Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 473

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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 473
Only the two of us remained in the tent.
I spoke to Cheonwoo, who was watching me with concern.
“This helps a lot.”
“You mean depleting your inner energy to its limit and then rebuilding it?”
“Yes. It helps tremendously. In a way, the meridians are similar to muscles—it’s a process of repeated destruction and rapid recovery to strengthen them.”
Why did my eyes shine even in such circumstances?
If other martial artists had heard me speak such seemingly mad words, they would have told me to stop. Yet I spoke of it without hesitation.
“Of course, this requires a stable inner energy cultivation method. The inner energy in the dantian must not be demonic or heretical—it should be righteous. But if one possesses such prerequisites, then from childhood onward, one repeatedly depletes and recovers inner energy, tempering the eight extraordinary meridians through this cycle.”
Is this why I am so strong?
I am brutally powerful.
Save for Yeo Ha-ryun, the Cheon Sal-seong, one might wonder if anyone in Gangho history has reached such heights at this age.
Soon, I spoke again.
“Ah, my fingers are moving now.”
With that, I stripped off my green cotton robe once more.
It seemed I had prepared several identical garments, changing and washing them frequently.
“Hyeong, there’s a new scar on your shoulder.”
“Ah, this one?”
I glanced briefly at my own shoulder, then chuckled softly.
Then I changed into a fresh robe.
“I’m about to cultivate now. Will you stand guard for me?”
“You’ve been doing this without a guard until now?”
“Hwang-gu did it instead. But you’re here today, aren’t you?”
Without waiting for his response, I sat in lotus position and entered my cultivation.
My deep breathing echoed through the tent.
Inhaling, exhaling.
‘This isn’t a sacred mountain like Wudang, nor is it a place where formation arrays make gathering inner energy easy.’
It certainly wasn’t geomantically favorable either.
Places with good geomancy are typically claimed first by the wealthy.
Slums inevitably settle in the most inauspicious locations.
The qi here could neither be pure nor abundant.
‘At minimum, dawn would be necessary for proper cultivation.’
Yet I paid no mind to such concerns.
Only the rhythm of my breathing filled the silence.
Suddenly, I felt my hair stirring despite the absence of wind.
‘Could it be…?’
It would be fortunate if I were mistaken.
But if not, it meant I was growing strong enough to manifest formless qi during cultivation itself.
Cheonwoo observed the long scar running beneath my neck.
It was likely a wound sustained during the war.
His body was not eight feet tall like mine, nor was it packed with muscle.
What kind of fight was this man engaged in?
* * *
It took about half a double hour to fully recover my inner energy.
After that time passed, Jin Cheon-hee cracked open his eyes.
“This should do for now. Let’s eat. I’m hungry.”
As he said this, he began muttering one by one what he wanted to eat.
“These days I don’t have time to cook, so it’s tough.”
Then he went out and brought back several rice balls, handing them to Cheonwoo.
“The aroma is wonderful.”
“Yeah. I’ve made some improvements. These taste even better when grilled.”
With that, he used his vital flame to sear the surface of the rice balls with Sammaejinhwa until they were crispy.
“Right. If I brush chili oil on the surface, it tastes even better.”
By this point, I wondered if he was already halfway to actually cooking, but in any case, my hyeong grilled five rice balls and gave three to Cheonwoo.
“Since you’re so large, three might not even be enough.”
“I’ll eat well.”
The moment Cheonwoo swallowed a bite, his eyes widened.
Cheonwoo realized that hyeong was staring intently at him.
He didn’t know it, but this was clearly the heart of a shop owner testing a prototype.
“How is it? Delicious?”
“Hyeong… there’s braised pork belly inside the rice ball….”
“Killer, right?”
“Yes. It’s killer.”
“Ugh, you have no idea how hard I worked to seal in the juices.”
Jin Cheon-hee broke into a ruined smile of joy.
“Eat plenty and grow big.”
Though no martial robes fit him anymore, Jin Cheon-hee seemed satisfied just watching Cheonwoo grow.
“What will you do now, hyeong?”
“Hmm, I’ll probably stay here until the construction is completed.”
“You mean you’ll keep doing what I just saw every day?”
“Surprised, are you?”
Jin Cheon-hee said this and shoved two rice balls into his mouth.
Then he asked Cheonwoo.
“Want dessert? Before bed yesterday, I made pudding… no, no… I prepared and made it.”
“Hyeong… you really are.”
Cheonwoo sighed.
The man before his eyes had never entered the Dao, yet lived more like a hermit than anyone else.
His hyeong’s body, which I hadn’t seen in a long time, was covered in scars, and it pained me.
‘Where does this path he walks lead to in the end?’
Surely this man called Jin Cheon-hee had an ideal he was pursuing.
Cheonwoo felt like he could almost understand what that ideal was, yet he wondered if what he imagined might not be what his brother actually meant.
‘He’s far too pragmatic a person to dream of ideals.’
His brother set down the pudding—what his younger brother called Ye Jab-go—and began organizing the scattered documents on the table.
Bandages wrapped around the back of his hand where the tendons were prominent.
“Brother, how did you injure that?”
“Ah. It’s nothing serious.”
When Cheonwoo simply stared without responding, Jin Cheon-hee finally spoke.
“Some drunken fool tried to hit our grandmother because she wouldn’t give him alcohol. Grandmother has a fever and needs complete rest, you understand? But that bastard was desperate for a drink. He tried to drag her out by force, so I couldn’t help but strike him.”
“But that alone shouldn’t have—”
“Right, that alone wouldn’t cause this. The man got angry and knew there was alcohol in the tent, demanding I hand it over. He threw a tantrum trying to steal medical alcohol. I didn’t know how to handle someone without any martial training. I was even startled when my fist went out. Then the tent pole supporting the structure collapsed, and I rushed over to catch that heavy pole with my bare hands.”
The pole that had been supporting the tent came crashing down, and Jin Cheon-hee hurriedly ran to catch the heavy structure with his bare hands.
“The angle I grabbed it at wasn’t quite right.”
He had a feeling there was more to it than just that.
There was something his brother wasn’t telling him.
But that was surely not for his own sake, so Cheonwoo decided to respect his brother’s silence.
“…There are a lot of crazy people around here.”
“That’s why alcohol addiction is so terrifying. Once it reaches severe stages, people lose the ability to make rational choices. When they start fearing consciousness itself, that’s when they need hospitalization. But we don’t have that option here.”
“Um… I’d like to help my brother until Bae arrives. Is that alright?”
“You little brat, trying to sound so mature. Of course it’s fine. You’re strong and big, so I’ll work you hard. Remember that.”
“Yes!”
If he stayed by his brother’s side, he could at least reduce some of his brother’s burden.
* * *
“He poured boiling water on you?”
“Yes. He threw boiling water at our grandmother. The water was boiling for disinfection, and that madman—while the Patriarch was supporting the pole, he quickly used his inner strength to block it, but some splashed on his left arm.”
“You just left it at that?”
“He trampled him. The Patriarch isn’t one to stay still either. He was about to dislocate both arms and throw him out, but Grandmother wailed so much that a warrior ended up escorting him home gently. The Patriarch said if he shows remorse, they’d set his arms back, and if not, leave them as is.”
“That bastard must have been in pain.”
“Well, yes. Only then did he sober up and beg frantically, but… the Patriarch didn’t forgive him further. Though Grandmother kept crying, so it seemed the Patriarch’s resolve weakened a bit.”
“Brother is…”
“A bodhisattva. After treating his left hand, he returned to work immediately. Still, that man will never come here again. After what the Patriarch did to him, how could he possibly return?”
So that was the story his brother hadn’t told.
Cheonwoo nodded.
“If he were the type to break under such circumstances, he would have shattered long ago.”
“Actually, we’ve already collapsed many times, but the Patriarch just curses once and shakes it off. Honestly, we endure because we know there’s proper compensation for serving under the Patriarch.”
Now the doctors of Baekrin Medical Guild’s branch had become the finest physicians that every noble family wished to employ.
Each martial sect wanted to place them in their medical departments, and with proper effort, they could even receive recommendations for official positions.
However, to walk that path, one must be worn down countless times and hammered relentlessly, tempering one’s knowledge through the process.
That blacksmith was Patriarch Jin Cheon-hee.
Everyone knew that enduring this process was grueling.
“The Patriarch said something at that time.”
The middle-aged man mimicked Jin Cheon-hee’s tone of voice.
“You didn’t want to live so shamefully either, did you? Beating your grandmother and drinking yourself into misery—that’s not what you wanted, right? And then he just went crack—!”
This wasn’t the work of someone who’d practiced it once or twice.
“Without any inner energy, using pure strength alone to do that? With his burned left arm. Ugh…!”
Cheonwoo thought to himself.
‘Are these kids just clinging to him because they like him, not because of rewards later?’
Indeed, the middle-aged man’s eyes had grown strangely hazy, sparkling with the light of admiration.
“And then?”
When Cheonwoo played along, the middle-aged man became even more animated.
“So after sending that bastard away and treating his left hand and arm, he just clicked his tongue once, then said, ‘I’ll be frying chicken for dinner tonight!’ and immediately called out, ‘Next patient, come in!’ And we really did eat fried chicken for dinner.”
My older brother must be exhausted.
He doesn’t realize it himself, but whenever he feels mentally or physically drained, he always eats chicken.
It’s practically become a habit.
If eating chicken doesn’t restore him, he makes something spicy instead.
‘I wonder if his left arm is actually recovering.’
Cheonwoo knew from caring for his brother that his regenerative ability was unusually remarkable.
With something like boiling water, the bandages should have already been removed by the time Cheonwoo arrived.
Yet he was still keeping the bandages on, and his left arm seemed to be used cautiously.
Though among the brothers, Cheonwoo had the best eyesight and appearance.
‘I’m not sure if it’s just my imagination, but… his left arm seems particularly…’
Cheonwoo thought it through and made a decision.
“Could you send a letter to the Bota Clan?”
“Yes, of course. What should I write?”
“Just tell them that something has come up and we’re being delayed. That we’ll be delayed much longer than originally planned. Very much longer.”
“Understood.”
It seemed dangerous to leave my brother alone.
I’m not sure I have the right to call something dangerous when speaking of his monstrous inner energy and martial prowess, but still—he’s my older brother, so it’s only right that I help.

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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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