Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 39

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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 39
Thanks to Gungwi, I had reached a stage where I could generate and control wind energy on my own.
Five Elements Spiritual Cultivation, third stage.
But it didn’t end there. I drew upon wind and fire energy simultaneously and threw a punch.
The energy that began in my dantian flowed through my fist and coalesced.
At first, the layered combination—like water and oil—exploded the moment it touched the tree.
Boom!
Flames erupted across the massive tree.
It was something I couldn’t achieve with wind and fire energy alone, but this combination created far greater destructive power.
Medical Assistants passing by in the distance stared at the explosion site with startled eyes. Regardless, I dusted off my hands and muttered to myself.
“Safety is the issue. Safety.”
Despite my caution, the backs of my hands were covered in burns.
Second-degree superficial burns.
It appeared the damage extended into the dermis layer.
“From what I can see, this should be within the range of self-recovery.”
The pain was worse than expected, and I furrowed my brow.
If left alone, large blisters—the hallmark of second-degree burns—would form soon.
I drew water and wood energy into my fists.
The best part about the Five Elements Spiritual Cultivation was that I didn’t need to worry about bacterial infection.
Emergency treatment is crucial for any trauma, but especially for burns.
I rapidly extracted the heat with water energy and restored the tissue with wood energy. Even so, it wouldn’t heal immediately.
I looked down at the wound and debated whether to use it as a teaching material for Yoo Ho, who was training as a medical assistant.
It would make good instructional material as a human test subject, but clumsy is clumsy.
I picked up the bandages and gauze I had prepared in advance.
“Better to suffer than die, so let’s die.”
The fortunate part was that having completely mastered the Five Elements Spiritual Cultivation third stage, it would heal completely in about two days. Additionally, water and wood energy were my specialties for treatment, so circulating energy wasn’t difficult.
After finishing the simple treatment, I looked at the massive tree I had blown away.
“Next time it’s your turn.”
The great tree already bore countless scars.
A martial artist’s training ends in destruction.
You blow away a massive tree or granite with a single strike, then cry out, “Aah, I’ve obtained the fortune of the martial way and achieved great mastery of divine techniques!” before making your debut in the Gangho.
But a doctor’s work was just beginning.
“Tsk, whoever did this made a mess of it. No wait, that was me. Yeah, me.”
The work wasn’t finished until I repaired the tree I’d destroyed.
With my bandaged hand, I grasped the tree stump.
* * *
At the same time, a girl was cultivating energy on her bed.
With hair as short as a young man’s and a neat forehead, her brows formed a straight, resolute line above it.
Wang Gak-yeon.
Gungwi’s daughter.
She was like a tragic device.
A daughter who loved her father and possessed depths of character surpassing most. A daughter who dies because of a hidden enemy in the Martial Arts World, and a father who awakens upon losing her—such was the narrative.
As a result, her past and her own story remained unknowable to readers. In a sense, she had merely served as decoration in an ordinary narrative structure.
And now, she stepped beyond the novel’s predetermined flow.
In a direction that Jin Cheon-hee, once merely a reader, could never have anticipated.
‘How frustrating.’
She paused her cultivation breathing technique and exhaled deeply.
My body still throbs with pain.
Though my inner energy grants recovery beyond human limits, her wounds transcended all reason.
Until full recovery, I must refrain from using martial techniques and instead focus on healing through the mysterious cultivation method taught by the Medical Guild.
The words she uttered were unexpected—she who had always played the dutiful daughter before family and acquaintances.
“Damn it.”
Two pure syllables expressing her current emotion.
“Cursed.”
When alone, there was no need to maintain the pretense of being a good girl.
She gazed at the floor with melancholic eyes.
Her world had collapsed once.
She had nearly died at the hands of mysterious assailants, and Father—who had packaged himself as a great hero—was merely an ordinary man.
But that was none of Gak-yeon’s concern. Father was simply Father.
He didn’t need to be great, nor did he need to be someone worthy of admiration.
She understood that happiness meant walking hand in hand, sharing delicious food, and basking in sunlight together.
A daughter with deep affection for her father.
She was mature for her age.
She understood Father far too deeply to whine about it.
“So who the hell did this to me?”
Yet the anger had nowhere to go.
She was no Buddha. Though she practiced martial arts derived from Buddhism, enlightenment was hardly so simple—or she would have already transcended to Buddhahood.
She wanted to grind that bastard to dust and drink him.
The shock made those memories hazy and indistinct.
And with the mask covering his face, identification was impossible.
She felt she wouldn’t rest until she caught that bastard, beat him senseless, and chewed his liver to shreds.
‘So this is why hidden enemies in the Martial Arts World are so terrifying.’
Her chest felt suffocating.
‘I need some fresh air.’
Aimless, savage rage clawed at her. She felt compelled to do something.
The moment she stepped outside, she sensed many things.
Had her inner energy deepened and matured?
The various sounds of the Medical Hall flooded in all at once.
The sounds of treating patients. Voices pleading to be saved. The sound of medicinal broths being decocted.
It was a new world for Gak-yeon. Her chest felt heavy. She had lived, but someone here was dying.
The girl walked with her hands clasped behind her back for quite some time. Then, suddenly, she spotted a handsome boy of similar age in the distance.
It was Jin Cheon-hee.
There was no love at first sight or anything like that.
Romantic feelings between boys and girls were premature, and such emotions were meaningless to her at this moment.
It was simply the first time in her life that she had seen a boy her own age who was this handsome, so Wang Gak-yeon gazed at Jin Cheon-hee for a long while.
Jin Cheon-hee moved about so busily that he failed to notice Wang Gak-yeon’s gaze.
Wang Gak-yeon watched him from a distance and followed along.
While she observed, Jin Cheon-hee trained frantically and assisted with work at the Medical Hall.
Before saving someone, he always smiled brightly.
A smile that was almost irritating in its radiance.
As Wang Gak-yeon gazed at Jin Cheon-hee from afar, she spoke without thinking.
“I want to be friends.”
It wasn’t simply because she had seen such a handsome face for the first time.
Of course, that was a factor in her attraction, but this was something entirely different.
A child of similar age to herself, yet one who had learned things completely different from what she had.
A child so exceptional that her own father would willingly become his servant.
Suddenly, Wang Gak-yeon looked down at her own hands. They were wrapped in bandages.
‘How do you even make friends?’
She realized that in her entire life, she had never made a single friend.
It was only natural. Her days began with martial arts and ended with martial arts.
She had lived her life acting as a good daughter in front of her father, but in reality, she was nothing more than a lonely child pushing herself to the limit.
Always pretending to have friends.
Always pretending to enjoy herself even when her father wasn’t around.
As her thoughts reached this point, the girl began to lose her nerve.
‘I am….’
If her nature weren’t so deep, perhaps she would have found more courage.
The girl returned to her room.
* * *
Jin Cheon-hee finished his morning duties and moved on to his next task.
It was to look after Wang Gak-yeon.
Her father, Gungwi Wang Chae-baek, was already being worked to the bone by the mounting Medical Hall duties. Though he could have waited until his daughter recovered, Master Jegalling showed no mercy.
Meanwhile, Wang Gak-yeon spent her entire day alone, recovering her body and cultivating her spiritual energy.
‘It must be quite boring for her?’
For a young child, there could be no more tedious day than this.
Upon arriving at the room, Wang Gak-yeon was sitting on the bed.
He had already heard that she had taken a brief walk outside.
An awkward atmosphere flowed between the two children. She spoke with proper courtesy.
“Have you arrived, Benefactor?”
The thought of exchanging formalities with someone of similar age made everything seem dark.
“Please speak comfortably. Lady Wang.”
Lady Wang.
I also offered a respectful fist salute in return.
“….”
This felt awkward.
‘We’re both just children—wouldn’t it be fine to call each other casually?’
The awkward atmosphere was making my limbs twist uncomfortably.
Gak-yeon’s eyes rolled around.
“But you’re a great benefactor, so how could I….”
“I find it frustrating too.”
“….”
The awkwardness returned. The girl squeezed out the etiquette she had learned from adults.
She had been taught that one should politely decline three times before accepting anything offered by others—did this also require three refusals?
Should she count this as one or two?
How much should she uphold, and how much should she abandon?
Everything she had learned weighed down on Gak-yeon. I spoke first.
“What would you prefer, Lady Wang? For my sake, I’d be grateful if you could treat me more comfortably.”
Meanwhile, I grew curious about how this child would respond.
The Gongson sisters call me their older brother, and that Little Heavenly Demon calls me his senior. So how would Gak-yeon respond?
She hesitated for a long time, her hands clasped together.
The image of a mature, well-behaved daughter and the nature of an ordinary child were fiercely battling within her.
Gak-yeon spoke carefully.
“…What about… friends?”
She spoke with longing in her voice.
At those words, I looked up from taking her pulse and gazed at her.
Gak-yeon’s face had turned bright red.
The mature Gak-yeon screamed at the childish Gak-yeon for being crazy.
All thoughts of etiquette vanished completely.
Heat rose all the way to her ears.
I asked.
“Friends?”
“Yes, that… um… Father doesn’t know about this….”
She continued in a whisper.
“…It’s my dream to make a friend.”
She had pretended to her father that she had many friends. But in reality, it wasn’t easy for a child learning martial arts to make friends.
To study martial arts, one had to wake early in the morning and practice cultivation, and after cultivation came lessons in spiritual methods, footwork, swordplay—in her case, archery training.
Children from martial families could befriend other children from martial families and play together, but her father was Gungwi, who had lived as a solitary master in the Gangho.
Rather than interacting with other martial children, she had been busy hiding her identity.
Yet she was still human, and she wanted to make a friend.
A real peer—not an adult escort or adult attendant.
I thought about it.
‘Oh my, she must have been terribly lonely. This is… Gungwi’s fault.’
Perhaps it was an era where people assumed children would simply grow up on their own once born.
Still, among the patriarchs I’d seen in martial arts novels so far, Gungwi was reasonably decent.
She hadn’t dumped the child on her mother and wandered off chasing some grand cause.
Moreover, she earned well and raised her with a silver spoon, wanting for nothing. Yet from the perspective of a Korean doctor like me who’d witnessed countless morally corrupted heirs, this seemed insufficient.

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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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