Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 707

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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 707
‘Even if I implement another round of New Deal policies, I won’t be able to absorb everything.’
Everything has its limits.
That’s why I had to mix in different strategies.
‘The number of impoverished people is currently around thirty thousand. With a total population of about five hundred thousand, that means an unemployment rate of roughly 6%? Compared to Korea’s unemployment rate fluctuating between 3-4%, that’s 2% higher. Though this would still be considered low compared to other regions of the Hwa Empire…’
This martial world lacked proper statistics.
Because of that, I had to make rough estimates through what could be called ’empirical inference.’
Baekrin Prefecture had established a separate administrative position called Investigator, allowing for proper statistical records, but other regions did not.
Still, if I made rough estimates based on that ’empirical inference’…
‘The unemployment rate across the entire Hwa Empire might exceed 10%? It could even approach 15% or 20%.’
Why?
Otherwise, there couldn’t be so many mountain bandits and heterodox faction members.
One might think the unemployment rate should be lower since this world’s economy was fundamentally based on agriculture, but farming itself was impossible to start with bare hands.
People lost their farmland and property to floods and became vagrants, or became displaced due to epidemics, wars, or bandit raids. Even within cities, many fell into poverty after being victimized by heterodox faction members.
In this world where security wasn’t properly established, such occurrences were extremely common.
These people flocked to the cities, and that’s how slums were born.
‘Medieval Europe experienced prosperity until the 15th century, but afterward, as the overall economy deteriorated, unemployment reached its peak—that’s what historical research indicated.’
It was something from my world history reference book in high school.
‘To reduce Baekrin Prefecture’s unemployment rate to 0.5% and enforce public sanitation and healthcare while maintaining sustainable economic activity…’
Even as modern Korea had unemployment rates in the 3-4% range, I, Jin Cheon-hee, calmly entertained the insane idea of reducing Baekrin Prefecture’s unemployment to 0.5%, touring the slums before stepping outside.
Behind my back, a sticky gaze filled with greed lingered for a moment before vanishing, but I paid it no mind and continued walking.
‘Right. I need to start new businesses. Not just one, but two. First, the Jegalling Family’s dumpling inn! And then, creating an agricultural city on top of that!’
Agriculture is the great foundation of the realm.
Ha-wa-wa, I’m Jin Cheon-hee, a middle-aged surgeon who entered this other world.
‘Now that I’ve become Magistrate, I’d like to teach this world’s commercial techniques like those young Japanese people do these days!’ but that’s simply impossible.
There’s been no industrial revolution, and transportation hasn’t developed either, so naturally, governing the realm is fundamentally rooted in agriculture.
It’s not that people back then lacked intelligence. Rather, their insight, memory, and perseverance were superior.
After all, ancient Greeks measured the Earth’s circumference with just a wooden stick, and the foundations of calculus were laid in medieval India.
When constructing large buildings, arithmetic was naturally central, and scholars of mathematics would simply observe silently without using an abacus before writing down the answer.
Paper was expensive, so they skipped intermediate steps.
Seeing things like this sometimes makes me wonder if there’s a missing link between modern humanity and ancient humanity—if they’re perhaps a different race altogether.
That was it. In this era, agriculture was the best path and the foundation.
Without tractors or chemical fertilizers, agricultural output was fixed.
Commerce came second.
‘The dumpling inn ultimately has its foundation in agriculture too.’
My eyes gleamed a brilliant blue.
Rapidly thinking through various ideas and reorganizing them, I headed back toward the Medical Guild.
‘Originally, I started investigating this to highlight the Jegalling Family’s good image and also handle public welfare… but the scale keeps growing, doesn’t it? But that’s fine. I can do it.’
While others trained in martial arts, burning with distinctly martial ambitions like ‘I’ll become the strongest in Gangho!’ or harboring dreams of ‘My sect will become the mightiest faction in Gangho.’
I, Jin Cheon-hee, was contemplating how to forcibly carve welfare and sanitation into the Central Plains.
And when I returned to the Medical Guild in this manner.
The niece that Ga Jun-hwa had requested arrived.
A face I knew all too well.
It was Ga-won.
* * *
‘So it connects like this.’
Jegalling, Ga-won, and I, Jin Cheon-hee, were together in the room.
After exchanging brief greetings, I began by taking her pulse.
Her body was now indistinguishable from an ordinary person, and her skin was the same as anyone else’s.
Ga-won opened her mouth.
“These days, I’m undergoing formal successor training. And martial arts cultivation is included in the successor curriculum.”
“If it’s merely an outer disciple’s level, you could learn that anywhere.”
There was no need to visit a martial sect directly.
At that level, whether it’s a Sega seeking connections with the Imperial Eight Families or a heterodox faction, they would all come seeking her out to teach.
The Imperial Eight Families can even arrange tutoring against the Nine Sects and Eight Families, those as lofty as the heavens.
Whether it’s the Namgung Family, the Gongseon Family, the Wudang Sect, or the Shaolin Sect, you can simply send a disciple of matching generation and have them teach.
Ga-won shook her head.
“Of course, I understand that’s also an option. However, I wished to learn the martial arts of Baekrin Medical Guild.”
“…”
“I dare not hope for the secret techniques. But I do wish to receive the Hyeonwon Art that outer disciples receive, and if it’s new martial techniques and learning that aren’t from the Jegallim Family, I absolutely wish to obtain them.”
[This is quite an extraordinary opportunity.]
When Ga-won becomes the Gaju of the Ga Family in the future, Baekrin Medical Guild would become the master of the Imperial Eight Families.
No sect would refuse such an arrangement.
Looking at my Master, he wore an enigmatic smile.
Ga-won continued speaking.
“As you know, if my relationship with the main family deepens, there would be no loss for Baekrin Medical Guild and Baekrin Hyeon. If I become Jin Sogakju’s outer disciple, surely others will regard this place even more highly.”
At those words, I asked in return.
“Forgive my presumption, but… is there truly a need for it to be me? As you know, I cannot spare much time, and I apologize for that.”
That was the greatest problem.
Considering my daily schedule, taking on an outer disciple and teaching her would not be easy.
At those words, Ga-won nodded.
“I understand. But still… yes, I wish it to be you, Sogakju.”
That long time confined in darkness in the separate quarters.
The Doctor had left a mirror one last time, telling me to reach a conclusion now.
What thoughts had she harbored when receiving that mirror then?
Ga-won spoke.
“And I spoke first with Sama-hye, the acting Patriarch. She said she was in no position to teach martial arts to others and lacked such martial knowledge herself, so she recommended Eun Gong first.”
“…I see.”
Sama-hye and Ga-won are close.
If I was the first person by her side during her most difficult times, then Sama-hye was the second.
‘Can I really call Sama-hye my inner disciple?’
I’ve been teaching her martial arts sporadically, not just medicine.
Especially since becoming the Patriarch and staying at Baekrin Medical Guild, I’ve been giving her customized lessons on how not to get beaten up wherever she goes.
Ga-won spoke.
“Since Eun Gong protected me, I too wish to protect Eun Gong.”
At those words, Jegalling laughed as if amused.
“A mere Gaga would become a barrier protecting this Jegalling’s disciple?”
‘Oh no! Master. Merely a Gaga, you say!’
Only Master calls the Imperial Eight Families ‘mere’ anything.
I felt a chill run down my spine.
But Ga-won met his gaze firmly and spoke.
“No. I mean to become one of the pillars of the barrier that the Patriarch has already built.”
“Hmm.”
Master looked down at Ga-won and chuckled softly.
“One must not underestimate simply because one is young.”
Then Master continued.
“Even as an inner disciple, I will not teach easily. Are you prepared for that?”
This was a different tone than before.
Previously it had been testing a junior, but now it felt like establishing a business-like relationship.
Ga-won seemed to understand and answered respectfully.
“No matter how difficult, I will learn.”
“Then Ga-won, I shall accept you as an inner disciple of Baekrin Medical Guild.”
“Yes. Thank you for lowering yourself to teach me. I am grateful, Grand Master.”
Grand Master—the term for one’s master’s master.
At those words, Master also relaxed his tone.
“Very well. I shall regard you as my disciple’s disciple.”
Though Jegalling was smiling, I saw it.
A slightly complex expression flickering across his eyes as he looked at me and Ga-won.
‘My young disciple has now taken on an inner disciple, so it makes sense.’
Even if Hye-a came in as a doctor and somehow ended up receiving martial arts instruction, Ga-won had entered formally.
I myself had felt quite conflicted and wistful when the children under me one by one flew away with the title of Sang Ui-won.
‘Still, I’m not going anywhere away from Master.’
Was this growth, perhaps?
‘I should teach Ga-won just enough to protect herself, like Hye-a.’
Hye-a, who had rolled around in training and ended up vomiting what she’d eaten that morning, suddenly came to mind.
Protecting oneself in Gangho is not easy.
‘Come to think of it, Ga-won will be afraid of Master now. Or did she already fear him?’
Everyone in the Medical Guild fears Master.
Even the Sang Ui-won who joked with me about whether the Patriarch had dressed up, runs away the moment Master appears.
Besides, Master is someone who would overturn the Imperial Eight Families and all that if it displeases him.
‘That’s right. The Grand Tutor naturally carries an air of dignity. From a martial arts perspective, it’s perfectly acceptable.’
Besides, my Master has always been a difficult person to approach from the start. That’s just how it is.
‘When you really think about it, he’s quite sentimental.’
As Jin Cheon-hee pondered this, Ga-won was thinking something else entirely.
She needed to find Sama-hye soon and gossip about Jegalling behind his back.
Taking Eun Gong as her master had been a success, but no matter how she looked at it, the Grand Tutor seemed like a madman.
* * *
“Alright! Alright! Good! Stop right there! You there, Mr. Wang! If you keep slacking off like that, I’m cutting your monthly wages!”
A yellow-painted iron helmet.
And a green cross was drawn on it.
Safety first.
People called it a safety-first helmet. Only Ilgwang Jin Cheon-hee called it a hard hat.
Today too, he was shouting with enough qi projection to make a megaphone jealous.
By now, from all that constant shouting, his qi projection technique had reached a new realm.
His perfected qi projection began to distinguish between those who should hear and those who shouldn’t.
To those who needed to hear, it sounded like thunder, while to others it was barely louder than a mosquito—a wondrous ascension to a higher plane!
The Chilmakeum’s ascending martial technique.
Chilma Prosperity–!
Had the Gae Pa Josa of Chilmakeum witnessed this sight, he would have leaped from his grave in fury.
Regardless, Jin Cheon-hee was using it to direct construction work.
Beneath Jin Cheon-hee, over a thousand people were moving about, constructing buildings.
Where was this place?
And why was Jin Cheon-hee overseeing construction and civil engineering work?
To understand that, one needed to know what was currently happening in Gangho and at Baekrin Medical Guild.
‘On the surface, Gangho appears to be in perfect peace.’
Like Japan before the bubble burst, one might say?
In Jicheon Cheonma, corpses pile into mountains and blood flows like rivers—how could the Gangho economy possibly function properly?
If this were the Hyeolseonggyo world, they would collect all those bodies, turn them into zombies, make them till fields or provide labor, but since these are ordinary humans, when people die, the economy naturally collapses.
‘Conversely, the fact that currency maintains its value even amidst this bloodshed itself demonstrates Gangho’s tremendous potential.’
In nations embroiled in civil war, currency typically becomes worthless paper.
If asked whether you’d trade a stack of money for a potato, naturally you’d choose the potato.
The most valuable things are alcohol, tobacco, and medicine—these three.
When banks are closed, shops shut down constantly, hospitals don’t function properly, water is cut off, and electricity fails, nothing is more hollow than money.
Online banking? Don’t even dream of it.
Credit cards? How could that possibly work?
Interestingly, Gangho is in a sense a quasi-civil-war nation.
Individuals wield inner qi instead of firearms and constantly stab at each other while the authorities turn a blind eye, yet currency maintains its value.
In this novel region, people who should die don’t, and bloodshed that should occur doesn’t—so the economy is inflating like a bubble.
Naturally, Baekrin County, at the center of this bubble, is eating the prime real estate and growing very steadily.
‘Since I don’t know how long this boom will last, I’ll finish all the work in the meantime.’
I am neither an economist nor a prophet, so how could I possibly know what the future holds?
At least I know this peace will not last.
‘Everyone craves blood. They want to unleash the Eun-won and establish merit.’
My Master maintains this fragile peace by forcibly dividing the realm into head, heart, and belly.
The resentment among the Gangho already runs deep, and all of them yearn to display the martial arts they’ve cultivated throughout their lives.
‘How strange it is. People claim they learn the sword to protect others, yet it inevitably leads to taking lives.’

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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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