Isn’t true trashy content supposed to barrel forward without brakes, staying trashy all the way?
Even at the hospital, the wards grew quiet during serialized drama time slots.
‘Well, whatever. If it fails, I can just create the next version of the Azure Jade.’
And so Gongseon Hyeon, known as Hak Byeong-dok-yong, decided to release the Crimson Jade.
It was a new venture launched without knowing what kind of response it would provoke.
…It became a massive hit.

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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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