Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 650

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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 650
I saw a staircase.
People were descending the stairs in a single file line.
They seemed to be reciting some kind of prayer of praise, and among them were faces I recognized.
Villagers.
I spotted several people I had encountered during my investigations.
Even the innkeeper was there.
Most of the local residents had gathered together, chanting an incomprehensible prayer.
[Brother~ these aren’t ‘virtuous’ commoners or ‘ordinary’ commoners—they’re Hyeolseonggyo commoners~]
[They’ve gone far beyond mere passive complicity.]
I let out a sigh.
My brother’s hair settled softly.
‘That’s my brother for you. Even now, trying to see the good in people—a born doctor.’
What do eyes that cannot use the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong reflect?
Sama Hyeon spoke.
[There’s something I haven’t told you, brother.]
The nature of darkness.
The darkness that good people deduce based on experience and reason differs somewhat from true darkness.
Human malice surpasses any imagination.
I didn’t want to speak of such filthy things, but the situation left me no choice.
‘It’s truly strange. Normally, this would be the very place one should avoid most—a Hyeolseonggyo headquarters—yet why do the locals remain silent?’
The same applies to heterodox factions.
Pleasure quarters, gambling dens, opium houses.
Places that would clearly become dangerous if they existed, yet people avert their eyes.
It’s easier to blind oneself than to eliminate them.
[Mere passive complicity is the beginning of evil. In gratitude, the dark practitioners addict those complicit ones to drugs.]
[….]
[So you might think that by turning a blind eye, you remain neutral and uninvolved, but that’s not true. Passive complicity is deep involvement, brother. They can turn around and destroy you whenever they wish.]
[So by being complicit, I’m not considered one of them?]
At those words, Sama Hyeon laughed like a mask.
[One of them? That’s something only those with power do. The complicit are merely tools—kept alive because using them is better than killing them. But people are too naive to understand that~ Reality is far crueler than any opera.]
In operas, villains always appear in elaborate costumes and masks.
Someday the protagonist will defeat them, but until that moment comes, they appear powerful.
If one sided with them, wouldn’t they become, at least temporarily, a rung on this social ladder?
Humans think.
It wasn’t only martial artists. Commoners were the same.
All the people I had interrogated wore desperate expressions while chanting incomprehensible scriptures.
Sama Hyeon spoke.
[You see the potential in humans, don’t you? The good potential too. That’s because you’re a doctor. It’s why you don’t discriminate among patients.]
Sama Hyeon moved his body like a clown on the beam.
My sleeves billowed softly.
[As for me? I always see the worst-case scenario.]
[….]
[Welcome to my world~ brother~]
Jin Cheon-hee did not respond. He simply watched as all the commoners descended the stairs below.
Soon, Dan Seok-han appeared on the altar.
He chanted some incomprehensible incantation before scattering red elixir pills among the people.
“Waaaaah!”
“Me first! I’ll get mine first!”
The villagers rushed forward like demons, snatching up the red elixir pills.
Those blood-red objects resembled hawthorn berries.
Their fragrance was so sweet it reached even the two people clinging to the ceiling.
* * *
How much time had passed?
Sama Hyeon deliberately changed the subject.
[These bastards have guts though? We destroyed part of their formation array and they’re still pulling this off~]
[It wasn’t a full-scale assault. And that just shows how important this ritual is to them.]
One doesn’t perform such rituals whenever one pleases.
Even in Korea on Earth, ancestral rites are only held on the death anniversaries of the deceased or during Chuseok and Lunar New Year.
And New Year ancestral rites are typically performed on Lunar New Year’s Day.
I can’t just suddenly decide to invite my deceased grandmother and grandfather to the table whenever the mood strikes me.
Even ordinary ancestral rites follow set dates, let alone rituals like this.
These require the heavenly stems and atmospheric conditions to align, so if cancelled, no one knows when the next opportunity will come—thus they push forward.
‘It’s not for nothing that in martial arts novels, the demonic cult holds their ritual while capturing the heroine even as the protagonists attack. Ancestral rites aren’t easy affairs.’
Especially since the Jegallim Family studied the Eight Trigrams and the Book of Changes, I understood this better than most.
‘I can’t use the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong as I normally would, which is frustrating.’
Calculations I could normally perform easily became difficult in this state.
It felt like carrying heavy weights attached to my limbs.
Soon the ritual ended, and Dan Seok-han slipped away through the passage that opened to the north.
“Wahaha! My elixir! My eliiiiixir!”
“One more! This one’s mine!”
The villagers even came to blows over the suspicious elixir, but no one stopped them.
[At least there’s no blade work.]
[In a place like this, they need each other to survive~ it’s not easy to kill~]
Soon the residents chanted another strange prayer and dispersed.
[I don’t know what kind of ritual this is, but at least we didn’t see organ displays or blood.]
[Ooh~ brother. For that, conscience has to turn a blind eye quite a bit. Maybe next year or the year after? Right now they’re in the middle of self-hypnosis, thinking the Hyeolseonggyo people talk about and the actual Hyeolseonggyo are different.]
Then he laughs, thinking, ‘The heterodox factions keep kidnapping a person or two anyway, so they’re probably rationalizing it that way.’
[They’re gradually becoming stained.]
[Yes. That’s the process of human corruption~ dark path practitioners use that well. There’s no way Hyeolseonggyo wouldn’t know~]
[….]
Sama Hyeon parts her crimson lips, breaking into a grin.
[That’s right, brother. Humans can become anything. Everyone desires immortality and wealth, killing others for it~ If you knew how many commoners sell their own children to the salt fields, you’d be shocked~]
Sama Hyeon whispers temptingly.
In a way, it was also her subtle desire.
She understands how extraordinary my brother has become.
The grace he has bestowed fills her heart completely.
‘But brother is human. Made of flesh, bone, and blood.’
The Hyeolseonggyo are already half-inhuman, so that’s one thing.
But to treat all patients without judging their virtue or wickedness.
Baek Rin-ui-seon would never do such a thing.
Sama Hyeon couldn’t understand why my brother would do something so dangerous. And because of that….
‘If only I could fall back just one step with him.’
A standard too embarrassing to even call corruption.
She simply wanted him to treat at least the ordinary commoners.
“….”
However, this man does not answer. Nor does he employ the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong.
Instead, he rubs the corners of his eyes with a weary expression and says this.
[When this is over, I’ll need to fry a lot of chicken.]
In a calm yet exhausted voice.
He doesn’t even express disappointment in humanity.
He simply touches Sama Hyeon’s shoulder once in a comforting gesture.
Sama Hyeon’s eyes and Jin Cheon-hee’s eyes brush past each other.
An instant that feels like eternity.
Jin Cheon-hee follows Dan Seok-han inward.
His hair, pinned with a hairpin, ripples once before receding into the distance.
Sama Hyeon watches my brother’s back.
His unbowed neck merely gazes into the darkness and slips away.
Feeling how much stronger my brother has become.
At the same time, Sama Hyeon felt a strange sense of defeat.
* * *
‘Heterodox faction rituals are forbidden acts in the empire. In truth, it would be possible to reduce this place to ruins with just garrison soldiers.’
Jin Cheon-hee thought as he followed him.
‘But if I do that, it becomes impossible to eliminate all of them. The garrison soldiers aren’t fast enough.’
There was no way the people at Dan Gajang wouldn’t notice their movements.
Inevitably, all the core members of Dan Gajang would escape.
Moreover, when the garrison soldiers came and reduced this place to ruins, innocent commoners would naturally suffer harm as well.
‘…Damn it.’
The village natives had gathered here, but naturally not all of them.
Those absent from this place. And.
‘I don’t know the full extent of Hyeolseonggyo’s involvement, but these are the people who covered up the disappearances.’
Whenever a murder occurs on an island or in a remote village, this always becomes a problem.
Everyone in the village is somehow entangled in it.
Even those who could claim to have nothing whatsoever to do with the case.
Sama Hyeon’s words became poison that lodged itself in my chest.
But fortunately, it didn’t hurt. Isn’t a doctor supposed to treat gangsters when they come in as patients?
Earth’s medical ethics are quite firm on that point.
And there are cases where you have to treat a young child today whom you saw yesterday being riddled with machine gun fire… that’s what doctors do.
‘I’ll stop this immediately. And afterward, I’ll leave the authorities’ work to the authorities.’
Wasn’t that ultimately what the Gold & Silver Royals were hoping for?
That this (unofficial) younger brother would do what they couldn’t.
And that I would do what I could.
‘If you’re going to entrust me with something like this, at least assign me dozens of fellow disciples! You damned twins! Judging by how much you love freebies, I’m one hundred percent certain you’ll both be bald by the end of your lives!’
Jin Cheon-hee silently, yet intensely, cursed them with baldness.
And finally, a fork in the path appeared.
Jin Cheon-hee pulled out a compass, checked it, and closed it again.
[East and west, then.]
In the underground, a sense of direction is especially critical.
[I’ll head east. Hyeon-a, you go west.]
[Okay~]
At this point, it’s not even worth quibbling over such foreign words.
Sama Hyeon quickly disappears into the distance.
Watching his back fade away, I too hurried toward the east.
How much deeper did I go? Several rooms came into view ahead.
The first one.
I opened the door.
‘…!?’
My body froze at the sight before me.
A room without a single lock.
A room anyone could easily open, yet from the traces, it seemed the villagers hadn’t ventured this far.
In such a room, there was a flower garden.
Flowers bloomed abundantly, opening in full splendor.
The rich fragrance the flowers emitted was similar to the medicinal powder I had distributed to the villagers.
Each petal seemed alive and fresh. Not a single trace of insect damage was visible.
Beneath the crimson flower garden, what came into view were people.
Human corpses had become the seedbed.
‘Flowers being cultivated directly from corpses…?’
Not being a botanist, I couldn’t understand how such a thing was possible, but I could discern that decay was not progressing in the corpses—that much was clear.
There was no strange putrid stench, and there were no insects.
With trembling hands, I checked for a pulse.
‘…Thank goodness the corpse is truly dead.’
I exhaled a breath of relief.
The cadaver was so vividly preserved that for a moment, I had entertained a horrifying thought.
I steadied my nerves and collected several flowers as evidence.
Then I moved to the next chamber.
‘Mushrooms this time, it seems.’
The corpse had indeed been used as a bed for cultivation.
Fortunately, I checked the pulse—it was certainly dead.
At least it suffered no further torment, if that could be called a mercy.
I collected mushroom samples as evidence to send back to the authorities.
All the victims were stripped bare, leaving no identifying marks.
I considered collecting some hair strands, but then laughed bitterly—what use would it be in an era where DNA technology had never developed?
Instead, I gathered the scattered fragments of flesh that had fallen away.
Even the detached flesh remained perfectly preserved, untouched by decay. Only the blood was absent.
Within this strange madness, I rose to my feet with measured composure.

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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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