Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 531

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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 531
Crack—!
Lightning falls from the night sky, grazing past the forest’s inferno.
A blue flash races forward, striking a massive fir tree.
A tree that had lived for thousands of years could not withstand a single bolt of lightning, collapsing into the flames.
Boom.
Feeling the death throes vibrate beneath my feet, the cunning Jegalling whispered.
“You should not have trampled upon the seedling.”
“What?”
“Why did you do it? When my body had recovered and I was in seclusion, if you had simply left me alone, I would have lived pretending to forget. But… why did you…?”
“….”
“…Did you sell my disciple’s information to the Celestial Mechanism Wanderers?”
“How did you—?!”
“It was truly strange. How did information about my disciple who entered the Martial Arts Alliance reach the Celestial Mechanism Wanderers? Why were they following his every move so covertly, as if they knew his every action?”
“You insolent fool!”
“The grudges of Gangho are indeed tenacious. Were you afraid my disciple might learn of your enmity and seek revenge in Gangho? You called it murder through a borrowed blade—so I shall answer. Did you think Jegalling would not notice that the Elderly Cheongseong attempted to orchestrate murder through a borrowed blade first?”
In that moment, Cheonggeon Jinyin drew his sword toward Jegalling.
That form was surely the secret martial art of the Cheongseong School.
The Lightning-Piercing Absolute Light Sword!
Jang Mun-in’s blade, which carried sword force, could truly be called absolute.
Now, scraping together nearly all the inner energy he had left, he was prepared to draw upon his innate true qi, aiming at Jegalling.
However.
Clang!
Where Jegalling had surely been standing, there was only a burning tree.
“Ah, Cheonggeon Jinyin. It seems you are unfamiliar with mirages. When a forest is covered by such inferno, the heat causes images to refract. Apply that principle slightly to a formation technique, and it becomes such an amusing game, does it not?”
“Come and fight!”
“How could I do such a thing? If even one of my blades were to touch the Jinyin, the Cheongseong School would surely know. Is that not what you desire? For your disciples to exact revenge upon Jegalling?”
“You wretch, how dare you! You insolent fool!”
What burns is the forest.
Or is it the heart demon?
Only Jegalling’s mocking laughter echoed through the inferno.
Jegalling spoke.
“Very well then, wait for me first in hell. Jegalling shall follow slowly. I shall simply leave the Cheongseong School’s master to be remembered as one who obtained the elixir of immortality, only to be consumed by the inferno.”
“Fight! And you call yourself a warrior!”
The silver monster of the Jegallga Family merely laughed.
It was his disciple who had taught him how to live in ways other than as a warrior.
Just as Jegalling taught his disciple how to live as a man of Gangho, his disciple in turn taught him how ordinary commoners lived.
Of course, his disciple had not taught him to commit such a perfect crime in this manner.
“A burning mountain is quite the spectacle. Fire techniques are efficient, and they erase evidence quite well.”
“I have heard it said that the ancestors of the Jegallim Family were quite skilled in fire techniques.”
Yoo Ho appeared behind Jegalling.
“Indeed. The Battle of Red Cliffs still stirs the hearts of men, does it not? A thousand years hence, two thousand years hence, people will remember that tale.”
Whenever Jin Cheon-hee spoke of his ancestors, he would clap his hands and exclaim, “Truly, what a world of the Chronicles!”
My disciple remained incomprehensible, yet that very incomprehensibility endeared him to me all the more.
“From childhood, I wished daily for death. Yet when it came to taking my own life, pride would not permit it. I thought of how delighted those wretches would be if I ended myself. Even that was beyond my reach.”
Am I a being worthy of living?
Hatred lingers as resentment, and resentment, heavier than stone, drags a person down.
That disciple of mine knew not his own worth.
He did not know whom he had lifted up, to whom he had given the will to live.
He said to fight, that he would not grant a graceful death.
That even if the end was not beautiful, even if it was not noble, we should fight.
He took the most radiant thing in the world and bestowed it, then departed saying for all to be happy and live well.
Such unfilial impiety was Jin Cheon-hee.
Anyone who dared touch such a disciple would be….
“The garbage burns quite well. Shall we return then?”
“As you command.”
Thus two afterimages scattered and vanished.
This was when Jin Cheon-hee exchanged his final farewell with Seolgyeon.
* * *
“Ah, I see. Once one masters both contour lines and charts, administrative efficiency will certainly improve.”
The junior official nodded, his eyes gleaming.
Those eyes burned with the scholarly fervor of a fledgling chick.
After witnessing the senior officials who initially refused, all reassigned to construction work, hauling materials themselves and digging earth to understand how the site operated,
upon realizing they too might end up holding maps in the blazing sun constructing official residences, their scholarly passion burned all the brighter.
Yet even if the seniors had advanced to positions overseeing laborers, it could not compare to leisurely tapping an abacus and sipping tea in a cool indoor office.
Most who came here had rarely lifted anything heavier than a brush in their entire lives.
Contemplating such poor physical specimens toiling thus, scholarly ambition naturally kindled within them.
The White-Eyed Divine Doctor, the Hundred-Radiance Divine Doctor, or perhaps So Ui-seon, Ilgwang.
It had been two months since he became the acting magistrate of Baek Rin County.
In that time, Baek Rin County had been transforming at a terrifying pace.
“What do you think will happen when administrative efficiency improves, newcomer?”
“Ah… we could finish work faster, sir.”
“And when work finishes faster, what then?”
“…Dismissal?”
“You understand nothing. New work arrives.”
“…And after completing that new work?”
“More new work comes in.”
The junior official’s face began turning pale.
He was beginning to understand how Baek Rin County truly operated.
“Now that you’ve mastered contour lines and charts, next comes the measurement method.”
“What… what is that?”
Clack—
What the Senior placed before me was an iron ruler.
Engraved upon it were these characters.
One Jang (尺).
“In Baek Rin County, they’ve manufactured standardized rulers and distributed them throughout. Measuring tapes and folding rulers. The priority is ensuring the entire county conforms to these uniform specifications.”
In the Newcomer’s eyes, a look slowly surfaced: ‘What in the world is Ilgwang doing?’
The fact that those words didn’t escape his lips meant his reason was still functioning, and it was before he’d truly begun to overwork himself.
“One Chi, one Cheok, one Jang. He said unifying these measurements is the priority.”
“Why go to such lengths?”
“Even at the same fabric shop, the length of one Cheok depends on the merchant’s hand size. This causes inconsistencies when paying taxes in kind, and when ordering beams of the same length from carpenters, they come out different—he said that’s inefficient.”
“We’ve managed fine all this time without such things, haven’t we?”
“True. Yet he ordered it done.”
That’s how people are.
Once you lack something you had, you feel the inconvenience. But if you never had it from the start, you simply live without it.
“By the way, this is mandatory. He said anyone who tries to estimate one Cheok with their own hand should start learning from scratch—and he’s reassigned them to civil engineering. There, they’ll be forced to learn measurements whether they like it or not.”
Learning through the body.
“He said that if someone who’s come this far and received this salary can’t do this, they’re not stupid—they’re just stubborn.”
“But why… why push so hard when things are already working well?”
“Once it settles in properly, things become… somewhat more convenient.”
Just a bit more convenient, and he does all this?
To the Newcomer, this made no sense whatsoever.
“If you don’t like it… perhaps…”
The veteran official, as if he’d been waiting for this, casually pulled out a new shovel from the corner.
“No, no! It’s truly remarkable! Remarkable! Remarkable… that… concept!”
“Yes. Indeed it is.”
The veteran replied thus and put the shovel away again.
Written on the shovel were these words:
[Civil Engineering Always Needs You.]
“For your health, refusing too stubbornly isn’t good either. After a stint there, even a body that was always sickly becomes perfectly healthy. He feeds you well, works you well, and feeds you well again.”
Ilgwang’s snacks were famous even among newcomers from distant places.
He was the god of snacks and the king of refreshment stalls.
‘Why does a man who’s one of the ten greatest masters under heaven and also a Doctor live like this?’
The Senior continued speaking.
“If anything seems even slightly off, he appears like a ghost, takes your pulse, and treats you so you can work immediately. No need to worry.”
I see.
So it was only the officials’ sanity that was being worn away.
Was it true he was forcibly extending the lifespans of those whose profession was sitting at desks?
“I can do it! Don’t worry! I’m perfectly satisfied with this measurement method!”
“Good, good. Now that I think about it, I heard your parents are merchants, so you’re quite skilled at arithmetic. That’s why you were called as an official.”
“Yes!”
An abacus descended before the newcomer.
“Now that the measurements have been standardized, we’ve re-surveyed the land dimensions as well. What you need to do is recalculate the taxes based on the land sizes written here.”
Thud!
Bamboo slips were stacked like a mountain before the newcomer.
“Since the seniors measured and recorded it themselves, it shouldn’t be too difficult. You just need to do addition.”
Is this work?
Is this the actual volume of work?
The senior spoke without concern.
“Ah, it’s all written in tables so it’s easy to see at a glance. Since you seem to have mastered all the tables, you should be able to handle this just fine, right?”
No matter how efficient the work process is, when the workload is this massive, what does it matter?
Is this the heart of a ruthless farm owner who makes the ox plow until it collapses, squeezing out just a bit more work?
“Once you finish all that, there should also be a ledger of tax payment records. You’ll need to refund those who overpaid and demand more from those who underpaid.”
Kuwoooooooong—
An echo rings from afar.
A sound of extreme agony, as if expressing my own feelings.
It was the sound of Ilgwang pushing the mountain.
The senior spoke calmly.
“The Magistrate is starting again.”
Then he gently patted the newcomer’s shoulder.
“The training period is always the sweetest time, isn’t it? Those good days are all over now. Hehehehe.”
“….”
“If it gets too tough, go out with the mindset of paying with your body—refreshingly so.”
Saying that, he finally set the shovel down on the desk.
[Public works always needs you.]
It was Ilgwang’s words.
“Oh, don’t forget to wash your hands with soap.”
* * *
Phew, a total of thirty oxen and three Hyeon-seungs.
Gathering them and educating them step by step, I feel about 3% better than Excel, somehow.
Most importantly, Excel can’t do public works, right? These can.
That’s what matters.
‘So this is power.’
Wandering through Gangho, I no longer need to sweet-talk saying, “Hey friend, look at this. This is soap. To keep our friend from catching various diseases like colds, you must wash your hands with this every day. Plus, if you’re clean, you’ll be popular with the opposite sex.”
‘Our friend doesn’t like soap? Oh, I’m busy, so why don’t you talk to this Hyeon-seung? You don’t like talking either? Fine then. I’ll send public works. Our Hyeon-seung failed to persuade you.’ I can say this—isn’t this truly a doctor’s paradise?
Forced sanitation is possible.

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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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