Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 530
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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 530
Annihilation of the clan.
The seolleongtang tastes bitter for some reason. I’ve been simmering bone broth diligently since last night.
She continued speaking.
“The remaining three have also lost half their strength. I still don’t understand why it’s come to this.”
“You’ve come to ask if I know anything about it.”
“That’s right.”
….
A blue light shimmers in my eyes.
However, no matter how much I think about it, I know nothing.
Rather.
“Is there any reason I should know about this?”
“Why would you think that, little one?”
“You came without needing any discussion as a strategist, so I wondered if you’d caught onto some thread connected to me.”
At those words, Seolgyeon flinched.
‘This brat has sharp instincts.’
But it seemed Jegalling had made no mention of anything to his disciple.
Above all, while there was circumstantial evidence that Jegalling was involved, there was no physical evidence.
For Gangho to function as an orthodox faction, didn’t it require at least physical evidence—whether proof or witnesses?
Seolgyeon felt oddly about watching those who had pressured their clan to distance themselves from Jegalling gradually fade away in the midst of the blood conflict.
‘But they also have no evidence of Jegalling’s direct involvement.’
It started with a delivery mistake at Baekrin Uiseon.
However, even though it was a mistake, couldn’t the blood faction’s power have handled it sufficiently?
If I were to blame Jegalling for just that, I’d have to retract what was said during the Hyeolrin Gwangssal incident, which becomes awkward again.
“I just wondered if you, being a doctor, had discovered something through medical channels.”
“I don’t have the capacity to worry about that. It would be different if Chief Manager Yu were by my side.”
Ugh, such a good kid. Good and insane.
While you’re performing benevolent governance born of madness here, your Master is dancing a blade dance of blood.
These words rose to the tip of my throat, but Seolgyeon held back.
After all, there was nothing good about touching that bastard Jegalling’s true feelings.
“Anyway, I’m leaving! It was worth getting to eat something this delicious!”
“That’s good. Next time I’ll feed you something different.”
‘So good, too good.’
Seolgyeon thought this while brushing my hair once, then departed with the beggars.
Meanwhile, after Seolgyeon left, my eyes still showed no sign of returning to their original color.
‘There was no such development in the original story?’
Didn’t the blood faction increase its forces and oppose Yeo Ha-ryun later on?
Is this also a kind of butterfly effect?
* * *
At the same time.
A mouse darted through the forest.
A rabbit leaped over it. The wolf ran without any thought of catching either the mouse or the rabbit.
A deer bolted away.
Finally, even the great tiger known as the Mountain Lord burst forth from the forest.
A crimson flame demon spread refreshingly through the dry air, dispersing in all directions.
Riding the flame demon, the night sky itself turned scarlet as it spread outward in every direction.
Finally, it raced onward, consuming even the corpses of martial artists.
Caw—caw!
Now all that remained in this forest were crows, warriors, warriors, and more warriors.
Five martial artists emerged from the burning forest with exhausted expressions.
All of them wore martial robes, and the emblems inscribed upon them were unmistakably those of the Cheongseong Sect.
Two were elderly men of Elder rank, while three were middle-aged swordsmen.
The old man spoke.
“Hurry! The flame demon spreads toward us. I don’t know who set this fire, but at this rate, we’ll be trapped!”
“Yes, Sect Leader!”
So the elderly man of the Cheongseong Sect was none other than the Sect Leader himself.
How could a figure of such standing as a Sect Leader have ventured out from his sect and now find himself wandering through this burning forest?
“We’ve finally obtained the Spirit Medicine, but this flame demon is troublesome.”
Indeed.
The struggle over the Spirit Medicine of the Blood Department Sect.
The current final victor was the Cheongseong Sect.
The elderly hermit commanding them was Cheonggeon Jinyin, the Sect Leader of the Cheongseong Sect.
Cheonggeon Jinyin exhaled heavily and opened his mouth.
“To make matters worse, a formation is even set in place. Follow the mouse.”
“Pardon? A mouse?”
“Yes. The more a creature clings to the earth, the less it is deceived by illusions and the more it advances in the correct direction. Therefore, a mouse is most suitable.”
“Sect Leader, how did you ever come to know such a thing?”
“Remarkable! Everyone, find the mouse! We shall follow in the direction the mice move!”
Cheonggeon Jinyin himself could not remember where he had heard this.
Yet it had saved his life many times over.
-Yes. One need only find the mouse. Though it be but a small creature, its will to live surpasses that of humans, so if you wish to escape, you must follow it. Cheonggeon Jinyin.
Ah, yes. That child.
Baek Rin-ui-seon in his youth.
Before his family was destroyed, that child was somewhat more clever than ordinary children, somewhat more aloof, and somewhat more pretentious.
From that age, he toyed with adults, and many disliked him for it.
Yet all overlooked it.
After all, this child had been prepared for death from birth, and from the age of seven, he had to live contemplating what he wished to do before death came.
A child destined to die soon spoke his knowledge to various renowned figures before that end.
At the time, I thought he was an arrogant brat pretending to be superior like other renowned figures, but now I wonder if it was his own form of expression.
Did he not hope that after his death, at least his knowledge would remain and drift among people?
‘Why do I keep thinking of that child?’
Whoooosh—
The wind blows. The flames ride upon it, spreading.
Along with the smell of burning wood came the scent of gunpowder and oil.
Someone had definitely set this fire deliberately.
Moreover, they had calculated the spread of the inferno, predicted the wind’s direction, and even planned the final strategy.
Who? Why?
And how did they know that Cheongseong Sect would be the ultimate victor?
“Hurry!”
But no one answered his call.
Where had everyone gone?
Looking around, all I saw was the scorched forest, and… a dead mouse lying at his feet.
“Where are you rushing off to in such haste, Cheonggeon Jinyin?”
Snap—
As a fan unfolded, long silver hair became visible between the flames.
A massive man towering over eight feet tall.
One who preferred the robes of a scholar or scholar-official over martial garb.
He walked through this scorched forest as if merely taking a stroll.
“You… you! Hyeolrin Gwangssal! Could it be…?!”
“Heh, I wonder why everyone assumes I’m a villain the moment they see my face.”
“It’s hardly common for someone to walk through this inferno and breach the formation!”
“A fair point. However, I merely walked this long distance to offer my congratulations upon hearing the rumor that you’ve obtained the elixir I created. Or perhaps you have evidence that I’m a villain?”
-Do you have evidence? Young Jegal! I asked if you had evidence that I sent poison to your mother and had your nursemaid kidnapped.
“Or perhaps… you have some witness? I’m curious whether they survived.”
-You heard a voice? Listen here. This young Jegal has lost his mind and dares to insult the great Cheongseong Sect! Without witness or evidence, how dare you slander us! That witness who died yesterday—surely young Jegal killed them himself!
The words Cheonggeon Jinyin had spoken to young Jegal decades ago now flowed calmly from the lips of the aged Jegal.
“Fool! You orchestrated the assassination to destroy Cheongseong Sect, and you think I wouldn’t know?!”
“How harsh. Even if the Jang Mun-in and the Elders pass away, Cheongseong Sect still remains, does it not?”
-The Jegallim Family was annihilated? What nonsense is this? Were you not the heir of the Jegallim Family? Do not the children of Jegal memorize all the family’s secret techniques before reaching ten years of age? Why should our Cheongseong Sect take responsibility for that?
Cheonggeon Jinyin lifted his eyes.
The young beast before him had now grown into a mature beast, and was even smiling.
Cheonggeon Jinyin was not one to overlook how rarely this man smiled.
“Why do you settle the old grudges of your family only now?”
“…”
“I know your father used you—a boy destined to die soon—to master forbidden techniques. Your mother knew this too, yet she only sought good medicine for you instead of stopping your father.”
“…”
“Because your family was like that, because it was such a family, I thought you had abandoned the grudge. Your family was torn apart, and you thrashed about in desperation, yet you still stopped at some point. I believed it was because of your conflicted feelings toward the previous Jegal Gaju. Am I wrong?”
“…”
Jegalling merely gazed with a faint smile.
“I asked if I was wrong!”
The Cheonggeon Jinyin’s voice, filled with malice, echoed through the forest.
However, the tremendous roar of trees and wind created by the Fire Demon swallowed such a voice entirely, allowing nothing to escape.
Soon after, Jegalling opened his mouth.
“That’s correct. My father used me as a child for his own purposes. He used my body as an experimental vessel to master the mysteries of divine martial arts. Since I was merely a child destined to die soon anyway, he deemed it wise that I become fertilizer for the family’s prosperity.”
To the young Jegalling, he said that since a long life was not meant to be, I should contemplate how to live.
At that moment, the young Jegalling understood the meaning behind those words—what the Gaju and my own father desired.
The child resolved to burn his brief life for the family’s sake.
There was no other path he knew.
My father experimented with the secret techniques one by one against his son, who possessed the same type of true energy, to perfect the Jegallim Family’s divine martial arts.
Even if demonic possession came during cultivation, it was a short life anyway.
My father could simply reinterpret the techniques, avoiding the path where he had perished.
Pain wore away innocence, made one forget hope.
And once all that shone brightly was lost one by one, the landscape that remained was only black and white.
“Then….”
“But. Even so, that judgment should have been mine to make, not yours. Elderly Cheongseong.”
“…!”
“Furthermore, my mother was powerless, yet she obsessively sought medicine to ease my suffering even slightly, and my nursemaid was merely innocent. The other Jegal Family members suffered from my arrogant nature while foolishly believing it stemmed from pain.”
There were good people. Because of them, I mourned their memory.
I still remember the warmth of my mother’s touch.
I understand that she had few choices available to her.
When I think of my father, a great void opens in my chest, leaving me hollow.
It should have been that I died and my father reinterpreted the divine arts, leading to the family’s revival.
Why did only I survive alone, while the family…
After that, the child who possessed genius and uncommon sensibility became even more twisted.
Even now, Jegalling does not know the full picture of the Jegallim Family’s annihilation.
Time flowed like grains of sand, and by the time the boy became a young man, most evidence and witnesses had already vanished.
Those days when I ran forward blindly, tracing only the fragmented threads of debt.
Has the incense fallen from the altar?
Has the incense to burn run out?
What has been lost—people? Heart?
Longing?
“Didn’t we agree to stop repaying the debt?”
“Yes. We did, Elderly Cheongseong.”
“Then why…?”
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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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