Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 834
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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 834
At my words, the medical staff of the Acupuncture Guild snapped to attention.
‘Right, I need to focus.’
The medical staff suppressed their racing hearts and began assisting me.
I swiftly purified all the impurities from the Conception and Governing Vessels, expelling them through the sweat glands at the acupoint.
“But you know what, Hyeon-a? I still don’t understand the exact principle behind this. What exactly is qi? Why is this even possible?”
“We were taught from the beginning that humans can’t know that, brother. Isn’t it the same for every sect~?”
“That’s true. They teach us how to accumulate qi in the dantian, but no one actually teaches what qi truly is. Even Gae Pa Josa doesn’t know…”
“Even Bodhidharma, who supposedly achieved enlightenment at Shaolin Temple, wouldn’t know, brother?”
“That’s right. If it had been clarified, humanity would be living far more prosperously than now.”
The perspective was somehow strange.
That’s what the doctors thought.
Soon I retrieved a semi-immortal pill and placed it in the elderly man’s mouth.
“Semi-immortal pill administered.”
Immortal pills don’t need to be chewed.
Simply by infusing my inner force, the substance transforms into qi and permeates the body.
‘Still, I don’t understand the principle. How does an immortal pill become this mysterious substance called qi just from infusing inner force?’
I grumbled while manipulating the energy of the semi-immortal pill.
“I’ll use the Bone-Setting Great Method, but I won’t use large immortal pills.”
“Oh, you’re reducing the treatment fee?”
“It will be reduced somewhat. But in this case, it’s better to use semi-immortal pills in small amounts and exhaust myself a bit rather than use three large immortal pills.”
“So more immortal pills aren’t always better.”
“What are you talking about? More is always better. But pouring three immortal pills into a body that hasn’t cultivated martial arts only invites the danger of qi deviation. It might work for a young child, but given his age…”
This too was a peculiar perspective.
Uuuung—
The moment I infused my qi, the semi-immortal pill responded, pouring vitality fiercely into the elderly man’s emaciated body.
Waste matter flowed from his body just as before.
And simultaneously.
Crack!
The sound of bones twisting came continuously, very faintly.
Normally this would seem like qi deviation, but my reaction and the medical staff’s reaction remained calm.
‘What are you doing?’
If this wasn’t qi deviation…
“Bone Replacement and Flesh Shedding?”
“No. It’s similar, but slightly different. The physical body is beginning to find harmony through the power of the Bone-Setting Great Acupuncture Method.”
It seemed like Bone Replacement and Flesh Shedding to me, but looking at the expressions of my brother and the other medical staff, it appeared to be something different.
Soon the cracking sounds ceased.
It felt like something more should have progressed, but it stopped midway.
“This is…?”
I answered calmly with blue eyes.
“With semi-immortal medicine alone, the true qi will be insufficient.”
“But didn’t you say that would be enough for him?”
I neither affirmed nor denied that statement.
I simply picked up the acupuncture needle.
“What this person has cultivated throughout his life is the Taiji true qi of Taiji Gongong. It differs slightly from my Five Elements Divine Art, but… ultimately, the Five Elements can be interpreted through Taiji. Mutual generation and mutual restraint are fundamentally the same. So that means… there is a method.”
At that moment, my acupuncture needle pierced the Baihui point.
Uuuung—
At that instant, the Baihui point temporarily opened, and the secrets of heaven and earth began to circulate and exchange.
Uduk! Ududduk!
With this single touch, the halted process resumed.
Even the Acupuncture Guild’s medical staff stared at me with astonished eyes.
‘How is such harmony even possible….’
‘He forcibly opened the Baihui point to enable what had stopped when the bones and muscles were aligned.’
‘Did he meticulously calculate what martial arts the patient had cultivated, then use the Five Elements Divine Art to pry it open? Isn’t this a realm even the Acupuncture Guild Master cannot reach!’
Bones moved within the body as the skeletal structure began realigning.
Everyone fell silent at this miraculous transformation, simply marveling in awe.
As the qi was refined and consumed, the bones and muscles visibly grew slightly more.
Vitality began returning to the wrinkled face, and the body appeared somewhat younger than before.
“Rejuvenation? Could it be that bone replacement and flesh shedding with half-life restoration actually occurred?”
At Sama Hyeon’s words, I chuckled softly.
“No. If that happened, everyone would achieve immortality. This is merely the effect of the body’s harmony being restored. It’s just becoming slightly younger than usual.”
“Because we used semi-immortal medicine instead of true immortal medicine?”
Watching Sama Hyeon’s eyes roll, he seemed to be contemplating whether to use three true immortal medicines instead to achieve rejuvenation and make Hye-a his peach wine slave.
I chuckled softly.
“No. True immortal medicine isn’t necessary. This is simply the limit. Everything requires the heart, qi, and body to work together. The patient isn’t some Gangho warrior who’s spent his life wielding a sword. This alone is already fortunate enough.”
After saying this, I asked the doctors to handle the finishing touches and stepped outside.
‘Hah, the Bone Replacement Great Method… it really does consume a lot of stamina.’
Outside, Cheonwoo was waiting.
“Hyeong.”
“Yeah. I’ve done everything I can. It went well.”
Saying this, I briefly explained the Bone Replacement Great Method the elderly man had received.
That while not quite bone replacement and flesh shedding, his body had been perfected through the Bone Replacement Great Method.
Hearing this, Cheonwoo gasped in amazement.
“As expected of the Jegallim Family. Even if it’s not true bone replacement and flesh shedding, something similar… bone replacement and flesh shedding is possible. How is that even possible?”
I want to tell him to ask Gae Pa Josa like he did with Jjap Sammae Jinhwa and Jjap Dapseol Muhun, but this was created by my Master.
And the Bone Replacement Great Method succeeded beyond my initial expectations.
In a way, this much might only have been possible because heavenly fortune was on our side.
I watched Cheonwoo’s eyes brighten.
He seemed to be recalling when I treated him in the past.
“I’ll rest for a bit.”
He spoke those words and entered the room.
He heard his younger sisters calling out to him, but he didn’t even turn back.
He was simply too exhausted, utterly drained.
‘Saving lives is far more difficult than taking them.’
The world was truly unfair.
A handful of inner energy could kill commoners, yet to save those same commoners required knowledge and inner strength even at his level—and it still felt insufficient.
‘Now all that remains is the patient’s own enlightenment.’
Even as he thought this, he realized it was a field entirely different from destruction.
Still, he had done everything within his power.
This was something no doctor could accomplish alone.
* * *
“Hehehehe….”
The elderly man gazed down at his own hands with dry eyes.
It had been several days since he received the Revised Golden Needle Acupuncture Method from Baekrin Medical Guild.
-Ou, your progress is excellent. You may begin martial training now! For the next week, feel free to exert yourself—move about vigorously. Eat plenty. And you must drink at least one full bucket of water. Even if it’s difficult, keep drinking.
He had emphasized those words, stressing that now was the time to train diligently, especially since the revised method had succeeded so completely—this was when the benefits would truly take root.
Before the elderly man regained his strength, he needed to eat well during such times, and so the doctor had prepared an enormous amount of food for him.
Upon tasting it, it was truly a delicacy without equal in all the world.
It was a flavor he would never forget in his lifetime.
‘How strange he is. That doctor, I mean.’
His words and actions were so peculiar that one might wonder what sort of person he was, yet his eyes possessed such a clear, crystalline blue light that they seemed to reflect one’s very soul.
The elderly man was not one to squander the kindness bestowed upon him by such a person.
He rose before dawn and began martial training once more, something he had done for decades.
‘Last time it was so difficult… I wonder how it will be now.’
Perhaps because he had already tasted reality.
When he actually tried to begin again, fear seized him.
But the moment he saw his grandson’s thousand diapers hanging in the courtyard, strength surged through him unbidden.
Love was truly a strange thing.
The instant he decided he must do something, his hands moved of their own accord.
Those movements he thought he had forgotten long ago moved as if following a path, remembering themselves.
And incredibly, vital energy surged powerfully through his entire body.
An elderly man’s body was like a house—the older it became, the noisier it grew.
Rotted wood creaked with each step, and warped door frames whistled like coughing whenever the wind blew.
Nothing was as loud as an elderly man’s body.
Yet strangely, today it was quiet.
“Hehehehe….”
He laughed, unable to believe it.
Joints that groaned with the slightest movement, muscles that trembled uncontrollably—why did they now follow him without complaint?
For the first time in decades, the elderly man felt the stillness within his own body.
‘So this is youth. Yes. I had forgotten. Before losing it, I never once thought it precious.’
Having completed all twenty-four forms of Taiji Quan and finished the Grand Circulation, Jeong Gajangju now stared down at his own hands in disbelief.
Energy flowed through him, and his fingertips tingled with vitality.
The elderly man closed both eyes, grasped the initial posture of Taiji Quan, and opened his mouth.
“I am grateful.”
It was gratitude toward a doctor.
And gratitude for this miraculous connection met in the twilight of his years.
Was this the world of masters?
Why had he not received such a transformative teaching in his youth?
Was it because he lacked money? Or because Baekrin Uiseon did not exist back then?
Why did I squander decades of my life?
Not a single bitter thought arose within him.
He was grateful for this opportunity, however late it came.
He was grateful that he could now care for his young great-grandson.
With this mindset, the elderly man slowly began Taiji Quan anew.
Yet.
It was slower than the form he had just completed.
What normally took a quarter of an hour became even more deliberate.
As if frozen in time.
But clouds appear motionless while ceaselessly moving, do they not?
The same was true of the elderly man’s Taiji.
With each inhalation, his hands extended; with each exhalation, his feet pressed into the earth.
Drawing the Taiji symbol, his breathing became one with his body.
Simultaneously, the elderly man achieved a state of perfect unity—subject and object as one—for the first time in decades.
I am grateful.
Taiji.
Destiny.
And life itself.
Ah, so this is it. The cycle of life. The principle of the world. My existence.
This is Taiji!
The elderly man’s hands grew progressively slower as he traced the Taiji.
Though appearing motionless, they moved like a vast ocean.
Whoooosh!
The air surrounding Jeong Gajangju rotated, carrying an unprecedented tremendous force.
In his vision, he saw the baby’s diaper cloth once more.
Freshly washed, it billowed in the dawn breeze, responding to his fists with slow, deliberate movements.
‘I have been dull-witted my entire life. Yet I harbor no resentment for it. Did it not result in countless precious encounters?’
A man who had lived his whole life as a mediocrity was grateful for his lack of talent.
He mourned separation, yet he sensed that even if time could be reversed, he would meet his wife again.
Even if despair lay before him.
Even if what lies ahead is despair.
If we could meet again.
Her, my son, and my grandson and great-grandchild….
In the endless echoes of a life that stretched on infinitely, the elderly man suddenly realized this too was like the Tai Chi.
Was not the harmony of yin and yang much like life itself?
Because these dull hands were dull, there was joy, and despair did not come in equal measure to that joy.
And at the end of that despair came new joy once more.
‘Ah, how foolish I have been.’
Even if time repeated, he would meet her again.
Bearing ten thousand despairs and ten thousand joys, repeating identically again and again, meeting and continuing—he knew this.
It was Tai Chi.
Black and white were the trajectories of life.
The elderly man contemplated existence.
The inner stillness continued as if it would be eternal.
And then.
The elderly man who had realized life moved his body once more.
Strangely, that enlightenment was no lighter than the enlightenment of a master who had spent a lifetime killing people.
It was the enlightenment of a commoner.
The Buddha said that even an ant could attain enlightenment.
Could the enlightenment of a commoner also reach the Way?
Sudden Awakening.
As the Tai Chi continued, a transformation occurred in the elderly man once more.
Crack. Crackle crack!
Bones twisted and then reconnected and fused.
Like a bathtub with its drain unplugged, the vital energy of heaven and earth was sucked into the elderly man.
Light bloomed across his skin, and that skin began to grow gradually, slowly younger.
This continued for a full hour.
When at last the Tai Chi form came to an end.
Jeong Gajangju had become a figure who appeared to be in his fifties—far too young to be called elderly.
However.
Jeong Gajangju did not realize how much younger he had become, and simply gazed down at his hands.
There was only a sense of relief.
That was when.
Clap clap clap.
The sound of applause rang out.
“Congratulations on your great achievement!”
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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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